Trump 10: Orange Voldemort Rises

[fraurosena]

Tee-hee...

Bwhahaha...

  (Can you tell I'm gloating?)

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting article: "Constitutional crisis? What happens if Trump decides to ignore a judge’s ruling."

Spoiler

President Trump has spent the better part of the past 24 hours bashing a U.S. district judge's decision to temporarily halt his travel ban executive order.

First came a White House statement calling the ruling “outrageous” (the word was later taken out). Then came Trump's many tweets, which were scattered throughout the day Saturday and actually seemed to question the judge's authority. And then, in its appeal, the Trump administration said the lower-court judge shouldn't be “second-guessing” the president.

The administration is complying with the order. But Trump's increasingly alarming tweets and this type of rhetoric about the judge's authority leads us to a question: What if it didn't? What if Trump — or any president — decided too much was at stake or that he didn't recognize “this so-called judge's” authority?

It's something experts on executive authority have been chewing over. Given Trump's populist campaign, admiration for authoritarian leaders and expressed skepticism toward the political establishment, some think it's possible he takes on the judicial establishment, too.

“They're spoiling for a fight, and that’s what populists do,” said Daniel P. Franklin, a professor at Georgia State University. “And I think that’s the way it plays out — maybe not on this issue, but on something.”

I'll emphasize up front that the Trump administration has given no indication that they'll actually ignore this particular court order — or any other. (They're appealing, and the 9th Circuit declined to immediately reinstate the ban early Sunday morning.) Franklin said he's not aware of when a president “purposely ignored a direct court order.”

But sometimes presidents have interpreted court decisions in ways that lead to discord between branches of government, leading to the threat of constitutional crises.

The most oft-cited example of a president allegedly ignoring a court ruling involves the populist president that Trump's team seems most interested in comparing to Trump: Andrew Jackson.

After the Supreme Court and Justice John Marshall struck down a Georgia law that allowed for the seizure of Native American lands, saying it violated federal treaties, Jackson ignored it or at least initially declined to get involved — depending upon the account. He is remembered to have said, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it,” though there is debate about the accuracy of that quote.

According to Native American scholar Frank Pommersheim:

While others consider the statement apocryphal, there is no doubt that President Jackson supported Georgia's claimed sovereignty over Cherokee land. The constitutional imbroglio was only averted when the impending nullification crisis convinced President Jackson that such a constitutional crisis was not in the national interest.

An earlier and plainer example also involved Marshall — and a Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson. Jeffrey Rosen wrote for PBS that a showdown between the two pitted Jefferson's federalist views against Marshall's view that the Supreme Court had authority over all U.S. laws:

The culmination of Marshall's national vision came in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), in which he wrote an opinion for a unanimous Court upholding Congress' power to charter the Bank of the United States. Marshall resurrected the same arguments that Alexander Hamilton had used to persuade George Washington to charter the bank over Jefferson's objections: namely, that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to pass all laws “necessary and proper” for executing its constitutional powers, and that those words should be construed broadly, in a practical spirit. … Although the decision was popular in the middle and Northern states, it precipitated a backlash against the Court in the Southern and Western states.

Jefferson's reaction to McCulloch was especially peevish and extreme. He endorsed attacks on the decision published by the radical states' rights partisans Spencer Roane and John Taylor, agreeing that the Supreme Court had no power to review the constitutionality of state laws or to second-guess the decisions of state courts. Later, he seemed to deny entirely the Supreme Court's power to hand down binding interpretations of the Constitution. This proved too radical for Jefferson's protege, James Madison, who wrote to his patron that he had no doubt that the framers of the Constitution intended the federal courts to be a final arbiter of conflicts between federal and state law. On his deathbed, just before he expired on July 4, 1826, Jefferson criticized Madison for being too accommodating.

Another potential parallel involves Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War:

John Merryman, a state legislator from Maryland, is arrested for attempting to hinder Union troops from moving from Baltimore to Washington during the Civil War and is held at Fort McHenry by Union military officials. His attorney immediately sought a writ of habeas corpus so that a federal court could examine the charges. However, President Abraham Lincoln decided to suspend the right of habeas corpus, and the general in command of Fort McHenry refused to turn Merryman over to the authorities.

