I didn’t comment on the action. I indicated the linked article’s title is horrible.
- Posts
- 1
- Comments
- 204
- Joined
- 2 yr. ago
- Posts
- 1
- Comments
- 204
- Joined
- 2 yr. ago
This is just Trump rescinding Executive Order 13989. Highlights from that EO.
- No accepting gifts from registered lobbyists or lobbying organizations
- Revolving door ban, outgoing. (That's leaving the White House and going directly to work for a job you previously were over in the White House)
- Revolving door ban, incoming. (That's being a lobbyist and then getting hired into a department you lobbied.)
- Revolving door ban, holding the door. (You can't help others get in or out of a department into or hired from a lobby directly related to the department in question)
- Golden Parachute Ban. (No hiring you if you had a golden parachute)
- Vampire clause, everything agreed to here, everyone who reports to the person who agreed must agree to it.
So the first item is lobbying as usual, but the rest dealt with who could and couldn't be hired/considered for nominations.
Power cited in the EO was 3 USC § 301, 5 USC § 3301,7301.
IMHO: I think the title is horrible.
Exactly. What the banks are doing are selling "loans". Musk has to pay those loans back quote/unquote someday. If the loan is good, you hold on to it as a bank because the interest makes you money. If the loan is bad, you sell it so that you can get some of your money back and make the collection of the loan someone else's problem.
Banks will do this for a number of reasons:
- To manage their balance sheet. Every loan not paid in full is bad and you need to balance good (income/good loans/etc) and bad.
- Generate immediate liquidity. Banks need to have some hard cash on hand, sometimes they sell to do just that, have hard cash.
- Free up credit lines to lend to new borrowers. Banks only have so much resources, sometime you cut losses to get new gains.
- Diversify the risk pool. You want a nice balance between "loans that might default" and "loans likely to not default".
Now for everyone else, what the parent to this comment is indicating is the second option in that list. Having to create some cold hard cash suddenly. Usually, there's a cyclical nature to needing greenbacks by the fistful, but like everything that's not always true. Something can "happen" and you have a sudden need to have cash in hand pronto. Good way to get that cash is to start selling low hanging fruit if you have it.
Something like the Twitter loan is a good pitch for low hanging fruit. Musk is terrible at paying the loan back, Twitter is likely to default one day, but Musk suddenly has direct access to some pretty corrupt as fuck ways to actually pay that loan back. From what I've read in the article, the sell price is something like 90 to 95 cents on the dollar. So not a huge discount, this ain't a fire sale.
But banks might want to offload Musk from their sheets just in case that money is something someone might later investigate. Like that 95 cents on the dollar price is "We think Musk is good for it, but we likely don't actually want his money." So you can make that federal investigation in 2033 someone else's problem, by selling the loan today. The big bank makes about 95% of the original amount back and when Musk goes to pay his loan in Russian Blood Rubles, it'll be to a bank that get investigated that isn't <<insert some large bank that would "NEVER" think to take conflicted money>>.
That's one theory. But there could be something on the horizon. Something that isn't right around the corner, but coming up in the distance that the banks want to have cash on hand for. Usually you see a much larger discount, like 60 cents on the dollar, for "holy shit, this stuff is toxic but we need to offload it discreetly before everyone else wises up."
I don't think point one and three apply to Musk's particular set of loans. But who knows?! Only the bankers do.
It’s very bureaucratic. And it’s very slow.
Oh well he'd like to know about the Homeland Security Act of 2002. That's when we took FEMA and merged it with Department of Homeland Security and mixed all these neat book keeping tricks. Like this one where border patrol has to get money from FEMA for particular payments related to housing capture illegal border crossings.
Now you may ask, "Why on Earth would we do something like that?" Well, because 9/11! That's why!
Yeah, for the folks who were trying to beg for reason and a level head in the aftermath of the worse terrorist attack on the United States, they would be right up there with Trump about how FEMA since 9/11 has slowly converted into a red tape mess. I don't think anyone in FEMA will debate that the red tape is a good thing.
