Phony baloney authoritarian drug war president in the Caribbean removes marijuana from Schedule I by executive order

 

Mad King Ludwig is literally suffering from hysteria, where everything he doesn't like becomes terrorism and fentanyl becomes a weapon of mass destruction

 

 Executive Order Labels Fentanyl "Weapon of Mass Destruction"

The Uniparty wants one central source of approval, and that fool Ted Cruz is down for the cause

 

More executive overreach from Trump on AI regulation after Congress balked

Republicans in Congress knew that they would be blamed in Blue states and lose even bigger next November. 

Expect this executive overreach to be challenged in court. 

Trump signs executive order for single national AI regulation standard, limiting power of states

 

... A proposed 10-year ban on states regulating AI was initially included in the Republican spending bill but was cut out before Trump signed it in July. ... 

Victor Davis Hanson is as blind to reality as Trump

 

Victor Davis Hanson: Trump Is Stronger Than He Ever Was, The Left Is Desperate

 

 

Trump II started his term with a 5-seat advantage in the U.S. House. 

 

Trump I started his term with a 47-seat advantage.

 

Nothing lasting was achieved the first time with a huge majority, and sure as hell won't be this time because he's incompetent and the Congress hates his guts.

 

The resignation of Marjorie Taylor Greene may be just the tip of the iceberg about to sink Trump II forever. But even if it's not, a 5-seat advantage screams gridlock if Republicans will not compromise on anything.

 

Trump can issue all the Executive Orders he wants. They will be undone. He can declare all the emergencies he wants. They will be ended. 

 

There is no substitute for legislation, and he's not going to get any.

 

Meanwhile the Department of Defense is still the Department of Defense, my shrimp still come from the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great White North is still Canada, eh?

 

 

 

 

 

  

The US House and Senate wanted this Epstein business out of their hands so fast it makes your head spin

So the legislative branch is ordering the executive branch to  D O   S O M E T H I N G.

The legislative branch ordered TikTok to do something by last January, you'll recall, but the executive and its Department of Justice found a way around that.

They'll find a way around this, too.

The foxes remain in charge of the henhouse. 

 

Andrew Sullivan makes Trump subhuman the way Mark Levin and Michael Savage have made their enemies subhuman, says the American people no longer want to govern themselves

They shoot wild boar in Texas from helicopters, don't they?

 

 The Permanent Stain

 ... Trump is conservatism’s actual nemesis: a wild boar — psychologically incapable of understanding anything but dominance and revenge, with no knowledge of history, crashing obliviously and malevolently through the ruined landscape of our constitutional democracy.

This very Greek tragedy — conservatives killing the Constitution they love because they hate the left more — is made more poignant by Trump’s utter cluelessness: he doesn’t even intend to end the American experiment in self-government and individual freedom. He isn’t that sophisticated. He is ending it simply because he knows no other way of being a human being. He cannot tolerate any system where he does not have total control. Character counts, as conservatives once insisted, and a man with Trump’s psyche, when combined with his demagogic genius, is quite simply incompatible with liberal democratic society. Unfit. ... 

I recall that when I first wrote that I didn’t believe Trump would concede an election he lost, and thereby provoke a constitutional crisis, I was also told I was hyperventilating. But it happened. And Americans rewarded it four years later by re-electing the man who tried to destroy their democracy. That’s exactly as the ancient political philosophers predicted: as democracies enter their late, chaotic stage, the people want an autocrat. They yearn for one. And in America, they voted for one twice. The forces we are up against are far beyond Trump. They’re called the cycles of history and a critical mass of the American people, who no longer want to govern themselves, who are sick of this republic and no longer want to keep it if it means sharing power with those they despise. ...

 

Andrew Sullivan intimately knows all about not governing oneself. If only the Democrats did, who relentlessly persecuted and prosecuted Trump while in office and out. That's why we are here.

That there is so little pushback on this on X proves that American fans of American football have lost the testosterone which animates the game

Mad King Ludwig thinks he can re-name everything.

You know, like a man who thinks he can call himself a woman.

Same denial of reality disease, different expression. 