Federal judge Roger Taney, the chief justice of the Supreme Court (and also the author of the infamous Dred Scott decision), issued a ruling that President Lincoln did not have the authority to suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln didn’t respond, appeal, or order the release of Merryman. But during a July 4 speech, Lincoln was defiant, insisting that he needed to suspend the rules in order to put down the rebellion in the South.

Five years later, a new Supreme Court essentially backed Justice Taney’s ruling: In an unrelated case, the court held that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus and that civilians were not subject to military courts, even in times of war.

If Trump were to ever go down this road, Franklin said, the ultimate arbiter would be the other branch of government. He said Trump could be held in contempt of court, and it would then be up to the House of Representatives.

"[Contempt of court], in my opinion, is a 'high crime or misdemeanor' in the meaning of the Constitution, and he would be subject to impeachment,” Franklin said. “Whether or not the House of Representatives would see it that way is another question. It is at that point their call.”

Before we got to that point, though, we'd likely see wrangling between the judge and not Trump but the government officials working beneath him, said Joel Nichols, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas.

“The key to whether court orders are going to be obeyed isn’t about what President Trump does, but about how the judges respond to noncompliance and whether other non-Trump players decide to obey their orders,” Nichols said.

A judge would have to issue a “show cause” order if officials didn't seem to be obeying the order. If they still didn't obey, they could be held in contempt, and federal marshals could be dispatched to force them to do so or face jail time — which could also constitute a crisis.

“I think that some federal judges would be willing to issue a contempt order against [Trump], but I’m not sure they should or would, and they don’t need to,” Nichols said. “They only need to issue specific orders about laws and regulations, and then hold other government officials in contempt for not following the court order.”

Which gets to the other big question with Trump, should he opt to question the legal authority of a judge who runs afoul of him: whether the government agencies who would need to go along with Trump's decision would actually do so. Trump's defense and homeland security secretaries, for example, are military generals who are accustomed to a chain of command. Would they ignore a court order in favor of their boss, Trump?

It's all very hypothetical, but Trump's rhetoric — not just about the judge's decision, but the judge's actual authority — and his apparent desire to press his case for his own authority suggest it's not out of the question.

On a side note, the article includes a picture of Pence from the news shows this morning. He looks more constipated than usual.

 

Another disturbing article: Trump Cabinet pick paid by controversial Iranian exile group. An excerpt:

Quote

An official in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Cabinet and at least one of his advisers gave paid speeches to organizations linked to an Iranian exile group that killed Americans before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ran donation scams and saw its members set themselves on fire over the arrest of their leader.

Elaine Chao, confirmed this week as Trump’s transportation secretary, received $50,000 in 2015 for a five-minute speech to the political wing of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, previously called a “cult-like” terrorist group by the State Department. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also was paid an unknown sum to talk to the group, known as the MEK.

More than two dozen former U.S. officials, both Republican and Democratic, have spoken before the MEK, including former House Speaker and Trump adviser Newt Gingrich. Some have publicly acknowledged being paid, but others have not.

While nothing would have prohibited the paid speeches, they raise questions about what influence the exiles may have in the new administration.

Already, a group of former U.S. officials, including Giuliani, wrote a letter to Trump last month encouraging him to “establish a dialogue” with the MEK’s political arm. With Trump’s ban on Iranians entering the U.S., his administration’s call this week to put Iran “on notice” and the imposition of new sanctions on Friday, the exile group may find his administration more welcoming than any before.

Elaine Chao, aside from being married to nasty Mitch McConnell seemed to be the least objectionable of the cabinet picks. Note the past tense.

[fraurosena]

Yeah, ok, way to go, Tangerine Tantrum Toddler... dissing the country you are president of in order to crawl up your besties ass. Classy!

Quote

US President Donald Trump has defended Vladimir Putin when questioned over allegations of murders carried out by the Russian state.

In an interview with Fox News, he said: "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country's so innocent?"

And of course, of course, the elections that you won  were rigged. Everybody needs to be reminded of that. Again.

Quote

"Many people have come out and said I'm right, you know that.

"When you see illegals, people that are not citizens and they are on the registration rolls... you have illegals, you have dead people... it's really a bad situation."

