Who Have Americans Elected to Run It All?

Who Have Americans Elected to Run It All?

Hint: It wasn’t Elon Musk

But Donald John Trump – claiming a mandate with a 1.5% voter margin – has indeed outsourced governmental slash-and-burn to de facto Co-President Elon Musk, so that has to count. I wondered what a Northern Kentucky (as red a state as you can find) journalist might see as what the Trump-Musk presidency has accomplished in the early days of this administration… in short hand:

“Now, considering that our boy has spent his time back in office setting the nation’s constitutional order ablaze, canning the Coast Guard commandant, which also offered him the simultaneous delight of picking on a woman, is small potatoes… The Lord of Mar-a-Lago has fired, in defiance of federal statutes, a host of inspectors general, which raises the question of what good is an inspector general if the actions of the person they’re inspecting can dismiss them on a whim. He has halted enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars American-based companies – including the Trump organization – from paying off foreign officials. He’s pulled out of the World Health Organization. He’s decimated the U.S. Agency for International Development and will look to kill it when the opportunity arises. He has ordered federal government websites to remove references to climate change.” NKyTribune’s Washington columnist Bill Straub.

This, even before the mass resignations of Trump-appointed prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who could not, in good faith and consistent with DOJ rules, bring a dismissal without prejudice before a federal judge for approval, knowing that there was a political payoff quid pro quo (hey Mayor Adams, we’ll drop the indictment against you if NYC plays ball with our immigration initiative). But Trump has always been a “transactional president,” which is consistent with his demand that Ukraine pay the US with half of the rare earth extraction for the money we spent (Europe wasn’t even mentioned, even though they spent almost as much). Trump had to release a Russian mega-crypto scammer ($billions) serving time in a federal penitentiary to get Putin to commit to negotiate a peace treaty with Ukraine. We also got a tourist schoolteacher with some medical weed back. Huh? Is their method in Trump’s madness?

So the President described by a Kentucky journalist above, having pledged on numerous occasions to lock down a peace treaty over Ukraine in a day, is making sure that what he brings to the table is exceptionally Putin friendly and does not reward Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, whose refusal to accord Trump an earlier “get dirt on the Bidens” quid pro quo that led to Trump’s first impeachment. So he’s got JD Vance telling NATO allies that the best territorial guarantee Ukraine can expect is a US treaty guarantee (we’re so good at honoring treaties, right?), and new DOD Chief Pete Hegseth, announcing before a NATO meeting that the rules have changed, and if the other NATO members do not follow the changes, the US would pull out of NATO, and that our allies can twist in the wind before we honor our treaty commitments to protect them.

To make that point, “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invited conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec to travel with him on his first overseas trip this week to visit European allies…Posobic, who is also a podcaster and editor of a website, has made many bombastic statements in speeches to MAGA audiences. At CPAC last year, Posobiec made headlines for declaring, ‘Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overt’hrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.’” Mediate, February 13th citing the Washington Post.

Russia has been doing everything in its power, sacrificing tens of thousands Russian and N Korean soldiers in the process, to set their occupation lines in place (see the above BBC map for specifics)… under the assumption that such occupied territory will be the worst they will do under US mediation. Through Vance and Hegseth, the United States seems already to have sold Zelensky down the river on the only genuine Kyiv could count on – allowing NATO membership – simply stating that would not be a realistic expectation. Trump and his sycophants do not seem to appreciate Moscow’s constant existential threats made against Europe stating territorial ambitions over the Baltic Republics or the direct threats against former Soviet bloc Poland, or the continual sabotage of European under-ocean cables and pipelines by Russian ships dragging destructive anchors with malice aforethought. The US does not share a land border with Russia!

Trump seems to live for “victory” announcements even if the substance of the announcement is either negligible or simply rephrasing what has already been done. Unless it puts glory on his shelf, inflicts painful retribution against anyone who opposes him or puts money in his pockets, Trump just does not care! About our allies. Our treaty commitments. Or our average or less affluent Americans. And as the Trump administration excludes Europe and even the Ukraine from initial talks to settle the Russian-Ukraine war, what’s really going on here? Ah, a blog topic for another time…

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump is an entire “me-generation” unto himself… and no one else.

