Tracking Trump Administration and Cabinet picks

[quigley 1562]

19 minutes ago, royiv said:

And that’s fair. It was hyperbole on the margin side, but it’s not false that a single health insurance company has the largest profits of any company in the healthcare space. I’m never going to see eye to eye with you on insurance companies. I’ve spent 25+ years battling them and have never dealt with one that worked in good faith. There is a spectrum of super shitty to pretty shitty and, unfortunately the biggest one out there throws its weight around to make things super shitty for provider groups.
 

Getting back to Oz, if he really wants to make a dent he will continue the Biden administration’s program of negotiating drug prices with pharma companies and extend the pricing to the all Americans. That would be a huge benefit.

The other thing is, health insurers NEVER LOSE MONEY. It's like is a utility...but of course it's not.

And you're right about negotiating drug prices. I've commented IRL that I think this is going to be rolled back to because pharma will throw some coins Trumps away.

[StassneyHorn 6575]

Trump joins Kamala and everyone else in the under 50% club. Man date? With men

[quigley 1562]

2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I am not a huge fan of PA per se and I have personally published peer reviewed research on the topic. Utilization management has a place though. It is part of traditional medicare. It is part of MA. It is part of every socialized medicine system in the world. You are rolling out simple talking points. 

You say you don't like it, but then it's ok cause everyone does it. Spoken like someone that's never had to have care denied or delayed.

And bullshit quoting op-eds written by a FRAUD. OpEd was co-written by the CEO of Kaiser, someone who would directly benefit from expansion of Medicare Advantage. Oz is a snake oil salesman of the highest order. Did you buy his diet pills too?

 

17 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

The single biggest obstacle to overcome will always be the lobbyists. 

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/15/industry-rfk-donald-trump-hhs-00189674

And more bullshit. You think the lobbyists are the ones who don't want RFK?  The lobbyists LOVE THE GRIFTERS. The grifters will take their money and do their bidding.

You think you're this contrarian thinker when you're the one who's been blinded.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13509]

The leaked Venmo payment chart from Gaetz to his underage women. Perhaps there are a few adults in there as well. The main spider web on the right is Gaetz’s friend who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a minor and fraud. 11 years in federal prison.

 

 

[Captainant 27641]

7 hours ago, quigley said:

You say you don't like it, but then it's ok cause everyone does it. Spoken like someone that's never had to have care denied or delayed.

Who do you think is delaying and denying care? Dude lives for that shit to keep profits up and their customers sick and desperate so they don't move to a new """provider"""

[Mo Horn 8831]

I don't get all the stories and outage regrading picks that have been accused of sexual assault. Two and a half weeks ago the majority of Americans picked someone who was actually found civilly liable of sexual assault to be President. If we're gonna have issues with that kind of thing, why didn't we have it before the election. We are a country of fucking idiots. 

[SubliminalHorn 6786]

I can only speak from the rehab side when it comes to Medicare Advantage plans. We are told to keep visits as low as possible for many of the MA plans because of the terrible reimbursement rates. Sometimes as low as $40 per visit. Which is ridiculous. So the patient will get maybe 5 visits or so because the agency is losing money every time they see them. 
 

Some insurance companies like Aetna, will only approve 2-3 visits max. Doesn’t matter what’s going on with the patient. That’s it. The patient is pretty screwed there. Even if they just had a knee replacement. 2-3 visits. But hey, at least their plan might cover some groceries. 

[Anastasis 23464]

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The DOGE Plan to Reform Government

Following the Supreme Court’s guidance, we’ll reverse a decadeslong executive power grab.

By Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy

Link, text behind the tags: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020?

 

Spoiler

Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.

This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.

President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size. The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.

We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can’t impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law or their own rulemaking authority. Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.

DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.

When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies. The use of executive orders to substitute for lawmaking by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront, but the use of executive orders to roll back regulations that wrongly bypassed Congress is legitimate and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent mandates. And after those regulations are fully rescinded, a future president couldn’t simply flip the switch and revive them but would instead have to ask Congress to do so.

A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy. DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions. The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited. Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.

Conventional wisdom holds that statutory civil-service protections stop the president or even his political appointees from firing federal workers. The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation. But the statute allows for “reductions in force” that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to “prescribe rules governing the competitive service.” That power is broad. Previous presidents have used it to amend the civil service rules by executive order, and the Supreme Court has held—in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) and Collins v. Yellen (2021) that they weren’t constrained by the Administrative Procedures Act when they did so. With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of “rules governing the competitive service” that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area. Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.

