Trump may or may not be the GOP’s nominee this time next year, but, whoever it is, now is the time to harden our democracy against a neofascist MAGA Republican rising to that office...
This Congress is hard pressed to get things done with the MAGAts goal being to destroy our government. How do you see Schumer and Jeffries finding the votes for this?
It is the part where they feed on the decaying and develops into something else not very popular. A fly. I was shown a film in science class in more than one year where a baby was in a crib and a fly comes by. I can still see this baby clapping her hands to her mouth to this day. We have previously seen the fly sitting on dog poop. She swats at it and touches it and then claps her hands to her mouth. Later on she has an upset stomach. I have more than an upset stomach from the MAGA crowd, but I hope you get the image that I see as going with it. I have an even worse story about maggots themselves, but I will save it for another day.
I really appreciate TH's deep dive into the mechanics of the previous President subverting our government with 'acting' officials immune from congressional approval, and the towering size of our military which could be pivoted against our electoral system: with this lurking in the MAGA wings waiting to rise again.
There would be no Barr and Wray holders in DOJ and FBI, nor DHS or NSA, or DOD if Biden not have revoked Trumps EO 13957, which created schedule F civil service, with his EO of 14003.
What Schedule F enabled Trump to do is take political appointees and convert them to protected civil service, while reclassifying the jobs of the protected civil service that these Schedule F employees would replace as “at will” employees, no longer protected and then rescheduled.
If Biden had kept the gift that Trump endowed him, he could have used to fire all of Trumps schedule F employees. But he didn’t. I find Biden sometimes acting in the best interest of the GOP and Trump, if not directly then indirectly by pathologic adherence to his bipartisan fantasy, his inaction and sometimes his action.
Trump set the precedent and Biden should use it to his and our advantage, but there he sits like a stonewall, he has signed a bill protecting gay marriage, but nothing about gay rights or women rights, because that would really piss off the Republicans and we can’t have that, can we. Meanwhile Republicans care not that they piss off the rest of us, maybe it is the Judas goat, gays (Log Cabin Republicans), conservative Blacks for Trump, and the right wing Hispanics who enthusiastically enjoin the racist, xenophobic, fascist right wing agenda.
Moving on, that closeted KKK member from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville is holding confirmations of Generals and Admirals hostage. I thought that the motive at first I thought that Tuberville has single-handedly prevented hundreds of Defense Department nominations from being approved by voice vote since March in protest of new Pentagon rules that reimburse and provide paid leave to service members who travel to receive an abortion or other reproductive care, such as in vitro fertilization
Now thanks to Thom I see how that fits into Trumps plan for the military, if he wins the next election, he will staff the Pentagon with fascists, racists, theocratic generals.
And the services are full of them. Because since the Air Force built the AF Academy , it attracted the mega churches who are worth millions or billions by grifting the suckers, and they sucked the Academy into allowing their reps to identify cadets used as Chapel guides, producing theocratic traitors, and the mission was exported to the other service academies producing traitors like Gen Betrayus,
This the Pentagon which Tuberville will present as a gift to Trump, Ideological devout right wing generals and officers.
By the way, the tools used by Trump to move the Army to Washington and the border is an EO, using the Authority granted in ART II of the constitution to create a national emergency, one which Biden should have used to lift the budget ceiling.. He didn’t thus left the Republicans with a victory AND an opening for future cuts and restrictions.
But Biden won’t use Art II authority, although his predecessors have. Just like he refused to give Ukraine the weapons they needed, until it was too late to use them It is as if he is secretly helping Putin.
Trump used Barr to give an aura of legality to deploying troops against the people, Biden could do the same thing to protect the nation, but he won’t, cause there he sits like a stone wall.
And finally, Biden is guilty of misfeasance, by not using the tools that Trump left him and appointing acting officials, including military. Tuberville can block confirmation, but Biden could bypass him and appoint Generals into acting positions, till a Democratic Senate can confirm.
Again, it is the Senate, not the House, that approves appointments and he who appoints can remove. Assuming good faith, maybe Biden knows that there are Senate DINOs, who would not act to remove these sedentionists.
Its interesting to me that we are still contemplating with terror, the possibility that Trump will be again in a position to trash this country and complete his fascist agenda.
Its not what the majority of citizens in this Country want .
Followers of Trump sound like they’d adapt Trumps twisted narrative and theories of himself as dictator without question but I wonder if they know what the ultimate outcome would look like.
I hope they don’t because if they know and think its worth Trump being their hero, they will be lost.
“To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters...”
