Law be damned, Trump asserts unilateral control over executive branch, federal service (6 Viewers)

[superchuck500]

Following the Project 2025 playbook, in the last week, Trump and his newly installed loyalists have moved to (1) dismiss federal officials deemed unreliable to do his bidding (including 17 inspectors general) - many of which have protections from arbitrary dismissal, (2) freeze all science and public health activity until he can wrest full control, (3) freeze all federal assistance and grant activity deemed inconsistent with Trump's agenda, and (4) moved to terminate all federal employee telework and DEI programs.

The problem is much of this is controlled by federal law and not subject to sudden and complete change by the president through executive order. Most notably is the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that simply codifies what is the constitutional allocation of resources where Congress appropriates money to the executive branch for a specific purpose, the executive branch must carry out that statutory purpose. This is indeed a constitutional crisis and even if Congress abdicates to Trump by acquiescing, the courts must still apply the law - or rule it unconstitutional.

And meanwhile the architect of much of this unlawful action is Russell Vought, Trump’s OMB nominee who the Senate appears ready to confirm.

120. The Impoundment Crisis of 2025

The Trump administration's Monday spending freeze is likely to provoke a crisis over the constitutionality of "impoundment"—one that the justices could well have to resolve *very* soon.

www.stevevladeck.com

 

[Incumbent]

This is all already very alarming, but I had the press conference on in the office and when asked what else Musk will have access to, Trump specifically said "military" in addition to others.

How is anybody okay with any of this?

 

[TampaJoe]

NARRATOR: It was not being done properly.

How do you know? The News?

I believe very little of what gets reported on the internet or in the news. I prefer people testifying under oath or an investigation by impartial professional investigators.

As statement by “the Narrarator” does carry much weight.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

How do you know? The News?

I believe very little of what gets reported on the internet or in the news. I prefer people testifying under oath or an investigation by impartial professional investigators.

As statement by “the Narrarator” does carry much weight.

Right, but shouldn't the public's natural stance be skepticism? It seems to me that if people are coming in and changing things very rapidly, the default position should be "prove to me that you're doing it right".

 

[TampaJoe]

Public pressure. We get people like you, who claim to be on the fence with it all to start questioning the process of all this. To make you think, "hmmm.. this is a terrible way to do business". You then convince more people in your circle of the need to do things properly, and all of you start contacting your Republican Congressional representatives. Right now, they think they have a mandate to do whatever they want, but if they start losing support, they start reigning him in.

Ie, we pressure you (obviously not effectively), so that you pressure your friends who live in republican congressional districts, to start pressuring their representatives to start adhering to better process and transparency. If they think people actually care about stuff like that and they might lose votes over it, they will react.

As I said, I have NO problem with someone questioning government spending. I have NO problem with it being done by someone outside of government. I DO think that Congress has oversight responsibility over the process so I have NO problem with Musk testifying under oath as to the process and the controls around the process.

I have done this kind of work in business. Rarely is it done where the folks who benefit from the process under the microscope don’t raise some objections. It is unnerving to have someone question what you do. But it needs to be done.

 

[TampaJoe]

Right, but shouldn't the public's natural stance be skepticism? It seems to me that if people are coming in and changing things very rapidly, the default position should be "prove to me that you're doing it right".

I get that. It’s perfectly alright to be skeptical. I’m skeptical when people tell me it isn’t needed. You don’t spend 6 to 7 trillion a year without mistakes and irregularities.

The thing is that you can’t get bogged down by the politics. If you do then this will never get done. If I stopped working the problem because of folks complaining, the problem would never get solved. This is tough work. You aren’t going to make a lot of friends. But it needs to be done and it should be done objectively.

 

[RobF]

How do you know? The News?

I believe very little of what gets reported on the internet or in the news. I prefer people testifying under oath or an investigation by impartial professional investigators.

As statement by “the Narrarator” does carry much weight.

Joe, the people doing it are all but shouting, "LOOK AT US, WE'RE NOT DOING IT PROPERLY!"

You'd have to not only be hiding under a rock but beating yourself repeatedly over the head with it to think they were doing this properly.

