How Long Before The GOP Congress Votes Itself Out Of Power?
President Donald Trump and his "first buddy" Elon Musk have moved swiftly to precipitate more than one constitutional crisis during the first few weeks of the new administration. The two are running roughshod over the basic separation of powers in American government, aided and abetted by the Republicans in control of Congress. Which leads to a serious question -- how long will it be before they just wash their hands of all pretense of power and formally hand it all directly to Trump?
Sound farfetched? Well, it's happened before. Legislatures have essentially disbanded themselves or made themselves completely irrelevant by handing over -- to one man -- not only the "power of the purse" (the ability to set the government's budget) but also the ability to write all other laws as well. If this comes to pass, it'll be called a "temporary emergency measure," but it will be the death knell of the separation of powers. All that will be left would be for Trump to ignore the Supreme Court, and he will have seized full control of all levers of government. There would simply not be anyone left to stop him, at that point.
You may be inclined to dismiss the idea as overwrought or not very probable. But some of the worries about it are actually emanating from conservatives. Even the Wall Street Journal has published some scathing editorials warning of the damage Trump and Musk have been doing. Here's an article from Salon that caught my eye (there are more conservative voices quoted in the full article, I should mention):
"The Trump administration has essentially declared war on Article I of the Constitution," Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the right-wing Manhattan Institute and former aid to retired Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said in an interview with Salon.
. . .
"The Constitution put Congress in Article I because Congress is designed to be the primary branch. It's the closest to the people. Its elections are the most often, and it ensures that no single person will have the power of the purse," Riedl said. "If Congress isn't going to have the power of the purse -- they've already surrendered the power of tariffs and declaring war -- what's the point of having Congress?"
Good question. And it's not that far a leap from claiming that the president has the power to decide to cut off funding for any program he doesn't personally like (which Musk has already been doing with a passion) to declaring that the president also has the power to decide what money gets spent on everything. If Trump can ignore laws passed by Congress in willy-nilly fashion, then he can also ignore budgets passed by Congress just as easily. Who's going to stop him? Republicans in Congress? Don't make me laugh. Here's the worst of the worst reactions from a GOP senator (so far, at least):
Another senior Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis, R- N.C., acknowledged that Musk and Trump's actions were unconstitutional but said that "nobody should bellyache about that."
"That runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense," Tillis told NOTUS. But "it's not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending."
I'm sorry, but: "in the strictest sense"? I must have missed that clause in the oath you swore to defend the Constitution that said "except for a little bit of flex, of course."
Conservative voices in the media are also pointing out the danger of what is happening, with varying degrees of alarm and snarkiness:
To say that what is happening now is a constitutional crisis is to put it too mildly.
Let's call it what it is: a constitutional collapse.
Congress's abdication of its constitutional powers and responsibilities to an executive branch run amok -- or, you might say, run-a-Musk -- would surely have horrified the Founders.
Media voices on the left are just as alarmed about the danger, but they tend to add more snark to their commentary:
The GOP's failure goes far beyond Senate confirmations. With Trump's blessing, the unelected and unaccountable Musk is trying to decimate and ultimately destroy the nonpartisan civil service, without a peep of protest from Republicans. Foreign aid programs that long enjoyed bipartisan support have been axed -- and only Democrats complain. Trump seizes powers that the Constitution clearly gives to Congress, not the president -- and Republicans in Congress pretend not to notice.
Rather than push back, leaders of Trump's party lavish him with North Korean-style praise. I'm confident that if the top Republicans in Congress were meeting with Trump and the president accidentally spilled Diet Coke on his red necktie, they would all promptly spill Diet Coke on their red neckties, too.
Wouldn't surprise me in the least. And then it would be lauded as a fashion statement and every Republican politician would sport ties with Diet Coke stains from that point on, as a mark of loyalty to the Dear Leader. Trump would then quickly auction off the first stained tie he wore to the highest bidder.
Snark aside, though, at this point I can only see congressional Republicans waking up and pushing back on one possible big issue: Pentagon spending. What happens when Elon Musk turns his budget-slashing sights on Pentagon procurement? That may be a bridge too far for Republicans. Pentagon spending is spread around everywhere -- there are people making money supplying the Pentagon in just about every state (if not every single congressional district). This is by design, so that anyone proposing cutting the Pentagon's budget will cause a very widespread outrage among those who profit from it -- spread around enough that every senator and a whole lot of representatives start getting irate calls from big donors in their states and districts. Plus, there's the whole built-in jingoism of never approving the cutting of a single dollar from the nation's defense, no matter what (which exists on both sides of the political aisle, but it has always been completely dominant on the Republican side in particular).
