Who do you think is governing right now?

[Nationalist]

Right now? Who cares? What an amazing hockey game!

[Hodad]

I couldn't pick two, but policy is definitely the project 2025 playbook (behind the scenes operatives) while Musk is serving his own interests. 

Trump does not read or understand policy in the slightest. He couldn't even tell you what these agencies and actions do. 

[robosmith]

12 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Exactly.

We all know that during the 20 hrs while Biden was sleeping, napping, and not quite up to speed yet, someone/some group was making critical decisions and filling his teleprompter with words that he couldn't pronounce. 

He only had an hour or two of mostly lucid moments per day, that definitely wasn't enough to "run the country". 

We all know that you are just GUESSING cause you HAVE NO INSIDE KNOWLEDGE.

12 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

He's pretending not to notice the plethora of executive orders that Trump signed, which clearly turned the entire country in a different direction over the past 30 days.

• "Duh, who makes desishins? I don't see who runs countree. Maybe "Voters and organized citizen groups" or "Influences from outside the US"? Like, maybe Gazans want to be run off thayr land, so they're secretly controleing Trump? Maybe Panamanianstons don't want their canal ennymore?"

Oh, oh.... the BABY is BACK and it's TERRIFYING. NOT.

[robosmith]

4 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Buddy, every president delegates responsibility to other people. It's normal. It would be stupidity for him to just try to do everything himself. 

After you knew that Biden ran scams to get his son rich in Burisma and China you didn't question his integrity, but you don't even know that there's anything wrong with Musk, yet here you are assuming there is. 

YOU just ASSume that Joe had anything to do with Hunter's gigs.

The rest of us KNOW that if there was ANY evidence to back you up, the RepubliCON House would have used it against Joe.

[Deluge]

On 2/19/2025 at 3:26 PM, Matthew said:

By governing I am specifically referring to shaping government policy. Even on a good day this is not often clear in the US.

It's Musk because he and his team are kicking ass. But that's not because he's in charge, it's because he's been tasked by the man in charge, Donald Trump. 

Isn't it beautiful?

[Matthew]

16 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

every president delegates responsibility to other people. It's normal.

Ok. So in your opinion, the richest guy in the world making major decisions on the shape of our Executive Branch without any consent of Congress is just a normal thing.

[gatomontes99]

54 minutes ago, Matthew said:

Ok. So in your opinion, the richest guy in the world making major decisions on the shape of our Executive Branch without any consent of Congress is just a normal thing.

If he wasn't the richest guy, he'd just be a guy or gal. What does rich have to do with it? You use that term like it is disqualifying. I would posit that rich would be eminently qualifying. He's clearly good with money. He's clearly good at managing large organizations. He's the person on this planet that has the closest personal experience of managing money on that scale. What about being the richest man on the planet disqualifies him from recommending changes to make the government more efficient?

 

[WestCanMan]

1 hour ago, Matthew said:

Ok. So in your opinion, the richest guy in the world making major decisions on the shape of our Executive Branch without any consent of Congress is just a normal thing.

What difference does it make how much money he has? Would you be more comfortable if he was a 45-yr-old barista? Why?

I think it's a good thing that stealing $20M from the gov't wouldn't budge his bottom line. He doesn't need it. 

If you catch him stealing, or doing something underhanded, say "GOTCHA!", but don't just assume that he's evil because he's rich. His motivation here clearly isn't "stealing a billion dollars from the US Gov't". 

[User]

1 hour ago, Matthew said:

Ok. So in your opinion, the richest guy in the world making major decisions on the shape of our Executive Branch without any consent of Congress is just a normal thing.

The Executive Branch runs the Executive Branch. Trump does not need their consent to carry out his powers. 

I think you were having a lot of issues understanding this concept of the American government and the separation of powers in a previous discussion we had to. 

 

[Legato]

[ironstone]

This is who is governing right now.

 

[Matthew]

20 hours ago, User said:

Trump does not need their consent to carry out his powers. 

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.

Edited February 22 by Matthew

[myata]

It took Trump less than a month to demonstrate the country and the world factually, that the system that is about three centuries old is heavily imbalanced to the executive branch; and in combination with de facto dysfunctional legislative, this is a simply dangerous condition that can, objectively again, result in a hostile takeover of the government by a non-democratic, authoritarian group. The political system had decades if not a full century to understand this flaw and remedy it but it was complacent and disinterested. So, the time has come for the hard cures. Evolution does not tolerate sleepy complacency.

[User]

1 hour ago, Matthew said:

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.

Yes, true. 

No, Musk has very clearly been described as a special advisor. The Democrats and left have been the ones fear-mongering about his positions and powers. 