Yes, "The Donald", skirted around and out right abused our time honored traditions brought forth from the wisdom of our founding fathers, who, were trying to protect our precious democracy. As usual, DT never ceases with his conniving behavior.
Hamilton was a Hobbsian, he did not trust the "mob" (what the elite call democrats, small d)
His and other founding fathers vision for America was a House of Commons, with 2 year tenure for quick turnover that they could not mess with the power structure, a House of Lords (Senate) with a 6 year reign, as oversight and veto of the rabble in the House, and a King (President) that would be a successful and wealthy property owning white man with no term limit. Since only property owning and thus invested wealthy white men, as president the corporation would roll on unimpeded. That was the original intent, that is why there is a Federalist Society, that is why the Republicans and Federalist society staff justice with judges who are loyal to that intent I don't think that they care about the Bill of Rights, they ignore it,or rationalize around it to achieve their Hobbsian goals.
Unlimited greed (capitalism) and democracy don't mix. The wealthy tyrants want to rule not be ruled. Even though under their rule the manure will hit the fan and cause plenty of human suffering. Biden needs to issue some executive orders arresting all of the GOP traitors, until Jack Smith get some tried and if they are innocent they will be let free but in the meantime they need to be locked up. About 300 of them. The GOP does not like the Constitution, so now is the time to take their constitutional rights away, before they take ours. Biden needs to quit appointing Elliott Abrams!
Oh I don't know Thom, are preventative measures really our "thing"? This is America we are talking about. It's hard when your opposition won't face the facts of how tragic thirty years from now will be, much less 2 years. They won't go there, because they are too busy trying to drag us back to the middle of the last century.
People complain about the youth here, and they don't like the quiet-quitting or the go F-yourself public resignations. This new generation knows gaslighting when they see it. They understand when someone doesn't value them. A bunch of soldiers their age telling them what to do on behalf of Trump? I hope they are the reason he will never be given that chance.
It would be smart to do the ounce of prevention you presented. It could happen.
What we really need to do is get rid of the dirty old men on both sides of the Congress aisle, Executive Branch (yes, Biden) and in the Supremes and start focusing on the Climate CRISIS! Concentrate on getting young, innovative people into government and teach Climate in schools. We are out of time.
This Congress is hard pressed to get things done with the MAGAts goal being to destroy our government. How do you see Schumer and Jeffries finding the votes for this?
Why do you call them MAGAts? They are textbook fascists. [https://www.academia.edu/23541236/The_Anatomy_of_Fascism_by_Robert_Paxton_2004_]
Picked it up along the way. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/maggot
It is the part where they feed on the decaying and develops into something else not very popular. A fly. I was shown a film in science class in more than one year where a baby was in a crib and a fly comes by. I can still see this baby clapping her hands to her mouth to this day. We have previously seen the fly sitting on dog poop. She swats at it and touches it and then claps her hands to her mouth. Later on she has an upset stomach. I have more than an upset stomach from the MAGA crowd, but I hope you get the image that I see as going with it. I have an even worse story about maggots themselves, but I will save it for another day.
I really appreciate TH's deep dive into the mechanics of the previous President subverting our government with 'acting' officials immune from congressional approval, and the towering size of our military which could be pivoted against our electoral system: with this lurking in the MAGA wings waiting to rise again.
There would be no Barr and Wray holders in DOJ and FBI, nor DHS or NSA, or DOD if Biden not have revoked Trumps EO 13957, which created schedule F civil service, with his EO of 14003.
What Schedule F enabled Trump to do is take political appointees and convert them to protected civil service, while reclassifying the jobs of the protected civil service that these Schedule F employees would replace as “at will” employees, no longer protected and then rescheduled.
If Biden had kept the gift that Trump endowed him, he could have used to fire all of Trumps schedule F employees. But he didn’t. I find Biden sometimes acting in the best interest of the GOP and Trump, if not directly then indirectly by pathologic adherence to his bipartisan fantasy, his inaction and sometimes his action.
Trump set the precedent and Biden should use it to his and our advantage, but there he sits like a stonewall, he has signed a bill protecting gay marriage, but nothing about gay rights or women rights, because that would really piss off the Republicans and we can’t have that, can we. Meanwhile Republicans care not that they piss off the rest of us, maybe it is the Judas goat, gays (Log Cabin Republicans), conservative Blacks for Trump, and the right wing Hispanics who enthusiastically enjoin the racist, xenophobic, fascist right wing agenda.