So what's going to happen when Musk and his tech-bro underlings show up at the Pentagon and demand access to the computer systems that hold the accounting for the billions upon billions of dollars the Pentagon spends? What is Trump's secretary of Defense going to do when this does happen? And more importantly, how will congressional Republicans react?
If the answer to those questions is "they will roll over and allow Musk to do whatever he wants" then the Republican Congress should really consider just making it all official, hold a final vote on giving up all their powers to Donald Trump with an emergency "Enabling Act," and call it a day. That way Musk can fire them all and stop all their salaries, all in the name of cutting more wasteful government spending.
It's a dystopian concept to be sure, but we now live in dystopian times. So having the Republicans in Congress just vote themselves out of existence isn't as farfetched (or "laughably impossible") as it seemed just three weeks ago.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
As usual, you've put things in the worst possible light - and who can say you're wrong?
I really don't understand how the Republican men and women of the Congress can tell themselves they have to give the president free reign to destroy the Constitution, and their own political powers as Representatives, for fear of being 'primaried' and evicted from office. But why even try to keep ahold the office, if it's to be a powerless one? And more to the point, why try to hold onto the office at the expense of ones soul as an honest and ethical person and upright citizen-legislator?
Ahhhhh
So we're back to AAAAARRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH PRESIDENT TRUMP IS GOING TO DESTROY THE CONSTITUTION cry again...
Com'on, CW... That is soooo 2015!! :eyeroll:
I keep telling ya'all... You woke progressives are going to have to come up with a better solution to your PRESIDENT Trump "problem"...
The old TRUMP IS HITLER/SATAN/GOING TO DESTROY DEMOCRACY bullshit simply is NOT going to cut it in the here and now...
You people are going to hysterical yerselves right out of existence.. :D
Woke Progessiveism is dead, my friends..
The sooner you accept that fact, the better off and the happier ya'all will be... :D
Just trying to help ya'all out... :D
Woke Progessiveism is dead, my friends..
The sooner you accept that fact, the better off and the happier ya'all will be... :D
Allow me to elaborate
It has been evident for some time that the Democrat Party isn’t in a great place. It’s somewhat normal for that to be the case for a party after a disappointing election.
But the scale of Democrats’ problems is beginning to come into focus. And it’s both stark and sobering for the blue team.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday had this stunning finding: While Americans were about evenly split in their views of the Republican Party (43 percent favorable to 45 percent unfavorable), negative views of the Democrat Party outpaced positive ones by 26 points — 31 percent favorable to 57 percent unfavorable.
That’s not only a huge imbalance but also an unprecedented one.
In fact, Democrats’ 57 percent unfavorable rating is their highest ever in Quinnipiac’s polling, dating back to 2008, while the GOP’s 43 percent favorable rating is its highest ever.
Get that?? Democrat Party has a 31 PERCENT favorable rating!!!
THIRTY ONE PERCENT!!!!!
You people need to accept the objective reality...
Your woke progressive Democrat Party is dead...
PRESIDENT Trump killed it..
PRESIDENT Trump slayed the donkey..
Ya'all are going to need to find a more honest Party.. A more PATRIOTIC Party...
The good news for ya'all is I have JUST the place for ya?? :D
My Voice,
You don't know who MELAKON is!!???
What kind of Weigantian are you!!!???? :D
As usual, you've put things in the worst possible light - and who can say you're wrong?
"Uh... That would be me.."
-Beach Bully, BEDAZZLED
:D
You people need to accept the objective reality...
Your woke progressive Democrat Party is dead...
What's that?? You need more facts??
OK... If you insist...
Google scraps diversity-based hiring targets
Even GOOGLE is killing it's DEI programs...
I mean, honestly...
Ya'all just HAVE to know that woke progressivism is dead when Democrats lose GOOGLE....
Everyone is jumping on board the PRESIDENT Trump train..
