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.