Summary
Elon Musk claims his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is shutting down payments to federal contractors, including a Lutheran charity, asserting it is eliminating corruption.
This suggests DOGE has access to Treasury’s payment systems, though officials have not confirmed the extent.
Senator Ron Wyden warned that DOGE may interfere with Social Security, Medicare, and government contracts.
Musk also called USAID “a criminal organization” that should “die,” amid DOGE’s growing influence over federal financial operations.
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At what point do we declare this a coup? This isn’t what even the most diehard conservatives out there voted for, I don’t understand how this isn’t considered a hostile takeover.
They’re in too deep to admit how badly they obviously fucked up. Shit is gonna have to actually reach the ugly bitter end, leaving them no other possible explanation to try to hide behind. In the meantime, this must be what it felt like for the citizens of Rome as it burned.
It is not until it affects them on a personal level they make that realization. That is how far the empathy of the average conservative voter reaches.
Well, in essence and at its purest level the difference in thinking between Leftwing and Rightwing is the difference between “I want people to have a better life” and “I want to have a better life”.
All the political complexity above that comes from the different possible ways to achieve either end and from how one end partly overlaps with the other (i.e. for many a general improvement of people’s lifes gets translated into a personal improvement).
So yeah, conservatives are just “What’s in it for me” types who believe in a different method to maximize their personal upside than the Fascists. In fact many American-style Liberals (the political version of “Liberal” in the US, not to be confused with those who believe in the actual Liberal Ideology) are also rightwingers who believe in yet another method for personal upside improvement.
Well, in essence and at its purest level the difference in thinking between Leftwing and Rightwing is the difference between “I want people to have a better life” and “I want to have a better life”.
Not even that. The difference is between “I want people to have a better life (objectively speaking).” and “I want to have a better life (as compared to those people).” As long as their lives are better when compared to those people, the conservatives are satisfied. Even if everyone’s lives, including their own, get objectively worse.
I was going to say I partly disagree and that the “those people” element depends on the Society (i.e. different in different countries) but after thinking about it, I actually agree that wanting to be “comparativelly better” rather than better in absolute is a pretty general thing for rightwingers everywhere, and what changes in the countries I lived in is mainly they way they go about doing it (i.e. in England that overwhelmingly materialises in people spending a lot of time and effort in keeping those below them in the “prosperity ladder” from climbing up, whilst in The Netherlands there’s a lot less of that).
So, yeah, thanks for pointing that out.
“I want to have a better life” does not encapsulate their zero sum game way of thinking. They ignore the possibility of a rising tide lifting all boats. It’s more appropriate to say “I want a better life than everyone I don’t like (our group).” Conservatives create an in group and out group that drives much of their agenda.
And here I am, too damn poor to afford a fiddle…
This isn’t even what the most diehard conservatives out there voted for
Fucking yes.
All conservatives at the tables with all these nazis asking who voted in all the nazis.
At this point your party has folded. Keep saying “but not meeeee, I’m a real conservative!” All you want.
Hungarian here, whose face got eaten by the leopards.
Political illiteracy is a serious problem, and so is the access to information. They actually thought the crime rates were up, because the very few news outlets they’re exposed to likes to uplift a few cases with scary headlines, often making anniversary reports on some crimes. They actually thought, that the opposition was “too far-left”, because pundits told them so, and they learned in school the real nazis did evil things for the sole sake of evil, thus people that say they want to eliminate crime, and have crime statistics must not be far-right.
This is not for to excuse their behavior, but to explain it. Maybe can even lead to an end of this cycle.
When this happens in a developing country we laugh at their politics.
When it happens in America, no one bats an eye
Oh no I am absolutely laughing at America
Americans still think their country is somehow different even though it’s still a developing country in many respects.
Not just country nations, reminder the regions with the strongest identities are either the oldest, important, or Mormon. We are very much kn the same state the late western Roman empire was in, where they had African Romance, Brithonic Romance, and Gaulic Romance we have Californian, Texan, and Northestern the east coast tracks to eastern Mediterranean.
