Does Elon Musk even bother reading this shit before reposts it?
The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments https://t.co/GabhBL7gxf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2025
Crackpot Gen. Mike Flynn seems to have searched for all grants to any organization with Lutheran in its name and declared them all corrupt. What does he have against Lutherans?
Beats me. In any case, all of these are different groups. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, for example, is headquartered in Baltimore and provides resettlement help to people from places like Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan, and so forth. Do we still take in refugees in the Donald Trump era? I don't know, but we used to.
The other Lutheran groups provide foster care, group homes, meals, and that sort of thing all over the country. You know, charity and humanitarian services.
So why does Elon say he's "rapidly" shutting down these "illegal payments"? There's nothing illegal about them and DOGE has no authority to stop them anyway. I assume he's just fluffing Flynn, but you never know. Does he really plan to just stop Treasury from writing checks to groups he disapproves of? That seems unlikely even for Elon, but who's to say?
"DOGE has no authority to stop them anyway"
adorably naive take
Bessent on Friday literally handed him access to systems that could do just this.
Yep.
Also, Lutheran Social Services does a lot of work helping the needy. That's the point - LSS spends money on helping "those people", and the oligarchs just can't have that.
DOGE *has no authority* to stop them
this is a statement of fact, not a prediction of any outcome.
but the final sentence, though? yikes.
Well, you know the saying about possession being 9/10's of the law...
Possession of the keys means he's driving, whether he's "allowed" to or not.
if authority has been ceded, whether they have authority under law or not is irrelevant
That's not how the law works.
Just because they can do something doesn't make it right or legal.
And just who is going to enforce the law?
That's the question that matters.
Emails sent to my two senators and house rep (all Dems) this afternoon. Not sure what can be done, but don't do it silently. Make noise.
The point of discussing the illegality is not just enforcement.
https://buttondown.com/sbagen/archive/why-write-about-the-illegality-of-what-trump-and/
Excellent article and analysis, only the people will be able to wholesale stop this, in the next election and/or following.
"if authority has been ceded, whether they have authority under law or not is irrelevant"
i agree and i want to believe that Kevin does too. that’s why his last sentence is genuinely puzzling.
Have you not read Kevin before?
When it comes to excusing rightwing lawbreaking, abuses, etc., he is the biggest idiot on Earth.
Any Republican could be found standing covered in blood and knife in hand over a dead body with multiple stab wounds, after previously publicly saying they were going to stab to death that dead person, and Kevin would still find a way to make some dumb question like:
"Did he just murder who he said he was going to murder in the way he said he'd do it, or is this just an unfortunate coincidence and he happened to find the bloody body after coming from a hunting trip and butchering a deer?"
"[Drum] is the biggest idiot on Earth."
Sounds about right.
I'm going to go with "no" on that, and Kevin and I definitely don't agree on everything, which is another reason why I like him.
Yet here you are.
Yet another nut case. Get off this page!
Sorry. Lots of people's inability to recognize sarcasm never ceases t baffle me. You do realize that you sound like a moron, right?
Why do you come here to read?
Because the topics are varied, because I used to think he was smart, because there are mostly well informed commenter's, because tradition, but the most important thing about all, because I fucking want to so you can piss off with your white knighting for Kevin.
I'll never undertsand fanboys that get all uppity when anyone days anyone negative about their idol.
Pretty sure no here sees Kevin as an idol, and you just admitted to trolling.
He did nothing of the kind.
Some people's inability to understand sarcasm never ceases to baffle me.
It's not sarcasm. If you've been around here long enough you know that Kevin is in the habit of downplaying everything the right does as no big deal, and people exaggerate because really they can't be that bad.
I've been here since three blog homes ago. You are incapable of recognizing sarcasm.
Important to separate rhetoric from reality, Elon and DOGE likely have authority to identify payments, not to make decisions to stop or shut them down. That authority apparently is (seen as by MAGA) with Trump, until Congress and/or courts shut that down.
Once Trump makes that decision, who actually commands the IT system is just an implementation detail (and potential delay which won't be in play if DOGE can implement).
Maybe. But I fear that what you call "reality" is in fact "best case" in the United States today. There's one hell of a lot that can go wrong with major government systems being messed with by the wrong people, including the possibility that among them might be zealots using their power to destroy organizations and persons on some Trumpist hit lists.
I agree, if the people and assets charged to do the implementation aren't up to it, all chaos could ensue, but that's more in the scope of "implementation detail" I wasn't going into detail about in that particular comment (really just a reference to the decision to stop payment versus the command to stop payment versus the actual system function to implement the stop payment).
if?
I presume they're not rewriting these systems (at least for now), just commandeering them, so stopping payment is still going to be some UI button or staged file to process.
To rewrite them, they'd need to know how to program in COBOL.
I'm no big constitutional law brain, but I am pretty sure that Elon and DOGE have approximately 0 authority to do fucking anything and most definitely has fuck all authority to withhold congressionally approved monies to recipients.
