Summary
Elon Musk announced that he and Trump are shutting down USAID, bypassing Congress’s authority over federal spending.
Musk claimed Trump fully supports the move, though Trump has only criticized USAID without explicitly confirming its closure.
The White House has not commented. The administration has already placed USAID officials on leave and reviewed its funding.
Critics argue the move violates federal law, setting up a potential legal battle.
Seems somehow…. I don’t know, illegal? to have non-elected officials making decisions to shut down government agencies?
If only there were another part of our government designed to somehow… maybe, keep things like this from happening?
Not necessarily but almost certainly in this case. Congress created USAID. Only Congress can shut it down.
Hahahaha so long people like you had this argument when asked why they think Trump wouldn’t become a dictator
How the fuck is Elon Musk suddenly in charge of the US Government? How are the American people OK with this? How are American politicians even OK with this?
Musk can literally never show himself in public anymore for fear of assassination.
Why do you think he’s been running around with
a human shieldone of his kids at all times recently?
Remember when Republicans were whinging about “unelected bureaucrats” and the “shadow government”?
Yeah, now they’re literally implementing that themselves.
I wonder if Elon walks around with personal security.
Remember when Republicans were whinging about “unelected bureaucrats” and the “shadow government”?
“Wait, it’s all projection?”
🌍 👨🚀 🔫 👨🚀
“Always has been”
He does and quite a lot it seems, the New York Times report it’s up to 20 bodyguards and a doctor. Tesla payed 2.4 million USD for protection of Musk in 2023. Apparently they went through documents that the Handelsblatt got from Lukasz Krupski, who used to work at Tesla
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/technology/elon-musk-security.html
We’re not okay with it, they’ve just removed our ability to do anything about it that isn’t a literal act of terrorism
JFK put it quite nicely back in 1962: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
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This was all outlined in Project 2025 which was made publically available for everyone to read. Then people voted for Trump.
A bunch of the conservatives I know professed to believe him when he said he had no idea about project 2025. Whether they were just masking or actually duped, I have my guesses.
You say that like trump voters read anything
Therein lies the problem.
American people are protesting. Politicians are either actively allowing this behavior or saying, “Oh-no, he can’t do that! What he did is very bad!” Unfortunately, politicians are not beholden to the people they are supposedly representing.
Probably for the best. Mostly they profit off of other poor countries
Elon thinks he’s pulling a Julius Caesar on us (crossing the Rubicon), but he’s actually pulling a Crassus campaigning in Parthia. I pray he ends the exact same way. There is no more fitting end…
And for anyone who isn’t aware of how Crassus died go watch Viserys’ death in Game of Throne. It was inspired by Crassus’ death.
For those of you who dont care to research. He most likely died in battle against the Parthians, but according to legend they poured liquid gold into his mouth post mortem to make fun of his avarice. Also some shenanigans with his severed head occured.
What the other guys are referring to is some later depictions where he was executed with liquid gold being poured down his throat.
“buT iTS aN oFFiCiAL aCt sO itS LeGAl”
- a blatantly corrupt Supreme Court
That’s… Not applicable here… Depending on what you mean.
That ruling was about personal responsibility and accountability. Not whether everything the government does at the president’s request is legal.
i.e you can sue the government, just not the president himself.
You also usually need “standing” to sue. If you’re personally affected, you have standing. If you’re a state or local government and have your government or citizens affected, you have standing. Who has standing here?
The human suffering cost is completely amoral and the influence cost on the us should be considered treason, but that doesn’t mean there’s someone who can sue to fix it
Congress would have standing aince it’s their laws being ignored - but good luck with that for 2 years… I assume the people in USAID also have standing as their employment would be illegally terminated.
“…the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presump- tive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.”
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. He can’t personally be prosecuted. You can still sue the government.
Which translates to “Trump can do whatever he wants… if there happen to be consequences, they’ll be paid by the tax payers”
I mean… You’re not wrong but you’ve also oversimplified too much to be right.
He can’t personally be punished, but then no president in history has ever actually been personally prosecuted which is why it was such a big deal that Trump may have been.
