All of DOGE’s work could be undone as lawsuit against Musk proceeds
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As much as I want to be excited to see possible actual justice sometime over the next few years, I've just been disappointed too many times already.
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I wonder if the Supreme Court can/might/will throw out the lawsuit as frivolous. Perhaps it depends on how much favor Elon currently has at the royal court. The king seems to be distracted by a crusade in Persia though.
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I admit, when the DOGE/Musk idea was first floated, I thought, what could they do? There wouldn't be any legal basis for it. I underestimated their willingness to just completely ignore that. Good to see the courts finally catching up with that, even if SCOTUS is a wild card.
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Here's one reason why the US system is broken - all of these arguments were made at the time, and it has still taken the court a year to do anything about it. All the personnel and offices of those agencies are gone. A governmental system that cannot handle psychotic attacks like this is not viable. The US needs to not just remove the criminals that are currently looting it, but re-organize in a way that prevents this.
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Ah the Musk defense of "I'm a known douchebag, so it's not my fault that bad things happened when the executive branch gave me power with no oversight"
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This article didn't satisfy my curiosity piqued by the sub headline about DOGE's "biggest wins". What were those, exactly?
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DOGE was just cover for destroying and crippling swathes of government (thus implementing P2025 and also killing over a dozen investigations into Musk companies), illegally hoovering up and merging government held data, rallying the maga-morons, etc.
No Ars story yet about FCC ban on foreign-made consumer-grade "wireless routers." FCC will no longer approve for sale or use foreign-made, new model or revision consumer-grade wireless networking equipment.
The only company manufacturing any such equipment in the US is Starlink. Router makers can apply to FCC for "Conditional Approval," subject to DOD and DHS review.
No Ars story yet about FCC ban on foreign-made consumer-grade "wireless routers." FCC will no longer approve for sale or use foreign-made, new model or revision consumer-grade wireless networking equipment.
The only company manufacturing any such equipment in the US is Starlink. Router makers can apply to FCC for "Conditional Approval," subject to DOD and DHS review.
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I know this isn't the scope of the case.
I know it's not the point of this lawsuit.
I still really hope, given how law is Calvinball anymore anyway, this somehow results in a criminal conviction of Musk for treason.
I know it's not the point of this lawsuit.
I still really hope, given how law is Calvinball anymore anyway, this somehow results in a criminal conviction of Musk for treason.
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"But he said he's autistic" or whatever his groveling fanboys say to excuse his fucking heinous behaviors.
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It is the job of Congress to take rapid action in such matters. With a non-functional and/or complicit Congress in place, it is then up to the courts, which move at the speed of...courts.
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DOGE's "work" of paying teenagers to vandalize the government and steal data to distract DC from Trump's pillaging.
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I agree the issues here are systemic and only solved with a total rebuild of the system.
But to achieve that, you first need need to purge the system of all bad faith actors. Good fucking luck with that
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Instructables can be Confusable
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
How is anyone going to put the toothpaste back into the tube here?
And by toothpaste, I of course mean all of our social security/tax and government data stolen in flagrant violation of security procedures and laws by these shit-goblin cretins and then used to train MelRon's Nazi and child-porn bot. Not to mention the high likelihood of that data being sold to foreign actors.
Real justice would mean we'd have to shut down Grok and jail those involved at any level.
I'll stop threatening everyone with a good time.
And by toothpaste, I of course mean all of our social security/tax and government data stolen in flagrant violation of security procedures and laws by these shit-goblin cretins and then used to train MelRon's Nazi and child-porn bot. Not to mention the high likelihood of that data being sold to foreign actors.
Real justice would mean we'd have to shut down Grok and jail those involved at any level.
I'll stop threatening everyone with a good time.
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There is no system that cannot be undone if folks in the system want it to fail.
This is what's happened. Congress could stop this at any time but not doing their jobs is easier. They still get the cushy office, the parties, the staff. They just don't actually have to work.
Who wouldn't want that gig?
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The courts move slow--because of decades of taxpayers getting what most of them claim they want: tax cuts. Government can move efficiently and quickly--but only when it has the resources to do so. No one wants to pay for it, and then they complain about getting what they claim they want.
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Sadly, I think no matter what lower court judges rule, SCOTUS will be more than happy to paper over whatever laws got broke here and say it was all within the President's authority to appoint Musk and have him do whatever he wanted to. In fact, they'll probably say the interpretation of the Appointments clause of the Constitution has been overly broad and they're narrowing it dramatically.
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The legal arguments these idiots make are at the playground level of thinking. They are the dumbest people to ever be in power and the American Nazi party is the most vile party.
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they can absolutely refuse to hear it. it's a thing. they can't take every case, they have to pick and choose. to some degree you can gauge how a given scotus leans by which ones they take on.
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Yes, they do. And they are absolutely unable to admit it was illegal and should require prison time for all parties involved - including Agent Orange who created it to circumvent the constitutional requirement of due process.
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indeed.
and while they're at it, they need to make it much harder for Presidents to unilaterally involve the US in armed conflicts.
