Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Xyonai]

I don't know, I think they are serious about it. And I think to the extent that the law allows him to, Trump will sign off on their recommendations.

Here is the first DOGE roadmap. Looks interesting. About time someone pulled back the curtains a bit!

https://x.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1859363218331718137

This list is stupid, but that final point of funneling all spending power into the Executive branch is absolutely asinine. There's a -reason- we have out seperation of powers, and simply granting the President this sort of control leaves our budget on the whims of whoever is currently in office, nothing would get funded long term as Red and Blue presidents ping-pong back and forth.

Also deliberately targeting and defunding NASA when the department head owns their own government contracted space company is a horrendous conflict of interest, it would leave our entire aerospace industry in the hands of a foreign billionaire who's made his contempt for people who don't like him very public.

Edit: Also lmao at using 'AI' to fucking do anything when it's been proven time and time again that using AI Resources to make business decisions has been a universally terrible idea for everyone who's tried it.

[Endus]

That is a very small way to look at the world. First of all that is how modern government works in most of the world. This is because you need growth in population to fund the older generations using the labor of younger generations. That is how the modern system works in most of the world.

That's an appeal to popularity fallacy. It isn't a legitimate counterpoint.

If you need growth to keep things going, you will inevitably reach a point where resources fail to allow for said growth, and your system collapses completely, leading to widespread devastation. This should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a second. The only things that grow constantly in nature are cancers, until the bearer gets killed by that cancer.

Also the idea that we do not have resources and space for a growing population is pushed by Malthusians. Malthusians argued for food and population control early in the 20th century but the reality is that we have more than enough resouurces and space on this planet. Most of the populations of the world are clustered around coast lines and waterways because the transportation of goods is the most efficient and effective through water ways and not by air or land. Outside of urban sprawl most of the world is very sparse with human development of urban cities, towns and villages. Having traveled around in Europe and the US and some parts of Canada I can safely say that we are heavily biased by living near coastlines that are heavily populated thinking we are heavily congested species on this planet when it is far from the truth.

If you're citing philosophers from a century ago, then you haven't kept pace with the development of those concepts.

To go with your bacteria analogy the bacteria is clustered at the very top of the test tube near the seal where some oxygen is leaking in. But that doesn't mean there isn't space in the rest of the test tube and that the oxygen doesn't reach the rest of the test tube if the seal is not tight. Also since there is a leak the bacteria is no longer limited by staying in the test tube.

No, that's not my example at all. You're changing the terms to willfully avoid the point. It wasn't about "oxygen", it was the total amount of available resources to sustain the population. The Earth is not a closed system, but the inputs are not infinite either and it wouldn't be particularly difficult for us to outconsume them.

And expanding continuously to new planets and new solar systems is just spreading. Like a cancer. You're just diving straight into the "humanity is a cancer and from the perspective of cancer, that's a good thing" argument, which is insane.

[tehdang]

I don't know, I think they are serious about it. And I think to the extent that the law allows him to, Trump will sign off on their recommendations.

Here is the first DOGE roadmap. Looks interesting. About time someone pulled back the curtains a bit!

https://x.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1859363218331718137

In no particular order:
1. Only a portion of regulations are removable by the President by executive order, or power delegated to his appointees.
2. Every act all along the way will be tied up in lawsuits. Remember the several executive orders relating to immigration in Trump I that were stopped and tied up in courts for over a year? Just picture that, done over and over, on any serious cut to regulations or government spending.
3. Trump had a major break with past Republican presidents in doing nothing on entitlements. That's where the serious government spending is at. Trump and Republicans don't have the political will to do anything on that. It's been a political loser.
4. The CBO already publishes deficit reduction breakdowns. The problem was never really identifying where to cut. The problem is and always was the political will and effective administration to see the cuts through.
5. The Pentagon is an unaccountable mess. Haircuts in those departments will be more like clipping the toenails and shaving the ear hair. Every dollar you take on wasteful spending is going to immediately prompt cries of endangering national defense. The pentagon has failed 7 audits in a row --- they don't even know where the money's going.
6. Going back to one, Trump has the barest of majorities in the House. Congressional representatives will not cut any cash that ends up with their constituents. There is no majority. Name me the congressman that will volunteer to be first to deliver less for the people that voted him in.
7. The permanent bureaucracy is going to go full resist-mode and stall things internally, and they will have a high chance of success given the incompetent appointments with no experience dealing with those kinds of obstacles.
8. Vivek is a snake oil salesman. Elon has no experience dealing with things from within government. Elon kicks around fighting government regulation from the private sphere, which is an entirely different animal.
9. $500 mil here and there, while nice, doesn't actually change the major fiscal problems. I am sympathetic to people who say "We have got to start somewhere." It's just that the size of the fiscal deficit and its foundation in entitlements & other transfer payments is big. Really big. High inertia.

