Friday, May 2, 2025
Once again, Trump is wrong because the executive does not possess the line-item veto
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
House Democrats correctly doubt whether any funding deal they agree to will be respected by Elon Musk and DOGE, hurtling the federal government toward a shutdown
... many Democrats are pressing leadership to withhold support for any spending plan that doesn’t take steps to ensure the allocated funds go where Congress intended — a response to Trump’s efforts to gut federal programs Congress had previously funded.
“There will have to be some type of guarantees, because we’re very unsure about whether things that we’ve already approved are actually going to be expended,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said. ...
“House Republicans are marching the country towards a government shutdown that was started by Elon Musk,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday.
“Rosa DeLauro is still at the table. We need House Republicans to join her.” ...
Heading into the fight, some Democrats are already warning that they
won’t support in any form. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said it makes
no sense for Republicans to claim billions of dollars of waste and abuse
across federal agencies, and then back a CR that funds that same waste
and abuse. ...
More.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Democrat Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) is correct: Elon Musk is an unelected interloper, with no authority and no legitimacy who makes a mockery of the appropriations process
Musk exercises nonexistent dictatorial line-item-veto powers over spending and personnel as a "super cabinet" official who was never confirmed by the US Senate like the other cabinet members he now tells what's what.
The whole scheme is illegal and unconstitutional, which is why Trump is now all of a sudden denying that Musk is head of the so-called DOGE, just like Trump hastily made Musk a special government employee after lawsuits were filed on February 3 questioning Musk's authority.
It's an end run around the constitution no less serious than the National Popular Vote Compact, which seeks to neuter the Electoral College.
Trump has been making this bullshit up as he goes and has been since Musk endorsed Trump after the July assassination attempt and then became part of Trump's circle of intimates in August.
The tech oligarchy got front row seats at the inauguration for a reason.
Congress closing in on shutdown deadline with no clear plan
“We cannot come to a deal where you hammer out gains, losses, but you come to a conclusion and you come to a meeting of the minds,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters. “That should not be subject to some third party deciding that that’s not what they want.”
“We had a deal last year, all of us and so forth, and then there was an interloper with no authority, no legitimacy, nonelected, who said, ‘Don’t vote for it,’” DeLauro said, as Democrats have continued to zero in on tech billionaire Elon Musk, the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Friday, February 7, 2025
The legal system is about to be clogged with multiple battles over Trump's second and imperial presidency, which has deployed Elon Musk as the embodiment of the line-item veto which it does not possess
It's a strange day when I find myself agreeing with Ed Markey.
. . . “The courts, if they interpret the Constitution correctly, are going to stop Musk, are going to stop Trump,” Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Thursday.
“Article One is the Congress. Article Two is the president, Article Three is the judiciary. There is not an Article 3.5 where Elon Musk gets to do whatever he wants to do,” Markey said. “They are trying to rewrite constitutional law in this country.” . . .
Three weeks in, the growing storm of lawsuits means some of this young administration’s most extraordinary applications of unilateral presidential power could be reined in. But the litigation also conjures a scenario that no one wants to think about: what would happen if the administration refused to recognize court rulings — even one handed down by the Supreme Court?
This is a particularly acute matter because it’s the Justice Department, which is now operating under Trump’s firm hand, that’s responsible for enforcing the law. The constitutional remedy for a president who breaks the law is impeachment, but Republicans have twice shown that they will not hold Trump to account in such trials, making moot this key check on power envisioned by the founders.
“That is the doomsday scenario,” Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department special counsel and NYU law professor, told CNN’s Burnett. “So far, they are complying with all the court orders, but what happens come the day that they do lose at the Supreme Court?” Goodman asked.
“If they really want to push it, we are in a real constitutional crisis.”
From the story here.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Welcome to end stage libertarianism: The executive branch of the United States does not possess a line-item veto power
What Trump is doing will be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, which already ruled the 1996 version of the line item veto unconstitutional.
Trump is a renegade.
Imagine a Democrat president simply canceling programs Republicans passed and firing all the people in them. That's what this is. And that's what the future will bring if Trump gets away with any of this.
It's anarchy, and it's unconstitutional, however much you may agree with the cuts. The Court will set this straight or the federal government is finished as an institution.