We Doing This Shit Again? (Trump Admin Meltdown II)

[DSafetyGuy]

Federal employees union tells Congress: Don't just give Musk and Trump more money (dated March 13)

Everett B. Kelly, national president of AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees), argued that Congress, in the name of preventing a shutdown, would be cosigning an ongoing assault on the federal government, noting that the Trump administration recently announced its intent to "effectively destroy" the Department of Education without the consent of lawmakers.

"With thousands of federal workers either fired, placed on administrative leave, or at immediate risk of losing their jobs, AFGE members have concluded that a widespread government shutdown has been underway since January 20 and will continue to spread whether senators vote yes or no on [the CR]," Kelly wrote. While a formal government shutdown would indeed deprive remaining workers of a paycheck, if Congress passes the CR then "AFGE knows that DOGE will dramatically expand its terminations of federal workers and double down on its campaign to make federal agencies fail."

[Steve of phpBB]

Good lord, what they’re doing with the Venezuelans is terrifying.

This is the same authoritarian crap GWBush tried to pull.

[P.D.X.]

Good lord, what they’re doing with the Venezuelans is terrifying.

This is the same authoritarian crap GWBush tried to pull.

Assume it's a deliberate photo op as well the way the guards faces are covered.

[A_B]

Good lord, what they’re doing with the Venezuelans is terrifying.

This is the same authoritarian crap GWBush tried to pull.

Assume it's a deliberate photo op as well the way the guards faces are covered.

Apparently that entire prison is basically a photo op, even for normal prisoners. For the low low price of six million.

[Jerloma]

So is there like a resolution in place for when the executive branch just continually tells the judicial branch to go fuck itself or did we just not think this could ever happen?

[A_B]

I almost like giving the president complete immunity wasn’t the best idea!

And I guess the rest of his flunkies are banking on pardons.

[degenerasian]

There more egg smuggling from Canada to the US now than fentenyl.

[P.D.X.]

sounds messy

[tennbengal]

So is there like a resolution in place for when the executive branch just continually tells the judicial branch to go fuck itself or did we just not think this could ever happen?

No. Been telling people for years - laws are just community agreements. Let one person/party just ignore them and...you have this.

[Steve of phpBB]

So is there like a resolution in place for when the executive branch just continually tells the judicial branch to go fuck itself or did we just not think this could ever happen?

Basically the second.

The Founding Fathers, oh-so-brilliant as they were, assumed that everyone would be loyal to their own institution rather than to a political party or a race.

They may also have thought that if Congress and the President have a certain shared understanding of the constitution or the law, and the courts are an outlier, then the problem is with the courts, not the other two branches.

[DaveInSeattle]

[The Sybian]

Call him Drunken Ira Hayes, he won’t answer anymore.

Are the Tuskegee Airmen erased yet?

[The Sybian]

So is there like a resolution in place for when the executive branch just continually tells the judicial branch to go fuck itself or did we just not think this could ever happen?

Basically the second.

The Founding Fathers, oh-so-brilliant as they were, assumed that everyone would be loyal to their own institution rather than to a political party or a race.

They may also have thought that if Congress and the President have a certain shared understanding of the constitution or the law, and the courts are an outlier, then the problem is with the courts, not the other two branches.

Trumps first term in exposed glaring holes in our system, where we rely on norms and etiquette to prevent a dictatorship because nobody foresaw a brazen asshoke with no regard for the law becoming President. With Dems in the WH and Congress after his first term, why the fuck didn’t we codify laws like requiring tax returns and divesting business interests among many more?

Every other President appointed agency heads with an understanding that their loyalty is to the Constitution, not the President. Trump made that mistake his first term, and that’s what saved Democracy. Not this time around. Who is going enforce court orders against Trump, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel? Nope, dictatorship.

[Steve of phpBB]

With Dems in the WH and Congress after his first term, why the fuck didn’t we codify laws like requiring tax returns and divesting business interests among many more?

Because they would have been found unconstitutional.

[tennbengal]

From Craig Calcaterra's newsletter today (free on Thursdays but still worth a subscription the other days - especially if you are a baseball person) -

Other Stuff

There's no going back, Chuck

I promise I'll stop writing about Chuck Schumer after this post but, Jesus, this from The Guardian says it all:

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader insisted Republicans would move on from Donald Trump and go back to a past version of the party even as Trump’s return to power loomed last year, according to the authors of a new book on politics during the Biden administration . . . Schumer told Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater: “Here’s my hope … after this election, when the Republican party expels the turd of Donald Trump, it will go back to being the old Republican party.”

