[WaPo] Trump moves to wrest control of USAID as Musk says, ‘We’re shutting it down’

@basso
@Salvy

 

Payment codes and categories
like that stuff you get on credit card bill breh

@Space Ghost
@Rocketeer
@Scarface281

who would have thunk it

 

Bye Felicia

 

move fast, break things. the disrupter's mantra.

 

USAID was hopelessly corrupt, and needed to be dismantled. I'm sure there are worthy programs that will need to be restarted, refunded, in other ways. they should be able to provide an accounting of how their monies are spent.

also, what are the endowments like at SIL and other land grant universities? it's surprising that these programs are wholly dependent on grants from one agency for their entire existence.

 

"It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” said U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Seattle-based appointee of Ronald Reagan, as he blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship policy. “The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore."

-source

 

he has a pen and a phone.

 

the president runs the executive branch. some folks may not like some of the outcomes, but that does not make the actions dictatorial, or unconstitutional, the momentary rulings of certain judges notwithstanding.

this is what people voted for, and they deserve to get it, good and hard.

 

If you guys believe that he isn't going to subvert elections, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Enjoy watching the lessons learned when the next Islamo-Commie Dem gets in power. I'll bookmark some of these quotes on the off chance I'm still around when/if that happens.

 

Unfortunately for him, he is still constrained by laws like laws mandating funding for this-or-that agency or program as well as various civil rights enshrined in the Constitution, and if he doesn't like it, the arbiter of whether he is, in fact, constrained by those laws is the judiciary. So both Judicary and Legislative branch constrain the absolute power of the Executive over the Executive Branch.

The novel name for this which you may have heard before is "checks-and-balances". He is not CEO of Americorp. He does not have absolute and final say over everything happening in the Executive Branch, much less outside of it.

 

JD Vance Suggests Judges ‘Aren't Allowed’ To Control Trump After Courts Block His Policies

Vice President JD Vance suggested Sunday courts “aren’t allowed” to overrule President Donald Trump and his executive orders after judges across the country have issued orders blocking Trump policies, rulings the president has thus far complied with, even as aides and associates have grown more aggressive in pushing back on the decisions.

“Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power,” Vance claimed on X on Sunday, after noting judges can’t “tell a general how to conduct a military operation” or “command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor.”

Vance also shared a post from legal scholar Adrian Vermeule, who claimed, “Judicial interference with legitimate acts of state, especially the internal functioning of a co-equal branch, is a violation of the separation of powers.”

The posts came after a federal judge blocked billionaire Elon Musk and his associates at the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) from accessing sensitive information at the Treasury Department, one of multiple court rulings that have come out in recent weeks against the Trump administration.

Vance and Vermeule’s posts have been met with heavy pushback, with Georgetown Law professor Stephen Vladeck saying in response to Vermeule, “Just to say the quiet part out loud, the point of having unelected judges in a democracy is so that *whether* acts of state are ‘legitimate’ can be decided by someone other than the people who are undertaking them.”

The judiciary branch is a co-equal branch of government to the executive branch and courts have long overturned presidential actions, including some of Trump’s in his first term.

The White House has not yet responded to a request for comment on Vance’s post.

While the Trump administration has not yet defied any of the court orders that have curbed his policies, doing so could set up an unprecedented constitutional crisis, in which Trump takes actions even if courts tell him they’re illegal.

Musk has also railed against the ruling against DOGE and used it to claim there’s corruption in the judicial branch, despite there being no evidence there was any corruption involved in the court’s ruling. “I’d like to propose that the worst 1% of appointed judges, as determined by elected bodies, be fired every year,” Musk said on X on Sunday morning, after previously claiming the judge who issued the ruling should be impeached and calling the order against him “absolutely insane.” Musk also shared posts complaining about the ruling, including one from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, claiming, “This has the feel of a coup—not a military coup, but a judicial one.”

How many more court rulings could still be coming against Musk and DOGE. A number of lawsuits are pending in court that challenge Musk’s government work, including multiple ones that challenge DOGE’s authority in being established in the first place. U.S. District Judge John Bates declined to issue an order Friday blocking DOGE’s access to information at the Department of Labor in response to a lawsuit brought by labor unions, because he said the unions hadn’t shown standing to sue, but said he had “concerns about defendants’ alleged conduct.” The legal challenge is still ongoing, which means Bates could issue an order in the future targeting DOGE’s access to the agency’s records.

Trump’s executive orders targeting everything from immigration to transgender rights have been swiftly challenged in court in the weeks since he took office, resulting in a slew of rulings blocking the policies while litigation continues. Trump’s order rescinding birthright citizenship was the first to be blocked in court on Jan. 23, and subsequent court rulings have paused Trump’s directive requiring transgender women to be incarcerated in male prisons, the administration’s memo halting most federal spending, the deadline for federal workers to accept a buyout offer and a plan to put 2,200 employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave. Judges appointed by presidents from both parties have blocked Trump orders: U.S. District Judge John Coughenour blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship rule—arguing “The president cannot change, limit, or qualify this Constitutional right via an executive order”—while Trump appointed-Judge Carl Nichols was the one to restrict the administration from putting USAID workers on leave. The order barring DOGE from accessing Treasury documents came from New York-based Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, who ruled no political appointee or “special government employee”—like Musk and his DOGE associates—can access the Treasury Department’s systems until there’s a further ruling on the issue next week. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Democratic state attorneys general.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alison...ontrol-trump-after-courts-block-his-policies/

 

The reason for "fast" is that because even with control of both houses, the votes are not there to do what they are doing. They could not pass bills that do what is going on now, or they would. The reason for dictatorship on day one is because the President lacks the skills, patience, and acumen to govern as a president in our Constitutional system. As others have said and observed throughout the centuries, this stuff is a sign of weakness, not strength--and it never lasts. It does, however, do great harm while it is in place and takes a lot of time to undo the damage.

This is going to be a long and winding find out stage for those of you who are fcking around, but like climate change, nobody will be in your face to say "I told you so" because we'll all be dealing with the chaos you enabled as best we can.

Also, if you think posting things on a basketball board that favors the regime is going to make you part of the protected class, you're a fool. They laugh at you and if they get their way, you'll be treated the same as the rest of us. You are not them, no matter how much you think so. They don't care about you. You think you're on the team, but at best, you're the waterboy or the guy who has to throw the ball to the "star" so he can take shot after shot while you're expected to do the hard things like playing defense--and the other team always gets a turn with the ball. Always. Read some history because I promise you, you're not exempt.

 

I'm sure we will find out what the limits are in due course.

 

the Rockets don't really have a star.

 

The only thing this disingenuous MAGA boomer does it rehabilitate Trumps actions and cover for him. Why aren't you posting any OPeds discussing how the Trump appointed judge declared Doge wasn't able to showcase a single instance of fraud?

 

@Salvy
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