American Politics from 2019 on

[Brian Peacock]

.

[Tero]

With DC chaos, pitchfork time?

[Tero]

Courts failing. As they can't use any police on federal level.
What the judicial branch can do when a president refuses to comply with a court order
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-52 ... ourt-order
audio only, can't cut an paste

[Sean Hayden]

Elizabeth Warren called bullshit during Powell testimony on the idea that banks will still be equally regulated without a consumer protection agency. --the nerve of these money guys man...

[Tero]

They do not want money anymore. Eventually they will own everything. Every person not a billionaire will be renting past the Trump 4 years.

[Tero]

With Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr in, there is no going back.

Meanwhile...Musk is loose all over the place.

The good guys are losing the PR battle. All Musk has to do is say that the US is paying $100 billion dollars to promote gay comic books in Peru, and this is swallowed whole by the gullible and before you know it, ALL foreign aid will be cut off due to his gross lies. People are going to die because of this asshole. The lies are coming in so fast that they cannot be refuted as quick as they come in.

https://boards.straightdope.com

[Tero]

What the founders wanted
According to Article I of the Constitution, Congress passes laws to spend money — appropriations bills. Some of these let the president decide how and when to spend the funds through executive agencies. But a lot of funding comes with specific instructions. Presidents generally can’t cancel such spending unilaterally — that’s fundamental to the separation of powers. “Where the purse is lodged in one branch, and the sword in another, there can be no danger” of an all-powerful president, Alexander Hamilton said at the convention to ratify the Constitution in New York.

Presidents have generally respected the line the framers drew. When they spent less than Congress allotted, it was often because Congress set a ceiling (“a sum not exceeding”) rather than requiring the whole amount to be spent. In 1803, for instance, Thomas Jefferson saved money when he didn’t need all of a $50,000 appropriation for gun boats. In other instances, presidents impounded funds to save money and effectively reached an agreement with Congress.

The exception to the rule is Richard Nixon, who had a sharp confrontation with Congress. He impounded billions appropriated to build waste treatment plants that would reduce pollution. Both Congress and the Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s gambit. Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which forbade future impoundments with only narrow exceptions. And the court unanimously ruled that Nixon had no authority to spend less than Congress had allotted.

The Trump administration seems intent on outcomes, not theories — on asserting broad executive authority and expecting Congress to roll over. The state attorneys general who have sued to unfreeze funds are checking Trump’s power from outside Washington.

How would the Supreme Court rule on an impoundment challenge? The justices decided a relevant case last spring. In a 7-to-2 ruling, the court rejected a challenge to the funding Congress provided for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which Trump has just unilaterally closed, the subject of another lawsuit).

Justice Clarence Thomas opened his majority opinion by declaring that “our Constitution gives Congress control over the public fisc.” He added later that by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “the principle of legislative supremacy over fiscal matters engendered little debate and created no disagreement.”

NYT

[Tero]

https://www.threads.net/@lloydrang/post ... 0lYufJmbZQ
This post is for Canadians:

I just got off a call with American colleagues. As much as they don’t understand the mood here, we don’t fully understand the mood there. Whole industries are drowning. Clients in China, Mexico and Canada are bailing on US firms. Government contracts are being cancelled. One company I spoke to laid off 1/3 of its workforce last night. On top of that, private companies are expecting charges filed if they have so much as a whisper of an equity program. It’s chilling.
Thing is, there doesn’t seem to be much of any grand economic plan behind the Trump economy except the anger of a few very rich men who think they should be even richer.

It’s “Incelnomics” and it’s gonna bankrupt a LOT of Americans very, very quickly.

[JimC]

Americans appear to have shot themselves in the foot...

[Sean Hayden]

Based on what? Jobless claims were lower than expected again…

Let’s check back later in the year…

[rainbow]

Trump And The Credibility Gulf

President Trump continues to say that the United States is doing "very well" in its fight against the coronavirus. Evidence suggests otherwise and a number of media outlets fact check his statements.

ABC News: Trump Says US Efforts 'Working Very Well' As Coronavirus Death Trends Continue Upward
Continuing to offer misleading comparisons of the U.S. death rate compared to other countries, President Donald Trump in a news conference Tuesday evening said "strong mitigation efforts" are "working very well" and rattled off numbers he called "spectacular" on the country's economy and handling of the coronavirus pandemic. "The great strength and great news is really for states like, in particular, Michigan and Ohio, South Carolina, Pennsylvania -- very good, Florida, little bit," Trump said, though the Sunshine State again neared its record-daily death toll Tuesday. (Siegel, Cathey and Stoddart, 8/4)

The Washington Post: With Bad Coronavirus News At Home, Trump Points Misleadingly To Rising Cases Abroad
With coronavirus cases nearing 5 million in the United States and average daily deaths topping 1,000, the United States is the hottest hot spot in the ongoing global pandemic — a ranking that wasn’t exactly what President Trump had in mind with his “America First” doctrine. You wouldn’t know it, however, to hear the president describe the U.S. performance in handling the virus; he called it “an amazing job, a great job” on Monday, and recited a list of other countries experiencing a rebound in infections. (Gearan, 8/4)

The New York Times: Trump Cherry-Picks Coronavirus Data In Briefing Appearance
President Trump, in a news conference on Tuesday, cited a slew of statistics to argue that “our strong mitigation efforts are working very well.”Here’s a fact-check. (Qiu, 8/4)

AP: Chasm Grows Between Trump And Government Coronavirus Experts
In the early days of the coronavirus crisis, President Donald Trump was flanked in the White House briefing room by a team of public health experts in a seeming portrait of unity to confront the disease that was ravaging the globe. But as the crisis has spread to all reaches of the country, with escalating deaths and little sense of endgame, a chasm has widened between the president and the experts. The result: daily delivery of a mixed message to the public at a moment when coherence is most needed. (Madhani, Alonso-Zaldivar and Lemire, 8/5)

The Hill: Poll: 31 Percent Trust Trump On Coronavirus
Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans said they trust President Trump on the coronavirus pandemic, according to new polling from NBC News. The NBC News-SurveyMonkey weekly tracking poll found 58 percent of Americans do not trust the president on the pandemic, compared to 31 percent who say they do trust him. By comparison, 51 percent of adults said they trust statements on the virus by Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases specialist. A larger majority, 55 percent, said they trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the virus. (Budryk, 8/4)

In other news from the Trump administration —

Politico: Trump Spares Only Texas And Florida In Cutting Funds For National Guard
When President Donald Trump directed late Monday that states now pick up some of the tab for the nationwide deployment of the National Guard to respond to the coronavirus, he carved out two big exceptions: Texas and Florida. While all other states and territories will have to shell out millions to cover 25 percent of their National Guard costs starting later this month, Texas and Florida will be fully covered. The two key states, which voted for Trump in 2016 and are hotly contested this year, are struggling to contain the coronavirus surges. But other states are worse off by several metrics — including total Covid-19 cases and the percentage of people testing positive. (Miranda Ollstein, 8/4)

https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-break ... lity-gulf/

Trump and his Gulfs.....

[macdoc]

Inflation is higher tho - wait til Canadian tariffs on aluminum, oil and electrical power from Quebec kick in.

[Brian Peacock]

Turns out the free market isn't that free after all.

[pErvinalia]

Neoliberalism is dead!

[macdoc]

free market is oxymoron