Disintegrating. Crumbling.
USA is the new banana republic.
It’s stressing me out to no end. I think the average person doesn’t even know this is currently happening.
I don’t follow politics. I voted for trump because it was badass when he said fight fight fight. Elon’s a genius, I’m sure he’s gonna make it better.
These are real takes I’ve heard out there in the world.
Very rural area dweller, here, two towns over doing errands. Just spoke with an elderly Mango Mussolini voter/Faux News consumer who already regrets his choice… I commented it’s time to stop voting to hurt others and vote for taxpayer dollars to help the common people, rather than billionaires. He agreed.
Not to shit on the guy too hard, but it’s a bit late on that front. I hope he’s around/remembers the next time someone courts his vote.
Me too.
It’s being censored.
It doesn’t even need to be. So many of my friends have already decided to tune out completely because they’re sick of hearing about the nonstop shit.
I’m also wanting to tune out, but I feel that it’s irresponsible to not follow what’s happening.
This is the correct answer. They want you to tune out.
Now, it is happening right now: https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-destruction
Now, arm up
This is exactly what they voted for and they’ll fucking do it again.
So… SpaceX is one of the contractors not being paid right? Right?
L-m-a-o roflmao even
Oh please start halting payments to government contractors. This guy starts holding payments to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon he’s going to wind up real Dead real quick
Or Boeing. Boeing certainly seems to not have an issue with taking care of people who are causing them problems.
How much can a hitman really cost?!
1, maybe 2 bananas
There’s always bananas in the money stand, Michael.
A bag of crack and a handgun
With the way things are going, I fully expect them to make a beneficial deal that includes Elon because fuck everything
Yep, mercenaries get rowdy when they don’t get paid, just ask Constantinopole.
Or Blackrock
This is a coup
And for people who don’t like that word:
Regulatory capture of the entire United States government.
Can you guys maybe do something about this? You all have guns right, I thought that was the entire point of that part of the Constitution.
The point of that was to prevent the need for a standing military. The thought was a standing military would lead to tyranny
Texas used to have gun free towns (sort of, when you entered you left your gun with the sheriff)
Political parties were also a big nono, the runner up was supposed to be VP
and which side was interested in guns and militancy, and which side was against guns and militancy?
Unfortunately the wrong people are the ones with guns, because most of my fellow leftists in this country still believe in the myth that you don’t need a gun if you’re going to live in a country full of people with mental health issues and lack of access to affordable treatment.
the leftists seem to be good with guns, it’s the liberals and progressives who have trouble with them
(to be fair, the left is dead in America)
Yet, no one’s doing anything about it or can do anything. These people are all powerful now. The White House, the House, the Senate, SCOTUS, Fed. Everything belongs to the Republican Party and they can do whatever, whenever. No checks and balances.
I reject that defeatist attitude. It’s time for tax strike and general strike and mass protests across the country as next step
I think we can pretty much skip the first step, wouldn’t do us much good. Protests planned at every state capital on the 5th.
I got laid off two weeks ago am I supposed to just not work lol, my parents live with me:\
This is a great way to end up on the military-indistrial complex hitlist
Raytheon would like to know your latitude and longitude
Care package incoming.
Can only hope he goes for them and not just the small businesses and academia. Something tells me he’ll go for civil facing departments and generally avoid DOD
Ah the Trump approach to contractors. And Musk approach to rent.
Great way to get sued for breach of contract. This administration is going to be tied up in court for the next four years
Unfortunately, when all this stuff is resolved, it’s still the government that’s on the hook, not Musk personally. Although the new admin should probably just impound all of his and Trump’s assets to pay for the fallout, but obviously Democrats would never do anything this based.
I agree Democrats won’t do anything but Musk is playing at the level where he’s not protected like that. All of this could easily end up in a public corruption case if he steps a single foot wrong.
Do you really think this is going to play out in a court? They don’t care about the law and are actively plowing through them at will.
