6 ms·

FBI, EPA, and Treasury told Citibank to freeze funds to claw back climate money

198 points by cjbenedikt 2y ago

sharemywin 2y ago
“Can you proffer any evidence that [the grant] was illegal, or evidence of abuse or fraud or bribery — that any of that was improperly or unlawfully done, other than the fact that Mr. Zeldin doesn’t like it?” Judge Tanya Chutkan said. Judge Chutkan also ordered the Justice Department to provide the court with details about the alleged fraud, “because I don’t have the credible evidence that’s required.” This whole calling things fraud without actually have any evidence is really starting to get old.
- wenwolf 2y ago
  The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury.
  - jmward01 2y ago
    A weaponized justice department requires the judiciary to respond in kind.
    - wenwolf 2y ago
      Personally, I've considered the problem to be a long term one and fixing it as a possible silver lining. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a pessimist about the integrity of the American people. I was wrong about what would happen with the first Black President, I was sure the racism was going to have a silver lining of cutting down the POTUS and not allowing a show like this. But the POTUS office is still the reason the US will kill itself at a minimum. (Nothing good can go unpunished?)
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    The judge can request that the lawyers involved lose their admission to practice in federal court for serious ethical violations like the ones here. However, this very rarely happens except in the most egregious cases where the lawyer is usually also disbarred for their conduct (i.e., Guiliani) so it's not a meaningful disciplinary measure.
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      Is it just custom not to exercise it? Why do these judges allow people to show up to court and make exceptionally stupid arguments?
      - michaelt 2y ago
        As I understand it, in an "adversarial" legal system, each side is represented by a lawyer who is obliged to put forward the strongest argument they can; then the court decides between the arguments. And so even incredibly guilty people are entitled to have a lawyer on their side, lawyering as effectively as they can. So to them, there's no shame in representing an asshole and advancing a terrible argument, if that's what their client wants. What's more, generally you don't become a judge without being a lawyer for a few decades first. And they know what class solidarity is. Why would they be overly harsh with their colleagues and friends, if nothing explicitly demands they do so? Pretty much every legal case ends involves at least one side ending up unhappy. And pretty much every legal case involves at least one person who's happy to make legal threats. I'd wager many lawyers have someone threaten to get them disbarred a few times a year. It'd be difficult for the legal system to function if getting people disbarred was easy.
        dghlsakjg 2y ago
        I guess I should have been clear that when I said stupid arguments, I meant breaking the rules, not necessarily arguing from a position of weakness. I’m not asking why there are people representing shaky cases. Even bad people are entitled to a competent defense. I’m talking about why judges allow lawyers to get away with breaking courtroom procedure and rules. I don’t think there is as much class solidarity among lawyers. Most lawyers I know are happy to shit talk other lawyers, hell, many of them would jump at the chance to find an idiot in contempt. After a few decades of dealing with clowns and reaching a federal judgeship, you’d think they would take the opportunity to knock some heads.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury. Is that a thing judges can do? They can imprison you for contempt of court; wouldn't perjury need a prosecutor?
  - roenxi 2y ago
    On the scale of Wild Things happening in US politics, this one is pretty minor. Provoking that sort of constitutional crisis over it seems poorly advised - it'd be better if the judicial system sticks to their traditional role of telling people to do things differently when it has been established that the government is acting illegally. In my lifetime politicians have associated with flagrant lies that led to 100,000s of deaths and they aren't even expected to apologise. The Iraq war alone is a study - eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project.
    - apical_dendrite 2y ago
      Initiating criminal investigations into the administration's political opponents without evidence is NOT "pretty minor".
      - roenxi 2y ago
        Are you talking about when Obama admin did it, Biden admin did it or Trump admin did it? I mean, I agree but I have this sinking feeling that a lot of the people complaining aren't worried about the idea in principle and they just hate Trump. There is this weird thing where the big government people have suddenly had a revelation that the day-to-day operation of government is threatening. And I welcome that because it is true, I just don't know what they think has changed apart from that they lost an election.
        apical_dendrite 2y ago
        Please provide citations for when the Obama or Biden administrations initiated criminal prosecutions of political opponents without evidence.
