Musk has no authority. He operates only under the pleasure of the authority of the president and the officers of the USDS under which he is a federal employee.

You needn't be an officer to gain access to and analyze payment systems.

Has no authority but is taking authoritorial actions. Right. He's not a federal employee afaik as he hasn't passed any of the requisite checks or been approved by the Senate.

I do not think you need a confirmation nor a commission to hold office to access payment systems.

Access payment systems is not the objective[0].

[0] https://www.ft.com/content/27ba0a6a-0d9b-4e08-8329-730b581c0...

Didn’t Trump issue an EO to expedite security clearances for people who were in line 1 day after inauguration? Could they be those people?

No. The story I read was for "Interim Top Secret". If you have a clear National Agency Check (arrest and convictions), and do not flag as a drug user / mental case, then you can be given an "Interim Top Secret" while waiting for the clearance adjudication. Does not allow access to SCI, or NATO Cosmic, but does allow access to regular Top Secret. There is also an "Interim Secret". Over 90% of the people with interim clearances are positively adjudicated.

Normal thing. Provided they are using the same criteria for the Interim Clearances.

Top Secret is also a fairly common clearance, despite the name it is not a clearance level reserved for highest levels of intelligence or anything like that.

Trump won the election. The left need to accept that.

He has a mandate to significantly reduce the size of the federal government, and he has the authority to appoint Musk to act in this way.

You can complain about it violating norms all you like, but norms aren’t laws and taking into account the preferences of the left isn’t something Trump is required to do nor is it something the Democrats have done in the past for the right.

As for violating employment laws, there’s no evidence of this. It appears you just threw that in there hoping no one would challenge you on it.

Federal employees are unionized. There are procedures to dismiss employees. They are not following those procedures.

So, no, I didn't just throw that on there.

Even if there weren't, are you so callous and heartless that you can't see how this blow-it-all-up approach is making chaos of people's lives? Is that what you're here for... to make things hard on people?

The Republicans won the election. That doesn't mean trample the entirety of the country to fit their vision. The Democrats have done nothing like this.

Stop defending fascists. It's not a good look.

> fascists

I'm sure calling them such names makes sense in your echo chambers, but to the overwhelming majority of people this is an inaccurate and inappropriate label.

Calling people things which they are not, does not hurt their reputation, it simply makes your fringe of the political spectrum look immature.

But you don't care about immaturity. You voted for Trump. The guy who said he can "grab them by the pussy, they let you do it".

It's just lockeroom talk. Right?

The entire Republican chorus backed up this juvenile locker room talk excuse. Trotted it out for the whole world to see. Not very mature. Did you love it?

yeah fuck you dude

Woah solid argument you got there mate.

Trump lost the 2020 election and Trump's kooks didn't accept that. Instead they engaged in violence at the request of Trump, while he was still president, on the basis of Trump's election denialism.

Peaceful transition also isn't the law. It was a norm. Until Trump pissed on it.

Trump ordered the vice president to overturn an election, and when Mike Pence refused that order, Trump sent a mob to have the VPOTUS assassinated.

And then, in possibly something like mass hysteria, they vote for Trump again. Or maybe it's an addiction to depravity, anger and drama. Like drug addiction.

Trump voters voted for a rapist, for president. This how low and desperate they've become. They kicked Mike Pence to the curb - all the boilerplate Republican policies they claim to want, but Pence wasn't good enough. It's pretty clear the right wanted an abusive personality.

Don't expect reasonable people to become docile about that.