Thank you for your thoughts, analysis & steadfast determination Robert, from a regular Canadian reader. As a Canadian who is deeply interested in politics, I believe the incredible challenges facing your nation are important for us to pay attention to, and alternatives to mainstream media like yours are essential for keeping citizens grounded & motivated to act together to ensure Trump & his minions are not elected in November. One quibble though—in your Substack writing about the D~Day invasion you neglected to mention Canada as one of the Allied nations who stormed the beaches, in this case Juno Beach. It matters to Canadians that our military played a major role in freeing Europe in 1944-45. My late father served in the Canadian military 1942-1945, so recognition of Canadian military service is important to me. Thanks again!
Sally ( if I may), I appreciate you mentioning Canada and only would add that England and Australia were also among the nations that stormed the beaches, first, to liberate France, and then, the rest of Europe. Later this morning I will walk in a parade honoring veterans. I was granted permission to walk with an American and World flag in one hand and a placard in the other that reads, “Vote in November like your rights depend on it because they do.”
Thanks Rita! I agree, the Allied forces on D-Day were just that—many nations participating together to defeat the Nazis. So your mention of England & Australia is important. I think Robert did mention them in his Substack—I just noticed the omission of Canada. Interestingly the CBC has done an excellent job reporting on the effects of the invasion on local residents, who lived on the beaches, and how under bombardment they built trenches on their properties to shelter in because their homes were under fire. Those who were children at the time were interviewed and spoke about how relieved they were to see the Canadians despite damage to their homes. I hope your parade activism went well!
My late father served in the Canadian army during the war as well and was part of the invasion. Thank you for pointing this out! It's his birthday today, so doubly timely.
As a regular Canadian reader I was going to make the same quibble about Robert leaving out Canada from the nations that were part of the allied forces on D-Day but as Sally has done it, I don't need to!
The Canadians were tremendously brave on DDay and after. I have always admired your country and our friendly alliance. Your moral support in helping us defeat all things Trump is greatly appreciated as well. Thank you.
Happy Birthday Jill! We know you are the structure of this publication and you are deeply appreciated. Thank you Robert. Like Biden you understand the importance of “the team”. Rebecca Solnit is one of the incredible voices in the world and so are you Robert and Jill!
We have grown to distrust the US Supreme Court. That is hardly surprising when the first instinct of the two justices currently under scrutiny is to lie.
Thomas initially insisted two trips recently disclosed in his financial statements did not happen. Even in his report, he claims that not including the trips was "inadvertent," when it is clear that leaving the trips off the report was intentional. Alito's entire story about flags is so filled with contradictions and inaccurate timelines, the natural reaction is to see him as lying as well.
That’s a good question and one I’ve been thinking about myself. I’ve been thinking about that with regard to JDVance. I have come to believe that living in a bubble of extreme privilege eventually makes you believe you deserve it. That you are indeed entitled to it. That you are chosen and better than everyone else. It’s weird.
In Vance’s and Thomas’s cases, it’s not simply having lived in a bubble of extreme privilege. It’s, in addition, having clawed one’s way up there, while coming to associate and “belong with” individuals in that bubble. That can be viewed as an ‘achievement’ that sets the ‘achiever’ above others.
Remember when Alito justified having accepted the free seat on the luxury jet because "it would have been empty otherwise"? Such tortured logic.
It came out that over the past 25 years Thomas has accepted over $4 million in gifts -- the next closest is Alito with something like $250,000 -- but Thomas is an egregious outlier and clearly is thriving on the grift of his role. Elie Mystal noted "What did he deliver for that 4 million bucks?" Good question.... What a sad state for the SCOTUS to be in, and how can this be tolerated by Roberts and by the people? Graft, insurrection, deceit, obvious partisanship... Openly, no shame... My oh my...
In 2016, the Supreme Court vacated the bribery conviction of the Virginia governor and held, 8-0, that "To qualify as an "official act," the public official must make a decision to take an action on that question or matter, or agree to do so." As a consequence, the governor did not commit bribery.
