There are some important caveats to that logic:
- the share of the budget spending from these worker cuts is minuscule, even the overall cost of all federal worker is a small percentage of spending, the bulk of spending is in entitlements and defense + debt repayment from deficit spending (which tax cuts always increase)
- if tariffs work at making manufacturing come back to the US then the tariff revenues will decrease since fewer products will be imported, and while they are in effect they are a tax increase which will slow down economic activity since they will directly affect consumer spending (unlike a tax increase on high earners would)
Just did one spanish video, worked really well. The interface is simple enough and easy, great start.
It would be great to have a translation appear after completing the words, and maybe a way to save words.
It’s an understatement to say Canada is extremely displeased at this, it will cost the US billions in lost trade and tourism. And for what? The trade deficit if you take out oil exports from Canada to the US is actually in favor of the US. Many American jobs will be lost because of this.
That trust and relationship will not be rebuilt easily, you vastly underestimate the damage and cost that will come from all the ill will being generated.
Words from a president are not just words, they carry weight, but now that tariffs are actually in effect we can see plain as day the first part of him carrying to execution his reckless and completely senseless ideas.
Trump administration most likely has calculated and knows that shrinking $200 billion in trade deficit with Canada outweighs the downside of lost trade and tourism from Canada.
You speak of favor to US and trust and relationship, but that's really inconsequential in the face of $200 billion in trade deficit.
And again what will be gained? What is the problem exactly you think our genius president will fix?
Canadians are massively boycotting the US, in addition to being the US’s largest export market they are the number one source of tourism to the US.
Canada is the top source of international visitors to the United States, with 20.4 million visits in 2024, generating $20.5 billion in spending and supporting 140,000 American jobs. A 10% reduction in Canadian travel could mean 2.0 million fewer visits, $2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses.
All this is just dumb and reckless, but not surprising coming from a business man who managed to bankrupt casinos
16k isn't a lot of money if you're trying to buy a home though.
It would have made more sense to just pay it off first. At the very least you should be watching your accounts like a hawk when looking to take out of a home loan.
Then again, I was making so much money during the pandemic and I squandered much of it instead of paying off my own student loans. Glass house and all that
So to be clear you’re arguing let’s kill a whole bunch of people to “increase” the population’s strength, although you express some mild concern about the “cost” of doing that? Is that the argument here?
Vaccines attempt to induce natural immunity not reinforce it. This is precisely why vaccines are less effective for those with preexisting conditions and immune disorders - their immune system can't as easily respond to and learn from the vaccine. An effective vaccine stimulates the immune system after introducing enough material similar to the natural pathogen that the immune system can learn to respond to it. I could just be misunderstanding your meaning hear, but "reinforce" sounds to me more like an additional layer of defence - a beam reinforcing a homes foundation is adds additional strength to existing beams rather than making the existing beams themselves stronger.
I'm not arguing that we kill anyone. You're implying that choosing not to intervene with vaccines is murder, which I would disagree with, but even then I left open the door for that cost to not be worth it.
My argument here was simply that if vaccines aren't used, as happened for effectively all of natural history, the population remaining (assuming some remain) is stronger for it.
That doesn't meant we should choose not to administer vaccines if we have them and they are proven safe and effective. That also does not mean that we should actively kill anyone, eugenics is a pretty messed up idea.
> This is precisely why vaccines are less effective for those with preexisting conditions and immune disorders - their immune system can't as easily respond to and learn from the vaccine.
You've missed a significant strength of vaccines by focusing on individuals rather than on populations.
Vaccines slow the transmission rate through a population and reduce the severity of infection.
In a population with a high vaccination rates those few with weak immune systems have less exposure to infection.
It's similar to back burning and fuel reduction in combating wildfires.
I understand the argument for herd immunity, I've just never seen a study proving it out. The idea is compelling and modelling studies seem to show that its possible, but that is still different from a controlled study showing it happening.
Early on in the Covid pandemic response claims of herd immunity were being thrown around and Fauci was claiming a threshold of 60-65% vaccine rate for it to work. As time went on that number kept going up, eventually he admitted that they used a low number to start with only because they didn't think people would comply if the required vaccine rate seemed unrealistically high.
Herd immunity is almost certainly a thing at a certain immunity rate, the question that goes unanswered is what that rate actually is. For there to even be a case for vaccine mandates, of even just the arguments that people ought to get vaccinated due to herd immunity, we have to know the % of immunized population and the risk of vaccine side effects.
My understanding is that we don't have a solid understanding of the exact tipping point for herd immunity, and that at least during the covid pandemic response we didn't have a solid understanding of the true risks of adverse side effects to the vaccines either.
Seriously? You are going to make an argument like this after what the president himself has said and the way him and Musk are openly attacking the judicial branch.
This executive order says that any court order directing an agency is not valid unless the attorney general or president agrees with it. It’s not about controlling agencies, the president already does, this is about usurping the last check and balance on his power.
It is not the executive’s branch role to say what laws or regulations are valid under our constitution.
I've been seeing posts like this all over hacker news. They appear to be structured like rational arguments but really make no logical sense.