        roenxi 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_investigation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago If we can pretend those are being done in good faith then we can pretend that the current Trump admin are being honest and reasonable too.
  - brookst 2y ago
    It’s far more likely that we judges imprisoned for ruling the wrong way.
  - garyfirestorm 2y ago
    And disbarring lawyers for malpractice - for knowingly bringing frivolous lawsuits
- kristopolous 2y ago
  Traditionally when people are on an endless campaign of accusation, they are actually up to their ears in whatever they're accusing others of. The anti-gay politician is exposed as gay, the evangelical pastor is leading a life of excess and vice, people talking about fake news fabricate deceptions and try to pass it off as news... This is generally so reliable, you can just change the pronouns from "They" to "We" and get an accurate statement. I'm pretty sure the actual fraud and abuse here is coming from inside the house. Claiming the richest man in the world isn't motivated by money is like claiming Jeffrey Epstein wasn't motivated by sex.
  - kyleee 2y ago
    I suspect Epstein was not motivated by sex, rather he was likely some sort of spook. We will probably never know unfortunately
    - kristopolous 2y ago
      What gives you that idea
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  The one good thing is this is going to end the Courts giving 'good faith' waivers to the government prosecutors for everything (oh the cops didn't keep chain of custody on this evidence but that's OK we are going to waive chain of custody requirements because we know you all are acting in good faith is such a BS policy).
- JadeNB 2y ago
  Chutkan is quite familiar with this administration's methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Chutkan#Notable_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Chutkan#Notable_cases
Huntsecker 2y ago
daily stories coming from the US are pretty crazy, FBI being used as a tool to try and revert something from under the previous administration. Feels like whatever balances and checks that should be in place to stop an autocracy are missing
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > to try and revert something from under the previous administration More-importantly, it's nowhere close to "normal" try-to-reverts, where one President tries to replace an equally "soft" policy put in place by another President. Here the newly-installed crooks are trying to deny a hard "money shall be spent on X" law passed by Congress, which is an unconstitutional attempt to seize the "power of the purse". Same legal-vibes as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes I'll pencil that in for April. After all, the president can direct who is and is not prosecuted..
    - tempodox 2y ago
      I was about to say, “don't give him any ideas”, but it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway.
    - chaos_agent 2y ago
      [dead]
  - jagged-chisel 2y ago
    > … as if … This hasn’t happened already?
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Not precisely: Trump fired so many people that the IRS can't check whether the rich are submitting fake paperwork to cheat on their taxes. Related outcome, but different in mechanics/constitutionality. [0] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-hamstrung-irs-is-a-gift-to-rich-tax-cheats-and-a-headache-for-honest-taxpayers/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-hamstrung-irs-is-a-gift...
9283409232 2y ago
Some information from the linked document about the non-profits that are being targeted. > 2. Conflicts of Interest and Political Favoritism > A $2 billion grant was awarded to Power Forward Communities, a new nonprofit with ties to Stacey Abrams, despite reporting only $100 in total revenue in 2023 > Young, Gifted & Green was awarded $20 million, even though its CEO applied for funding while serving on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The balls for this administration to attempt to call out other people on conflicts of interest and political favoritism is crazy.
- crypto_is_king 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - epgui 2y ago
    What do you think the word “scam” means?
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    Both sides of the political divide attempt to funnel taxpayers money into their own interests, which are often thinly veiled ways to get taxpayer money into their own pockets. This is nothing new. Whenever there is a change of admin, the new admin attempts to claw back or redirect money the old admin directed to their own pockets. This is also nothing new. What's new this year is people are talking about it.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      If both sides do it, then they should be able to publish better evidence than Stacey Abrams’ “ties” to Power Forward Communities. The fact that all the DOGE and DOGE-adjacent claims of fraud have been so shamefully weak has actually reduced my confidence that the alleged behavior is actually widespread at all.
      - londons_explore 2y ago
viraptor 2y ago
Legal eagle did a good video with lots of context about this mess: https://youtu.be/5KApz1PdBgA https://youtu.be/5KApz1PdBgA
kelnos 2y ago
