Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Voidwielder]

Mark my words - Republicans will be the first to regret that they swallowed the tapeworm that is Elon Musk. He is going nowhere. DOGE is going nowhere. Trump may die, Vance may lose future elections but Elon Musk is now in control of the Republican party. He owns and runs the largest and most powerful propaganda platform in the world and he (with his fellow gigazillionaires) have enough resource to primary out and and all dissent. He owns them all, they exist by his mercy.
They will come to regret it once the hangover from election victory passes.

The question is - if (when) they wind blows the other way, will he turn his cloak again and will the Democrats take him back?

[gondrin]

Mark my words - Republicans will be the first to regret that they swallowed the tapeworm that is Elon Musk. He is going nowhere. DOGE is going nowhere. Trump may die, Vance may lose future elections but Elon Musk is now in control of the Republican party. He owns and runs the largest and most powerful propaganda platform in the world and he (with his fellow gigazillionaires) have enough resource to primary out and and all dissent. He owns them all, they exist by his mercy.
They will come to regret it once the hangover from election victory passes.

The question is - if (when) they wind blows the other way, will he turn his cloak again and will the Democrats take him back?

And Musk is still human.

I still don't know why people make rich people to be invincible or the like. As we saw with a certain CEO, all it takes is one determined individual to remove that person outright. Yes, the rich tend to have a stacked deck when it comes to legal issues and the like. But, they are still human and can be dealt with like a human. All it takes is a person or persons to be determined enough or desperate enough to do it.

The French did a long while ago when the elites decided to basically go tell everyone to go fuck off and starve.

Let this sink in. All it took was one deranged person to basically kill Kennedy, one deranged person to nearly mortally wound Reagan, one deranged person to kill Lincoln. And outside of Lincoln, the rest had extremely tight security.

[Voidwielder]

I honestly can't think of better honeytrapping and extortion targets than these.... err, twinks. Bets on how many of them will end up sharing government and civilian data with ''anons'' in Discord servers ''for the lols''?
And honestly, what's there from stopping them of importing all the data they've access to on to their private hard drives and selling it on the black market?

[DarkTZeratul]

You can check out how much money USAID wasted on projects in Afghanistan, for yourself. This is only up to 2015 and highlights only one country in the world. Have they also done some good? Possibly, but to act like they are beyond reproach is nonsense. This level of waste is staggering.


https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/afghan

"Some projects might be wasteful, therefore we should give an unelected billionaire with no security clearance access to our entire treasury system and let him personally decide what to cut, even though the Constitution unambiguously gives Congress sole control over spending."

[PhaelixWW]

"Some projects might be wasteful, therefore we should give an unelected billionaire with no security clearance access to our entire treasury system and let him personally decide what to cut, even though the Constitution unambiguously gives Congress sole control over spending."

Ah, but does it give Congress sole control over not spending?

/foreheadtap

5D chess, sirs. 5D chess.

[gondrin]

I honestly can't think of better honeytrapping and extortion targets than these.... err, twinks. Bets on how many of them will end up sharing government and civilian data with ''anons'' in Discord servers ''for the lols''?
And honestly, what's there from stopping them of importing all the data they've access to on to their private hard drives and selling it on the black market?

This. And since their actual addresses where they live were posted online, they literally now will be targets. And outside of someone who is pretty much insane, I don't see them dealing with that very well.

[DarkTZeratul]

Ah, but does it give Congress sole control over not spending?

/foreheadtap

5D chess, sirs. 5D chess.

I know you're being sarcastic, but for anyone out there who thinks otherwise? The Supreme Court has firmly said yes. If Congress "spend this money on X," the Executive has no choice but to spend the money on X.

[Corvus]

China has announced its response should Trump actually carry through for once, including 15% on coal and lng, and 10% on oil and various other things, and an anti-monopoly investigation into Google.

[PhaelixWW]

I know you're being sarcastic, but for anyone out there who thinks otherwise? The Supreme Court has firmly said yes. If Congress "spend this money on X," the Executive has no choice but to spend the money on X.

