DOGE may help Elon Musk's biz empire dodge $2.4B in liabilities – Senate probe The Trump-blessed DOGE unit could help its boss Elon Musk avoid more than $2.37 billion in potential legal liabilities by stripping power from the regulators tasked with supervising the billionaire's businesses. According to a new Senate report, Musk maintained full control over his sprawling empire — including SpaceX, Tesla …
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"I'm struggling to understand [...], and how abjectly ineffective the Senate appears to be."
What's to struggle with? The Senate is controlled by Republicans who are (with one or two exceptions) completely amoral toadying yes-men, with absolutely no respect for decency, the Constitution, law in general, or Democracy. They are pretty much exclusively occupied with lining their own pockets and a frantic competition to see how far up Trump's butt they can crawl. There's a pretty sever limit on what can be accomplished by minority members.
You've nailed it. I wish your 2 downvoters would justify their votes.
They know full well this is wrong - if this had happened under a Democrat administration, these Republicans would be shouting from the rooftops, and the brains (if they had any) of these downvoters and Fox presenters would explode.
>We knew this was the case two or three months ago
Absolutely, so everyone should shut up and leave them to gut the constitution, the rule of law and the separation of powers. YAY! I always knew the right's defence of the constitution was so much shite, but seeing how wide they are pulling their arses open (no lube allowed) and how much Trump cum they are willing to swallow is nonetheless the educational. [Likely to be moderated because the idea that right-wing scumbags lack any kind of reasonable moral framework is apparently now a controversial idea no matter what they say and do.]
Oh jeez.... how many people were calling for action against Judge Aileen Cannon?
The judge in question here was not interfering with the deportation of a 'US citizen'. The person was an undocumented Mexican who had previously been deported in 2013 under *checks notes* Obama who was a *checks notes again* Democrat. The reason the guy was in court was for 3 counts of battery.
That's what due process is for. They were going to deport him, without a warrant, against the judges wishes.
Whatever you think of that, they do not have authority over judges. It's a chilling situation and you'd be pooping your pants with rage if it had happened to Aileen Cannon, who, incidentally, SHOULD have been arrested.
Whether Cannon’s colleagues were concerned about inexperience or bias is not clear from the reporting, but what is striking is that they seem to have reached the same conclusion that many outsiders did at the time and later: Cannon has no business presiding over the case.Comparing Trump’s different indictments is dicey, and two other cases against Trump, which accuse him of subverting American democracy itself, have overshadowed the documents case. But in this case, Trump stands accused of something very dangerous—extremely careless handling of the nation’s most sensitive secrets. He allegedly tried extensively to hide documents from the government, even after a subpoena. Nor does much doubt exist about whether he had the material, because FBI agents recovered it in a search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022. No felony case against a former president is simple, but the basic outlines of this one are straightforward and quite serious.
After the documents were recovered, Cannon ruled that prosecutors couldn’t review the files until a special master had filtered them—a ruling that would have benefited Trump by freezing the investigation and potentially discarding evidence. “This would seem to me to be a genuinely unprecedented decision by a judge,” Paul Rosenzweig, a former federal prosecutor and an occasional Atlantic contributor, told the Times then. But an appeals court overturned Cannon, saying her approach “would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.
@Ken G
"They are now rounding up federal judges who interfere with deportations of US citizens to South American (allegedly death) camps."
Do you mean the 2 judges who violated the law? One harbouring an illegal who violated gun laws and another trying to sneak an illegal criminal out of her courtroom to avoid ICE agents?
1) They were trying to interrupt due process, which despite Trumps effort, is still a legal right.
2) They had been hanging outside the courtroom (already an established no-no) and deporting people who the court had just found could stay - totally ignoring the courts authority.
3) They didn't have a warrant. The judges authority rules over theirs.