States Limiting Women’s Healthcare - Voting with Their Feet

After reports that applications from highest quality women to colleges and universities in red states was declining, I wondered if there were any significant movement of red state residents to blue states because of restrictions on abortions. Especially among the most cherished STEM experts. OK, some are laughing at the reality that men do not face limitations while women do. With a little tongue-in-cheek intention. Mississippi legislator, Sen. Bradford Blackmon, a Democrat, introduced a bill that would make it illegal for a man to ejaculate without an intention to conceive, making exceptions for masturbation solely to donate sperm to embryo-freezing facilities and sex during which contraception was used. Blackmon knows this bill won’t pass, but it makes a point. Personal freedom is most limited, on many matters – from purging DEI and “woke” education to birth control and abortion – in red states, reality they tout, either for religious reasons or distorted sense of “white pride.” And women are obviously heavily impacted.

Writing for the January 29th Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik examines what, if any, impact such restrictive laws, not seen in over half a century, have on outward migration from red states, despite lower costs of living in most. Headline: “The population exodus from antiabortion states is underway and may be picking up steam…

“It wasn’t a stretch to predict that the strict abortion bans in states such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas would have demographic effects — driving residents out of those states and reducing migration from abortion-protective states.

“New research has validated that prediction and put meat on its bones. Most notably, economists at Georgia Tech reported in a paper published in [January,] that by mid-2023, the 13 states with total bans had suffered a combined net loss of an estimated 36,000 residents per quarter, or more than 144,000 per year. Over two years, that amounts to a net loss of more than one-third of a percent of the combined population of about 80 million in the 13 states with abortion bans…

“The magnitude of the population loss, the paper estimated, is equivalent to the outflow that would be caused by a 10% increase in local crime rates… The effect was more pronounced among single-person households than families, the researchers found.

That suggests ‘an outsized influence of reproductive rights on younger, more mobile populations,’ they wrote — possibly because the logistics of moving a family are more burdensome than for single persons, and also that single people may be more likely to be women of childbearing age… ‘State abortion policies alter the relative attractiveness of locations and the geographic distribution of human capital,’ the paper concludes.” You have to believe that the husbands and fathers with a young woman in the family are moving too. These may seem like small numbers, but the caliber of the women participating in that exodus is better educated and more productive. The last thing that most red states need is an exodus of educated people.

As Tom Kemeny, associate professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, writes in the January 17th FastCompany.com, red states, notwithstanding relative success in Texas and Florida, red states are falling behind economically at an accelerating rate: “The wealthiest cities in the U.S. are almost seven times richer than the poorest regions, a disparity that has nearly doubled since 1960… and [the top five cities are [90] times wealthier than the poorest five places.” And those top cities are over-represented in blue states.

By indiscriminately herding brown-skinned people (how many are actually citizens?) into deportation camps with a flight out “somewhere” soon to follow… crops are rotting on the ground, restaurants are unable to stay in business, construction at a time need housing is quivering downward… most of which is based on fear… those who may be targeted just stay home. We are not creating new high value jobs. Educated women, likely to raise educated children, join the red state exodus of those whom Donald Trump is targeting by depriving them of the healthcare they need. Medical doctors, facing criminal prosecution for doing what they have been doing all their lives, are leaving in droves as well… reducing medical staffing where it is most needed.

I’m Peter Dekom, and by applying the harshest immigration measures this nation has ever used, Trump is turning the United States into a racist nation hell-bent on economic self-destruction.

They’re Cutting as Fast as They Can – the MAGA Reverse Robin Hood

 

At of this writing, the aggregate federal budget deficit is just shy of $37 trillion, and as Congress is about to face a debt ceiling vote (before March 14th when government expenditures hit the current limit), with the 2017 mega-corporate tax expiring soon, Trump has promised his oligarchs not only an extension of that give-away but a whole new slew of tax cuts that are almost entirely going to benefit only the richest 5%. As a percentage of GDP, the deficit is disproportionately rising, year-after-year. If the most reliable calculations of the deficit impact of such tax reductions (add $5 trillion) put our overspending habits in the red zone.

So, if you are wondering about the Trump and DOGE slash and burn approach to federal agencies, employees, programs and expenditures – even if you eliminate “retribution” cuts – the primary focus is to cut, cut, cut, slash. And most of those cuts are focused on the middle and lower reaches of the economic ladder. Like school lunch programs aimed at providing basic nutrition to poorer students.