I'm sure the rules prohibit spending the money on anything other than X, but I'm not as sure that it prohibits simply not spending the money.

Of course, that doesn't just... put it back into the "bank", so that may be an irrelevant distinction, except that it puts the ball back into Congress' court to authorize the redistribution or let it stagnate.

If you know of a SCOTUS ruling that says otherwise, please share.

[gondrin]

I'm sure the rules prohibit spending the money on anything other than X, but I'm not as sure that it prohibits simply not spending the money.

Of course, that doesn't just... put it back into the "bank", so that may be an irrelevant distinction, except that it puts the ball back into Congress' court to authorize the redistribution or let it stagnate.

If you know of a SCOTUS ruling that says otherwise, please share.

What you are talking about is Impoundment Control Act of 1974 which states the President may ask Congress to withhold funds but if they don't agree to it that those funds must be released. The whole reason for this act to ever be a thing is because of Nixon pretty much doing what Trump is doing now. And it has been upheld in the past as legal by the SC. Neither the President nor the OMB can withhold funding with Congressional approval. Trump is literally trying to get this in front of the SC by doing what he is doing to try and overturn the Impoundment Act.

Train v. City of New York is the case that determined this.

[DarkTZeratul]

I'm sure the rules prohibit spending the money on anything other than X, but I'm not as sure that it prohibits simply not spending the money.

Of course, that doesn't just... put it back into the "bank", so that may be an irrelevant distinction, except that it puts the ball back into Congress' court to authorize the redistribution or let it stagnate.

If you know of a SCOTUS ruling that says otherwise, please share.

The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 explicitly prohibits the president from refusing to spend funds allocated by Congress, and the Supreme Court's Train v. City of New York ruling the following year affirmed that.

[gondrin]

The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 explicitly prohibits the president from refusing to spend funds allocated by Congress, and the Supreme Court's Train v. City of New York ruling the following year affirmed that.

The whole reason why Trump is doing this is, once again, something in Project 2025 that wants it to get put in front of a friendly SC to overturn the Act. However, this could literally go either way.

[PhaelixWW]

The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 explicitly prohibits the president from refusing to spend funds allocated by Congress, and the Supreme Court's Train v. City of New York ruling the following year affirmed that.

Doesn't that specifically reference federal disbursements to outside parties, though?

I'm not sure it applies to funds authorized for use internally by an entirely federal agency.

[KrayZ33]

Uh, Trump blamed the bad trade deals with Canada and Mexico on why he has to put Tariffs in. The trade deals currently in place were negotiated during Trump's last term. So really, it wouldn't matter if the Biden administration was more vocal, Republicans just can't be arsed to believe anything apart from the lies they want to believe.

It's really that simple.


One argument I keep hearing when they ask the common lower double-digit IQ mongrel, aka a Trumpee, "So you are telling me that Trump would just lie to us about X (this)? Yea, right.."
While at the same time, they would accuse Biden and Democrats of doing so in a heartbeat, at every possibility whatsoever, even for the most mundane shit and of course, even if that in turn would mean that the government is the most capable and efficient entity that every existed (i.e. the kind flatearthers would argue about when they talk about how the government is holding everyone in the dark, just like that)

You just can't do anything to make these people realize. It's a lost cause, try the next generation - by promoting education and (media-)literacy.

[Voidwielder]

On a more serious note, I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the American Republic. This was going to happen sooner or later. The Presidency is increasingly powerful and Congress is in steep decline. The Senate will be the last one to go but we are on our way to becoming something quite like modern Turkey or Belarus.

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And I mean, props to Elon for figuring out that only a young 20-something will be willing to take up the liability for when something does leak. And Trump won't be able to pardon them either. I'm a bit sad for them. They are going to wreck their lives before they even began.

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And I wonder for how much longer this momentum is going to last - I haven't seen people talk enough about this but one of the contradictions of Trump's 2024 platform is that its anti-statist while also advocating a very aggressive policy agenda which in fact requires strong state capacity.

[Azadina]

And I mean, props to Elon for figuring out that only a young 20-something will be willing to take up the liability for when something does leak. And Trump won't be able to pardon them either. I'm a bit sad for them. They are going to wreck their lives before they even began.