But that's about as far as Trump goes in being right before he gets to:
I’d like to see the states take care of disasters
States WOULD NOT take care of them. They would just create various insurances that they would require citizens to pay into. And then those funds would be at the whim of the State Government not being corrupt, which for the southeastern states (I'm in one of them, Tennessee) that would be like asking a cocaine addict to be in charge of the cocaine evidence.
sniff sniff I have no idea why all these criminals keep going free! sniff snifffffffff
I mean I don't know, maybe we ought to bring back tar and feathering our local politicians. I thought we could move past that point, but you know, shit sometimes the old ways work best.
FEMA just hasn’t done the job
FEMA has done exactly the job that Congress has legislated them to do. If FEMA is failing in someone's opinion, we needn't look any further than Congress.
He also said individual states should be in charge of directing response to natural disasters rather than FEMA, and that the federal government should only step in subsequently to provide funding.
sigh
This is overly simplified. States know best where things are hit hardest and what the priority for rebuilding should be. FEMA will absolutely use their decades of experience in disasters to help state governments get the most out of their funds. If I was to try to make a metaphor here. States are in the driver's seat, FEMA will act as the GPS, and Congress is the gas tank. FEMA will try to get the most mileage out of your gas tank as possible, but States can totally change course and FEMA will try it's best to plot a good destination based on the new course given the limited amount of fuel the State has.
As always, it's a subject that is complex that Trump feels that the complexity doesn't deserve to be address but instead done away with and make the complexity someone else's problem.
Me as a Tennessean: "I bet it's Andy Ogles"
Checks
Goddamn can I read that man like a fucking book. I'm sorry we're all trying to vote the bastard out but the State gerrymandered the district because... AND I SHIT YOU NOT... "California does it, so it's okay if we do it too". Honest to God what our State Assembly said about breaking Nashville up into a hellscape of gerrymandering.
Do know, he's an idiot IRL as well. He's the kind that's really full of himself and he's got a super high self-worth in head.
Yeah, this is exactly the point here everyone. The pardons work because nobody has asked anyone if these blanket pardons are indeed legit.
So we can all sit here and try to mince the logic of such, but the real answer is that it exists in a superposition of legal and not legal until the various courts rule upon it.
I don’t think that it’s right for the leadership, especially Republican leadership, that prides itself on being pro-family, to be so anti-family,
It’s “he’s not hurting the right people”, all over again.
Indeed. A modern Nissan Leaf with a 62 kWh battery can charge in a little over 11 minutes if you have a 2kV 160 amp line to toss into it. Because you know, it's completely safe and cool to deal with those kinds of values for the average consumer.
Florida district court Judge Aileen Cannon’s latest comically pro-Trump ruling, her order Tuesday that temporarily blocks the public release of Smith’s report on his two criminal investigations of Trump, remains a big deal.
Cannon's ruling isn't some sudden motion here. The core argument for tossing out the entire case is predicated on Jack Smith not being appointed per 28 USC § 515. Cannon agreed with the motion that Jack Smith wasn't appointed correctly. Obviously the DOJ disagreed. So the whole thing went to appeals.
All Cannon is doing is indicating that the Government can not release a report that a person who wasn't correctly appointed created. This was absolutely something everyone knew was coming. This is just the logical follow up of what she already ruled on. I'm not saying she's correct in her determination, just saying that this was absolutely expected to happen like way back when the case was originally tossed out.
I think we aren't really enjoying the true flavor of this vote. Allow me to enlighten.
McCarthy had added new rules to the budget process under Rule XXI related to the budget. It creates a "cut-as-you-go" system as opposed to the old "pay-as-you-go" system. This new rule change makes it fifty times more difficult to get an actual budget passed, I won't go into details as it's a lot to cover.
Now we arrive to H.Res. 10515, Trump's amended American Relief Act. Now no part of this bill follows House Rule X or XXI on the budget except Division C (via H.Res. 8774), Division F (via H.Res. 8752), Division G (via H.Res. 8998), Division J (via H.Res. 8580), and Division K (via H.Res. 8771).
