Florida State Seminoles

[eCat]

Ron Paul never thought he'd seriously see the day this could happen. I'm glad he lived long enough to at least see someone try to hold them accountable

[eCat]

Musk just tweeted that his initial look into Social Security, he has found that the system does not check for unique instances of numbers, meaning if you can get your SSN number into the system multiple times, you will be paid for each one. He hasn't said how many instances of that he has found. He has also tweeted that he has found dozens of people that are receiving social security that are around 150 years old.

But people are losing their shit over him Musk "canceling social security"

[innocentbystander]

Musk just tweeted that his initial look into Social Security, he has found that the system does not check for unique instances of numbers, meaning if you can get your SSN number into the system multiple times, you will be paid for each one. He hasn't said how many instances of that he has found. He has also tweeted that he has found dozens of people that are receiving social security that are around 150 years old.

But people are losing their shit over him Musk "canceling social security"

The people he is making accountable, they have never had to be accountable for anything in their entire life. So this is all new for them. And they don't know what to do other than run to a judge to try and stop it. Moreover, the people losing their shit are just losing it because it was a Republican President who came up with this idea FIRST to make government agencies accountable. The people of this country love it, even the ones who hate Trump love it. Its just that if they hate Trump with will just bitch about it, all the while, secretly loving what he did.

[eCat]

People like Elizabeth Warren just don't understand this basic idea, clearly this woman does not either - and to make it worse, she is so confident she is right, she is annoying as fuck with no sense of humility or the possibility that people can't agree with her.

In Warren case she is trying to tell you that SHE and people of her ilk are the only arbiters of how tax money should be spent. In this womans case she is trying to convince you that failing an audit and not being able to tell you where millions of dollars is or how it was spent, doesn't equate to waste. I mean to drill down a bit more, Elizabeth Warren fully understands the idea, she is just trying to convince her constituents that they don't.

[innocentbystander]

That interview is a year old. Kathlene Hicks was fired by Trump about 2 minutes after he entered the White House on January 20th. If I had to guess, she may have only agreed to the interview because someone in her office probably told her that Jon Stewart agrees with her politically. But the point you are making is valid eCat. Yes, "these people" are not accountable and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should anyone ever ask them any questions to judge their lack of accountability. She spent the whole interview lecturing Jon Stewart about what he didn't know about government or spending or what an audit even was. But Jon is like, well, we gave you $850 billion lady, where did it go? She just smiled, shrugged it off, and was like, what the fuck ever. Don't you dare talk to me like that. LOL.

[hedge]

"What if a lawsuit goes to the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of Musk's actions, they rule it's unconstitutional and Trump says fuck it, we're doing it anyway and sends Musk back in? Would you be giddy about that?"

Post by eCat » Thu Feb 06, 2025 5:16 pm
no, I would not support Trump saying fuck it to the supreme court."

Guess we're fixin to find out...

'The feel of a coup': Elon Musk said to be poised to 'defy' major judicial order

Elon Musk appears poised to defy a judicial order, according to observers.

Musk, the richest man in the world and an appointee of Donald Trump, was dealt a blow over the weekend when a judge reportedly blocked Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing personal financial data from the Treasury Department, which resulted in a MAGA meltdown.

Musk wasn't too happy about the ruling, saying, "Corrupt judges protecting corruption."

Trump legal ally Mike Davis said, "These DC uniparty judges are shockingly insulated from Real Americans in Real America."

"They are arrogant and delusional enough to believe they are saving America from Trump," the lawyer added. "Even though Trump campaigned on doing precisely what he’s doing. And won a decisive electoral mandate."

GOP Senator Mike Lee said, "This has the feel of a coup—not a military coup, but a judicial one." Musk reposted that comment Saturday evening, writing simply, "Yes."

In a separate post, Musk shared a statement from someone suggesting various reasons for defying court orders. That comment stated, "I don’t like the precedent it sets when you defy a judicial ruling, but I’m just wondering what other options are these judges leaving us…”

Legal analyst Anna Bower weighed in after that, saying, "After a judge blocked DOGE access to Treasury data, Elon Musk just reposted a user who implied that the order should be defied."



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-elon-coup-defy-order/

[hedge]

Five Former Treasury Secretaries:​
Our Democracy Is Under Siege​

By Robert E. Rubin, Lawrence H. Summers, Timothy F. Geithner, Jacob J. Lew and Janet L. Yellen

The writers are former Treasury secretaries.

“… The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

One has been appointed fiscal assistant secretary — a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.

These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest.

They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information.

Their power subjects America’s payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries.

And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care. That is why a federal judge this past weekend blocked, at least temporarily, these individuals from the Treasury’s payments system, noting the risk of “irreparable harm.” …”

[hedge]

“… We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.

A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.

The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not.

As Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court previously wrote, “Even the president does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds.”

Chief Justice John Roberts agrees: He wrote that “no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse.”

During our collective 18 years at the helm of the Treasury, we never were asked to stop congressionally appropriated funds from being paid out in full. Not since the Nixon administration has this type of executive action been contemplated. At that time, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president did not have the power to withhold federal funds that Congress had authorized.