I have no doubt that these people know exactly what they are doing, and are intentionally lying and spreading these "very reasonable" arguments as a blueprint for others to copy.
Their goal is to fluster and confuse the situation.
It may be the case. I also genuinely think some people are not paying attention and think in a vacuum. They fail to see the malice and the words and writings from these people wanting to destroy the function of the government.
The problem with the CEO as president metaphor is that the CEO of a company is functionally a dictator. If the company is private, then there are no checks on the CEO at all.
Calling someone a dictator is an accusation, something every American was taught was wrong in school. Calling someone a CEO is a compliment, something our collective media has taught us to aspire to.
CEO is just a softer word that makes submission easier, or even logical, while it hides the truth of that power structure which is functionally the same for both.
"The CEO metaphor re-frames political rule as a business operation, which makes executive overreach appear logical rather than dangerous."
A large component of the right-wing media campaign for the last, well, all of my life has also been to normalize their actions by accusing The Other Side of doing it first. "Activist judges" was the most notable one.
> The operative portion I see is as follows: “The President and the Attorney General [...] shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch" [...] This doesn’t touch the judicial branch in any way.
What? Trump has just asserted that the Judicial Branch's interpretation of federal law--almost its entire job under our US Constitution, and widely understood to include laws authorizing and controlling how government programs work--is entirely void in places where it's mattered for generations.
The correct response to that is: "That's an unprecedented assertion contrary to established principle, and arguably unconstitutional."
Not: "Gee golly willickers, I just can't see why you're all overreacting, it's not like the justices have to obey his interpretation of the law when they do things every day, so it's all fair-n-square!"
> [I]t seems clear to me that the prevailing narrative is both consistent and being constructed in bad faith.
The bad-faith here is your willful blindness, where you construct textual apologetics by dismissing the consequences of what's being said. (Compare: "He only said Big Mickey should wear concrete overshoes and sleep with the fishes, you people are all making bad-faith arguments against someone just trying to give honest lifestyle advice!")
You're misunderstanding the order. It's not saying these interpretations overrule any judicial interpretations. The context you're missing here is that before this order various departments under the executive branch of government interpreted the law in their own, sometimes 'creative' ways. These interpretations are now not only subject to judicial and legislative oversight, but also to executive oversight as well. In reality this was already the case, but this is making it where interpretations will need to be defacto approved beforehand, rather than 'adjusted' after the fact.
If the attorney general says this law says [x] and the judiciary disagrees with an action based on that interpretation, they still have the exact same powers to halt/block said action.
>"but the central point I’m trying to make here isn’t simple whataboutism"
Next sentence:
>"I want to point out that everything that the Left is breathlessly calling fascism has immediate and direct corollaries even in the most recent Democrat administration"
Could have fooled me.
As for your statement; no, you're wrong. Everything was (D)ifferent last admin, Biden didn't go for gutting the SEC's independence when they went for his billionaire right-hand man that's going around gutting other agencies with unchecked power.
So we now have an unelected, un-appointed civilian who is the richest man in the world in the oval office telling us how he is tearing it all apart, while the guy who was actually elected is just seating there, and people think this is normal?
That's how the executive branch works. No executive actions have thus far been successfully challenged to run afoul of the Appointments Clause. This is fundamental US constitutional law.
You should carefully reread the link. What Elon is doing does not have precedence in the U.S. Elon does not have the consent of the Senate. His position is not authorized by Congress or the Constituion.
Much of our system relies on people acting in accordance to precedent and within certain established norms. What Elon is doing is way outside those norms. The system is not set up for this type of power to be concentrated in one person who operates outside Congressional oversight. And it appears increasingly likely that he will operate without judicial oversight too.
I like how George W. Bush’s ethics counsel put it.
Just because it has no precedence does not unconstitutional it make. I agree with the majority of the rest of what you've said.
No need for the 'you should carefully reread' snark. Not only am I the OP—but I've also passed a bar exam in my lifetime, which preparation included careful US constitutional law study.
That the American Bar Association, a voluntary, for-profit organization which mostly involves itself with issues concerning the American legal education and otherwise lobbys on behalf of its dues paying members, doesn't administer any bar exams—only the state governments do within their respective jurisdictions—aside... If you mean to refer to this statement made by its president:
"The American Bar Association supports the rule of law. That means holding governments, including our own, accountable under law. We stand for a legal process that is orderly and fair. We have consistently urged the administrations of both parties to adhere to the rule of law. We stand in that familiar place again today. And we do not stand alone. Our courts stand for the rule of law as well."
I agree 100% that adherence to the rule of law is what separates the United States, Canada, most of Europe, and Oceania from pretty much the rest of the world.
But I don't see anything in the entirety of Mr. Bay's statement that's otherwise relevant to this discussion. Certainly nothing about Elon Musk nor "what DOGE is doing [being] illegal and unconstitutional" like you've claimed.
I said you should reread it becuase you said “this is how the executive branch works” and the link shows that it is indeed not how it works since Elon does not have the consent of the Senate and his position was not established by Congress or the Constitution. It was a polite way of saying you are wrong.
