DOGE having access to government agencies is illegal

The fact that you believe this lie is very sad

 

And you know this how?

 

How do you know it's a lie? Just curious.

 

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/no-evidence-us-spent-50-million-condoms-gaza-2025-01-30/

 

"Is there some extra-legal notion that the federal judge should seize the power to put on the brakes when a President with questionable judgment is moving too fast? (I'm hearing some lawprofs singing that tune.)"

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-federal-judge-early-saturday.html

"A federal judge early Saturday temporarily restricted access by Elon Musk’s government efficiency program to the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems..."
by noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse)
February 8, 2025

"... saying there was a risk of 'irreparable harm.' The Trump administration’s new policy of allowing political appointees and 'special government employees' access to these systems, which contain highly sensitive information such as bank details, heightens the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in an emergency order.... The order came in response to a lawsuit filed on Friday by Letitia James of New York along with 18 other Democratic state attorneys general, charging that when Mr. Trump had given Mr. Musk the run of government computer systems, he had breached protections enshrined in the Constitution and 'failed to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.'... The Constitution says that a president 'shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'"

From "Judge Halts Access to Treasury Payment Systems by Elon Musk’s Team/The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 attorneys general accusing the president of failing to faithfully execute the nation’s laws when he let DOGE comb through federal computer systems" (NYT).

Is the federal judge taking the position that in the name of enforcing the Take Care Clause, it is the role of the judiciary to oversee whatever the President does with the executive power that the Constitution vests in him?

Is there some extra-legal notion that the federal judge should seize the power to put on the brakes when a President with questionable judgment is moving too fast? (I'm hearing some lawprofs singing that tune.)

ADDED: Here is the request for a temporary restraining order, and here is the judge's order.

Posted by Ann Althouse at 9:09 AM



​

 

Did Ann just move to the USA? Is she not familiar with basic entry level civics? Or does she think Trump just so majestic that checks and balances that have applied to every other president in the history of the presidency just dont apply to him?

Its really bizarre that she's trying to re-negotiate fixed and established checks and balances baked into our government from the beginning with nothing more than open ended rhetorical questions.

I guess rule of law only applies when the other team is winning? Did you feel the same way when a judge blocked Biden from student load forgivness? No shame.

 

What if - the feds - had access to your SSN

 

He doesn't. He just spews far left propaganda without any factual basis. He's a fat white guy. He is absolutely clueless in regards to anything

 

Now Musk is calling out to impeach that judge. No surprise there. He acts like he's a King thanks to Trump.

 

An organization not approved by Congress can’t. By that r****d metric executive branch can do anything by executive order and say it’s allowed by the executive branch

DOGE was to find wasteful spending, not eliminate sectors all together without oversight and checks/balances. It’s profoundly illegal and while I think musk gets too much hate and obsession I don’t want an autistic maladjusted person and his zoomers unilaterally destroying things

it’s ironic that neocons like you b**** about big govt nonstop but are ok with this level of fascism

 

A man, I cannot begin to explain to you how funny this post is on so many levels lol.

 

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com...aw-comes-to-the-southern-district-of-new-york

Kindergarten Konstitutional Law Comes To The Southern District Of New York
by Francis Menton
February 08, 2025

In yesterday’s post, reviewing a Washington Post op-ed by Ruth Marcus that called efforts by the duly-elected President to direct the bureaucracy to implement his policies a “power grab”and an “onslaught against the government itself,” I described the piece as reflecting “kindergarten-level constitutional analysis.” After all, my 6 year old first-grader grandson is fully capable of reading the first sentence of Article II of the Constitution (“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”) and figuring out that this guy is given the sole and full power to direct the executive branch of the federal government. Nothing about the elected President exercising such powers is or can be a “power grab.” If you are somehow unable to grasp that simple proposition, you therefore must be at sub-first grade level of comprehension, and thus kindergarten level, at the highest.

Well, today Kindergarten Konstitutional Law came to the Southern District of New York. In response to a motion made by some 19 states (all Democrat-led), a Southern District Judge named Paul Engelmayer issued a Temporary Restraining Order preventing President Trump and Treasury Secretary Bessent from “granting access” to Treasury Department payment systems to anyone other than “civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties.” Here is a copy of Judge Engelmayer’s Order. Looking at the language of the Order that I just quoted, it seems to mean quite clearly that even President Trump and Secretary Bessent themselves are enjoined from looking at the line-by-line details of who is getting paid by the Treasury. Why? Because the information is “sensitive.” I’m not making this up.