TFA links to what I think is a much more informative article: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/judge-epa-climate-grant-cancellations-00227643 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/judge-epa-climate-g...
npvrite 2y ago
[flagged]
- haliskerbas 2y ago
  The hero and godking of many on this very forum, Elon Musk is supposedly doing that.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  The current regime.
- chatmasta 2y ago
  If I had the authority to restructure the administrative state, I’d make a rule that every agency needs an anti-agency to hold it accountable. Let them swap roles every 7 years, with a consistently adversarial relationship to hold each other accountable. Basically a blue team vs. red team setup, or a blue/green deployment. Checks and balances actually work pretty well, but we only use them at the topmost level between the three constitutionally defined branches. We need to apply the same mechanism throughout the federal bureaucracy.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    That probably won't work. Blue would have an incentive to prove red failed, so if red initiated a big long term project (say, building a new high speed rail network, or a new dam, or incentives to build auto factories or whatever that cannot be done in the every X years switches happen), blue will do their best to sabotage it. This happens in politics already (e.g. public transit projects started by previous governments get sabotaged), let alone if there's an adversarial relationship by the people supposed to be directly directing and overseeing this stuff.
    - chatmasta 2y ago
      Hmm. I guess the “public transit projects of previous governments being sabotaged” is by design. Regardless of two-party politics, if the people vote into power a new representative who disagrees with the previous one, then they’ll kill those projects. And they’ll spend their time campaigning on the basis of that. This results in “slow government” which – at least IMO – is a Very Good Thing. But for agencies, you want the opposite – you want fast reaction to changing environment. So in that sense, career bureaucrats are an advantage as long as they remain relatively politically independent and prioritize based on requirements more than perception. The problems arise when they become affixed to one of the parties, but without the checks and balances. I think this is maybe okay as long as the “fast reaction” has a “fast undo.” Otherwise a new executive (and their predecessor) actually has less power than the agencies within the executive branch.
lazyeye 2y ago
Non-profits and ngos have such enormous potential for fraud and abuse. You get your political friends to setup an ngo, give it a nice name like "Climate Progress Coalition" or "Equity Action Network" etc. Hand it a billion dollars of hard-earned taxpayer money and it can then do (without oversight) what would be illegal for the govt to do with oversight. The potential for abuse is limitless...million-dollar salaries, campaign for the govt and so on...
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Yes, I sleep so much better now when the dogebags and Musky protect us all from evil. Musk will never never abuse. Forever and ever, Amen. Especially nobody won't abuse Medicare because there won't be any. If they want food they can beg in the streets or work at a plantation.
- kristjansson 2y ago
  Yes yes American nonprofits, with their mandatory annual public financial disclosures including key individuals salaries, famously a great and easy way to misappropriate monies.
  - marcusverus 2y ago
    Have you read any of the disclosure forms? They're a joke. I read the 990 for one organization (NLIHC [0]), a mostly-government-funded organization with >10M in "revenue". They're required to list their three most cost-intensive activities in field 4a of the 990, and brother, those people don't do a damn thing. They listed 1) they helped local governments spend tax money 2) made 8 pamphlets (the one I saw was ~10 pages long), and 3) they helped some other organization prepare some webinars. They list more fluff and nonsense (including attending conventions), but no meaningful deliverables. They couldn't even be bothered to proofread their one required deliverable, as evidenced by the bullet points which they copy/pasted into field 4a! They employ 40 people and their CEO makes 400K, BTW. These orgs do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. [0]https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521089824/202413059349300716/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521...
QuantumGood 2y ago
Thank you for not flagging this, yet.
- lawn 2y ago
  Aged like sour milk.
  - QuantumGood 2y ago
    Hacker News seems one of the best places to discuss politically-influenced news, yet because such discusssions are near-univeraally fraught in some way, it is discouraged, which is not my preference. I have seen in checking the history of some HN commentors that it is not uncommon for those who say some version of "no politics, please" say it when they disagree with the general slant of those discussions where they make such comments.
    - reseasonable 2y ago
      A dedicated hacker news of politics site is long overdue. Civil discussions, amazing moderation, and the intelligent insight of experts to hash out complex issues. I’d be on it and participating nearly all day long.