From: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/28/nx-s1-5377356/hannah-dugan-judge-fbi-arrested
Clancy: Absolutely. They did not have a real warrant signed by a real judge. Essentially, an administrative warrant from ICE is a piece of paper that they produced themselves saying they can do what they want. It doesn't have the same powers as an actual warrant does. Judge Dugan, as a judge herself, apparently realized that and did what I hope any of us would do, which is standing up for members of our community who are being targeted by the Trump regime.[ ... ]
they absolutely should not be going into courtrooms. That has a chilling effect both on people that are there to participate and also elected and appointed officials like judges, who are clearly being targeted by this administration as well.
[...]
Inskeep: Are you concerned about where this is going with a judge being arrested, given these circumstances?
Clancy: Absolutely. And this is incredibly unprecedented. A functioning democracy does not arrest sitting judges for doing their job, not for doing anything criminal or illegal. And they certainly don't, you know, handcuff them and then perp walk them in handcuffs in front of cameras. The goal here clearly is a chilling effect. It's to stop people from doing their jobs and standing up for a community when they are standing up to the Trump regime.
Face it, the Republicans would be having a hissy fit if this happened to a Republican judge.
@Jamie Jones
"1) They were trying to interrupt due process, which despite Trumps effort, is still a legal right."
Who was? The Judge arrested for harbouring a criminal illegal immigrant or the one trying to obstruct legal federal warrants?
"2) They had been hanging outside the courtroom (already an established no-no) and deporting people who the court had just found could stay - totally ignoring the courts authority."
Are you sure? As far as I am aware there was a LEGAL warrant from an immigration judge to detain this criminal who was in court for misdemeanour battery charges. Also why cant federal agents executing a LEGAL warrant not wait outside the courtroom? But violating the law even as a judge is illegal- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly5xx017vko
"3) They didn't have a warrant. The judges authority rules over theirs."
I like how your link says these criminals may not trust the court system and now might not show up. They are friggin criminals ffs. What happened to 'nobody is above the law'? That got dropped quickly. Instead the judge skipped the criminal case and tried to get the criminal away from law enforcement. I guess the 'authority' will now be tested with her potentially facing jail for breaking the law.
See this link-
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-two-cases-involving-judicial-misconduct-and-obstruction-law
"Face it, the Republicans would be having a hissy fit if this happened to a Republican judge."
Damn right. They would be kicking that Republican judge hard for protecting criminals over Citizens of the country. And if they didnt they would likely get a kicking from their constituents who put US citizens before illegal criminals.
"As far as I am aware there was a LEGAL warrant from an immigration judge to detain this criminal who was in court for misdemeanour battery charges."
There is no designated tree to touch that means you can't be tagged out. In the US there are several court systems, municipal/county, State and Federal. The Federal system can also have separate LEO's that will track down and arrest people with warrants although any agency is supposed to arrest and hold anybody with any warrant from any court. A lower court judge can't just say they don't agree with the Federal charges brought against somebody and aid in their escape from lawful arrest nor vice versa. The fiction is that the US government is "of the people and by the people". If I were hiding somebody wanted for a crime in my house, that's me in cuffs and up on charges too. I have a different job than a judge, but we are both subject to the same laws.
It's news now because the democrat party is tanking in the polls and has to try to do something, anything, to try and improve their poll numbers before the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. So they crank out a bogus "report" from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Minority Staff, publish it, and then start the usual howls of faux outrage over the report hoping that it will rally their supporters and help their poll numbers. That is the only reason this report has seen the light of day.
I mean I saw this coming as soon as Musk endorsed Trump back in 2024. Does anyone honestly think a tech billionaire is concerned about government efficiency? It was always about what Musk could get out of the deal and how much red tape he could cut for his own companies. And siphoning off a load of government data to god knows where was a nice icing on the cake.
People are idiots, they just believe because their leadership tells them something.
Do i really need to point the last election voted for trump.
Even today if you point out that ceos are parasites who are only interested in taking as much for themselves you get downvotes. Americans have been thoroughly brainwashed and cant accept taht billionaires only care about themselves.
