He looks like a model in a 1950s Brylcreem advertisement:
I mean, Trump doesn’t really make decisions. All of these people are Apprentice-ing for their roles and will be fired the first time they do anything that displeases him. But that does bring up one genuine question about Trump’s Gamut of Goons:
Stranger
Indeed. Looks like he made it to Major in the Minnesota Army National Guard. Seems like a great pick for Secretary of Defense. I wonder if Walz knew him?
Where are the brooms?
I like it, but I think we, the Teeming Millions, can think of a more appropriate collective noun for that crew.
Gavin Newsom always looks like the evil real estate developer in a '90s kids movie who wants to tear down the beloved neighborhood rec center/diner/park/school/church/fairground to build luxury condos.
I don’t know that much about some of these choices. Stefanik has impressed me before but, unlike Rubio and Waltz, seems inexperienced. One presumes they were chosen for loyalty and looking the part. No doubt several of them are unlikely to last four years if Trump remains mercurial. Picking a journalist personality was certainly a surprise, and there will be others.
Unfortunately, no matter what Trump does/doesn’t do, your kids are likely going to be living in a climate-change-induced dystopian nightmare. Though I expect what he does do will hasten its arrival.
He’s the trying-to-be-cool stepdad who turns out to be a cocaine dealer:
Elise Stefanik is a “truth-denying acolyte of Donald Trump”.
This is going to be essentially true regardless of which party is in power because despite the pretense of doing ‘things’ to combat climate change, no American political leader is going to take the extreme measures necessary to affect change (notwithstanding that even if they did many other nations like China and India will not follow), and frankly a lot of that change is already baked in. But what a realist political administration could do is to provide information and guidance on developing resiliency and facilitating relocation from areas that are not going to be able to sustain their current populations or will be subject to the ravages of extreme weather events. But the GOP and former Trump administration prohibited spending funds on disseminating information about the 4th and 5th National Climate Assessment Report (which details the projected impacts of climate change on a state and county level in the United States), and we can fully expect this administration and a MAGA-driven majority to completely dismantle NOAA and Earth weather satellite surveillance programs which will hobble any efforts to address climate change and upon which most other nations are heavily dependent for their planning. So…going from bad to very much worse.
Stranger
Yep. The only difference between humanity and a mouse pushing a cocaine button is that humanity can read the big sign above the button reading “This is cocaine, do not push this or you will die.”
The Injustice League?
What are the odds that Trump will succeed in doing an end run around the Senate, so that nominees are not fully scrutinized or possibly found to be unsuitable? Don’t sone positions require confirmation from the House and Senate?
It almost goes without saying that any nominee Trump prefers for prominent positions will be a Trump acolyte, or at least acolyte-adjacent.
He quickly discovered last time around he can rotate “acting” members for those positions. Why wouldn’t he do the same thing this time?
Well, he is trying to get Senate leaders to permit him to make ‘recess appointments’ by default. What are recess appointments? The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has answers:
# What Is the Purpose of a Recess Appointment?
The Constitution states that “[t]he President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may
happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End
of their next Session” (Article II, §2, clause 3). The records of debate at the Constitutional
Convention do not provide much evidence of the framers’ intentions in the Recess Appointment
Clause. A discussion of the clause by Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers, suggests
that its purpose was to provide an alternative method of appointment that would allow the filling
of vacancies “without delay” during periods of Senate absence.1 Opinions by later Attorneys
General also supported this general notion, suggesting that the purpose of the clause was to allow
the President to maintain the continuity of administrative government through the temporary
filling of offices during periods when the Senate was not in session, at which time his nominees
could not be considered or confirmed.2 This interpretation is supported by the fact that both
houses of Congress had relatively short sessions and long recesses during the country’s early
years. In fact, until the beginning of the 20th century, the Senate was, on average, in session less
than half the year.3 Throughout the history of the republic, Presidents have also sometimes used
the recess appointment power for political reasons. For example, recess appointments have
sometimes enabled the President to temporarily install an appointee who probably would not be
confirmed by the Senate.
Trump very much wants to appoint Cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries, and heads of executive agencies without the formalities of Senate confirmation hearings even if the results are guarenteed, and it is not at all assured that this Republican-dominated Senate with a majority in thrall of MAGA willnot grant him that authority on at least a limited basis “for expediency”. It isn’t even unconstitutional if the Senate agrees, so all of those posters repeating the mantra “As long as the Constitution remains intact, we’ll be fine,” should respectfully consider the implications of this even if they believe it to be unlikely.
Only the Senate confirms Cabinet secretaries and other people with first and second tier executive authority (in essence, ‘speaking for the President’ as part of their duty to “advise and consent”.
Yes, but first they have to be confirmed by the Senate into some high tier position. Unless…well, see above.
Everyone should read the U.S. Constitution. I suspect most people have not because they believe it has no bearing on their everyday lives and The Golden Bachelorette is really enthralling, but it is actually not a long document and written mostly in plain language. Reading it won’t enshroud you in protective armor but at least you’ll be familiar when you see the government exercising ‘loopholes’ like recess appointments in a way not at all in line with the intentions of the authors, and also when your rights are being flatly violated (which happens quite a lot, actually, and with the tacit extent of both major parties). The CRS also has an excellent series of reports exploring the Constitutional framework and background context which is a great place to get started if you are curious about interpretations pf the Constitution free of partisan bullshit. It is very helpful in identifying when an autocrat, enabled by the legislature and not restrained by the courts, is trying to take away your protected freedoms or subvert the required duties of government and separation of powers.
Finally, while the parallels are not exact, I’m just going to throw this dead cat on the table for your consideration because it is a surprisingly well-written for a Wikipedia article and presents a scenario which actually happened in which a despot took control of a government without electoral consent or a broad decree and then…well, we all know what happened next:
Stranger
Hell, after showing interest in it, I was encouraged to study it, by my Constitutional Law professor. And this was at a Canadian law school. I did study it, on my own time, but under my professor’s guidance, and I think I know it pretty well.
Sadly, perhaps, this Canadian knows it better than most Americans.
Of that I am certain. Most Americans can’t identify obvious terms, key provisions. or the basic functions of even five of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. And despite often being characterized as “the perfect document”, it is full of loopholes, compromises, and ambiguities. But all told it is still a pretty firm basis for democratic governance in a republican form of government, and when you see somebody trying to do an end run around it you can be assured that they are up to no good.
Stranger
There are two amendments the 2nd and that other one.
Unless you’re a SovCit and then there are four the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and the 5th.
It’s a guarantee you know it better than the person who prevailed in the 2024 election.
And damn sure never ever the tenth.
That might be the important part.
There are intelligent posters here on this board who have read it and still make mistaken assertions about basic provisions in it. Simply reading the US Constitution is no panacea. A basic grounding is certainly important but it does not really prepare people for the minutiae of actual government practice anymore than reading the rules of Chess prepares anybody to take on a Grand Master.
And that’s still setting aside the often inane and pointless arguments over the 2nd Amendment (among others).
There were stories that come out of the first trump administration, especially from early on when there were still a few ‘adults in the room’, actual experienced, responsible advisors and cabinet officials. trump would give them an order to do something that was a Very Bad Idea, and they’d say ‘sure boss’…then slow-walk the execution of it until he completely forgot about what he asked for a couple days later. Now every wacky demand is going to cause a bevy of lickspittle toadies to trip over each other to make it happen.
Majority Leader-Elect John Thune says he won’t be eliminating the filibuster.