Yeah I don’t see LockMart and Raytheon taking that sitting down. Musk thinks he has power, he doesn’t really. The MIC runs American finance.
My understanding is they exempted police and military
Ah of course they did
Maybe the one intelligent decision this group has ever made
That’s not going to matter. There are some absolute giants in the contracting world and they’re not going to take this lying down.
Good to know that our elected officials in the legislative branch are no longer able to create laws that are actually enacted.
This shit is outside the scope of the presidency.
If the US government stops paying their bills at a certain point the country is technically defaulting. That’s going to be fun.
Guess you’ll have to use crypto once your dollar is worthless
Or they can use euros. They’re widely accepted.
If the dollar tanks, crypto’s going with it.
I don’t think crypto will replace USD as a global currency if USD fails.
Euro or Yuan would
But the people in office would certainly want to replace it with crypto domestically
Yes, they might find a way to force crypto to be used in a case like that - but I think that would be a logistical nightmare and they would probably have to setup some kind of system to make it feasible.
I do suspect the currency of whatever geopolitical entity demands the most economic power in the vacuum left by the U.S. collapsing will become the new global currency, but it’s also possible that this hypothetical world become more economically isolated, such that there is no single accepted global currency.
But yeah, Euro or Yuan would be my guess as well.
You know of a better alternative? Ain’t nobody going to be trading gold like an 1800’s prospector.
Better? No. But why do you think China has been pushing all of the infrastructure projects in Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe? They are ready and waiting for the USD to blow up.
Using crypto as the main currency would require too much of most people. Let’s not forget how many people who need to use currency but who are illiterate, who have trouble using websites or phones, etc. Crypto is not accessible to large segments of the population, and in that sense it is impractical and clearly not better than other currencies.
Let’s also not forget that crypto was specifically designed to prevent monetary policies from being able to influence the currency. Not only is crypto impractical for much of the population, but the government will have fewer tools to stabilize the value of the currency. It’s a nightmare on many fronts.
Literally any currency would be more likely and “better” than crypto. The alternative to crypto is not trading gold, but using other major currencies, like Euros. It’s unclear if the U.S. dollar collapses what currency will replace it, but I suspect that will be determined by geopolitical dominance more than anything else.
Learn how to spin up a monero node and stick it on the tor network. Only buy bitcoin and wash it with monero for transactions.
Don’t gamble on shitcoins.
Don’t get caught up in mining or NFTs
I don’t really know anything about crypto, but I’ve heard for many years how criminals use it to ransom things. I’ve always thought the “bitcoin is anonymous like cash” angle never made sense, since the entire point of the blockchain is to record ALL of it, and eventually that paper trail is going to tie it to someone. (It sounds like I’m somewhat correct about that since you mention “wash[ing]” it.)
I’ve never heard of monero. How does that work with the washing and whatnot? It’s a whole world I know nothing about, but find interesting.
That’s a long conversation. Please allow me to share a YouTube video that gets to the crux of the issue first. And I can share technical docs afterwards.
However you are 100% correct. Bitcoin is anything but anonymous. XMR/Monero is and has always been fully cryptographic, with the minor issue that if someone controls a node you connect your wallet to, there is metadata that will out you.
I don’t agree with everything this guy says about politics or social issues but he’s correct on netsec issues.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QrHsFZBab4U
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nDBHhz00vjI
As far as anonymizing your bitcoin you’ll need to do your own research. But here’s how not to do it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7CD_Nl3iwhE
If you’re gonna do that research do it on an updated tails distro as the previous release was compromised.
Thanks for the great reply! Super interesting stuff. I keep wanting to study up on all this crypto stuff since it seems like it’s not going anywhere at this point. Appreciate the links.
Don’t spend more than 20 bucks to figure out how it all works if you want to tinker. It is not a safe store of wealth. The best usecase is for anonymous and secure transactions.
horse_battery_staple has a more comprehensive comment than this one:
Yeah bitcoin is public, but anonymous (until the very first time you interact with some account in your name). Monero, in short, is like bitcoin but with washing is built into every transaction. It’s far, far from perfect (like all current crypto-currencies), but is a meaningful improvement over Bitcoin (it also supports higher transactions/second).
