Sometimes I’m not sure either …lol
I like your description “and not be pawns in a game-of-thrones all the time.” I agree. Not a positive trend.
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I’m not convinced that the smell of authoritarian power has deranged their brains. I think they wholeheartedly support a hard right authoritarian government and the rise of malevolent idiots has relieved them of whatever reservations may have been keeping them in the closet.
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Yeah, I agree with you about the voters. I think what you say here is quite right.
But I didn’t explain what I was wondering about in that post at all adequately. I was actually musing about the Republican judges and other Republican who seem to be motivated to work in government, in the civil service or as legislator and so on …I completely understand why Republican officials crave a one-party state, because it obviously means their preferences or something rather like them will always be the ones put in place
… but what puzzles me is why Republican-party people who are in government now seem to be much more enthusiastic about extreme “unitary executive” theory than many of them seem to have been in the past … and why they seem to be going along with the desire for not just one-party rule but one-man rule.
It’s one-man rule you certainly have if you get rid of all other places where specific policies may be discussed and make every single person in the government subject to tthat one man’s firing, with no requirement for anybody else to agree and no conditions set on why you fire them. . THat’s what ful-on unitary-executive seems to inevitably lead to, as Trump is demonstrating now.
Right now, of course, Trump’s throwing Democrats off of boards, but if the Republicans can keep getting stronger in the government overall and keep more such spots for Republicans, then by full embrace of unitary-executive power, they’ll have handed the one-man ruler the power to throw them off of boards. Or disband boards that they, the ruling Republicans, think are important. And in such a situation, Republican judges or lawmakers or civil service experts would never get any say in developing policies…And that’s something they would have done to themselves because of heavily promoting one-man rule…
And while I can definitely see why voters may like that – because voters vote on personality and voters don’t want to hink about developing policy or anything, that’s not true of Republican office holders. They want their ideas about Republican policies to matter too, seems to me …
So I would think that they would be more hesitant to push for one-man rule today – i.e., they would back off unitary-executive stuff a big – if they have eyes and ears and any brains at all, they can see right in front of them now that one-man rule can cause problems if the one-man is incompetent or deranged or just not as devoted to Republican ideas as they thought, even if that one man is a member of their party.
It’s quite visible now that you can get a a very incompetent nutball into the one-man slot … and if you eliminate even from your one-party government every advisory board and every policy-analysis office as this judge is suggesting then you – and your party – can end up at the mercy of a member of your party who is just not up to the job…Even if you’ve got a one-party government you can end with a one-man ruler who wrecks it for you.
So I would think that they’d be less ready to embrace full unitary-executive now because I don’t think most Republican would want to cause the level of chaos we/re seeing in the economy, for example, where things are clearly worse not just becuse he imposes tariffs but because he imposes them one day and then rescinds them the next and then brings them back or doubles them the day after that
I would just think that, having seen Trump in office, even as a Republican who supports his overall views you’d want to leave a few other voices and entities around in the government who would have a bit of power to right the ship when an incompetent nutso One Man goes wrong. And that you’d also want that so that you, too, could have some power to help make the Republican policies the best they can be – and maybe be in better position to be the next "one man’ yourself.
And yet, they seem way more on board with an extreme vision of unitary executive now – even though they can see an ignorant unbalanced “one man” probably unnecessarily tanking the eocnomy, for example-- than I’ve seen them be before.
I suppose it’s a combination of being bribed and threatened, or thinking you’re going to be …
But it still makes me wonder why they’re so willing to hand every single bit of power just to him – as the Trump regime is clearly demanding in everything it puts out. It seems to be a move to slit your own throat – especially since the Republicans currently aren’t guaranteed that they’ll be getting their one-party government soon…And they certainly can’t want to give a Democratic president full-on one-man authority if they do ever lose the White House.
:Long story short: I don’t understand why office-holding Republicans such as judges-- now seeing how their standard-bearer Trump is doing in office – would become more enthusiastic about promoting the unitary-executive idea – which clearly trends toward one-man rule – than the general run of Republicans seems to have been in previous years
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And somehow I just BET Ms. Bondi doesn’t think Walker is a ‘corrupt judge’ that doesn’t deserve to sit on the bench because he is ‘severely partisan’.
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It’s funny how none of the maga-minions seems to have realized that their idol’s latest favorite tale, the scorpion and the frog, has them as the frog, not us Libz. And how clearly, Trump considers the scorpion – himself – as the hero and obvlous winner.
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Note that under this system, two presidents were assassinated by disappointed job seekers, which is why the professional civil service was instituted.
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This is what his official portrait should look like. Exaggerated, cartoon-fashion, with lots of extra orange. Because he’s been an evil cartoon of a “president” and needs to be firmly marked in history and art as such. So what if he “doesn’t like” the portrait? Neither did Dorian Gray.
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Auditions or auctions?
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Not if AI is running everything
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While the full DC Circuit could reverse, if 5 of the 6 right wingers on the Supreme Court allow the Trump regime to kill off agency independence and allow those who run them to be fired without cause and contrary to the law, it means the will of Congress is irrelevant in both the law requiring standards to fire heads and that a lawful agency can be shuttered or rendered useless.
It’s the end of Congressional budget and statutory authority. It’s a full on dictatorship.
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It’s possible Roberts and Barrett don’t allow this to occur over panic that Trump is a lawless dictator.
Possible.
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Sure - I find myself in a pessimistic frame of mind a lot these days, as sort of a self-defense. Not a good way to live, though.
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The contractors (Booz Allen,etc.) would know what’s up. Just like in states with term limits on the legislature, the lobbyists are the only ones who know how the place works. Efficiency!
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Henderson is, I believe, an HW appointee. The father is still doing great damage to the republic (see Thomas, Clarence) in many ways, and that was before his idiot son nearly blew up the world. And the idiot son gave us Scalito and “Chief” Justice Roberts. Bush and Trump are names that should never appear on any ballot again.
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En banc is what I came here to see about, thanks
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They’ve given MAGA a couple of surprises lately. It was interesting to watch the entirety of the recent firestorm focus on Barrett and not a whit (or scarcely a whit) on Roberts. I too am holding to this possibility.
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District Judge under Reagan, DC Circuit under Bush-the-not-as-bad.
Court bio, which the current iteration of our board software apparently can’t manage to generate a preview for:
https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/content/karen-lecraft-henderson
(That seems to happen a lot more after the “upgrade” from a while ago. Progress!??)
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He’s also the snake in his favorite poem, ‘The Snake and the Tenderhearted Woman.’
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Who needs precedent when we have “originalism”?? What a crapshow this has turned into.
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