The court was composed of Chief Justice John Roberts (the author of the decision), and associate justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
In favoring that position, were any of the justices conscious of their own "official acts" that would have been bribery under the statute that had been overruled. Of the current justices, especially the two who are under scrutiny, Justices Alito and Thomas, do either of them have a consciousness of a lack evidence of their taking an action or a specific decision in exchange for a bribe; while under the previous definition of bribery, they might, in fact be guilty of having been bribed?
November 5th, D-Day indeed. My birthday is on November 7th and I am looking forward to the gift of a clear win for Biden. Continuing to get the vote out here in Australia with Democrats Abroad.
The idea of Donald Trump, as President, deciding on a whim to withhold payment of funds authorized by Congress because he somehow feels that it doesn’t serve his personal needs, should raise huge red flags that his Administration will be downright lawless and arbitrary and self-serving.
This Washington Post article describes perfect chilling examples: Trump will claim sweeping powers, never before used by any U.S. President, to cancel federal spending for the World Health Organization and green energy initiatives (and who knows what else???).
While the article does describe (pretty far down into a long article) how President Nixon’s efforts to withhold spending for a broad array of domestic programs led to federal court ruling striking down Nixon’s power to impound these funds, and the later passage in 1974 of strict limits on the power of the President to withhold spending approved by Congress, the article spends most of its extensive space reporting about and quoting Trump and his supporters’ assertions that they consider these limits unconstitutional and that they are going to ignore them.
The article, for example, states, “Donald Trump is vowing to take key spending powers away from Congress if elected. He says he should be able to cease programs, even if they’re funded.”
It offers that Trump and his aides “maintain that the president should have much more discretion — including the authority to cease programs altogether, even if lawmakers fund them.” This is despite the fact that, as the article points out, “the Constitution gives control over spending to Congress.”
This is all quite explicit. On his campaign website, Trump has said he will push Congress to repeal parts of the 1974 law that restricts the president’s authority to spend federal dollars without congressional approval.
Trump has also said he will unilaterally challenge that law by cutting off funding for certain programs, promising on his first day in office to order every agency to identify “large chunks” of their budgets that would be halted by presidential edict.
This is chaotic, self-absorbed behavior that one should expect from Trump.
Trump’s claim that defunding programs he disagrees with for whatever reason will reduce taxes and “quickly stop inflation” is counterfactual speculation – it’s not remotely close to the truth. Inflation has been a revenue problem, not a tax or spending problem. The deficits have blown up under Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump, all Republicans, due to tax cuts that do not pay for themselves as promised, and only benefit the wealthy and corporations. Trump cannot possibly “slash the deficit” by refusing to fund climate programs (the end result of that will be greater costs in extreme weather damage, agricultural production cuts, further pressure on the insurance industry, increased medical costs, etc., etc.) or fund the World Health Organization (a small amount of money in the overall budget). He is also planning to extend tax cuts and even increase the cuts, if he can, which would balloon the deficit further, regardless of his chaotic defunding actions.
For the Washington Post, however, this is just a debate over policy. Trump’s efforts will turn arcane debates over “impoundment” authority into a “major political flash point.” Thus far in the article, there had been no direct, informed challenge regarding the accuracy of anything Trump has asserted.
There is then one quote of a budget and appropriations law expert at Georgetown Law School, who calls what Trump is saying “alarming, unusual and really beyond the pale of anything we’ve seen.”
There is reference late in the article about the fact that “legal scholars say Trump’s threats, depending on how they are carried out, could violate the Constitution and usurp congressional authority by consolidating more power in the executive branch.” “Could”?
Thirdly, one Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee called “a blanket unconditional impoundment… clearly unconstitutional” and that this “would obviously create a crisis between the two branches” of government. He called this planned effort “shredding the Constitution even further.”
Those three remarks are more than counterbalanced in this article by the numerous earlier remarks from Trump and his aides, as already noted above, plus the following extensive additional comments and quotes of both Trump and additional supporters:
The Trump campaign (“saying Washington must cut spending to reduce the national debt”) [This is a bait and switch that Republicans have been pulling since Reagan – blow up the deficit with tax cuts when in power, then howl about the deficit when out of power and demand that social spending be cut back – it’s so obvious, but voters don’t just have short memories – they have no memory)
Trump spokesman Jason Miller (“As many legal and constitutional scholars have argued, executive impoundment authority is an important tool that American presidents used throughout history to rein in unnecessary and wasteful spending. President Trump agrees with the experts that this power has been wrongly curtailed in recent decades. As he works to curb Joe Biden’s colossal spending binge that triggered uncontrolled inflation, President Trump will seek to reassert impoundment authority to cut waste and restore the proper balance to spending negotiations with Congress.” [This is pure fiction, as voluminous economic data proven over and over again.]