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday chided past celebrations of the U.S. military's diversity in a broad address to Pentagon staff in which he also promised a tough approach to NATO and accountability over the war in Afghanistan.

"I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is our diversity is our strength," Hegseth told the audience, adding under his watch "we will treat everyone with fairness."........

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagons-hegseth-diversity-is-our-strength-is-dumbest-phrase-military-history-2025-02-07/

 

[Optimus Prime]

CHICAGO (AP) — Shortly after he was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy circulated a memo that instructed his department to prioritize families by, among other things, giving preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average when awarding grants.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called the directive last week “deeply frightening," and Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray called it “disturbingly dystopian.”

The memo also calls for prohibiting governments that get Department of Transportation funds from imposing vaccine and mask mandates, and requiring their cooperation with the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

With hundreds of billions of dollars in transportation money still unspent from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, such changes could be a boon for projects in Republican-majority states, which on average have higher fertility rates than those leaning Democratic.

States controlled by Democrats were generally more receptive to mask and vaccine rules to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and have been more resistant to Trump’s immigration raids.

All administrations set their own rules for choosing which transportation projects to prioritize. But some of Duffy's directives were received as highly unusual.

“Distributing transportation funding based marriage and birth rates is bizarre and a little creepy," said Kevin DeGood, senior director of infrastructure and housing policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "States and regions with aging populations tend, on average, to have lower birth rates ... Are they somehow not deserving of transportation investment?”

According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022, the 14 states with the highest fertility rates backed Trump in the November election while the bottom 11 plus the District of Columbia supported Democrat Kamala Harris. Marriage rates tend to skew higher for red states too, but by a smaller margin.

Vice President JD Vance has long expressed concern about declining birth rates, citing national economic needs as well as the inherent value of children.

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn raised the idea of tying transportation funding to population growth during Duffy’s confirmation hearing.

“People are leaving some of these blue states and coming to places like Tennessee,” she said. “And this means that we need to look at where those federal highway dollars are spent and placing them in areas with growing needs..............

Trump official's directive tying transportation grants to birth rates could hinder blue states

President Donald Trump's transportation secretary is instructing his department to prioritize projects for states with higher marriage or birth rates.

apnews.com

 

[MT15]

Interesting read

https://www.pogo.org/investigations/elon-musks-doge-teams-raise-vetting-ethics-concerns

Apparently they can be “Special Government Employees “.

I don’t think they are changing code.

I have no doubt the are amassing huge amounts of data to study and crunch and analysis.

These are the people Musk has that land and catch rockets.

What makes you think they are not changing code? Musk says they are. Basically Treasury says “trust us” that they aren’t changing code. Sorry there’s no trust earned there from anyone.

Musk has been very cavalier in the past about ignoring regulations and breaking rules. Nobody should trust him, and apparently from your article, the only oversight from Trump is “he checks in”. Musk could be doing anything he wants with that data.

These are totally software guys. My guess is that they’re good at what they do, but their allegiance is to Musk. They don’t have degrees. They haven’t been vetted.

This whole thing is a massive conflict of interest and ethical nightmare. You may be fine with this team of stooges for a billionaire scrutinizing your data, but I am not. They need to be reined in and quickly.

There’s no transparency, Musk has shown himself to be untrustworthy.

 

[MT15]

I don’t know that. Has anyone tried?

Musk says he wants the process to be transparent. I assume that includes testifying in Congress.

I don’t oppose him or anyone looking or questions government spending. There is nothing wrong with that. We are 36 trillion in debt and counting.

Transparency adds credibility. He should testify.

Nobody in the GOP Congress will call him in. Nobody. You know that.

Musk saying he wants transparency is something only a fool would believe. He’s famously non-transparent in his enterprises. His handling of Twitter should give you a clue about that.

He lies all the time. He boasted on Twitter that he had removed a Lutheran charity from the payment system, and that they would no longer be receiving any money, presumably as a payback for the Lutheran official who preached to Trump on Inauguration Day.