Finally, we are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers. Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone. They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing expenditures authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question. But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

The federal government’s procurement process is also badly broken. Many federal contracts have gone unexamined for years. Large-scale audits conducted during a temporary suspension of payments would yield significant savings. The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent. Critics claim that we can’t meaningfully close the federal deficit without taking aim at entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which require Congress to shrink. But this deflects attention from the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end—and that DOGE aims to address by identifying pinpoint executive actions that would result in immediate savings for taxpayers.

With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026—the expiration date we have set for our project. There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud.

Mr. Musk is CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. Mr. Ramaswamy, a businessman, is author, most recently, of “Truths: The Future of America First” and was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. President-elect Trump has named them co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency.

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Anastasis

[Bozo_Casanova 26438]

[Fastbreak 3984]

I should have studied more, so I could have become a sexologist.

[Fastbreak 3984]

Every time Musk says "DOGE", I know that stupid motherfucker is giggling his ass off...

[David Dennison 18851]

10 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The DOGE Plan to Reform Government

Following the Supreme Court’s guidance, we’ll reverse a decadeslong executive power grab.

By Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy

Link, text behind the tags: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.

This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.

President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size. The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.

We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can’t impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law or their own rulemaking authority. Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.

DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.

When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies. The use of executive orders to substitute for lawmaking by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront, but the use of executive orders to roll back regulations that wrongly bypassed Congress is legitimate and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent mandates. And after those regulations are fully rescinded, a future president couldn’t simply flip the switch and revive them but would instead have to ask Congress to do so.

A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy. DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions. The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited. Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.

Conventional wisdom holds that statutory civil-service protections stop the president or even his political appointees from firing federal workers. The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation. But the statute allows for “reductions in force” that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to “prescribe rules governing the competitive service.” That power is broad. Previous presidents have used it to amend the civil service rules by executive order, and the Supreme Court has held—in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) and Collins v. Yellen (2021) that they weren’t constrained by the Administrative Procedures Act when they did so. With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of “rules governing the competitive service” that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area. Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.

Finally, we are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers. Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone. They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing expenditures authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question. But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

The federal government’s procurement process is also badly broken. Many federal contracts have gone unexamined for years. Large-scale audits conducted during a temporary suspension of payments would yield significant savings. The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent. Critics claim that we can’t meaningfully close the federal deficit without taking aim at entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which require Congress to shrink. But this deflects attention from the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end—and that DOGE aims to address by identifying pinpoint executive actions that would result in immediate savings for taxpayers.

With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026—the expiration date we have set for our project. There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud.

Mr. Musk is CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. Mr. Ramaswamy, a businessman, is author, most recently, of “Truths: The Future of America First” and was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. President-elect Trump has named them co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency.

 

You see, kids, you reverse a decades long power grab with a power grab. Fight fire with fire. 

[Texas Jeff 1945]

4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The leaked Venmo payment chart from Gaetz to his underage women. Perhaps there are a few adults in there as well. The main spider web on the right is Gaetz’s friend who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a minor and fraud. 11 years in federal prison.

 

 

That is totally a map of the Metroplex.  It's missing a few loops but the rest is there.

[Sawbonz 27543]

49 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The DOGE Plan to Reform Government

Following the Supreme Court’s guidance, we’ll reverse a decadeslong executive power grab.

By Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy

Link, text behind the tags: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government. That isn’t how America functions today. Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections.

This is antidemocratic and antithetical to the Founders’ vision. It imposes massive direct and indirect costs on taxpayers. Thankfully, we have a historic opportunity to solve the problem. On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it.

President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cut the federal government down to size. The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long. That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.

We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022), the justices held that agencies can’t impose regulations dealing with major economic or policy questions unless Congress specifically authorizes them to do so. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the court overturned the Chevron doctrine and held that federal courts should no longer defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law or their own rulemaking authority. Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law.

DOGE will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies, aided by advanced technology, to apply these rulings to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.

