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DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

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Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#161

Post by impulser_ »

zzzeek wrote: post #87
impulser_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.

neither have happened and virtually all employees of USAID have been put on leave at the orders of the acting deputy administrator. (via CNN) - It is not legal for the president to unilaterally “abolish, move, or consolidate USAID”. He needs to have congressional authorization to do so.

The current acting deputy administrator is Marco Rubio who the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State works directly for the President.

The President hasn't shut down the USAID yet. They just froze it with the intent to abolish it.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#162

Post by quickthrowman »

skissane wrote: post #131
zzzeek wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing and they did. which is illegal. USAID can only be "shut down" by an act of Congress

[flagged]

It is not debateable at all, the President has to ask Congress to rescind appropriated funds if the President doesn’t want to spend the money allocated by Congress. If Congress chooses not to rescind the allocated funds, then the president must spend the money.

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974 is explicitly clear about this, there is absolutely no room for debate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Imp...

> Title X of the Act, also known as the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, specifies that the president may request that Congress rescind appropriated funds. If both the Senate and the House of Representatives have not approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation) within forty-five days of continuous session, any funds being withheld must be made available for obligation. Congress is not required to vote on the request and has ignored most presidential requests.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#163

Post by timeon »

jklinger410 wrote: post #69
darth_avocado wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE is not illegal. However the legality of some of the things they do is under question. The current government, including DOGE is being operated like “Just do as many things as possible, so that the lawsuits can’t keep up”. While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but important items will slip through the cracks and will take decades to undo. Edit: BTW this strategy has always been available, i…

> While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but important items will slip through the cracks and will take decades to undo. So the government is designed in such a way that someone can do illegal things without those currently running the systems simply saying "no?" They have the power to do the things, and then we have to wait for it to be litigated. Watching the cases against Trump drop like flie…

What would you expect from system that did not change much since 18th century? As example France had like 5 iterations in between.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#164

Post by dangus »

darth_avocado wrote: post #63
jklinger410 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DOGE is obviously a completely illegal operation This narrative infuriates me. Either you are right, and entire wings of our government are abetting a coup, or you are wrong, and our government has huge back doors that no one is watching. Both realities reveal something urgently broken with the United States. In a way that should scare the entire western world to its core.

DOGE is not illegal. However the legality of some of the things they do is under question. The current government, including DOGE is being operated like “Just do as many things as possible, so that the lawsuits can’t keep up”. While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but important items will slip through the cracks and will take decades to undo. Edit: BTW this strategy has always been available, i…

lol, DOGE is obviously illegal. Trump created a fake department of the government without congressional appropriation of funds.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#165

Post by lupusreal »

zzzeek wrote: post #100
skissane wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE didn’t shut down USAID. Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing it and they did. Musk is essentially a presidential advisor, and legally an advisor can advise the President to do pretty much anything. Even if the thing they are advising the President to do is illegal, the President is the one who bears the legal responsibility for the action, not the advisor. In really extreme cases, like if Musk were advising Tr…

> Musk talked Trump and Rubio into doing and they did. which is illegal. USAID can only be "shut down" by an act of Congress

> Trump and Rubio [...] did.

Might be illegal.

> Musk talked Trump and Rubio

Obviously isn't, no matter how many salutes he does or how many emeralds he owns.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#168

Post by timeon »

intended wrote: post #93
jklinger410 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but important items will slip through the cracks and will take decades to undo. So the government is designed in such a way that someone can do illegal things without those currently running the systems simply saying "no?" They have the power to do the things, and then we have to wait for it to be litigated. Watching the cases against Trump drop like flie…

The government isn't designed for one party to decide to play winner take all politics. It was assumed that people would find a way to work together, not that one party could punish bipartisanship within its own ranks, and then be rewarded for it. Furthermore America has been moving towards this for decades. There has been openly shared plans on how this was to be achieved, for multiple different stages. From stackin…

> It was assumed that people would find a way to work together

This is not in line with first-past-the-post voting system. If you want to have "people work together" you need coalitions.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#169

Post by impulser_ »

kemayo wrote: post #83
impulser_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't. They are informing the President and the President does it either by EO or asking congress.

President doesn't have authority to shut them down by EO either. Congress does, yes. (It's one of those "power of the purse" things. If Congress has created an organization and funded it, the executive is required to spend that money on it.)

Yeah, that why I said both. It depends on what they are doing. USAID probably needs congress, but other things might just need an EO. The point is DOGE isn't doing this, the President is. Elon doesn't have authority that Democratics are saying he does. He simply informs the President, "Hey, USAID is spending taxpayers money to fund xyz in xyz you might want to shut it down". The President then goes "Yeah, I think we should shut it down let's freeze it and we'll abolish it". Then they go down the path of abolishing it and with the USAID they will probably get congress to do it. Until then they can freeze it because he appoint Marco Rubio has the acting admin.

Re: DOGE employees ordered to stop using Slack

#170

Post by ty6853 »

randallsquared wrote: post #153
darth_avocado wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE is not illegal. However the legality of some of the things they do is under question. The current government, including DOGE is being operated like “Just do as many things as possible, so that the lawsuits can’t keep up”. While lawyers are busy trying to stop big things, many small but important items will slip through the cracks and will take decades to undo. Edit: BTW this strategy has always been available, i…

> it’s just that career politicians aren’t incentivized to do this for “good” because they want long political careers. That's not why: Reagan, Clinton, W, and Obama all had the opportunity for sweeping changes of this magnitude without regard to further political careers, but none of them wanted to make radical changes. Their view of the US government (even Reagan's!) was "basically doing a good job, but maybe needs…

A simplified view: since FDR the main difference in presidential action is whether to crank progress at 1 or 11 in the ever expanding book of regulations, favored tax nook and crannies, and various benefits plans for pay-to-play voters like SS recipients.

Trump is threatening to turn that knob to -1 or lower, for good or ill.

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