Government Efficiency (1 Viewer)

[RobF]

I think this topic deserves its own thread, both to discuss generally the topic of government efficiency, and specifically the so-called 'Department of Government Efficiency' and the incoming Trump administration's aims to "dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies".

The announcements have been covered in the The Trump Cabinet and key post thread, but to recap, Trump has announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will work together on a not-actually-an-official-government-Department of Government Efficiency, which is intended to work with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to "drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before," with the 'Department' to conclude its work "no later than July 4, 2026."

Musk has previously said that the federal budget could be reduced by "at least $2 trillion", and Ramaswarmy, during his presidential campaign, said he would fire more than 75% of the federal work force and disband agencies including the Department of Education and the FBI.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Probably because they didn't take a vote.

The article clearly says that Jackson dissented. That indicates a vote was taken.

The media who is doing so are mispeaking to call what one of more judges at the supreme court made a ruling they didn't make a ruling,

They didn't make a case ruling, but they mostly definitely made a ruling on the lower courts order. They didn't randomly do that. Someone asked them to and they ruled in favor of the party that asked them to lift it.

You are the one who is misspeaking, not the media.

"They" one or more, some of them lifted an administrative injunction order placed there by another lower court.

That's a ruling and they did so without signing it, so what Dragon said is correct. They are issuing rulings without signing their names to it.

You've been saying factually incorrect things lately that make false excuses and give false cover to the corruptness of Trump and his Republicans, in this case the 6 Trump Republicans on the Supreme Court. That's a 180° turn for you. What's up with that?

 

[Optimus Prime]

VA ditches plans to cut 83,000 workers after outcry

The Department of Veterans Affairs has rowed back against DOGE-inspired reduction in the workforce after angry backlash, saying it no longer believes such a significant downsizing is necessary after all

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

A federal judge has ruled against five non-profit organizations that sued the Trump administrationover the rescinding of hundreds of millions of dollars meant to prevent and respond to issues such as gun violence, substance abuse and hate crimes.

In an opinion released on Monday, judge Amit P Mehta, who was appointed by Barack Obama in 2014, said that while the cuts were “shameful”, he does not have the authority to enact an injunction that would keep the dollars flowing.

“[The] defendants’ rescinding of these awards is shameful. It is likely to harm communities and individuals vulnerable to crime and violence. No federal agency, especially the Department of Justice, should conduct itself in such [a] manner,” Mehta wrote……..

Judge says Trump cuts to anti-violence groups ‘shameful’ – but can’t stop them

Amit Mehta rules against violence prevention groups, saying he does not have the authority to enact an injunction

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sendai]

Noticed how many unsigned rulings the SC makes these days. Why won't they stand by their votes?

Long history of unsigned orders.

“The recent March 2024 Supreme Court opinion in Trump v. Anderson, which determined that former President Trump can run for office, has been delivered in a per curiam fashion. While this occurrence is not particularly common, it is not unusual either. Typically, most SCOTUS opinions are authored by individual Justices, with other Justices having the option to join these opinions. However, over the past hundred years or so, a notable phenomenon has emerged: unsigned opinions.

There are two primary types of unsigned opinions: Per Curiam and Joint Opinion. A per curiam opinion is an unsigned opinion issued in the name of the entire Court, usually written by a single Justice whose identity is not revealed. It is often employed for unanimous decisions or when the Court aims to present a unified voice.

Initially reserved for straightforward cases lacking legal complexity, during the twentieth century, per curiam opinions began addressing matters of significant legal and cultural import. This evolution included cases such as the defense of press freedom (New York Times Co. v. United States, 1971)5 or the desegregation in public housing (New Orleans City Park Improvement arse’n v. Detiege, 1958).6 Over time, their use increased, constituting approximately 12 per cent of cases between 2021 and 2023.”

https://academic.oup.com/jla/article/17/1/2/8098035

They aren’t hiding anything. You can assume those who don’t dissent are on board with the court action.

 

[SamAndreas]

VA ditches plans to cut 83,000 workers after outcry

The Department of Veterans Affairs has rowed back against DOGE-inspired reduction in the workforce after angry backlash, saying it no longer believes such a significant downsizing is necessary after all

www.independent.co.uk

That's where we come in, we must apply much outcry.

 

[MT15]

Long history of unsigned orders.

They aren’t hiding anything. You can assume those who don’t dissent are on board with the court action.

This doesn’t tell the entire story. These cases, which can be referred to as emergency orders or shadow docket due to unsigned opinions, are growing dramatically in number. They were once reserved for true emergencies and were relatively rare. This court has pushed these so much of the time as to be truly remarkable.

Yes, this court is behaving in unusual ways, Sendai. That’s just fact.

“The growth of the emergency docket. A year ago, the Supreme Court decided 44 matters on its emergency, or as it is often called, “shadow docket”. This term, the court has 113 matters on the emergency docket (and that surely will increase over the summer as the term officially continues until the next term begins in October). That is a stunning increase in just one year. Of course, the easiest explanation is the number of applications involving challenges to President Donald Trump’s actions.