True, but
1, do you think he cares
and
2, who is stopping him?
Pointing out the illegality is step one.
Musk wouldn't know illegal if it bit him in the gat. We know this, because it has, too many times to count.
That would be much more reassuring if there was a reasonably likely step two.
There's a bunch of them.
Call your officials in Congress, your state attorney general, your governor.
Seriously? Do you think Elon Musk, Mike Flynn or Donald Trump give a rat's ass what my congressman says? I can see only two ways to stop this:
1. The outcry is so severe that Republican leaders and fellow billionaires tell Trump that he's endangering the rest of his agenda (read tax cuts).
2. Someone sues.
I'd put my money on #1.
You should at least try, repeatedly.
If everybody does that, it may work. If everybody doesn't try because it will not work, it will definitely not work.
See #1. If you have a Republican congressman, then you have some leverage. As soon as they think this is going to cost them, they'll act. If they think it will endanger their agenda, they'll act. I guarantee they care a hell of a lot more about getting the tax cuts extended than they do about how much money is being spent on Lutheran charities.
Thank you, Yehouda.
Irrelevant.
https://buttondown.com/sbagen/archive/why-write-about-the-illegality-of-what-trump-and/
The outcry becomes sufficiently severe when there's a lot of crying out.
Hop to it.
Oh, the savvy take strikes! The notion, of which Jimm's comment is an example, that this is in anyway legal is what I'm pushing back on and has to be said every time a Democrat gets in front of a camera. Nothing about what DOGE is doing is in the vicinity of legal and they have no legal authority to do a fucking thing. Say it loudly and as often as you can.
If Elon has the president's ear and the president swiftly implements advice Elon gives him, it doesn't matter if Elon has no formal authority.
It matters whether the President has the authority. He’s not an effing emperor.
They don't have that authority, either.
They're not authorized by Congress at all.
Yep, and why I made distinction between MAGA and Trump thinking they have authority, and Congress and/or courts shutting them down, both of whom don't have the best track record so far, but don't see this being allowed (in the end).
The problem is that Congress will do fuck all to stand in the way. In theory Musk and Trump wouldn't be able to get away with this, in practice there is nothing anyone can do about it because no one who opposes them has any legal power to do anything.
Then the solution is to win the next election in two years, then four years, though I believe there will be some resistance to actual abuses, should they occur, prior to that, with the existing Congress and courts.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't make very clear this is illegal and is hurting people including people who voted for Trump.
If enough people make noise - like those farmers flooded out by his incompetence last week - it weakens his ability to make more illegal moves.
Amen.
Due respect, but I think this is kind of upside down. Musk and his Droogs apparently have barricaded themselves into the payments department and yes, are trawling the data dumps and "identifying illegal payments" (aka finding things they don't like and don't understand and calling them illegal).
However, they have no actual authority in the real world to do even this-- getting the nod from Bessent doesn't absolve them from following privacy protocols, and even if they've been given clearances by trump, they don't have the required backgrounds or knowledge to be handling sensitive information.
Being "given authority" by trump, making it kosher "as seen by MAGA," is completely lawless from any other angle. It's happening because trump and Bessent are disregarding and violating laws, internal procedures and protocols and regulations, on a wholesale basis. There is no line that can be drawn between "authorized" data acquisition and going ahead to turn payments off-- that only works in a chain of command, and Musk doesn't believe in them; like trump, he believes he doesn't answer to anybody, ever. If trump turned him loose with his blessing, ie authorized him, he let Musk have his head completely and has to have known that.
And that's where I think your view is upside-down, because the "mere implementation" detail is what this whole caper hinges on. There's no sense to handing the keys over even in MAGA terms unless the people who are in there raiding the data and making selected or random parts of it public have that access for the purpose of making the system do what they want.
We don't know specifically what trump has deputized Musk to do all on his own, true, but we know what happened at the smoking ruin that is ex-Twitter: Musk went in with people from his other enterprises because he didn't trust Twitter's own people, they went into the code, mined it for personnel and financial data, and then started randomly bombing it. Technically, altering the algorithms, but because they interacted in complex ways that SpaceX engineers didn't necessarily know about right away, there's been a lot of trouble there. They also cut off contracted payments for office space and services and dared the other parties to sue. He also fired bunches of people in ways contrary to CA law and in some cases, I believe, contrary to vesting rights and other contract terms. And cut off paychecks, randomly in some cases.
Given that MO, Musk and the Droogies' control over the disbursing machinery looks a lot like the operational part of the mass firings we're seeing in places like DOJ, FBI, EPA, and in other agencies to come. IOW, their job is to stop the paychecks and make the firings real for the people fired. That's one of the things they're there for, and to the extent that this is a plan, that's integral to the plan.
Musk and the Droogies' part in this is based on the old adage that "possession is nine points of the law." They won't leave easily. And trump won't lift a finger to get them out. Sowing chaos is his superpower of the moment.
In fact, as I think about it, what's happening now is exactly January 6, just in different workplaces.