In my opinion, Bitcoin and Monero are the only crypto-currencies worth engaging with at this time. I haven’t looked into Etherium or Solana, mostly because the idea of ‘decentralized apps running on the chain’ seems like beyond ludicrous scope creep for the problem of ‘minimal trust currency’. The one thing they do right is the Proof of Stake transaction confirmation algorithm, which is much more energy (and CO2) efficient than Proof of Work as used by Bitcoin and Monero.
Then the internet gets shut down and you realize you have nothing.
Bury your reichmarcs in your mattress if you wish. We’re all trying to navigate this with the coping mechanisms we have.
My tor node is accessible outside of the US as is my ability to get there if things need be.
But right now I need a secure way to get funds to people in red states whose finances might be tracked so that they can get the gender affirming care in states that still allow it, or so they can move to states that aren’t actively trying to kill them.
And right now this is the safest way to get them funds that cannot be interfered with or traced by state or federal governments.
I respect your intentions.
You’re right to question the motives of a stranger talking about crypto on the internet. Caution is important but defeatism will kill us all. If you don’t believe in a better world you won’t try for one. And you’ll get what they give you. What all of us need right now is a little more unity and a lot more mutual aid.
Agreed, keep you loved ones close and safe, help who you can when you can.
That’s the brilliance of crypto: it can work even on paper. Without the internet, it’s a major pain in the ass, but trades are still possible by using good old fashioned paper ledgers.
It’s almost like they’re not being fiscally responsible conservatives or something…
A lot of our day to day military operations run on contractors. This seems like a good way to get more helicopters falling out of the sky.
Does anyone know what the story is behind this charity he’s mentioning?
Edit: looks like they feed and provide shelter for asylum seekers, and obviously he’s against that.
Because Putin wants rid of it.
U.S.A.I.D. funds democracy-promotion programs around the world, including in European countries where right-wing populist movements are thriving. Mr. Musk has become an ally of those movements, some of whose leaders have specifically targeted the agency’s pro-democracy programs in recent years.
Supporters of Viktor Orban, the right-wing leader of Hungary and a darling of pro-Trump conservatives in the United States, have personally criticized Samantha Power, who led U.S.A.I.D. during the Biden administration, for trying to import American values into their country.
I’m talking about the Lutheran charity mentioned. USAID is part of the soft power projection and regime change machine of the state department.
Can I ask? Why does Musk suddenly have this authority? “DOGE” isn’t even a real Department, right? And also, Musk hasn’t been elected or officially confirmed for any government position. Why the fuck is he giving orders and leading departments and having any power whatsoever over the U.S. Treasury and such? I don’t understand how this works. Why doesn’t the U.S. have any… I don’t know, safeguards against this sort of shit? It’s absolutely bonkers to watch this unfold from across the pond.
Musk just walked up, said “I’m in charge now” and everyone’s just complying? Please ELI5.
Trump said he’s in charge in a private capacity
The Supreme Court is yet to say it’s not allowed
It takes months if not years for a case to be appealed to the supeme court. They don’t even accept most cases.
Any court federal can issue an order on this if a case is brought. Courts cannot do anything unless asked. That’s kind of how the legal process works. Someone, or some AG will file a suit. Might take a few days or weeks.
It takes months if not years for a case to be appealed to the supeme court. They don’t even accept most cases.
I’m old enough to know how Bush beat Gore
They will keep doing this through the appeals process
Three suits have already been filed arguing DOGE violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act. But like you said, the courts take time and DOGE has only existed for like 10 days.
He doesn’t. However, that is only according to this pesky technicality called “the law”. If the President does not want to follow the law, and appoints people who also do not care for following the law, then the law stops being a thing to look for for authority; and Musk can do this because Trump says he can.
