Dems:
You ask me to contribute again -
BUT YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING TO
SLOW DOWN THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER.
Please enlighten me if I have missed anything.
NOW -
DO SOMETHING - something which will make life difficult for the TERRORIST GOP.
1. STAND UP AND ACT ,
2. FORCE VOTES GOP DON'T LIKE,
3. SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT,
4. DO ANYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO SLOW DOWN THE TRAITORS.
Then, and only then, you have earned the right to ask for money.
Occasionally a friend or a student will ask me to explain a trump economic policy. They ask since I have read a bit about economic theory and practiced some economics in business situations; and, I have read a bit of post World War II Russian and European history.
When asked to comment on his policies I imagine the scenario below and then cannot respond. He is not a rational actor. He is an assigned torturer tasked with destroying the United States while simultaneously causing as much pain and suffering as he can.
You will not want to read the following mental image if you are the least bit squeamish.
'I am locked into a chair with shackles on my ankles and wrists while watching him torture my young cousin. He wonders aloud whether he should cut off her breast with a rusty hacksaw before or after he takes out her left eye with a dirty spoon. I want to scream even though I risk being whipped across my face with a bull whip for the temerity of objecting. I am not alone since there are hundreds of people shackled in chairs in the auditorium as I am. But, it does not end.'
When we gather to protest and demand trump's resignation, Federal officials, understandably, will be concerned about a possible violent incident resulting from our protest and demands for 47 to resign.
Trump probably will ask for protection for him from the Police and National Guard. That will be despite our cooperation with security personnel and intent to be completely non-violent.
Before we begin, our best strategy is to meet personally with the political leaders in Congress, two each in each house, the police chief of the DC police, the Secret Service and the commander of the National Guard to assure them that we will not tolerate violence or vandalism from our occupiers. If they deem it necessary to arrest some of our people, we will help them do that. Then we will replace those detained with others.
Here's where we can gather legally, per chatgpt:
Yes, the public is allowed to congregate in the U.S. Capitol building, but not in the chambers where the House of Representatives or the Senate meet. Here's how it works:
Public Areas: The Capitol has various public areas, such as hallways, galleries (for viewing legislative sessions), and other designated spaces where visitors can walk around and explore.
Galleries: The public can access the galleries of the House and Senate to watch sessions, but they are not allowed on the floor where the actual proceedings happen. There are specific rules regarding who can attend, and visitors typically need tickets for entry. These tickets are sometimes available through congressional offices.
Capitol Visitor Center: Located underneath the Capitol building, the Visitor Center offers exhibits, historical displays, and guided tours. This area is open to the public, and visitors can learn about the history of the Capitol and the legislative process.
Restricted Access: While visitors can explore certain areas of the Capitol, access to the legislative chambers (the House or Senate floors) is highly restricted, and only those with specific permissions—such as lawmakers, staff, and invited guests—can enter the chambers during a session.
So, while people can gather in public areas and the Visitor Center, they cannot be in the chambers where legislative business takes place unless they have a special purpose or permission.
This administration is not acceptable to the vast majority of American citizens. The situation is intolerable. Our elected leaders seem unable to solve the problems.
So, then, we will.
We will occupy the Senate and the House of Representatives in DC so that Congress can do no business.
We will shut down the Federal government until our demands are met; and, we will STAY until our demands are met.
We will be hundreds of Americans sitting in the halls and on the floor. Resisting passively without violence until our demands are met.
Here is a preliminary set of demands:
1. President trump and VP Vance resign office and leave the area.
2. We hold a Presidential election within 6 months.
3. Musk and the DOGE kids are arrested and prosecuted for their crimes.
4. All Executive Orders from trump are revoked.
5. All political appointments to government positions will be fired.
6. Obey all court orders.
Let us all together journey to Washington DC and pack the House of Representatives, during all the times the House is open and outside when it is closed, so they cannot perform their duties. The Government will collapse.
We will commit no crimes and we will commit no violence. We will support the Police.
We will be so numerous that the House cannot function..
We will stay there until trump and his entire administration resign from office and leave the City.
I see no other way to reclaim our country.
The Founders checks and balances are dead in the water.
We, the people, can take it back, IF we act now !
Back in he day I chose to spend my life working to prevent a Communist takeover of the United States. I was upset by Kruschev's statement that they would take over the USA without firing a shot.
In that effort over the years I became aware of bad people and monsters. For me, a bad person is one who harms another person physically or emotionally when the bad person wants something and takes it from another person without any permission. If the bad person enjoys the act of causing pain, then I think we can call that person a sadist.
Bad people become monsters when they harm other people on a grand scale and not on an individual scale. Monsters are bad people with access to power over large numbers of people who then harm the people over whom they have power and enjoy inflicting pain on others. Monsters have included Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Ghengis Khan and others.
I think Putin is a monster who enjoys hurting the people over whom he has power. He has killed hundreds of political opponents in Russia and elsewhere. His agents throw out of windows people who don't do what he demands. A person who objected to his criminal acts in St. Petersburg was shot by a sniper while driving to work. He has assassinated Russians who left the country and continued to criticize him using very lethal chemical and nuclear poisons. His troops in Ukraine instil terror by raping children while their parents are forced to watch, then the troops kill the children while their parents watch.
