“Can you proffer any evidence that [the grant] was illegal, or evidence of abuse or fraud or bribery — that any of that was improperly or unlawfully done, other than the fact that Mr. Zeldin doesn’t like it?” Judge Tanya Chutkan said.
Judge Chutkan also ordered the Justice Department to provide the court with details about the alleged fraud, “because I don’t have the credible evidence that’s required.”
This whole calling things fraud without actually have any evidence is really starting to get old.
Personally, I've considered the problem to be a long term one and fixing it as a possible silver lining. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a pessimist about the integrity of the American people. I was wrong about what would happen with the first Black President, I was sure the racism was going to have a silver lining of cutting down the POTUS and not allowing a show like this. But the POTUS office is still the reason the US will kill itself at a minimum. (Nothing good can go unpunished?)
The judge can request that the lawyers involved lose their admission to practice in federal court for serious ethical violations like the ones here.
However, this very rarely happens except in the most egregious cases where the lawyer is usually also disbarred for their conduct (i.e., Guiliani) so it's not a meaningful disciplinary measure.
As I understand it, in an "adversarial" legal system, each side is represented by a lawyer who is obliged to put forward the strongest argument they can; then the court decides between the arguments. And so even incredibly guilty people are entitled to have a lawyer on their side, lawyering as effectively as they can.
So to them, there's no shame in representing an asshole and advancing a terrible argument, if that's what their client wants.
What's more, generally you don't become a judge without being a lawyer for a few decades first. And they know what class solidarity is. Why would they be overly harsh with their colleagues and friends, if nothing explicitly demands they do so?
Pretty much every legal case ends involves at least one side ending up unhappy. And pretty much every legal case involves at least one person who's happy to make legal threats. I'd wager many lawyers have someone threaten to get them disbarred a few times a year. It'd be difficult for the legal system to function if getting people disbarred was easy.
I guess I should have been clear that when I said stupid arguments, I meant breaking the rules, not necessarily arguing from a position of weakness.
I’m not asking why there are people representing shaky cases. Even bad people are entitled to a competent defense.
I’m talking about why judges allow lawyers to get away with breaking courtroom procedure and rules.
I don’t think there is as much class solidarity among lawyers. Most lawyers I know are happy to shit talk other lawyers, hell, many of them would jump at the chance to find an idiot in contempt.
After a few decades of dealing with clowns and reaching a federal judgeship, you’d think they would take the opportunity to knock some heads.
On the scale of Wild Things happening in US politics, this one is pretty minor. Provoking that sort of constitutional crisis over it seems poorly advised - it'd be better if the judicial system sticks to their traditional role of telling people to do things differently when it has been established that the government is acting illegally.
In my lifetime politicians have associated with flagrant lies that led to 100,000s of deaths and they aren't even expected to apologise. The Iraq war alone is a study - eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project.
Are you talking about when Obama admin did it, Biden admin did it or Trump admin did it? I mean, I agree but I have this sinking feeling that a lot of the people complaining aren't worried about the idea in principle and they just hate Trump.
There is this weird thing where the big government people have suddenly had a revelation that the day-to-day operation of government is threatening. And I welcome that because it is true, I just don't know what they think has changed apart from that they lost an election.
What exactly did the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago find?
It was believed that Trump had improperly stored classified documents there...
... and he had.
And was lying about it too.
So yeah, how was that not good faith?
"These documents are missing. They were last in the possession of the President. He's on video seen with staffers loading up similar documents to take to Florida. We apply for a search warrant when he denies what's on video, a judge grants it, and we go look, and find exactly those documents."
Obama famously looked the other way when asked whether the war crimes of the Bush administration were going to be investigated. Trump was impeached for looking in to Biden's Ukraine links and it turned out that the Biden family needed multiple pardons for it although they were very generally worded so they didn't ever admit what exactly they were up to.