 

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, Matthew said:

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.

The devil's in the details. They might present him in that light but he can still work as an independent consultant on paper. 

If it were unconstitutional there'd be a lawsuit. 

[Matthew]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

If it were unconstitutional there'd be a lawsuit. 

On Feb 13th, 14 states led by the NY AG have sued, and there are a bunch of others.

5 hours ago, User said:

described as a special advisor

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.

[User]

11 minutes ago, Matthew said:

On Feb 13th, 14 states led by the NY AG have sued, and there are a bunch of others.

And... how is that going for them? LOL

13 minutes ago, Matthew said:

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.

Good luck with that, it is not working out for you so far. 

Maybe if you say that to yourself in the mirror over and over again... 

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Matthew said:

On Feb 13th, 14 states led by the NY AG have sued, and there are a bunch of others.

 

14 out of 50. Well I guess we will see what the lawsuit turns up

Quote

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.

depends on how you look at it. It's equally fair to say he's an unpaid consultant. I don't know how much experience you have with labor law but 99% of it is how you present and phrase things. Is he an employee? He's not getting paid. Is he an independent consultant working with the agency? Is he the agencies press person? 

But you've gotten in trouble in the past for unequivocally stating something is or is not legal only to have it thrown in your face later when it turned out you were wrong. Even I, who clearly have more experience with the law than you, very very rarely make absolute statements like that. 

But I do know a couple of things, number one it won't be criminal so the penalty will be that they have to have congress appoint him or follow a procedure or have someone else appointed. But by then I suspect he'll be done the lion's share of his work.

And two, even if it is found to be procedurally wrong they'll either correct it and he will be in or they will point someone else who will be in and will ratify everything he has done to date which means nothing will change.

The only way there's anything significant about it is if somehow this drags on past the midterms and during that time there is a power change in the house and in the senate

[Matthew]

15 hours ago, CdnFox said:

depends on how you look at it. It's equally fair to say he's an unpaid consultant.

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.

[User]

1 hour ago, Matthew said:

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.

Once again, he advises, someone else with the power is actually executing. 

 

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, Matthew said:

It doesn't matter what his job title is,

Of course it does. Don't talk if you don't know

Quote

it matters that he has significant decision-making powers in the executive branch.

All you're doing is demonstrating your ignorance. For example it could easily be said by those who want to that while it appears that he has power in reality he simply makes suggestions and so far the government has agreed to go along with all of them but he's an  consultant and has no actual power on his own. All of his decisions must be vetted by a proper authority.

Practice that doesn't really happen but as long as they can demonstrate that that is the intended process that creates a problem. And that's one of many possible avenues they could take.

Quote

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.

That makes no difference. From a legal point of view anyway. If anything the republicans would likely turn around and say that's what gives him the experience to know how useful or useless many of these government agencies are and successfully target the waste while leaving important services behind. I mean I am aware that that's nothing but propaganda but at the same time they are going to say it and you will have to prove otherwise and you can't  

And here's the problem. The democrats have spent 24 hours of every single day for the last 2 years or so screaming about trump and making the most ridiculous statements that turned out to be untrue for the most part and attacking him rapidly rather than actually addressing legitimate concerns. This is a phenomenon that has been commented on by many including myself on this very forum.

So now it's a case of the boy who cried trump. 2 years of hearing people screaming that trump is evil for this reason and evil for that reason and he's a Nazi and he's a criminal and a fraudster and blah blah blah blah blah people are like "Cool story, so stuff's getting done you say?"

People are tone deaf to concerns about trump because it's all they've heard every waking moment and much of it has turned out to be untrue such as russian collusion and false statements about what he said in this circumstance or that.

Now you get four years of this. All I can say is learn from your mistakes and do better in the future and take elections seriously next time. And stop thinking that it's a legitimate tactic to attack the other side 24 hours a day 7 days a week and call all of their people ignorant bad people

 

[Matthew]

On 2/22/2025 at 3:54 PM, User said:

how is that going for them? LOL

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.

[User]

14 minutes ago, Matthew said:

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.

No, it has not, as their request was initially rejected. It was a rhetorical question. I gave you too much credit for hoping you would know that. 

Musk is still there and DOGE is still going. 

[Nationalist]

More pleasure and satisfaction provided by the Libbies.

Wha's-a-matter Libbies? Don't like having your own political tricks played on you?

You dumb fcks. You spend 8 years teaching Trump how to work the system. Now you hate that he's working the system.

Gawd I'm enjoying all of this!

[Legato]

39 minutes ago, Matthew said:

40 minutes ago, Matthew said:

Irump's illegal and unconditional actions.

 

Which are?