Judge orders Musk and DOGE to delete personal data taken from Social Security

acefsw

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Speaking from the small sample of MAGA I know... these are nice people. They will give you their shirt off their back. These are people that will give you a jump, or a ride. They are charitable and kind.

They are also raging, raging bigots. Yes, they are perfectly kind to brown people that they know, because "they are different". But fundamentally, when the cards are down, or the drinks are in said people and they feel safe to say so, absolute raging bigotry starts flying forth from their talk holes. It is shocking in and of itself, but even more so realizing that they always felt this way but finally feel comfortable letting the racist flag fly.

(I should have known for some of these folks; the absolutely clinically insane shit that came out of their gobs when Obama was in office would offend a dead llama)
So they're like Krikketers. Simple, friendly, and absolutely ruthless, murderous xenophobes.
 
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acefsw

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One thing that I think our schools completely fail at overall is discussing both the actual precursor events to the rise of the Nazis and who the Nazis by and large actually were. The majority of people who enabled and supported Hitler were.. just general regular people. They werent SS officers in literally-styled-to-look-evil uniforms, they were just people who believed Hitler that the woes Germany was facing were due to all the “threats” internal and external he promises to eliminate. They took on a lack of empathy because they believed Those People needed to go, needed to be punished, needed to die.

The banality of evil, the evil of ordinary people at scale.

We teach people in this country that racism is Bad (tm) but we dont teach them what it actually is outside of utterly blatant examples (and even then we fail, how many times do we have to stop schools from teaching “slavery wasnt so bad”, “slaves became friends with their masters”, etc?)

We teach people in this country that Fascism and the subset that is Nazism were/are bad, but we dont teach them what it actually is, or how it grows.

Etc

The end result is the US is full of people who think things like “Racism comes from Bad People, I dont think I’m Bad People, therefore I cant be racist” or “Nazis were evil movie villains, and I dont think I’m an evil cackling movie villain, so I cant possibly be a fascist or a supporter of nazis”
I had someone argue they can't be fascist because they aren't massacring Jews. And I'm like, one they didn't start throwing Jews into the gas chambers right off the bat - the Holocaust was enacted later - and two, have you not heard of Mussolini - the founder of fascism - or Franco?

Response is always slack jawed stammering. These people are ignorant, unthinking, cretins who can only puke out slogans.
 
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caramelpolice

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Yeah, that's why after Trump turned the US's economy and industry, foreign policy and allies, and, most critically, its disease preparedness and responses into total shitshows, they made sure he didn't become president a second time. Oh, wait....
They literally did! This is why he lost in 2020!

His 2024 win was a perfect storm of:

  • Biden refusing to drop out until it was too late to hold a primary, leaving Dems with a candidate no one actually chose.
  • Trump promising to turn the country into an oligarchy such that a whole lot of billionaires/aspiring oligarchs like Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg worked to tilt public opinion in his favor.
  • The Biden admin in general failing to meaningfully prosecute Trump for his countless crimes so that he couldn't run again. They had four years to throw his ass in jail, and didn't.
  • Biden's failure to deliver on his campaign promises like student debt forgiveness. Was it mostly the courts' fault? Sure. But it was also deeply important to a lot of young people, and they voted for it, and they didn't get it. Recipe for disillusionment.
  • The Biden administration's full-throated endorsement of Israel's assault on Gaza and Palestinians, including providing weapons and aid to Israel to do it, which alienated a good number of left-leaning voters.

There were a lot of factors in play. And frankly, a lot of them were unforced errors by the Dems. It wasn't the die-hard MAGA cultists that won the 2024 election for him. It was that Biden - and by extension Harris - were so unpopular and people were so desperate for change that it suppressed Dem turnout and turned swing voters to Trump.
 
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mozbo

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Is this like a refresh of the "Democrats were pro slavery" thing? Because like those Democrats, the ones you're talking about are also dead.
Everyone does it, the SSA maintains it as legal cover. Which seems fair, it’s not their fault everyone ignored their advice.
This is exactly what would have happened at any well run corporation. Yes, you can audit the data. No, you can't have it without IT scrubbing the personal info, per the relevant laws.

DOGE's access, and then laptops being connected to public Internet via starlink used to analyze the data, made me and several other IT admins hyperventilate.
It’s trivial for any half-resourced nation to find out exactly who DOGE employees are. Heck I probably could.

It’s also pretty easy for nations to hack a few targeted laptops. Especially when connected to the internet.

The inescapable conclusion is that multiple nations now have the entire databases of multiple US government agencies.

And that’s fucking terrifying.
 
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In fact, the last time the government did do this sort of mass "audit" thing was under the Democrats, with Clinton's National Partnership for Reinventing Government. And it was tough work (taking roughly five years to accomplish), but ultimately found old programs to eliminate and enough consolidation that the government was running a budget surplus by the end of it.

