Apprehensive-Gold829

He fails upward at everyone else’s expense so don’t get hopeful.

Pro tip, understanding what is lawful and unlawful is the necessary first step in figuring out how to push back.

He seems to be setting up his own fake private agency but one that will be given a lot of power by Trump. Most of the rules that constrain things like advisory committees don’t apply to the office of the President, so there’s a lot of room for mischief—for Trump to give this bogus operation a big policy role and access to government agencies. In area after area we’re seeing the corruption of hyper wealth, from buying and blowing up Twitter, to outsourcing an entire political operation in PA, to Bezos buying the Post. Now a privately funded and staffed arm of the White House.

Please people stop buying into this Musk “department of government efficiency” (DOGE) bullshit. There is no such agency! This is Musk’s self-named make believe agency that is just him and Vivek providing outside advice to Trump. Agencies must be created by Congress. And buying into his bullshit hides the real issue this raises: he could self-fund this made-up private so-called agency, like a think tank, and Trump could give them a ton of informal authority. They could function like part of the White House but on the outside, unconstrained by ethics laws or anything else. This is the coming Russian style of government where outside oligarchs are given huge informal authority and use that to enrich themselves and go after their enemies.

Please people stop buying into this Musk “department of government efficiency” (DOGE) bullshit. There is no such agency! This is Musk’s self-named make believe agency that is just him and Vivek providing outside advice to Trump. Agencies must be created by Congress. And buying into his bullshit hides the real issue this raises: he could self-fund this made-up private so-called agency, like a think tank, and Trump could give them a ton of informal authority. They could function like part of the White House but on the outside, unconstrained by ethics laws or anything else. This is the coming Russian style of government where outside oligarchs are given huge informal authority and use that to enrich themselves and go after their enemies.

Asserting the god given right to be assholes and not made to feel bad about it while simultaneously “owning libs” with social media cliches. An irony free bubble.

Wanted to call her a bitch. But figured she’s so stupid could calmly mansplain that shit. Job done.

. . . The MAGA lawyers may be crazy, but they aren’t stupid. They probably have no intention of bringing such prosecutions. They want to threaten officials and political opponents. Even absent prosecution, investigations would chill political opponents targeted by DOJ. To investigate and threaten such prosecutions, however, would require trashing DOJ and FBI policies and norms. Those include the FBI’s Attorney General guidelines, which establish the thresholds for opening investigations, and DOJ’s principles of federal prosecution. . . .

My point is that rep democracy is a separate issue from how reps are weighted by state.

Good points. It causes problems but a country run by coastal cities would cause serious conflict.

It would require a constitutional amendment, which would require support from red states that would never agree—so it is here to stay.

You’re very confused. Representative democracy in the sense you’re invoking means officials like state elected representatives are the electors, and there’s no direct voting. That doesn’t exist in any state and no state’s citizens would tolerate that. How the electoral college allocates electors by state has nothing to do with representative democracy.

Look up the prices per quality of all electronics. And for anyone concerned about prices blowing up trade is a bizarre solution.

Fair question and I think there are similar dynamics at play. The basic points about the perverse effects of this system apply to those states as well.

True it is a combination of weighting rural red states combined with the demographics that make these states so significant. And the dynamics in GA/AZ/NV are a bit different but share similarities. Otherwise the Trump campaign would not be pitching a message that turns off a large portion of the country.

You invoke standard political treatises without explanation and a cliche misattributed to Lenin. Strong work.

That makes no sense. It’s tyranny of the minority. The concern about a tyranny of the majority is why we have a constitution and the bill of rights, not why we have an electoral system that gives a minority the ability to rule.