I am among those with great concerns about the court effectively deciding major issues without full briefing and oral argument on its emergency docket. Sometimes the court decides without even writing an opinion, such as in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. on June 23, which allowed the Trump administration to deport individuals to South Sudan despite their not having any connection to that country. It also is troubling that the court pays little attention to rules limiting appellate review of temporary restraining orders and to the usual standards of appellate review, which limit overturning preliminary injunctions to when there is an abuse of discretion by the trial court. Also, it is unclear what, if any, precedential weight lower courts must give to opinions from the emergency docket.”

By the numbers

Courtly Observations is a recurring series by Erwin Chemerinsky that focuses on what the Supreme Court’s decisions will mean for the law, for lawyers and lower courts, and for people’s lives. […]

www.scotusblog.com

Here is another discussion:

The Supreme Court ‘Shadow Docket’

The conservative justices are increasingly using a secretive process to issue consequential decisions.

www.brennancenter.org

From Wiki: the use of the shadow docket increased dramatically in Trump’s first term.

“The shadow docket is used when the Court believes an applicant will suffer "irreparable harm" if its request is not immediately granted. Historically, the shadow docket was rarely used for rulings of serious legal or political significance. However, since 2017, it has been increasingly used for consequential rulings, especially for requests by the Department of Justice for emergency stays of lower-court rulings. The practice has been criticized for various reasons, including for bias, lack of transparency, and lack of accountability.”

 

[Optimus Prime]

NASA reportedly set to lose 2,000 senior staff members in workforce cuts

The agency saw layoffs in March and is losing nearly a quarter of its budget

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Sendai]

This doesn’t tell the entire story. These cases, which can be referred to as emergency orders or shadow docket due to unsigned opinions, are growing dramatically in number. They were once reserved for true emergencies and were relatively rare. This court has pushed these so much of the time as to be truly remarkable.

Yes, this court is behaving in unusual ways, Sendai. That’s just fact.

“The growth of the emergency docket. A year ago, the Supreme Court decided 44 matters on its emergency, or as it is often called, “shadow docket”. This term, the court has 113 matters on the emergency docket (and that surely will increase over the summer as the term officially continues until the next term begins in October). That is a stunning increase in just one year. Of course, the easiest explanation is the number of applications involving challenges to President Donald Trump’s actions.

I am among those with great concerns about the court effectively deciding major issues without full briefing and oral argument on its emergency docket. Sometimes the court decides without even writing an opinion, such as in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. on June 23, which allowed the Trump administration to deport individuals to South Sudan despite their not having any connection to that country. It also is troubling that the court pays little attention to rules limiting appellate review of temporary restraining orders and to the usual standards of appellate review, which limit overturning preliminary injunctions to when there is an abuse of discretion by the trial court. Also, it is unclear what, if any, precedential weight lower courts must give to opinions from the emergency docket.”

By the numbers

Courtly Observations is a recurring series by Erwin Chemerinsky that focuses on what the Supreme Court’s decisions will mean for the law, for lawyers and lower courts, and for people’s lives. […]

www.scotusblog.com

Here is another discussion:

The Supreme Court ‘Shadow Docket’

The conservative justices are increasingly using a secretive process to issue consequential decisions.

www.brennancenter.org

From Wiki: the use of the shadow docket increased dramatically in Trump’s first term.

“The shadow docket is used when the Court believes an applicant will suffer "irreparable harm" if its request is not immediately granted. Historically, the shadow docket was rarely used for rulings of serious legal or political significance. However, since 2017, it has been increasingly used for consequential rulings, especially for requests by the Department of Justice for emergency stays of lower-court rulings. The practice has been criticized for various reasons, including for bias, lack of transparency, and lack of accountability.”

I’d say pragmatic ways. Why drag out the obvious. It’s a suitable court authority. As Justice Kavanaugh stated in a recent concurrence, the court is there to provide remedy

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Long history of unsigned orders.

Partially true, but deceptive. It's true that unsigned orders have happened throughout the history of the court. It's also true that they've been doing it a lot more in the last several years at a higher rate than before and doing it more with orders of higher consequences and impact.

Since this court got its Trump Republican majority of 6, it has been acting very differently from previous Supreme Courts.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

I’d say pragmatic ways.

I appreciate you letting me know that you mistakenly think corrupt and pragmatic are synonyms. Or, are you saying they are pragmatic in their corruption?

 

[MT15]

I’d say pragmatic ways. Why drag out the obvious. It’s a suitable court authority. As Justice Kavanaugh stated in a recent concurrence, the court is there to provide remedy

There are numerous reasons this way of operating isn’t truly pragmatic, especially when used for truly momentous cases. They are short-circuiting the actual process.

It’s only pragmatic for slam-dunk cases. They’re not limiting themselves to those. There is ample documentation in what I posted that they are using this short cut for many, many cases that are not well served by doing them this way.