I honestly don't think most of that makes real-world or domain sense, and grossly exaggerates Musk taking over Twitter and this situation, but well articulated nevertheless, when I have a little time this afternoon will respond (respectfully of course, I do think meetings of minds are necessary here to counter current momentum).
+1
+3
"However, they have no actual authority in the real world to do even this-- getting the nod from Bessent doesn't absolve them from following privacy protocols, and even if they've been given clearances by trump, they don't have the required backgrounds or knowledge to be handling sensitive information."
1. Do we know they're violating privacy protocols? How are these protocols established? By what statute(s) or executive procedures?
2. By law, the president is ultimate decider on who is given security clearances, and the lowest level which is confidential (sensitive) is pretty easy to get for just about anyone who isn't openly talking out against the USA, or has a serious criminal record, or has a history or pattern of serious debt.
My own take is it's wrong for security investigations not to be done at all, even if president overrides them, as in the case of Musk, but temporary waivers are given all the time for confidential clearance giving the long lead time it takes to do investigations these days, due to insufficient personnel to carry them out in a timely fashion (so the investigation is carried out in parallel after very quick prelim background check).
1. Do we know they're violating privacy protocols? How are these protocols established? By what statute(s) or executive procedures?
The Privacy Act of 1974.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:5%20section:552a%20edition:prelim
Look for §552a(b) Conditions of Disclosure.
2. By law, the president is ultimate decider on who is given security clearances, and the lowest level which is confidential (sensitive) is pretty easy to get for just about anyone who isn't openly talking out against the USA, or has a serious criminal record, or has a history or pattern of serious debt.
This is entirely irrelevant as to whether or not someone has the authority to look at personal data. It's not in any way a part of the classification system. It's covered by a different law altogether.
Public payments are public data, pretty sure no court will consider them personal data, but I'm no legal expert.
Having said that, if there is personal data, what legal authority and statutes establish and protect it, as opposed to executive procedure, and is it a violation just to see it as an engineer/analyst?
I would think it would be a civil and/or criminal violation to remove and/or distribute this information however, at least that does fall into the private data category for payments to individuals (that may include SSN and other protected data).
I already pointed you to the Privacy Act of 1974. Go read it, and 5 USC 552a and 22 CFR Part 1101, which implement the Act, to answer your questions.
You asked whether we knew that they were violating privacy protocols. The answer is, "Yes," and I pointed to how we know that. There most definitely is personal information in that database. For instance, if you have received a payment from the federal government through direct deposit, including for a tax refund, or social security, or because you're a government employee, they now have access to your bank account number, your tax filings, your home address, and more.
"There is no line that can be drawn between "authorized" data acquisition and going ahead to turn payments off"
These are completely different things in actual practice, doesn't matter what Musk or Trump think. If they do something illegal in this regard, the question is who will stop them let alone prosecute?
"And that's where I think your view is upside-down, because the "mere implementation" detail is what this whole caper hinges on. There's no sense to handing the keys over even in MAGA terms unless the people who are in there raiding the data and making selected or random parts of it public have that access for the purpose of making the system do what they want."
First, my comment wasn't about the implementation detail, and to me you're not only confusing things here, but attributing to me things I didn't say or suggest.
Second, I can think of all kinds of reasons they would want to get access to these systems, including the publicly stated aim, and none of it presupposes that the very grant of authorization to view payments presupposes an ability to make or stop payments (which again are usually separate software systems with very fine-grained controls, auditability and observability).
"First, my comment wasn't about the implementation detail, and to me you're not only confusing things here, but attributing to me things I didn't say or suggest."
What I've been saying is that you're proposing a bright line between different functions/activities that doesn't exist in practice for these people.
There may in theory and in ethical IT practice be clear distinctions between, say, querying for information, changing information, inspecting operational code, and changing operational code. You seem to see two main forces that maintain these distinctions. One is technological-- the credentials and permission levels needed to do different things. The other is adherence to legal and professional standards and limitations.
The first can easily be overridden by Bessent, or someone else who has all the keys and can grant all the creds, simply doing that.
The second is a matter of adherence to a chain of command and to rules. People of evil character in general, and people of decent character when under enough pressure, will disregard both of these. Musk is of the first ilk, cares about neither, cares only that his Droogies do what he turns them loose to do. These people are pirates, and pirates don't adhere to either of these.
Check out talkingpointsmemo.com this morning, or the Wired report it's partly based on if you have access. Multiple reports say that a Droogie named Marko Elez has been busy changing the Treasury payment system's operational code-- apparently adding controls to facilitate selective non-payment-- and that IT personnel are helping to the extent of trying to make sure he doesn't break everything because of what he doesn't know about the system.
For lack of a simple thumbs up function (yeah, me again bitching about that again), good job. Exactly.
"Musk and the Droogies' part in this is based on the old adage that "possession is nine points of the law." They won't leave easily."