All these politicians are committing things that are crimes. Raiding your opponents house because you think they're improperly storing documents is blatant intimidation and harassment and the follow up was absolutely criminal prosecutions of political opponents without justification. The only silver lining is the US public had the rational response and supported Trump against the bullying.
Trump was impeached not because of “biden’s ukraine links” but was impeached (the first time) because trump withheld aid from Ukraine on a phone call - contingent on Ukraine digging up dirt on a political opponent. Thats tinpot dictator stuff.
The FBI raided Mar-a-lago as a last resort. He was asked to return classified documents and lied about it. Then it was shown he ordered others to move the documents so as to obstruct the investigation. As pointed out before. What should happen? If I would do that I would be in jail, rightly so.
And your first mistake is assuming I'm okay with a Democrat administration overlooking potential criminal actions.
That's a lot of the times the difference. Many left leaning people will say "and they should be prosecuted too" which is almost ... shocking ... to some on the other side (and not in part because they really see it as 'sides').
> Raiding your opponents house because you think they're improperly storing documents is blatant intimidation
Horseshit. You act as though it's some wild cockeyed theory. There are audit trails for classified documents. The President's office was the last who had them. He and his staffers were shown on national fucking TV carrying boxes that looked identical onto a plane and into his private residence. And then he lied about it, and attempted to conceal evidence and obstruct justice.
Your spin is disingenous at best. "Bullying". And if you think the public mostly thought Trump was being unfairly "bullied" and intimated over those documents, then that says something about your perspective.
Also for complete clarity, since Biden had a very similar thing happen with the improper storing of documents: He shouldn't be doing that either. Why didn't it rise to the same level? Maybe because he didn't actively try to sabotage an investigation into it. But I don't think it should have been ignored because "well, -he- has a '(D)' after his name".
> Why didn't it rise to the same level? Maybe because he didn't actively try to sabotage an investigation into it.
That is tantamount to saying the issue isn't the mis-storing of classified documents, but that Biden didn't feel like threatened by an investigation from the Biden administration. Colour me shocked. That and the lawfare the Democrats were engaging in through the last election cycle was blatant process abuse and it was a relief that the attacks failed in such spectacular fashion.
This is a vocal mob of activists looking for ways to get Trump. If they want to do that by proposing general-purpose anti-corruption improvements and limitations on government then sure, that might be a productive path forward. But in practice it is going to be a bunch of measures that only target Trump because these people aren't worried about the abuse of power, in fact they were cool with it when it targeted their enemies. It has been an ongoing issue for at least the 20 years; since the Patriot act came into action. Probably longer. It hasn't suddenly sprung up because Trump won a second election with a bigger margin than last time. We know for a fact that the people who are serious about it have been unable to get much purchase in the political world.
> The only political figure convicted while Biden was in office was… Biden.
He was then pardoned. By his father. Is that really the example you want to use to show Joe Biden upholding the rule of law fairly?
I don't even think it is particularly bad, there is a standing convention that presidents can do illegal things and get away with it as long as it isn't too sensitive, apparently that extends to close family. So be it. But if that is the standard, that standard applies to Trump too. I mean, if Biden thinks that taxes are optional and he is responsible improperly storing documents himself then he has no business organising FBI raids of his political opponents for doing something a bit off. Or the follow up special prosecution, adding actual abuse of power by the Biden admin to what could maybe be brushed off as miscommunication or terrible optics up to then. He clearly understands that this is normal behaviour for someone in high office.
It is this weird dynamic where the left wing clearly understands that these behaviours are bad, but only choose to recognise them as such when Trump can be targeted. Is it so terrible to accept that it is also bad when any other politician misbehaves? Consistency is necessary to make the system hold together. Trump behaving in a manner consistent with the laws and of a high ethical standard would be really nice. It would be nice if any president behaved that way. We're still waiting for one that does. On the scale of presidents Trump scores pretty highly for good behaviour. He hasn't invaded a country under false pretences which makes him the best Republican president in around 30 years. We can speculate that any war crimes he committed were probably more accidental than the purposeful use of torture by the Bush administration too.