 

The world plays ‘football’ but the U.S. calls it ‘soccer’: Trump signaled that could change

 

... While the term “football” is widely used for the sport, especially in Europe and much of the world, the U.S., Canada and Australia generally use “soccer” to refer to the game. ...

 

 

 

Today's so-called conservatives wish for a nation of executive orders, not a nation of laws

 

Two More Executive Orders Trump Should Sign

Heather Mac Donald, City Journal

Once again, Trump is wrong because the executive does not possess the line-item veto

 

Trump signs executive order to stop federal funding for NPR and PBS

 

This is simply another example of executive branch overreach.

 

Funding for NPR and PBS, with which I disagree, is lawful. It has been passed by Congress and signed into law by the executive.

 

This executive can't simply come along and exercise a veto after that fact.

 

Rule by executive order is not republicanism.

 

We are either a nation of laws or we are not.

Trump is the enemy of the America I once knew.

 

 

 

 

Fareed Zakaria: Trump uses an unprecedented eight national emergency declarations for his own end run around the constitution, the Congress, and the courts

 ... Trump has declared eight national emergencies in his first 100 days, more than any other president. ...

Invoking an emergency has come to mean that the president can bypass Congress, intimidate courts, and run roughshod over normal procedures, even civil liberties. And while the current number is striking, it’s not a Trumpian innovation. Presidents have become addicted to emergency powers, unlike many other countries. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about how to declare or end an emergency. This has allowed presidents to organically assume a wide range of powers. This usually happened during wartime. ...

Today, Americans are living under dozens of ongoing national emergencies, mostly tied to foreign policy like sanctions. The oldest standing one, targeting Iran, dates back to the Carter administration. Others come from the post-9/11 era, when Congress granted the executive branch sweeping new powers, all in the name of national security. Both parties have used emergency powers to serve their broader agendas. In 2022, President Joe Biden attempted to forgive student loan debt by using an emergency authority related to the COVID-19 pandemic. ...

More.

Like failing to establish a formula for the continued growth of representation, thus unwittingly concentrating power in an oligarchic Congress by default, the constitution's silence about emergencies is yet one more example of the founders' inability to imagine every which way one branch might try to exploit it, which is an increasingly pressing problem in our increasingly illiberal society.

Normally you institute protectionist policies like tariffs when you already have something to protect, not before

But our Orwellian Republicans put the cart before the horse.

You can't return to something which no longer exists. The net trade deficit for 2024 is nearly $1 trillion, instead of flat like during the post-war up until Reagan, who first ran in 1976 against Ford, when tariffs still had something to protect but we listened to the siren song of free-trade instead.

That is why the Trump administration has had to cast about for at least six different reasons for instituting tariffs at the present time, none of which are at all convincing otherwise there wouldn't be six of them, not to mention that the math used for them is preposterous, or that they are the farthest thing from reciprocal.

The real reason for them, however, is that the tariffs, like the executive orders which now number over 100, are the immediate strings available to our Puppet Master, which he can pull this way one day and that way another, your ever present reminder of who is in charge around here. Suck up to him and he'll make a deal.

Trump's White House laughably brags about these things.

New taxes, which is what these tariffs are, are liberating don't you see!

Our mad King Ludwig needs this constant adulation. The tyrant has desires which he can never fulfill, Plato warned us.

But of course all this can be undone by the next president, which is no way to run a country. It makes for deep institutional instability and distrust throughout the global economy, for which few can reasonably plan.

The message remains the same: Expect Kaos. 

 

Liberals are upset with Trump's EO on elections because it threatens to withhold federal money from jurisdictions which don't crack down on voting by non-citizens

Whether liberals will address this head on, however, remains to be seen. They may simply challenge the meddling of the executive in a matter the constitution reserves to the states.

The Supreme Court has consistently deferred on this to the states, even during all the election controversy of 2020, rebuffing Trump over and over again, and is likely to do so again, which would be yet another defeat for Trump.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

-- Article I, Section 4, clause 1

Trump promises more EOs on elections in the future.

He's already issued 100 of them. And the next guy can issue 100 overturning them. 

This is all theatre. Republicans' narrow majorities in the House and Senate make any of these becoming permanent law extremely unlikely.