Trump is a bad person who works for and wants to emulate Putin. The Radical GOP politicians and operatives who help trump is his quest are bad people helping the monster wannabes. The wannabes will be disappointed when he throws them under the bus after they have completed their task.
Putin maintains his power in Russia by killing or imprisoning his opponents. Trump will try to do the same in the United States.
The only act I have seen that can stop a monster is for the general population to demand a new government in such overwhelming numbers that the government cannot function in the capital city.
The bravest man I am aware of in history was Alexey Navalny. He was a Russian dissident who stood up to Putin loudly and persistently while surviving assassination attempts, torture and harsh prison until he finally died. His widow and his foundation continue his work today as the Anti-Corruption Foundation International.
They have concluded that the only way to resists a monster is to fight it at every level without cessation. Here's their take:
'Here’s the best advice we can give you: never make a deal with Vladimir Putin. Especially if you’re a world leader.
At FBK, we’ve spent 15 years fighting Vladimir Putin and studying his methods—how he builds relationships, wields power, and bends the rules to serve his interests.
We’ve seen talented journalists strike deals with him, only to become his propaganda mouthpieces. We’ve seen ambitious politicians try to outmanoeuvre him, only to end up as part of his loyal entourage. We’ve watched him violate international laws without hesitation, eliminate political opponents, and crush dissent on a massive scale.
When Alexei Navalny challenged him, Putin first tried to poison him. Then he locked him away in a remote Arctic prison. And then he killed him.
Putin calculates every move. He doesn’t see politics as a space for negotiation or compromise—he sees it as a game of brute force. If a law or treaty stands in his way, he simply ignores it or rewrites it. Then he lies about it, manipulates the facts, and fabricates evidence to justify his actions.
The world should think of Putin the way it thinks of a mafia boss. Yes, he’s rich and powerful, but he’s not rational in the way you’d expect.
He’s driven by resentment, paranoia, and a deep sense of personal grievance. He’s said it himself—he believes the West has humiliated him, failed to treat him as an equal. That’s why he sees every agreement not as a step toward peace, but as an opportunity for revenge and domination.
You don’t negotiate with people like that. You fight them. The only way to deal with Putin is the way you deal with organized crime—cut off his money, go after his enablers, and systematically dismantle his network.
Who are the best allies in this fight? The millions of Russians who have suffered under his rule for years.
We’ve been fighting Putin for 15 years. Join us! '
I'm not an attorney but I think we have a valid reason to personally sue ALL the DOGE and other folks who have changed the rules of government programs against the Constitution and harmed millions of Americans. Maybe if we bring lawsuits against all the people - not just the top people, but ALL the people - who are guilty, then we can discourage their further unlawful actions.
Federal officials who act within the law have something called 'qualified immunity' for any liability resulting from their actions as government officials, provided they act within the law, but if they acted illegally, then they lose that immunity and can be sued personally.
In my humble opinion, many social security and other agency employees and DOGE operatives have acted illegally and their actions have harmed millions of people.
Here's a start:
Here's what chatgpt says:
' In general, it is very difficult to sue a U.S. federal official personally in civil court for actions taken in their official capacity due to a legal principle called "qualified immunity." This principle protects government officials, including federal employees, from being sued personally unless they violated "clearly established" law that a reasonable person in their position would have known was unlawful.
However, there are some situations where a federal official may be held personally liable:
If the official acted outside the scope of their official duties: If the official’s actions were not related to their official responsibilities (e.g., acting in a purely personal capacity), they may not be protected by qualified immunity.
If the official's conduct was willful or egregiously unlawful: If their actions were so clearly illegal that any reasonable person would have known they were violating the law, qualified immunity might not apply.
If there is a specific statute that allows for personal liability: There are some exceptions where federal officials can be personally sued, such as in cases involving civil rights violations under laws like 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (though this usually applies to state, not federal, officials).
If you believe a federal official has harmed you through illegal conduct, you may be able to pursue a civil rights lawsuit or other legal actions, but it’s important to note that suing a federal official personally is challenging and requires strong legal grounds.
For DOGE employees or any employees of a private company, personal liability depends on whether the actions were within their employment scope, whether they engaged in illegal or intentional misconduct, and whether they breached specific duties. If you were harmed by an employee's actions, you may be able to pursue a claim against the company, and in certain cases, you might also be able to bring a lawsuit directly against the employee.'
Getting real for a moment: here's the thing.
He wants a fight. He's looking for somebody to fight, as we speak.
He will lose a few court cases. Then a Judge will issue an order to force him to comply.
But, he won't comply.
Then the Judge will order law enforcement folks to respond and force him to comply.
He still won't comply with the order.
When Law Enforcement attempts to use force to hold him to account, he will order security and other armed forces under his command to prevent law enforcement from ensuring compliance.
That will be the final tipping point for the Constitution
If the forces under his command prevent law enforcement personnel from ensuring his compliance, then our grand experiment is over. Finished.
To prevent that, we need law enforcement and military forces willing and able to enforce the legal order regardless of what the President commands.