This seems like more confusion, this kind of access would be routinely granted to system engineers participating in system and data integration efforts, and I would bet nearly all of it is properly considered public information.
If very sensitive, classified payments are being made, that is very very likely to be a different system altogether.
Aside from that, if they abuse it, people gotta keep speaking truth to power, and get out and vote.
This seems like more confusion, this kind of access would be routinely granted to system engineers participating in system and data integration efforts, and I would bet nearly all of it is properly considered public information.
I strongly suggest actually researching this rather than engaging in incorrect speculation.
I've worked government engineering contracts and previously had a confidential clearance, I know exactly what I'm talking about first-hand in this regard.
All of these payments would have been public records without DOGE.
It wasn't legal for Trump to delya (And threaten to cancel) aid to Ukraine but he did it.
How the hell is Flynn even getting his hands on this?
The dates, amounts, name of recipient, grant number, and location should all be public information. Source: my work is a recipient of federal grants and I've browsed around. It's not that hard to find.
What I see that raises my eyebrows though is the "Unique Key" - that looks to be an internal database field, and would not be publicly posted.
Good eye, depends which set of database tables in whichever database owned by whoever.
"Unique Key" as the column/field name gives a likely clue this is not being done by database pros or experts, and more likely someone not well-versed in that respect, perhaps using Python scripts or something like that to hydrate this data.
In SQL, at least, the primary key can be more than one column.
Indeed, but often people conventionally make a single arbitrary key for simplification (and in rarer cases performance), but it's highly unlikely any seasoned database pro would name the key "Unique Key" (with space), and also pretty unlikely any seasoned data analyst or programmer would have included "Unique Key" in the spreadsheet, especially where it is, since this is not "usable" so to speak for end users.
I should add that I've previously worked with government systems, and they've done a lot of head-scratching stuff, technical debt runs deeper than most can imagine, and the utter reliance on Microsoft really not healthy, so I wouldn't put this necessarily on Musk's crew, they might just be doing exports from existing system tables as is
One other possibility is granting access to users who are just making direct connection from Excel or similar, which would be a bit alarming as well if passing around user names and password (and not trusted from AD).
The stuff in this comment would all have been available as public records.
Co-President Musk and his army of mostly young and inexperienced zealots getting their hands on several key government systems is, to my mind, a national crisis in and of itself.
We're not just talking about classified or highly sensitive or just everyday personal information getting to the wrong people, but we're also talking about an inept crew of non-government employees, not accountable to anyone in the Federal government, possibly damaging or even destroying systems on which our country depends for daily operations.
A legitimate concern, no doubt.
"A legitimate concern" seems a bit short of describing the hair-totally-on-fire-in-the-Santa-Ana-winds quality of the situation.
I don't agree with that characterization, based upon the available evidence, at least not yet. Dramatic speculation isn't really my thing (most of the time at least, in the runup to Iraq War I went the other way in this respect, calling out PNAC and Halliburton early and often).
+1
Putting a bunch of young MBA dipshits in charge of Iraq after we invaded it sure turned out well, so what's the worry?
IIRC many were hired from a file of applications put in to the Heritage Foundation.
Pretty sure it's princeps today, not co-president.
This also looks like some tandem play, as Musk identifies more payments and spending patterns, he can leak these to others on the team (and potentially outside it), then double back and respond that DOGE is on the case when they tweet about it.
That's probably all fair political game if no political force can prevent it, but where duplicity really comes in is in Elon's use of "illegal" to describe the payments, which these payments almost certainly are not (unless somehow an argument here that religious organization cannot receive any grant money from government).
Does he really plan to just stop Treasury from writing checks to groups he disapproves of?
Who's gonna stop him? The President? Congress? The courts? Answers: no, no, and not for a loooong time ASSUMING he doesn't just ignore them.
About the only thing I see ever stopping Musk is if -- IF -- his actions lead to a sh!tstorm of bad press for the Senile Orange Guy. But the way the MSM are going, they won't dare, so ...
At first, I thought this partnership wouldn't last. That eventually, the petulant HS freshman masquerading as a tech genius would upstage Trump too much for Trump's liking and he'd be jettisoned.
Unfortunately, it seems that Musk realized that he needed to stay out of the spotlight and retain his image as merely a stirrer of shit while staging a shadow coup of the aspects of government that Trump doesn't care about (which is basically all of the stuff that happens out of the spotlight).
This doesn't seem to be out of the spotlight.
Sure, but being in the spotlight isn't necessarily upstaging Trump.
Elon can't stop any payments, or he goes to prison. Trump can, others in chain of command, and Elon can push the button if he wants to feel he did it (aside from identifying the payments and persuading Trump and orbit).
Who's going to charge him? Who's going to prosecute him? Who's going to arrest him? Who's going to make him go to prison?
I don't have any confidence in positive answers to those questions.
"Who''s..."
Nobody is the answer, and the point of nominating Bondi and Patel is to make this clear. Only people that annoy Trump need to worry.