Side note for those wondering, the US budget has 12 regular appropriations (because the original theory was that you could pass one per month as opposed to a 1,500 page omnibus bill. I'm sure we can all see how wonderful that theory is working out) that are required that are labeled Division A, Division B, ... Division L. Sometimes budgets include Division M and more letters past that like Division AA, BB, CC and so on, those are called "supplemental appropriations". But the A through L are (in alphabetic order):
A - Agriculture, rural development, FDA, and related agencies B - Commerce, justice, science, and related agencies C - The Department of Defense D - Energy and water development of the United States and related agencies E - Financial services and general government appropriations F - The Department Of Homeland Security G - The Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies H - The Department of Labor, HHS, and Education, and related agencies I - The Legislative Branch Appropriations J - Military construction, VA, and related agencies K - The Department of State, Foreign operations, and related agencies L - Transportation, HUD, and related agenciesSO. Here's the really tasty part. Because of McCarthy's strange ass rules on the budget. The House has to "suspend the rules" in order to approve this bill (because the other seven divisions that haven't follow the rules). That means it's not just a simple majority, but a ⅔ majority is required. Even if every Republican did vote "yea", they still needed 63 Democrats to sign on and they got only two. And they had to do this because McCarthy fucked them over with the rule change that the House Freedom Caucus asked for.
Had the House Freedom Caucus not asked for this "cut-as-you-go" system, Republicans wouldn't have needed the Democrats in the vote. That's what I think is amazing.
And the thing is, what was different between the Trump amendment and the original is, I detail in my comment here..
Literally this failure is so much on the Republicans for getting played at their own fucking game here. Maybe on January 3rd, they'll adopt better rules. But who knows, there might be another fight over Speaker again. I would find it hilarious if the Democrats forward a continuation of the rules of the House just to keep McCarthy's strange ass shit in there out of spite.
For those not in the know, the US House makes new rules every two years (which is when a new session of Congress starts, the next session is the 119th session for those wondering). Most times they just forward the standing rules of the previous session, but every so often a speaker of the house gets "Creative" and it's always a fun show watching unintended consequences. McCarthy's rule changes have not yet disappointed.
- Yeas
- Republican - 172
- Democrats - 2
- Total - 174
- Nays
- Republican - 38
- Democrats - 197
- Total - 235
- Present
- Democrat - 1
- Total - 1
- Not voting
- Republican - 9
- Democrat - 11
- Total - 20
It's very disappointing to us that all but two Democrats voted against aid to farmers and ranchers, against disaster relief, against all these bipartisan measures that had already been negotiated and decided upon
Division A didn't change from the original and the amended version. So the two were the same. Democrats were on board with Div. A in the original, what changed was Democrats denying Trump the suspension of the debt ceiling. And the reality is Republicans have the House Freedom Caucus to blame for this failure.
Republicans spent the 117th blocking everything they could from Democrats. Why Republicans thought Democrats were going to play ball in the upcoming 119th is likely the dumbest thing for them to bank on. Yeap, Democrats denied the gimmie for Trump because Trump doesn't get to rug pull bills when he's being pissy. That's how that works. Trump wants to suspend the debt ceiling? Democrats had to swallow a ton of bitter pills to get a suspension in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. Republicans made bank in favors for giving Democrats that one favor.
Democrats are just looking for the exact same treatment. Want to suspend the debt ceiling? There's going to need to be a lot of bitter pills for Republicans to swallow. So Democrats are of the mindset, Republicans take it up the ass for that request like the Democrats did, or they are going to have to crack that whip on the Freedom Caucus which has in it some of the loudest members of the House who have everything to prove.
Like Republicans clearly forgot, you don't ask for the golden goose free of charge. Trump wanted an unlimited credit card for all his plans, and Democrats are going to want a lot for that privilege. Unlimited credit card didn't come cheap for Biden, it sure shit ain't coming cheap for Trump.
Republicans don't want to be stuck in this budget loop for the next two years? Agree to the original stop-gap and you all can come back in March to talk about a full budget. But oh no, Democrats aren't doing this "pray I don't alter the deal" 30 fucking hours before the Government shuts down. Republicans can play blame games all day long, but short end of the deal is, Republicans control the House. Republicans can get their house in order or start appeasing Democrats, but either way if Trump wants the Deluxe Package, he's going to have to pay out the ass for it. Democrats had to, and they suffered a ton of backlash to those bitter pills. Or maybe Republicans don't have the back bone to do the hard things in Congress.
