Originally published at: A Full-Blown Constitutional Crisis With No End In Sight
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. Judges Can Only Do So Much President Trump’s extraordinary assault on the constitutional order is inflicting unimaginable damage on democracy at home, on U.S. national interests abroad, on individual rights, and on the health, safety…
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"While the focus is now shifting to the courts and the dozens of important lawsuits that have been filed in recent days to try to rein in all manner of blatant presidential lawlessness, judges can only do so much. While fighting Trump in the courts is critical and could shape much of the next four years and beyond, it an extremely limited response to the breakdown in the constitutional order that is underway.
However bad, however lawless, however dystopian you think this may become, you have failed to imagine the worst yet to happen.
Oh, just wait until Trump proposes it should be legal if a person wants to be enslaved. Since the language of the 14th Amendment is allegedly unclear, we might as well add in the 13th. Go ahead, utter that useless phrase “Oh, he’ll never do that.”
If you can think it, he can do it. And probably will. Or at least propose it.
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Yeah, I’m thinking it’s a full blown constitutional explosive disintegration.
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President Trump’s extraordinary assault on the constitutional order is inflicting unimaginable damage on democracy at home, on U.S. national interests abroad, on individual rights, and on the health, safety and welfare of all Americans.
Let’s not give short shrift to ‘undermining our national security:’
Ostensibly, it’s important to GQP voters, ya know.
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I feel like I’m out of town and someone is burgling my house and all I have to see what’s going on is a malfunctioning camera that is only streaming sound back to me.
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And when they refuse to comply with a court order…then what???
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Looks like we’re very close to storming the Bastille. Seriously, what else is there?
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“If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It”
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Yes. I’ve thought the Dems should have been attacking the whole GOP years. “A vote for my opponent is a vote for an entire political party populated by neonazis, Christian Nationalists, insurrectionists, bigots, racists, misogynists, ant-democratic radicals, liars, bullshitters and jaywalkers!”
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I’ve been trying to think of a metaphor for what we’re going through, and of course there isn’t one.
Still, over the weekend I happened to catch the opening of the movie “The Town” when my seatmate on a plane started watching it. It begins with a brutal bank robbery – very efficient but still results in one of the robbers getting violent and pistol-whipping a bank manager into oblivion.
That’s where we are now.
It’s made me reflect on how sleek and powerful movies make bank robberies look, even ones that result in death. You seldom get a sense of the terror of the bank employees. I would probably lose control of my bowels – not uncommon in wartime, either.
I hope this bank robbery ends with justice, and soon. But I’m not hopeful, since half the bank’s owners – the Rs in Congress and in the states – are going, well, we’ll get a nice insurance payment out of the whole thing. Too bad about the dead people.
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Given the crisis we’re in it seems a bit twee, but go for it I guess.
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FTFS (translation available upon request…)
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I suspect some lessons about The First Rule Of Data Backups may be coming.
“Nobody cares about Backups. Everybody cares about Restores.”
Of course, you need a clean, restorable backup to do a restore…
Thankfully(?) in my experience, most software developer types don’t think about the backup data until they need to do a restore. That’s a thin thread to hang hope on, because it seems certain one of these GizmoBros is totally going to screw up some critical system that has been creaking along because it’s an ancient construct of digital duct-tape and baling-wire.
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I hope so. I need it more than ever.
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- NOAA: Doge staffers enter Noaa headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats
- NSF: The National Science Foundation is planning to layoff from one-quarter to one-half of its staff.
What is the result of ignorance rampant?
https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/burning-library-alexandria
The loss of the ancient world’s single greatest archive of knowledge, the Library of Alexandria, has been lamented for ages. But how and why it was lost is still a mystery. The mystery exists not for lack of suspects but from an excess of them.
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Imagine you worked for a large company, say having 10,000 employees. And a new CEO told everyone that they were either taking a buyout, or getting fired. All of them. All 10,000. Yet the CEO acted as if the functions of the company would continue unabated. WTF?
How the hell does Trump propose the CIA continues to function if all those employed there are terminated via various methods, voluntary or not? For that matter, that question applies across all the force reductions he is instituting. How damn long will it take to recruit and train CIA agents to replace those he’s firing or chasing off? To saying nothing of the thousands of cumulative years of experience, wisdom and contacts they all have?
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I guess we know why he didn’t put his hand on the Bible during the inauguration. He had no intention of following his oath. Now, the courts are our only hope. I’m getting scared. SS payment due in two weeks and I just filed my tax return. Will report any shenanigans in getting paid.
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