198 points by cjbenedikt 2y ago

“Can you proffer any evidence that [the grant] was illegal, or evidence of abuse or fraud or bribery — that any of that was improperly or unlawfully done, other than the fact that Mr. Zeldin doesn’t like it?” Judge Tanya Chutkan said. Judge Chutkan also ordered the Justice Department to provide the court with details about the alleged fraud, “because I don’t have the credible evidence that’s required.” This whole calling things fraud without actually have any evidence is really starting to get old.

wenwolf 2y ago
The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury.
- jmward01 2y ago
  A weaponized justice department requires the judiciary to respond in kind.
  - wenwolf 2y ago
    Personally, I've considered the problem to be a long term one and fixing it as a possible silver lining. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a pessimist about the integrity of the American people. I was wrong about what would happen with the first Black President, I was sure the racism was going to have a silver lining of cutting down the POTUS and not allowing a show like this. But the POTUS office is still the reason the US will kill itself at a minimum. (Nothing good can go unpunished?)
- gamblor956 2y ago
  The judge can request that the lawyers involved lose their admission to practice in federal court for serious ethical violations like the ones here. However, this very rarely happens except in the most egregious cases where the lawyer is usually also disbarred for their conduct (i.e., Guiliani) so it's not a meaningful disciplinary measure.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    Is it just custom not to exercise it? Why do these judges allow people to show up to court and make exceptionally stupid arguments?
    - michaelt 2y ago
      As I understand it, in an "adversarial" legal system, each side is represented by a lawyer who is obliged to put forward the strongest argument they can; then the court decides between the arguments. And so even incredibly guilty people are entitled to have a lawyer on their side, lawyering as effectively as they can. So to them, there's no shame in representing an asshole and advancing a terrible argument, if that's what their client wants. What's more, generally you don't become a judge without being a lawyer for a few decades first. And they know what class solidarity is. Why would they be overly harsh with their colleagues and friends, if nothing explicitly demands they do so? Pretty much every legal case ends involves at least one side ending up unhappy. And pretty much every legal case involves at least one person who's happy to make legal threats. I'd wager many lawyers have someone threaten to get them disbarred a few times a year. It'd be difficult for the legal system to function if getting people disbarred was easy.
      - dghlsakjg 2y ago
        I guess I should have been clear that when I said stupid arguments, I meant breaking the rules, not necessarily arguing from a position of weakness. I’m not asking why there are people representing shaky cases. Even bad people are entitled to a competent defense. I’m talking about why judges allow lawyers to get away with breaking courtroom procedure and rules. I don’t think there is as much class solidarity among lawyers. Most lawyers I know are happy to shit talk other lawyers, hell, many of them would jump at the chance to find an idiot in contempt. After a few decades of dealing with clowns and reaching a federal judgeship, you’d think they would take the opportunity to knock some heads.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > The minimum to cause change is judges expending more effort on imprisoning law enforcement agents for perjury. Is that a thing judges can do? They can imprison you for contempt of court; wouldn't perjury need a prosecutor?
- roenxi 2y ago
  On the scale of Wild Things happening in US politics, this one is pretty minor. Provoking that sort of constitutional crisis over it seems poorly advised - it'd be better if the judicial system sticks to their traditional role of telling people to do things differently when it has been established that the government is acting illegally. In my lifetime politicians have associated with flagrant lies that led to 100,000s of deaths and they aren't even expected to apologise. The Iraq war alone is a study - eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project.
  - apical_dendrite 2y ago
    Initiating criminal investigations into the administration's political opponents without evidence is NOT "pretty minor".
    - roenxi 2y ago
      Are you talking about when Obama admin did it, Biden admin did it or Trump admin did it? I mean, I agree but I have this sinking feeling that a lot of the people complaining aren't worried about the idea in principle and they just hate Trump. There is this weird thing where the big government people have suddenly had a revelation that the day-to-day operation of government is threatening. And I welcome that because it is true, I just don't know what they think has changed apart from that they lost an election.
      - apical_dendrite 2y ago
        Please provide citations for when the Obama or Biden administrations initiated criminal prosecutions of political opponents without evidence.
        roenxi 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_investigation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago If we can pretend those are being done in good faith then we can pretend that the current Trump admin are being honest and reasonable too.
- brookst 2y ago
  It’s far more likely that we judges imprisoned for ruling the wrong way.
- garyfirestorm 2y ago
  And disbarring lawyers for malpractice - for knowingly bringing frivolous lawsuits
kristopolous 2y ago
Traditionally when people are on an endless campaign of accusation, they are actually up to their ears in whatever they're accusing others of. The anti-gay politician is exposed as gay, the evangelical pastor is leading a life of excess and vice, people talking about fake news fabricate deceptions and try to pass it off as news... This is generally so reliable, you can just change the pronouns from "They" to "We" and get an accurate statement. I'm pretty sure the actual fraud and abuse here is coming from inside the house. Claiming the richest man in the world isn't motivated by money is like claiming Jeffrey Epstein wasn't motivated by sex.
- kyleee 2y ago
  I suspect Epstein was not motivated by sex, rather he was likely some sort of spook. We will probably never know unfortunately
  - kristopolous 2y ago
    What gives you that idea
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
The one good thing is this is going to end the Courts giving 'good faith' waivers to the government prosecutors for everything (oh the cops didn't keep chain of custody on this evidence but that's OK we are going to waive chain of custody requirements because we know you all are acting in good faith is such a BS policy).
JadeNB 2y ago
Chutkan is quite familiar with this administration's methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Chutkan#Notable_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Chutkan#Notable_cases