Longtime Trump allies (discussing potential targets to test executive impoundment Authority)
Trump (told Fox News last week he would “end” the Education Department and cut unspecified environmental agencies “immediately”
Free market pushing think tank and GOP adviser - “A lot of people…within Trump circles [are] talking about [this]
“Third Trump ally” - former administration officials “have also discussed using new impoundment authority to scrap international aid programs approved by Congress…a tactic to do other things, and particularly to defund some parts of the government”
Trump (has vowed to massively expand the White House’s power in other ways as well (mass deportations, purging the federal workforce, deploying the military domestically to fight crime and break up gangs.
Russell Vought (slammed the “onerous” 1974 law as promoting “the very opposite of what good government should be” and fostering a culture of “wasteful and inefficient spending….Presidents had the ability to impound funds for 200 years until a bad law got passed that we think is unconstitutional under President Nixon…We want to go back in a different direction.”
Two other Republican lawmakers are then quoted: Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who hopes Trump would work with legislators to cut spending (Trump “work with legislators”???) and Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who “could not object until he sees how Trump uses impoundment in practice.”
“Other GOP lawmakers” don’t want the executive branch to take more power away from Congress on spending, but only because they object to Biden canceling student debt, which they call an overreach, and consider as in some way parallel to Trump’s plans to defund the WHO. They also mention the boogeyman deficit (that their own party is responsible for).
On balance, the Washington Post does a very poor job of explaining how utterly dangerous, chaotic and economically harmful it would be for Donald Trump to personally decide about anything the federal government will or will not pay for.
They give far more space to numerous partisan, counterfactual assertions from Trump and his supporters and campaign staff, without correctives, than they do to impartial, scholarly knowledge about economic facts. This is a disservice to their readers and endangers the entire country, normalizing Trump as just another candidate for President, the flip-side of Joe Biden, rather than the deranged demagogue he is, using fascist rhetoric to stir up hatred.
The most frightening aspect of this is what Trump proposes to do is not constitutionally approved but he also owns the Supreme Court. I wonder what the three Trump appointed Justices are thinking about what he is proposing. ?
If the past is any indication, all 6 of the rogues are probably trying to figure out how to give Trump immunity without bringing down the house around their ears.
I appreciate and support Robert's recommendation to expand the Supreme Court. But that will take many years to accomplish. We need immediate relief. We must impeach the corrupt insurrectionists, Clarence and Sam. They are both spouting huge lies--about accepting $4m in bribes (Clarence), about flying flags supporting insurrection, whose fault it was, and what police reports say about it (Sam)--right at this moment. Such egregious lies alone deserve impeachment, let alone trying to overthrow the government and taking millions of dollars in bribes from billionaires.
I think Mr. Reiter's observation is the correct one - they will fashion a response that accomplishes their goal - coherence is not required. they will push that as far as they think they possibly can.
And he obviously owns the sycophantic, incompetent Judge Cannon in his backyard in Florida. If Trump gets in and when Thomas and/or Alito retire, watch him nominate her to SCOTUS.
I believe Cannon's moves are being controlled by the Federalist Society, et.al., as they are insidiously clever in that they seem incompetent but are brilliantly creating delays that will cover Trump for years even if/when he loses. There is great coverage of this on podcasts such as Lawfare, Jack, and Clean-up on Aisle 45. Very concerning. At some point, DOJ will maybe able to take her to 11th circuit to get her removed; the worst thing would be to have her actually preside over a trial, as she could then find a reason to dismiss the case that is not reviewable, and which would set Trump free based on Double Jeopardy. So the delays might actually lead to getting her out before that happens...
How do you know she is corrupt? How many times does Trump hate-tweet about her and her family? That tells you all you need to know.
Very kind of you, thanks, Jenn. If you want to see more of my writing like this, send me an email to bertrandbartok@gmail.com and I can send you my sort-of-newsletter, Random Guy Noticing Stuff. Hey, after all, writing just for friends, family and some colleagues is how Robert got started. I don't have that level of ambition, but I am enjoying doing it.