No Treasury secretary in his or her first weeks in office should be put in the position where it is necessary to reassure the nation and the world of the integrity of our payments system or our commitment to make good on our financial obligations.

Secretary Scott Bessent has had to do just that, and we were comforted to see the agency commit to Congress that any recent access to Treasury’s payment systems “is not resulting in the suspension or rejection of any payment instructions submitted” to the federal government. When he has been asked — repeatedly — if Treasury has tried to block any federal payments, he has stated unequivocally that “we have not.”

… But even more than the importance of making good on particular commitments is the importance of making good on the principles that this country stands for. We have during our service in the Treasury Department faced moments of crisis, when the specter of an American default loomed.

Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default.

And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.”

[innocentbystander]

Hedge, it would be so much better if we had your own personal feelings on these topics instead of the proverbial "cut-and-paste" written by some drone at a think tank that can no longer think. When I cur and paste, it is usually to a youtube that we both know you click on but aren't man enough to admit you watched. Of COURSE the democrats had to run to politicized judges to get them to issue restraining orders on the authority of DOGE. They have no other cards to play. But this will only delay the inevitable. It was democrats who created DOGE.

Trump's administration did not create DOGE. That was created by Obama during his administration. Obama created the USDS (United States Digital Service) as a federal agency of propeller heads and tech nerds because only THEY had a high enough IQ to write all the code to build the website portals for Obamacare. That agency was created when Obama found out that politicians weren't competent enough to hire anyone to build the healthcare apps. All Trump did was take those propeller heads and give them another job to do, this time, to stop writing C# and start counting beans and looking at spreadsheets. And honestly, you aren't pissed at all that USAID and soon the CFPB are going to be audited and can't keep doing business at usual. You and I both KNOW (now that we are actually seeing where the money is going) how fucking wasteful of our tax dollars they are. You are just pissed off that it was Trump's people doing this and not Kamala Harris!

[hedge]

[innocentbystander]

Large agro-business is suffering without government largess paying for their surplus crops? I don't give a fuck. Get chickens. Become an egg farm. A dozen eggs is $7 right now.

Every time Trump opens his mouth, his approval ratings go up. That is because he is saying some common sense things that no President was ever man enough to say out of fear that they would lose lobbyist re-election dollars. He just denigrated Harvard University yesterday flying home from the Superbowl. A smart ass reporter tried to catch the President with a gotcha question on the plane about how no more USAID means that universities are suffering without grants for research. Trump shrugged his shoulders and said that Harvard has a $50 billion dollar endowment, they don't need one penny of government money. Smart ass punk scrambled and said but what about research? And the President is like, okay so lets see what they are researching and pay for things on a case by case basis.

Hedge, do you want one penny of your tax dollars to pay for a study at a university on transgender drugs given to rats who has their dicks wacked off? Because that is where some of those USAID dollars are going.

[eCat]

go to google maps, zoom out until you see Florida and Cuba

You'll see something new

[innocentbystander]

Gulf of America!

[aTm]

I wonder if Cletus is ok, last time he was too much of a pussy to show his face for four years or whatever. Maybe he quit the internet altogether now.

[Dave23]

He hasn’t been on the Bears board since the election.

[DooKSucks]

eCat: I'll respond when I can. It may be the weekend. Close friend's mother died Sunday night. So, I have had to reshuffle my already hectic schedule this week and am working just to keep my head above water.

"Large agro business" is yet another sign of IB's massive ignorance. Those "agro businesses" are buying from family owned farms with the aid of good people like Hedge throughout the country...

[eCat]

FEMA spends $59m to house illegals in hotels.

People still living in tents in North Carolina.

they could rebuild 2500 homes with that money

how do you guys vote for that?

[eCat]

stupid stupid stupid. The last thing America needs is to be even more permanently attached to Israeli middle eastern issues. Wasn't 9/11 enough to make us realize we need to divest ourselves of this?

[innocentbystander]

eCat: I'll respond when I can. It may be the weekend. Close friend's mother died Sunday night. So, I have had to reshuffle my already hectic schedule this week and am working just to keep my head above water.

"Large agro business" is yet another sign of IB's massive ignorance. Those "agro businesses" are buying from family owned farms with the aid of good people like Hedge throughout the country...

Then there is even MORE reason to stop doing this. If the family farm owns all the land and the surplus wheat/corn/soybeans are being sold to USAID from "agro business", then the "agro business" is nothing more than a damn middle man, taking their cut from the family farm that did all the work at raw production who should be selling to USAID, directly. Oh, I keep forgetting, the family farm doesn't employ lobbyists on K-Street to buy off our politicians to make sure that USAID keeps buying all this food to be donated to corrupt 3rd world nations. But "agro business" sure does.

Sorry about your close friend's mother, DS.

[innocentbystander]

FEMA spends $59m to house illegals in hotels.

People still living in tents in North Carolina.

they could rebuild 2500 homes with that money

how do you guys vote for that?

Because that is their TEAM.