Summary
Donald Trump signed an executive order expanding presidential control over independent agencies, including the FTC, FCC, and SEC.
The order enforces the “unitary executive theory,” which argues the president has sole authority over the executive branch. It grants Trump’s budget chief, Russell Vought, oversight of these agencies’ performance and budgets.
The move is expected to face legal challenges, as past presidents have largely respected agency independence.
Trump defended the order, stating, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Trump defended the order, stating, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Okay, Adolf.
Napoleon, actually. So, a different dictator, but still a dictator.
Wait, this was ACTUALLY a quote from a famous dictator? I thought I was just being snarky and connecting this comment to the kind of rhetoric famously used by dictators. I didn’t realize this is specific rhetoric used by a specific dictator.
You don’t even need to read between the lines anymore. Insane.
That’s why they call these oversite positions “quasi-judicial”. Congress has explicit power to create judicial bodies not specified in the Constitution. Of course, who knows what this Supreme Court will do with the plain text.
What a great idea. They have always talked about about starving the beast, now they can actually do it.
Laws are more like suggestions.
FCC huh? There goes TV that’s against him
They had already started with that under the guise of DEI hiring nonsense at the stations. Comcast was already being threatened that its DEI hiring practices were cause for the FCC to pull their license somehow. He broadcast (pun intended) his plan to have state run media and to diminish or ban the rest during his campaign, just nobody pays attention.
Edit s/pin/pun
We really are screwed aren’t we?
We actually are.
Most people are still sleepwalking through this. It’ll be another couple years before the general populace starts grasping how screwed we actually are.
We’re going to go through a very dark period and it’s going to take a lot of pain, suffering, and death just to get back to where we were before, if we can at all.
Absolute best case scenario is we spend the rest of our lives clawing back what we’re in the process of losing and generally we won’t see much, if any, actual progress.
We have been for decades. People have been warning about this since the early 20th century.
1936
James Waterman Wise, Jr., in a recent address here before the liberal John Reed club said that Hearst and Coughlin are the two chief exponents of fascism in America. If fascism comes, he added, it will not be identified with any “shirt” movement, nor with an “insignia,” but it will probably be “wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution.”
1935 Sinclair Lewis It Can’t Happen Here
But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word ‘Fascism’ and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty.
Lock him up
We already tried. His fans are fucking stupid assholes who let it happen.
Colour me shocked.
I hate they way he coops that quote that was meant for luigi.
What is the next unironic quote!? Oh wait I got it, “if you want to shine like sun first you have to burn like it.”
I think it was meant for napoleon.
can’t be. he did not save anyone.
What is the legal argument against this? The article was paywalled, but the summay only says that past presidents have respected agency independence. That sounds like just a gentlemans agreement. Nothing legally binding. So do the challenges have a leg to stand on?
Well the boards are appointed by the President with Senate approval. The President can also remove a board member at any time. The board members are generally in pretty good control of the agency.
This seems like it is at most an attempt to end run the Senate but likely just an order to establish a liaison office once you parse everything. He’s passing all these sweeping language orders but also putting in that they should follow all applicable laws.
Think of it like a whole bunch of people standing around a $100 bill left on the ground. Everybody’s standing around waiting for the legitimate owner to come by and pick it up. Trump doesn’t give a shit about that. He’s gonna walk by, shove everyone aside, and grab it. When everyone else tries to stop him and say the money isn’t his, he’s just going to look at you and say “Who’s is it, and why haven’t they picked it up yet?” And while everybody else is standing around trying to figure out the answer to that, Trump is walking away with the money and saying “Finders keepers, asshole. It’s mine now”. Even if the original owner shows up later and tries to lay claim to the money, he’d have to prove that that specific $100 bill was his to begin with or the judge is just going to say that it’s Trump’s money now.
Think that, except with the power of the US government instead of a c-note. And Trump is hoping that the courts will use the same logic: since nobody else tried to claim the power before, and there’s nothing explicitly granting those powers to someone else, Trump is hoping that the courts will just let him keep those powers in a twisted form of finders-keepers. And given this court system, he very well might win.