We are in deep doo doo. These are terrible plans for our country and they would negatively impact the rest of the world as well. Simon Rosenberg had an interview with George Whitesides who is running for Congress here in California. He is so incredibly normal, smart, and “can do” that I felt recharged. Listen to the interview if you want a reminder that sanity exists. Voting for George Whitesides and others will be a joy.
With Felon Trump’s conviction, Florida’s GOP is now “woke” to social justice. There has been an epiphany and everyone from DeSantis on down *appears to be concerned* about the voting rights of convicted felons.
Florida has wrongfully convicted more people of murder and sent them to death row more than any other state in America.As we approach Juneteenth,I wanted to share this story of a local Florida man who awaits news of his possible forever freedom.Please send your positive thoughts, prayers,energy for Crosley Green’s release.
66-year-old Crosley Green has been in prison for decades. Many believe, and some truly know, he was wrongly convicted of murder by an all-white jury.Prosecutors also withheld exonerating evidence.
Crosley has been a model citizen and inmate. He was released for a couple years when a federal judge overturned his conviction. Crosley was then returned to prison,due to no fault of his own, when our current Florida Attorney General appealed.
The Florida Parole Commission on Offender Review chairman acknowledged that they wrongly calculated Crosley’s release date by 45 years….to when he’ll be 97. The FPCOR must make a decision by July 1. Let’s hope the Republican-appointed Commission is truly able to “see the light”.
Character is so important but is often overlooked in Presidential candidates. Character is you Robert taking a night off from your writing to spend uninterrupted time focused on your wife and her birthday. A certain convicted felon certainly could not do that. Thanks for sharing Rebecca Soinit’s prescription for our troubled world. Her advice about defending the facts with ardor and what we often forget is we are not in this alone. There are more of us than them and they maybe louder but we are going to show up and vote.
"Trump hates dogs." That's genius. Can't some progressive influencer get that going? I have little doubt that it's true, since dogs can't provide Trump what he wants and needs. Sure, they provide loyalty, but that loyalty doesn't translate to something transactional that puts money in Trump's pocket or his name on a building.
Happy happy birthday, Jill! Travel safely and thank you both for the noble causes and endeavors you and your awesome family champion, day in and day out! You are grass roots in action, always hopeful, never complacent, networking with widely informed proactive momentum, all for good! The lives you touch and inspire are beyond measure! May that same energy fuel and uplift in kind so that we move forward together to triumph through these times of planning, as we continue to gather forces for our own November 5 D-Day successes, God willing! May the groundswell build to a nigh deafening exhortation to VOTE and to be part of activity to GET OUT the VOTE!!!!!
Maybe infammatory, but not inaccurate:: start referring to them as injustice Alito and Injustice Thomas. Could put the In within parentheses to mitigate (or intensify). Or at least drop the J to lowercase
When the 12 jurors delivered the guilty verdict I felt elated. Pure elation at the fact that truth had prevailed over darkness. What an exquisite feeling! Things got quickly heavy again but I am not forgetting that flash of light I saw. I am more committed than ever to do the deep work of bringing a new vitality to our country. Something new, more solidly anchored
You rightly point to the critical nature of the Senate races in Ohio and Montana, two red states. An unfortunate part of our situation is, as everyone knows, our deep division between rural and urban, and between deep red and deep blue in all but a handful of states.
The truth is, though, that no state is a single-party monolith. See our unfortunate congressional losses in California and New York in 2022 as a reminder. The flip side of that coin: There are Democrats and people who share Democratic values all through our rural areas. They just feel abandoned and often believe themselves to be totally alone, which discourages them from speaking up. One of the best writers on this topic is Jess Piper, whose substack is here: jesspiper.substack.com but I want to point to one of her essays on this topic from a different website https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2024/03/27/uncontested-races-are-undemocratic/. Please note the post-script: "I wrote this post before I heard the news after the end of filing. Friends, in 2022, over 40 percent of the legislative seats in Missouri were uncontested. In 2024, only 18 percent will be uncontested. We have 135 filed for House seats as of March 26. This is progress! WE ARE DOING IT!"