His policies and commands can still be overturned by courts though. So while he is free to command something it may or may not be done. Though chances are pretty good at the moment that he will face little in terms of opposition…
He also has pardon power, so he can direct others to break the law and then pardon them
so where did I oversimplify exactly? he can do whatever he wants, there is a small chance he may be stopped (don’t know by whom, he controls all branches of gov and the courts)
His grants freeze was already ordered blocked by federal courts. There is some opposition, but courts are slow and trump is throwing shit like a monkey in the zoo.
Nope.
It’s cute that people are still in denial
I’d say it’s “cute” when people with no grasp of the law attempt to make broad statements about it, but it’s not. It’s actually super annoying.
How blatantly they are killing people and emptying coffers. This is a coup and a robbery.
I believe the word for that is kleptocracy.
This will kill people. Not that more blood on Trump’s hands will change his supporter’s minds.
I’m sure they’ll say he’s “hurting the right people”
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Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity
It’s probably both. Trump is an idiot, but a malicious one, and he’s very easily manipulated by malign forces both inside and outside the USA. The combination of ego, insecurity, greed, stupidity, financial vulnerability and sexual indiscretion make him the perfect target for anyone wanting to control him. Many of these things (minus the financial bit) are true of Musk too.
The razors that I know of are rife for abuse but particularly that one when dealing with a group of people who are experts at generating plausible deniability.
They are pseudo logic.
I’m sure President Musk knows what he is doing.
He’s doing to the US what he did with Twitter.
Dumb question: why are they targeting USAID?
Elon Musk pushes the lie that truly homeless people don’t exist. That essentially it’s a choice and we should feel no empathy for them. Add to that his well-documented history of racism and weird eugenicist beliefs about IQ and superior genes that need to survive, you start to get the picture for why he thinks taking food and medicine away from the most deprived people on the planet is a priority for the US government.
I assume:
- “wasted” money not spent to directly benefit us citizens
- there always seems to be racism at the core
- they think they can get away with it - who will speak for the suffering millions in developing countries
- Trump doesnt understand concepts like influence, soft power, long term thinking, morality
This is “free money” where they can claim their “$2T” in savings
The funny thing is most foreign aid projects are implemented by American contracting companies. A very large percentage of the money stays in the US and employs Americans. Look up DAI, Chemonics, Abt Associates, Creative Associates, TetraTech, etc. Most of these companies will go bankrupt because of these actions. In the case of Chemonics, they run a project to distribute HIV and malaria medication to millions around the world. These people will lose their medication. They also run a program to detect famine in Africa, South America, and parts of Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_Early_Warning_Systems_Network
Perfectly summarized. It’s a damn shame. People well die, and the US cedes influence and leaves a power vacuum China is happy to fill.
To make it worse, we spend almost nothing on it. They are saving pennies:
The U.S. is the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid by far. It spends less than 1 percent of its budget on foreign assistance, a smaller share overall than some other countries.
PBS is next on the chopping block. Problem solved. /s
Is there a reason congress is not taking legal action?
Investigations would start in the house, and have to be signed off on by Mike Johnson. He was elected with over a 70% margin and his voters love what’s happening. The other option would be John Thune, who has about a 20% margin in South Dakota, and his people love what’s happening too.
Unless you can change those facts, America will become a fascist authoritarian nation.
Also even if his voters hate what’s happening there’s nothing they can do about it now. All the power was handed over and the damage is done, no amount of regret will change anything now that the GOP feels capable of doing literally whatever they want and have all these majorities.
The writing was on the wall but that country is largely illiterate so it didn’t much matter.
Nah, even with the lack of accountability, if they saw real movement in their own polling, it would change their behavior quickly. Even without an election coming up, mass plummeting of opinion polls is their warning that first their funding will dry up, they might not care, and second people will start building gallows outside their office. While the cops hide from the crowd. The police can really only control a minority of the population. If a real majority shows up, they back down out of self preservation. As happened in multiple towns the past few days, or back in 2020 when they took over areas of Portland.
Congress is neutered without a democratic majority in the house and 67 seats in the senate. Congress is basically useless. Right now, the only check on the president is the judiciary. And, shall we say, measures at the fringes.
Congress has been ceding power to the President for decades, this is actually not too far off where they were headed anyway
Because the republicans have the majority in both the house and the senate.
And the judiciary.
Critics argue the move violates federal law, setting up a potential legal battle.
So?
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(sigh)How the fuck are Republicans to the left of Democrats in shutting down this terrorist organization lmfao
Unfortunate but not shocking.