Exactly why ever autocrat ever immediately trashes the legal and law enforcement sectors of their government (assuming they did exist).
Who is going to put Musk in prison? Would you want to be the person arresting him?
If Musk puts a long list of “illegal” payments in front of Trump do you think Trump will look them over to determine if he thinks they are “illegal”? Or do you think he will sign off on stopping payment and brag about how he eliminated $billions in illegal payments?
I think more likely he will allow Musk to stop payments, either explicitly or by making it clear to Musk that he will not be prosecuted for it.
Some of this is a domain confusion.
Getting access to data is about being given authorization and authenticating, and this authorization has different levels (read, write, add, delete, etc.), and these levels are broken down into further levels by data sensitivity and function. Any writing or adding of data with direct database access would likely be very criminal, and unwise, and I'm presuming not in the current scope.
When it comes to authorizing or denying payments, this is not something you do in the database (in almost every case), this is a completely separate software app/UI with its own authentication and authorization, with an observability trail, and again here probably severe penalties for gross misuse.
The security of both of these, and how people are being granted access and authorization, and especially if only being done so through standard trusted mechanisms (AD/LDAP/etc.), is the first thing people should be demanding to know, because the rest is all the functionality built into the system for authorized users to perform and select.
Musk can't plead ignorance to any of this either, being the "tech genius" he is, and it sounds like, for all intents and purposes, he is a responsible party now (along with existing IT security teams already in place).
Everything I've heard so far doesn't rule out that Musk is just making a wide range of recommendations however, which is presumed for the role.
Jimm is a troll with a mission to stop people being alarmed.
Not a troll, and a long-time commenter on Drum's blogs and rest of blogosphere, most especially in 2002-2006 period, you know what they say about assumptions
Having said that, my focus is more on clarity, not hysteria and jumbling everything together, adherence to facts (not truth) and reality, and strategy to counter not only real-world developments but mental/ideological (memes and mistaken notions, exaggerations and mis/disinformation, assertions without evidence and motivated reasoning, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, and so on, no matter who it comes from).
I am not or ever have been a registered Democrat or Republican either, so no dog in the hunt except American values and principles).
The comment that I replied to was certainly trolling, rather than replying to the comment it was "replying to".
It was certainly not trolling, which is an intention, please check yourself.
The second to last paragraph kinda shows Jimm isn't a troll.
Honest question: you're using authority at least partly as a technical term rather than a legal one, and thanks for making that clear in this post. But isn't Bessent at the top of the chain in Treasury? Wouldn't that necessarily give him all the information Musk would need in order to exercise any level of authority in the technical sense? And if ordered by trump to give all levels of access to Musk and his minions, he'd have to either do it or resign?
I don't really know all the particulars here, but if Bessent gives him authorization, then it's Bessent who is making stop payment decisions by proxy, and I seriously doubt he has done that, we'll see.
As for the actual legality of any of this, I don't really know either, how much of this (including info security) regulated by Congress, or just procedural conventions of executive branch?
May be some serious gaps here that need to be patched or fixed, and winning next election in four years the best way to do that, while being the loyal opposition and doing what can be done in interim.
Compare this to the J6 pardons. He got tired of going through them one by one to decide whether to pardon, commute, or let the sentence stand, so he ended up just yelling "fuck it, pardon all of them." He has no patience for sitting through a list of payments to stop, or even of categories of payments to stop. He'll just tell Musk to go ahead with anything he wants to do, or he has already done that. And raising this possibility presumes that Musk even bothers to ask or notify.
And BTW, we should not expect a systematic listing or report of what payments he's stopping. That'll have to be done independently from outside, and it's a particularly urgent thing for someone at some institutions to get started on now, before it hits the fan.
I didn't say that stopped payments won't happen, just that Musk will not be the one deciding to do them on his own authority, which would be illegal, and even if Trump says go ahead and do it, that still likely illegal and will be headed off by Congress and/or courts, who I do not believe will support radicalism to this degree (and perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm not in position to stop any of this, just observe at the moment).
You have to be the stupidest person on the planet if you think legality will play any roll in the Trump administration.
"You have to be the stupidest .."
No, he is just a troll with a mission to stop people being alarmed.
Bugger off.
People can have different opinions.
Still not a troll, just not fumbling everything together, which will get you nowhere.
Thanks for the insult, let's me know what you're really about.
Everything they are doing all over the federal government is already illegal.
The congressional committee providing oversight to DOGE is headed by Majorie Taylor Greene.
What are you going to do about it? What are the available options? Bitching and moaning about it, and conflating everything, is going to serve what purpose, and signal what action?
In my mind, the first thing to do is be clear about what's happening, aside from speculation and fear, and then figure out how to effectively communicate what the actual threat is, and what action can be done about it.
Keep in mind I'm not trying to jump on you, I'm reading a number of responses and not going to reply to all of them, thanks for sharing that MSG is a significant player here.
You don't think Congress and the Courts Will allow this level of radicalism?