When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress. The president owes lawmaking deference to Congress, not to bureaucrats deep within federal agencies. The use of executive orders to substitute for lawmaking by adding burdensome new rules is a constitutional affront, but the use of executive orders to roll back regulations that wrongly bypassed Congress is legitimate and necessary to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent mandates. And after those regulations are fully rescinded, a future president couldn’t simply flip the switch and revive them but would instead have to ask Congress to do so.

A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy. DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions. The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited. Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.

Conventional wisdom holds that statutory civil-service protections stop the president or even his political appointees from firing federal workers. The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation. But the statute allows for “reductions in force” that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to “prescribe rules governing the competitive service.” That power is broad. Previous presidents have used it to amend the civil service rules by executive order, and the Supreme Court has held—in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) and Collins v. Yellen (2021) that they weren’t constrained by the Administrative Procedures Act when they did so. With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of “rules governing the competitive service” that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area. Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home.

Finally, we are focused on delivering cost savings for taxpayers. Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone. They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing expenditures authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question. But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood.

The federal government’s procurement process is also badly broken. Many federal contracts have gone unexamined for years. Large-scale audits conducted during a temporary suspension of payments would yield significant savings. The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency’s leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent. Critics claim that we can’t meaningfully close the federal deficit without taking aim at entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which require Congress to shrink. But this deflects attention from the sheer magnitude of waste, fraud and abuse that nearly all taxpayers wish to end—and that DOGE aims to address by identifying pinpoint executive actions that would result in immediate savings for taxpayers.

With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government. We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail. Now is the moment for decisive action. Our top goal for DOGE is to eliminate the need for its existence by July 4, 2026—the expiration date we have set for our project. There is no better birthday gift to our nation on its 250th anniversary than to deliver a federal government that would make our Founders proud.

Mr. Musk is CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. Mr. Ramaswamy, a businessman, is author, most recently, of “Truths: The Future of America First” and was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. President-elect Trump has named them co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency.

 

They are going to use unilateral executive authority to reduce executive authority?

Edited 8 hours ago by Sawbonz
What Dennison said

[SubliminalHorn 6786]

Congress passing legislation addressing every single possible rule and regulation is the very definition of efficiency 

[Captainant 27641]

11 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

They are going to use unilateral executive authority to reduce executive authority?

[wildcat09 29348]

37 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

They are going to use unilateral executive authority to reduce executive authority?

They're going to use unilateral executive authority to refuse to comply with duly passed Congressional legislation. Noted opponent of executive authority Anastasis thinks this will be a good thing.  

[Underdog 28585]

So this McMahon chick and Gym have in common of enabling sexual assault of young boys?  Only the best people. Thanks a lot, america! 

[Brisketexan 105083]

I should have studied more, so I could have become a sexologist.

I studied a LOT.
I’m an expert solo practitioner.

[gernblansten 3196]

17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I studied a LOT.
I’m an expert solo practitioner.

Whoa, to become an expert don't you have to do it enough that you'd grow hair on your palms?!?!

[C-Man 27199]

More details on 'rapey' Hegseth: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/new-full-police-report-details-pete-hegseth-sexual-assault-allegation/

Question: Is it normal for former military to continue wearing their dog tags as "jewelry" after you're done with your active service?

 

Quote

A police report on the allegation of sexual assault against Pete Hegseth, the Fox News star nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as secretary of defense, was obtained by Mediaite on Wednesday and contains graphic details of the 2017 encounter.

The report, provided by the City of Monterey, California, was previously released to Hegseth in March 2021, per his request. It runs 22 pages and details the allegation leveled by a woman who claimed in 2017 that she was sexually assaulted by the cable news star at a Republican women’s conference.

Tim Parlatore, Hegseth’s attorney, vehemently denied the assault when it was first reported last week that a detailed memo of the claim had been sent to the Trump team. Parlatore said the sex was consensual, and that Hegseth later paid his accuser as part of a nondisclosure agreement in order to protect his reputation. Hegseth was never charged with a crime.

In a new statement to Mediaite in light of the full police report, Parlatore said: “This police report confirms what I have said all along that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed.”

The report includes accounts from several police officers who spoke with Hegseth, his accuser (who remains anonymous and was identified throughout the report as Jane Doe), and others present at the conference, which took place in October 2017.

According to the report, the police were first made aware of the alleged assault when Doe, who was 30 at the time, submitted for a rape-kit exam at a local hospital. A nurse from the hospital called an officer at the Monterey Police Department and reported the assault claim. Days later, police spoke with Doe as part of their investigation.