And then tomorrow someone will be arguing that these are the people who should control healthcare or education or whatever.
I realize no set of facts will change your mind. The difference between the classified documents cases has been pointed out several times in this thread, yet you continue to point to that as some kind of evidence of equivalence. If you don't want to acknowledge the difference between owning up to a fuckup and intentionally obstructing an investigation to try and cover up your misdeeds, there’s nothing more to be said about that.
If you consider Biden pardoning his son so egregious, I think you’d agree the pardons of the thousand defendants of the violent riot on January 6 would be even more disgraceful? If your cherry picked metric for a good president is “didn’t start a war”, I’ll counter with “didn’t encourage riots to obstruct the peaceful transition of power, then pardon all those involved to intimidate anyone who dares challenge him”
It’s pretty clear to me the only person who Trump cares about is Trump. I don’t understand why anyone would defend a person with such obvious disdain and lack of empathy for people, so I’ll just leave it at that. Enjoy the carnage that Trump leaves behind for the rest of us to pick up and rebuild.
Creating false equivalencies between situations that _sound_ like they might be similar but aren’t the same thing, is one of the logical fallacies most frequently deployed by Trump’s MAGA base. To some extent it’s a waste of time to engage, although I applaud that you attempted to do so in good faith.
> I realize no set of facts will change your mind. The difference between the classified documents cases has been pointed out several times
If new facts come out I might, but the these facts are fairly long in the tooth by now and they aren't persuasive. When it came out that Biden was doing the same thing an already flimsy case fell apart in in the clowny way that things do when Trump is involved. The best part is they just did a big poll over in the US and the verdict came back that they very much prefer Trump and he can do whatever he likes with classified documents.
There is a lesson here for the Dems; if they want to paint their opponent as bumbling and corrupt they shouldn't have appointed someone as bumbling and corrupt as Biden to the top job. They had a good few years and now that decision has gotten them another dose of Trump.
> If your cherry picked metric for a good president is “didn’t start a war”...
I don't know what your complaint is about that, wars are one of the most crippling mistakes that US presidents keep making, both in terms of global and domestic damage done. The resources wasted are gargantuan, the death tolls staggering, the cruelty are unbearable and the cynicism dark. The risks of something going really badly wrong are unacceptably high too. If focusing on that grim stain on America's honour is cherry picking then you should consider doing more of that. It's one of the big issues in the US and an ongoing one.
> It’s pretty clear to me the only person who Trump cares about is Trump.
Yeah we all know. You don't have to tell the right wingers that politicians suck, that is core plank of right-wing theory of governance is that they're all irredeemable scum or close to becoming that. The problem is the leftist delusion that there is a way to consistently find good politicians is what gets them caught flat-footed when someone like Biden gets the spotlight shined upon them, costing arguments credibility.
Biden gave Trump way more leniency about improperly storing classified documents than he gave himself. Because trump didn’t merely improperly store those documents, he stole them and then hid them and then lied about their existence when questioned about them, and then refused to give them back when formally asked for them.
Stop pretending that Trump is the same as Democrats. He is in a league of criminality that he shares with his buddy Putin, and it’s way worse than any we have ever seen in the US.
No, it's pretty major. You're freezing funds to charities who are providing in some cases life-changing/saving services.
Locking them out of THEIR money because some petty fucking despot and his unelected sidekick decides that's the best way to claw back SOME money that was legally granted because fuck it, it'll hurt/anger/annoy some libs along the way, too.
The one good thing is this is going to end the Courts giving 'good faith' waivers to the government prosecutors for everything (oh the cops didn't keep chain of custody on this evidence but that's OK we are going to waive chain of custody requirements because we know you all are acting in good faith is such a BS policy).