I remember my sophomore year in High School a friend walked up to me and we got to talking and then they ask "so are you planning anything for homecoming?". I just replied "nah. I'm not really into football and I think I have to work that night anyway." And they were like "Okay well cool."
Fast forward 35 years, I tell this story to a friend and they said "so did they ask you out anyway?" And I was like "No, I... WAIT! Is that what they were getting at? It actually flew over my head? Holy shit!" And it took a whole 35 years before I finally realized it.
In all fairness though, I had a lot going on at that point in my life. My mother two years earlier had passed away from a three year battle with cancer and my father had left us orphan about three weeks later. I was still processing shit with the whole foster care and nobody else in my god forsaken family wanting to take me or my siblings in.
Oh and I never got with the person because like maybe four months later I had to move to another foster family (which side note: I eventually had to leave that other family too because the parents were that weird religious abusive kind and I got pulled during a welfare check to go elsewhere) which meant a change in schools (had to change schools yet again after that second family). Something, something the foster care dad got arrested with a DUI, something something, you can't keep kids in your house. But you know looking back maybe it was for the best because it would have sucked to have to move after developing emotions for someone.
Even going off the final assertions by this report and let's just toss them a bone and say 100% of what they present is EXACTLY as they say it is presented. None of this rises to criminal liability. None of it is a level that the FBI could really do anything about. Violation of House rules by House members is up to the House to vote on punishment. Violation of the standing rules of the Senate is up to the Senate is also up to the Senate to vote on how to punish. There's zero ways anyone in the judicial branch would want to take up any of this.
Even Trump diehard justices wouldn't touch this because doing so would open up ANY rule breaking in the House to prosecution, which is literally something nobody in Congress would want.
But again, that's just ignoring all the stretch allegations made. Like for example, they've indicated that Cheney reached out to Hutchinson and then apply their definition of "it went too far" when that's exactly how they've conducted several of their investigations into Hunter Biden which is exactly why we wanted a hearing in front of cameras as opposed to off-record and then on-record statements.
All of this is just Gentleman's agreements on how testimony is entered into record, there's not some "gold standard" to how committees go about this whole affair. And literally every time something like this goes down, once the power dynamic changes, it's "this is where the other team didn't do what we believe to be reasonable™".
I mean, I get it. It looks like they wanted a stronger narrative than they had, but at the same time a lot of people within the office who were loyal to Trump didn't want to testify. There was a ton of pushback from former members of Trump's team to the investigation. Remember all those subpoenas that they ignored from the House? So okay, the linkage to Trump and the J6 rioters isn't strong, but that's no surprise. I don't think anyone thought for ten seconds that the House could make a case for incitement, that's just a massive bar to clear. And the J6 Committee did indeed stop short of calling it an orchestrated coup officially. NOW that didn't stop them from making that statement in front of cameras, but at no time did the House officially call it a coup. Just "strongly hinted at it".
Now, that might sound like I'm splitting hairs here. But that's exactly what Republicans did with the whole Burisma thing. They didn't outright officially say squat. But goddamn didn't they strongly hint at it.
All of this gets really old because they are fighting over rules that they themselves skirt at nearly every chance. But none of this reaches "breaking laws" sort of how like "insider trading in Congress isn't TECHNICALLY breaking any laws." It's all silly nonsense because this song and dance is all bad-faith arguments from both sides.
I would love to see what kind of argument the FBI tries to cobble together for conspiracy for former Senator Cheney. Because boy do Congress critters really rely on that Article I Section 6 part of the Constitution that indicates.
and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place
Like that's a very core, boy do we have thousands of cases to draw precedent on, right of Congress. And gosh, this is starting to look like the 119th session is going to be doing a whole lot of the 118th missteps.
The 118th Session? Yeah, we don't even have a parallel in all of the history of the US to mark how unproductive this session has been. Like not even during the Civil War was Congress this underwhelming. The 118th Session has set a new low water mark for "things gotten done".
