Musk aides gain access to sensitive Treasury payment system
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Are there no checks and balances in place? Seems like one side that won the popular vote has taken the entire spectrum of action, regardless if they need to govern for an entire nation.
All it takes for bad people to win, is for good people to do nothing.
Or for good people to run shitty candidates that can’t win the election
Or maybe this is something else: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/trump-temporary-...
As far as I can tell, nothing that that Musk et al is doing is unusual when an organisation changes hands. This is normal for a change of government or a corporate aquisition.
Perhaps there should be certain, limited, aspects of executive decision making that require congressional oversight, but because left weren't decrying the lack of checks and balances previously, they now come across as sore losers, worse, dishonest sore losers who are cloaking their pettiness as concern.
Secondly, the left lost the public support so badly that the republicans control congress now, so even if such oversight existed, it would also be controlled by the republican party.
Political, not civil, servants taking over these systems without any oversight is truly brazen. Sounds like you're saying that since there wasn't a prior act of Congress declaring this illegal, it's just whining. Please clarify.
You're right that oversight would be influenced by the party in power. Generally, the inspectors general would be relatively independent but guess what, they all got sacked just a few days ago. And Republican congresspeople behave as if they represent the president, not their constituents. The system functioned with some level of decorum before, but this looks like war.
Oversight in these systems tends to be illusory, because for the executive branch to function it fundamnetally needs to have the authority to make the decisions that are currently being made.
The Democrats have, broadly speaking, not cared much for oversight when they were in power, so suddenly caring about it now that republicans are in power comes across as, and probably is, just them being sore losers.
This is all batshit insanity, an assault on democracy.
They are official government employees / advisors, peforming a task within their remit.
Clearly your framing is driven by ideological hatred, but there's nothing about this that isn't above board.
Is that the current trope in American political discourse? If someone points out there are brazen acts which haven't happened before you just tack the label "ideological hatred" or "partisan" and think that covers all ground?
They are random goons, DOGE wasn't signed into existence by Congress, the "officer" in charge of DOGE has not been through the process of confirmation by Congress/Senate. Those people are getting access to the Treasury without any checks and balances process.
I cannot believe that Americans are falling for this, you were supposed to fight against the tyranny of highly-concentrated power in a single person's hand and yet now it's ok to do it because it's a team you support? This is all so stupid to watch from the outside, a bizarro-world of hot takes without any regards to civics, government function, nor democratic distribution of power across government branches.
What is infuriating is that any argument against it is then met by some twist of an ad hominem boiling down to "this is partisanship/ideological hatred". It's just all so, so stupid.
Edit: also forgot, I don't think anyone like you shouting "partisan" or "ideology" has ever heard about "The Network State", I recommend going through it to see the playbook you are all participating in.
It is time for their civics lesson, not ours. Hopefully they can learn to code.
It's more akin to Mao, if you like that then best of luck.
The screeching about Mao and Nazis doesn't work anymore. Accessing payment systems isn't the holocaust and you've cried wolf too many times for it to work anymore.
It's just some pent up rage and anger, now being used for retribution against something not even tangible, it's just wrecking for the sake of wrecking.
The only way to see through if it's "crying wolf" or heeding some warning calls is when you're way past a turning back point, it's speeding fast to that point and you are actively choosing to blind yourself because you feel there's an "other" (as your usage of "you" in there) that is only against what's happening because of some distorted notion of bucketing people into camps of ideology and only thinking through that lens.
I don't even know how to try anymore to shine a light on how absurd each step is growing to be on top of each other, if even the cohort of Americans who have absolute access to information, knowledge, are supposedly well-educated can just blindly follow through the master plan in motion and call anyone trying to warn you there's danger ahead as the opposite-you I simply have no respect left for the general American populace.
You do deserve the reckoning that is very likely to come, perhaps after that we can talk about who is crying wolf or not because this "no, you" rhetoric does work, it's fucking exhausting, it doesn't lead anywhere, and there's no room for talking to be done if you cannot ever reflect on your own position to admit that some stuff doesn't look nor feel right.
For all the fearmongering of a New World Order the conservatives in general have been stoking it does seem, yet again, that every accusation is an admission. Your government is rapidly getting taken under control of a few select people with a plan to fundamentally change how the fabric of your State works (and it's not under the 10th Ammendment or whatever the fuck else is in your fossilised Constitution). The plan has been talked out in the open, they've been talking about it on podcasts, on interviews, on articles, and yet it seems that any warning call is just "crying wolf".
That is what we are concerned about. This violates all kinds of norms, regulations, and laws.
The left did not lose "so badly". They lost a handful of electoral college swing states by small margins. These people do not have a mandate, no matter how much they say they do.
You needn't be an officer to gain access to and analyze payment systems.
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/27ba0a6a-0d9b-4e08-8329-730b581c0...
Normal thing. Provided they are using the same criteria for the Interim Clearances.
He has a mandate to significantly reduce the size of the federal government, and he has the authority to appoint Musk to act in this way.
You can complain about it violating norms all you like, but norms aren’t laws and taking into account the preferences of the left isn’t something Trump is required to do nor is it something the Democrats have done in the past for the right.
As for violating employment laws, there’s no evidence of this. It appears you just threw that in there hoping no one would challenge you on it.
So, no, I didn't just throw that on there.
Even if there weren't, are you so callous and heartless that you can't see how this blow-it-all-up approach is making chaos of people's lives? Is that what you're here for... to make things hard on people?
The Republicans won the election. That doesn't mean trample the entirety of the country to fit their vision. The Democrats have done nothing like this.