Moving on, that closeted KKK member from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville is holding confirmations of Generals and Admirals hostage. I thought that the motive at first I thought that Tuberville has single-handedly prevented hundreds of Defense Department nominations from being approved by voice vote since March in protest of new Pentagon rules that reimburse and provide paid leave to service members who travel to receive an abortion or other reproductive care, such as in vitro fertilization
Now thanks to Thom I see how that fits into Trumps plan for the military, if he wins the next election, he will staff the Pentagon with fascists, racists, theocratic generals.
And the services are full of them. Because since the Air Force built the AF Academy , it attracted the mega churches who are worth millions or billions by grifting the suckers, and they sucked the Academy into allowing their reps to identify cadets used as Chapel guides, producing theocratic traitors, and the mission was exported to the other service academies producing traitors like Gen Betrayus,
This the Pentagon which Tuberville will present as a gift to Trump, Ideological devout right wing generals and officers.
By the way, the tools used by Trump to move the Army to Washington and the border is an EO, using the Authority granted in ART II of the constitution to create a national emergency, one which Biden should have used to lift the budget ceiling.. He didn’t thus left the Republicans with a victory AND an opening for future cuts and restrictions.
But Biden won’t use Art II authority, although his predecessors have. Just like he refused to give Ukraine the weapons they needed, until it was too late to use them It is as if he is secretly helping Putin.
Trump used Barr to give an aura of legality to deploying troops against the people, Biden could do the same thing to protect the nation, but he won’t, cause there he sits like a stone wall.
And finally, Biden is guilty of misfeasance, by not using the tools that Trump left him and appointing acting officials, including military. Tuberville can block confirmation, but Biden could bypass him and appoint Generals into acting positions, till a Democratic Senate can confirm.
Again, it is the Senate, not the House, that approves appointments and he who appoints can remove. Assuming good faith, maybe Biden knows that there are Senate DINOs, who would not act to remove these sedentionists.
Its interesting to me that we are still contemplating with terror, the possibility that Trump will be again in a position to trash this country and complete his fascist agenda.
Its not what the majority of citizens in this Country want .
Followers of Trump sound like they’d adapt Trumps twisted narrative and theories of himself as dictator without question but I wonder if they know what the ultimate outcome would look like.
I hope they don’t because if they know and think its worth Trump being their hero, they will be lost.
More lost than they already are .
Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 76:
“To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters...”
Yes, "The Donald", skirted around and out right abused our time honored traditions brought forth from the wisdom of our founding fathers, who, were trying to protect our precious democracy. As usual, DT never ceases with his conniving behavior.
Very enlightening article. Thank you.
Very enlightening article, thank you!
Hamilton was a Hobbsian, he did not trust the "mob" (what the elite call democrats, small d)
His and other founding fathers vision for America was a House of Commons, with 2 year tenure for quick turnover that they could not mess with the power structure, a House of Lords (Senate) with a 6 year reign, as oversight and veto of the rabble in the House, and a King (President) that would be a successful and wealthy property owning white man with no term limit. Since only property owning and thus invested wealthy white men, as president the corporation would roll on unimpeded. That was the original intent, that is why there is a Federalist Society, that is why the Republicans and Federalist society staff justice with judges who are loyal to that intent I don't think that they care about the Bill of Rights, they ignore it,or rationalize around it to achieve their Hobbsian goals.
Unlimited greed (capitalism) and democracy don't mix. The wealthy tyrants want to rule not be ruled. Even though under their rule the manure will hit the fan and cause plenty of human suffering. Biden needs to issue some executive orders arresting all of the GOP traitors, until Jack Smith get some tried and if they are innocent they will be let free but in the meantime they need to be locked up. About 300 of them. The GOP does not like the Constitution, so now is the time to take their constitutional rights away, before they take ours. Biden needs to quit appointing Elliott Abrams!
Oh I don't know Thom, are preventative measures really our "thing"? This is America we are talking about. It's hard when your opposition won't face the facts of how tragic thirty years from now will be, much less 2 years. They won't go there, because they are too busy trying to drag us back to the middle of the last century.
People complain about the youth here, and they don't like the quiet-quitting or the go F-yourself public resignations. This new generation knows gaslighting when they see it. They understand when someone doesn't value them. A bunch of soldiers their age telling them what to do on behalf of Trump? I hope they are the reason he will never be given that chance.
It would be smart to do the ounce of prevention you presented. It could happen.
What we really need to do is get rid of the dirty old men on both sides of the Congress aisle, Executive Branch (yes, Biden) and in the Supremes and start focusing on the Climate CRISIS! Concentrate on getting young, innovative people into government and teach Climate in schools. We are out of time.