 

[MT15]

Meanwhile DOGE is continuing its reckless infiltration of federal agencies. With no transparency and no oversight. It’s truly shameful.

 

[SamAndreas]

Meanwhile DOGE is continuing its reckless infiltration of federal agencies. With no transparency and no oversight. It’s truly shameful.

For months, most of a year, I've been wondering what the hell was up with Musk, as of last night, now I know, all of a sudden the odd pieces came together. It's a brave new world out there, and we're going there whether we like it or not.

This is a short 30 minute segment of the 2 hour announcement and roll out I watched live last night along with 1.5 million other people. Poof, our world changed just like that, overnight.

 

[Dragon]

For months, most of a year, I've been wondering what the hell was up with Musk, as of last night, now I know, all of a sudden the odd pieces came together. It's a brave new world out there, and we're going there whether we like it or not.

This is a short 30 minute segment of the 2 hour announcement and roll out I watched live last night along with 1.5 million other people. Poof, our world changed just like that, overnight.

First of all - this does not belong in this thread but in the AI thread!

Secondly I’m not buying it. Musk has a long track record of overhyping his so-called “inventions”—from self-driving robotaxis that still can't safely navigate basic scenarios like stopping for school children, to his “intelligent” humanoid robot, the first version of which literally had a person inside, and the second was remote-controlled from the next room.

And frankly, I don’t want any AI trained by Musk. His public statements and behavior increasingly reflect authoritarian and white supremacist tendencies. He promotes a worldview where the ultra-wealthy are the only ones who matter, and the rest of us are expendable. That’s not a future I want tech to serve.

 

[SamAndreas]

First of all - this does not belong in this thread but in the AI thread!

Secondly I’m not buying it. Musk has a long track record of overhyping his so-called “inventions”—from self-driving robotaxis that still can't safely navigate basic scenarios like stopping for school children, to his “intelligent” humanoid robot, the first version of which literally had a person inside, and the second was remote-controlled from the next room.

And frankly, I don’t want any AI trained by Musk. His public statements and behavior increasingly reflect authoritarian and white supremacist tendencies. He promotes a worldview where the ultra-wealthy are the only ones who matter, and the rest of us are expendable. That’s not a future I want tech to serve.

I hear you, when I see a photo of Musk I detect an foul odor in the air, It's in my mind I'm sure, but that smell is sour nonetheless.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

For months, most of a year, I've been wondering what the hell was up with Musk, as of last night, now I know, all of a sudden the odd pieces came together.

You don't understand Musk and you clearly don't know his history, or you're in denial about it. He's the biggest liar when it comes to his tech promises. He's the poster boy of hyperbolic over-promising & severely under-delivering, when he actually delivers. For many many years, Must's been promising every year that next year is when we'll have fully self-driving cars. That "brave new world" still isn't even on the horizon. His self-driving technology is still lethally flawed.

It's a brave new world out there, and we're going there whether we like it or not.

This is an empty, meaningless, clichéd and absurdly fatalistic statement. It's just more of your crusading on behalf of the very inaccurate and unreliable chat AI’s. I think you're hell bent on promoting all things chat AI, because you made a mistake and can't bear to admit you made a mistake. You started using chat AI, specifically Musk's Grok at first, without realizing how much it provides fake and false information. When it was pointed out to you how false and fake chat AI's are, you started a foolish crusade of denial to try to prove the very false notion that the information chat AI’s give are accurate and reliable. Even your latest go to chat AI, Gemini, tells you that “Gemini could be wrong” at the bottom of every response it gives you. You keep ignoring that.

The future is not predetermined. If we don't like what we see, we can change it.

This is a short 30 minute segment of the 2 hour announcement and roll out I watched live last night along with 1.5 million other people.

1.5 million is only about .44% of the US population and it's only about .019% of the world population. 1.5 million is a lot of people, but it's not nearly as impressive or impactful as you're trying to make it out to be. About 127 million people watched the last Super Bowl, just for some clear eyed perspective.

1.5 million people is a big number and it’s a lot of people, but that many people watching a Musk video doesn’t have nearly the impact on our world that you seem to imply and hope that it does.

Poof, our world changed just like that, overnight.

Our world did not change overnight. That's promotional hype and nonsense. The only thing that went "poof" overnight was your objectivity and rational thought on the empirically proven issue of how unreliably false and fake the responses that chat AI's give are and how much Musk has lied, is lying and will continue to lie in the future.

The most impactful change that Musk has brought into the world is his major and continue contribution to the global rise in tyranny, especially right here in the US, and you've started crusading lock, stock and barrel on his behalf of the most dangerous weapons in his arsenal of tyranny and anti-democracy.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

I hear you, when I see a photo of Musk I detect an foul odor in the air, It's in my mind I'm sure, but that smell is sour nonetheless.

Then why do you keep cheer leading for Musk and his most dangerous weapons in his arsenal of tyranny and anti-democracy? It's a major self-contradiction.