Traditionally when people are on an endless campaign of accusation, they are actually up to their ears in whatever they're accusing others of. The anti-gay politician is exposed as gay, the evangelical pastor is leading a life of excess and vice, people talking about fake news fabricate deceptions and try to pass it off as news... This is generally so reliable, you can just change the pronouns from "They" to "We" and get an accurate statement.
I'm pretty sure the actual fraud and abuse here is coming from inside the house. Claiming the richest man in the world isn't motivated by money is like claiming Jeffrey Epstein wasn't motivated by sex.
Hacker News seems one of the best places to discuss politically-influenced news, yet because such discusssions are near-univeraally fraught in some way, it is discouraged, which is not my preference. I have seen in checking the history of some HN commentors that it is not uncommon for those who say some version of "no politics, please" say it when they disagree with the general slant of those discussions where they make such comments.
A dedicated hacker news of politics site is long overdue. Civil discussions, amazing moderation, and the intelligent insight of experts to hash out complex issues. I’d be on it and participating nearly all day long.
daily stories coming from the US are pretty crazy, FBI being used as a tool to try and revert something from under the previous administration. Feels like whatever balances and checks that should be in place to stop an autocracy are missing
Just because you are unhappy with how things are being governed doesn't mean democracy is failing, etc. We just had an election, and the current administration won. Midterms are just around the corner. This is exactly how things are supposed to work.
Congress voluntarily giving up its powers to the executive branch [0] (unfortunately not new, but worsening), isn't exactly Democracy failing, but it's certainly a breakdown of the system of checks and balances upon which our Federal government was conceived, and is most definitely not "how things are supposed to work".
Your particular article lays out exactly how Congress is approving (ie. balancing) the Executive branch's actions. Which means yes, working as intended. You just happen to disapprove.
Majority of the other things people are freaking out about were done via Executive Order, and therefore can be undone by Executive Order.
Smart people have been warning about that for nearly two decades. Now that some people happen to not like what's being undone, it's suddenly a crisis.
You can read the article - it literally lays out how Congress has approved these actions.
The story is written with a specific slant on purpose. "House Republicans Block..." then later admits Republicans control the House which means this is working exactly as intended. Again, you just aren't happy with the results.
Vote in the midterms if you're so upset. Otherwise, business as usual.
Ok, so this comment makes it seem that you think it is not possible for Congress to undermine the system of checks and balances, since anything congress does, is, by definition, something that Congress has approved, and therefore, it's the system working as intended. That is a truly baffling view.
I'm honestly not sure how you can read that article and see it as Congress balancing the executive branch. Blocking future ability to do something is not the same thing as "approving" or "balancing" executive power. The fact that Republicans are claiming that this is a good balance of power doesn't mean it is. This was a vote by congress, to restrict congress's ability to act in the future. That is not the way the system is designed to work.
As my very first comment pointed out, no this isn't new. And it's bad every time. It's always been bad, it continues to be bad. This is just one of the more naked and egregious cases. But no, not new.
He's literally dissolving, dismantling, and undermining the systems that you're claiming are "working". And federal judges are deciding cases along strict party lines, which is a pretty clear demonstration that they're utterly ignoring the actual written words of the law. And Congress has completely given away their intended control of federal spending. So let's cut the shit. You like Trump and you want this to continue. Don't lie to me and tell me you believe one single word of the mental diarrhea that you just wrote.
It's like we're standing on the street watching a building burn down and you're saying "look the sprinklers are on, this is how it's supposed to happen". No one is stupid enough to say what you're saying and actually believe it. So clearly you're just lying.
> The check and balances in the country won’t work if half the population wants to replace democracy with theocracy.
It looks like this entire nonsense is heavily going to hurt the wallets of more than half of the population. So why would they be so keen to vote for a theocracy?
Although at this stage I also wouldn't put it past the clowns in power to actively tamper with elections to get the results they want.