Ok, ok, I'll hand it to him. He actually is right about one thing: It truly is a really bad situation. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38872328?ocid=socialflow_twitter

 

[sawasdee]

OK, @GreyhoundFan you have just scared the shit out of me! Those articles are scary in the extreme......where the hell is not just the US but the world heading?

[GreyhoundFan]

3 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

OK, @GreyhoundFan you have just scared the shit out of me! Those articles are scary in the extreme......where the hell is not just the US but the world heading?

Sorry for scaring you, but I agree, I just don't know where things are going, other than downhill.

 

I found this article interesting. It talks about Agent Orange's tactics from a sports point of view. Frankly, I agree with much of what is asserted.

Spoiler

Everyone — and I mean everyone — is trying to figure out President Trump right now.

Is he operating according to a master plan that only he, and maybe Stephen K. Bannon, can see? Or is he just doing stuff and seeing what happens? Is there method to what looks to many people like political madness?

The best unified theory of Trump I’ve come across is by Sally Jenkins, the legendary Washington Post sports reporter and columnist. Here’s Sally’s explanation of Trump from a tweet last week “An old sports strategy: foul so much in the 1st 5 min of the game that the refs can’t call them all. From then on, a more physical game.”

If you think about the first 14 (or so) days of the Trump presidency through that lens, it starts to make a lot of sense.

The Trump administration is clearly proud of the amount of action it has taken in such a short period of time. At his daily White House press briefing Friday, press secretary Sean Spicer noted that “the administration has already racked up more than 60 significant actions,” adding that the total included “21 executive actions, 16 meetings with foreign leaders and 10 stakeholder meetings.” (In Trump’s first 10 days in office, he signed six executive orders — the most among the 13 presidents who have held office since World War II, according to Smart Politics.)

And it’s not just the actions — it’s the sort of actions Trump has taken. One executive order set in motion the much-promised construction of a wall along our southern border. Another temporarily banned refugees from entering the United States and curtailed all visitors from seven predominantly Muslim nations.

Consider Trump’s moves in light of the Jenkins theory. What Trump is doing by taking on so many controversial subjects so quickly is defining the landscape on which his presidency will be judged. He’s seeing how far he can stretch the system before it breaks and, in so doing, setting the outer limits of what he can do very, very far out.

Putting some names to Jenkins’s argument might help. Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors is extremely hard to stop with the ball in his hands in a one-on-one situation. His dribbling ability, coupled with the quick release on his jump shot, makes him a near-impossible cover. Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers is a very good defender and knows all of that about Curry. So Paul employs a highly deliberate strategy. He starts every game where he is guarding Curry by playing the Golden State point guard very aggressively. Paul grabs Curry. He holds him. He hits him. And he dares the refs to call a bunch of fouls on him. Sometimes they do. Sometimes Paul gets in early foul trouble. But Paul doesn’t stop his aggressive play. And because the refs don’t want to foul out an all-star like Paul in the first half, he gets away with far rougher treatment of Curry than he would have if he didn’t start off so aggressively.

Paul is Trump in the political world. Curry is the political establishment — elected Republicans and Democrats, as well as lobbyists, consultants and the media.

(One major difference with that basketball analogy: Paul can foul out of a game. It’s much harder for Trump to be taken off the court for his boundary-pushing.)

There is outrage right now about much of what Trump is doing and whom he is entrusting with doing it — Bannon, in particular. Protests at airports. Legal complaints being filed. Democrats promising retaliatory action. Republicans wary of saying much of anything about, well, anything.

But if Jenkins is right — and I suspect she is — then that outrage, those protests, those skittish Republicans will all dissipate, or diminish, as Trump’s presidency goes on. What feels like line-pushing now will seem normal sometime soon. By pushing so hard so fast, Trump is redefining what he can do and how the political establishment, and the country at large, will react.

It’s like a building up a muscle. The first time you do bicep curls, you might be able to do only five. But if you do that same exercise every day for a month, you’ll do five reps without even thinking about it. You might not even remember that you once struggled to get to five curls.

That muscle buildup in the political world and the culture more broadly is something to watch very closely as Trump’s presidency continues. He has proved to be someone not only able to push the bounds of conventional wisdom well beyond normal limits but also to escape it without paying any real penalty. Will his “go hard early” strategy keep working as president?

