We’ll wait and see what they actually do. The label of the office and the administration establishing it raises my eyebrows, but there have been White House offices concerned with matters of faith before including under Biden. It will be actions taken that matter.
Trump administration 2024-2028
- Thread starter dimsum
- Start date
QV
Army.ca Veteran
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Americans voted for the wrecking ball. They are now getting a view into the massive amount of corruption and grift involving their tax dollars. The establishment fails to understand they are living in a new world now where they no longer control the message or the institutions. Immediate court action that halts these audits will be short lived and only piss off the public more than they already are.
An electoral mandate does not exempt the executive branch from the law. It does not usurp the proper role of congress in oversight.
It’s the prerogative of the executive to act within its lawful authorities. That’s fine. There are real concerns, which are finding support in court, that they are exceeding those authorities. That’s how this work. Congress has the power of the purse, is also elected, and has empowered different branches and bodies to do things with legislatively authorized appropriations. For the executive to go against that, they have to make sure their legal ducks are in a row.
The tech bros being imported by the nascent oligarchy do not have their legal ducks in a row.
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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Fighting over transparency is the wrong fight to choose. It's already evident that AI tools can be used to quickly trace relationships and flows in data in ways that would confound small armies of ordinary people. That has some people worried, but that shit isn't going back into the horse. "Security by obscurity" is dead among agencies laundering public funding into activist organizations. People writing rules ("code") don't need to see operational data and customarily work with test cases, often by the simple expedient of anonymizing operational data. Separating the analysts from the data is not going to be a serious obstruction. Meanwhile the guardians look like they have something to hide.
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Using congressionally approved funding to provide money to programs that meet the objectives of the administration is not "funding activist organizations".
Oh really? Care to share any examples? Because all I've seen is theme "exposing" funding for programs that right wing bigots don't like. I use quotes there because none of this is actually secret information, it's just the MAGA proles are to lazy to pay attention and look for themselves.
Retired AF Guy
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The problem is that the buyout is for seven months, but government funding is only good until March. A second problem is speculation that the Office of Personnel Management may not have authority to make this offer. Watch and see.In a further move to cement the enshittification of government, Trump’s offering nearly the entire federal public service a 7 months’ salary buyout as a RIF. Gonna be a lot of workers with the best prospects leaving the feds behind.
Trump offers all federal workers a buyout with 7 months' pay in effort to shrink size of government
The Trump administration says it will begin subjecting all federal employees to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and is warning of future downsizing.apnews.com
In Soviet Russia they were called Politico Officers/Commissars.
Brad Sallows
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These two things can simultaneously be true: the funding is congressionally approved, and the funding goes to activist organizations. DOGE is piggybacking on the USDS (US Digital Service). All the geeks without clearances need to do is provide tools that can analyze record trails and spit the pathways out. Others with clearances can run the tools on the data (and can also provide anonymized data to the geeks). The results might have only the verisimilitude of suspicion, but can be provided to people to verify the audit trails for government departments, courts, and legislators. Executive and legislative action can then be taken.
Right now the DOGE team probably has appropriated the authority to execute too many of those steps, but the general idea is uncontroversial. Any data government owns, it may analyze. If courts require original documents, the analysis tools can suggest where it lies or identify it outright. That's the part that has grifters and activists worried. If the burden is on reformers to puzzle out obtuse information trails by hand, their output is going to be low, and burdened additionally by obstructionists. With automated analytical tools, targets for cuts can probably be identified faster than they can be verified and actioned. It won't matter how lazy people are, and that problem then falls on program defenders, who may be overwhelmed by the volume of cases and will suffer the additional handicap of explaining egregious funding.
RangerRay
Army.ca Veteran
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I’m sure if I went through every line item of a $100 billion budget, I could cherry pick all kinds of examples of dodgy programs getting taxpayer lucre. It doesn’t mean the whole agency needs to nuked. Investigate the dodgy programs. Deal with those responsible as appropriate.
If the Dems had George Soros running around government doing this, everyone to the right of Karl Marx would rightly be lighting their hair on fire.
These guys aren’t reformers. Their arsonists.
If the Dems had George Soros running around government doing this, everyone to the right of Karl Marx would rightly be lighting their hair on fire.
These guys aren’t reformers. Their arsonists.
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Assuming the algorithms and those setting them up get it right - like Google Translate (to oversimplify).
True dat - for better or worse.
And there are plenty of Trump voters that voted thinking he would not do half the stuff he said he’d also voted for him anyway. Some FAFO the hard way that he needed to be taken seriously.