Republicans are the right wing party, Democrats are the conservative. That's why their response is to uphold the status quo and existing power structures while they do ineffective, ceremonial, wonky frittering around the edges.
Their progressive policies were adopted after Fortune 500 and major institutions had changed theirs.
Whether it be climate change or gay marriage, established companies like Goldman Sachs and Amazon were there first and the Democrats followed because they desperately align themselves with the status-quo regardless of where it is.
Just scroll through the Google News result for "Democrats". People scratch their heads because they assume they're supposed to be oppositional as opposed to institutional.
Once you understand they're the party of establishment, status quo and hegemony, there's literally no more confusion on their motivations or lack of action.
A president can revert an executive order from the previous administration. But the Inflation Reduction Act is a law, not an executive order. If Trump doesn't like it, he can get Congress to repeal it. But he isn't the king. The constitution requires that the president "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". It isn't fraud when funds that were allocated by the act were distributed according to the act. If someone cheated then by all means they can bring charges if they have any evidence, which they apparently do not.
the problem is there has to be credible enforcement. Either a credible threat of impeachment, or a separate branch of Us Marshals that works directly for the judiciary or something.
Em. Deportations increased substantially under Biden.
That said, laws generally permit some leeway to the executive to set spending priorities/focus. It can be pretty limited since Congress tends to specify what department and sometimes program money must be spent on, but it still it allows for things like deciding you're going to prosecute more drug dealers even though they're long shot cases rather than easier to win fraud causes. This is done at all levels of government.
Shifting spending priorities as the law allows, though, is rather different from actively breaking the law.
Didn’t you hear from Fox News that all CBP officers were instructed to stand back and stand by while illegals waltzed into our country to commit crime?? They literally played solitaire on their phones for 4 years straight. /s
Back the Blue apparently includes demonizing their daily effort to process asylees, rescue families in danger, and arrest gang-affiliated criminals, all while forgetting that crossing the border illegally is a civil offense akin to a speeding ticket. But now that we are a physical threat to their safety, we supposedly have a secure border.
> to try and revert something from under the previous administration
More-importantly, it's nowhere close to "normal" try-to-reverts, where one President tries to replace an equally "soft" policy put in place by another President.
Here the newly-installed crooks are trying to deny a hard "money shall be spent on X" law passed by Congress, which is an unconstitutional attempt to seize the "power of the purse".
Same legal-vibes as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes.
I hate that I know this, but he probably half remembered this conservative brainworm[1], the reality of which is “recently founded weirdo groups claiming nonprofit status are sketchy, get audited more, and the right has more of them”
Some information from the linked document about the non-profits that are being targeted.
> 2. Conflicts of Interest and Political Favoritism
> A $2 billion grant was awarded to Power Forward Communities, a new nonprofit with ties to Stacey Abrams, despite reporting only $100 in total revenue in 2023
> Young, Gifted & Green was awarded $20 million, even though its CEO applied for funding while serving on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
The balls for this administration to attempt to call out other people on conflicts of interest and political favoritism is crazy.
Power Forward Communities: A coalition of five nonprofit organizations — Enterprise Community Partners, Habitat for Humanity International, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Rewiring America and United Way Worldwide.
Abrams' connection to Power Forward Communities, is through Rewiring America, one of the five organizations that leads the program.
That seems pretty weak. No idea what the other group is but I mean if the above is what's being lead with, I don't find myself concerned. Looks more like working your way backwards from "I don't want this money spent so I will find whatever connection I can to corruption"
And it takes some kind of chutzpah to claim that Habitat for Humanity has no track record or competency building affordable housing, just because this collaboration is new…
I don't think you can reasonably expect the claims by this administration to be true. There are far too many examples where they claimed fraud without any evidence.
My take is, either everyone should be allowed to scam, or nobody. It sounds very stupid, but I don’t like it when people in power give preference to their own scams.