In the short term, expect this to be shut down by the courts. In the medium term, a bunch of these orders will end up in front of the Supreme Court that unironically said “if the president does it, it might be illegal, but he is absolutely immune from prosecution”. Even if the SC come down on the only legally defensible position, Trump could still say “them and what army”
This is 100% a coup by Trump to centralize power in the executive. When staging a coup, “authority” is merely an inconvenience.
Everyone is not “just complying,” two security directors of USAID were dismissed when they tried to stop the musky henchmen.
“DOGE” isn’t even a real Department, right?
Technically, Trump just renamed the United States Digital Service to the United States DOGE Service, then created a child agency within it called the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization reporting directly to the President (which USDS does technically anyways) and hired Musk as a special government employee as head of that. A special government employee is essentially expected to work less than 130 days in the next year and are normally used to fill short term needs, or as expert topic consultants for specific projects, that sort of thing.
USDS is normally basically IT consultancy for other US departments, which is why he has access to a shocking number of keys to the kingdom, as it were.
And also, Musk hasn’t been elected or officially confirmed for any government position.
You don’t have to be confirmed by the Senate for most government jobs (just a specific named handful of high ranking positions, like the Secretaries of various Cabinet Departments), and he was basically given the highest possible position he could without needing to be confirmed by the Senate.
Why the fuck is he giving orders and leading departments and having any power whatsoever over the U.S. Treasury and such? I don’t understand how this works.
The President has final authority and power over the executive branch and over time increasing power has been placed in the executive branch largely because Congress didn’t want to fight over things every couple of years and the relative stability of a secondary agency staffed with experts was desirable for things like licensing radio bandwidth. USDS isn’t one of these agencies though - it was created by Obama in 2014 to help manage US IT stuff (and basically started from the team that fixed the healthcare.gov site in 2013) and didn’t need to be authorized by Congress because it doesn’t have rulemaking power over anything outside the executive branch and thus doesn’t require Congress to delegate power to it.
As for why he’s giving orders and leading departments, legally he probably shouldn’t be but he’s also been assigned that power by Trump in a way that’s questionably legal. There are at least 3 lawsuits that have been filed arguing that it’s technically an advisory committee and in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. I could totally see a federal judge agreeing with that, but it would eventually go to SCOTUS and we know who’s dick they sucked to get there.
TL;DR: DOGE exists because it’s an existing department (US Digital Service) renamed DOGE, Musk was hired under that department in basically the highest spot that wouldn’t require Senate confirmation and because that department is essentially cross-departmental IT consultancy it gives him access to a shocking amount of federal IT resources. He isn’t being stopped because everyone involved ultimately reports to Trump and Trump has told him to do it. There are at least three lawsuits filed claiming the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization is in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, but since it’s only existed for like 10 days the courts haven’t really had a chance to even hear arguments about it yet.
Thanks for taking the time. So I guess it is all legal and Musk somehow does have all this authority… It’s bonkers, right? Doesn’t it somehow feel like the U.S. government has been running relatively well for a long time based solely on… the expectation of decency and norms, promises and gentleman’s agreements? There aren’t actual laws, checks or balances to avoid any of this, but it was sort of assumed that nobody in these positions would be pure evil. But then, once they’re in, they can do whatever they want.
Courts are slow everywhere, that’s why it’s a good idea to have some rules and roadblocks, so that someone can’t just start dismantling everything on day one and courts have time to catch up before shit hits the fan.
So I guess it is all legal
It’s probably really not and the lawsuits probably have a good argument regarding the FACA, but courts are slow and Trump/Musk are basically steamrolling everything they can. An agency not given any delegated power from Congress functionally taking over and commanding agencies that do have delegated power from Congress probably has more than one means of legal attack against it. But courts are slow and any staff that challenge the Musk bulldozer have been relieved of their positions and escorted from their offices.
And way too much of the public is cheering it on.
And way too much of the public is cheering it on.
The most mind-boggling part imho. Trump and Musk doing all this shit doesn’t surprise me at all. Trump especially has been very clear about the things he wanted to do, Project 2025 wasn’t a secret either, and Musk… well, he’s been fascist-adjacent for a long time with his support for right-wingers the world over… But the fact that normal people can look at this and believe it will make their country better somehow is insane to me.