 

And, because we all need something light: "More ‘alternative facts’ that explain the Trump administration". I can't quote it here, because here are many illustrations. My favorite is the first:

Quote

"Trump’s taxes were released, reviewed and cleared by independent auditors, but then, accidentally, they were eaten by a reanimated velociraptor."

 

[formergothardite]

30 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

On a side note, the article includes a picture of Pence from the news shows this morning. He looks more constipated than usual.

He has a "God please let him get impeached soon so I don't have to keep coming on shows and trying to explain away the stuff he says." look on his face. Pence sold his soul for power and with each day he looks a bit more dead inside. 

[fraurosena]

To follow up on @Howl's post on authoritarianism, here's another article on that subject where (other) experts chime in:

https://thinkprogress.org/experts-on-authoritarianism-say-trumps-presidency-is-getting-even-worse-c9c2ac76610f#.z6vx99p4l

Apart from stating that Bannon's role in the administration is 'pretty terrifying', I found this bit quite disturbing:

Quote

Trump and Bannon’s description of the media as an ‘opposition party’ is a major red flag.

Mudde: “This is a very classic [reaction] for a populist or illiberal democrat or autocrat. It’s classic to think in a Manichean world view, in which there is us and the enemy, and no space in between. Trump, as well as Bannon, clearly believes if you are not with him, you are against him. If you are against him, you don’t have legitimacy, because he won the elections. So it reflects extreme majoritarianism, where you argue — ironically for someone who didn't win a majority — ‘I won, so I can do whatever I want, and you should just accept this, because I have that legitimacy.’”

“There’s virtually no major radical right or racist organization that doesn’t do this.”

Berman: “You don’t want a main adviser calling out individual press outlets or journalists as enemies of the state…This is a question of norms. This is clearly a violation of longstanding American norms of what we understand freedom of the press to mean.”

 

[Howl]

On a happier note, both Nordstroms and Nieman Marcus are dropping Ivanka Trump.  The boycott is working.  

[sawasdee]

Yeah! More things to hit the Trump pocket are needed!

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Elaine Chao, aside from being married to nasty Mitch McConnell seemed to be the least objectionable of the cabinet picks. Note the past tense.

Lets not forget that Chao's family owns a shipping company that got caught smuggling cocaine a few years ago. You'd think the family values crowd would want to distance themselves from people with these sort of affiliations.  

[fraurosena]

Gotta love the Bern!

 

(Click on the link to see Bernie say it too)

'Cause the tangerine toddler is such a lovin' husband...

 

[iweartanktops]

16 hours ago, iweartanktops said:

Thank me later 

And I posted a clip of SNL on the Spicer thread. 

Awww, how disappointing! The link above usually blows his hair in different directions when you Trump him! It's hilarious! 

[GreyhoundFan]

16 minutes ago, iweartanktops said:

Awww, how disappointing! The link above usually blows his hair in different directions when you Trump him! It's hilarious! 

I got it to blow his hair in different directions. Also, by holding down the mouse button, it explodes confetti.

[fraurosena]

Now, this might be encouraging news!

http://time.com/4657648/charles-koch-donald-trump/?xid=time_socialflow_facebook

 

Quote

The billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, perhaps the most influential free-market activist in the nation, stood before 550 like-minded donors to declare his intention to fight key policies of President Donald Trump. "We cannot be partisan," he said as his guests sipped wine and the sun set over the mountains. "We can't say, 'O.K., this is our party, right or wrong.'"

 

[RoseWilder]

I highly recommend clicking to this guys page and reading the entire thread: 

CNN has angered me a lot over the last year, but I'm very glad that they're taking this stand. 

[onekidanddone]

<snark> Would everybody just please give him a chance! Stop bothering the man with facts and reality.  For the love of everything that is orange, don't you know  he is is working really really hard with the twitter and all.  Robing our country blind and burning the Constitution is difficult work.</snark>

24 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

I highly recommend clicking to this guys page and reading the entire thread: 

CNN has angered me a lot over the last year, but I'm very glad that they're taking this stand. 

Good.  A stop giving his spokes twits a voice for a while.  It will drive him even more crazy.  Short trip I know.  Report like hell on what he is doing, but lets turn our backs on his propaganda machine for a bit. 