This DOGE focus – beyond attempting unilaterally to shut down relative smaller government operations like consumer protection, USAID and even the Department of Education, notifying the relevant federal employees to “stop working” in anticipation of shutdowns and layoffs – was to implement their belief that they should implement eliminating “waste and corruption” and agencies seemingly antithetical to both loyalty to Trump and a willingness to accept his executive orders and policies. Why waste time for Congress to act? But corruption allegations against these agencies fizzled – e.g., USAID corruption allegations were never substantiated – and courts were busy undoing these unilateral DOGE purges. DOGE was never empowered to do any of this!

But as the identities of FBI and CIA operatives were about to be communicated via unsecure channels to the Trump administration as demanded, courts intervened to stop this potential destruction of key national secrets. Chaos reigned supreme until the DOGE staff (some barely out of high school and clearly not properly vetted for high-end federal security clearance) figured out that their real target had to be that branch of government (Department of the Treasury) that wrote the checks implementing more than 90% of government expenditures, including for programs unpopular with MAGA conservatives: like Medicare and Social Security.

Despite statements from the new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, that DOGE was merely accessing “read-only” files, evidence to the contrary showed DOGE changing the underlying software and sucking out personal information about millions of Americans, much of that data extraction in clear violation of federal law. It is no wonder that the federal courts are particularly sensitive about the DOGE attempted takeover of the Treasury Department. Let me set the record straight. While Trump found a popular issue to cut government waste and overregulation, restore “free speech” (i.e., allowing rightwing conspiracy theories to be published free of fact-checking), yet censoring cultural creativity MAGA does not like and pretending to restore individual liberties (despite effectively taking away women’s control over their own bodies and crushing LGBTQ+ rights), the Billionaire’s Boys Club cares only about two priorities: tax cuts and deregulation. MONEY.

These oligarchs hate unions (NLRB), the costs of worker safety (OSHA), financial oversight and consumer protections (SEC, CRPB, CPSC, FTC, etc.), food and drug purity (FDA) and pollution/ emission restrictions (EPA). Protecting the general public from “rich-folks’ excesses” only costs the wealthy hard dollars. This corporate cabal/Billionaire’s Boys Club are very comfortable with one of their own, conflicted to the hilt and driven by self-interest, in charge of the process. They do not want to eliminate waste if it puts money in their pockets, and they like redefining the meaning of corruption to their benefit. All they care about is making sure that they do not get blamed for the massive increase in the estimated $5T federal deficit that would occur if their tax cut and deregulation effort were enacted without a massive trimming of federal expenditures first. So, leaving the Department of Defense intact, they want to cut as much of the rest as they can, even if the burden of such reductions slams middle- and lower-income Americans.

On February 6th, William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and former senior economist for President George H. W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, presented this little summary about what is at stake in a LA Times OpEd piece: “The tax cuts enacted under the first Trump administration largely expire at the end of 2025. President Trump and his fellow Republicans are eager to extend them, but doing so without concurrent spending cuts would raise deficits by more than $5 trillion through 2035.

“How might policymakers pay for extending the 2017 tax cuts? Various sources suggest that the new administration is considering broad cuts to spending programs, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps. This one-two punch would leave almost all low-income households — as well as many middle- and high-income households — worse off…

“Worse still, the distribution of the extended cuts would be quite regressive. Only 1.7% of the benefits would go to the bottom 20% of households by income, compared with nearly 65% to the top quintile and more than 23% to just the top 1%. The average tax savings for the bottom quintile would be just $130 a year, compared with $70,000 a year for the top 1%. And the super-rich, top 0.1% would enjoy an average annual tax savings of more than $275,000.

“Estimates from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center’s microsimulation model illustrate these effects. If an extension of the tax cuts were financed by reducing federal assistance equally across households, more than three-quarters of families would be worse off. In the bottom two income quintiles, more than 99% of households would be worse off, facing an average annual tax increase of $1,515. Even in the middle fifth, 76% of households would be worse off… Renewing the 2017 tax cuts and financing them with spending cuts is the right policy only if the ‘problem’ is that the poor are not poor enough and the rich are not rich enough.”

The MAGA GOP will call benefits, available to average citizens in virtually all of the developed countries, “creeping socialism,” “un-American,” “entitlements” and “waste.” They’ll lie, despite an ocean of evidence to the contrary, and tell you that such tax cuts incent job creation. They never do; just look at the 2017 tax cut results that didn’t move the job creation needle at all. And while they rail against the “deep state” and “the swamp,” read their plan (Project 2025). What they clearly want to do is to create their own deep state and swamp to ensure that their changes will be almost impossible to undo.