Obviously I want no scams, but the US has chosen administration that is ok with insider scams. So as an outsider, I’d rather see equality instead.
Both sides of the political divide attempt to funnel taxpayers money into their own interests, which are often thinly veiled ways to get taxpayer money into their own pockets. This is nothing new.
Whenever there is a change of admin, the new admin attempts to claw back or redirect money the old admin directed to their own pockets. This is also nothing new.
What's new this year is people are talking about it.
If both sides do it, then they should be able to publish better evidence than Stacey Abrams’ “ties” to Power Forward Communities.
The fact that all the DOGE and DOGE-adjacent claims of fraud have been so shamefully weak has actually reduced my confidence that the alleged behavior is actually widespread at all.
My guess is because it isn't textbook fraud. Everything is being done legally and by the book. But the money is still ending up in the pockets of friends by making sure it's friends NGO's that know and meet the exact requirements.
Afterwards, any investigation will find that a fair dispersement process was done, and this NGO just happened to hit every requirement perfectly whilst all others didn't meet some requirement.
Non-profits and ngos have such enormous potential for fraud and abuse. You get your political friends to setup an ngo, give it a nice name like "Climate Progress Coalition" or "Equity Action Network" etc. Hand it a billion dollars of hard-earned taxpayer money and it can then do (without oversight) what would be illegal for the govt to do with oversight. The potential for abuse is limitless...million-dollar salaries, campaign for the govt and so on...
Yes yes American nonprofits, with their mandatory annual public financial disclosures including key individuals salaries, famously a great and easy way to misappropriate monies.
Have you read any of the disclosure forms? They're a joke. I read the 990 for one organization (NLIHC [0]), a mostly-government-funded organization with >10M in "revenue". They're required to list their three most cost-intensive activities in field 4a of the 990, and brother, those people don't do a damn thing. They listed 1) they helped local governments spend tax money 2) made 8 pamphlets (the one I saw was ~10 pages long), and 3) they helped some other organization prepare some webinars. They list more fluff and nonsense (including attending conventions), but no meaningful deliverables. They couldn't even be bothered to proofread their one required deliverable, as evidenced by the bullet points which they copy/pasted into field 4a!
They employ 40 people and their CEO makes 400K, BTW.
These orgs do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I'm really not sure how to take the comment on the CEO's salary. Some days on HN, 400k is called one good software engineer's salary. Other day's its alluded to as being to as being an overpaid CEO. And then other days people try to justify CEOs making 100M a year.
It helps to understand why high CEO pay can be a good thing. It can be good because the difference between a 'meh' CEO and a fantastic CEO can be huge. If you really want to know why a Fortune 500 company's CEO might be worth 100M, just compare Ballmer's tenure to Nadella's!
Anyway, this isn't business. We're talking about an organization which employed 40 people, and whose own ordering of their deliverables by importance saw 'published 8 pamphlets' in their top 3. What, precisely, was the marginal benefit of paying the CEO 400K as opposed to say, 200K (which still amounts to ~5X the median personal income)? Did that 200K net an additional webinar production and another two pamphlets?
not mentioned in or at all related to TFA, but go off.
> mostly-government-funded
False. Just blatantly wrong. The 990 you linked reports zero revenue from government sources, (part 8, line 1e) and 21m from other grants and contributions (i.e. private sources). Regrettably their website's donors page is broken, but their most recent annual report[1] reports large contributions from exactly the large grant-making foundations you'd expect (Robert Wood Johnson, Hilton, Melville, Ballmer, Annie E. Casey, ...).
> 400k
354k, plus 44k in other benefits (i.e. health insurance etc.). Regardless, yes people working for nonprofits get paid. These are professional organizations. The people that fund these organizations want their contributions to be effectively utilized to pursue the mission of the nonprofit. Finding people who will accept the absolute minimum rarely leads to an effective, sustainable organization.