Now, how is this progress happening in the time of Trump? Well, Democrats everywhere have had enough and are organizing in unlikely places. Under the umbrella of an organization called All States Blue, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee have put together organizations to provide at least minimal support to anyone courageous enough to step up and say, "I have had enough of the extremism at the state house. I am running for office," Bluemissouri.org, Blueohio.org and bluetennessee.org all pool resources from donors and members to make sure that those people can print some literature and distribute yard signs and not be completely alone. We need to build on this model. And let me point out that Missouri and Tennessee have two of the most execrable Republican senators up for reelection, Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, and both are being challenged by serious, progressive candidates. They are long shots no doubt, but imagine a world in which one or both have been defeated! Giving the lonely rural Democrats someone to vote for locally significantly increases the likelihood that they will bother to show up at the polls and vote for Senate and President. Is Biden going to win those states? No, but we have got to start building our power in rural areas and not leave these people behind to be utterly demoralized. Plus, their lives are being ruined by the insanity of their legislatures. I would encourage people who agree to consider checking out these organizations.
On a similar note, I recently learned of a project by RuralVote.org to distribute yard signs in Ohio, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, targeting towns with populations below 45K. They are seeking "vocal locals," people willing to express their values and have conversations. Many of these people are not active with the Democratic party, if there even is one in their area, but they are fed up with what is happening to their communities. They are sick of seeing Trump flags and signs all around them without any push back. It's a two-part project, first they put up a yard sign just about their values. For example the Ohio signs say "We support Freedom, Choice, Healthcare" on one side and "Democracy Delivered Lower Prescription Drug Costs for Families and Seniors" on the other. The people who put out the signs recruit others to do the same, and they track the conversations they have with friends and neighbors, which turns out to be around 5 per sign, just by putting them out there. In August, they will be replaced by candidate specific signs. Here's a document about the program and the pilot studies they have done https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/108/410/original/Campaign_Strategy_Memo___RuralVote.org.pdf.
The thing about these projects is they do so much with so little money! All that RuralVote.org needs to fully implement their program is $50K. What does that buy in an urban media market? Not that much, if I'm not mistaken. Far be it from me to tell campaign experts how to spend their resources, but I just can't believe we benefit by completely giving up on rural areas. I know this has been a long, link-filled post, but I am passionate in my belief that there are people everywhere who care about healthcare access, public education, democracy, reproductive rights, the climate, civil rights, and who dread a theocratic autocracy as much as anyone in San Francisco or New York, and they need to be part of our movement too.
Can we be surprised that "Trump is now threatening to ignore the Impoundment Control Act on the grounds that it is unconstitutional"? The same crack crew of legal advisors and political strategists who brought us fake electors and Ukraine extortion are at it again. The Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" is providing the intellectual muscle to make the imperial presidency synonymous with a monarchy. Only they call it re-establishing executive power to its rightful place. It's the same mis-reading of history that brought us, in a perverted way, the fake elector scheme. To help articulate what executive power in our democracy is supposed to mean, try looking at:
I'll be darned, Robert. My wife Deborah will be 72 on Sunday. We were married on April Fools Day 1973. That night we flew to Germany where I served three years as captain and major in the US Army Dental Corps. Deb still hasn't agreed with me on anything, so I'm giving her another nine years to do so. That will be sixty years. We visited all those places that President and the First Lady visited. Television coverage brought all that back to me. The people of Brittany welcomed us with open arms...they never will forget. We never saw graves for "suckers or losers" anywhere. Those comments made me, and still make me cringe. Thank you and your Lady for the marvelous daily work. Truly, Ted
Warm birthday wishes to Deborah, your wife of all these years, Theodore. And thank you for your service in the US Army Dental Corps, and appreciation for Deborah's accompaniment in your service.
Absolutely loved Jill's birthday video. Have a wonderful birthday dinner. All my thanks to you both! And enjoy your dinner and your time together. Happy birthday, jill!