But that was a measured approach that did a lot of research and excised the parts it could with a precise scalpel. What the Trump regime is doing is taking a hacksaw wildly at the government to eliminate programs not based on usefulness, but which they have personal grievances with, and by their own admission will likely lead to larger budget deficit and worse economic performance for the USA than if they had done nothing at all.
I’m trying hard to understand the game behind the game and don’t think I have , as yet a good picture of what the folks behind the ‘project’ are working towards. I’m fairly certain it involves looting the American economy. I think they are looking with envy the Russian model of kleptocracy, with Putin getting a vig from the whole operation. The only thing keeping the scam going in Russia is that they continue to extract natural resources and find markets. That is perhaps the long game and also the reason they are looking to annex Canada…all the wealth is not enough I guess. They are likely to seriously tank the American economy..
 
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I had someone argue they can't be fascist because they aren't massacring Jews. And I'm like, one they didn't start throwing Jews into the gas chambers right off the bat - the Holocaust was enacted later - and two, have you not heard of Mussolini - the founder of fascism - or Franco?

Response is always slack jawed stammering. These people are ignorant, unthinking, cretins who can only puke out slogans.
The thing that seems to get a lot of folks on the rught when I talk to them is reminding them that the Nazis started with the trans kids too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_für_Sexualwissenschaft
 
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I’m trying hard to understand the game behind the game and don’t think I have , as yet a good picture of what the folks behind the ‘project’ are working towards. I’m fairly certain it involves looting the American economy. I think they are looking with envy the Russian model of kleptocracy, with Putin getting a vig from the whole operation. The only thing keeping the scam going in Russia is that they continue to extract natural resources and find markets. That is perhaps the long game and also the reason they are looking to annex Canada…all the wealth is not enough I guess. They are likely to seriously tank the American economy..
It’s also why they want greenland, why they want “drill baby drill”, and why they want to target national parks for defunding and removal of protections. That’s also why Trump wants a sovereign wealth fund, he’s seeing it as a place he can pour money into from those things for a personal slush fund
 
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acefsw

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The thing that seems to get a lot of folks on the rught when I talk to them is reminding them that the Nazis started with the trans kids too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_für_Sexualwissenschaft
Agreed.

They also rolled back women's rights gained during the Weimar regime, barring them from university positions, medicine, public office, confining education to the domestic arts, and so forth. Later, reality eventually forced the Nazis to make some concessions in employment and medicine, among others.

People forget they weren't solely focused on annihilating the Jews and in fact started by going after the socioeconomically/politically weaker members of society - gays, women, people of color/multiethnic, gypsies, invalids, etc. - along with going after liberal educators, communists, socialists, etc, (and I always want to smack our modern day Nazis with a giant clue stick when they claim they can't be Nazis because the Nazis were socialists.).
 
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I would like to know why anyone in the federal government is even doing anything for him. DOGE has no real legal authority. These departments need to tell Musk and DOGE to go pound sand when he wants something and remind king thug that executive powers do not go there.

But I guess that is why we are living THE dystopian dream. So much winning.

sigh :sick:
Because they're coming in at gunpoint when people try resisting.
 
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He became president with fewer votes than he got in 2020, when he lost to Biden. They're still a minority. Biden and Kamala were just so out of touch with their voters that many of them stayed home. The die hard Trump supporters are still only less than 30% of the country.
Fewer. But not that many fewer. Which contradicts the claim about proportions of his voters who aren't die-hard MAGAts who will never learn. The vast majority of them ARE die hard MAGAts. They're not the minority being claimed, anymore than any other political group is a 'minority.' In fact, compared to the disjointed factions of Democrats, they're one of the largest political groups in the US. Roughly ~70m Americans voted for this insanity. Twice. 70m die-hard MAGAts. Compared to the numbers of undecided, centrists, moderates, progressives, socialists, etc, the MAGAts are by no means a 'minority.'

-edited for clarity-
 
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Clinton's partnership was a great idea and it worked because both parties cooperated with making it work. Personally I would like to see the Democrats put much more effort into working with DOGE instead of fighting with it. If the Democrats had their own people inside of DOGE then'd know exactly what it was doing and be able to offer better alternatives.

Everyone wins through cooperation and balancing the budget. A debt spiral destroys America for everyone and it will even destroy the entitlements. That is something no one wants to happen.
You sweet summer child. It's adorable that you think the Democrats would be allowed within a hundred miles of DOGE, let along have people inside it. This is not a good faith effort to do anything other than destroy the government and sell of the (potentially) profitable pieces.
 
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barrattm

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I'm sure they'll get right on that as soon as they're done dismantling the Judicial System.

Please standby.

An awful lot may end up depending on the feelings of some fairly ordinary folk, I suspect. Ultimately, a court order means nothing if not obeying it has no consequences.