The biggest issue was that the House spent something like ~60% of their time in Committee doing "investigations" that ultimately led nowhere. Like, I'll throw Congress a bone here, if they actually impeached someone with all those investigations, I'd give it to them. But that literally nobody was impeached all those investigations basically go into the "wasted time" column.
And they can't impeach any of them come the 119th session because... New President, new people. So all that time they invested goes to waste. Hell, even Hunter I can't give it to them, because in the end, he got a pardon. And as soon as Trump gives the J6 folks a pardon, all that work the Democrats did becomes wasted as well.
But the 118th spent the vast majority of their time in investigations, so they got so little actually done and passed.
As a liberal I will feel so fucking owned if Trump
gets rid ofselects the Governor of Florida.but Trump might test limits by forcing a Senate recess using a rarely invoked constitutional provision
I highly doubt Trump can use Section III here. This whole story is predicated on a process that’s a massive maybe.
If Section III was a possibility then it’s likely that the Senate would just suspend confirmation hearings and just floor vote instead. No need for Section III to be invoked.
It just makes no sense to even pitch this idea.
More importantly. Farmers can't just stop planting Johnny-on-the-spot and they can't hold their breath until day of. At some point, the United States is going to have a shit ton of food on hand. This is a very big problem when you have way too much food.
There's a cost to growing food and loans are usually taken out to cover those costs, repaying them when the items are sold. But every American cannot just buy all the food that was going to be sold to foreign countries. Not all food can be repurposed and some of the food that will be repurposed for something like fuel or animal feed, all of those have dramatically decreased return on value. So having too much food massively depresses the price of the crop. Which means those loans taken out by farmers come a calling, causing farmers to default and lose their farms.
This is exactly what happened with the American Farm crisis of the 1980s. Many local agricultural banks collapsed, the Farm Credit System took some of the largest losses ever since the Great Depression, grocers began consolidating leading to the handful of grocers that we have today, the industrial farming industry moved in and took a strangle hold that the US is still dealing with, and land speculation in the wake of the massive foreclosures shot through the roof escalating urban sprawl. Having a surplus of food isn't a bad thing, but having way too much food can be the thing that triggers a massive collapse in several economic industries that can have decades long effect.
Even the small rural town I live in used to have four FCS accredited banks, that employed nearly fifty people. All of those banks went defunct in the wake of the farming crisis. The farms out here have all but been completely changed from the independent growers that they used to be, to being contract farming industry owned/family operated. Where there used to be a thriving sorghum farm, it has all but changed into a Tyson contracted industrial chicken farm with long red barns as far as the eye can see.
LOL!!
I moved somewhere, where the local government owns the majority share of the teleco that provides the Internet in the area. 30% ownership is co-op, which leaves something like 15% that's private interest. The ISP runs amazing, 1Gbps fiber to the house for $45/mo and the co-op just forwarded a motion to the local government for consideration to upgrade to 10Gbps.
I moved here from a place that was a Comcast monopoly zone that gave max 350Mbps for $70/mo.
In a better society the CEOs of AT&T and Comcast would have already been dragged out into the street, long before we got to this point.
That's not a power the President has. The President cannot postpone them and they aren't included as an emergency power. So he can't call an emergency and suspend elections. And yes, we've got precedent from the Civil War that elections can't be suspended when we're at war with ourselves.
States can remove themselves, but that just means fewer folks arrive in Congress. Unless the President forcefully dissolves Congress, which would require a lot of the military being okay with murdering elected officials, only Congress can have a say on the law.
The President can indicate that they're rigged and what have you. But he only gets away with it, if Congress or the Courts or both goes along with it. That's the only means that doesn't require murdering people. All the other methods will require force. Including the "it's all rigged". California can have their midterm election, certify it, and send their members of Congress to DC. If Trump stops them, they can sue to be rightfully seated. That requires the Courts to go along with it. If the Courts allow them in, but the Speaker won't acknowledge them or grant them a vote, that's Congress going along with it.
The only way the Executive alone prevents a member of Congress from taking their duly elected seat is shooting them in the head. That's it, that's the only means. All the other methods require some other ⅓ of our Government being cool with the heist.
Meta mad about DeepSeeks. Decided only terrorist use Linux.