We do have safeguards. They’re all being removed one by one by the party in charge. I’m guessing that some just comply because they figure it’s inevitable. On the other hand we have a long history of allowing people in power to do what they want. Bush walked into Iraq, we’ve had many military actions in many countries but haven’t declared war since world war II.
Or maybe Musk is just pushing the boundaries before he’s deported. LOL.
EDIT: changed WWIII to the intended WWII.
Apropos typo on the WW3 part.
LOL. Oops. Should I leave it?
Yes :) hopefully your foreshadowing doesn’t come true however
Because our government is filled with a bunch of geriatric FUCKS who don’t give a shit and whose whole personality is ‘fuck you I got mine’. There are checks and balances and this could be stopped if anyone was fucking useful to any capacity. We shouldn’t have to rise up in the streets or deal with this as that’s the whole god damn point of the gov. But because we allowed corporate interests to infiltrate and line the pockets of these assholes, along with there being no term limits, this is what we get.
How is anyone permitting any of these people to have authority?
Trump’s government is basically pay-to-play and Elon paid the most so he gets to do whatever he wants.
It started with a paid horse armor and he we are.
So I was looking at this today. It looks like a combination of serendipity and malicious behavior. The US Digital Service was effectively leaderless on Jan 20 when it was renamed DOGE. That’s the serendipity. But it was already “excepted service” under the president instead of a congressionally chartered agency. So they could (and likely would have) simply fire any leadership.
USDS’ purpose was to fix computer systems all over the government. And it was doing a great job of that. But in order to do that it does get access other agencies don’t. This is where the malicious part comes in. Trump turns them into DOGE and links them with lawyers and HR people. They use their existing access authorization to get into systems and then do HR stuff instead of systems engineering. Furthermore they aren’t currently funded, which means they shouldn’t be operating at all. Their last funding ran out in September.
Trump can just appoint people to it because he has a wide ranging authority to do temporary hires. Another malicious catch though is Musk is clearly operating DOGE but he hasn’t been put on payroll.
This is illegal, and there are lawsuits already filed. But they’re counting on people not understanding the intricacies of the different kinds of federal service to enact their plan. Which to me is pretty transparently to force all agencies to submit to DOGE as a stand in for the White House and an end run around all laws about the civil service. Basically an unconstitutional power grab by the President.
Because we’re all just people and at the end of the day some person is agreeing to not dispense the funds or not provide aid or to round up individuals … Until there is meaningful pushback by people who actually are carrying this bullshit out it won’t change.
Idk same as how the Nazis managed the Holocaust, at the end of the day thousands of individuals agreed and did their part to exterminate the Jews. Same as how Israel now is committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza with their military and all those individuals are carrying out their orders.
Authority, like many other things in our society, is an emphemeral concept we all agree to. Authority is given when we agree to abide by what that authority says. Same like our laws, sure we have laws against things but it’s not like those actually mean anything if they’re not obeyed by the majority. Nothing stopping you from doming Elon with the a large brick if you got one and can get close enough, you know what I mean?
Because yall wanted this by voting for it
I think many didn’t want this because we voted against it
Agreed but not enough.
MOST people were perfectly happy with voting for Trump, or not voting at all.
If you didn’t vote this election then you are the problem.
Yeah, we know, pointing fingers isn’t going to help anything right now. Get out and take action.
Be more specific.
Musk is himself a giant government contractor via Space X and Starlink. Odds are he’s just trying to clear the board to funnel the money to his businesses. Especially when it comes to defense money!
Hey military industrial complex! Please coup this administration all ready.
Like for real. They got rid of Malcolm, MLK, mayve even Kennedy, and organized a nationwide crack epidemic in black neighborhoods but they can’t deal with the biggest actual internal threat since the Confederacy. Useless orgs filled with useless people.
Eeeeeeehhhhh, I’m not sure trading one coup for another is the solution here