I suppose he thinks he raised some hell calling Trump a "turd" – and hey, not bad for a 75 year-old guy I guess – but the larger sentiment is so addled and sad that I can barely get my head around it.

There is no one who has had a more closeup view of what has happened to the political class in this country over the past decade than Chuck Schumer. He's seen how Republicans, in his very own chamber, have hijacked democracy and have pledged their fealty to Donald Trump over all things, the Constitution included. They stole a Supreme Court seat in 2016, they did everything they could to sabotage our nation's pandemic response in 2020, they joined in an attempted coup in 2021, and they have done absolutely nothing to stop Elon Musk's illegal dismantling of the federal government and Donald Trump's sharp authoritarian turn over these past two months. Hell, they haven't just done nothing. They've actively cheered it on. They're getting absolutely everything they've ever wanted precisely because of it. In light of that, what makes Chuck Schumer think that the fever is gonna break at this point? Does he believe that this is some second-rate sci-fi movie in which all of the marauding robots or monsters immediately drop dead once the mainframe or the mothership is destroyed?

But beyond that, does Schumer have an even basic concept of how history works? How societies that have moved on and recovered from authoritarians and despots have done so? Sure, that's some complicated business, but I assure him that "pretending this was just a minor blip and then everything goes back to the way it was" is not part of that process. Indeed, doing that all but ensures that authoritarianism persists. Listening to Chuck Schumer talk about how his good friends on the right will all go back to being Howard Baker and Bob Dole the minute Trump dies is like listening to Neville Chamberlain talk about how Hitler's ambitions will moderate now that he's been given the Sudetenland.

You cannot wait out tyranny. You cannot bargain with fascists and totalitarians. You must fight them and you must defeat them soundly. If you can't beat them at the ballot box you beat them with a tire iron. And then you must create conditions under which they cannot recover and return to power. There is absolutely nothing about Chuck Schumer's mindset that suggests he understands that. Which means that neither he nor anyone who agrees with him in this regard can be counted on to lead the opposition against Donald Trump.

"Emptying a bucket of sand with tweezers"

A professor CUNY history professor named Angus Johnston posted a pretty good thread over at Bluesky yesterday about the current Constitutional crisis. I think he nails it perfectly. I've pasted his handful of posts together here for readability purposes:

As always, not a lawyer, but one thing that leaps out at me about how things are going down in the courts right now is that the US court system is not designed to be responsive to a crisis like this one. A crisis like this one is not what it's FOR. Courts are designed to answer small, narrow, discrete questions. But our current crisis isn't an accumulation of small, narrow, discrete questions, and trying to get the courts to solve it is like trying to empty a bucket of sand with a pair of tweezers.

The constitution has a system in place for a crisis like this, and that system is impeachment and removal from office. That's the mechanism by which this kind of a crisis is supposed to be resolved. Removing that mechanism—as Republican congressional majorities have made it clear that there is literally nothing this administration could do that would make them even contemplate impeachment—is the equivalent of cutting a car's brake lines.

You might be able to stop such a car, there are things you can do to try to stop such a car, but the way you're supposed to stop the car—the mechanism in the car that stops it when it needs to stop—no longer exists. And so every time a federal judge acts in a way that seems weird or unsuited to the moment, the first thing I try to remember is that they're being asked to empty a bucket of sand with a pair of tweezers.

I think this is absolutely right.

A critical part of American jurisprudence is that the matters to be adjudicated need to be narrow and the need to be precise. You don't throw everything but the kitchen sink in complaints. You present discrete disputes to the tribunal, not a laundry list of broad-based beefs. The system does not handle the latter very well for a host of reasons that, while a bit cumbersome to detail here, is something lawyers and judges know very well.

There has been very little focus on Republicans in Congress right now. Some of them are getting heat at town halls back home, but none of the commentary or general outrage, certainly at the national level, is really aimed at them. They no doubt love that fact, of course, because they all know that (a) everything that's happening right now is illegal as all get-out; (b) it is their job, pursuant to the Constitution, to put a stop to it; but (c) they have absolutely no desire to do that because they consider the people and institutions that are being harmed their enemy and those who are benefitting from this chaos their friends. And that's before you get to the part about how they're all cowards and are afraid to upset Trump.

I hope we'll eventually find our way out of this crisis, but no matter how that plays out, one thing is absolutely certain: Trump has been able to assume and exercise dictatorial powers because the Republican-controlled Congress has allowed him to do so.

[Jerloma]

Love her...