In order for our system of laws and checks and balances to survive, we require some personnel to choose the Constitution over a direct command from the President.
It will happen soon.
We also asked a “verification” question about how people perceive the views of those around them. It turned out that even staunch “Z-supporters” realize they are in the minority.
In summary: Russian society appears to be on the brink of significant change. Anxiety and the sense of instability are both on the rise. Only about one-eighth of the population truly supports an indefinite continuation of the war. The notion that “everyone supports the war” simply doesn’t stick—most people know it’s not true.
All of this research comes from the FBK’s Polls & Surveys Department, established by Alexei Navalny. The department’s head, Anna Biryukova, recorded a detailed video (with English subtitles):
If you’d like to support the Foundation’s vital work—from in-depth research to public information campaigns—please follow the link and make a donation.
Thank you for your support,
Navalny’s team
Stopping Project 25 probably will require more than lawsuits and opinions. They are likely to ignore any legal issues and poor elections counts. They may just declare victory and refuse to hand over the offices.
Reclaiming our heritage and our rule of law may well require more than talk.
History might help us understand how to succeed when the forces are against us.
Canadian historian James Fell studies revolutions and internal conflicts in many countries. His take on the USA today is below. [James Fell, AKA known as the Sweary historian. You can buy his “On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down" at www.JamesFell.com.]
"If you’re American, here is some important information you should know about invading Canada.
This article was written by Dr. Aisha Ahmad, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. I’m knowledgeable in guerrilla warfare, it being the subject of my master’s in history, but she’s a real expert and I totally agree with this. I can’t share a link to the article because Facebook fuckery. I was published in The Conversation. Here is the full text:
'As United States President Donald Trump relentlessly threatens to annex Canada, some Canadians are worried that an American invasion could one day become a reality.
How would that scenario play out? Looking at the sheer size of the American military, many people might believe that Trump would enjoy an easy victory. That analysis is wrong. If Trump ever decides to use military force to annex Canada, the result would not be determined by a conventional military confrontation between the Canadian and American armies. Rather, a military invasion of Canada would trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States.
But in this nightmare scenario, could Canadians successfully resist an American invasion? Absolutely. I know this because I have studied insurgencies around the world for more than two decades, and I have spent time with ordinary people who have fought against powerful invading armies.
How insurgencies begin
The research on guerrilla wars clearly shows that weaker parties can use unconventional methods to cripple a more powerful enemy over many years. This approach treats waging war as a secret, part-time job that an ordinary person can do.
Guerrillas use ambushes, raids and surprise attacks to slowly bleed an invading army, and local communities support these fighters by giving them safe havens and material support. These supporting citizens can also engage in forms of “everyday resistance,” using millions of passive-aggressive episodes of sabotage to frustrate and drain the enemy.
Trump is delusional if he believes that 40 million Canadians will passively accept conquest without resistance. There is no political party or leader willing to relinquish Canadian sovereignty over “economic coercion,” and so if the U.S. wanted to annex Canada, it would have to invade.
That decision would set in motion an unstoppable cycle of violence. Even if we imagine a scenario in which the Canadian government unconditionally surrenders, a fight would ensue on the streets. A teenager might throw a rock at invading soldiers. That kid would get shot, and then there would be more rocks, and more gunfire. An insurgency would be inevitable.
The myth of Canadian ‘niceness’
This idea may shock Canadians today because they see themselves as friendly and affable people. However, Canada’s current self-image of “niceness” only exists because they’re at peace. War changes people very quickly, and Canadians are no more innately peaceful than any other human beings.
When your child is dying in your arms, you become capable of violence. Once you lose what you love, resistance becomes as natural as breathing.
Except for a few collaborators and kapos, my research suggests many Canadians would likely engage in various forms of everyday resistance against invading forces that could involve steal, lying, cutting wires and diverting funds.
Meanwhile, the insurgents would unleash physical devastation on American targets. Even if one per cent of all resisting Canadians engaged in armed insurrection, that would constitute a 400,000-person insurgency, nearly 10 times the size of Taliban at the start of the Afghan war. If a fraction of that number engaged in violent attacks, it would set fire to the entire continent.
Canada’s geography would make this insurgency difficult to defeat. With deep forests and rugged mountains, Canada’s northern terrain could not be conquered or controlled. That means loyalists from the Canadian Armed Forces could mobilize civilian recruits into decentralized fighting units that could strike, retreat into the wilderness and blend back into the local communities that support them.
The Canada-U.S. border is also easy to cross, which would give insurgents access to American critical infrastructure. It costs tens of billions of dollars to build an energy pipeline, and only a few thousand to blow one up.
What about American air strikes?
But wouldn’t the Americans crush the rebellion with missiles and drone strikes? They would try, but that approach to counterinsurgency won’t work.
In fact, it is a well-known booby trap of insurgent warfare. The harder more powerful nations strike, the larger and more fragmented the insurgency becomes, making it impossible to achieve either a military victory or negotiated agreement. Canada’s rugged terrain would protect insurgents from those types of attacks, while global outrage at the bombings would only boost support for the rebellion.
Americans have already been defeated by insurgents in many parts of the world because they could not escape this trap. If they dare to invade Canada, they would create this unsolvable security problem on their own soil.