> deliverable
This is (primarily) an advocacy organization. Research, data, reports, analysis, consultancy, marketing material, etc. are their byproduct and collateral. Their goal is to cause impactful, beneficial programs to be funded, implemented, and have their effects realized by the needy populations their serve. The programs they've supported (e.g. National Housing Trust Fund) and their continued and growing support from private foundations should be evidence of success in their mission.
Isn't that billion given only for a specific project? Doesn't it come with mandatory audits? And isn't that fully public information?
Contrast with something like the Pentagon which has billions entirely unaccounted for, even after paying tens of thousands of dollars for common items such as a bathroom soap dispenser.
Wait until you hear about a politician that started his own meme coin right before entering office. I'm sure those attacking audited non-profits would go after such a blatantly fraud and abuse prone politician first.
>Non-profits and ngos have such enormous potential for fraud and abuse.
That's such a bullshit argument that only a us-american can make, only someone hearing for years anti-goverment, anti-regulation, pro capitalism propaganda can say that without any proof, y'all look like you want that distopia, be happy with it then
Who investigates these 3 letter Gestapos? Throwing around muscle with no evidence to backup their fraud allegations. Ohhhh just like their "NAtioNaL SeCurItY".
Cowards. Hope people finally wake up and realize this gov is the most corrupt garbage that humanity has ever had.
If I had the authority to restructure the administrative state, I’d make a rule that every agency needs an anti-agency to hold it accountable. Let them swap roles every 7 years, with a consistently adversarial relationship to hold each other accountable. Basically a blue team vs. red team setup, or a blue/green deployment.
Checks and balances actually work pretty well, but we only use them at the topmost level between the three constitutionally defined branches. We need to apply the same mechanism throughout the federal bureaucracy.
That probably won't work. Blue would have an incentive to prove red failed, so if red initiated a big long term project (say, building a new high speed rail network, or a new dam, or incentives to build auto factories or whatever that cannot be done in the every X years switches happen), blue will do their best to sabotage it. This happens in politics already (e.g. public transit projects started by previous governments get sabotaged), let alone if there's an adversarial relationship by the people supposed to be directly directing and overseeing this stuff.
Hmm. I guess the “public transit projects of previous governments being sabotaged” is by design. Regardless of two-party politics, if the people vote into power a new representative who disagrees with the previous one, then they’ll kill those projects. And they’ll spend their time campaigning on the basis of that. This results in “slow government” which – at least IMO – is a Very Good Thing.
But for agencies, you want the opposite – you want fast reaction to changing environment. So in that sense, career bureaucrats are an advantage as long as they remain relatively politically independent and prioritize based on requirements more than perception. The problems arise when they become affixed to one of the parties, but without the checks and balances.
I think this is maybe okay as long as the “fast reaction” has a “fast undo.” Otherwise a new executive (and their predecessor) actually has less power than the agencies within the executive branch.
The problem with America is that it’s too good at big projects and getting them done quickly. We can improve this by adding a bureaucracy that is incentivized to stall everything. I see. Wise.
This is a private bank hoarding government (tax payer) dollars for seemingly no reason. The money sure as heck wasn't being used for "climate action". As an environmentalist and just someone who thinks the gov shouldn't be offshoring billions of dollars I fully support gov orgs looking into this...
It's easy to let politics color the perception of this but I for one although I dislike the current president support this effort.
Idk why anyone who's "anti establishment" wants to rail against the gov or any reg body looking into... banks doing sketchy things with taxpayer money that should... improve the environment and tax payer's lives.
Most of the hackers got rich, and also a bunch of people who aren’t hackers/nerds/curious people jumped on the tech bandwagon for money, and have done well enough to view themselves as equals to the politicians and bigwigs. It has really changed the dynamic here and elsewhere, as you note
This is an incredibly false characterization of the situation. Demanding that accounts be frozen while producing zero evidence for your claims isn't an investigation. Nor is it even following the bare minimum of the law.