 Trump signs order seeking to overhaul US elections, including requiring proof of citizenship

A purported descendant of Patrick Henry and James Madison blasted The Tyrant Trump in GA-7 townhall represented by Rich McCormick

 

Town Hall Erupts At Blistering Anti-Trump Rant Torching ‘Tyranny’ — Gets Standing Ovation In Trump District:

 

A town hall in a plus-thirty GOP district erupted in a sustained standing ovation over a blistering rant calling President Donald Trump a “tyrant” who “named himself king.”

Trump’s first weeks in office have been characterized by a string of successful Cabinet nominations and a relentless testing of executive power and governing norms. Many critics saw Trump’s social media declaration “Long live the King!’ as emblematic of that approach.

That was certainly the case when Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) — who endorsed Trump in 2024 after first supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) — faced constituents at a town hall meeting in Roswell, Georgia on Thursday.

A woman named Virginia Lim prefaced her scathing question to McCormick by referencing her familial connection to the Founding Fathers — then laid into Trump:

VICTORIA LIM: Thank you so much, Congressman, for taking my question. I do so appreciate it.

I’m a direct descendant of Susanna Henry Madison, one of Patrick Henry’s younger sisters and a cousin by marriage of James Madison.

Do you know who Patrick Henry was? And James Madison, sir? (NODS)

I’m so glad to hear that. While arguing the need for the American Revolution, Patrick Henry said “A king is a tyrant. If a wrong step is made now, the Republic will be lost forever and tyranny will rise.”.

I believe you know the rest of his speech. Something about “give me liberty.”.

It’s clear from all the writings of our Founding Fathers that our great Republic was never meant to be ruled by a dictator, nor a king.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

So. So you can imagine my shock and pure horror when I woke up to find that our president had given himself unprecedented executive powers, and then, within a few days, named himself King to his followers. (APPLAUSE).

Tyranny. Tyranny—!

MODERATOR: Virginia. Do you have a question for the congressman?

VICTORIA LIM: I do, I do. Thank you. Tyranny is rising in the white House, and a man has declared himself our king. So I would like to know. Rather the people would like to know what you, congressman, and your fellow congressman are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.

(CROWD STANDS AND CHEERS).

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you!

REP. RICH MCCORMICK: Thank you. I’m not going to give you my best Foghorn Leghorn response to that. But what I was — so you can go ahead and sit down — thank you.

The — when you talk about tyranny, when you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected.

(JEERING).

The funny thing is, the funny thing is —

(JEERING CONTINUES).

The funny thing is, you’re sitting here in your body, you would probably say those January 6ers who were yelling just as loud as you, who were upset just like you, and not listen —

(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)

MODERATOR: Hey, hey, hey, let’s restore some order! Let’s restore some order! Hey hey hey, let’s restore some order!

REP. RICH MCCORMICK: So yelling, yelling at me is not going to get any answer, okay? Hey, like I said, like I said, we’re not going to give order right now.

MODERATOR: Let’s get through this. Congressman.

AUDIENCE: Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!

REP. RICH MCCORMICK: I’ve seen Game of Thrones, too. Thank you.

Eventually, McCormick cited the so-called REINS Act, claiming it “reins in executive power” — but the bill actually has to do with rule-making at federal agencies.

 

US District Judge Amir Ali stops just short of holding Trump administration in contempt for failing to comply with court's order allowing disbursement of foreign aid

 

Trump administration hasn’t complied with order to halt foreign aid freeze, judge says

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.

Ali determined that a “blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign aid” had caused irreparable harm to the contractors and was likely not allowed under the Administrative Procedure Act. ...

“By enjoining Defendants and their agents from implementing any directives to undertake such blanket suspension, the Court was not inviting Defendants to continue the suspension while they reviewed contracts and legal authorities to come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension,” Ali wrote. ...

"to the extent Defendants have continued the blanket suspension, they are ordered to immediately cease it.”

The judge stopped short of holding the administration in contempt.

