- 13 days
Jeremy Lewin oversaw the destruction of USAID. It’s not clear he had the legal authority to do so.
Ummm, no. It’s already been determined in court…they did not have authority to shut down any of those projects. That’s either for Congress to decide, or for Congress to appoint someone to decide. They did neither. Not only were they not consulted, at all…everything that DOGE cancelled was already approved by Congress and should not have been touched.
- 13 days
I do really wish with all my heart that dems win, grow some balls and they let the courts throw the book at the culprits of this for the maximum sentence.
Then again, I might wish for a million dollars and a laser unicorn, which is more plausible.
I fully expect Trump to hand out pardons like it’s candy at Halloween if the Democrats take either chamber. I say doxx the lot of them and let the mob do its job.
- 12 days
There should be a rule where if a president gets impeached and convicted, all the pardons they issued should be voided.
Sounds good in theory, but Trump could kill all of Chuck Grassley’s great grand children on the Senate floor and the Republicans still wouldn’t vote to convict him.
- 12 days
Executive orders and pardons are the bastardization of checks and balances. Pardons do make some level of sense at least from the fluidity of law. But blanket pardons and whatever the fuck has been going on needs a level of oversight.
- 12 days
14A3 disqualification. He already wasn’t legally appointed so the second term pardons aren’t legal anyway. But somebody needs to enforce the disqualification
- 12 days
Are you saying that because he conspired seditiously to overthrow the United States government on J6, 2021, that he was constitutionally ineligible to run for office and should therefore not have been on the ballots in 2024?
Cause I can get behind that, but like, how do we even begin undoing the mess that it’s caused?
- Pollo_Jack@lemmy.worldEnglish12 days
Unfortunately, the only ones with that power are the elected officials and a lot of conservative dems are just republicans with another name ready to do as they are told.
- 12 days
So in other words, we need to vote to break the republican trifecta? And in following electoral cycles, primary any dem who votes with maga?
Great, time to roll our sleeves up then.
- 12 days
Yeah basically keep pushing left until a majority is willing to impeach and disqualify
- 12 days
Yeah that’s the only way. And that’s what I keep trying to remind people, but a lot of people don’t want to hear it.
Like, I’m not being naïve about the upbill battle that it is, I know we’re the underdogs and success is not guaranteed. But it’s literally the only way.
So people who claim “that never works” are only being defeatist. More accurately, “it hasn’t worked yet.” Nothing does until it does, but that’s no reason not to try.
And it’s intellectually lazy to assume nothing will ever change, because change has always been the only constant running throughout all of human history.
rant:
But some people get really smug about claims like “well the past was always XYZ, so the future will be too!” Yet the facts of history do not support that claim, and it’s honestly a praesen-centric claim, because it applies hindsight bias to the past, survivorship bias to the present, and availability bias to the future. In other words, it’s a claim that our current perspective, from our current vantage point, is the only valid one.
It’s to claim “we are at a unique moment in time that is somehow separate from the very past from which it emerged, and is obviously superior to it in every way; even though it only is what it is because it came to be via the processes that unfolded throughout the past and up until this very moment.”
And so everything “good” or “correct” looks like it’s because we’re in the enlightened present, and everything “bad” or “wrong” looks like it was because of the ignorant past. But the truth is, there’s no separation, and it’s exceptionalist to claim that there is. There’s a continuity which can’t be ignored.
So in a way, it’s really just another extension of ego-centrism, just like ethnocentrism, linguocentrism, natio-centrism, etc.; i.e. of being unable to imagine anything outside one’s own experience or identity.
It merely expands the “in-group” to “now” rather than drawing spatial or cultural boundaries. Perhaps a more enlightened perspective than those other examples, but still trapped within the delusion of separation.
I digress. Key takeaway: do not feel we are doomed just because it seems grim, because that assumes we are omniscient. In truth, the possibilities for the future might defy the limits of our imaginations. So we mustn’t give up; we must keep striving for change.
- 12 days
I don’t give a single fuck about pardons. Let them rot. If we have to gather a mob and throw them into a literal pit to rot, all the better. If these shit stains think that a pardon will save them or that their money will, they be sorely mistaken. These cretins are directly responsible for millions of deaths. Nothing can save them at this point, in my eyes. Not even the guns of the military.
12 daysI say they follow the playbook that donnie has been doing and just arrest them anyway. Maybe give them the treatment ICE has been giving people they arrest. Deport them.