Huntsecker 2y ago

daily stories coming from the US are pretty crazy, FBI being used as a tool to try and revert something from under the previous administration. Feels like whatever balances and checks that should be in place to stop an autocracy are missing

Terr_ 2y ago
> to try and revert something from under the previous administration More-importantly, it's nowhere close to "normal" try-to-reverts, where one President tries to replace an equally "soft" policy put in place by another President. Here the newly-installed crooks are trying to deny a hard "money shall be spent on X" law passed by Congress, which is an unconstitutional attempt to seize the "power of the purse". Same legal-vibes as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > as if Trump declared people on his Friends List were exempt from taxes I'll pencil that in for April. After all, the president can direct who is and is not prosecuted..
  - tempodox 2y ago
    I was about to say, “don't give him any ideas”, but it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway.
  - chaos_agent 2y ago
    [dead]
- jagged-chisel 2y ago
  > … as if … This hasn’t happened already?
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Not precisely: Trump fired so many people that the IRS can't check whether the rich are submitting fake paperwork to cheat on their taxes. Related outcome, but different in mechanics/constitutionality. [0] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-hamstrung-irs-is-a-gift-to-rich-tax-cheats-and-a-headache-for-honest-taxpayers/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-hamstrung-irs-is-a-gift...

9283409232 2y ago

Some information from the linked document about the non-profits that are being targeted. > 2. Conflicts of Interest and Political Favoritism > A $2 billion grant was awarded to Power Forward Communities, a new nonprofit with ties to Stacey Abrams, despite reporting only $100 in total revenue in 2023 > Young, Gifted & Green was awarded $20 million, even though its CEO applied for funding while serving on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. The balls for this administration to attempt to call out other people on conflicts of interest and political favoritism is crazy.

crypto_is_king 2y ago
[flagged]
- epgui 2y ago
  What do you think the word “scam” means?
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Both sides of the political divide attempt to funnel taxpayers money into their own interests, which are often thinly veiled ways to get taxpayer money into their own pockets. This is nothing new. Whenever there is a change of admin, the new admin attempts to claw back or redirect money the old admin directed to their own pockets. This is also nothing new. What's new this year is people are talking about it.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    If both sides do it, then they should be able to publish better evidence than Stacey Abrams’ “ties” to Power Forward Communities. The fact that all the DOGE and DOGE-adjacent claims of fraud have been so shamefully weak has actually reduced my confidence that the alleged behavior is actually widespread at all.
    - londons_explore 2y ago

viraptor 2y ago

Legal eagle did a good video with lots of context about this mess: https://youtu.be/5KApz1PdBgA https://youtu.be/5KApz1PdBgA

kelnos 2y ago

TFA links to what I think is a much more informative article: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/judge-epa-climate-grant-cancellations-00227643 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/judge-epa-climate-g...

