I think most Americans are familiar with the Constitution….that document that established this country’s laws by which we are all so proud.
Then along came Elmo and his band of mini thugs in DOGE….somewhere along the way to his ascension the Constitution became a thing to destroy….
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is moving fast and breaking the law — lots of laws.
The scope of Trump and Musk’s sweeping effort to purge the federal workforce and slash government spending has shocked the political world — in part for its ambition, but also in part because of its disregard for the law.
David Super, an administrative law professor at Georgetown Law School, recently told the Washington Post that so many of Musk’s moves were “so wildly illegal” that he seemed to be “playing a quantity game, and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once.”
I reached out to Super so he could walk through this quantity game — so he could take me on a tour of all of the apparent lawbreaking in Musk’s effort so far. A transcript of our conversation, condensed and edited for clarity, follows.
https://www.vox.com/politics/398618/elon-musk-doge-illegal-lawbreaking-analysis
Some have strong opinions on the Constitutional aspect of DOGE and what it is attempting….
Some warn that a constitutional crisis is under way, as Mr. Musk and his DOGE team ride roughshod over various statutes governing how the executive branch operates, such as the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, as well as protections for career civil servants. Mr. Trump’s advisers view some of these laws as unconstitutional constraints on the executive, setting up a fight in the courts.
“This vision of executive power is extremely dangerous,” says Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush.
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2025/0204/musk-doge-treasury-usaid-congress
My thought is while this group is suppose to save the government money it will be much less so in the near future and this smells of retaliation disguised as cost cutting….an attempt to keep his majesty in the seat of power for as long as possible.
Elmo is nothing more than a tool Trump needs to strip all protections from the way government does things….and the people will pay the hefty price for all this silliness.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Here is the rub— as Trump defies court orders, we have a constitutional crisis…and since we cannot depend on the suckpreme court to reign him in, and since we cannot depend on the department of what was justice to reign him in, and since congress doesn’t seem to have the will or the balls to reign him in, we can count on the fact that we are now in an irrevocable dictatorship….
While there is a chance SCOTUS would support him, I don’t think it would, ultimately. Anything that undermines the court system as a whole as this would, ultimately undermines the authority of SCOTUS itself and they are utterly terrified of the possibility of losing their status as the ultimate legal authority in the country. As others have said, though, the real problem is that bunch of utterly spineless, cowardly sniveling, egotistical, corrupt bastards in congress. And that goes for both parties.
The Congress has been gradually eroding away it’s own power for decades now, turning more and more of it over to the executive branch, all so they can go back to the voters and use the presidency as a scapegoat. “See, it wasn’t our fault! He did it!” they can claim when things fall apart. “It wasn’t our fault!” only it absolutely was and is their fault.
Doesn’t matter whose fault it is, we are entering a period of encroaching authoritarianism that will soon enslave all of us to the whims and dictates of a single powerful individual and none of us will have any voice at all except the voice of consent and acceptance.
Off topic — I cannot comment on other people’s blogs from my own main page so I am trying to do it through Reader …
The Reader is my go to….it is easy access…..chuq
I guess that is where I will go too.
I suspect they will soon ‘save money’ by suspending future elections. That might sound crazy, but I would put nothing past Trump/Musk, nothing at all.
Best wishes, Pete.
Think of all the money the special interests would save…..would make shareholders richer. chuq