What people like you don't realise is that when people provide valid criticism of Trump, it doesn't suddenly make them a Democrat fanboi.
It's sad that you can only see things in the context of worshipping your great leader, and as such, assume everyone else is as weak and easily led.
If you wanna cheerlead for a team, stick to sports.
> What about valid criticism of Joe Biden? Or Kamala Harris?
As soon as they become the active President, criticise away.
At the moment, what we have to deal with is Trump, so he is the under under scrutiny.
If Trump has a bad day next week, the US (and everyone else) has a bad day. If Biden or Harris has a bad day next week, who cares, they aren't in power.
I criticise you for only being able to think in terms of "teams", and straight away you help validate my point with another example of similar thinking.
Your rather dodgy analogy is more of the same bullshit I'm chastising you for, and the fact this time you are talking about "the other team" is not the "gotcha" you think it is!
But that aside, seeing as you really won't be able to grasp that, I'll indulge you, and reply to your comment. Yep, there were some on the left like that too, but the number of those compared to the huge number of MAGA nutjob cultists is miniscule.
But back to the main point, IN SUMMARY: Die hard cheerleaders of any "side" are uninformed cultists who need to stick to sports. Is that clear enough now?
"Does anyone honestly think a tech billionaire is concerned about government efficiency? "
Moreso a tech billionaire that brings in a significant amount of revenue through government contracts and policies. One that also has a current stack of pending lawsuits and investigations against his companies that could amount to billions of dollars in fines and sanctions.
"All his life he's wanted to be the smartest man in the room and in the Oval Office he's finally achieved that."
You could also roll over a log and have arguments over which bug is smarter. Or the salamander that wiggled out or the fungi. It's not a comparison of Kip Thorne v. S. Hawking.
"That $2.37 billion figure comes from Democratic staff on the Senate Committee"
I am sure thats an objective source against a guy leading an agency hated by dems and the bureaucracy. I am not a fan of Elon and wouldnt be over shocked but with the constant flow of bullsh*t from anti-Trumpers it makes sense to assume more bull.
""No one individual, no matter how prominent or wealthy, is above the law," the report concluded."
The previous administration announced that and also disproved it. The more its repeated the more Bidens pardons will be remembered.
Lets see, the people working for DOGE had zero experience looking for fraud or waste. I'll just skip abuse because it is a complete non sequitur. They spent almost no time actually gathering the information they needed to make good decisions before they fired thousands of people just to fire people and make Elon and Trump look good. Boy did that every backfire. Some of the people fired were long time professionals that preformed critical jobs and had to be rehired immediately after the stupidity of the of firings became known. They fired people doing cancer research, bird flu research, climate research, weather research, food safety, drug safety, humanitarian aid, cyber security, and on and on and on.
Elon claimed, clearly with no basis in reality they would save $2 trillion before that lie was exposed and it became $1 trillion. When it became obvious that this was yet another lie it magically became $150 billion, an order of magnitude less that the original BS figure and even that was wildly wrong. They posted "receipts" of their savings almost all of which were exposed as gross exaggerations or out right lies that were taken down by DOGE when they were discovered. All in all DOGE probably cost US taxpayers more that they saved although the total cost of this fiasco financially and to the people they fired may ever be known because no one can know how much it will cost to repair the damage. Some of it can never be repaired. Since no fraud has been claimed and no charges have been filed even though fraud is against the law in the US it looks like they failed to find any fraud either. With the current "Justice Department" filing frivolous charges at the drop of Agolf Twitler's hat one would expect something, anything would have been announced by now. FYI the real Justice Department is the people's lawyers not the president's, until recently of course.
So people hate DOGE for many good reasons. Currently 70% of the American people have a negative opinion of DOGE and I have no idea why anyone would like it since it has been a complete failure in all respects. Although the percentage of positive opinions does compare nicely with the estimated number of true MAGA believers.
Full disclosure I stole Agolf Twitler but it is just too good a description to not pass on.