npvrite 2y ago

[flagged]

haliskerbas 2y ago
The hero and godking of many on this very forum, Elon Musk is supposedly doing that.
actionfromafar 2y ago
The current regime.
chatmasta 2y ago
If I had the authority to restructure the administrative state, I’d make a rule that every agency needs an anti-agency to hold it accountable. Let them swap roles every 7 years, with a consistently adversarial relationship to hold each other accountable. Basically a blue team vs. red team setup, or a blue/green deployment. Checks and balances actually work pretty well, but we only use them at the topmost level between the three constitutionally defined branches. We need to apply the same mechanism throughout the federal bureaucracy.
- sofixa 2y ago
  That probably won't work. Blue would have an incentive to prove red failed, so if red initiated a big long term project (say, building a new high speed rail network, or a new dam, or incentives to build auto factories or whatever that cannot be done in the every X years switches happen), blue will do their best to sabotage it. This happens in politics already (e.g. public transit projects started by previous governments get sabotaged), let alone if there's an adversarial relationship by the people supposed to be directly directing and overseeing this stuff.
  - chatmasta 2y ago
    Hmm. I guess the “public transit projects of previous governments being sabotaged” is by design. Regardless of two-party politics, if the people vote into power a new representative who disagrees with the previous one, then they’ll kill those projects. And they’ll spend their time campaigning on the basis of that. This results in “slow government” which – at least IMO – is a Very Good Thing. But for agencies, you want the opposite – you want fast reaction to changing environment. So in that sense, career bureaucrats are an advantage as long as they remain relatively politically independent and prioritize based on requirements more than perception. The problems arise when they become affixed to one of the parties, but without the checks and balances. I think this is maybe okay as long as the “fast reaction” has a “fast undo.” Otherwise a new executive (and their predecessor) actually has less power than the agencies within the executive branch.

lazyeye 2y ago

Non-profits and ngos have such enormous potential for fraud and abuse. You get your political friends to setup an ngo, give it a nice name like "Climate Progress Coalition" or "Equity Action Network" etc. Hand it a billion dollars of hard-earned taxpayer money and it can then do (without oversight) what would be illegal for the govt to do with oversight. The potential for abuse is limitless...million-dollar salaries, campaign for the govt and so on...

actionfromafar 2y ago
Yes, I sleep so much better now when the dogebags and Musky protect us all from evil. Musk will never never abuse. Forever and ever, Amen. Especially nobody won't abuse Medicare because there won't be any. If they want food they can beg in the streets or work at a plantation.
kristjansson 2y ago
Yes yes American nonprofits, with their mandatory annual public financial disclosures including key individuals salaries, famously a great and easy way to misappropriate monies.
- marcusverus 2y ago
  Have you read any of the disclosure forms? They're a joke. I read the 990 for one organization (NLIHC [0]), a mostly-government-funded organization with >10M in "revenue". They're required to list their three most cost-intensive activities in field 4a of the 990, and brother, those people don't do a damn thing. They listed 1) they helped local governments spend tax money 2) made 8 pamphlets (the one I saw was ~10 pages long), and 3) they helped some other organization prepare some webinars. They list more fluff and nonsense (including attending conventions), but no meaningful deliverables. They couldn't even be bothered to proofread their one required deliverable, as evidenced by the bullet points which they copy/pasted into field 4a! They employ 40 people and their CEO makes 400K, BTW. These orgs do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. [0]https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521089824/202413059349300716/full https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521...

QuantumGood 2y ago

Thank you for not flagging this, yet.

lawn 2y ago
Aged like sour milk.
- QuantumGood 2y ago
  Hacker News seems one of the best places to discuss politically-influenced news, yet because such discusssions are near-univeraally fraught in some way, it is discouraged, which is not my preference. I have seen in checking the history of some HN commentors that it is not uncommon for those who say some version of "no politics, please" say it when they disagree with the general slant of those discussions where they make such comments.
  - reseasonable 2y ago
    A dedicated hacker news of politics site is long overdue. Civil discussions, amazing moderation, and the intelligent insight of experts to hash out complex issues. I’d be on it and participating nearly all day long.