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Cheez Whiz's avatar

I hope someone is able to do a deep dive into the Adventures of DOGE from the lasr few weeks. The head of a Commission (and what regulations or laws define the makeup, scope, and authority of a Comission, and if relevant was any of that done?) and a group of civilian programmers violated a host of policies and procedures, and likely a handful of laws to take control of many critical systems and related databaases. And no visible pushback of any kind. Who was supposed to enforce those policies and procedures, and did they simply aquiesce or under orders?

And the layoffs. Other than a direct Presidential order, Musk has no authority to fire or lay anyone off. Were those orders given, or did people just go home after the programmers locked them out?

I guess I'd like to know what regulations and laws were ignored and why it was so easy to ignore them. Was it really as simple as the magic phrase "because the President says so"? I get that Democrats think voters don't care about abstract problems like foreign aid and databases, and they're not wrong, but the total collapse of the Executive branch by and idiot and a bunch of hackers is going to be a huge problem.

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Jeffrey Kramer's avatar

"The French emperor was certainly a murderous and narcissistic psychopath..."

Being despotic and egotistical pretty much comes with the territory for any conqueror (or would-be conqueror), but I think "narcissistic psychopath" might go too far. He seems to me the least psychopathic of his fellows (Alexander, Caesar, Temujin, Hitler...) and the one who actually did the most good during his reign. Certainly he was Good For The Jews, which (at least in my family's considered judgment) was the most important thing.

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