if you want to impose new duties on government officials, you need actual statutory authority. if you want to create new benefits, you need statutory authority.
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Trump is trying really hard to use “withholding funds from states” as a substitute for statutory authority; if he’s allowed to do so, there’s no reason a Democratic president couldn’t likewise “codify Roe” by withholding funds from states with abortion bans.
Not in this new era. You steal the money and give an executive order declaring what is to be done with it. Then send in your unaccountable goons to ram it through.
Not saying they should do that lol, but it’s very clear now that it could be done!
Aside from the other point I made, we also don't know that this tactic is going to work in the long term. We know Musk will be able to do a lot of damage before he's stopped, but we don't know how long that will be. A welfare program dismantled by the courts after 6 months is worthless.
Not for the 6 months it helped people. If they can destroy things that can't be fixed, then it worked for them in the long term no matter if it's stopped today.
Most "DOGE" members are actually employees of other departments and agencies, or direct employees of the White House. That's a tactic that works for this specific agenda but wouldn't work for real government programs. https://bsky.app/profile/beneprism.rip/post/3liphroul522j
Mostly they needed to get dirty & find the pressure points for Manchin & Sinema. Sinema should have been threatened with prosecution for misuse of campaign funds and Manchin has tons of shady $$ dealings that could have been "investigated". Everyone has pressure points, especially the crooks
adopting a full court press method like Trump is trying would at least be able to sneak some things past the goal; it's clear the system isn't designed to handle rapid widespread change and Dems fumbled barely even trying
we've seen that in the absence of court intervention the government is more than willing to comply with hair brained executive orders. so why not use that for good
What you need is an army to back your play. Everything Trump is doing is premised on ultimately gaining control over the US military. He seems hesitant to begin that process, with good reason, but he has to try and soon.
I don't think he should have gone rough shod but he certainly should have pushed the boundaries, testing especially the SCOTUS rulings on presidential power.
I wanted Biden to say, "Six Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have unconstitutionally granted me the powers of a king. They will immediately retract this decision or I will use my power upon them."
Right. Or just do something to force a lawsuit and redefine the ruling. Or just ignore them! The Democrats calculated they could break laws to commit genocide and still win the election. Somehow the laws they break never benefit the people.
Leaving aside whether Biden left money on the table re: acting within the limits of presidential power, there's the corollary to this: Biden didn't have the cult-like loyalty of the Democratic base nor a massive propaganda machine to cow Dem pols to even try the shit Trump is doing.
So even if Biden wanted to, say, offer a pardon to an enterprising drone operator in USAF to test the limits of Trump vs. US... He would have either been A25'd or Impeached within hours.
biden could have released trumps tax returns. it’s against the law, sure, but once the info is out, there’s nothing anybody can do. there are probably hundreds of things like that biden/dems could have done.
And as we learned from Judge-Emperor Kacsmaryk in Shit Hollow, West Texas, your law abiding leaves the things you are doing vulnerable to legal challenge.
I keep seeing this, but I don't think people really understand what they're asking for.
Dems in congress were tweeting about slapping amendments on everything during the vote-o-rama the GOP did last night to approve a budget resolution, and everyone was yelling at them to "do something."
I mean, staying up all night to prolong the proceedings and try and force embarrassing votes on shit just to push the budget resolution to committees is doing a LOT to throw sand in the gears. It's not stopping it, but it's using a lot of the power they have to dump cold water on the process.
The law is only as good as its enforcement. Same with personal rights. Antiwoke policy just works as misogynistic racist bigotry in practice. The rise of a predator class. Nothing “conservative” about it.
Conservatism has always been about conserving the power of the predator class, aka those at the top of a social hierarchy that use it to get what they want
Their conservatism is an justification for their actions always favor their own
Until we reject conservatism this will happen again
They wouldn’t stop him. They may order him to stop or reverse that action, but they would have done nothing to actually stop him. He could ignore the court orders like Trump is doing.
Yeah. That's not an "official act" lol. Maybe they say he can't get charged with kidnapping for it but no way he's just allowed to lock someone up. Pretty basic Magna-Carta-type stuff.
Challenging authority is about more than rejecting the principles that particular authorities are enforcing. To challenge authority, you have to challenge the construction of institutionalized power differentials---the rationalizations, the indoctrination that perpetuates acceptance of inequality
That's like telling your Dad he can't lay a hand on you bc you'll get him arrested.
To pathological parents, that was just their cue to take away your phone & internet, lock you in your room, and make sure school knew you were at home "sick" for a week, AFTER beating you even harder...
Also, if you're going to employ people, you need to pay them, and they are going to want some confidence that they are actually getting paid. It is a lot easier to illegally not pay people than to guarantee that they're going to be paid.
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Not saying they should do that lol, but it’s very clear now that it could be done!
https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-trump-musk-funding-foia-congress-transparency
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/02/what-consequences-will-trump-face-if-he-simply-ignores-the-courts-probably-nothing-experts-say.html
I wanted Biden to say, "Six Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have unconstitutionally granted me the powers of a king. They will immediately retract this decision or I will use my power upon them."
Then followed through if they didn't.
Basically the opposite of how people are reacting to Trump’s cuts
But should they have been bolder? 1,000,000%.
They should be bolder NOW, and stop ALL normal business until the lawbreaking stops.
Dems in congress were tweeting about slapping amendments on everything during the vote-o-rama the GOP did last night to approve a budget resolution, and everyone was yelling at them to "do something."
Their conservatism is an justification for their actions always favor their own
Until we reject conservatism this will happen again
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/02/what-consequences-will-trump-face-if-he-simply-ignores-the-courts-probably-nothing-experts-say.html
To pathological parents, that was just their cue to take away your phone & internet, lock you in your room, and make sure school knew you were at home "sick" for a week, AFTER beating you even harder...