“Make American Billionaires Wealth Great Again”? At your expense! Cronyism with privileged insider billionaires kowtowing to co-emperors Trump and Musk! Why this explosive rush to decimate the federal budget right now? They’ve got until March 14th to raise the deficit ceiling… and without cuts, what they cannot otherwise explain is a deficit buster! They may shut the government down, hold their breath until they turn (well, not “blue”), yell and scream, but they are solely representatives of the rich. What? We want even wider income inequality?

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless you are in the seven-figures+/year earnings world or have a nine-figure+ net worth, there’s almost nothing in the Trump/Musk agenda that will improve your life… and a lot that will make your future a whole lot less comfortable.

The Answer, My Enemy, is Blowing in the Wind

    vs

The Answer, My Enemy, is Blowing in the Wind

There was a time, decades ago, when Donald Trump echoed the warnings about facing up to climate change and its devastating potential. He turned against that notion, as I will point out below, when “alternative energy” impinged on the view from one of his golf courses. But from the inception of his nascent presidency, green America is the nation’s enemy… Day one, President Trump declared a "national energy emergency", invoking the National Emergencies Act after pledging to support the domestic production of fossil fuels. But we’re already producing more than we can use. The notion of undefined statutory “emergency” (national security driven) creates the perfect ambiguity that Trump is using and will continue to use to reshape the United States. A word without limits found all over our federal legal codes.

Trump has pulled out of the Paris accord on climate change, he’s in the process of figuring out how to shut or defund every federal program – from DEI initiatives, green energy to “entitlements” and “woke” public schools – planning to cut taxes for the richest in the land (who do not need the cut at all; we are hemorrhaging new billionaires)… but there is a new friend/ enemy vocabulary in Trump assault on the deep state he despises to be replaced by a deep state designed by him.

Trump is now railing against “bird killing,” ugly “windmills” as a serious part of his war on green energy. In terms of the percentage of electrical generated from these green sources, the US is behind all of Europe, large segments of Latin America… and even China! As Adele Peters, writing for the February 1st FastCompany.com, tells us: “Trump has claimed to be an expert on ‘windmills.’ (It’s worth noting that windmill is an outdated term that originally referred to centuries-old tech that used wind power to turn stones to grind up grain; the modern tech designed for producing electricity is a wind turbine.)…

“But while actual experts say that wind is an important piece of meeting energy needs in the U.S., Trump has ignored the benefits to the grid, repeatedly claiming that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer (not true), that they ‘ruin the environment’ (definitely not true), and that if the wind stops blowing, you won’t be able to watch Trump on TV (not true: renewable energy is part of a mix on the grid, and batteries can also store power for use when it’s needed).” Bird strikes have been minimized and are probably less lethal than Trump’s own office and residential towers.

But what really seems to have enraged Trump against wind energy is aesthetics. A wind farm off the coast of Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland “ruined” the view from the local Trump International Golf Links (see bottom photo above). In a barrage of letters and other Trump pressures on local government to remove the wind farm, which produces enough electricity to power 80,000 homes, Trump likened it to “an ugly cloud hanging over the future of the great Scottish coastline.”

But Trump’s efforts focused on the UK judicial system. He filed a lawsuit. He lost. He was ordered to pay the legal fees of the victorious governmental entity… and the eleven wind turbines are whirling away, producing energy, not emitting those toxic greenhouse gasses that have created and sustained global warming. Just in case you wondered why, in Trump’s assault again clean energy, he has a particular antipathy for wind power.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you stop building and using wind turbines to generate electricity here, you will kill 77,000 (and growing) American jobs.

How to Get a Senior Job in MAGA-land – Lose an Election or Get Convicted

  Democrats vs Trump/Musk

The Supreme Court has set the stage for a “justified” post-constitutional America. Antonin Scalia, the proselytizer of “originalism” as the sole legitimate judicial method to interpret the Constitution, effectively guaranteed a post-constitutional era. If our founders intended for the Constitution to be effective to carry the nation through inevitable future massive change, it needed to be flexible enough to embrace that change. But in Heller v District of Columbia (a 2008 case about an attempt by the municipal government to control the proliferation of guns), Scalia applied the notion that the Second Amendment had to be governed within the nexus of muskets and flintlocks (the reality of 1789 when the Bill of Rights was passed), so Glocks and AR-15s were reviewed within a very limited “reality.” “Originalism” was applied.

