Friday's ruling by Judge Nichols came in response to an emergency petition by the American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees - two unions representing employees of the agency.

Judge Nichols, who was nominated by Trump during his first term, said the written order would be issued later and go into more detail.

greggerypeccary wrote on Feb 8^th, 2025 at 9:50am:


Yes, the contradictions are beginning to appear everywhere: 

Trump the "peacemaker" who is (correctly) concerned with the useless mutual slaughter  of Ukraine and Russian soldiers,  wants to expel Palestinians from Gaza - a move condemned by the whole world except the extreme  Rabid Right; and he is apparently under the spell of the world's richest man who wants to cut aid to some of the poorest citizens in the world - which will certainly result in their needless deaths.

Deplorable.

greggerypeccary wrote on Feb 8^th, 2025 at 10:04am:


What can some silly judge do, Greggery? Elon's got his work experience kids transferring all federal data onto X. Elon has permission. DL said.

Just to be sure, Elon asked him again. So it's okay to shut down the entire federal payments system and copy the data of all US citizens onto our private servers?

Sure, DL said. We'll announce Bibi's resort plan for Gaza to take the heat off. Get the fakers yacking, problem solved.

Yes, but is it legal?

Legal schmegal, DL said. Remember my boxes? Nuclear secrets, experimental weapons systems, dirt on every foreign leader ever. It took NARA a good year to start sniffing around for that. You think they'll care about a few nobodies' Medicaid forms?

The big fella's got Elon's back, leftards. If there's one thing we know about DL, it's this:

He always takes care of his friends.

You?

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has begun its auditing protocols at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), after he said the agency should be “deleted.”

Musk, who was hand-picked by President Donald Trump to reduce wasteful and fraudulent spending within the government, told the bureau to “RIP” (Rest in Peace) in a Friday afternoon post on X, shortly after Bloomberg reported that DOGE had taken the first step toward dismantling the agency.

Three members of the DOGE team have already arrived at the CFPB’s Washington, DC. headquarters and “embedded” themselves inside, the outlet reported.

The event comes just months after Musk said to “Delete CFPB”:

“There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” the tech mogul wrote on X.

DOGE’s presence at the bureau also comes shortly after Trump reportedly fired CFPB’s former leader, Rohit Chopra, in an email last week.

Chopra, a protégé of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), had previously backed efforts to force banks to grant loans to illegal immigrants, saying in 2023 that the government “will not allow companies to use immigration status as an excuse for illegal discrimination.”

It's all too easy for the MAGA sycophants outside the United States, such as Frank, to rally behind DOGE (a non-existent department), applauding its dismantling of things like the Department of Labour and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. These individuals, comfortably shielded by Australian employment and consumer laws, fail to grasp the scale of the damage being done.

Project 2025 is painfully transparent. The objective is to dismantle the United States and reconstruct it based on a framework designed to empower corporate elites and billionaires, all while privatising essential services and agencies.  Lower taxes, especially for the elites, but everything else becomes a subscription service.  This process strips the populace of their rights and their ability to challenge the growing oligarchy.

And the consequences are unfolding before our eyes.

Once these agencies, gutted of staff, gutted of resources, and infiltrated by Trump loyalists, have been rendered ineffective, the next phase of the plan will commence. In the case of the Department of Education, it will be eradicated entirely. As their functions dwindle, Trump will stand before the masses and claim that privatisation is the solution, spinning a narrative that the private sector could do it better.  This will include education, with publicly funded vouchers for elite schools to continue, more welfare for those who don't need it paid by the lower income earners (like the MAGA faithful).

This is the inevitability he's engineering. The so-called "shaking up" of the system is merely a prelude to the country's destruction, to be remade in his image,or more accurately, according to the contours of Project 2025.  He only cares about being appointed the emperor of this new system.

And it's already in motion.

The MAGA movement won't wield the power they fantasise about. The system, once in place, will be built not for them, but for the corporate elites, tech bros and billionaires. The rank and file, like everyone else outside this insulated circle, will become fodder for the grinder.

And yet, they cheer on this self-inflicted carnage.

It’s a tragedy. I would love to be proven wrong, but when you read Project 2025, when you compare it to Trump’s actions so far and promises of what's to come, when you listen to the tech bros, and when you observe the current trajectory, the reality is inescapable.

If this all comes to pass, the MAGA faithful will get exactly what they deserve.  They were warned.

ProudKangaroo wrote on Feb 8^th, 2025 at 2:24pm:


Indeed.

All Americans were warned, which is why I have little sympathy for them now.

ProudKangaroo wrote on Feb 8^th, 2025 at 2:24pm:


Just soooo. Of course, we hardly imagined Project 2025 to be engineered via Elon's algorithms.

Now we know what Elon was getting up to, down at Mar a Lago for the transition meetings.

Back in the good old days before the election, we were just expecting a harmless government takeover by Opus Dei and the big fella's white supremacist backers.

A few abortion and health services cut here, school lunch and food stamps programs cut there, some federal agency staff changes, with a bunch of useless MAGA dupes replacing a competent public service with years of experience in public health, transport, aviation, communications, infrastructure, energy, legal, administration, military and policing.

What's panned out is a major hostile takeover - the entire US government, along with all of its contracted NGOs and subsidiaries transferred onto Elon's private servers and into the hands of kids on internships.

It's now clear that DL is totally out to lunch. If he's not playing golf, he's reading from a script in the White House briefing room. Domestic policy, funding and legislation has been outsourced entirely to Elon and his friends.

Foreign policy sits with Miriam Adelson, explaining why DL's focus is solely on Israel. DL's only idea, his only political contribution at all, is tariffs - no reason, he just likes the word. DL's been left to his own devices in that area, declaring trade wars on the US's nearest neighbours, his staffers struggling to work with his decrees, which will be inevitably forgotten about in a few weeks when he moves onto his next thought bubble.

DL's only concern is keeping his face tanned and making sure the words come out in some form of order - near enough, good enough. Global markets whiz around, with investors and speculators having no idea what's going on.

Jared and Ivanka must be sitting down in Florida realizing how lucky they were to get out alive. Even Steve Bannon's pissed, struggling to sell his fascist platform and make complete chaos sound desirable.

The much-awaited falling out with Elon is yet to happen. Elon has to have been told he'll be held accountable. Whether he's heard this is another matter. DL will turn on him, which means no pardons. Elon has no elected office to fall back on, no legal or even media advisory teams. If Elon loses DL's faith, he's toast. There goes the entire MAGA media juggernaut. Elon could become another Mike Pence in a flash - worse, he'll be seen as a traitor, a competitor.

Elon has no principles whatsoever. He probably doesn't know what they are. Autism can have an impact on morality. The disgraced crypto fraudster Sam Bankman Fried suffers from the same ends-justifying-means pathology - a lot of tech types do. SBF got 20 years for making similar moves to Elon, the only difference is Elon has ensconced himself in a political administration.

This was SBF's ambition too. One of his media defence strategies was to "come out" as MAGA to get the support of the base. Elon beat him to the punch. It's hard to believe that only a year ago, Elon was politically neutral. Once he joined the Trump train, it was most likely his backing that won Trump the race.

Today, Elon has the entire US budget literally at his disposal. His DL has the White House, the Congress, Senate and Supreme Court. As prez, DL can't be prosecuted. Elon's left with his dick on the line.

Political winds can change awfully quick, leftards. Elon has few real friends.

He's currently making a lot of enemies.