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Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 12K
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  • Politics 
OGtruthhurts said:
oh what a path both parties have led us to.....congrats
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Folks, I've decided to put this clown on super ignore. I suggest everyone else does the same. He offers absolutely nothing to the board other than "Both sides are bad/I hate religion" posts. He has absolutely no other purpose. I recommend everyone ghost this guy, and maybe he can find a nice Libertarian board to post on.
 
ZenMode said:
Not directed @nycfan - just thinking out loud....

Does Vance not have a point? Does a random federal judge have jurisdiction over the President?

"If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal," Vance wrote on X, adding, "Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power."
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Who decides whether the POTUS is exercising “legitimate power”?
 
OGtruthhurts said:
ive sat out every election its called conviction. i understand completely the need for yall to not accept accountability and place blame elsewhere

you have no one to blame but yourself for allowing yourselves to be conditioned and controlled by two corrupt parties and a greedy society.

truth hurts
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It's called being a moral coward and it makes you a terrible American.
 
ZenMode said:
Regardless of what you think of Trump, Elon or the whole DOGE project, I think bringing to light that taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions, and billions over time, to house immigrants in NY hotels, is a good thing.


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Bringing to light? The administration was instructed to do that by Congress. How much more public can you get than federal legislation?
 
ZenMode said:
It goes through lower courts. So, I guess the question is whether courts below SCOTUS have jurisdiction over the executive branch. Would a district judge? Probably not, IMO. A circuit court judge...maybe?
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Of course they do. What are you suggesting?
 
ZenMode said:
Do they? I'm not a lawyer, but if a district judge has no authority over Merrick Garland, why would a District judge have authority over the President?
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You also know nothing about civics, apparently or concepts like separation of powers or chain of command. let me help.


How do you explain separation of powers to a child?


It means that the legislative, executive, and judicial functions of government are divided among separate and independent branches. Under this system no one branch of government is in a position to become too powerful. The concept of the separation of powers can be traced to ancient theories of mixed government
 
nycfan said:


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From the gift link in the tweet:

“… The N.I.H.’s announcement was made, of course, in the language of “efficiency.” “Can you believe that universities with tens of billions in endowments were siphoning off 60 percent of research award money for ‘overhead’?” Elon Musk wrote. “What a rip-off!” The actual percentage is less than half that, but sure, put it all in the wood chipper.

The problem with doing that is that these grants are a crucial reason that America has the most advanced biomedical research infrastructure — the N.I.H. awards grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 institutions, including the Mayo Clinic and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas — along with some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Every dollar in N.I.H. grants spurs $2.09 in economic activity, and every $100 million in investment leads to 78 patents and $598 million in further research, according to N.I.H. calculations. Those “overheads” help cover basic infrastructure that make all this possible.

The grants have been the source of new treatments for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, strokes and H.I.V.; wonder drugs like Ozempic; groundbreaking techniques like I.V.F. and laparoscopies. Cutting them will significantly narrow the pipeline to future cures and drugs.

… By law, all applicants for N.I.H. grants divide their budgets between “direct costs” — the research itself — and “indirects,” which are more general costs like lab equipment, utility bills, payroll services and so on. Indirects also help cover N.I.H.’s very expensive requirements for tracking dangerous chemicals, hazardous waste disposal, radiation safety, fire security and so on.

… It’s hard to calculate that precisely (how much did it cost to have the lights on for 10 hours last Tuesday?) so decades ago, the government decided to do it as a percentage — written into the terms of the grant — of the whole. Which is the actually efficient way to do it.

… A lot of what N.I.H. has funded is basic research that pharmaceutical companies rely on — and which they rely on to develop their products — but won’t fund, in part because it’s not possible to say with certainty where the research will lead. …”

——

That last paragraph is a good example of why “running the government like a business” doesn’t make sense in a lot of contexts because the profit motive of a business doesn’t apply to the common good motive of the government, or the calculation of value of government activities to American businesses writ large. Business doesn’t invest in open ended research in the knowledge that the minority of research that bears fruit will benefit other businesses that can build on the initial discovery.
 
Continued

“… Take the blockbuster weight-loss drug Ozempic. It has its origins in the kind of basic science research that gets made fun of as wasteful: In the 1980s two N.I.H. scientists were studying the effect of Gila monster lizards’ venom, using guinea pigs as a proxy for human physiology. When the scientists noticed that it caused a particular pancreatic enzyme to spike, however, they realized that they might have the makings of a new diabetes drug. The scientists took their findings to Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk, all of which turned them down. They did eventually get interest from a start-up, and today that research has led to not just an innovative new diabetes drug but also the megaseller we know as Ozempic — many lives saved, much health improved, tens of billions in economic activity generated. …”
 
BUT

“… Make no mistake, the N.I.H. does need change. Reductions in indirect rates may well be justified for certain institutions. It’s reasonable to ask if the N.I.H. has gotten too cozy with some. Maybe other payment methods are better for a portion of these expenses. Maybe the N.I.H.’s auditing can be improved. There is administrative bloat in many parts of higher education, and the N.I.H. award process has gotten increasingly bureaucratic and unwieldy.

Hang on, a few more complaints: Many scientists say the N.I.H. has been playing it too safe, funding surer but less ambitious bets rather than taking some smart chances on big swings, especially from junior scientists. Finally, China, which just upended the A.I. world with DeepSeek, is nipping at the heels of the U.S. in biomedical research, too.

…So cost-savings and reforms might be on the agenda for the new N.I.H. direc —

Wait. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s pick to lead the institution, hasn’t even been installed yet.

…But it appears that Bhattacharya won’t even make it to his new position before the N.I.H. undergoes one of the most drastic changes in decades — led not by him, but DOGE, the group named for a dog that was an internet meme that became a satirical cryptocoin. Can’t wait. A blitzkrieg requires speed and surprise to confuse the enemy.

It was nice having the world’s most important, most vital medical research infrastructure. But enough.

To the wood chipper!“
 
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