So who is this Engelmayer guy? You will not be surprised to learn that he is someone with the highest of the high credentials of the super-elite who claim the prerogative to run the federal government outside of any democratic control. Here is a Wikipedia biography of Engelmayer. (The bio contains a prominent caveat that “a major contributor” to the bio “appears to have a close connection” to the subject. I take that to mean that Engelmayer probably wrote the thing himself, so you can take it for what it’s worth.). The bio says that Engelmayer is a summa c*m laude graduate of Harvard College, and a magna c*m laude graduate of Harvard Law School. He clerked on the D.C. Circuit, and then for Thurgood Marshall at the Supreme Court. He served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, and did a term with the Solicitor General’s office in Washington during the Clinton administration. And at some point he slid seamlessly into the job of Managing Partner of the New York office of Wilmer Hale. He was named to the Southern District bench by President Obama in 2011.

Now there is a guy who is indisputably really, really smart. For a few of my prior pieces on rule by people who are really, really smart, try here, here and here.

Engelmayer is so smart that he has figured out that the elected President and his designates cannot be allowed get access to the details of where the government’s money is going, because that information is too “sensitive.” Here is the key line of reasoning (if you want to call it that) from Engelmayer’s Order:

The Court’s firm assessment is that . . . the States . . . will face irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief . . . both because of the risk that the new policy presents of the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking.

But of course Engelmayer’s Order specifically exempts from its restraints “civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties.” Those people somehow have a higher standing to know whom the government is paying than the elected President and his designees? By what constitutional provision? Engelmayer fails to mention that.

A bit farther down in Article II of the Constitution is the line that describes the President’s main job: “[H]e shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Now, how exactly is the President supposed to do that if the courts think they can prevent him from getting access to the details of where the government’s money is being spent?

At her blog today, ex-law professor Ann Althouse was quickly on top of this issue:

Is the federal judge taking the position that in the name of enforcing the Take Care Clause, it is the role of the judiciary to oversee whatever the President does with the executive power that the Constitution vests in him? Is there some extra-legal notion that the federal judge should seize the power to put on the brakes when a President with questionable judgment is moving too fast?

Excellent questions. But sorry, Ann, Judge Engelmayer is way, way too “smart” to ask himself such insightful questions. He knows that his main duty here is to his team to prevent the duly elected President from changing the preferred policies of the permanent bureaucracy. The role of his super-brainpower is to come up with some devious logic that can make that result seem somehow plausible under the Constitution.

This one is really too crazy to last long. The only issue is how much left-wing judges like Engelmayer will be able to slow Trump down from fulfilling his promises to the electorate.

UPDATE: A couple of comments from Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit. (1) “It’s a previously unknown clause in Article II: The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States, unless he threatens the establishment’s feedlot.” (2) “[Englemayer] is angling for Attorney General in the next Democratic administration.”

Really, ridicule is the only appropriate response to this kind of thing.
​

 

The right wing movement has no ideological consistency in their narrative framework.

USAID is a good example of this especially when you consider the MAGA affection for phrases like "manifest destiny".

Do you maga chuds understand that USAID is just another toolkit the US uses to expand and reinforce American empire?

Do people understand it's more cost efficient to have transactional good will when you try to exploit less powerful countries such as their labor or resources than going storm trooper?

It's always more expensive to go full hard power while eliminating soft power because it's far more expensive policing foreign countries in their everyday lives to extract what capital owners in America need from these countries. Tyranny is expensive.

For all the b****ing about government spending, I hope you guys sit and enjoy the show while America tries to maintain US hegomony through strong arm negotiations and military force while China goes around building highways in foreign countries getting the good will needed to extract.

You guys don't understand you are undermining US empire, something you ****s enjoy.


But the reality is "cost cutting" isn't even the goal. The goal is privatization... Replace USAID with corporations like Palantir so guys like Peter Theil can extract more tax payer money to bolster their wealth.

 

They just illegally took down the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program website

This program was created by the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 signed by GWB - it means you can get fed loans forgiven after X years of public service.

This is profoundly illegal - sick **** musk is not our king.

 

"I didn't leave the left, the left left me"

 

This is how a lot of underserved areas actually receive medical care and healthcare professionals move there

 

I have a problem with Christians who enjoy hurting others and letting people die to save money and rule like Kings without checks and balances.

Russell Vought: Trump’s office of management and budget head who wants federal workers to be ‘in trauma’

The Christian nationalist expressed that the government should be brought to heel by a powerful executive branch

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in a video revealed by ProPublica and the research group Documented in October. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.”

Already, the most jarring of Trump’s executive actions reflect Vought’s vision for a reduced and demoralized civil service. When the acting director of the OMB issued a memo instructing federal agencies to freeze all grant funding, halting the flow of funding to programs like Head Start, Meals on Wheels and other federally-supported services for poor and low-income Americans, it was Vought who Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said she was consulting.

Vought has openly called for the president to defy Congress and take control of federal funding decisions that are constitutionally vested in the legislative branch.

“Russell Vought is an extremist who will betray working families, will betray your family, and there’s simply no other way to put it,” said Nevada senator Jacky Rosen Thursday morning. “After all, he was the main architect behind Project 2025.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-vought-trump-office-of-management-and-budget

He seems like the opposite of a Christian to me.