Congress has the power of the purse. Also the Senate can block or outright reject major appointments and there’s no such thing as an acting Supreme Court Justice.
I am missing that. Trump will continue to not spend appropriated funds in some areas and violate the Antideficiency Act in others.
Now, if you mean that good laws should be passed even knowing Trump will veto, I’m good with that. Just don’t set the Democrats up for failure by giving the impression they can actually stop a dictatorial president from dictating.
They absolutely need to refuse to confirm any Supreme Court justices for the next two years. No matter what. Make this the end of the Trump Court.
They better do what Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell did. Say we need the next president to pick.
War Powers Act, The president can only do war for a very limited time without Congressional approval.
Only if we can get 67 votes in the Senate, otherwise, do not bother.
Next budget the Dems will just cot back ICE budget to pre-trump levels. If trump want to Veto that, he has to veto the entire budget.
If we can not get 67 votes, it is pointless, and seemingly makes trump more popular.
Nonsense. Other than SCOTUS, most vacancies are non-political. But yes, if Thomas, for example, passes away, then of course the Dems can not let trump fill that seat.
Right.
Not for trump. Maybe for Hegseth. We need 12 crossovers.
Yep.
Right.
Now we could maybe get those 12 crossover votes if trump vetoes something like the budget.
Well, there is the small offhand chance trump will try some sane candidate. 
I wonder if Trump will go so off the rails due to some desire to get back at Republicans that (in his mind) betrayed him that he might do something like that. Probably not, but wishful thinking can’t hurt 
The first investigation should be into what DOGE and Elon Musk were up to last year.
Right. Of course Congress can do many things. It does so every day. The amount of time spent in hearings, both informational and accusatory, is probably two orders of magnitude larger than the time spent on the floor. Every floor bill has to go through committees first, remember.
Trump’s impeachable is a fantasy. Thirteen Republicans would be needed to convict. Not gonna happen even if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue. Impeachments of Hegseth and Kennedy? Maybe, but only if Trump doesn’t sack them first, which he probably will. What should happen are investigations into incompetence and graft in the administration and elsewhere. Explain to the public who got their money. Trump has publicly boasted that Big Oil made hundreds of billions without saying that money came directly from ordinary workers’ pockets. Make them squirm.
Alito has been saying he will retire at the end of the term. Not replacing him will not shut down the Supreme Court. A 4-4 tie leaves the lower court ruling intact. That’s a spectacularly good thing since the worst SC decisions have come from overturning these.
Good points, and some claim the second try actually helped trump.
I do not want the 2027 Congress to go after Trump, but if they do, I would rather they focus on the criminal corruption instead of Epstein or whatever. Epstein is for Netflix, foreign deals are for impeachment.
Could Congress declare itself an affected party in lawsuits about the ballroom or the arch? The previous lawsuit about the ballroom got dismissed because the court said that the people suing had no standing. Articles at the time said the now current congress could do or say something, but just shrugged and blew it off. Since Congress didn’t get asked for permission or funding (or whatever), they could make the case that they are harmed by these projects.
Work on inflation, restore funding for necessary parts of the government and reduce the bloated budgets of defense and immigration enforcement. Shore up and possibly expand health care coverage and take small measures to ensure the survival of social security. Make small increases to tax rates on high incomes. These are popular policies with the electorate!
Investigate the living fuck out of the administration underlings to make sure the public knows the depths of the corruption. DO NOT impeach Trump unless you’ve got 11 Republican senators who have quietly agreed to convict so that their party can jumpstart its rebuild.
Krugman has a great wishlist here:
This is excellent. Well worth reading.
This. Obviously inflation was going on before the Iran war, but prices spiked when Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz for oil export. That’s why I think priority number one needs to be resolving the situation with Iran and getting the Strait of Hormuz returned to how it was operating before the war. What are the details on how to best go about that? I’m not sure. Maybe it means impeaching Hegseth. Maybe it means using the War Powers act to declare peace, or that the war will no longer be funded, or some such thing. Maybe it means direct diplomacy between Congress and the Iranian government. Whatever it takes, they need to get it done.
Wasn’t that Jack Smith’s (and Robert Mueller’s) approach?
Which is why it’s so annoying that the Republicans successfully defended 13 seats. And I blame everyone who did not pound hard enough the fact that it’s a sin to vote for a Republican.
I think I was leaning towards everything Krugman suggested anyway but that was still a pretty convincing piece. Will Dem leadership agree and be up for the fight? I believe that voters will recognize the effort, especially the illuminating fight against the personal corruption, and reward Dems with another big win in 2028 but I think we’re all a little wary of Schumer and Jeffries not being up to the task.
This is where I’m at. Democrats ran on corruption being a major factor in the economic problems. If they aren’t willing to at least try to root out corruption then they have failed on their promises.
Definitely. I think the biggest things to work on, in addition to ending the Iran war, are getting rid of the Trump tariffs and ending the immigration crackdown. A lot of those immigrants provide low wage labor that is going to be difficult to replace without driving prices up even further. A little further down the list will be fighting against the anti-competitive practices of companies like Amazon that are also driving prices up.
The questions are 1) How successful can Democrats be with Trump likely to obstruct them at every turn and 2) How will Democrats manage to keep Trump and the Republicans from claiming the credit if things actually do get better? I’ve already started hearing Republican elected officials talking about how “things are going to get better because we’re going to focus on working together”, as if they are already contributing to the solution.
I don’t think anyone outside their base is even listening to them anymore. Some people take an unfathomably long time to realize Trump is scum, but once they do, they tend not to change their mind. I think there’s now a solid majority that can’t stand the guy.
“The moral arc of Trump’s approval rating is long, but it bends toward zero”