He missed that one too, so determined was he to deregulate gun ownership, he misapplied British law and ignored that the Amendment’s reach was simply to allow Revolutionary Citizen soldiers to take their muskets home with them. Heller was the first case in our history in which that Court declared relatively unrestricted gun ownership had always been the law of the land. It wasn’t, but hey, a “dead” constitution (Scalia’s own description) could be neutralized. Forgetting about the anomalies of the Dred Scott ruling, soon to be rejected by that Court, the modern era produced new Supreme Court rulings that unleashed big money to spend unrestricted funds on political issues, allowed state legislatures to impose obviously biased voter restrictions, and extracted from thin air the notion of presidential immunity from criminal investigation and prosecution of the President… as long as he couched those efforts within some as aspect of this “official actions.

Without that thread of Supreme Court decisions – once able to stop Richard Nixon from relying on criminal acts to support his reelection bid – the judiciary tilted severely to the MAGA right. Judicial guard rails fractured. Former federal felons – from Jared Kushner’s father becoming our ambassador to France to finding jobs for individuals tried for violent crimes – were now being considered for senior appointments in the Trump administration. Would pardoned, corrupt former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who served eight years in prison on corruption charges, be considered by Trump as a possible U.S. ambassador to Serbia? Maybe. Look at all the losers (dozens of MAGA candidates defeated in their election bids) finding their way to senior appointments within the Trump administration – like Kari Lake now set to run the Voice of America, Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a key federal agency that oversees health insurance, or Herschel Walker as our ambassador to the Bahamas, etc., etc.

How many J-6 pardoned felons would find work within the Trump umbrella? Even pro-Trump supporters in the financial sector see the benefit of hiring trump-backed individuals of questionable judgment. Less than two months after he was acquitted in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely, Marine vet, Daniel Penny, was hired by Andreessen Horowitz to work in Manhattan as a deal partner on the firm’s American Dynamism team, which invests in government and defense tech. Trump’s power is so extensive within the GOP that elected MAGA supporters are ready to defy unambiguous constitutional limits to serve Trump’s dictates and take down anyone who is attempting to rein Trump’s/Musk’s excesses that most constitutional scholars agree have been ignored. “Patriot” and even the American flag have been coopted as MAGA symbols.

How about Arizona GOP Representative Eli Crane? He is drafting articles of impeachment against federal Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, who is presiding in a trial filed by 20 state attorneys general trying to prevent DOGE from accessing the very private Department of the Treasury personnel files. Crane maintained that Engelmayer was "attempting to stop White House employees from accessing the very systems they oversee." DOGE has zero federal employees! Meanwhile, the Trump administration was ignoring federal trial court orders to stop the overall spending freeze imposed by Trump, to restore Congress-approved agencies from being shut down by DOGE, and to end attempted forced buyouts of federal employees. Trump has also ordered the Department of Justice to pause prosecutions of American companies using bribery of foreign officials as a business practice (a felony under US law).

Yet hapless Democrats are like deer in the headlights. Frozen, railing and rallying with no unifying force, often battling within their own factions with elitist ideological arguments – even with Minnesota’s Ken Martin’s becoming chair of the DNC – as Trump has forced the GOP to unity with an iron, threat-filled hand. Democratic Progressives repeat the mantras that failed to find traction in the November election, struggle against “moderates”… keeping the Dems powerless as Trump has his way with the nation… his approval level still strong, particularly with the working class where Dems once prevailed.

Oh, did I mention that there has been no genuine effort by the Democratic Party to LISTEN to that missing constituency. There also seems to be a missing awareness over how much Americans have grown to distrust government bureaucracy, viewing it as a cesspool of waste and corruption (believing the baseless MAGA claims)… and that a momentary break from democracy just may be necessary to “drain the swamp” and annihilate the “deep state.” They miss that Trump is creating his own swamp and a forever deep state… even going so far as to require new civil service applicants to acknowledge loyalty to Trump above all else… even the Constitution. They still believe television is a relevant communications device… while Republicans rule in social media (owning X and Truth Social) and podcasts.

Trump could provoke a constitutional crisis by ignoring court orders and forcing the Supreme Court to recognize the damage its recent decisions have wrought… but what if the don’t? King Trump? Tsar Musk, whose very wealth has been accelerated with billions of dollars of federal contracts? The Visigoths have arrived.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if the Dems have even a slight shot at prevailing without complete reliance on “not Trump,” they must unify, regroup, listen to the other side… and only then act with extreme force and vigor… everywhere, all at once!