[Xyonai]

In no particular order:
1. Only a portion of regulations are removable by the President by executive order, or power delegated to his appointees.
2. Every act all along the way will be tied up in lawsuits. Remember the several executive orders relating to immigration in Trump I that were stopped and tied up in courts for over a year? Just picture that, done over and over, on any serious cut to regulations or government spending.
3. Trump had a major break with past Republican presidents in doing nothing on entitlements. That's where the serious government spending is at. Trump and Republicans don't have the political will to do anything on that. It's been a political loser.
4. The CBO already publishes deficit reduction breakdowns. The problem was never really identifying where to cut. The problem is and always was the political will and effective administration to see the cuts through.
5. The Pentagon is an unaccountable mess. Haircuts in those departments will be more like clipping the toenails and shaving the ear hair. Every dollar you take on wasteful spending is going to immediately prompt cries of endangering national defense. The pentagon has failed 7 audits in a row --- they don't even know where the money's going.
6. Going back to one, Trump has the barest of majorities in the House. Congressional representatives will not cut any cash that ends up with their constituents. There is no majority. Name me the congressman that will volunteer to be first to deliver less for the people that voted him in.
7. The permanent bureaucracy is going to go full resist-mode and stall things internally, and they will have a high chance of success given the incompetent appointments with no experience dealing with those kinds of obstacles.
8. Vivek is a snake oil salesman. Elon has no experience dealing with things from within government. Elon kicks around fighting government regulation from the private sphere, which is an entirely different animal.
9. $500 mil here and there, while nice, doesn't actually change the major fiscal problems. I am sympathetic to people who say "We have got to start somewhere." It's just that the size of the fiscal deficit and its foundation in entitlements & other transfer payments is big. Really big. High inertia.

Also a very good breakdown from a more Conservative perspective. This whole effort is doomed unless Elon and Trump can get a large enough number of Republicans behind these spending cut proposals against their slim majority -without- potentially alienating voters.

[Draco-Onis]

Increasing taxes like tariffs are passed onto the consumer so this is why it baffles me why on one hand people complain about tariffs but are okay with massive increases of taxes on the other hand. The outcome is the same which means it is passed onto the consumer aka middle class or working poor.

False, there's zero historical data showing this if what you say is true how come there isn't a price drop when taxes are lowered for the rich and corporations? why did inflation go up the years of Bush and Trump's tax cuts? tariffs are directly paid by consumers because they are applied on goods, taxes are applied and vary per corporation. For example how would getting rid of giant checks we give to Venture capitalist (carried interest) affect consumers? most of these tax loopholes are plain welfare checks to the rich given to them by lobbyists.

Again just be honest and say you suck up to the rich and corporations.

[postman1782]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/u...ments-sex.html

I wish I could see this entire article, but there is supposed to be an article in there to show the payments, over $10,000 to women to have sex with Gaetz, including the 17 year old.

Someone in the DoJ leaked it.

12ft ladder doesn't get around the paywall.

https://www.removepaywall.com/search...ments-sex.html

Nevermind, that website works to get around the paywall.



This is the web that was leaked from the DoJ.
@Breccia @Edge-

[Edge-]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/u...ments-sex.html

I wish I could see this entire article, but there is supposed to be an article in there to show the payments, over $10,000 to women to have sex with Gaetz, including the 17 year old.

Someone in the DoJ leaked it.

https://archive.is/rtpLh

Archive link.

If Democrats had a spine one of them on the Ethics Committee would leak the report if Speaker Johnson decides he'd rather protect a pedophile about to be this nation's top lawyer than actually live up to the kinds of accountability and transparency that Republicans claim they support.

[PhaelixWW]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/u...ments-sex.html

I wish I could see this entire article, but there is supposed to be an article in there to show the payments, over $10,000 to women to have sex with Gaetz, including the 17 year old.

Someone in the DoJ leaked it.

Full article:

Federal investigators established a trail of payments from Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to be attorney general, to women, including some who testified that Mr. Gaetz hired them for sex, according to a document obtained by The New York Times and a lawyer representing some of the women.

