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.

By private companies. Federal employees have a lot more protections.

They haven’t finished step 2 yet. Hamas is only releasing 3 hostages a week during phase 1. Male Israeli soldiers are not scheduled for release until phase 2.

The president ordered it. There is no legal mechanism to compel private companies to use the new name.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-names-that-honor-american-greatness/

Reading the orders, the gender one is much more impactful.

Canceling DEI programs cancels those programs, which just isn’t that impactful. Maybe it slows or reverse progress on equality at the population level. But an individual is not going to notice a difference (unless they were explicitly working in administering it). Further, those DEI programs were only for federal agencies, which are going to have a much bigger culture shift from the coming idealougical and loyalty purge. Minorities are still protected by strong anti discrimination laws and the 14th amendment.

The anti trans order, in contrast, declares that trans people don’t exist. And the entirety of the federal government must act accordingly. This will have a direct effect on every openly trans person in the country. Further, the legal protections trans people have are based entirely on an interpretation of gender discrimination laws that the current Supreme Court seems unlikely to endorse; and which Trump has directed the Attorney General to not follow.

Even when he is in charge, he can’t stop his corruption trial. Netenyahu began testifying mid December, and I believe is still expected to give further testimony. Currently, the trial is on hold due to a surgery, but should resume soon.

Him being PM definitely slows things down, but Israel has no problem trying an active head of state.

Official death tolls are always an undercount. Even after mundane disasters like hurricanes, the death toll gets revised up during the cleanup as more victims are discovered. The disaster in Gaza is still ongoing, so people have more important things to do than count the dead.

In addition to this, the Gaza Health Ministry has taken a deliberately conservative approach of only counting bodies that make it to a hospital and are clearly dead as a direct result of the conflict (e.g, not disease or famine).

The official death count is not a reflection of how many people are dying. It is a reflection of the Gaza Health Ministry’s capacity to count the dead.

Renters are not that captive of customers. Once it becomes a common amenity, renters will start considering it as part of the rent when deciding where to live. Just like they do with utilities, garbage collection, and other amenities that landlords can charge for outside of base rent.

Most of the Golan Heights was occupied in 1967, and annexed in 1981 (in a move that most of the world still does not recognize as legitimate).

As far as I can tell, the settlements being discussed are still in that region, not the newly occupied region.

Gaza’s Health Ministry casualty numbers have been stuck at around 40,000 for months. This is consistent, but not reliable. From the beginning, the GHM has only ever counted deaths directly attributable to the war who make it to a hospital (including those who are dead on arrival). Dead due to preventable caused like lack of food, water, sanitation, medicine or shelter? Not counted. Dead because a building blew up and your body is under a pile of rubble? Not counted unless someone dug up your body and took it to a hospital.

Even developed and functioning countries take a long time after “small” disasters to get an accurate count of the dead. The disaster in Gaza is still ongoing, and their capability to count the dead has been declining the entire time.

The GHM’s official numbers may be accurate for what they are. But what they are is a systemic undercount that is practically meaningless.

I suspect they are inclined to tell the Russians to kick rocks. However, they are going to need some foreign support. As long as they are on the US terror list, it will be very difficult for that help to come from any US aligned group.

Having said that, between the growing disagreement over Israel policy, the coming 4 years of a Trump administration, and the desire of a lot of European countries to resolve the Syrian Refugee crisis; I could see a lot of European countries going against the US on this one and helping the new Syrian government.

All indications are that he was still an active militant and a perfectly valid target for Israel to strike.

However, the Iraq war is over. Having that be the frame in which we find his death to be good news is nothing more than celebrating vengeance, and that is not a good thing.

You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies.

Unless you actually plan on commiting a full scale and thorough genocide, eliminating terrorists is simply not a viable strategy for defeating terrorism. If you don’t go all the way to genocide, then a sizable portion of the non-terrorists you didn’t kill will become terrorist

So. The secretary of defense is not an elected position. Most people in the country don’t even know who currently holds the role.

The opinion of those he leads and works with is much more important.

Leaders say a lot of things. Even without nukes, Israel has enough conventional military might to have a significant detergent effect (and to defend against attacks that actually do happen).

Further, the politics in the middle east has not been Arabs vs Israel for decades. Israel is a well positioned member of the anti Iran coalition.

American’s were used to living in a low inflation environment. Argentinians have been living in a high inflation environment for decades.

Israel is not alone in the region anymore. The middle east is bipolar now, and Israel is well established in the anti-Iran coalition. I wouldn’t call this “stabilizing”, but if the actual fighting is contained to Israel, Iran, and Iranian proxies, that is good for the rest of the anti-Iran coalition.

Sucks for Israel, but when your political leadership is fighting with military leadership because the latter is not sufficiently hawkish, I don’t think “stability” is the policy objective said leadership is actually pursuing.

It’s common enough that my State’s toll provider has had a banner on their front page about it for months https://www.driveezmd.com/

If you want to file a complaint, the Internet crime control center is asking for information on these scams specifically https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2024/PSA240412

I bought in 2022 and can’t imagine having that much interaction with a mortgage broker. My interaction consisted of giving them my information. Getting pre approved for a stupidly large mortgage (about twice what I could afford). Then, when I found a place to buy, they punched in the address for the “virtual appraisal” and approved the loan.

Trump is an existential threat to Iran. Iran is in a regional cold[0] war with Israel. Israel’s ability to wage this war is largely dependent on US support; both in terms of raw military assistance, and in the US providing diplomatic and economic cover for Israel.

While the US had not applied nearly as much moderating pressure on Israel as I would have liked, it has still provided some. Israeli prime minister Netenyahu, in contrast, has been angling for a direct confrontation with Iran for decades now. Given the past 11 months, there are serious forces, both in Israeli politics, Iranian politics, and the inertia of war, pushing in that direction.

Trump is aligned with Netenyahu on this point, and would push him towards a direct confrontation with Iran. By all indications, Harris is not. This dynamic was made clear to Iran when the Democratic administration signed the Iran nuclear deal (against Israeli opposition), from which the US under Trump proceeded to unilaterally withdraw from.

[0] Cold might be a bit of an understatement after the last 11 months. However, apart from a brief tit-for-tat exchange, the fighting has stayed confined to Israel and Iranian proxies.