1. Burn it all down
2. ???
3. Profit

Hey it’s not just a meme, it’s DeCeNtRaliZeD fInAnCe. I bought some DOGE as a joke several years ago, now it is worth real money. I sold some the last time it was at $0.69, because of course I did.

I have some left, the price is currently $0.36 but maybe Elon can meme it up to $4.20 and I can retire early.

It still works that way, until the rules change. Republicans have the votes to change how Congress works, if they act in unison. But they will have just a slim a margin as last time, and they had trouble electing a Speaker. Even in the next Congress, they needed a secret vote to elect the Senate Majority Leader because they didn’t want any receipts on who voted for whom to make it back to Dear Leader.

It is possible that the Republican Party turns into a oroboros of spite, eating itself from within because of perceived grievances. That might be the best possible outcome we can hope for.

I think it’s because there is a difference between the Budget and Appropriations in Congress. The budget is a plan, where programs are authorized and an overall budget is set. The appropriations process is what assigns particular dollars to particular discretionary programs. (Certain programs deemed “mandatory” by Congress, like Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt, get allocated money automatically and are not involved in appropriations)

If I had to guess, I would say that once a program is authorized once under a budget, it can continue as long as it (or the Federal department it is part of) is not specifically de-authorized, and as long as it continues to receive appropriations specifically for that program.

So, it is likely that this is all about Ramaswamy’s total ignorance of how Congress works. Which tracks pretty well with what this DOGE is all about.

Today’s Republican Party didn’t get into their position of awesome power by listening to experts…

Ah. I wasn’t aware of that. It still sucks, but maybe for the folks who are left and still protected by the union some malicious compliance is in order.

it’s comically hard to be fired unless you’re a political appointee.

Didn’t they change the rules to count many more jobs as political appointees without protections right at the end of Trump’s term, only to have Biden change it back? Trump is definitely doing that again.

These companies are huge, and know how to lobby the government. It seems to be the wrong industry to piss off.

Maybe you’re right. But if the fix were really in, Rick Scott would have been the majority leader.

Don’t be so sure. These Senators know how much power they have, and their 6 year terms guarantee that the ones elected this year will have to deal with life in the next Administration, whatever that happens to be.

I think Trump is expecting Gabbard’s and Gaetz’s nominations to fail in the hopes that he can get the Fox News guy in charge of the Pentagon. There seems to be a lot of jockeying around regarding the military, that scares me more than what Gaetz can do at the head of a department that despises him.

I think the new Majority Leader still respects Romney, though. He (and the head of whatever committee gets to approve this nomination) are now in a pickle. They know the harm that she will do to the country, but have also promised to get Der Gröpenführer’s picks through quickly. I wouldn’t want to be them.

So he’s basically a real-life Gilderoy Lockheart, teaching Defense Against the Woke Arts.

“I’m willing to grind through it and do it the old-fashioned way,”

If they attempted to block or obstruct hearings, he was keeping his options open.

Thune won the Senate Majority Leader post, and he seems like he’s not gonna press the “Recess” button to let Trump put in all his appointments without Senate confirmation, at least as long as Democrats don’t try to outright block any nominations. I think that’s probably the best deal we till get on that.

https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/13/south-dakota-senator-john-thune-says-recess-appointments-still-an-option-for-trump-cabinet/76265376007/

So that means we will actually get hearings on this one (and Matt Gaetz), which will be fun to watch. We’ll see if they manage to get 50 Republicans behind those two. They might not.

It can start by denaturalizing him since he lied on his immigration forms and was in the country illegally when he first came here. That’s not even dictatorial, it’s the letter of the law.

And what’s the deal with the plural of “mothers”? Sounds like he has several wives or x-wives living with him.

If you read the article, yes, that’s exactly it. He wants all his kids from different mothers to live different homes in the same compound. Creepy.

We’ll be lucky if term 2 is just like term 1. That would mean the ACA would survive, no detention camps would be built, and they don’t find a way to deploy the US military to go grab the immigrants and put them into camps.

JAN21: new Trump climate envoy Sarah Palin says “Drill, baby, drill!”

A perfect match for a lousy negotiator.

Believe it or not, this is a good thing. This is a recognition that Trump realizes he can’t just do whatever he wants. He needs the Senate to voluntarily give up oversight of Cabinet appointments. And Senators are not normally ones who will voluntarily give up power.

Rick Scott looks like he is about to, though. So who wins this one will make a huge difference regarding how much damage Trump will do. The Majority Leader is elected by Senate Republicans only, so we will have to see whether a majority of them choose to neuter a key Constitutional power they have just because Trump asked them to.