However, a judge cannot by themselves impose consequences (unless they start some radical court room practises!). Ultimately, if a judge orders jail time for someone, they need a bunch of people to actually go ahead and incarcerate them. That's a whole bunch of people, perhaps up to and including the Secret Service personnel themselves.

So, what it may come down to is a stand-off between some people trying to enforce the judge's chosen consequence, and a bunch of people whose boss is being sought whose own orders they're accustomed to following... In such situations, wannabe dictators succeed when ordinary people acquiesce to their will.

The saving grace is that Musk is so obviously involved and is seemingly making himself deeply unpopular almost everywhere. Apparently, there's quite a lot of people saying, "hang on, we didn't vote for Musk".
 
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Digitalclips

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The POTUS is actually limited in what they can pardon: they're limited to pardoning federal criminal offenses against the law.

Technically, contempt of court is in a different category, and so isn't pardonable by POTUS like murder or copyright infringement would be.
It won't be long before Laws, Judges and the Constitution, all become victim to some sort of wartime control by the executive branch. It's a playbook already written.
Enabling Act of 1933. This act, officially titled "Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich," was passed by the Reichstag (German parliament) on March 23, 1933.

This act granted Hitler's government the power to enact laws without the approval of the Reichstag for four years.

This effectively removed the legislative power of the parliament and allowed Hitler to rule by decree, thus dismantling the checks and balances of the democratic system and paving the way for his full dictatorial control.
 
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TylerH

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So when they say, "No," then what?
Hopefully the judge will order the individuals and the head of the agency to be jailed for contempt of court.

Not that that'll likely move then to comply, either, but it's the right thing to do, and a step closer to "overthrow all these tyrants".
 
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TylerH

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I think contempt of court can be pardoned. That sheriff in AZ for example. However a pardon does not cover future offenses, so if the person is still in contempt of court tomorrow he can be jailed again for the new offense.
You wouldn't waste time pardoning contempt of court, just pardon the act they are being tried for in the first place. Trump would pardon any individuals of their potential violation of whatever act(s) they are being accused of violating. A court would then be legally obligated to toss the case, even if standing orders to delete content were not yet complied with. They're part of the same court case, so they go, too. And, lest the plaintiffs refile saying "they did it again, your honor! Round 2!" Trump could, as President, just officially declare all that data public. Thanks to a captive Congress and SCOTUS, he is not likely to suffer and penalty for doing so.
 
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Derecho Imminent

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You wouldn't waste time pardoning contempt of court, just pardon the act they are being tried for in the first place.
He cant pardon a civil lawsuit, which is what resulted in the contempt charges against the AZ sheriff. And as the sheriff was no longer sheriff after he got pardoned for the contempt, there was no need for further contempt charges against him so that was the end of it.

For the case of DOGE, it is also a civil lawsuit which cannot be pardoned.
 
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False. The biggest Ponzi scheme of all time is trickle-down economics, which is actually vacuum-upwards economics.
Trickle Down Economics is also known as Horse and Sparrow Economics. If you feed a horse enough oats, eventually the sparrows will be able to pick up a few seeds from the droppings.
 
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SparkE

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Do models trained on the data count? Asking for a fiend
Im sure Elon and the Dog E boys have already fed all the Govt data the can get their hands on into Grok by now so Elon can ask it to come up with a plan that maintains the power of the rich and calculates the exact amount of the US population that can be exploited before it revolts.
 
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During a hearing, "defendants took the position that DOGE is not an agency," but Hollander rejected this claim. Even if it was true, DOGE not being an agency would hurt its defense, the judge wrote.

It walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but it's certainly following seagull management tactics. I'd be tempted to say it should NOT be regarded as an agency and fully taken at it's word that it's not. And then sue every single individual on a personal basis for every single unlawful thing they did, and then as a group for conspiracy and whatever other claims can be brought for their organised destruction of democratic structures
 
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crmarvin42

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That begs the obvious question of "if not the marshals, then who?"

The POTUS and executive branch leaders are protected by the US Secret Service. Not to mention that the POTUS can order the military around. Who, pray tell, can the courts realistically turn to as a means of enforcing a contempt order if the Marshals decide to place obedience to the executive branch over obedience to the Judicial?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I am not aware of any well equipped para-military organization in the government that is not at least as dependent upon the executive branch as the US Marshals. And, even I they find one - What is the likelihood that two armed paramilitary (or actual military) organizations with conflicting orders over the custody and disposal of the POTUS can settle their dispute, satisfactorily (ie with Trump in custody) without a shootout and accusations of a judicial coup leading to the POTUS exercising his SCOTUS granted powers of political assassination within the US government? Even if the long odds work out, and he does ultimately end up remanded to custody, how broken will our country be (even in comparison to today) once the dust has settled.