 

 

Bill King is skeptical that Donald Trump's birthright citizenship gambit will be fruitful

 Here:

Adopting a rational immigration system that included better criteria for granting citizenship would greatly benefit our country. Many of the issues surrounding birthright citizenship are the legacy of the inability of Congress to enact such a rational system. I wish I believed Trump’s executive order might spur a thoughtful debate and legislative action in that direction. But sadly, our representatives from both sides of the aisle seem more interested in demagoguing the issue than working together to enact a rational system.

 

Ronald Reagan appointee blocks Trump's birthright citizenship executive order

It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death.

 Federal district court judge temporarily blocks Trump’s birthright citizenship order

... “Ample historical evidence shows that the children of non-resident aliens are subject to foreign powers — and, thus, are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and are not constitutionally entitled to birthright citizenship,” Rosenberg wrote.

Ultimately, the case is likely to be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Native Americans were not made citizens by the 14th Amendment of 1868. It took an act of Congress in 1924 to do that. 

It is good that this will be decided by the Supremes, maybe, once and for all, maybe.

Trump executive order reverses Biden's pause on new approvals of LNG projects

 It is little discussed, but Biden's pause on the new projects was based, in part, on the negative impact on prices paid by consumers because natural gas was being diverted to LNG exports. Reduced domestic supply has led to higher prices paid by consumers:

The current economic and environmental analyses DOE uses to underpin its LNG export authorizations are roughly five years old and no longer adequately account for considerations like potential energy cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers beyond current authorizations or the latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Natural gas diverted to export already reached 10% of production in 2022.

Reported here:

The president reversed the Biden administration’s pause on new liquefied natural gas export facilities. Trump directed the Energy secretary to start reviewing new LNG projects as quickly as possible.     

Natural gas prices have exploded by 210% since Trump was elected in November.

This is just BS from Speaker Mike Johnson about LNG exports and Joe Biden's memory

 Whatever may be said about Joe Biden's memory, he didn't have a memory lapse in this instance as alleged by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. It's troubling that Mike Johnson would misrepresent this in this way. 

Joe Biden doesn't have a monopoly on "fake shit".

Sir, why did you [President Biden] pause LNG exports to Europe? Like, I don't understand. Liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that? You understand -- we just talked about Ukraine -- you’re fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine because they’ve got to get their gas from him."

He looks at me, stunned, and says, "I didn’t, I didn’t do that."

I said, "Mr. President, yes, you did. It was an executive order, like, three weeks ago."

He says, "No, I didn’t do that." He’s arguing with me.

-- The Moment Speaker Mike Johnson Knew Biden Wasn't "In Charge" Anymore 

LNG exports to Europe were not paused. And demand in Europe dropped in 2024. Biden signed a temporary pause for pending approvals of LNG exports, not for existing approvals of LNG exports. This and Mike's other comments in the story indicate that he is not exactly reliable on the subject. But he could have easily just looked it up.

Jan 26, 2024:

FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces Temporary Pause on Pending Approvals of Liquefied Natural Gas Exports

Sep 4, 2024:

US LNG export dominance tested as Europe's demand wilts

Meanwhile, Mike Johnson didn't tell anybody about this until now? Seems like a dereliction of duty for the man in line right behind the VP to become president in the event of incapacity or death.

And, oh yeah, US LNG export tanker loads hit a seven-month high in January 2025 at 71, through yesterday:

 

 

 

David Brooks is not a serious person

 

David Brooks: Donald Trump Is The Most Consequential American Politician Since Ronald Reagan:

 

And the fact that he's reelected and now about to take office and use executive orders to wipe out a lot of things, including the civil service potentially, or parts of it, that's just a gigantic pivot in American history. 

A president who must resort to executive orders is not consequential. The next president can wipe those out, by executive orders.

 

More importantly, there is nothing consequential about presidents who must pass major legislation through reconciliation rules, as Trump had to in 2017, which means the legislation is temporary by definition. Trump must now spend precious second term months on this same issue. He aims to extend his tax cuts for another period under reconciliation rules, which is fine, but that will also be temporary, not consequential.

 

Boehner and Obama made the Bush tax cuts, originally passed through reconciliation, permanent after Obama was re-elected in 2012. That was consequential.

The Bush tax regime is consequential. It makes Trump step and fetch it, just like Obama.