Doe said she spoke with Hegseth on the final night of the conference, during which attendees were drinking in a suite and at a bar in the hotel. Doe told police that Hegseth was flirting with women and putting his hand on their legs at the conference, and this prompted her to tell Hegseth she did not appreciate how he treated women.

Two different women who attended the conference and spoke with police said that Hegseth put his hand on their legs and asked them to come back to his room on separate occasions. One of the women, who worked at the conference, told police that she told Hegseth the physical contact was not acceptable. She said she then called over Doe to act as a buffer so he would not continue to pursue her.

At some point after midnight, Hegseth and Doe had an argument outside the hotel by the pool, according to the report. Doe said it was over his treatment of women; Hegseth, in an interview with police, said he did not recall the argument.

Police spoke with a staffer at the front desk of the hotel who said that around 1:30 a.m. that night he received multiple complaints about a couple causing a disturbance by the pool. There, he found Doe and Hegseth, who “began to curse” when he tried to speak with them, according to the police report.

Hegseth told the hotel worker he had “freedom of speech” while Jane Doe told the worker they were Republicans and apologized for Hegseth, the worker said.

The hotel worker said Jane Doe then led Hegseth away. He said Hegseth appeared very drunk, while Jane Doe was standing on her own and seemed coherent.

Surveillance video reviewed by police from around 1:15 a.m. showed Doe and Hegseth walking towards the pool, their arms locked, and Doe “appeared to be smiling,” per the report.

Doe told police she had been drinking that night, and told the nurse that she believed someone had slipped something in her drink.

She told police that her recollection became fuzzy after the pool exchange, and that the next memory she had was in an unknown room. She said Hegseth took her phone and blocked the door with his body when she tried to leave. She told police she said “no” repeatedly. She said she was next on a bed or a couch and Hegseth was on top of her, with his dog tags hovering over her face. Hegseth, she said, ejaculated on her stomach. She said he then threw her a towel and asked if she was okay. She said she did not remember how she got back to her room that night.

Four days later, she went to the hospital.

A few weeks after the alleged assault, police spoke with Hegseth as part of their investigation. In a phone call with a Monterey detective, Hegseth insisted the sex was consensual.

He said he was “buzzed” but not drunk and that Doe led him out of the bar before going back to his hotel room. He said Doe would not leave his hotel room, and that the two proceeded to have consensual sex.

He said Doe asked him if he had a condom, and that he did not and asked her if that was okay. He said he told her they could stop if that was a problem. Hegseth also said he ejaculated on Doe’s body. After sex, Hegseth said Doe showed early signs of regret, and said she would tell her husband she fell asleep on a couch in someone else’s room.

In a second call with police after her initial interview, Doe provided more recollections about the alleged encounter. She said she was suffering from nightmares and memory loss since. Another person who spoke with police said Doe would “cry secretly” and “out of the blue” since that night.

Read the full report here.

 

[Nivek 16923]

And that’s fair. It was hyperbole on the margin side, but it’s not false that a single health insurance company has the largest profits of any company in the healthcare space. I’m never going to see eye to eye with you on insurance companies. I’ve spent 25+ years battling them and have never dealt with one that worked in good faith. There is a spectrum of super shitty to pretty shitty and, unfortunately the biggest one out there throws its weight around to make things super shitty for provider groups.
 
Getting back to Oz, if he really wants to make a dent he will continue the Biden administration’s program of negotiating drug prices with pharma companies and extend the pricing to the all Americans. That would be a huge benefit.

Oz is going to negotiate with his own companies to provide vitamin x to treat your cancer/diabetes.

RFK’s FDA will authorize it or stay out of the way.

[Leeroy Jenkins 2402]

More details on 'rapey' Hegseth: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/new-full-police-report-details-pete-hegseth-sexual-assault-allegation/
Question: Is it normal for former military to continue wearing their dog tags as "jewelry" after you're done with your active service?
 