Have you been in a coma for the past 10 years?
Ever since Trump descended from his escalator people have been making that same comment like yours, and every time sooner or later it turns out that both Congress and the courts have no depth to with they will not sink to let Trump get whatever he wants. At best there might be a slow delay here and there but both have bent over backwards to let him get away with whatever crimes or rule breaking he wants.
Trump didn't get everything he wanted before, and I don't think he will now, but I'm not betting on that either, but short of those two institutions intervening, all we have are future elections.
By my own observation, the Supreme Court has drawn lines, and Roberts has been part of this, and the Senate is still not fully compliant either.
Also, I don't believe Trump's claim that going through 1,500 cases was onerous. The cases are already segmented by charge and level (misdemeanor or felony) at the outset, having an aide or a few aides filter out the violent felonies would be a small piece of work that Trump would never have to be involved with, and likely has already been done by people analyzing and reporting on Jan 6.
Best to stick to Occam's razor, don't follow or debate Trump's lies and deceptions, and instead go with the simplest and most obvious explanation (Trump likes to go big, even if he can't negotiate it down a little bit since pardons presumably can't be rescinded).
+1
If my memory serves, it was a comment by you weeks ago about this that rang true for me, all of this is probably already sifted through by many different actors and parties so Trump's effort would be negligible.
Yup, and thanks. I just hadn't thought about it, but the normal thing to do would have been for a couple of employees to spend a few hours going through and put them in several categories - clearly violent felonies, maybe not so bad, just followed others in and walked around like an idiot etc.
Just doing my part, pretty sure I got this idea from another commenter in these threads a little while back.
Well said!
He doesn't have to. He just gives Trump a list and Trump orders someone who does have the authority to do it.
The other billionaires and multimillionaires might get pissed off if the spigot of government cash to their enterprises is shut off. Congresscritters aren’t solely funded by multibillionaires; some are owned by the mere billionaires and multimillionaires too.
So if the payments turn out to be legal, which I expect, and Flynn and Musk say they aren't, with a giant megaphone, that's libel, right? They can bring a defamation suit, right?
Only if it costs them money.
It doesn't have to cost them money. Damage to reputation is actionable.
If their reputation is damaged, it comes back to monetary evidence again.
Did being raped by Trump cost Jean Carroll money? Damages don't have to be monetary.
Calling something illegal in this case is a factual and completely different matter, I doubt the Lutheran church would be able to prove harm or malice, as the payments don't have to be illegal for Trump to axe them (tho obviously this would be illegal for Trump to do, so we're kinda going down a rabbit hole of illegality here).
Just to be clear, none of these payments are to a church body, these are social-services agencies contracted to provide services for which Congress has appropriated the funds. Government funding may not be used for religious activities, and must be used to provide the services to all who qualify to receive them, regardless of religious affiliation or non-affiliation.
Thanks for the clarification, I was speaking a little loosely there.
It was a defamation case, not a rape trial. Carroll did indeed claim fiancial harm from Trump's statements.
File your taxes now, just in case....
I have to wait until mid Feb to get one 1099---arrrghhhh!!!
They're still so outraged by Martin Luther King Jr. that they'll punish his entire denomination!!
Lutherans, Catholics... what other corruption will the Department Of Genuflecting Erroneously uncover in America's First Estate?
Do you think MLK Jr founded the order? Dude, he was a Baptist.
I thought Srho was joking.
👆
When I was a kid, it took a long time to wrap my mind around the fact that MLK wasn't Lutheran.
Strange, I never once associated ML King Jr. with Lutheran church, just as didn't for Luther Vandross or Lex Luther (joke).
You must have missed the Martin part. Or the fact that Martin Luther led the mass execution of baptists.
I was joking, but same point applies, aside from mass execution of Baptists not being relevant.
Meh. Six SCOTUS members are Catholic. I don't think Musk will be allowed to go after Catholic charities.
I expect they all belong to the wing of the American church that believes the present pope is a follower of satan. So it would be wrong to count on the safety of Catholics not considered heretics by the church.
They are not.
Ah, I see you are unaware of the schism between conservative Catholics and the rest of the American Catholic Church. Conservative Catholics would love to see Catholic charities shut down for good.
Here come the lawsuits.
Yes, but they'd have to find someone with the resources to pursue that option. In the mean time, the damage is done.
...and then they came for me, and there was no one left to help.
Martin Niemöller was a Lutheran pastor. Ironic, isn't it?
Is it even worth mentioning that the grand total comes out to a lot less than $1B?
Look after the Lutherans and the billions will look after themselves.
Faux News will surely tell us that MAGA has declared War on Religion.
These people really hate Christians.
They will declare war on religion, it's in the plan. There can be only one.
There are wrong kinds of Christians and right kinds. The wrong kinds follow that loser Jesus and are woke, DEI, heretics.
Don Jr: Turning the other cheek? Where did that ever get us?
