zeke5123a
6mo ago
Well, USAID is a prime example. They funnel billions to pet projects clearly unrelated to their purpose with nary a peep. Indeed, it seems like they used these programs to help maintain control Over the narrative and therefore Congress. Another concrete example is the Hunter laptop story and the IC integrating itself at Twitter / Facebook etc. read the Twitter files. Infamously, Chuck Schumer stated that you don’t try to correct the intelligence community because they have six ways to Sunday to fuck you over.
More broadly, look at Chevron. It was a judicial theory that said “if the statute is ambiguous, then we defer to the agency’s interpretation of the law provided it is reasonable.” In practice, this meant if there was a hint of ambiguity the courts would defer to agency action.
But the rabbit hole goes even further as you had Auer deference. Auer deference is the idea that if an agency’s regulations are ambiguous then you defer to the agency’s interpretation of its own actions provided it wasn’t just a litigation position. So the very basic guardrails of the APA need not be respected because the agency can outside the APA turn ambiguous legislation into law.
And even the APA is pretty toothless. The standard for overturning agency action is arbitrary and capricious— a very high bar.
Of course the SCOTUS has been reducing the scope of agency power in recent years (eg major questions doctrine, Loper Bright, Kisor) but that’s changing the deck after 40+ years of largely unchecked power. Trump now is going after their narrative control.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
That just doesn’t make any sense. The Obama admin expanded its power. This admin is cutting down the bureaucratic state. It is cutting down the unconstitutional fourth branch; not impinging on the first branch.
Yes it is muscular but muscular in a pro constitutional way.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
This is just such an insane understanding of the current state. You are complaining about a lack of checks and balances. Fine. Understand that for the last fifty years the administrative state has run amok with functionally no checks. No balances. They fund their own activists and media to make sure they get what they want.
So now we have an executive cutting down that bureaucratic state — an energetic executive trying to eliminate the unelected unaccountable and unconstitutional fourth branch. Yet you are upset about it from a checks and balances? No you need to kill the admin state in order for congress and the presidency to actually have power and therefor effort there to be actual checks.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
I looked a little at the brief. The APA piece I would need to look more into but it is not the norm of my experience with the APA and I am dubious because they seem to misstate their claim re PII. One of the exception for disclosure of info is to people within the same agency. Per an interview by the treasury secretary Friday the DOGE aligned people looking at treasury payments were actually employees of treasury and therefore they were clearly covered by the exception.
Maybe this fact would’ve been pointed out if this wasn’t an ex parte proceeding but I’m pretty convinced the whole thing isn’t about law at this point.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
What if 2% is fraud? What if Medicare is 5%-10%? You don’t need a large percentage to be fraud to start having a meaningful impact.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Oh i have no doubt there wasn’t direct corruption here. But if the judge wants to without a scintilla of legal reasoning prevent the executive from operating based purely on partisan hack grounds, then the appropriate response is “let’s dig into his life and find something to ruin his life.”
zeke5123a
6mo ago
They should look into this judge. I bet there is some corruption. Also the issue of standing was effectively ignored.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Then it doesn’t really make much sense what he is doing (eg why care about the budget or defanging the bureaucracy if skynet will be here in two years).
zeke5123a
6mo ago
It depends on the judge but it seems like he is focused on the very narrow cases where a aUS employee is abroad and this will cause them immediate harm. The judge isn’t trying to extend it months but weeks to allow them an orderly repatriation to the US.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
People say this but more and more it is looking like that might not be true. What if there is a lot of waste and fraud in those programs? What if they can cut them without harming grandma? And again, they don’t need to get to a balanced budget. They need to slow the deficit enough to get out of a debt spiral.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Well yes. Both / and. I just find it curious that people are upset and calling it dictatorship when the elected executive reduces the unelected bureaucracy seemingly with the support of the majority of congress.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
When the bureaucracy is strong and you need Congress, the Courts, and the Executive to shrink the bureaucracy do you really live in a Republic?
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Question is how quickly can the government get this to a higher court. This is sad.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
To me, people like TFC hosts seek more concerned with purity as opposed to direction while having a strong bias to status quo.
Take the anti DEI EOs. Are they perfect? No. But they also exist in the backdrop of 60 years of civil rights law they Lin fact (if not form) required legal discrimination against whites. These EOs don’t undo that but they are a small counterweight that gets closer to the liberal position.
Or take the public school debates. They had on Rufo and Kmele argued basically we shouldn’t ban woke but talk about it and other teaching. Rufo made two points: 1) someone has to decide the curriculum and if the public is paying for it then why can’t the public decide and 2) there is an opportunity cost to teaching anything.
IIRC, Kmele’s view was that we should do school choice and he simply ignored opportunity cost. Rufo wasn’t opposed to school choice (he supported it) but he didn’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. And because of Rufo schools are now more classically liberal whereas if Kmele had his way they’d remain illiberal. I’m not saying that’s the outcome Kmele wants but it’s the problem when you’ll only accept pure policies.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
You were and contribute to respond to something I didn’t say. I never made a claim about what Trump could do with respect to closing USAID by EO (that whole can of worms is complex and depends on what is meant by close—suffice to say I think Trump could effectively neuter USAID even if he can’t formally close it).
Instead I pointed out you were wrong to say that an EO cannot create a government office specifically pointing to USAID as an example (this was after I pointed out that you were mistaken to believe DOGE was not part of the government). You then retorted with a law 30 years after JFK created USAID.
So you chided me for things I didn’t say and asked me to read closely while literally ignoring what I said. Maybe slow down and don’t assume what other people mean to say and respond to what they actually said. Also have some humility as you’ve been factually wrong a few times and overstate your legal case.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Dukat has a different take
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Minor aside, but I was in the gym last night and they had CNN on. My favorite part was that the chyron read: “Kaitlin presses Trump on Gaza.”
There is a reason media is dying.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
I think the CIa serves the CIA’s interest which generally but not always aligns with the US’ interests.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Except the president is the source of the classification scheme and he said “give these docs to DOGE.” Sure the bureaucracy’s impulse is to say “but we need to follow XYZ procedures because these docs are “sensitive.”’ However that actually isn’t required legally and moreover serves the purpose of the bureaucracy by making thing’s bureaucratic and slow.
zeke5123a
6mo ago
Did you work for the federal government or state?
I have friends in DC. Yes I make more money compared to them but my hours are significantly worse. In many ways their lifestyle is better. If you are married and you both work these relatively cushy DC jobs you’ll be doing just fine.
I would argue there is a constitutional requirement for Trump to destroy the current iteration of the admin state under the take care clause. Also if he waits to do it through legislation first nothing will happen. He needs to expose in full the fraud and abuse while showing the programs do shit to give republicans cover to gut a decent chunk of it. I will be disappointed if laws ultimately don’t come down but I see this as step one; not step one of one.
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