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Now, this might be encouraging news!

http://time.com/4657648/charles-koch-donald-trump/?xid=time_socialflow_facebook

 

 

When a fellow  right wing  conservative white rich dude turns on you..... that ain't good.

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Gotta love the Bern!

 

(Click on the link to see Bernie say it too)

'Cause the tangerine toddler is such a lovin' husband...

 

Keep up the fight Bernie. Glad you are in the Senate kicking ass.

[JMarie]

 

Courtesy of Half An Onion's Twitter

Quote

Here's a fun drinking game we can all play. Take a shot whenever @realDonaldTrump misspells Gorsuch in a tweet.

 

[onekidanddone]

4 minutes ago, JMarie said:

 

Courtesy of Half An Onion's Twitter

 

So many drinking games to have over this.  Alcohol poising, not a good thing.

[AuntK]

23 hours ago, iweartanktops said:

Can't stop laughing! 

............... 

And damn it, I wish I had been confused earlier. 

I know, I kinda, not quite, rolled my eyes in court once when I was just out of law school.  OMG! I thought I was going to jail! Never did that again!

[Cartmann99]

I ran into some female Trump fans on Twitter who were upset about the halftime show. From what I gathered, Lady Gaga sang This Land is Your Land which means she's a Commie, so this group of elderly ladies felt compelled to pray for Donald Trump and then spiritually sealed our borders.

Shields are up, so I guess we can't use the transporter anymore.

*sighs dejectedly*

 

[iweartanktops]

3 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

So many drinking games to have over this.  Alcohol poising, not a good thing.

I think I'd die of alcohol poisoning if I drank every time he tweeted "bad" or "sad". Oh, and "enjoy". Hahaha! 

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

I ran into some female Trump fans on Twitter who were upset about the halftime show. From what I gathered, Lady Gaga sang This Land is Your Land which means she's a Commie, so this group of elderly ladies felt compelled to pray for Donald Trump and then spiritually sealed our borders.

Shields are up, so I guess we can't use the transporter anymore.

*sighs dejectedly*

 

Wait, what? Our borders are now spiritually sealed? I wonder if they can spiritually seal my outstanding parking tickets. Those damn things are killing me! 

[47of74]

Here's a site outlining why Trump is great, written by someone who is not a Branch Trumpvidian.

http://whytrumpisgreat.com/

Seriously, check it out.  It's not what you think it is either.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Exxon Mobil won the Secretary of State position and now they'll have license to bribe foreign governments.

Quote

The Republican-led Congress killed a controversial U.S. securities disclosure rule early on Friday aimed at curbing corruption at big oil, gas and mining companies.

In a 52 to 47 vote, the Senate approved a resolution already passed by the House of Representatives that wipes from the books a rule requiring companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp to publicly state the taxes and other fees they pay to foreign governments.

Republican President Donald Trump is expected to sign it shortly.

Exxon and other major energy corporations have fought for years to prevent the rule, required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, from seeing the light of day.

After a series of legal battles, the Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2016 completed the regulation, which supporters say can help expose questionable financial ties U.S. companies may have with foreign governments.

Democrats in the Senate had raised concerns during debate late on Wednesday that Exxon’s chief executive during those legal fights was Rex Tillerson, recently confirmed as Secretary of State, the country’s top diplomatic post.

Tillerson, who has done extensive business in Russia, had raised Democrats’ hackles at his confirmation hearing by saying he did not know Exxon had lobbied against U.S. sanctions on Russia.

“It should be lost on no one that in less than 48 hours, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed the former head of ExxonMobil to serve as our Secretary of State, and repealed a key anti-corruption rule that ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute have erroneously fought for years,” said Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the foreign relations committee.

Cardin had written the Dodd-Frank section on the payments with former Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-regulations-sec-oil_us_58947228e4b040613136476d

With the Orange God blessings Corporate America can go on disrupting other countries democracies.

[Cartmann99]

5 hours ago, iweartanktops said:

Wait, what? Our borders are now spiritually sealed? I wonder if they can spiritually seal my outstanding parking tickets. Those damn things are killing me! 

You can't use profanity and expect Granny Susan and her friends to power up and shazam your packing tickets. These delicate ladies are not used to such vulgarities, they are Trump supporters! 

9 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

So many drinking games to have over this.  Alcohol poising, not a good thing.

You started without us, didn't you?