If they're going to stop payments to organizations that are run by Mainline Christians, this is going to get very messy, very fast. Lots of nursing homes and hospitals are run by Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc. And in rural areas there may not be other options. If the local nursing home can't get paid for services, there is nowhere else for people to go.
Perhaps this is a way to force religious charities to sell their facilities cheaply to private equity firms.
Only the ones they don't like.
"Perhaps this is a way to force religious charities to sell their facilities cheaply to private equity firms."
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. The government is paying charities to do work that is better done for profit by business.
Wait until they dismantle the US Postal Service.
FWIW, the "Moon to Mars" budget is around $2.5B for this year and the ISS budget is $1.3B. We could cut those and hardly anyone would notice (except, of course, for the people working on them). In fact Human Space flight takes up 44% or about $12B
of NASA's budget, pretty much all waste. Why not cut that in half and spend $6B more on robotic missions? I'm guessing Elon will get right on this.
Wouldn't hurt SpaceX's bottom line, their ships are all robotic.
But the appointee to NASA is an astronaut, so...
From one of the comments on Flynn's tweet:
"President and CEO of Global Refuge (formally Lutheran Immigration and Refugee) Krishanti O'Mara Vignarajah is an American lawyer serving as President and CEO of Global Refuge.She previously served in the Obama White House as Policy Director for First Lady Michelle Obama and at the State Department as Senior Advisor under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry."
This is apparentely what makes the payment illegal in right-wing facist world.
Well, yeah.
Governance by anyone who isn't on the Trump team is illegal.
Good catch, definitely still not illegal lol, and given the large amount of grant money being disbursed, likely an opportunity they will take to ensure administrative costs are held down to minimally needed to function efficiently and effectively, and that politically connected people aren't collecting (too) big salaries to run these things (especially not "their" people on their "team").
And that's the ironically generous interpretation, while another is use this as pretext to insist should be shut down, which definitely seem to be more MAGA style.
It doesn't benfit Trump personally. Therefore it's illegal. Oh, also changing the name is suspicious. They're clearly trying to hide something. Hint: they're involved in child trafficking. The things you can "learn" on twitter.
Seriously though these idiots don't seem to understand that someone can work for political officials and then later head up a non-profit. And that non-profit can receive Federal funds. Which it was probably doing even before Krishanti O'Mara Vignarajah became President/CEO. (the organization was founded in 1939).
Wait, I think I understand the agenda on display. It works like this:
"We (the Trump team) can find all your grants from the Federal Government and turn them off at a moment's notice. So you'd better play ball with us, or at least keep your mouth shut."
"Yeah, it might be illegal, and you might be able to spend a prodigious amount of money clawing it back, and you'll still be worse off than you would have been if you just had played ball with us."
Intimidation. Lawfare. Bullying. That's what Trump does. That's what Trump is.
In a dictatorship* (which is what this aspires to be) there is no rule of law or adherence to mandated procedures. It's simply "We do what we want" anywhere within the government agencies.
* No pundit or politician should use the soft, academic-ese term: "authoritarian" after this weekend.
We're still a long way from a dictatorship, getting way out in front of skis here.
Not as long a way as you think. TFM is claiming the power to dissolve USAID, which was established by Congress; to halt payments on programs appropriated by Congress; terminate employees without required Congressional notice; lock government employees out of their offices and computer systems without following legal processes. What do you call it when the chief executive can act with disregard for the law?
I'll bet if they buy a few $million in Trump's bullshit coins this problem will go away.
Because it all started going wrong with Martin Luther.
The modern wingnut wants to destroy anything that happened after 1500.
"modern wingnut" -- lol! Yeah, 1750 is *so* old hat.
Mike Flynn: Now it's the "Lutheran" faith (this use of "religion" as a money laundering operation must end). Lutheran Family Services and affiliated organizations receive massive amounts of taxpayer dollars,...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
So... religion is a cover for money laundering operations.
Kevin's relentless "Oh surely they wouldn't do that" optimism is getting tiresome. Four years ago, Trump staged an attempted coup. Why in God's name would anyone give him the benefit of the doubt now, when he's in a far stronger position? And why refuse to acknowledge the self-evident fact that Musk is an out-of-control megalomaniac?
I suggest that Democrats assume the worst about this administration until further notice, and act on that assumption. At least the Mexicans and Canadians seem to understand the nature of the insane buffoon they're dealing with.
I’m afraid I must agree. Congress will not defend its prerogatives and powers, and the Supreme Court has already prepared the ground for yielding to massive Executive abuses. Americans with an interest in a future restoration of a democratic republic need to plan for as much obstruction and delay as can be achieved in the Federal court system for the next several years.
My optimism is limited to what might be achieved in the next several elections — I still believe that the decentralized structure of voting in the US will frustrate any attempt to cancel or steal an election.
There are three major Lutheran denominations in the U.S.: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS), and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). Historically the ELCA roots are more Scandinavian, while the LCMS and WELS are more German. The LCMS and WELS are considered by most to be quite politically conservative and centered in states that voted for Trump. Once more the supporters of the Leopards Eating People's Faces party are faced with having their faces eaten.