Russia and China rise to power
How could Canadians pay for this decades-long insurgency? The answer lies in every single historical example of the old adage: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
The prospect of Americans becoming trapped by an insurgency on their own continent would delight Moscow and Beijing, which could easily establish covert northern passages to send weapons to the insurgency. Financing an insurgency is an effective way to ensnare and bankrupt a rival power, as counter-insurgency operations are exponentially more expensive than the price of a few arms shipments.
A chronic violent insurrection in North America could financially and militarily pin down the U.S. for decades, ultimately triggering economic and political collapse. Russia and China, meantime, would enjoy an uncontested rise to power.
Forewarned
This scenario would guarantee the destruction of both Canada and the United States. No one in their right mind would choose this gruesome future over a peaceful and mutually beneficial alliance with a friendly neighbour.
Nevertheless, if Trump is reckless enough to think the violent annexation of Canada is an achievable goal, then let it be known that all these horrifying outcomes were predictable well in advance, and that he was forewarned.'
"James again. No one wants this to happen more than Russia and China. If it comes to it, Canada WILL take their support to fight an American invasion, but the last thing the world needs are those two countries gaining primacy and creating a new autocratic balance of power.
See the story of a successful transition from dictatorship to Democracy:
The death of the ceaucescus in 1989
Real history worth considering........
trump has done the United States a great favour by uniting us.
Pretty much all Americans have a negative view of his Presidency.
The honeymoon is over.
Now we can stand up to him and his minions with confidence that the American public agrees with us.
When a musk or trump minion demands that we do something, DO NOT DO IT.
ORDER THEM OUT OF THE PREMISES.
CALL THE POLICE.
MAKE THEM GO TO COURT TO FORMALLY EVICT YOU.
Most likely they will drop the request, but if they persist, they will lose.
When we fight, we win.
47's policies are turning the United States of America into a replica of a Soviet puppet regime in the 1950's. Those Soviet puppet regimes received financial and management assistance so long as they behaved as ordered.
The rules for puppets are clear: Align all foreign policies of the puppet United States with Putin's preferred policies and actions. Domestically, remove any persons or entities that might prevent the puppet from doing whatever he, or Putin, wants. Putin offers political and economic assistance to the puppet regime, but does not hesitate to enforce Putin's will with any necessary actions.
47's likely actions in the near future will benefit Putin: withdraw from NATO, hand Ukraine to Russia, dismantle the rule of law, prevent the free press from access to facts collected by federal agencies, cripple public health agencies and policies with the intent to create another pandemic as well as additional, similar actions than are listed here.
All of that is bad enough, but there's more. Namely, Putin maintains his authority with a wide ranging list of political assassinations as an integral part of his 'management'.
47 may well try to follow Putin's example. 47 already has some 1,600 supporters who have committed violence on his behalf, who have been tried and convicted of serious crimes and who have been sentenced to jail for those crimes. However, 47 has pardoned them. Now, they stand ready to continue his campaign of violence. That violence may well be directed toward the free press, recognized critics and anyone who dares to oppose 47.
Putin's list:
Wikipedia lasts 82 names of political opponents he has killed. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_assassinations]
Newsweek has details on several - [https://www.newsweek.com/putin-critics-dead-full-list-navalny-1870692]
We can do this now, while we are at home and by ourselves. Let a million of us turn and manifest the inevitable Karma for those who deserve the darkness.
'Manifesting typically refers to focusing your thoughts, energy, and intentions on something you desire to bring into your life, often through visualization, positive thinking, and taking inspired action. Here’s a basic approach to manifesting your goals or desires:
Clarify Your Intentions:
Be specific about what you want. The clearer you are, the easier it is to focus your energy on it. Write it down and be as detailed as possible.
Believe It’s Possible:
Cultivate a mindset that truly believes you deserve what you're manifesting. Self-doubt can block your ability to manifest your desires.
Visualize Your Success:
Spend time imagining yourself living the reality you want [of the Oval Office while you see the sharpies and the Resolute desk]. Picture it as vividly as possible, engaging all of your senses in the visualization.
Feel the Emotion:
Connect with the emotions that achieving your goal would bring. Feel the joy, excitement, or peace as if it's already happening.
Affirmations:
Use positive affirmations to reinforce your belief in your goal. For example, saying "I am worthy of success" or "I attract abundance into my life" can shift your mindset.
Take Inspired Action:
Manifestation isn't just about thinking. It involves actively moving toward your goal. Follow through on any intuitive nudges or ideas that come up along the way.
Trust the Process:
Have patience and trust that the universe (or your inner guidance) will bring opportunities your way. Sometimes things take time to align.
Let Go of Attachment:
While it’s important to work toward your goals, don’t hold onto them so tightly that it causes anxiety or frustration. Trust that whatever is meant for you will come.
Manifestation is about focusing your energy on what you want, believing in it, and aligning your actions with your goals. Would you like tips on specific techniques or areas to focus on?
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik'
Chatgpt
On Karma: 'karma /kär′mə/ noun'
The totality of a person's actions and conduct during successive incarnations, regarded as causally influencing his or her destiny.