Then let the courts battle it out to have them returned and let out of custody.
- 12 days
I agree. Citizens are getting fed up. If the Dems don’t go out to the bleeding edge of Constitutional law to ensure that these traitors are punished harshly enough to discourage such behavior in the future, and MAGA rises AGAIN, it will be time to take it out on the Dems, too. They don’t get a fourth chance.
- 12 days
I follow Liz Oyer, who was Biden’s pardon attorney, and she says that pardons in general, and Trump’s pardons specifically, may not be as untouchable as people think. Despite the general belief, there are limits on Presidential Pardons, and those people may not be as safe as they think they are. It will take a strong government and DoJ to challenge those pardons in court, but there may be ways around them.
- 12 days
Why would he? He’ll be a lame duck and won’t need anything from those shitheels at that point.
Unless, that is, they pay him.
I think he still cares about his legacy too much. Not that he thinks he’ll be remembered fondly but that he’ll leave such a scar he can’t be forgotten. A sweeping set of pardons would be just one more way to troll the entire nation and leave a shit stain in our history books.
- rynn@piefed.socialEnglish13 days
The real battle starts after the mid terms when everyone needs to keep pressuring congress for accountability.
If the election changes congress to dem and people don’t stay mad and keep pushing nothing will actually change.
Protests, letters to congress, organizing, these all need to get more aggressive not less after the mid terms.
- BooBees@fedinsfw.appEnglish12 days
Things have already drastically changed and are actively getting worse, almost at an exponential rate thanks to those changes. If Dems win and don’t do anything, things will continue to get worse thanks to republicans, but people will blame Dems. They need to understand they’ll own it and that will likely be the only thing that might maybe possibly but probably not distract them from taking in their new shiny legal bribes from various lobbyists trying to keep them from prosecuting the people responsible and keep them from putting guardrails up to prevent it from happening again.
- rynn@piefed.socialEnglish12 days
Totally agree, also Trump is really good when he has someone to blame so the democrats need to be encouraged to bury these people. Just passing some policies isn’t going to be good enough, they need to metaphorically back up a truckload of coffins throw the bums in and get nailing.
- 12 days
For Federal crimes, DoJ has to lay charges, so good luck with that.
There’s not a legal way out of this anymore.
- 12 days
Can Congress appoint a Special Counsel?
If not then that’s a huge oversight and should be remedied
- 12 days
Nope. They can authorize DoJ to do so, but then it’s up to DoJ to actually do it.
- 13 days
The only way that happens is if dsa has leverage against establishment after the election. There’s a chance they will.
- Pratai@piefed.caEnglish13 days
Would you accept a million lasers and a unicorn? Your chances are about the same at either.
- 13 days
I don’t understand why people just threw up their hands and went “oh well I guess we are out of a job now”
If someone comes in that’s you’ve never seen before tells you to shut down operations why would you listen to them? As evidenced by this article it could just be some random dude off the streets basically. Just take their word for it?
They coopted some armed federal police goons to help, like those times the workers refused building access to DOGE interns and presidential advisors (as they should).
- 12 days
They should have been gunned down in the first lobby they refused to leave. Then DOGE would have ended right there, as we adjudicated a big court case about it.
- 13 days
It was actually more about the funding, than anything else. While the money allocated for USAID programs is determined by Congress, the accounts that contain those funds are under the control of the State Department. The Trump administration basically told the State Department to put “stop payment” orders on all transactions relating to USAID programs that DOGE deemed uneccessary. After that, no one got paid…and if you can’t pay your staff or the bills…your office has to close.
- 12 days
We can clearly see that everyone in the DOGE group was criminally ignorant of everything related to that situation as well as being maliciously true believers in their quest, not caring if they were right or Right. There is however the distinct likelihood that someone higher up who, knowing the cause was false and the method was illegal, prescribed it anyway as a test of and attack on Congressional power of the purse and budget laws.
- 12 days
Naw, it wasn’t that complex. It was just a simple heist. Musk just wanted to end all the investigations into his business, and steal as much data as possible. Mission accomplished.
- 12 days
You mean the twenty to thirty year olds that were told to usurp the power of congress were scapegoats?
Anyone going to need to sit with that for a minute?
- 11 days
Its more important to get the entire treasonous network outed. Now having them so young, the idea of 50-60 years in prison might get them to talk.
And they stole and leaked data.
People need to serve time for this. Including Elon. I doubt that ever happens, but they absolutely should.