It is not the church bodies that stand to lose funding, it is the recipients of the services provided by these agencies, who are served without regard to their religious beliefs or lack thereof.
Well, sure. But I think the point is that it's a mission that ELCA cares about, and so shutting it down hurts ELCA. And to these guys, ELCA = woke.
Yes, and our sociopath co-Presidents certainly don’t care about the ‘collateral damage’.
"Does he really plan to just stop Treasury from writing checks to groups he disapproves of? That seems unlikely even for Elon, but who's to say?"
This is EXACTLY what he is doing, you utterly clueless moron. Now I see how the Nazis established their fascist regime so fast: utterly blind, complacent Germans just like Drum.
"Does he really plan to just stop Treasury from writing checks to groups he disapproves of? That seems unlikely even for Elon, but who's to say?"
This is EXACTLY what he is doing, you utterly clueless moron. Now I see how the Nazis established their fascist regime so fast: utterly clueless, complacent Germans just like Drum. They are breaking so many laws, and acting without any authority--Musk and most of his merry men aren't even government employees-- that no one can keep up. But Kevin Drum keeps pecking away at his keyboard making post after post stating that surely they won't do what they are so obviously doing.
Pssst. Hey. You uh, you still believe the threats to liberal democracy are overblown?
'A White South-African male taking over the US government and holding the power of the purse and policy' was not on the Nazi Fascist Bingo card...
or was it? 🤔
So we have a three pronged attack on America under way:
1) Trump personally leading the assault on political opposition and members of the justice and security systems. Investigations under way.
2) Nazi leader Elon openly stealing government info while infiltrating the public payment infrastructure and all associated private information.
3) Immigrants and others who resemble an immigrant are being detained without cause.
The coordinated, illegal takeover of US public spending infrastricture and payment authority is the most jarring....and the media and public are mostly bored and uninterested with this story.
What are the odds of billions going missing and everyone's financial information being in the hands of Elon and his band of nazi 19 year olds? 20%? 80? Whatever it is, I'll take the over.
Can't wait for the both sides justifications that along with furrowed brows.
What is the Meniminee County Intermediate School District doing on that list.? Nothing Lutheran there that I can see.
Nor with Washington State University, on p. 2. These are HHS grants, seem to be sorted by state and congressional district, and I'd guess this list was generated from a particular grant program or category. Heavy concentration in MD and TX, so if the MD agency name and Kevin's description are anything to go by, whatever the criterion was clearly would have to do with services for immigrants. Of course a particular bugaboo for MAGA.
Which reminds me that in trump version 1.0 (or was that just a beta), the rwnj contingent had a hair up its ass about the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society as somehow "proving" great replacement BS through its very existence. Do these people imagine that earlier immigrants just settled anywhere at random like broadcast chicken feed and magically blended indistinguishably with whoever was already there, with no help from anybody? There were gazillions of organizations helping virtually all of them, some run by so-called "old stock," some by earlier generations of the same ethnic groups, some by immigrants themselves, some by local and state governments. HIAS predecessors go back to the 1880s, and 18C German migrants in PA had organizations to help them. Native English-speakers (like our modern-day South Africans) might have been the one group that needed support the least and I'd bet they've had organizations too.
Most people don't do that well if they're just dropped into a new place amid a different culture and language and have to pick it all up on their own-- not everybody is Margaret Mead. And they know that themselves, and people who have done it before them, and others who have at least minimal imagination, also know that.
So if Musk having read only (or possibly more than that) access to the nation’s payments system isn’t a big deal - as several commenters here suggest - then why did the semi-anonymous guy running it for the last 45 years just up and quit on Friday to avoid having to personally give Musk the access?
That to me is the tell: whatever it is that Musk is doing is bad enough for that person to quit rather than sign off on it. YMMV I guess, and we’ll see who’s right in the near future!
+1
"Does he really plan to just stop Treasury from writing checks to groups he disapproves of? That seems unlikely even for Elon, but who's to say?"
It seems clear to me that's exactly what he's planning. He's not going to sit back issuing reports and memos about budget cuts. He'll just cancel the payments. He wants control.
Trump is still in charge and the "responsible" party.
*
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-02/musk-says-doge-is-rapidly-shutting-down-treasury-payments?embedded-checkout=true
Trump gave Musk’s efforts his seal of approval Sunday night. “Elon’s doing a good job,” Trump said to reporters.
“He’s a big cost cutter,” Trump said. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go, but I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.”
So TFM is confessing to violating the Impoundment Control Act, passed in 1974, when Congress actually defended its Constitutional powers. Before the Republican Party opted to fill its side of both chambers with empty suits, spineless wimps, and toadies.
And numbskulls. Almost forgot the numbskulls.
Pingback: « Le coup d’État en cours » | Le blogue de Richard Hétu
Bonhoffer and Niemoller are why Trump Inc. do not like Lutherans.