The law or principle through which such influence is believed to operate.
Fate or destiny resulting from one's previous actions.
'Karma teaches that the universe will render to us good for good and bad for bad. In other words, good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people. Yet because we are imperfect people, karma will always pronounce condemnation.
Have you ever heard someone say, “What goes around comes around”? Perhaps it was the comment, “You get what you give.” Or maybe someone described how they released positivity into the world so that positive things would happen to them. Such sayings are common, each describing a mystical link between how we behave and what life throws back at us.
In a word: karma. Karma teaches that if we engage in good behavior, good things will happen. Engaging in wicked behavior, on the other hand, brings negativity upon us. The result of our behavior is unavoidable; we get what we deserve.'
Rev. Kyle Norman Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap,” Galatians 6:7.
'For many people, the word ‘karma’ is used interchangeably with the biblical concept of reaping what you sow. And that’s understandable, given how these two principles sound like the same exact thing...'
[https://www.ibelieve.com/christian-living/what-is-the-difference-between-karma-and-reaping-what-you-sow.html]
These crooks are stealing everything they can get their hands on.
They are committing felonies in broad daylight with nary a peep.
In a just world, crooks who beak the law and AN INJUNCTION against their theft,
THEY GET ARRESTED.
THEY GET BEAT UP..
THEY GET LOCKED IN A CELL FOR A FEW WEEKS TO COMMUNE WITH THE OTHER RATS.
I want that.
I want it NOW.
Now, before the system that so many people have DIED FOR, BLED FOR AND SACRIFICED FOR is gone FOREVER.
Heather Cox Richardson
As soon as President Donald Trump took office, his administration froze great swaths of government funding, apparently to test the theory popular with Project 2025 authors that the 1974 law forbidding the president from “impounding” money Congress had appropriated was unconstitutional. The loss of funding has hurt Americans across the country. Today, Daniel Wu, Gaya Gupta, and Anumita Kaur of the Washington Post reported that farmers who had signed contracts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to improve infrastructure and who had paid up front to put in fences, plant different crops, and install renewable energy systems with the promise the government would provide financial assistance are now left holding the bag.
With Republicans in Congress largely mum about this and other power grabs by the administration, the courts are holding the line. Chief Judge John McConnell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island today found that the Trump administration has refused to disburse federal funding despite the court’s “clear and unambiguous” temporary restraining order saying it must do so. McConnell said the administration “must immediately restore frozen funding” and clear any hurdles to that funding until the court hears arguments about the case. This includes the monies withheld from the farmers.
This evening, Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley blocked the Trump appointees at the National Institutes of Health from implementing the rate change they wanted to apply to NIH grants. But, as legal analyst Joyce White Vance notes, the only relief sought is for the twenty-two Democratic-led states that have sued, keeping Republican-dominated states from freeloading on their Democratic counterparts. As Josh Marshall noted today in Talking Points Memo, it appears a pattern is emerging in which Democratic-led states are suing the administration while officials from Republican-led states, which are even harder hit by Trump’s cuts than their Democratic-led counterparts, are asking Trump directly for help or exceptions.
As soon as he took office, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, who was a key author of Project 2025 and who is also acting as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced he was shuttering the agency. That closure was a recommendation of Project 2025, which called the consumer protection agency “a shakedown mechanism to provide unaccountable funding to leftist nonprofits.” Immediately, the National Treasury Employees Union sued him, saying that Vought’s directive to employees to stop working “reflects an unlawful attempt to thwart Congress’s decision to create the CFPB to protect American consumers.”
MAGA loyalists, particularly Vice President J.D. Vance, have begun to suggest they will not abide by the rule of law, but before Trump and Vance took office, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts called out Vance’s hints that he would be willing to defy the rulings of federal courts as “dangerous suggestions” that “must be soundly rejected.”
Today the American Bar Association took a stand against the Trump administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself” as it attacks the Constitution and tries to dismantle departments and agencies created by Congress “without seeking the required congressional approval to change the law.”
“The American Bar Association supports the rule of law,” president of the organization William R. Bay said in a statement. “That means holding governments, including our own, accountable.” He cheered on the courts that “are treating these cases with the urgency they require.”
“[R]efusing to spend money appropriated by Congress under the euphemism of a pause is a violation of the rule of law and suggests that the executive branch can overrule the other two co-equal branches of government,” Bay wrote. “This is contrary to the constitutional framework and not the way our democracy works. The money appropriated by Congress must be spent in accordance with what Congress has said. It cannot be changed or paused because a newly elected administration desires it. Our elected representatives know this. The lawyers of this country know this. It must stop.”
He called on “elected representatives to stand with us and to insist upon adherence to the rule of law…. The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore. These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent…. We urge every attorney to join us and insist that our government, a government of the people, follow the law.”