The document, assembled by investigators during a three-year sex-trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz, is a chart that shows a web of thousands of dollars in Venmo payments between Mr. Gaetz and a group of his friends, associates and women who had drug-fueled sex parties between 2017 and 2020, according to testimony that participants are said to have given to federal and congressional investigators.

At the parties, women, and a girl who was 17 at the time, were paid for sex, according to accounts of the participants’ testimony from people briefed on what they said.

The document bolsters recent claims by a lawyer for two of the women who say they had sex with Mr. Gaetz for money. It shows thousands of dollars in payments Mr. Gaetz made to both of the lawyer’s clients.

Mr. Gaetz, 42, represented Florida in Congress from 2017 until last week. He has vehemently denied their accounts, and the federal investigation was closed by the Justice Department without any charges against him. Vice President-elect JD Vance accompanied Mr. Gaetz to Capitol Hill on Wednesday in an effort to build support for his nomination from Republican senators, some of whom have expressed doubt that he is confirmable.

The document was obtained by the House Ethics Committee, which met on Wednesday amid growing pressure to release a report it has compiled on Mr. Gaetz but deadlocked on whether to do so.

Titled “VENMO TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN ALL INDIVIDUALS AS OF 09/14/20,” the document uses thumbnail photos of Mr. Gaetz, dozens of women and several other men to show how payments flowed between them. Lines with arrows connect the men and the women, showing, among other things, how much Mr. Gaetz and his associates paid the women.



Because the department declined to charge Mr. Gaetz with a crime, the documents amassed during the investigation have remained secret, as the department almost never releases materials that law enforcement agencies develop in investigations in which no charges are brought. But a copy of the chart was obtained by the House Ethics Committee during its own wide-ranging investigation into Mr. Gaetz’s conduct, including whether he had sex with the then-17-year-old.

Steven Cheung, the communications director for Mr. Trump, blamed the Justice Department for disclosure of the document, which he claimed was classified even though it has no classified markings and does not relate to national security.

“This purposeful leaking of classified investigative materials is the sort of politicized D.O.J. weaponization that Matt Gaetz will end,” Mr. Cheung said. “The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years, failed to find a crime and are now leaking material with false information to smear the next attorney general.”

The chart does not say what the payments were for, nor does it show that Mr. Gaetz made a payment to the 17-year-old girl. But the chart shows payments the authorities believed Mr. Gaetz and his associates made to other women, including the two whose lawyer has said they testified to the House Ethics Committee that they had sex with Mr. Gaetz in exchange for money.

It has been publicly known for several years that women have claimed that Mr. Gaetz paid them for sex. Shortly after The New York Times revealed the existence of the federal sex trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz in 2021, it reported that investigators were focusing on Mr. Gaetz’s involvement with multiple women who were recruited online for sex and how they received payments.

The Times reported at the time that it had reviewed receipts from Cash App, a mobile payments app, and Apple Pay showing how Mr. Gaetz and Joel Greenberg, his associate and friend, had paid one of the women for sex with them.

The charts show different payments, all through Venmo, and provide the first documentary evidence from inside the federal investigation, showing how investigators examined Mr. Gaetz’s activities in meticulous detail, tracking not just his payments but also those of a large network of people said to have been involved in the parties.

The lawyer, Joel Leppard, said that two women he represents testified before the House committee that Mr. Gaetz had paid them in exchange for sex. One of the women said that she had witnessed Mr. Gaetz having sex with the 17-year-old but that she did not believe Mr. Gaetz thought the girl was under 18, according to Mr. Leppard.

The chart shows that one of Mr. Leppard’s clients received $4,025.27 and the other $3,500. It does not show the dates of the payments. Those amounts appear to be figures that combine several payments the women received from Mr. Gaetz; Mr. Leppard said that the women were typically paid $200 to $500 for each encounter with Mr. Gaetz.

Mr. Leppard confirmed in a telephone interview that his clients had received Venmo payments from Mr. Gaetz. Some of his remarks about the payments were reported earlier by ABC News.

Mr. Leppard said that along with Venmo payments, his clients had received money from Mr. Gaetz on PayPal. He said that he initially thought that his clients had received the amounts listed in the chart but said that when his clients were interviewed by the House committee, it turned out that the panel had obtained other evidence that showed additional payments.

Records the committee had, he said, showed payments from Mr. Gaetz to one of his clients totaling around $6,000, and showed payments to the other of $4,000.