A police report on the allegation of sexual assault against Pete Hegseth, the Fox News star nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as secretary of defense, was obtained by Mediaite on Wednesday and contains graphic details of the 2017 encounter.
The report, provided by the City of Monterey, California, was previously released to Hegseth in March 2021, per his request. It runs 22 pages and details the allegation leveled by a woman who claimed in 2017 that she was sexually assaulted by the cable news star at a Republican women’s conference.
Tim Parlatore, Hegseth’s attorney, vehemently denied the assault when it was first reported last week that a detailed memo of the claim had been sent to the Trump team. Parlatore said the sex was consensual, and that Hegseth later paid his accuser as part of a nondisclosure agreement in order to protect his reputation. Hegseth was never charged with a crime.
In a new statement to Mediaite in light of the full police report, Parlatore said: “This police report confirms what I have said all along that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed.”
The report includes accounts from several police officers who spoke with Hegseth, his accuser (who remains anonymous and was identified throughout the report as Jane Doe), and others present at the conference, which took place in October 2017.
According to the report, the police were first made aware of the alleged assault when Doe, who was 30 at the time, submitted for a rape-kit exam at a local hospital. A nurse from the hospital called an officer at the Monterey Police Department and reported the assault claim. Days later, police spoke with Doe as part of their investigation.
Doe said she spoke with Hegseth on the final night of the conference, during which attendees were drinking in a suite and at a bar in the hotel. Doe told police that Hegseth was flirting with women and putting his hand on their legs at the conference, and this prompted her to tell Hegseth she did not appreciate how he treated women.
Two different women who attended the conference and spoke with police said that Hegseth put his hand on their legs and asked them to come back to his room on separate occasions. One of the women, who worked at the conference, told police that she told Hegseth the physical contact was not acceptable. She said she then called over Doe to act as a buffer so he would not continue to pursue her.
At some point after midnight, Hegseth and Doe had an argument outside the hotel by the pool, according to the report. Doe said it was over his treatment of women; Hegseth, in an interview with police, said he did not recall the argument.
Police spoke with a staffer at the front desk of the hotel who said that around 1:30 a.m. that night he received multiple complaints about a couple causing a disturbance by the pool. There, he found Doe and Hegseth, who “began to curse” when he tried to speak with them, according to the police report.
Hegseth told the hotel worker he had “freedom of speech” while Jane Doe told the worker they were Republicans and apologized for Hegseth, the worker said.
The hotel worker said Jane Doe then led Hegseth away. He said Hegseth appeared very drunk, while Jane Doe was standing on her own and seemed coherent.
Surveillance video reviewed by police from around 1:15 a.m. showed Doe and Hegseth walking towards the pool, their arms locked, and Doe “appeared to be smiling,” per the report.
Doe told police she had been drinking that night, and told the nurse that she believed someone had slipped something in her drink.
She told police that her recollection became fuzzy after the pool exchange, and that the next memory she had was in an unknown room. She said Hegseth took her phone and blocked the door with his body when she tried to leave. She told police she said “no” repeatedly. She said she was next on a bed or a couch and Hegseth was on top of her, with his dog tags hovering over her face. Hegseth, she said, ejaculated on her stomach. She said he then threw her a towel and asked if she was okay. She said she did not remember how she got back to her room that night.
Four days later, she went to the hospital.
A few weeks after the alleged assault, police spoke with Hegseth as part of their investigation. In a phone call with a Monterey detective, Hegseth insisted the sex was consensual.
He said he was “buzzed” but not drunk and that Doe led him out of the bar before going back to his hotel room. He said Doe would not leave his hotel room, and that the two proceeded to have consensual sex.
He said Doe asked him if he had a condom, and that he did not and asked her if that was okay. He said he told her they could stop if that was a problem. Hegseth also said he ejaculated on Doe’s body. After sex, Hegseth said Doe showed early signs of regret, and said she would tell her husband she fell asleep on a couch in someone else’s room.
In a second call with police after her initial interview, Doe provided more recollections about the alleged encounter. She said she was suffering from nightmares and memory loss since. Another person who spoke with police said Doe would “cry secretly” and “out of the blue” since that night.
Read the full report here.

 

Such a Christian man.

[MrBig 5387]

1 hour ago, Underdog said:

So this McMahon chick and Gym have in common of enabling sexual assault of young boys?  Only the best people. Thanks a lot, america! 

Please excuse the crudeness of the following comment, but it’s fucking pathetic that the only time we see gender equality from these people is when it comes to abusing children. 

[Francisco 2.0 32389]

13 minutes ago, Leeroy Jenkins said:

 

Such a Christian man.

 

He even has the tattoos to prove it.