@Gary Stewart
"Boy did that every backfire. Some of the people fired were long time professionals that preformed critical jobs and had to be rehired immediately after the stupidity of the of firings became known."
You say it backfired then followed with some people performed critical jobs and were rehired immediately. Sounds fairly effective when dealing with bureaucracy that doesnt want change and obfuscate problems/waste. Such as funding covid labs which brought us the pandemic! Or aids criminals against the US!
"Elon claimed, clearly with no basis in reality they would save $2 trillion before that lie was exposed and it became $1 trillion."
What was the claim and what was the timeframe?
"With the current "Justice Department" filing frivolous charges at the drop of Agolf Twitler's hat one would expect something, anything would have been announced by now. FYI the real Justice Department is the people's lawyers not the president's, until recently of course."
Does this include finding 'friendly' judges to try and block the President or DOGE doing anything? Which then costs time and money to get permission to do their very job?
"So people hate DOGE for many good reasons."
Especially in government where they are being scrutinised finally. Such as Trump being a felon over an accounting issue (outside the statute of limitations I will add) yet the treasury cries when held to any standard for accounting codes. Or funding covid labs and illegal invasions into the US. I am not a fan of Elon and dont particularly expect DOGE to hit whatever target but they are doing something necessary even if you dont like how they are going about it.
Hell if it was so easy to just scalpel out the waste and such then why did they not already do it? I will keep banging the drum on this, DOGE cut funding for the creators of the Covid pandemic that people thought was a bad thing and inflicted huge global harm!
"You say it backfired then followed with some people performed critical jobs and were rehired immediately. Sounds fairly effective when dealing with bureaucracy that doesnt want change and obfuscate problems/waste. Such as funding covid labs which brought us the pandemic! Or aids criminals against the US!"
Not nearly as effective as figuring out who not to fire first. Some of these are so obvious that it is hard to understand how stupid they had to be to do it in the first place.
"What was the claim and what was the timeframe?"
I don't claim anything, its was all recorded on video. Google, probably Youtube too. I don't have time to point out well know facts that you want to pretend you don't already know.
"Does this include finding 'friendly' judges to try and block the President or DOGE doing anything? Which then costs time and money to get permission to do their very job?"
Quite a few of these judges are well know conservative judges, some appointed by Trump. They can't "pick" judges, they are assigned depending on where they cases are brought and either randomly or depending on how busy they are.
"I am not a fan of Elon and dont particularly expect DOGE to hit whatever target but they are doing something necessary even if you dont like how they are going about it."
Please reread my original post as it clearly explains why the way they are going about it is by far the worst way to do so. But in a nutshell it doesn't do anything they claim it does, probaly costs more money than it saves which defeats the whole purpose, and it puts peoples lives at risk for no reason other that the people doing it have no idea what they are doing.
"Especially in government where they are being scrutinised finally."
There are/were fully qualified people that already do this job. They are called Inspectors General. They report to congress. Many if not most of them were fired by Trump.
"Such as Trump being a felon over an accounting issue (outside the statute of limitations I will add) yet the treasury cries when held to any standard for accounting codes."
Not according to the 12 jurors that indited him and the 12 jurors that convicted him beyond a reasonable doubt on ALL 34 COUNTS. It's called trial by jury. Prosecutors use evidence to attempt to prove the case and defense attorneys try to prove the prosecutors evidence does not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Both have a say in selecting the jury to head off that old whine. By the way, these things are usually taught in school, that is where I learned them.
"Or funding covid labs and illegal invasions into the US."
All countries study viruses. That's how we develop medical knowledge about how the develop, mutate, and spread. That's how we find their weaknesses and develop vaccines that are effective against them (and no vaccines do not cause autism). Illegal invasions? Nice of you to top off a stupid argument with something even more stupid. Does that take practice or do you come by it naturally?