He said he believed the committee had obtained the payment information by sending subpoenas to Venmo and PayPal.

The chart also helps to solidify the testimony of Mr. Gaetz’s chief accuser, Mr. Greenberg, a former local tax collector from Florida. He cooperated with the Justice Department in the federal investigation, telling the authorities about how he and Mr. Gaetz both had sex with the 17-year-old, although he said they believed she was over 18. Mr. Greenberg pleaded guilty in 2021 to an array of charges — including sex trafficking — and agreed to cooperate against Mr. Gaetz. He was later sentenced to 11 years in prison.

The chart shows that Mr. Greenberg paid the 17-year-old girl $450.

And it demonstrates that despite an unwillingness by the Justice Department to hand over to the House committee much of the evidence it developed about Mr. Gaetz during its investigation, the panel was able to obtain some of the information that investigators gathered as prosecutors weighed whether to charge Mr. Gaetz.

The House committee sought a range of information from the Justice Department about Mr. Gaetz but was repeatedly rebuffed.

[Skjaldborg]

I don't know, I think they are serious about it. And I think to the extent that the law allows him to, Trump will sign off on their recommendations.

Here is the first DOGE roadmap. Looks interesting. About time someone pulled back the curtains a bit!

https://x.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1859363218331718137

Do you even know what every department, bureau, and office of the executive branch does? Do you think they're all just slow-rolling private business on purpose all the time for no reason? Have you stopped to consider how things like (99.99% of) roads and bridges and mountains aren't privately owned?

[PhaelixWW]

1. TRUST AI JUST TRUST AI AI WILL FIX EVERYTHING - great stuff

Seems appropriate:

AP: An AI chatbot pushed a teen to kill himself, a lawsuit against its creator alleges

First rule of AI: GIGO.

[Aphelios]

Trump's cabinet is looking to be the best assembled cabinet in history.

[PhaelixWW]

Far too many "loose screws" to be assembled properly.

[Xyonai]

It's honestly impressive - in a fucked up way - how uniquely unqualified every single one of Trumps picks have been.

Like Marco Rubio is the only choice that makes any kind of sense and it makes me think it wasn't Trump's idea.

[Draco-Onis]

It's honestly impressive - in a fucked up way - how uniquely unqualified every single one of Trumps picks have been.

Like Marco Rubio is the only choice that makes any kind of sense and it makes me think it wasn't Trump's idea.

Nah his cabinet are from people he watches on TV, have given him tons of money or sucked up to him for years. It's the whose who of people who will do whatever he wants and that's the theme for the next 4 years, incompetent people who are loyal to the fuhrer.

[PhaelixWW]

It's honestly impressive - in a fucked up way - how uniquely unqualified every single one of Trumps picks have been.

Like Marco Rubio is the only choice that makes any kind of sense and it makes me think it wasn't Trump's idea.

I'm starting to wonder if a Cabinet position is the "Associate Producer credit" of Trump's second term.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Trump's cabinet is looking to be the best assembled cabinet in history.

Trump's cabinet is about 80% pedophiles or pedophile enablers and the remaining 20% have been convicted of sexual assault or rape.

Truly the party of family values.

[postman1782]

Trump's cabinet is looking to be the best assembled cabinet in history.

You are on fucking crack if you think that. Literally no one appointed so far, have been qualified to be in their positions.

[DarkTZeratul]

Literally no one appointed so far, have been qualified to be in their positions.

Eh, I'll agree with Xyonai that Marco Rubio is actually an entirely adequate pick for Secretary of State. Like, in a hypothetical world where Nikki Haley got elected president, I could see her making that same choice.

Literally the only one, though.

[postman1782]

Eh, I'll agree with Xyonai that Marco Rubio is actually an entirely adequate pick for Secretary of State. Like, in a hypothetical world where Nikki Haley got elected president, I could see her making that same choice.

Literally the only one, though.

He has been the only one that I didn't know was nominated, but then again, he didn't make the news for being a pedo or a rapist like everyone else has been for Trump.

Gaetz, RFK Jr, Musk, Linda McMahon married a rapist, Hegseth is a sexual assaulter, and I am sure there are others.

[Flarelaine]

Those are pretty red states. The next two years would have to be truly disastrous for Democrats to win those seats.

Some of those have just been gerrymandered to fuck with a strong dose of voter suppression. Take North Carolina - the incumbent won with 48.7% and the share of the popular vote is generally close to even.