- 12 days
That’s because all of this was a treasonous coup. Everyone knew, it was published in a book with an online tracker and we watched everyone from billionaires with conflicts of interest in China to KGB grandkids copying OPM, Pentagon, and SSA data onto unknown servers.
This is after trump openly sold secrets and kushner’s treason was reported and sat on by Tulsi
Now, the DOJ is trying to allow secrets to be sold on ebay and his paramilitary sabotage units are likely behind all of the catastrophes in swing states during midterms right now. No different than his apartment bombing buddy Pooty.
People don’t realize that there isn’t even a status quo anymore. America was murdered right in front of everyone and they’re all going to pretend we are ok when trump is “removed” from office.
After all the time and money that was spent guarding all of that data the US just gave it all away.
I never see anyone framing it for what it was: a cyber attack. After all the damned money spent on guarding all the stuff they got access to, all it took was them just coming and taking it. And I still only see unverified internet comments that they may have gotten into classified places. Was that what all the history of the Cold War and all the planning for large scale cyber events amounted to?
What was that about a KGB grandkid?
- 12 days
The young DOGE agent known as “Big Balls” had a grandfather who was KGB
Also: *Their theft of data is not unverified. NPR npr.org › 2026 › 01 › 23 › nx-s1-5684185 › doge-data-social-security-privacy How DOGE improperly accessed and shared Social Security data : NPR
*Typo
- 13 days
Oh no! Illegal Immigrant Elon Musk oversaw the ILLEGAL Destruction of United States Government Agencies? Quick! Give him TRILLIONS in Tax Dollars!
-LITERALLY Republicans!
- Pratai@piefed.caEnglish13 days
And yet, there’s still fucknuts around here screaming that both sides are the same.
- 13 days
If some of these guys were on Elon’s payroll, couldn’t that make him personally liable for their mistakes and crimes?
- 12 days
He is responsible for the deaths of a lot of innocent people who were dependent on that assistance.
- 12 days
Depraved-heart murder (also known as depraved indifference) is a legal mechanism that can be used when someone knowingly takes an action likely cause death. It allows the extreme disregard for the potential lethal consequences of their action or decision to be treated essentially as malice aforethought (essentially intent to harm), and they can be charged with second degree homicide.
Lock. Him. Up.
So, he impersonated a government employee and must now be prosecuted for the damages, including all the wrongful deaths. Nigeria, where many of the deaths would have occurred, should have their fair share of chances to prosecute him on their own. Spoilers: Probably the death penalty.
Reading The Blockers is infuriating AF.
Not sure what else history will say about these fucking morons. The book is way too short, and I’m sure there is a lot more to cover in something much longer than just over 200 pages.
Every time I see some galaxy-brained post or think-piece about how we need “generational change” I think we should reflect on how these assholes conducted themselves, and many of them were under 30.
Generational change, my red rosy.
Yes, 100%. Narratives that generalize artificial notions of “generations” only really serves the interest of marketers and people looking to divide and conquer.
It gets even dumber when you learn that there is not much supporting evidence that shows that people get more conservative as they get older…
But yeah, a whole lot of ink being spilled about how we need to have the Democrats all turn on each other on not only lots of purity tests, but simply on the number of times they’ve been around the sun? And people constantly taking up not only the right wing mantra of “term limits”, but also age limits? Get the fuck outta here with that noise…
- ohulancutash@feddit.ukEnglish12 days
People confuse naïvety with left-wing. Sure, young people are going to be more forgivingly left or more absolutistly right before experience shades in some more of the greys.
- 12 days
Generational cohort scapegoating is no better than attacking people based on their Chinese horoscope signs.
And yeah, term limits, in particular, empower party apparatchiks and civil servants and weaken eleted officials. The result of that is more regulatory capture and more power to the parties’ big donors.
- 12 days
Don’t judge the whole generation off the confederate dick riders. Instead I suggest directing your anger at the oligarchs who enabled them.
- 12 days
The dynamic you are describing—the convergence of Michael Lewis’s Blockers, Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains, and the legacy of the 1971 Powell Memo and later documents—presents a comprehensive blueprint of how public trust in governance and social goods was systematically dismantled by gop/maga over the last 50 years. By tracing this lineage, it becomes clear how a long-term economic strategy evolved into the highly aggressive, “chainsaw” administrative tactics seen today, resulting in the regression of vital public health and democratic metrics.