"Hell if it was so easy to just scalpel out the waste and such then why did they not already do it? "
It's called pork barrel politics and the responsibility to reduce waste rests entirely with congress, which by the way makes any action by DOGE that reduces or eliminates funding or departments illegal. And wile you're at it why don't you ask Trump why he added $8 trillion to the deficit just so he could give people that already have more money than they can spend in several lifetimes even more money, huge corporations massive tax breaks so they could buy back stock instead of investing in their future and "bring manufacturing back to America /s", and tinkle down on every day working Americans.
"DOGE cut funding for the creators of the Covid pandemic that people thought was a bad thing and inflicted huge global harm!"
"And the worms ate into his brain", RFK Jr. is that you?
Not according to the 12 jurors that indited him and the 12 jurors that convicted him beyond a reasonable doubt on ALL 34 COUNTS. "
Convicted of a felony that was a felony enhancement to a misdemeanor he was not convicted of. It's messed up and includes some odd jury instructions that should have the whole case re-heard from start. There are some good breakdowns by attorneys that work in criminal law. What I took away was that the jury had to vote for conviction according to the instructions they were given and the things that could and couldn't be used in their decision. My opinion is the courts should go back and convict him of the underlying misdemeanor and if they can do that, proceed with the felony enhancements. Until then, I'm not buying the felony convictions as being legitimate. I'm not saying he's innocent, but that the correct process was bypassed in too many places. I can't hold the opinion that he's guilty either since I don't have the transcripts of the proceedings and heard the arguments. I'm relying on the analysis of disinterested attorneys that know more about the case than I care to research.
@Gary Stewart
"Not nearly as effective as figuring out who not to fire first."
So when you said backfired you didnt mean it didnt work, and now its a question of what is "more effective"? So in a hostile bureaucracy that refuses to cooperate, an opposition throwing legal challenges at everything you try to do while trying weed out the embedded waste that can be cut, for every government bureaucracy AND you only have 4 years! I quote myself- "Hell if it was so easy to just scalpel out the waste and such then why did they not already do it?"
"I don't claim anything"
Sorry to be ambiguous, Elons claim. And yes it is recorded including when he drops it to $1tn. It has been 100 days and he set the timeframe as some point in 2026 if I remember right. As well as a caveat that he would be allowed to do it and not blocked which sounds reasonable.
"They can't "pick" judges, they are assigned depending on where they cases are brought and either randomly or depending on how busy they are."
https://theconversation.com/how-a-lone-judge-can-block-a-trump-order-nationwide-and-why-from-daca-to-doge-this-judicial-check-on-presidents-power-is-shaping-how-the-government-works-252556
"There are/were fully qualified people that already do this job. They are called Inspectors General. They report to congress. Many if not most of them were fired by Trump."
Damn thats embarrassing then for the Inspectors General isnt it. Since it was the increased outside scrutiny after 2020 that found the very acts accused of-
https://penncapital-star.com/justice-the-courts/pennsylvania-casey-mccormick-supreme-court-orders-counties-not-to-count-undated-mail-ballots-senate-recount/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/09/politics/how-a-nullified-election-in-connecticut-became-a-rallying-cry-for-trump-supporters/index.html
"Not according to the 12 jurors that indited him and the 12 jurors that convicted him beyond a reasonable doubt on ALL 34 COUNTS. It's called trial by jury."
Hang on, so you think the law doesnt matter (statute of limitations) as long as a jury will convict regardless. 34 counts of a misdemeanour that could only be charged in relation to a crime, that has yet to be defined. The insanity of this violation is one of the great examples of lawfare. Of course he is so bad the only punishment at all being to label him felon. Thats it.
"All countries study viruses. That's how we develop medical knowledge about how the develop, mutate, and spread."
Thats one hell of a way to justify the global pandemic.
"Illegal invasions? Nice of you to top off a stupid argument with something even more stupid. Does that take practice or do you come by it naturally?"
Severe illegal immigration including of criminal gangs and terrorists. But you dont count that?