A few people said to stop panicking over project 2025…right.
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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That's Trillion, with a 'T'...
Looks like the Japanese are rearming...
www.unilad.com
Looks like the Japanese are rearming...
Japan pledges $1,000,000,000,000 investment in the US as Donald Trump confirms what it will be used for
A meeting between President Trump and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba went so well that the Ishiba pledged to invest a huge amount of cash into the US
lenaitch
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It's comforting to see that the leader of the free world is laser-focused on the important matters.
apnews.com
Trump says he's firing Kennedy Center board of trustees members and naming himself chairman
President Donald Trump says he's firing members of the board of trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and naming himself chairman.
apnews.com
'BACK TO PLASTIC!': Trump says he will sign executive order ditching paper straws
President Trump said he will sign an executive order next week ending past efforts from Biden for the federal government to embrace paper straws.
www.usatoday.com
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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Meanwhile, following the money...
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Following DOGE's boss' money, too, then?
Musk's DOGE takes aim at 'viper's nest' federal agency with global footprint
Elon Musk took aim at the U.S. Agency for International Development this weekend, gaining access to top secret documents, though at first his DOGE was denied the access.
www.foxnews.com
Elon Musk's Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink's Contracts in Ukraine
The agency was in the midst of a probe into the billionaire's equipment at the time of Musk's assault.
gizmodo.com
Alleged USAID probe into Starlink raises Elon Musk conflict concerns
In 2022, USAID and Starlink collaborated to provide 5,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine amid its ongoing war against Russia.
www.newsweek.com
QV
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It's comforting to see that the leader of the free world is laser-focused on the important matters.
Trump says he's firing Kennedy Center board of trustees members and naming himself chairman
President Donald Trump says he's firing members of the board of trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and naming himself chairman.
'BACK TO PLASTIC!': Trump says he will sign executive order ditching paper straws
President Trump said he will sign an executive order next week ending past efforts from Biden for the federal government to embrace paper straws.www.usatoday.com
Are you suggesting he hasn’t been doing much else these past few weeks?
Brad Sallows
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There are three common courses of action to defend public expenditures:Following DOGE's boss' money, too, then?
Can ya blame some people wondering "Henhouse, this is callsign Fox, over"?
- defend each case rationally
- personalize the conflict
- highlight the most sympathetic cases in the media ("think of the children")
CoA 1 is conspicuously absent.
Defenders of status quo could probably preserve the useful expenditures by co-operating in removing the egregious ones, and doing so expeditiously. Instead, their response to an attack on everything is to try to defend everything with the political equivalent of a decapitation strike. Public opinion is not on their side.
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Another change forthcoming may be the eventual dissolution of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau- the people that investigate banks and other lenders for shady and unlawful practices.
And here comes a predictable and predicted next step- pushing to buck or otherwise disable the courts from curbing executive overreach:
www.forbes.com
JD Vance Suggests Judges ‘Aren't Allowed’ To Control Trump After Courts Block His Policies
A slew of court rulings in recent weeks have hampered the Trump administration’s moves on issues like birthright citizenship and shutting down USAID.
www.forbes.com
Musk calls for impeachment of judge who blocked DOGE access at Treasury
Elon Musk is calling for the impeachment of the federal judge who made a decision early Saturday morning that the Treasury Department should block access to anyone “other than civil servants with a…
thehill.com
FJAG
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The flaw here, is apparent in Vance's own words, "executive's legitimate power." The role of the judiciary is, on application by an interested party, to test whether or not the executive power being exercised is a legitimate one or whether it is in conflict with the constitution or any other existing federal legislation.And here comes a predictable and predicted next step- pushing to buck or otherwise disable the courts from curbing executive overreach:
JD Vance Suggests Judges ‘Aren't Allowed’ To Control Trump After Courts Block His Policies
A slew of court rulings in recent weeks have hampered the Trump administration’s moves on issues like birthright citizenship and shutting down USAID.
Musk calls for impeachment of judge who blocked DOGE access at Treasury
Elon Musk is calling for the impeachment of the federal judge who made a decision early Saturday morning that the Treasury Department should block access to anyone “other than civil servants with a…thehill.com
Judges may be unelected, but they are appointed by the executive and vetted by the Senate so are given their legitimacy by the other two branches of government. While Vance's statement is not incorrect, it is of a rabble-rousing nature, which shows he needs a refresher in American civics 101.