- 12 days
Probably a drug addict as well. If this ever goes to court, Elon will happily throw them to the wood chipper saying he did not control their actions.
- 12 days
While I’m sure he would, he also seems like the self absorbed dumbass that would have openly praised and congratulated him for his work. Probably even getting into explicit details.
- 12 days
Yeah you are probably right I might be giving him too much credit when I think he has the foresight and ability to keep his opinions to himself to reduce his liability in a possible future court scenerio.
- 12 days
Thousands of people died and continue to die as a result of terminated USAID funding.
America voted for this. America stood by while this happened.
Please world never forget this. You may forgive it, but never forget.
- skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish12 days
It’s more than thousands, but also, it’s not that they terminated funding per se; it’s that they did it in an intentionally callous and disruptive way by reneging on existing commitments that NGOs all over the world were relying on, at zero notice.
NGOs typically aren’t permitted the luxury of keeping a large cash reserve aside to get through gaps in funding; donors treat it as mismanagement not to spend the donated money. As such, most of them were left with literally weeks to find alternative funding or cease operations. All USAID had to do was give 3 months’ notice for the NGOs to find other funding, and it would have been at least somewhat fine.
It takes many years and millions of dollars to build an effective NGO, and only weeks to destroy it. The wilful and deliberate damage DOGE did will echo for a decade.
- 12 days
I mean, USAID did some good, but it was also a tool of American imperialism that intentionally undermined local economies to make struggling nations willing to accept aid in exchange for incredibly exploitative trade and resource extraction deals that left its victims even more helpless than before. Obviously shutting it down like this has led to tragic and needless suffering, but it’s good the organization is gone and hopefully China can step in with its Belts and Roads initiative and actually help develop these countries.
- skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish12 days
it was also a tool of American imperialism
it’s good the organization is gone and hopefully China can step in with its Belts and Roads initiative
…without any sense of irony. jfc
- 12 days
I mean, it is verifiable fact that BRI is benign investment compared to Western debt diplomacy. Even Wikipedia agrees with that.
- 12 days
He wasn’t there to be recorded. He was there to move fast and break things.
- 13 days
Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14 051 750 (uncertainty interval 8 475 990–19 662 191) additional all-age deaths, including 4 537 157 (3 124 796–5 910 791) in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030.
The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola—for which there are no drugs or vaccines—continues to spread in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda and threaten neighboring countries in Central Africa. A month after the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern, many experts are tracing the outbreak’s magnitude in part to disinvestment in global health security, including through the July 2025 dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which had led the U.S.’s humanitarian and development efforts abroad since the 1960s. The vast majority of staff and projects were terminated; those remaining were absorbed by the U.S. State Department.
- 12 days
Sheeit that is much higher than I thought when I just comment.
Fuck I hope all those “let’s vote ourselves out of fascism” Americans wash really hard with the rest of the fascists to get the blood off their hands.
Fuck the lot of them. I love many of you on an individual level but fuck you and your shithole country.
Love, your younger brother to the north.
- 12 days
Bundibugyo strain of Ebola
Can we rename it? The “Trump-musk stain of Ebola” (misspelling intended”
- JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish12 days
An aparthid racist piece of shit controls most the money in the world and this is what he was doing while standing at the presidents right hand side with his
latest genetically-enhanced clonechild on his shoulders like a goddamn human shield?Color me surprised. Actually don’t, because then Elon might try to kill me for not being white.
- Pratai@piefed.caEnglish13 days
Someone needs to put this piece of shit in the ground.
(I won’t be surprised if ends up removed, and therein lies the problem. We’re not even allowed to speak aloud our wishful thinking, yet Thea animals are allowed to kill as many of us as they’d like with fucking no one to stop them)
- 12 days
Talking about killing a specific person: not allowed. Actually killing millions: a okay
- Pratai@piefed.caEnglish12 days
Yep. And good on them for allowing it to remain this long. Admittedly, I’m a bit surprised. I’ve seen a lot of mods around here more concerned with upholding civilly rules than allowing the content to breathe as it needs to.
- 12 days
There’s a LOT more freedom of speech on Lemmy than there ever was on Reddit.
- Pratai@piefed.caEnglish12 days
There isn’t. But I understand how there’s the illusion that there is.
Go ahead to Late Stage Capitalim and tell people to vote. Politely. Break no rules. Come back and let me know it’s done, and we can count how long before it gets removed and you get banned together.