And if the courts instead attempt to go after Trump's money/assets, what are the odds that any civilian in receipt of a federal order is going to actually respect that order when there is a federal officer with a gun standing there with an order from the POTUS to ignore that Judicial order?

We need to stop pretending the law has any more relevance to what is going to happen than Trump and Musk will allow it to. They will push everything to the worst possible scenario necessary to keep themselves in power. And that will ultimately lead to force of arms, no matter how distasteful we all find that. Trump literally has all the guns, most of the authority, and none of the restraint of anyone who might oppose him.
 
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crmarvin42

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Hopefully the judge will order the individuals and the head of the agency to be jailed for contempt of court.

Not that that'll likely move then to comply, either, but it's the right thing to do, and a step closer to "overthrow all these tyrants".
And who will enforce that order? Particularly if the POTUS is telling them that he has pardoned them for their contempt of court.

The more the courts make orders that they know they cannot enforce, the more they undermine their own power, and the judges know this. They will pretty quickly stop issuing orders that they cannot enforce, to protect their authority in other cases. If not, then people will stop respecting all orders since such high-profile orders are not being enforced. Either way, the administration achieves a position of superiority over the Judicial branch, just as the abdication of the Republicans and Schumer's gang over the purse granted him the power over the purse in effect. With that, the "co-equal" part of our government becomes a footnote to history, and we return to the era of kings in fact, if not name.
 
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Golgo1

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there is a constitutional showdown coming.

Be prepared.
lol, this assumes a functioning system.
Waiting for the courts is going to be far too late.

Anyone in the police/military that doesnt want to shoot at their family/friends/neighbors need to start their retirement process now.
He's bringing war, whether North or South of the Canadian border is uncertain. But either one makes Russian and China quite excited
 
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lol, this assumes a functioning system.
Waiting for the courts is going to be far too late.

Anyone in the police/military that doesnt want to shoot at their family/friends/neighbors need to start their retirement process now.
He's bringing war, whether North or South of the Canadian border is uncertain. But either one makes Russian and China quite excited
I think those people SHOULDN'T retire. We need those people to be the ones disobeying orders. The last thing we need is the police/military to be 100% behind a dictator.
 
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alisonken1

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That begs the obvious question of "if not the marshals, then who?"

The POTUS and executive branch leaders are protected by the US Secret Service. Not to mention that the POTUS can order the military around. Who, pray tell, can the courts realistically turn to as a means of enforcing a contempt order if the Marshals decide to place obedience to the executive branch over obedience to the Judicial?

Maybe I'm missing something, ... <snip>

Clarifying point:
POTUS can order the military around OUTSIDE OF THE USA. Posse Comitatus prevents the use of military (note MILITARY, not LAW ENFORCEMENT) within the borders of the US (except on federal land like bases, but that's a different story).

With that said, there's still a scary amount of military members that are MAGA washed.
 
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crmarvin42

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Clarifying point:
POTUS can order the military around OUTSIDE OF THE USA. Posse Comitatus prevents the use of military (note MILITARY, not LAW ENFORCEMENT) within the borders of the US (except on federal land like bases, but that's a different story).

With that said, there's still a scary amount of military members that are MAGA washed.
And as with all things related to following the rule of law in this thread, that begs the question of what happens when the POTUS orders a unit full of MAGA faithful military officers to violate Posse Comitatus and they do it?

If the courts go after the officers it becomes a lose, lose, lose, lose situation.
  1. First loss comes from the PR storm of the courts going after officers "just following orders", thus reinvigorating his "pro-military" base.
  2. Second loss comes from the undermining of the courts when he pardons them, and the courts opting to not engage with such violations in the future to protect what power/authority they still possess.
  3. Third loss comes in the form of pushing more of the military into the MAGA camp, if only to protect themselves from perceived attacks from the judiciary. See ever "good" cop who turns a blind eye to bad behavior by their colleagues out of respect for that BS thin-blue-line.
  4. Final loss comes in the form of more widespread use of the military against civilians who opposed Trump, as this becomes normalized.
We, as a nation, were fucked the day he was re-elected with a Republican majority in control of all branches of government. All the rest is just seeing how long it takes him to speed run our conversion to a dictatorship.
 
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LotusPoet

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Clarifying point:
POTUS can order the military around OUTSIDE OF THE USA. Posse Comitatus prevents the use of military (note MILITARY, not LAW ENFORCEMENT) within the borders of the US (except on federal land like bases, but that's a different story).

With that said, there's still a scary amount of military members that are MAGA washed.
If the US Constitution was being obeyed then Trump would not have been allowed to run in the first place. But the openly corrupt Supreme Court said otherwise - and somehow a bunch of people seem to have forgotten that that was the constitutional crises death of the US Constitution.

A death that was then voted on and accepted by the populace.

Stop thinking "America"
Start thinking "aw HELL no!"
 
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