Today, five former Treasury secretaries wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that also reinforced the legal lines of our constitutional system, warning that “our democracy is under siege.” Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers, who served under President Bill Clinton; Timothy F. Geithner and Jacob J. Lew, who served under President Barack Obama; and Janet L. Yellen, who served under President Joe Biden, spoke up about the violation of the United States Treasury’s nonpartisan payment system by political actors working in Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”
That DOGE team “lack training and experience to handle private, personal data,” they note, “like Social Security numbers and bank account information.” Their involvement risks exposing highly sensitive information and even risks the failure of critical infrastructure as they muck around with computer codes. The former Treasury secretaries noted that on Saturday morning, a federal judge had temporarily stopped those DOGE workers from accessing the department’s payment and data systems, warning that that access could cause “irreparable harm.”
“While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning,” the former secretaries wrote, “the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming.” The executive branch must respect that Congress controls the nation’s money, they wrote, reiterating the key principle outlined in the Constitution: “The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.”
The Treasury Department cannot decide “which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not,” the letter read. “The Trump administration may seek to change the law and alter what spending Congress appropriates, as administrations before it have done as well. And should the law change, it will be the role of the executive branch to execute those changes. But it is not for the Treasury Department or the administration to decide which of our congressionally approved commitments to fulfill and which to cast aside.”
That warning appears as Trump indicates that he is willing to undermine the credit of the United States. Yesterday, on Air Force One, he told reporters that the members of the administration trying to find wasteful spending have suggested that they have found fraud in Treasury bonds and that the United States might “have less debt than we thought.” The suggestion that the U.S. might not honor its debt is a direct attack on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which says that “[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” That amendment was written under similar circumstances, when former Confederates sought to avoid debt payments and undermine the power of the federal government.
Lauren Thomas, Ben Drummett, and Chip Cutter of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that “for CEOs and bankers, the Trump euphoria is fading fast.” Consumers are losing confidence in the economy, and observers expect inflation, while business leaders find that trying to navigate Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs is taking all their attention.
Meanwhile, Trump has continued his purge of government employees he considers insufficiently loyal to him. On Friday he tried to get rid of Ellen Weintraub of the Federal Elections Commission, who contended that her removal was illegal. He also fired Colleen Shogan, the Archivist of the United States, head of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the government agency that handles presidential records. The archivist is the official responsible for receiving and validating the certified electoral ballots for presidential elections—a process Trump’s people tried to corrupt after he lost the 2020 presidential election.
It was NARA that first discovered Trump’s retention of classified documents and demanded their return, although Shogan was not the archivist in charge at the time.
The courts happened to weigh in on the case of the retained classified documents today, when U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the FBI must search its records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from journalist Jason Leopold after Leopold learned that Trump had allegedly flushed presidential records down the toilet when he was president, and later brought classified documents to Florida. The judge noted that the Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. United States that the president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties and is “at least presumptive[ly] immune from criminal prosecution for…acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility” means that there is no reason to hold back information to shield him from prosecution. Indeed, Howell notes, that decision means that the FOIA request is now the only way for the American public to “know what its government is up to.”
Howell highlighted that the three Supreme Court justices who dissented from the Trump v. United States decision described it as “mak[ing] a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.” In a footnote, Howell also called attention to the fact that presumptive immunity for the president does not “extend to those who aid, abet and execute criminal acts on behalf of a criminally immune president. The excuse offered after World War II by enablers of the fascist Nazi regime of ‘just following orders’ has long been rejected in this country’s jurisprudence.”
Today, Trump fired David Huitema, director of the Office of Government Ethics, the department that oversees political appointments and helps nominees avoid conflicts of interest.
On Friday, Trump fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel, U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger. That office enforces federal whistleblower laws as well as the law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in most political activity: the Hatch Act. Congress provided that the special counsel can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” and today Dellinger sued, calling his removal illegal.
Tonight, Judge Amy Berman Jackson blocked Dellinger’s firing through Thursday as she hears arguments in the case.
Notes:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.58912/gov.uscourts.rid.58912.96.0_2.pdf
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.280590/gov.uscourts.mad.280590.25.0.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/10/trump-judges-vance-musk-defy-orders/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/01/roberts-vance-court-orders-trump-constitution/
https://newrepublic.com/post/191345/union-sue-trump-vought-cfpb-shutdown
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/02/aba-supports-the-rule-of-law/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/opinion/treasure-secretaries-doge-musk.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/nyregion/attorneys-general-trump-musk-suit.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/02/10/farmers-agriculture-funding-frozen/
https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf, p. 837
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/trump-says-us-might-have-less-debt-than-thought-2025-02-09/
https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/americans-jittery-over-inflation-university-of-michigan-survey-suggests-1476cf39
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/trump-boom-corporate-uncertainty-6383263d
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/07/trump-fires-national-archives-chief-00203246
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/07/donald-trump-fec-commissioner-firing-014200
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/10/trump-executive-branch-lawsuit-00203354
https://www.govexec.com/management/2025/02/ethics-and-whistleblower-officials-fired-trump/402887/
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/10/fbi-trump-classified-docs-case-015570
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2022cv1921-44
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2022cv1921-44
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/blue-state-law-red-state-law
https://www.newsweek.com/judge-rips-supreme-court-immunity-ruling-records-case-related-trump-2029103
Bluesky: kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lhujqgpkam2z
Your data has been compromised along with all Americans' data. It may be for sale along with access to the US Treasury payment system. This is a disaster.