"It's called pork barrel politics and the responsibility to reduce waste rests entirely with congress"
So you now point out why its not so easy to scalpel out the waste after arguing it 'would be more effective' that way. You may want to revisit your stupid insult and question where it applies. But since Trump can and is reorganising these departments he obviously can reduce the waste even if congress wants to raise the money for departments that barely or dont exist anymore.
"And wile you're at it why don't you ask Trump why he added $8 trillion to the deficit just so he could give people that already have more money than they can spend in several lifetimes even more money"
When? Do you mean the first term where he was dealing with the covid pandemic, and of the almost $8 trillion he didnt spend it all, to which Biden spent it and then more!?
"DOGE cut funding for the creators of the Covid pandemic that people thought was a bad thing and inflicted huge global harm!"
"And the worms ate into his brain", RFK Jr. is that you?
I think you should read your reply to my statement there and ask yourself- how did you get that so wrong? Or are you some conspiracy nut who doesnt believe USAID funded covid labs (EcoHealth alliance have it on their website!) or do you believe against overwhelming evidence that the pandemic was natural? Please tell me you aint stupid enough to think the pandemic didnt inflict huge global harm?
@Casca
"Your forum history would disagree"
Obviously not. Hence you lie.
"Or is it that you just hate democrats?"
Nope. I assume politicians are in it for themselves, I am rarely disappointed. Dem or Rep (or in the UK any of our 'flavours') are just politicians. However the goal should be picking those who align with your desired outcomes and the aggregate is an election. You seem to have a default straw man you like to argue with which is probably why I dont make much sense to you and your comments rarely reflect what you reply to.
I've read your posts and no it is not a lie within the limits I previously stated
"However the goal should be picking those who align with your desired outcomes and the aggregate is an election."
While I basically agree that most politicians are in it for themselves your idea of desired goals leaves a lot to be desired.
"I am sure thats an objective source against a guy leading an agency hated by dems and the bureaucracy. I am not a fan of Elon and wouldnt be over shocked but with the constant flow of bullsh*t from anti-Trumpers it makes sense to assume more bull."
I'd not be surprised if the $2.37bn figure isn't rather conservative and not too difficult to show. They could have said $10bn and it be true, but it would take a giant amount of accounting and assumptions to prove. They got Al Capone on tax evasion as prosecutors were highly confident that it would stick and it had enough of a punishment to sting a bit. Had they tried for more serious charges, the case may have been arduous to argue and offer too many chinks for a clever defense attorney to leverage.
@Eclectic Man
"... does incompetence, manipulating government agencies, regulators etc. for one's personal and financial benefit and to the detriment of the nation, change from mere criminality and become actual treason?
(Asking for a friend.)"
Biden? Or Bidens puppet master (theorised as Obama by some)?
Trump putting 100% on all Chinese goods is the stupid part Compounded by the backtracking when it became obvious it was a problem.
Tariffs are best used selectively together with quotas and local investment. Wielding them like a mallet against everything because you're grandstanding for the economically illiterate voter base was always going to end badly.
"Trump putting 100% on all Chinese goods"
And rising, all the while lying about conducting trade talks with the Chinese. It is a sad day indeed when you are better off trusting the Chinese more than Trump. The only saving grace is that it is a close call. But the safe bet is still that Trump trumps Trump and everybody else when it comes to pork pies.
"change from mere criminality and become actual treason?"
I think you'd have to prove intent to make a charge of treason stick. He's not trying to destroy the nation that's given him so much. He's trying to defraud it for all he can get away with and push laws aside that keep him from being a full-blown robber-baron as there were in times past.
What Elon isn't good at is crafting laws that disadvantage competitors smaller than his firms where compliance would be more than they could afford or they'd have to employ specific technology where one of Elon's companies holds the patent and can charge the moon (or Mars) to license. Google and Amazon are a couple of companies that are good at it.
I am convinced after long observation that he pays people to drive his trash cars around an area for 3-6 weeks at a time. Then they seem to disappear for a little while.
I expect his whole operation is built that way. It's all smoke and mirrors. Appearances are what counts more than the product. It's a meme stock.
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