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It literally can't imagine a world in which the chaos and destruction DOGE has unleashed is somehow winded back. The institutional carnage and damage to fundamental norms that make it possible to run a state bureaucracy is largely irreversible - to say nothing of the people who have already died, or already will die, because of USAID cuts.
Oh, and if you're still on Twitter, please get the off it - like, today.
Oh, and if you're still on Twitter, please get the off it - like, today.
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Imagine going to your constitutional law professor and trying to seriously argue that someone can’t be help liable because a position was made up with made up duties, by the president, and that person can’t do whatever they want.
I just can’t imagine writing that and trying to argue that knowing that you’re arguing for the death of democracy. How can you feel good about that as a human? I get they’re trying to defend themselves, but fuck, arguing that fascism is perfectly ok?
I just can’t imagine writing that and trying to argue that knowing that you’re arguing for the death of democracy. How can you feel good about that as a human? I get they’re trying to defend themselves, but fuck, arguing that fascism is perfectly ok?
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That stood out to me the most from this article, the government saying "there isn't a law saying he can't do this so he can" which, like, most kids learn at a young age isn't how things work in practice.
It's like when people post clearly wrong stuff online, and other people say "hey that's wrong," and then they go "prove I'm wrong" instead of proving that they're right, because they know they're not right.
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You can probably infer them from this paragraph:
"On X, Musk made several posts suggesting that DOGE was operating at his direction, plaintiffs alleged in their complaint. That included posts like “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Additionally, Musk posted, “What is this ‘Department of Education’ you keep talking about? I just checked and it doesn’t exist,” prior to Trump confirming he told Musk to look into the department. And perhaps most damning to the government’s defense, in reference to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—which senators claimed Musk long wanted to kill off—Musk posted, “CFPB RIP.”"
Of course, these are the biggest wins--you know, good things, organizations that increase the good in the world. Musk would never make cuts to the Department of Greed, the Department of Hate, the Department of Death, the Department of War, or the Department of Ignorance.
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FINALLY SOMETHING.
I'm still waiting on the formal charges for what Musk called "fraud." That is not a vague term like "waste," but fraud directly implies that specific laws were broken and there was proof of it. He made this claim over and over, yet I am not aware of a single criminal probe into any such activity. Ipso facto it was a lie then and it's a lie now.
I'm still waiting on the formal charges for what Musk called "fraud." That is not a vague term like "waste," but fraud directly implies that specific laws were broken and there was proof of it. He made this claim over and over, yet I am not aware of a single criminal probe into any such activity. Ipso facto it was a lie then and it's a lie now.
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I wish I could agree, but I don't. Any organization, big or small, assumes good will on the part of the people in charge. It couldn't function otherwise. I'm not saying the structure of the US Government doesn't need to be overhauled, but no organization can protect itself against a sociopathic narcissist, or however Trump et al should be classified, at the top. Once the US populace put Trump in charge, things were broken, and the Republican Congress is complicit because they are the group that should be stopping him, and they haven't.
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I don't even understand what "undone" means. Like if they conclusively found that Trump's victory in 2016 was illegitimate by foreign collusion, how do you even roll that back? As much as I would love for a Dem to win all 3 branches next time around (if there's even a legitimate next midterm and election) and say "fuck everyone, here's Universal Health Care and all our other stuff we want, try and undo it years later when it's too late", that just shows how broken everything is.
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I truly hate that no matter how fake the name change is legally that the Department of War is a real thing.
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this is the crap that really makes me hate Musk. i certainly don't like his politics, but i can at least understand people having different politics than i do.
but the fact that he thought he was qualified - and that it was appropriate that he should assume the power - to wreak that kind of havoc on the structure of the federal government is utterly vile. such arrogance.
but the fact that he thought he was qualified - and that it was appropriate that he should assume the power - to wreak that kind of havoc on the structure of the federal government is utterly vile. such arrogance.
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J.C. Helios
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Good to hear those estimated hundreds of thousands of people who died without USAID food & medicine will be coming back to life.
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Less likely they will refuse to hear it, which would leave standing a lower court order against DOGE and Musk, and more likely they will stick it in their to-do list, postponing the hearings as long as they can possibly get away with.
It's already likely too late for a lot of what got dismantled. Even if tomorrow a court said put everything back together, and even if the Trump administration complied with such an order (any guesses as to the likelihood of that happening?), it would take years to rebuild what was destroyed in months.
These agencies rely (relied) on bureaucrats who had developed their knowledge and skills over years of practice. I know we look down on bureaucracy, and sometimes rightly so, but there's also a lot of good provided by continuity of bureaucrats preserving institutional knowledge and exercising that knowledge to execute the laws Congress passed (such a quaint idea these days, I realize).
Most of these people that got fired aren't coming back. It will take a long time for any new crop of bureaucrats to reach the previous level of performance.
If you're a Thomas or Alito, looking to backstop Trump's effort to dismantle government, most of the work has already been done. Taking the case and then just sitting on it for a year or so is just icing on the cake.
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