Matthew

No, they manufacture a lot because they have infinite cheap highly repressed labor and 76 years of intense government projects to build up industries.

Yeah I just read a story today on the NYT about how the right wing social media bubble still has a love affair with ivermectin, with influencers claiming it reverses cancer, autism, etc.

You would lose that bet. They some kind of doctor at their megachurch who would host a clinic during the pandemic where he would dole out ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. So she did that instead of going to a real doctor, at least before her condition escalated.

My aunt believed this shit. She died of covid. Turns out the horse dewormer medcation she got from her church did not help.

No problem, bud. They have 1.4 billion people and a mixed economy with a large, decades-long poltical program of intense economic development. That many people going from agricultural poverty to high tech manufacturing in a 50 year span means it will eventually overtake US gdp. However the average person in China is still quite poor by currect US standards. US GDP per capita is 83k, while China's GDP per capita is 12k. So if you're argument is that tarrifs are good because look how great China's citizens are faring, that's going to be a weak argument. Finally, they have the most diversified economy in the world and manufacture goods for every corner of the world. Tarrifs on imports mean very little to China because they domestically manufacture so much. It's basically a luxury tax for them. The 12% share they export to the US is important but they are not utterly dependent upon it.

Basic economic reality is woke now.

Tell that to the republican Senators who feel pretty certain that the House bill makes a clear pathway for drastic medicaid cuts and are not wanting that section 409 language included. Their bill doesn't specify any spending reductions. The word "cuts" appears zero times in the 86 page resolution. The whole thing is general policy statements. And with that in mind, their policy statement about Medicaid leaves it open to being changed, while it's language about medicare leaves no room for it being changed. Hence Senate Republicans not yet having condensus on a budget plan.

1. Siding with Russia, conceding all of their demands immediately, parroting their propaganda, and denegrating their president, and making colonial style resource demands as a condition for an overwhelmingly pro-Russia surrender by Ukraine. 2. On Feb 24th, the US voted in the UN against a resolution condemning Russian agression, together with North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Haiti, and several other shitty countries. 3 & 4. On Feb 14th Vance met with Germany's AfD leader and also gave a speech implying that the German limits against neo-nazis hate speech are a bigger threat to Europe than Russia.

Section 409 blasts Medicaid as a bloated program with too many recipients. Compare that Section 406 that defends Medicare spending as essential and needing to be protected. Many Republicans including Johnson and Trump are defending Medicaid precisely because there is a debate among Congressional Republicans about the prospects of making drastic changes to it, whether those be work requirements, recinding the Medicaid expansion in the ACA, or replacing the funding system with capped block grants. These are ideas Johnson himself supported just a few years ago.

Let me help you out. Congressional Republicans have not passed a budget. The House passed their version of it, which the Senate Republicans don't much care for. Cutting medicaid, which almost 20% of Americans rely on, to fund more tax cuts for the rich is probably not a winning strategy but don't let that stop you. Republicans control house senate and presidency until midterm election at which point the house is almost always lost to the other party.

Oh wow so you're not even really paying attention then?

Normally the main domestic policy function of a modern US president is to lead legislative initiatives. Trump seems rather occupied with trying to use more superficial tactics like EOs and whatever tf DOGE is. Is he leading the Congress towards a clear legislative vision? The clock is still ticking on Republican's 2 years of having a trifecta and ability to pass any law they want. At this point it doesn't even seem certain that they will be able to keep the government open in two weeks as the different factions of republicans can't agree on what to do for a budget, tax cuts, cutting medicaid etc.

The takeaway here is that the UK, like the rest of our former allies and trade partners, no longer can see the US as an ally. Trump and Vance now have us allying with Russia, North Korea, and German neo-Nazis. So much winning!

So can DOGE currently access Treasury Department records? Right. You're obviously unprepared to talk about any specific case, with your three generic and inaccurate talking points. The Supreme Court so far in a preliminary brief has ruled that Trump cannot remove Dellinger until the case is resolved. That's after multiple previous appeals in which Trump has already lost. So yeah courts so far have 3 times sided with Dellinger.

How utterly embarrassing for the US.

AKA direct proof that your characterization of the issue--that it was challenged once and failed--is false. AKA a coordinated and well-organized effort by 23 states to effectively use existing law and the courts to moderately keep a rouge president in check. 7 cases right now have active appeals. There have even the two preliminary rulings by the Supreme Court. In Dellinger v. Bessent the Court has so far sided with the guy who was fired, and AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition v. Department of State they did get the SCOTUS to remove a payment deadline but not dismiss the actual case or lower court's rationale aagainst the Trump admin. The appeals courts and Supreme Court are certainly not rushing to strike down these state complaints that have been appealed.