 

[Pancho 44721]

So America is beholden to and, being run by, a foreigner

 

[G650 14246]

Gaetz withdraws

[Red Five 40847]

First piece of good news in two weeks.

[C-Man 27199]

3 minutes ago, G650 said:

Gaetz withdraws

Yep. Buddy of mine just texted our "Trump is an Idiot" text group that news. Can't find it anywhere online yet.

[Anastasis 23464]

Gaetz is out. Hegseth next.

 

[G650 14246]

Just now, Red Five said:

First piece of good news in two weeks.

He just doesn't want the pedo evidence coming out.

1 minute ago, C-Man said:

Yep. Buddy of mine just texted our "Trump is an Idiot" text group that news. Can't find it anywhere online yet.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/21/trump-ag-pick-matt-gaetz-says-hes-withdrawing.html

[Red Five 40847]

Translation: A whole bunch of shit was about to come out on me, one way or the other. So bye. 

[Okie State 3816]

I was told Trump is never wrong so I'm very confused by this development.

[skeeter 454]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I studied a LOT.
I’m an expert solo practitioner.

It's mine, and I can soap it up as much as I want ... to get it clean, of course.

[C-Man 27199]

1 minute ago, Red Five said:

Translation: A whole bunch of shit was about to come out on me, one way or the other. So bye. 

So does he slide back into Congress next term? He's not a member of this Congress any longer so can they do the mental gymnastics necessary to let him back but not have the report come out? Or does he bide his team and run for Florida governor like it's been rumored?

[Underdog 28585]

14 minutes ago, G650 said:

Gaetz withdraws

Strong pullout game.

[Dnaguy 11921]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I studied a LOT.
I’m an expert solo practitioner.

 

According to Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours.

From your posting I’m going to just assume you’re 45 y old.

Assuming you started beating it at age 11, you’d had to have masturbated a total of 600,000 minutes up to now. So that over 34 years.

That comes out (ha!) to 17,647 minutes of masturbation per year

339 minutes per week

48.5 minutes / day.

Idk if that’s Minister of Culture level, but I, myself, am very impressed.

[Foosters 17843]

[Johnny Sack] America will not tolerate this lawfare!! There will be consequences to those who've managed to stand in the way of us getting a pedophile into the AGs office!! [Johnny Sack]

[Gil Bang 25922]

Ken Paxton, come on down!

[Underdog 28585]

Sticking with the TV theme his next AG pick will be... 

[InkaUtexas 25876]

Nah, he needs at least 1 African American right?

 

[Brisketexan 105083]

11 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

Ken Paxton, come on down!

 

7 minutes ago, Underdog said:

Sticking with the TV theme his next AG pick will be... 

Either of those two is an even-money pick.  I'm dead serious.

And that's only because recent years of TV schedules have been light on charismatic lawyer characters.  If Boston Legal was still on, there's a 98% chance he'd have nominated James Spader for AG.

[Captainant 27641]

Just now, InkaUtexas said:

Nah, he needs at least 1 African American right?

 

I can think of an African American that would love a cabinet position 

[MonkeyDoughnut 10231]

It's going to be Paoletta. He's already publically backed a Presidents ability to weaponize the Justice Department.

[InkaUtexas 25876]

1 minute ago, Captainant said:

I can think of an African American that would love a cabinet position 

He kind of already has one. Made up and has to share it but......

[Radical Larry 28566]

Gaetz thought he’d be working with JV Dance and bailed when he found out it was JD Vance. 

[4th&Five 41519]

37 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Translation: A whole bunch of shit was about to come out on me, one way or the other. So bye. 

I think it's more of a minor issue.

[heso 2788]

So the nomination was just a gift to Gaetz for being a Trump loyalist to give Gaetz the cover to step down before the ethics report was released, knowing full well he’d never get confirmed, right? 

And then they can shout about the Dem and rino swampers sunk his confirmation before it got started. 

[LCHorn 2615]

1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Question: Is it normal for former military to continue wearing their dog tags as "jewelry" after you're done with your active service?

No, that is regarded.  They end up getting caught in chest chair and it’s just one more thing causing skin friction when you’re running around with 35 lbs of armor, plates, radio, ammo, water, etc., so you end up hating them.

[Underdog 28585]

16 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Nah, he needs at least 1 African American right?

 

If he goes that route then he'll have my full support for this nominee...