Who would have thought the Air Bud defense would be the death knell of democracy in America?
This is the truth of it. Picking up $100 bill off the ground in public that isn’t yours isn’t actually illegal. And what trump is doing is attempting to stretch the powers of his office. This isn’t anything new really. Just how he is doing it, how much and how fast is new.
There are laws against it but the Supreme Court gave the president total immunity so all those laws are now void
Which laws. Cause I haven’t seen any quoted anywhere. And, they only gave him immunity for official acts. Then said they (the courts) get to decide what an official act is. Lastly, they did not take away congress’s ability to prosecute him in the form of impeachment.
Did you actually read that. A lot of “potentially”, “possibly” and things like that. In short, it isn’t all that clear cut.
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” It’s literally in the OP bro.
I don’t think there is a good one. It sounds like this is another one of those things where the rules were mostly relying on the idea that the people wouldn’t elect someone who was expected to try to do something like this.
Musk’s and his actions are illegal, or were illegal mostly before the Supreme Court decided there’s some sleezy presidential immunity. The problem is they are so firm and quick at changing the rules of the game that no institution can catch up and, most importantly, generally afraid they would be directly attacked by these fuckers. Some commenters preciously said that it’s stupid that most of people who could’ve challenged or straight up dismissed his executive orders are pussies for resigning or being complicit, but, in their defence, all of their personal data was leaked by Muskrat and he and Trump have a pardoned terrorist cell to carbomb them or whatever. And it’s snowballing from department to department, and every new one looks at those who already kneed to the maggot.
All these famous checks and balances were DDOSed and frightened into submission. i don’t think they were exceptionally and inherently fragile. it’s just the rightwing strategists just got the right guy, the right coverage and the right plan to make it all as easy as break-and-enter with absent homeowners.
What was illegal about what musk did? Be specific. On paper he is “working” for the president, and my understanding is that the cabinet members in charge of the various agencies gave him the go ahead to do what he is doing. Both of those are directly or indirectly elected officials charged with running the executive branch of the government. My take is that congress has depended on gentleman’s agreements rather than passing laws to ensure the agencies aren’t tampered with like is happening now.
What is the legal argument against this?
None. We stacked the court with Unitary Executive friendly judges a long time ago.
So do the challenges have a leg to stand on?
John
MarshallRoberts has made his decision; now let him enforce it!
Where are the American “patriots” who would defend democracy and protect the country against tyranny with their 2A rights to their dying breath?
That’s right. Fucking crickets from that bunch.
The ammosexuals voted for this shit. They only stroke their guns over the idea of helping put down any uppity {DEI}s that are nearby. All their talk about guns this, guns that, is and always has been a threat meant for others.
They don’t give a fuck about democracy and want to be the vanguard of tyranny.
Ammo up rush the bastard before he gets any bigger for his britches
God what a fucking terrible anus mouth. I hate when it smiles.
If Congress wasn’t filled with feckless lickspittles, they could just not fund the executive branch. But they are, so they will
If Congress wasn’t filled with feckless lickspittles
If that was the case, trump would’ve already been convicted of impeachment and been disqualified.
Indubitably
How does that actually work with Musk and his merry band of douchebags in direct control of the mechanism by which the US government pays out money?
The US Constitution gives Congress sole control of “the purse” meaning all funding of the federal government. They allocate it and the executive branch spends it. If they weren’t trump’s puppets, they could stop allocating funds for him to misuse.
Can’t think of any way this will come back and bite us. /s
Can’t think of a non-violent way for the US to get out of this.
I can’t either. Seriously, if anyone has ideas I would like to hear them. The courts will smack him down but the Supreme Court probably will not, which just cements the dictatorship legally.
It will take massive protests and unrest.
Remember remember the 5th of November fElon and Donnie Trump’s plot.
I see no reason that any MAGt’s treason Should ever be forgot.
All the fucking dictators say the same shit.