The Answer, My Enemy, is Blowing in the Wind

"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!

" President Andrew Jackson (above left) on the Supreme Court ruling in Worcester v Georgia over a statutory (not a constitutional) case.

“It’s only really like the tenth percentile of the adult population who’d be gullible enough to fall for this… I hope you’ll declare bankruptcy and let someone else run the company.”” 

Twitter employee to Elon Musk Musk, who shot back, “F**k you!”

Courts are mandated to exercise careful scrutiny before issuing extraordinary relief, particularly at the earliest stage of litigation. Generally, courts of general jurisdiction have two main categories of relief they can order: remedies “at law” (where money damages are sufficient) and/or “in equity” (a court ordered mandate or prohibition, where money damages cannot right the contemplated wrong). Although a statute can require or limit the nature of possible remedies allowed to a court, generally, resort to some sort of “in equity” remedy, particularly relating to restraining orders or preliminary/permanent injunctions, requires a judicial finding that, absent the restraint or injunctive relief, an irreparable harm will probably result, one that cannot be adequately compensated by money damages.

But when the underlying vector of the contemplated harm is the very focus and intention of the perpetrator, where that is an underlying policy supported by the President of the United States, the matters at stake can often only be resolved by one of the three pillars of our government: the judiciary. Unfortunately, the MAGA-dominated Congress has pulled itself away from confronting this anti-constitutional effort. And I am not talking about the Department of Justice, which has frequently imposed “irreparable harm” that, unchecked by courts, that could have easily changed policy vectors of the entire nation. But when it comes to federal statutory, regulatory and constitutional law, that falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts. The judges and justices at every level are subject to Senate confirmation before being accorded the lifetime appointment, only reversed by the impeachment process. Enough of the basic refresher.

The goals of the non-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by a severely conflicted mega-billionaire, are heavily directed at tearing down large swaths of the federal government, often referred by Trump as the deep state… Trump’s antagonist, the barrier to his policies (to be replaced with his own deep state). In short, even as Republican-appointed justices rule against Trump/DOGE directives, by definition, these MAGA operatives are intentionally inflicting irreparable harm to destroy, disable and even usurp the federal bureaucracies they have been accord access to by Trump. That’s point! They’ll rebuild later, per the Project 2025 directive.

By provoking the system with this litany of “irreparable harms,” they are systematically hoping that the federal employees and agencies they wish to purge will be permanently eliminated… and by the time the courts rule to the contrary, they will be long gone. Or, if these DOGE actions make it to the US Supreme Court, an unambiguously biased majority will support these efforts. After all, most of the DOGE actions are supported by Trump himself, after that Court granted him virtually immunity for undefined “official actions.”

As the CEO of a slew of powerful corporations making alarming amounts of money from federal contracts, Elon Musk has ruled his successful empire ruthlessly without concern for any resulting litigation or government challenges. He seems to love imperious firings, enjoy restructuring and self-dealing, generally relying on the general notion that plaintiffs typically settle this expensive litigation for a fraction of their bona fide claims. He has the money to win.

While Trump does not enjoy the same tools of repression allowed Hungary’s Victor Orban to transition unambiguously through democratic elections into autocracy. Orban is a hero to MAGA and a brother to Donald Trump in spirit. The Trump/Musk cabal still does not understand tat government is not a “for profit” institution but frequently has to spend money with no measurable rate of return (from social programs to the military). Cuts are needed to support big tax cuts for the mega-rich. With that in mind, it is informative to look at Musk’s relatively recent takeover of Twitter (now X) to see parallels to how he is approaching his DOGE assignment. Supporting his financial conflicts in his governmental actions at every turn notwithstanding, here are some descriptions of Musk’s early Twitter moves from Miles Klee, writing for the September 17th Rolling Stone, relying on deep-dive research by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, NY Times tech reporters and authors of a new book, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter:

“Elon Musk‘s tumultuous takeover and rebranding of Twitter — now X — played out in very public fashion: the $44 billion offer, an attempt to walk it back, and a lawsuit that forced Musk to complete the deal were followed by massive layoffs, a spike in misinformation and extremism on the platform, botched updates, and the return of notorious bad actors whose accounts had been permanently suspended — as well as an exodus of the advertisers that account for the site’s revenue…