Thank you for your thoughts, analysis & steadfast determination Robert, from a regular Canadian reader. As a Canadian who is deeply interested in politics, I believe the incredible challenges facing your nation are important for us to pay attention to, and alternatives to mainstream media like yours are essential for keeping citizens grounded & motivated to act together to ensure Trump & his minions are not elected in November. One quibble though—in your Substack writing about the D~Day invasion you neglected to mention Canada as one of the Allied nations who stormed the beaches, in this case Juno Beach. It matters to Canadians that our military played a major role in freeing Europe in 1944-45. My late father served in the Canadian military 1942-1945, so recognition of Canadian military service is important to me. Thanks again!
Sally ( if I may), I appreciate you mentioning Canada and only would add that England and Australia were also among the nations that stormed the beaches, first, to liberate France, and then, the rest of Europe. Later this morning I will walk in a parade honoring veterans. I was granted permission to walk with an American and World flag in one hand and a placard in the other that reads, “Vote in November like your rights depend on it because they do.”
Thanks Rita! I agree, the Allied forces on D-Day were just that—many nations participating together to defeat the Nazis. So your mention of England & Australia is important. I think Robert did mention them in his Substack—I just noticed the omission of Canada. Interestingly the CBC has done an excellent job reporting on the effects of the invasion on local residents, who lived on the beaches, and how under bombardment they built trenches on their properties to shelter in because their homes were under fire. Those who were children at the time were interviewed and spoke about how relieved they were to see the Canadians despite damage to their homes. I hope your parade activism went well!
Thank you, Dr. Sally, for highlighting your father's important contribution to the War.
My late father served in the Canadian army during the war as well and was part of the invasion. Thank you for pointing this out! It's his birthday today, so doubly timely.
As a regular Canadian reader I was going to make the same quibble about Robert leaving out Canada from the nations that were part of the allied forces on D-Day but as Sally has done it, I don't need to!
The Canadians were tremendously brave on DDay and after. I have always admired your country and our friendly alliance. Your moral support in helping us defeat all things Trump is greatly appreciated as well. Thank you.
Happy Birthday Jill! We know you are the structure of this publication and you are deeply appreciated. Thank you Robert. Like Biden you understand the importance of “the team”. Rebecca Solnit is one of the incredible voices in the world and so are you Robert and Jill!
Happy Birthday, Jill. Thank you both for all you do❤️🎂
We have grown to distrust the US Supreme Court. That is hardly surprising when the first instinct of the two justices currently under scrutiny is to lie.
Thomas initially insisted two trips recently disclosed in his financial statements did not happen. Even in his report, he claims that not including the trips was "inadvertent," when it is clear that leaving the trips off the report was intentional. Alito's entire story about flags is so filled with contradictions and inaccurate timelines, the natural reaction is to see him as lying as well.
We need a trustworthy Supreme Court.
Interesting that Chief Justice Roberts is the ” sound of silence “
IMHO only takes a motion by DOJ to make him render a decision.
Hello dark money my old friend.... I've come to rake you in again....
Thomas’s bleatings and growlings show he thinks he is terminally entitled.
But why? How did a man of humble origins develop that way?
Go watch the PBS story of Thomas and you’ll see why… he’s been a self centered, “all for me” from his youth.
The man has no morals.
That’s a good question and one I’ve been thinking about myself. I’ve been thinking about that with regard to JDVance. I have come to believe that living in a bubble of extreme privilege eventually makes you believe you deserve it. That you are indeed entitled to it. That you are chosen and better than everyone else. It’s weird.
In Vance’s and Thomas’s cases, it’s not simply having lived in a bubble of extreme privilege. It’s, in addition, having clawed one’s way up there, while coming to associate and “belong with” individuals in that bubble. That can be viewed as an ‘achievement’ that sets the ‘achiever’ above others.
Remember when Alito justified having accepted the free seat on the luxury jet because "it would have been empty otherwise"? Such tortured logic.
It came out that over the past 25 years Thomas has accepted over $4 million in gifts -- the next closest is Alito with something like $250,000 -- but Thomas is an egregious outlier and clearly is thriving on the grift of his role. Elie Mystal noted "What did he deliver for that 4 million bucks?" Good question.... What a sad state for the SCOTUS to be in, and how can this be tolerated by Roberts and by the people? Graft, insurrection, deceit, obvious partisanship... Openly, no shame... My oh my...
In 2016, the Supreme Court vacated the bribery conviction of the Virginia governor and held, 8-0, that "To qualify as an "official act," the public official must make a decision to take an action on that question or matter, or agree to do so." As a consequence, the governor did not commit bribery.
