emptywheel (check)
@emptywheel
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Abundant tweets about civil liberties & national security*** Legendary potty mouth*** Also at @[email protected] & @emptywheel.bsky.social 🗽🇪🇺
The original Limerick
Joined August 2008
Mike Davis says that if no one is permitted to alter Treasury's payment system in the next 6 days, everything will melt down. 🤔
The Supreme Court must step in quickly and decisively on the emergency docket, as activist judges are illegally sabotaging the Article II power of the President. Otherwise, the judiciary will lose its legitimacy—then its funding. (Do your jobs without law clerks, for example.)
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I TOLD @StephenM he shouldn't have lied to his boss about how many migrants there are. Now you've made Daddy cross, because you lied.
NEW from me @JuliaEAinsley: A source familiar with President Trump’s thinking said the president is getting “angry” that more people are not being deported. Arrests and deportations of undocumented people are lower than what the president has promised, and that is “driving him nuts,” one source told @NBCNews.
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Apparently dumbass Tom Cotton thinks Scott Bessent needs to learn to code. Look, @SenTomCotton: THE PROBLEM HERE is that this is a 🚨🚨🚨 major cybersecurity problem. As SSCI Chair, you should actually worry about people hacking Treasury bc unvetted coders played around.
Outrageous. Obama Judge Paul Engelmayer didn’t just bar @elonmusk and @doge from Treasury systems, he barred the Secretary of the Treasury himself. Without citing a single law or even allowing Trump admin to appear in court! This outlaw should be reversed immediately and Engelmayer should be forbidden by higher courts from ever hearing another case against the Trump admin.
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In her first day on the job, @PamBondi rolled out an investigation into FBI agents BECAUSE they treated a violent attack on cops as a crime.
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Hey @SenJoniErnst? Why do you think DOJ withheld this evidence from Trump appointee Carl Nichols?
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Which factual report does @TomCottonAR think is a smear? That Kash has a sketchy male roomie? That he took $25K to make Russian disinformation? That he got $1-5M from a corrupt Chinese company, paid through a tax shelter? That he glorified cop assailants who attacked Congress?
The media's smears against Kash Patel are ridiculous. Kash will make an outstanding FBI director who will restore integrity and end the weaponization. That's why he will be confirmed.
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Even before Donald Trump formally nominated @Sec_Noem, he pardoned an immigrant who committed a crime.
On the ground in Guantanamo Bay. President Trump said from the start: criminal illegals have no place in our homeland. He is keeping his promise. Guantanamo Bay is now being used to detain high-threat illegal aliens.
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BREAKING: Trump doesn't understand that his policy to lower gas prices was to kill off Americans at scale under COVID.
Trump: We had gasoline at $1.84. They took my policy and they really messed it up then they went back to my policy. They always said we were drilling just as much. If I were there, we would’ve been double or triple that number. They took my policy because it was going through the roof. They went back to my policy.. The energy is what causes the problem. They went up at beginning then they went back to try and bring it down. They went back and it went up and it went up really dramatically. And that caused everything else to go up. Energy goes up and energy and when it comes down, we’re going to bring a lot of things
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I'm sorry: @JStein_WaPo has great sources and has been doing important work. But how the hell does someone still believe this is about cutting $$?
[Long post, sorry] For all the noise & confusion, I feel like after the last 2 weeks or so I have a much clearer sense of the rough DOGE game plan that @elonmusk has in mind I haven't spoken to Musk so I don't know for sure but my impression is the plan is something like: 1/ Gut & defenestrate the federal workforce, which unlocks: 2/ Control over agency functions and records, which unlocks: 3/ Mass budget/agency cuts, reducing size of government When you see a DOGE headline and are confused by overarching intent, see if it makes sense to fit in any of the following steps Step 1: Defenestrate federal workforce To do this-> - "Buyouts" for some - Purges of civil service leadership - Involuntary mass dismissals (likely on probationary workers/those w/ low performance) - this is coming - Liquidate huge % of federal property AND mandate RTO, forcing workers into bad buildings/commutes --> increase attrition - ? Things coming I don't think we know yet Step 2: Control vital functions/records With civil service out of the way, next steps include -> - Hoover up internal records on personnel that would otherwise be carefully guarded (OPM files, eg) - Feed sensitive government databases & records into AI, try to figure out what could be automated (Happening at Education Dep't, eg) - Put allies in charge of spending chokepoints (Treasury payments system) Step 3: Unilateral budget cuts Now you have DOGE allies in position to implement: - Cuts to all spending viewed outside bounds of Trump's EOs - Automation of core agency functions - Pullback on federal spending deemed fraudulent - Deletion of agencies/departments (USAID, CFPB) - Possibly cuts to many more programs and agencies? (I suspect MUCH more of this is coming soon) To me the biggest outstanding question now is what happens if/when the courts say much of this is illegal, as is widely believed by senior U.S. officials Do Musk/Trump back down? Or do they ask John Roberts what troops he commands?
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The Federal govt is the largest employer in Kansas City. Yet @Eric_Schmitt is letting Elon fire them so Elon can have a tax cut.
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Somehow DOJ failed to provide proof of this to Carl Nichols, so probably @JohnKennedyLA is just repeating false claims Elon fed him so he can steal from Kennedy's constituents.
USAID reportedly gave $122 million to groups aligned with foreign terrorist organizations. We're not talking Cub Scout troops here.
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THE WASTE FRAUD AND ABUSE is that the richest man in the world bought himself a puppet President and he's using his puppet to steal millions from hospitals so he can have a tax cut.
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These great research institutions in red states are slated to lose about $1B in NIH research dollars
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Hey @jamescomer? Why do you have such a hard on for Elon when he's stealing $136M from your constituents so he can get a tax cut? Why do you like Elon more than your constituents?
These great research institutions in red states are slated to lose about $1B in NIH research dollars
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