Stop defending fascists. It's not a good look.
I'm sure calling them such names makes sense in your echo chambers, but to the overwhelming majority of people this is an inaccurate and inappropriate label.
Calling people things which they are not, does not hurt their reputation, it simply makes your fringe of the political spectrum look immature.
It's just lockeroom talk. Right?
The entire Republican chorus backed up this juvenile locker room talk excuse. Trotted it out for the whole world to see. Not very mature. Did you love it?
Peaceful transition also isn't the law. It was a norm. Until Trump pissed on it.
Trump ordered the vice president to overturn an election, and when Mike Pence refused that order, Trump sent a mob to have the VPOTUS assassinated.
And then, in possibly something like mass hysteria, they vote for Trump again. Or maybe it's an addiction to depravity, anger and drama. Like drug addiction.
Trump voters voted for a rapist, for president. This how low and desperate they've become. They kicked Mike Pence to the curb - all the boilerplate Republican policies they claim to want, but Pence wasn't good enough. It's pretty clear the right wanted an abusive personality.
Don't expect reasonable people to become docile about that.
Are you saying following the laws to protect sensitive information is not worth it in this case, because it has been authorized by the party of the day?
What ever happened to those commenters?
I presume there's an emergency lawsuit or 20 to stop this; it will be interesting to see how it gets ruled on. Then we'll know just how much trouble we're in.
The moderation system here is doing incredible damage beyond belief right now, is being exploited by the very worst to suppress exchange of ideas at a key time.
Not to mention that this can have GRAVE consequences. If these assholes tank the system and bond payments and such do not go out, it's game over.
All interesting questions. If your goal is to cut expenses, presumably your goal would be to have access to turn off the money tap. Because otherwise, what can DOGE really accomplish?
People need to accept that Trump won and is now directly in charge of the executive branch.
Imagine holding the belief that a company's CEO should wait until the CFO publishes financial statements to the market to understand how the company is performing. That's what people sound like when they complain about Musk et al querying government databases.
I'm not sure what fraud or abuse you are expecting them to find? There's external auditors that audit the books daily, so you're talking about a conspiracy that would be massive to hide a single cent.
The treasury doesn't choose how to spend the money. Congress tells them to release x amount for program y, and the general concern is about how program y spends its money once it's released from the treasury. This won't show that at all.
How can you seriously believe the words you write?
Using fiction to justify Trumps real corruption is ridiculous.
If Trump can be found to be corrupt for real, then let's see. But everything brought against him up to now, from the Clinton-sponsored Russiagate hoax, the insurrection hoax, the cat lady rape hoax, the stealing nuclear documents hoax, and everything else, has been COMPLETE and OBVIOUS bullshit. It pains me to say that it was obvious because I too was fooled by the media on some of these things at one time.
Biden was sent to Ukraine with the clear instruction to get the corrupt AG Shokin removed. That decision was made by the WH and bipartisan senate foreign affairs committee after coordinating with the EU and other parties.
And that is what Biden did.
It is bizarre to blatantly mischaracterize something that is so well documented.
If Biden was innocent he could have fought the case in court and won just like Trump did when dealing with countless legal attacks over the last 8 years. Instead, he pardoned practically his whole family for everything since 2014, crimes in which he was likely complicit. If that doesn't make you suspicious, then you need your head checked.
Again, Biden was sent with the clear directive to Ukraine to achieve the dismissal of Shokin. Which he did. There is ZERO doubt about that. He did not make any decisions that could have been corrupted.
I'm curious why you feel this way? To me, because there was nothing to the allegations surrounding Ukraine, the prosecution of Hunter Biden seems entirely political. If he were he any other person, he would not have received the treatment he did for the crimes he committed, which seem like very minor infractions (tax evasion, lying about being on drugs) compared to what was alleged (selling bribes and leveraging US foreign policy with Joe). The Republicans who encouraged that prosecution abused their power, and so I don't see why it should be disgraceful for Biden to similarly abuse his in defense.
In normal times POTUS shouldn't pardon his family, but when his political opponents abuse a government committee to come after his family, then it's fair.
>To me, because there was nothing to the allegations surrounding Ukraine, the prosecution of Hunter Biden seems entirely political.
All the prosecution conducted against Trump was political so it is understandable that Biden could have this fear of retaliation. But the entire establishment worked to suppress the Hunter Biden story and all lines of inquiry about Biden's mental health. If you aren't suspicious about these people after all the antics they've pulled, you're just not paying attention.
Nobody expects Trump to have the intellectual or ethical capacity to act with integrity. Biden showed that he is the same and hurt his political cause for years to come.
The way I see it, Biden's whole message was "This thing is okay, we shouldn't burn it down". Then we held and election and the result was people voted to burn it all down. On the way out the door and at the end of his life, as people arrived with gasoline and matches, Biden chose his family over his political cause. Because why should he chose democracy if we won't?
If not for all the fucking downvotes from people like you I would probably have a thousand karma now. That's the kind of groupthink I'm dealing with here. To add insult to injury I can't downvote anyone myself.
I'm surprised you're still not banned, that must be dang being overly kind (maybe because paulg)
If other people can make antagonistic political comments with impunity, why does disagreeing with them put me in the "troll" category? I think you just don't like people who disagree with you by default. This is how the left operates today, and why I get so pissed off nearly every time I have to talk to a left-leaning person.
I'm surprised you care enough to bother replying to me. By the way, where are these tags you speak of? I would like to know if I'm arguing with known trolls, or to catalog them for myself.