Just because it has no precedence does not unconstitutional it make.
Of course not. I did not say or imply otherwise. I said much of our system relies on following political norms. For example, it would have been perfectly Constitional for the last Congress to have removed the entire Supreme Court and replaced the justices. Such a constitutionally valid move would have had very bad implications.
"[The POTUS] shall have Power [ . . ] and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint [ . . . ] all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."[1]
At present Elon's position within the executive branch does not actually nor historically (for obvious reasons) require "Advice and Consent of the Senate", because no one that's part of DOGE, Elon included, is currently constitutionally interpreted to be an "Officer of the United States."[2]
Nor has Congress bestowed upon the POTUS the exclusive authority to nominate and appoint whatever Elon's position is without their advice and conset. That's what the after-the-colon part is all about: whether or not the appointment of any "such inferior Officer"[3] whose position is not otherwise expressly provided for (like Elon's) is vested by an act of Congress in the POTUS not requiring their advice and consent—not whether or not any such position is actually 'established by Congress' as you say. That's exactly the point: Congress derives no appointment power from the Appointments Clause. Their role is limited to providing either constitutionally-required advice and consent, or vesting a direct appointment power not requiring their advice and consent in the POTUS.
That being said, if the executive branch does something novel, like create and appoint thereto a position (or even an entire department) that didn't exist previously, then certainly that act may be ripe for constitutional challenge under the Appointments Clause. That is squarely one of the primary constiutional issues with what Elon and DOGE are doing, and that would be squarely for the SCOTUS to interpret.
Just curious since I don't think I've heard this argument before—from where in the Constitution do you interpret that "it would have been perfectly Constitutional for the last Congress to have removed the entire Supreme Court and replaced the justices"?
From lawyers I’ve talked to the Supreme Court has give the House wide lattitude on what it considers impeachable behavior.
From Wikipedia:
Defendants challenged the use of these committees, claiming them to be a violation of their fair trial rights as this did not meet the constitutional requirement for their cases to be "tried by the Senate". Several impeached judges, including District Court Judge Walter Nixon, sought court intervention in their impeachment proceedings on these grounds. In Nixon v. United States (1993),[18] the Supreme Court determined that the federal judiciary could not review such proceedings, as matters related to impeachment trials are political questions and could not be resolved in the courts.[19]
I did link to a lawyer who was an ethics counsel to a former a former President who disagress with you. You can nitpick however you want and construe whatever meaning you want from the language of existing laws and justify in your mind your point of view. There are even legal experts who foolishly think Presidents ought to enjoy a broad amount of immunity from prosecution. Likewise people can provide legal arguments for why you are wrong.
Whatver the case there is no precedent for what is happening right now. The political norms have been upended and what is being done is contrary to how a large majority of people believe things are supposed to work. A new normal is being established and it is not a good thing. This is very unhealthy for the republic. Congressional power is being greatly limited and Presidential power greatly expanded. This is quite bad.
You're replying 'at' me here, not to me. You've addressed nothing I've said or asked. And I mostly disagree with or don't find relevant just about everything you have replied with.
I begin to suspect you are being deliberately obtuse. I gave an example of something that is legal and Constitutional that Congress could do (remove all Supreme Court justices) that would totally upend the political norms of the country. It would cause a crisis.
Whether you can come up with a plausible legal justification for what Musk and Trump are doing is irrelevant. The previously understood balance of power has been upended. The crisis exists now. Congress has authorized spending that a President signed off on and now a new President is taking it upon himself via his designee to change that spending as he sees fit. This is very bad. This is not how things are supposed to work.
Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Congress has not vested the President to appoint someone the power to do what Musk and his minions are doing.
That sub-clause does not mean what you suggest through any reasonable statutory interpretation. And I'm not suggesting any kind of legal chessmanship here. I've simply identified for discussion a legistlative branch check on executive branch power that's expressly delineated in the Constitution.
Again... Congress doesn't decide what a so-called inferior officer has the "power to do"—merely whether the POTUS has the power to appoint said person without their advice and consent. The POTUS decides what its subordinates have the power to do. The check to such an exercise of executive power belongs to the judicial branch by way of legal challenge before a federal judge up to and including the SCOTUS.
Of course they do have such power. Each department/agency has legislation that spells out its scope. An underling in Department A doesn’t have the authority to act outside the scope of its Department A’s power/purview.
Great job, love the simplicity. On mobile would be nice if the choice of places was collapsible or maybe in a modal?
Another place to add is Camden Art Center https://camdenartcentre.org
oh thank you, great feedback! Tbh I haven't checked that much on mobile, left all the design to AI :) but that's correct, on mobile it takes too much space. Adding Camden Art Center now.
I'll grant that is unlikely to happen with the kooks and crooks who just took office, but you've got to admit that--even in the best of times--a generic "reminder of the importance of" would be a timid and not-very-newsworthy type of "rapid response".
The the majority of the blame here lies on years of behavior by people and officials within Texas.