“Organizationally, Musk’s Twitter was chaotic from day one. He had demanded the firing of a certain executive before he was even CEO; then the company laid off thousands of employees almost at random, had to hire some back, and in one case couldn’t even explain why an essential worker had been terminated. It also fired a lead engineer on bereavement leave for supposedly approving the budget for a party that had taken place six months before he was hired. Musk was paranoid about the employees who stayed, fearing they would sabotage the site, but strangest of all, Conger and Mac report, he ‘had convinced himself that not all of Twitter’s employees were real.’ He wanted an audit of the staff to identify what he called ‘ghost employees’ who might be collecting paychecks without doing work. When the request came up in a meeting, ‘several executives burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea.’ Ultimately, Twitter’s accounting chief and his team had two days to confirm the identities of 7,000 remaining employees — no ‘ghosts’ were found.”

Advertisers deserted, fact checks showed that X was now the mega-spreader of conspiracy theories and out-and-out lies favoring Trump. Musk openly admitted to personal drug use, but as his wealth made him the richest man in the world, his imperious arrogance decimated even the slightest element of concern for others on the middle and lower end of the economic spectrum. X continued to plunge in value, but Musk had a new play in town, buying control of a US President for about $250M+ in Trump campaign support.

Trump and Musk were acutely aware that, unless they could tear down the federal bureaucracy and usurp the government’s check-writing capacity (hence the invasion and coopting of the Department of Treasury, where 90% of the government’s check writing begins), they might not be able to destroy the deep state. A federal judge’s ruling, among many, shut down that effort. And so it goes. Will the American public and Congress become weary of all this litigation and simply accept it? Will the Supreme Court vet Trump’s goals?

Ironically, the February 8th Los Angeles Times reports that rising global temperatures have increased the rat infestation in most American cities. Is it a coincidence that, with the advent of Trump and Musk into the heart of the federal government, Washington, DC tops the list?

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump has so burdened Musk as the Janissary charged with disrupting and destroying the federal deep state that if things truly go completely sideways, Trump merely has to fire Musk and remake him as the blame-carrying pariah he was intended to be… and then face the wrath of the richest man on Earth.

Is the Musk-Trump Presidency Preparing to Ignore Federal Court Rulings/

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” 

Yale Law-educated VP, JD Vance on X, February 9th “Legitimate Power”!!

With control of Congress seemingly locked within the Trump/MAGA program, albeit with a very slim majority, the only remaining constitutional guardrail seems to be the federal judiciary. But even once bastions of liberal bias – like the once Trump’s “9th Circus” is now populated with 10 of 29 Trump appointees (and 3 other GOP appointees) – are no longer dependable liberal-leaning appellate panels. In the world of trial court forum shopping, despite efforts to contain the practice, West Texas offers the best bet to rightwing causes, where the sitting trial court(s) are ultra-conservative Bible-thumpers, often willing to let evangelical religious beliefs supplant the Constitution. But Trump’s executive orders, followed by Musk’s cadre of young zealots who could never survive top secret security background checks, are seeking imperial controls.

Knowing how difficult it is to get Congress to accept his political Project 2025 agendas through legislation – the Senate filibuster rule alone threatens much of that platform, Trump has taken to methods to circumvent that process: through executive orders. In addition to that effort, Trump is knowingly issuing edicts he knows will find their way into the federal judicial system, counting on the same Court that gave him presidential immunity for “official actions” – a power completely devoid of any constitutional legitimacy – to reinforce his expansive view of his authority.

But perhaps, this defiance is already happening. “A federal judge on Monday [2/10] said the White House has defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House was disobeying a judicial mandate… The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered Trump administration officials to comply with what he called ‘the plain text’ of an edict he issued on Jan. 29… That order, he wrote, was ‘clear and unambiguous, and there are no impediments to the Defendants’ compliance with’ it… Judge McConnell’s ruling marked a step toward what could quickly evolve into a high-stakes showdown between the executive and judicial branches…” NY Times, February 10th. Intentional defiance (hence, a constitutional crisis) or ?????

Could there be more? “On Saturday [2/8], a federal judge in New York blocked individuals associated with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing what effectively serves as the government's checkbook… With Musk now flirting with the idea of defying court orders or targeting judges, the third branch of government might soon confront an unprecedented scenario in modern history -- the president of the United States openly and willingly disobeying a court order.” ABC News, February 9th.