At the very minimum, China and Russia are already going to be scrambling to get their agents get a hold of some of them. Threaten them into submission, have them steal and share data, and "accident" them after. I don't expect them to live long lives.

Absolutely once in a lifetime opportunity for any foreign government.

[Mekh]

And since their actual addresses where they live were posted online, they literally now will be targets.

Good. That's how you deal with it.

[PhaelixWW]

Doesn't that specifically reference federal disbursements to outside parties, though?

I'm not sure it applies to funds authorized for use internally by an entirely federal agency.

This press release from House Democrats in the Appropriations Committee seems to agree with this interpretation.

The only actions that they list as violating the ICA are ones in which Trump's EOs attempt to block disbursement of funds authorized by Congress to outside parties, whether it's private American parties, States, or foreign parties.

So it should apply to things like USAID, but doesn't really hamper his ability to gut federal agencies in plenty of other ways by blocking other kinds of spending.

[Voidwielder]

So what steps can the otherwise catatonic Dems take to, well, stop this hostile takeover of the government by Musk? Or the game here is ''let him destroy it all so we can campaign on it''?

[Doomcookie]

Has anyone said, on the record, that Elon Musk has not been granted the proper security clearances on the reverse side? The President sits on top of the declassify and granting security clearances pipeline.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/polit...yee/index.html

CNN apparently found an "an official familiar with the matter" that says "Musk has a top secret security clearance." Take with a grain of salt, since it's an anonymous official, and we have only CNN's reputation that they found and correctly identified a relevant official.

I tried to make it further, but I just can't. He's now a federal employee. Today's news goes even more granular on naming him a "special government employee." So please, if there is something outstanding that you're concerned about, say that one federal employee is advising on matters to the President that a different federal employee used to do. You must have seen by now that I don't particularly favor unelected and nameless members of the government bureaucracy compared to named members that were recently in the private sector.

(I fully expect the permanent bureaucracy to do its own war of misinformation and doxxing to assert its (supposed) independence. The latest I saw was the leaking of the names and ages of DOGE workers.)

That's a lot of words to explain why you support government corruption.

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Yeah, I'm going to need a source on this. His exact designation was reported on today, sure. If your entire argument rests on saying Trump did it late, then I'd have to see some documentation. The DOGE EO was January 27th, 2025, so it's likely that he was operating under the authority of the Executive Office of the President (in the now-renamed "USDS") since that date.

Yeah, it was provided.

And, you are lying.

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The same logic of accusing somebody that just said he likes waffles of hating pancakes.

People literally questioned the legality, so they should expect to receive an answer on the legality if they're partially wrong or completely wrong.

No it's not.

You defended corruption.

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I'm absolutely concerned that he might self-enrich and troll too hard and make flippant decisions. Some of that can be reversed, too.

It doesn't exclude my concern as stated, and unaddressed by you: The executive branch got a new leader a couple weeks ago, and the federal bureaucracy ultimately reports to him. The way it's been talked about, it sounded like people expected to suffer Trump for 4 years, but for him to be denied from fulfilling any of the campaign promises that are well within his remit. In fact, the ultimate measure of Trump is if he manages to accomplish most of what he set out to do, and the result is a weak economy and a disgruntled populace.

I do expect some government sabotage. In fact, a majority of this forum would like nothing less than for government bureaucrats subverting the President's agenda, since they see such subversion as moral and averting disaster.

I'll agree with you that the private computers should be examined by security professionals for dealing with sensitive data.

You must have me confused with another poster that asserted that everything legal is good. You literally can't correct misinformation on here without someone putting words in your mouth.

No you're not.

You just lied for him.

That's not concern.

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You can check out how much money USAID wasted on projects in Afghanistan, for yourself. This is only up to 2015 and highlights only one country in the world. Have they also done some good? Possibly, but to act like they are beyond reproach is nonsense. This level of waste is staggering.


https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/afghan

Trump had the biggest budgets of all time.

Can you provide a single comment of yours where you condemned him?