It's not too late for ya'all to get on board!! :D
People all over the world (everybody)
Join hands (join)
Join the Trump train, Trump train
People all over the world (all the world, now)
Join hands (love ride)
Join the Trump train (love ride), Trump train
The next stop that we make will be England
Tell all the folks in Russia, and China, too
Don't you know that it's time to get on board
And let this train keep on riding, riding on through
Well, well
People all over the world (you don't need no money)
Join hands (come on)
Join the Trump train, Trump train (don't need no ticket, come on)
People all over the world (join in, ride this train)
Join in (ride this train, y'all)
Join the Trump train (come on, train), Trump train
People all over the world (everybody)
Join hands (join)
Join the Trump train, Trump train
People all over the world (all the world, now)
Join hands (love ride)
Join the Trump train (love ride), Trump train
:D
As ya'all can tell, I am in a pretty good mood...
I have been selected for FTO training.. :D
I am so good at what I do, my supervisors want me to train others..
Quite the honor it is.. :D
So yea... I am a happy camper..
And the TOP BURN of the week goes to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy... :D
Consider this exchange...
Newly installed Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced that DOGE was going to upgrade our sagging air infrastructure...
Of course, has-been Hillary Clinton had to chime in...
"They have no relevant experience. Most of them aren't old enough to rent a car. And you're going to let them mess with airline safety that's already deteriorated on your watch?"
And Sec Duffy responded with a HUGE SLAP DOWN..
"Madam Secretary, with all due respect, 'experienced' Washington bureaucrats are the reason our nation's infrastructure is crumbling. You need to sit this one out."
-SecTrans Sean Duffy
OUCH!!!!!!!
"And the REF takes a point away!!!"
-Jim Carrey, LIAR LIAR
Yep, ya'all need to come to grips with the crushing objective reality..
Yer Democrat Party is toast....
They can't even score point against a guy who's title is "Trans Sec"... :D
Hay Democrats!!!
http://mfccfl.us/KirkDEI.jpg
:D
And it looks like all this Men In Women's Sports BS is done and gone for good.. :D
NCAA bars transgender athletes from women's sports after Trump order
The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes on Thursday, limiting competition in women's sports to athletes who were assigned female at birth.
The move came one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports. The order gives federal agencies latitude to withhold federal funding from entities that do not abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration's view, which interprets "sex" as the gender someone was assigned at birth.
The NCAA policy change is effective immediately and applies to all athletes regardless of previous eligibility reviews. The NCAA has some 1,100 member schools with more than 500,000 athletes, easily the largest governing body for college athletics in the U.S.
It's amazing how fast the NCAA reversed itself.. :D
Why, it's almost as if people are afraid to get on PRESIDENT Trump's bad side...
I guess that's what happens when a President wins an election with a massive mandate! :D
People change their evil ways to curry favor with the new Sheriff in town.. :D
So, what was that ya'all were saying??? Something about "only 10 men in women's sports"???
Apparently, it's enough to cause a problem with the NCAA, eh?? :D
Dr Martin Luther King Jr envisioned a nation for his children not “judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
DEI Woke Progressivism is the exact OPPOSITE of Dr King's dream..
The Democrat Party is KILLING Dr King's dream....
This is not too surprising when one considers the FACT that it was the Democrat Party that gave this country the KKK and Jim Crow... :^/
If the Democrat Party wants a 2024 Election Autopsy, they need look no further than Senator John Fetterman
"I think their primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them ‘Hey, I know better than you' or 'you’re dopes' or 'you’re a bro' or 'you’re ignorant' or 'how can you be this dumb?' I can’t imagine it. And then, 'oh, by the way, you’re fascists'. How can you vote for that?
And you know, when you’re in a state like Pennsylvania, I know and I love people that voted for Trump, and they’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And we Democrats have done that.
I think that’s been seriously eroding for a while. And in some cases, in the conversations I’ve had, a lot of people, they don’t even want to say it publicly, but they just feel like the other side seems like…the men’s the problem.. Men are to blame. Or their masculinity is toxic. Or unless you’re able to conform to our very strict kinds of definition of what we think is appropriate, well then, hey, I’m going to find an alternative. And they’ve done that. That’s absolutely true.
And once Democrats kind of turned their back on that demographic, it’s going to be difficult to rebuild and replace that with those voters, because I think that migration has been an ongoing phenomenon for several years and that has been in front and center in part of the election in ’24.
