Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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“… Trump’s supporters have suggested two ways to get around the Senate’s advice-and-consent process. In the first, the Senate would vote to go into recess soon after Trump’s inauguration, allowing him to unilaterally make a series of “recess” appointments. That plan may formally be legal, but it is plainly improper. The president is authorized to make recess appointments to “ensure the continued functioning of the Federal Government when the Senate is away,” as Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the Supreme Court in 2014.

… some House Republicans have begun to discuss a more extreme scheme, one Trump considered during his first term: Trump could instead send the Senate home against its will and fill the government during the resulting “recess.” This is flagrantly unlawful.

… The House Republicans’ idea seems to be to manufacture a “disagreement” to trigger this adjournment power. First, the House of Representatives would pass a resolution calling for a recess. The Senate would then (in all likelihood) refuse to pass the resolution. Trump would then declare the houses to be in “disagreement” and adjourn both houses for as long as he likes. From there, he would start his recess-appointments spree. There is just one glaring problem: The “disagreement” in this scenario is illusory.

Under the Constitution, each house can generally decide for itself how long it will sit. As Thomas Jefferson, an expert on legislative procedure, wrote in 1790: “Each house of Congress possesses [the] natural right of governing itself, and consequently of fixing it’s [sic] own times and places of meeting.”

… The Constitution limits this autonomy in one key way: “Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.” In other words, if one house of Congress wants to leave in the middle of a session, it has to get the permission of the other house. The House of Representatives can’t just skip town if the Senate thinks important legislative business remains. But note that this provision limits each house’s power to “adjourn,” and not each house’s power to remain “sitting.” Neither house needs the agreement of the other to stay in session. If the Senate wants to let the House of Representatives leave while it considers appointments or treaties, that is perfectly fine. Indeed, there are plenty of examples of one house giving the other permission to go home. Under Article I, then, each house requires consent of the other to quit, but not to sit. …”
 
I have no problem with downsizing federal government office space. What I have a problem with is a blanket policy of forcing every government worker (or the vast majority of them) back into full-time, in-person work, which is expressly intended to make working for the government less attractive.
People came into the office before Covid. It seems like more and more companies are starting to encourage returning to the office, with some being a little more forceful, and I'd bet a good portion of that is performance based. When we went to work from home during Covid, there was a big jump in terminations of people who simply didn't have the self control to focus and perform at an acceptable level at home.
 
People came into the office before Covid. It seems like more and more companies are starting to encourage returning to the office, with some being a little more forceful, and I'd bet a good portion of that is performance based. When we went to work from home during Covid, there was a big jump in terminations of people who simply didn't have the self control to focus and perform at an acceptable level at home.
And people worked remotely far before then as well. Especially in federal agencies. Heck, Judge Ginsburg on the DC Circuit used to work from his mansion out in the countryside somewhere that his clerks called "Monticello 2.0." I never saw it, but anyway.

It's sort of bizarre to simultaneously claim:

1. Government workers are useless bureaucrats who add nothing; and
2. They have to be in the office so they can be more productive.

These things just don't go together. They are not strictly speaking 100% contradictory but let's just say there's a tension there.

Anyway, it's on brand for you to start warbling about what private companies do, without a) any recognition of how the federal government's operations are not like private companies, for many good reasons and b) any knowledge of what remote employees do and why they are remote.

My brother has worked for a defense contractor for two decades. He has usually worked remotely, because his job is actually split between three locations (and possibly a fourth, as he's had some Space Force work come into his portfolio, about which I know nothing of course because TS). Making him "come into the office" is ludicrous. And while his employer is a defense contractor, the federal government provides direct funding for his department and there are liaisons within the government who have similarly distributed work responsibilities, if not more distributed.
 


Czar for AI, Crypto, Tech bias and censorship?

Trump continues to be All-in on crypto. I think it is a good idea to have someone focused AI, but the bias and censorship bit seems like a very different mandate …
 


Czar for AI, Crypto, Tech bias and censorship?

Trump continues to be All-in on crypto. I think it is a good idea to have someone focused AI, but the bias and censorship bit seems like a very different mandate …

Sacks is a grade A egomaniac and asshole. I hope he finds government service humbling and painful.
 
Trump remains his own banding czar pitching overpriced stuff and weird memes.



 
It's so Trump to think that cryptocurrency is going to be an economic miracle.

Nothing is a better metaphor for Trumpism than an environmentally destructive system for generating fake money that is exceedingly prone to fraud, has no real utility other than lining the pockets of the billionaires who can move the market because most of the money in that space is "line goes up," and is ultimately worth zilch.
 
I wouldn't consider "host of Fox and Friends Weekend" is a "winner" career for someone with those degrees.

At least Gretchen Carlson (degree from Stanford IIRC) was the weekday host. That's what blows my mind about this guy. He's not just a talk show host. He's on the talk show host JV squad.
 
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