Article II of the US Constitution sets out Presidential powers. Notwithstanding requiring the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” that article gives the President plenary powers over pardons, immigration and as commander-in-chief (which is why, Mr Vance, judges cannot countermand military combat orders), although only Congress has the power to declare war. By challenges to unambiguous constitutional provisions – like this provision of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” – the Musk/Trump administration’s efforts still focus on whether the President can order the shutdown of an entire federal agency (even if created by Congress), pause or terminate funding to that agency or its congressionally authorized programs or appoint leadership of such agencies charged with winding down operations and culling federal staffing.

As Musk’s management practices have consistently reflected: less than Musk-level productivity results in instant discharge, union activities are always resisted, federal labor laws are often ignored resulting in claims from employees (current and former), mercurial management style and a litany of major policy changes and reversals, personnel instability and general insensitivity to employees. His relations with employees and even senior management following his Twitter (now X) takeover were legendarily malignant. His current approach to federal agencies seems no different. Cut, defund and fire… don’t worry about the consequences, outside criticism or whistleblowers. Loyalty to the cause is justification enough.

Bottom line, civil service rules and statutory requirements are barriers to efficiency. Musk is used to functioning as an imperious CEO and cares little for rules and regulations he does not like. Still, as his DOGE operatives approach the mandate to eliminate waste (by Trump’s or Musk’s assessment) and stop governmental programs that seem to contradict Trump’s vision for government (or Musk’s interpretations of that vision), personnel files are being compromised in flagrant violation of the relevant data privacy requirements, and check-writing is being co-opted or restricted in ways that could easily stop congressionally approved programs and allocations.

As federal courts have been focused on these intrusions, particularly at the grandest check-writer of them all (the Department of the Treasury), Musk faces a reality: federal courts could check his self-perceived power (or Trump’s approval thereof), wreck his rapid agency takeover and defunding, decimate his “efficiency” directive and stop him dead in his tracks. Unless he (with Trump’s blessing) adopted the defiance of President Andrew Jackson who once refused to accept a Supreme Court ruling, albeit not over constitutional interpretation. Lots of MAGA members of Congress and senior Trump officials are casting doubt on the power of the federal courts to reverse Trump’s executive orders, regardless of the justification. As Jill Colvin writes for the February 10th Associated Press:

“Musk also shared a post from a user who had suggested that the Trump administration openly defy the court order… ‘I don’t like the precedent it sets when you defy a judicial ruling, but I’m just wondering what other options are these judges leaving us,’ the person had written… The court order against Musk barred his team temporarily from accessing a Treasury system that contains sensitive personal data, such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans. Musk and his team say they are simply rooting through government systems to identify waste and abuse at the direction of the Republican president.

“Deputy White House chief of staff of Stephen Miller called the ruling ‘an assault on the very idea of democracy itself… What we continue to see here is the idea that rogue bureaucrats who are elected by no one, who answer to no one, who have lifetime tenure jobs, who we would be told can never be fired, which, of course, is not true, that the power has been cemented and accumulated for years, whether it be with the Treasury bureaucrats or the FBI bureaucrats or the CIA bureaucrats or the USAID bureaucrats, with this unelected shadow force that is running our government and running our country,’ Miller said on Fox News Channel’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’

“The pushback comes as the courts have hampered the administration’s efforts to dismantle government agencies and eliminate large swaths of the federal workforce. Judges have also blocked Trump, at least temporarily, from moving forward with mass federal buyouts, from placing thousands of USAID workers on leave and from implementing an executive order that seeks to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the U.S.

“Early Saturday [2/8], U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction after 19 Democratic attorneys general sued, alleging the Trump administration allowed Musk’s team access to the Treasury Department’s central payment system in violation of federal law… ‘I disagree with it 100%. I think it’s crazy,’ Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier in an interview that aired Sunday [2/9] on the Super Bowl pregame show… The payment system handles tax refunds, Social Security benefits, veterans’ benefits and much more, sending out trillions of dollars every year while containing an expansive network of Americans’ personal and financial data.” It’s a little more disturbing as Trump hints at a third term… with or without a constitutional amendment.

I’m Peter Dekom, and although the MAGA faithful, including more than a few members of Congress, believe we live in a more “pragmatic” post-constitutional era, you only have to look back at why the United States was created in the first place, why Revolutionary War heroes were willing to die for cutting ties with an imperial dynasty… we don’t like kings!