One area where we kind of lost ourselves was the border. And I've been on this network, you know, months, months ago saying, 'Hey, you know, it can't be controversial for our party to have pro-immigration, but we need a secure border.' And when we ask or demand people to not believe what they see, and see those kinds of numbers, that that's not a problem. It's like, well, then you lose about that 100%."
EVERYTHING that Senator Fetterman said above is what I have been telling ya'all for YEARS....
And look at you people now??
Many of you are HYSTERICAL and BEGGING for a BLOCK function so you can avoid the facts and avoid the Objective Reality of what you woke progressive Democrats have become..
Do ya'all HONESTLY think a BLOCK function is what ya'all need???
What ya'all need is a HUGE dose of reality and a HUGE dose of FACTS..
And THAT is exactly what I provide.. Facts and reality...
For those who HONESTLY believe that a BLOCK function will solve your problem??? THAT is a HUGE clue that ya are PART of the problem..
I'm just sayin'....
You people go on and on with your "NO ONE ELECTED MUSK" BS...
No one elected Anthony Fauci
No one elected George Soros
No one elected Bill Gates
No one elected Hunter Biden
No one elected Amos Hochstein
No one elected Ye Jianming
And no one elected Token DEI Hire Has Ben Hooker Headboard Harris as the Democrat candidate for POTUS...
Democrat so-called "leadership" needs to sit down and shut up and wait for their warrants to be finalized..
:eyeroll:
Dude, your dumb slurs have moved into mental illness territory...Get help.
As to the rest, when any of those people get access to government computers with the intention to twitterize those departments without congressional authority, you might have a point.
Except for George Soros. Listing him just makes you a massive hypocrite...
https://media.tenor.com/ObGinMUOqvoAAAAe/chris-tucker-fifth.png
:eyeroll:
And PRESIDENT Trump is doing **ANOTHER** Press Conference!!
What is that?? 20?? THIRTY!!!????
PRESIDENT Trump did MORE press conferences in his FIRST WEEK than Basement Biden and Headboard Harris did in 4 years!! COMBINED!!!
It's really nice to have a PRESIDENT who is actually in charge...
With Basement Biden we STILL don't know who was actually running the country... It couldn't have been Basement Biden.. He had to go to sleep for the night at 1600hrs!!
It's amazing to see how far the Democrat Party has fallen...
THIRTY ONE PERCENT approval rating!!!!
NO wonder ya'all are so quiet... Yer hiding your heads in shame...
It's a good look for ya'all.. :D
Interesting notion..
Ya'all know that if the media is behind ya, ya'all can't really call yourselves "The Resistance"..
Ya'all know that, right?? :D
And it looks like ***ANOTHER*** Trump Team Member is confirmed!!!
What's that now??? 10?? 12?? 15?? ... Nominees that Democrats have completely and utterly *FAILED* at stopping!!???
Are ya'all getting the message that EVERYONE is jumping on board the PRESIDENT Trump train??? :D
It's no wonder everyone here is afraid of posting!!!! :D
PRESIDENT Trump got ALL OF THIS DONE in just a little under 3 weeks!!!
Just imagine how awesome he is going to be with FOUR YEARS!!!! :D
A wise old saying..
Give a Democrat a fish and he'll eat for a day...
Teach a Democrat to fish and he'll steal your rod, take your wallet, sexually assault the fish and blame everything on PRESIDENT Trump.
It's factually accurate.. :D
BREAKING: Daniel Penny just landed a role at Andreessen Horowitz, the premier investment firm in Silicon Valley.
In an internal statement seen by The Free Press, David Ulevitch, a general partner at the firm, confirmed the hire.
“He will learn the business of investing and he will work to support our portfolio companies,” wrote Ulevitch in a note sent to all employees this afternoon.
It's awesome to see GOOD things happen to GOOD people who were frak'ed over by Democrats...
So what's going to happen when Musk and his tech-bro underlings show up at the Pentagon and demand access to the computer systems that hold the accounting for the billions upon billions of dollars the Pentagon spends?
I hear that it has not gone unnoticed by many that Hegseth is very fond of showing off his many tattoos.
What is Trump's secretary of Defense going to do when this does happen?
It seems he is likely to roll up his right sleeve.
Helluva lot of scrolling-on here, and still not getting anywhere. Maybe Chris's piece was just too depressing to get any responses.