My experience may be helpful in understanding what may happen next. I have experienced a DDOS [Distributed Denial Of Service] attack on my personal computer.
Somehow a bit of malicious code snuck into my operating system. My PC would suddenly slow down and then resume for a bit until it shut down completely after bypassing Norton antivirus system.
I tried several fixes but the code was so deep that nothing worked to restore my machine. The only thing that worked completely was this: first, to save all my files to an external hard drive; and, then wipe the internal disk completely clean of all code.
Then, I had to reload the operating system from scratch and copy my files from the external drive to my PC's drive.
The United States of America may have been so hacked by Musk's hackers.
We face a binary choice:
1. Assume that Musk has NOT installed any malicious code on Federal servers and then restore any deleted files and resume normal activities.
The danger of that choice is simple - We face a 90% probability that he HAS installed such code in the Federal servers. That back door access to our data can be used for criminal activities, i.e., transfer money from the Treasury to off shore Musk accounts, sell access to our personal data to hostile powers and permanently and critically damage our National Security.
2. Assume that Musk HAS installed one or more back door access to Federal Servers.
Then we need to follow the fix I used as described above: delete all operating systems as above and then restore our files and operating systems more securely than before.
The danger of that choice is that we may waste some time and effort fixing a problem that may not exist. However, since there is a 90% probability that malicious such code has been installed, this option is far better for the National Security.
Sadly, it is likely that 45 will prevent such a fix from occurring. The effect of that is to continue the current free access to all our data for anyone with the right mix of cash and arse kissing.....
Musk has destroyed the early warning system the US uses to track potential pandemics and reduce the number of American deaths from them.
He killed USAID. That's the agency that was maintaining the 90 country early warning system that alerted US health agencies about new viruses.
Now we have no method of tracking and identifying potential pandemic causing viruses.
Some Americans will die.
Oh, by the way. He also killed the USAID food program that combated children’s' hunger around the world. As many as 45 million children may die from the resulting starvation.
OOps, I almost forgot. Musk also killed the program that saw USA reputation in Indonesia surpass that of Bin Laden for the first time ever. Indonesian opinion surveys before the USAID response to the tsunami catastrophe a few years ago shows Bin Laden at about 70% approval while the USA was about 30 % approval. After the USAID relief, the sane survey showed the favourable opinions reversed so the USA was favoured by 70% of Indonesians while Bin laden was favoured by about 30 %.
'The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup. The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical.'
Complete message:
Heather Cox Richardson
Feb 4
'I’m going to start tonight by stating the obvious: the Republicans control both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. They also control the White House and the Supreme Court. If they wanted to get rid of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, they could introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it on to President Trump for his signature. And there would be very little the Democrats could do to stop that change.
But they are not doing that.
Instead, they are permitting unelected billionaire Elon Musk, whose investment of $290 million in Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election apparently has bought him freedom to run the government, to override Congress and enact whatever his own policies are by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes.
The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup. The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical.
But Republicans are allowing Musk to run amok. This could be because they know that Trump has embraced the idea that the American government is a “Deep State,” but that the extreme cuts the MAGA Republicans say they want are actually quite unpopular with Americans in general, and even with most Republican voters. By letting Musk make the cuts the MAGA base wants, they can both provide those cuts and distance themselves from them.
But permitting a private citizen to override the will of our representatives in Congress destroys the U.S. Constitution. It also makes Congress itself superfluous. And it takes the minority rule Republicans have come to embrace to the logical end of putting government power in the hands of one man.
Musk’s team in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken control of the U.S. Treasury payment systems that handle about $6 trillion in annual transactions for the U.S. government, thus gaining access to Americans' personal information as well as information about Musk's competitors. From there, Musk claims to have been cancelling those transactions he thinks are wasteful. He claims, for example, to have “deleted” the popular Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Direct File system that enabled people to file their taxes online for free, without the help of paid tax preparers.
Musk’s team apparently consists of six engineers, aged 19 to 24, who are taking control of the computers at government agencies. From the Treasury Department, they went on to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Their breaching of the computers there compromises our national intelligence systems, which must now be considered insecure.
From there, they went on to the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages the federal government’s 7,500 or so buildings. Musk’s people sent an email to regional managers telling them to begin ending the leases on federal offices. According to Chris Megerian of the Associated Press, the person in charge of that initiative is Nicole Hollander, who describes herself on LinkedIn as employed at Musk’s social media company, X.
Today, according to an email sent to employees of the Small Business Administration, Musk’s people have gotten into that agency’s human resources, contracts, and payment systems. The Small Business Administration supports small businesses and entrepreneurs, and under the Biden-Harris administration, small businesses boomed thanks to small-dollar loans to women, Black, and Latino entrepreneurs.
By this afternoon, Musk’s people were digging into the data of the Department of Education with an eye to dismantling it from the inside before Trump tries to shut it down with an executive order, although only Congress itself can shutter the department. According to Laura Meckler, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, and Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post, Musk’s DOGE staffers had accessed sensitive internal data systems, including the personal information of millions of students who are taking part in the federal student aid program. It is highly unlikely that Congress would destroy the Department of Education, so Musk and Trump hope to hollow it out from within.