So either he is already changing things in the code that he supposedly has “read only” access to, or he’s a big fat liar.

You still okay with all this? You think this is the way they should be doing things?

 

[MT15]

Beats complaining. Congress has oversight responsibility. If I were in the minority I’d be insisting they exercise it.

You know that the minority party cannot force them to call him in, and the GOP will never do it. Our only hope would be that the GOP loses its majority in the House.

 

[TampaJoe]

Nobody in the GOP Congress will call him in. Nobody. You know that.

Musk saying he wants transparency is something only a fool would believe. He’s famously non-transparent in his enterprises. His handling of Twitter should give you a clue about that.

He lies all the time. He boasted on Twitter that he had removed a Lutheran charity from the payment system, and that they would no longer be receiving any money, presumably as a payback for the Lutheran official who preached to Trump on Inauguration Day.

So either he is already changing things in the code that he supposedly has “read only” access to, or he’s a big fat liar.

You still okay with all this? You think this is the way they should be doing things?

I’ve already answered this several times. I’m okay with someone doing a deep dive into govt spending. Im okay with hearing and testimony on access and process and methods. I’m not going to express an opinion on hearsay.

 

[MT15]

Oh, and I saw a farmer on TikTok saying his government payments had been frozen. I don’t have anyway to know if he’s legit, but if he’s not panicking he’s a GREAT actor. I don’t think most people can act that well. Anyway, this seems to confirm what UTJ says, which is that payments have been frozen. This poor guy said if he doesn’t get his payments soon he will lose his farm.

I’m not going to express an opinion on hearsay.

Musk said it himself. That isn’t hearsay. It could be a lie, but at the very least it indicates an improper and unethical mindset that he would boast about cutting off payments to a Lutheran charity.

 

[TampaJoe]

You know that the minority party cannot force them to call him in, and the GOP will never do it. Our only hope would be that the GOP loses its majority in the House.

yeah well Republican minorities had the same problem. You have to change public perception. Calling Musk a Nazi isn’t going to do it. You have to ask for something reasonable. Hearing and oversight is reasonable. Shouting matches are unproductive and only serve to further cement the opposition.

 

[MT15]

yeah well Republican minorities had the same problem. You have to change public perception. Calling Musk a Nazi isn’t going to do it. You have to ask for something reasonable. Hearing and oversight is reasonable. Shouting matches are unproductive and only serve to further cement the opposition.

We have been presenting reasonable objections - the young guys haven’t been vetted or investigated, there are massive conflicts of interest when Musk has all this access to his competitor’s information, Musk himself boasted that he canceled payments to a Lutheran Charity in retaliation.

Musk has also just publicly called for the WSJ reporter who discovered his young guy’s racist past to be fired. If he is a special government employee, that violates the First Amendment.

And yet, you and Sendai are still defending this as somehow normal. What would it take for you to be concerned about what is happening?

 

[Optimus Prime]

yeah well Republican minorities had the same problem. You have to change public perception. Calling Musk a Nazi isn’t going to do it. You have to ask for something reasonable. Hearing and oversight is reasonable. Shouting matches are unproductive and only serve to further cement the opposition.

why would anyone ever call Elon Musk a Nazi?

 

[Optimus Prime]

You have to change public perception

Any suggestions on how to do that?

Trump and Musk and doing exactly what we told people they were going to do

Hell, Trump and Musk are doing what they said they were going to do

and when people said "Trump won't do that" we countered with "Trump said he was going to do that! Here is a video of him saying he's going to do that!"

To no avail

That seems to be a problem beyond mere perception

 

[TampaJoe]

Yes, that's entirely up to your party, and you know that.

You have no idea what you're talking about. I work in the federal government and I've actually met people in positions of oversight. They take their work seriously.

It's already being done properly. You just refuse to acknowledge it.

I acknowledge we are 36 trillion in debt and counting. I acknowledge that Medicare and Medicaid need to be funded. I don’t think you know what you are talking about. I don’t care who you work for. I know we can’t keep doing what we are doing. The numbers don’t work.

You just refuse to acknowledge that.