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It's almost like they're not being fiscally responsible conservatives or something...

Guess you’ll have to use crypto once your dollar is worthless

“DOGE” isn’t even a real Department, right?

Technically, Trump just renamed the United States Digital Service to the United States DOGE Service, then created a child agency within it called the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization reporting directly to the President (which USDS does technically anyways) and hired Musk as a special government employee as head of that. A special government employee is essentially expected to work less than 130 days in the next year and are normally used to fill short term needs, or as expert topic consultants for specific projects, that sort of thing.

USDS is normally basically IT consultancy for other US departments, which is why he has access to a shocking number of keys to the kingdom, as it were.

And also, Musk hasn’t been elected or officially confirmed for any government position.

You don't have to be confirmed by the Senate for most government jobs (just a specific named handful of high ranking positions, like the Secretaries of various Cabinet Departments), and he was basically given the highest possible position he could without needing to be confirmed by the Senate.

Why the fuck is he giving orders and leading departments and having any power whatsoever over the U.S. Treasury and such? I don’t understand how this works.

The President has final authority and power over the executive branch and over time increasing power has been placed in the executive branch largely because Congress didn't want to fight over things every couple of years and the relative stability of a secondary agency staffed with experts was desirable for things like licensing radio bandwidth. USDS isn't one of these agencies though - it was created by Obama in 2014 to help manage US IT stuff (and basically started from the team that fixed the healthcare.gov site in 2013) and didn't need to be authorized by Congress because it doesn't have rulemaking power over anything outside the executive branch and thus doesn't require Congress to delegate power to it.

As for why he's giving orders and leading departments, legally he probably shouldn't be but he's also been assigned that power by Trump in a way that's questionably legal. There are at least 3 lawsuits that have been filed arguing that it's technically an advisory committee and in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. I could totally see a federal judge agreeing with that, but it would eventually go to SCOTUS and we know who's dick they sucked to get there.

TL;DR: DOGE exists because it's an existing department (US Digital Service) renamed DOGE, Musk was hired under that department in basically the highest spot that wouldn't require Senate confirmation and because that department is essentially cross-departmental IT consultancy it gives him access to a shocking amount of federal IT resources. He isn't being stopped because everyone involved ultimately reports to Trump and Trump has told him to do it. There are at least three lawsuits filed claiming the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization is in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, but since it's only existed for like 10 days the courts haven't really had a chance to even hear arguments about it yet.

Trump said he’s in charge in a private capacity

The Supreme Court is yet to say it’s not allowed

He doesn't. However, that is only according to this pesky technicality called "the law". If the President does not want to follow the law, and appoints people who also do not care for following the law, then the law stops being a thing to look for for authority; and Musk can do this because Trump says he can.

In the short term, expect this to be shut down by the courts. In the medium term, a bunch of these orders will end up in front of the Supreme Court that unironically said "if the president does it, it might be illegal, but he is absolutely immune from prosecution". Even if the SC come down on the only legally defensible position, Trump could still say "them and what army"

This is 100% a coup by Trump to centralize power in the executive. When staging a coup, "authority" is merely an inconvenience.

Everyone is not "just complying," two security directors of USAID were dismissed when they tried to stop the musky henchmen.

I pray they're dumb enough to stop payments to Lockheed it Raytheon. Problem might solve itself

Can you guys maybe do something about this? You all have guns right, I thought that was the entire point of that part of the Constitution.

And for people who don't like that word:

Regulatory capture of the entire United States government.

It's still stupid and ridiculous and it still doesn't have any legal authority.

Unfortunately, it is being allowed to act without legal authority.

Contractors run our military

So I was looking at this today. It looks like a combination of serendipity and malicious behavior. The US Digital Service was effectively leaderless on Jan 20 when it was renamed DOGE. That's the serendipity. But it was already "excepted service" under the president instead of a congressionally chartered agency. So they could (and likely would have) simply fire any leadership.

USDS' purpose was to fix computer systems all over the government. And it was doing a great job of that. But in order to do that it does get access other agencies don't. This is where the malicious part comes in. Trump turns them into DOGE and links them with lawyers and HR people. They use their existing access authorization to get into systems and then do HR stuff instead of systems engineering. Furthermore they aren't currently funded, which means they shouldn't be operating at all. Their last funding ran out in September.

Trump can just appoint people to it because he has a wide ranging authority to do temporary hires. Another malicious catch though is Musk is clearly operating DOGE but he hasn't been put on payroll.

This is illegal, and there are lawsuits already filed. But they're counting on people not understanding the intricacies of the different kinds of federal service to enact their plan. Which to me is pretty transparently to force all agencies to submit to DOGE as a stand in for the White House and an end run around all laws about the civil service. Basically an unconstitutional power grab by the President.

Sorry the number you are trying to reach has been disconnected.