One attempt to request a blanket restraining order against Musk was rejected on Feb 12th, American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. Ezell. But a more recent case succeeded, New York v. Trump, resulting in a Feb 21 injunction against DOGE accessing Treasury data. There are many other DOGE cases sailing along: Project On Government Oversight, Inc. v. Trump New Mexico v. Musk Alliance for Retired Americans v. Bessent American Federation of State v. Social Security Administartion Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics In Washington v. U.S. Doge Service Center For Taxpayer Rights v. Internal Revenue Service Does v. Musk Gribbon v. Musk Nemeth-Greenleaf v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent Electronic Privacy Information Center v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought University of California Student Association v. Carter American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations v. Department of Labor Doe v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management Burns v. Trump Public Citizen v. Trump American Public Health Association v. Office of Management and Budget Lentini v. DOGE And this is just one area. There are perhaps hundreds of cases filed so far night and day. As of yesterday, 34 cases so far have resulted in current rulings and injunctions against Trump.

When an agency, program, and appropriated funding are created by statute, there is no legal way for the Presidency to eliminate it without doing so through Congress. When you mass fire people without following reduction in force procedures, you're violating the law. Trump 1.0 was sloppy too. They are literally using the same effective arguments in court to quash the same sloppy illegal actions. Resting on the idea that using the courts to call out legal violations is automatically "lAwFaRe" is just a right wing concession that they aren't able to do their dumb stuff within the bounds of the law nor effectively make new laws of the sort they would want.

Absolutely using existing law and the courts has worked. Because trump is trying to operate outside of the law. Within hours of trumps birthright citizenship EO, these AGs had filed cases. Notice how birthright citizenship still exists? Within hours of Trumps Jan 27th spending freeze memo these AGs had filed a case against. Which is why most of it wasn't implemented. A lot of this DOGE stuff is a clear violation of labor laws. There of course is a legal way to do a mass reduction of workforce but trump people are sloppy and don't know how to follow the law.

It's been extremely effective so far by stopping some of the most id1otic things from taking effect. 23 AGs have been working together closrly for over a year to coordinate legal reactions against Trump's illegal and unconditional actions.

I'm in the red state of iowa which is one of the biggest meat packing states in the country. Its republicans here that bend over for anything the ag industry wants and its Democrats fight against it. For example: - Last year when it was found that migrant children were working night shifts to clean the meat packing equipment, republicans relaxed the child labor laws to allow it. - A few weeks ago, Republicans passed a Cancer Gag Act making it impossible to sue the Ag corporations for any cancer they cause. Pesticides in particular are a major toxic hazard for farm workers and iowa has one of the highest cancer rates in the country.

It would be great if Guideline 1 were followed. I think the problem is that forum organization does not lend itself to the differing tiers of political discussion. The bottom tier, which makes up 99% of the content here, is low-quality, low-information, and poorly sourced opinion. It's everyday quick reactions. Nothing wrong with that--its largely what people come here for. But higher quality policy discussion quickly gets swallowed up and hijacked by the low-quality off-topic nonsense. It's discouraging to those with thoughtful topic ideas, knowing that if they bother to post it, it will just be immediately taken over by nincompoops. It's telling that the forum called "Federal Policies in the United States" almost never has an active thread about any actual federal policy. My proposal would be to make a Political Opinions forum for casual chat, and a Policy Discussion forum for moderated debate, in which replies must be on-topic and meet some minimal objective threshold of quality. Although this would require a whole team of at least a half- dozen liberal and conservative moderators. Frankly I don't think this forum's right wing has a deep enough bench of accountable/responsible people to facilitate this.

It doesn't matter what his job title is, it matters that he has significant decision-making powers in the executive branch. Especially as someone with tens of billions in government contracts and obvious self- interest in weakening the laws that regulate his industries. Its an obvious recipe for rampant corruption.

On Feb 13th, 14 states led by the NY AG have sued, and there are a bunch of others. Musk is the leader of this agency and issues public pronouncements to the entire executive branch in his capacity as leader of this agency, making him not just a public official as per Article II section 2, but currently the de facto highest appointed official in the government.

Not true. In this case Musk has been marketed as the head of a major agency. The Constitution specifies that appointment of executive branch officials must be confirmed by the Senate unless the Congress specifically provides for the president to appoint certain inferior officers.