On a livestream last night, Musk said of his destruction of the federal government: “If it’s not possible now, it will never be possible. This is our shot, This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have. If we don’t take advantage of this best hand of cards, it’s never going to happen.”
Three federal employees unions are suing the Trump administration to stop Musk, and today, Democratic members of the House and Senate tried to enter the USAID building but were denied entry. Led by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the Democrats condemned what Raskin called Musk and Trump’s “illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power.”
“Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury,” Raskin said, “but you don’t control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does that—under Article I of the Constitution. And just like the president, who was elected to something, cannot impound the money of the people, we don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that’s going to become real clear.”
Senator Murphy said: "[L]et's not pull any punches about why this is happening. Elon Musk makes billions of dollars based off of his business with China. And China is cheering at [the destruction of USAID]. There is no question that the billionaire class trying to take over our government right now is doing it based on self-interest: their belief that if they can make us weaker in the world, if they can elevate their business partners all around the world, they will gain the benefit.”
Murphy continued: “But there’s another reason this is happening. They’re shuttering agencies and sending employees home in order to create the illusion that they’re saving money, in order to…pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations.”
While Musk and his DOGE team are trying systematically to dismantle the government, today Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in grants and loans before DOGE got going. AliKhan said that by impounding funds—which Congress declared illegal in 1974—Trump’s Office of Management and Budget “attempted to wrest the power of the purse away from the only branch of government entitled to wield it.” It is Congress, not the president, that determines federal spending.
Meanwhile, the elected president, Donald Trump, sparked a crisis last Friday when his White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced that he fully intended to go through with the trade war he had hyped on the campaign trail. Trump announced he would levy tariffs of 25% on most products from Mexico and Canada and of 10% on products from China, beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, in violation of the trade agreement his own team had negotiated during his first term.
As soon as Leavitt announced the upcoming tariffs, the stock market began to fall, and by last night, stock market futures had fallen 450 points on the expectation of tariffs hitting at midnight tonight. Today, the stock market continued to fall. Even reliable Trump allies began to complain that the tariffs would raise prices. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called Trump’s tariffs “the dumbest trade war in history.”
Today, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced that she and Trump had “reached a series of agreements” that would pause the threatened tariffs for a month. Mexico agreed to “reinforce the northern border with 10,000 elements of the National Guard immediately, to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States,” while the U.S. “commits to work to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”
When Trump announced their conversation shortly afterward, he omitted the part of the agreement that committed the U.S. to try to stop the flow of guns to Mexico. He also did not mention that, in fact, Mexico committed to putting 10,000 troops at the border in 2021. As Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post commented above a record of Mexican troop deployments: “Any news outlet reporting Mexico conceded anything to Trump to get him to delay tariffs has not done its homework. Trump boasts he got Mexico to commit to stationing 10K troops at our border. Apparently he didn’t realize Mexico already has 15K troops deployed there[.]”
The crisis at the northern border worked out in a similar fashion. After conferring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump announced a 30-day pause in the implementation of tariffs. Trudeau agreed to appoint a border czar and to implement a $1.3 billion border plan that Canada had announced in December.
In other words, while Musk was causing a constitutional crisis, Trump created an economic crisis that threatened both domestic and global chaos, then claimed Biden administration achievements as his own and declared victory.
The tariffs on Chinese goods went into effect as planned. China has promised to levy tariffs of up to 15% on certain U.S. products beginning a week from today. It also said it will investigate Google to see if it has violated antitrust laws.
Notes:
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/03/nx-s1-5285539/doge-musk-usaid-trump
https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-honduras-mexico-immigration-border-patrols-917c0fea87c0a807b371da207d34c8cc
https://www.sba.gov/article/2024/10/24/new-report-reveals-historic-surge-small-business-financing-under-biden-harris-administration
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/02/03/trump-education-department-dismantling-executive-order-draft/
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276842/gov.uscourts.dcd.276842.30.0_3.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/white-house-spending-freeze-omb-judge.html
https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-donald-trump-doge-21153a742fbad86284369bb173ec343c
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/03/democrats-usaid-building-house-senate-protest
https://raskin.house.gov/2025/2/full-remarks-raskin-condemns-president-trump-and-elon-musk-s-illegal-and-unconstitutional-abolition-of-usaid-at-press-conference-outside-the-agency
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2024/12/government-of-canada-announces-its-plan-to-strengthen-border-security-and-our-immigration-system.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/04/china-levies-tariffs-on-select-us-imports-starting-feb-10.html
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/04/treasury-sued-doge-sensitive-information-musk-trump
https://apnews.com/article/china-tariffs-us-trump-150fab3a44ec055845e47c82bde544c2
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/02/trump-tariffs-wall-street-journal-editorial
Bluesky:
meidastouch.com/post/3lhbwpt7dyc25
crampell.bsky.social/post/3lhcalxfhi22k
ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3lhc3hhxzc223
lbarronlopez.bsky.social/post/3lhcbictfds2e
markey.senate.gov/post/3lhcm574bjc2z
philinvestigates.com/post/3lhckanksnc2a
atrupar.com/post/3lhc65bdqst2e
X:
micah_erfan/status/1886515403649688003