[The Sybian]

That lady is a case in point of what I told my wife last night, they are playing with a bunch of political third rails, and the GOP Congress won’t do a thing until the pressure they get from constituents is greater than the fear of Trump.

If you took a poll, I’d guess far less than 50% would say they believe Trump is going after social security or Medicare. To Sancarlos’ point, the negatives aren’t getting through most people’s bubbles, but when it begins hitting people’s wallets, they’ll know.

[Nonlinear FC]

That lady is a case in point of what I told my wife last night, they are playing with a bunch of political third rails, and the GOP Congress won’t do a thing until the pressure they get from constituents is greater than the fear of Trump.

If you took a poll, I’d guess far less than 50% would say they believe Trump is going after social security or Medicare. To Sancarlos’ point, the negatives aren’t getting through most people’s bubbles, but when it begins hitting people’s wallets, they’ll know.

Yep.

[mister d]

[DSafetyGuy]

[Steve of phpBB]

I just saw this.

I am literally sickened. As well as terrified.

[DaveInSeattle]

I remember when back when saying some bullshit like that could end a career (remember Imus and the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team?). This clown is likely to get a promotion.

And that woman showed way more restraint than I would have....

[The Sybian]

I remember when back when saying some bullshit like that could end a career (remember Imus and the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team?). This clown is likely to get a promotion.

And that woman showed way more restraint than I would have....

She’s made a career out of being the lone Dem on that panel for years.

[brian]

I’d be unable to restrain myself from pummeling every smug face on that panel.

And the Republicans could say they want to put disabled kids into ovens and there would be no repercussions.

[The Sybian]

I’d be unable to restrain myself from pummeling every smug face on that panel.

And the Republicans could say they want to put disabled kids into ovens and there would be no repercussions.

Yeah, their base wouldn’t care as long as nobody told them “their money” paid for the ovens

[Steve of phpBB]

This is one of those "worst person you know" things for me personally, because I knew and hated Lemley in law school.

[Jerloma]

Doesn't seem like too bad of a worst person you know. Have you met AB?

[brian]

He lives in Utah. All the Nazis there are super friendly about it.

(Kidding but not kidding.)

[DSafetyGuy]

Get ready to get in the streets.

[A_B]

Doesn't seem like too bad of a worst person you know. Have you met AB?

Caught a stray. Dang. And I’ve not even met jerkoma in person!

[Jerloma]

Doesn't seem like too bad of a worst person you know. Have you met AB?

Caught a stray. Dang. And I’ve not even met jerkoma in person!

It's about damn time!!!

[rass]

Doesn't seem like too bad of a worst person you know. Have you met AB?

Caught a stray. Dang. And I’ve not even met jerkoma in person!

It's about damn time!!!

Revenge is a dish best served, I dunno, blindfolded or something, so no one knows what they’re eating

[Jerloma]

Billionaire's mothers are going to be okay, you guys.

[degenerasian]

"pull up your non-existent bootsteps!"

[DaveInSeattle]

Nothing to see here...just the National Security team adding a reporter from the Atlantic to their group text on Signal where war plans are being discussed.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

[Steve of phpBB]

Nothing to see here...just the National Security team adding a reporter from the Atlantic to their group text on Signal where war plans are being discussed.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

I'm flashing to my conservative brother in law explaining in 2016 that he was concerned about Hillary Clinton because using a private email server compromised security.

[DaveInSeattle]

Nothing to see here...just the National Security team adding a reporter from the Atlantic to their group text on Signal where war plans are being discussed.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

I'm flashing to my conservative brother in law explaining in 2016 that he was concerned about Hillary Clinton because using a private email server compromised security.

Here's a thread of the people in this group text saying that Hillary Clinton deserved to be flogged for "her emails"...

[cerranoredux]

Imma bet that Goldberg gets arrested before anyone in the admin loses a job. Before anyone asks “on what charges?”, that’s the beauty of fascism.

[DaveInSeattle]

Imma bet that Goldberg gets arrested before anyone in the admin loses a job. Before anyone asks “on what charges?”, that’s the beauty of fascism.

Aside from all the legal implications of discussing war plans on a non-secure App...I can't get over the fact that all these supposed "leaders" of the national security apparatus were on a group chat, and not one of them said "Hey...who's this JG guy?". Well...that and them sending emojis like middle-school girls.

Everyone on that group chat needs to either resign, or be fired, immediately. But I guess they've settled on making "no classified information" into the new "it was only locker room talk".

[DSafetyGuy]

No one holds their feet to the fire, so nothing is going to happen.

Probably ever. For anything.