The court was composed of Chief Justice John Roberts (the author of the decision), and associate justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
In favoring that position, were any of the justices conscious of their own "official acts" that would have been bribery under the statute that had been overruled. Of the current justices, especially the two who are under scrutiny, Justices Alito and Thomas, do either of them have a consciousness of a lack evidence of their taking an action or a specific decision in exchange for a bribe; while under the previous definition of bribery, they might, in fact be guilty of having been bribed?
November 5th, D-Day indeed. My birthday is on November 7th and I am looking forward to the gift of a clear win for Biden. Continuing to get the vote out here in Australia with Democrats Abroad.
My birthday is also November 7th. I hope your gift becomes real. That's my hope, too.
Good for you! Thank you.
The idea of Donald Trump, as President, deciding on a whim to withhold payment of funds authorized by Congress because he somehow feels that it doesn’t serve his personal needs, should raise huge red flags that his Administration will be downright lawless and arbitrary and self-serving.
This Washington Post article describes perfect chilling examples: Trump will claim sweeping powers, never before used by any U.S. President, to cancel federal spending for the World Health Organization and green energy initiatives (and who knows what else???).
While the article does describe (pretty far down into a long article) how President Nixon’s efforts to withhold spending for a broad array of domestic programs led to federal court ruling striking down Nixon’s power to impound these funds, and the later passage in 1974 of strict limits on the power of the President to withhold spending approved by Congress, the article spends most of its extensive space reporting about and quoting Trump and his supporters’ assertions that they consider these limits unconstitutional and that they are going to ignore them.
The article, for example, states, “Donald Trump is vowing to take key spending powers away from Congress if elected. He says he should be able to cease programs, even if they’re funded.”
It offers that Trump and his aides “maintain that the president should have much more discretion — including the authority to cease programs altogether, even if lawmakers fund them.” This is despite the fact that, as the article points out, “the Constitution gives control over spending to Congress.”
This is all quite explicit. On his campaign website, Trump has said he will push Congress to repeal parts of the 1974 law that restricts the president’s authority to spend federal dollars without congressional approval.
Trump has also said he will unilaterally challenge that law by cutting off funding for certain programs, promising on his first day in office to order every agency to identify “large chunks” of their budgets that would be halted by presidential edict.
This is chaotic, self-absorbed behavior that one should expect from Trump.
Trump’s claim that defunding programs he disagrees with for whatever reason will reduce taxes and “quickly stop inflation” is counterfactual speculation – it’s not remotely close to the truth. Inflation has been a revenue problem, not a tax or spending problem. The deficits have blown up under Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump, all Republicans, due to tax cuts that do not pay for themselves as promised, and only benefit the wealthy and corporations. Trump cannot possibly “slash the deficit” by refusing to fund climate programs (the end result of that will be greater costs in extreme weather damage, agricultural production cuts, further pressure on the insurance industry, increased medical costs, etc., etc.) or fund the World Health Organization (a small amount of money in the overall budget). He is also planning to extend tax cuts and even increase the cuts, if he can, which would balloon the deficit further, regardless of his chaotic defunding actions.
For the Washington Post, however, this is just a debate over policy. Trump’s efforts will turn arcane debates over “impoundment” authority into a “major political flash point.” Thus far in the article, there had been no direct, informed challenge regarding the accuracy of anything Trump has asserted.
There is then one quote of a budget and appropriations law expert at Georgetown Law School, who calls what Trump is saying “alarming, unusual and really beyond the pale of anything we’ve seen.”
There is reference late in the article about the fact that “legal scholars say Trump’s threats, depending on how they are carried out, could violate the Constitution and usurp congressional authority by consolidating more power in the executive branch.” “Could”?
Thirdly, one Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee called “a blanket unconditional impoundment… clearly unconstitutional” and that this “would obviously create a crisis between the two branches” of government. He called this planned effort “shredding the Constitution even further.”
Those three remarks are more than counterbalanced in this article by the numerous earlier remarks from Trump and his aides, as already noted above, plus the following extensive additional comments and quotes of both Trump and additional supporters:
The Trump campaign (“saying Washington must cut spending to reduce the national debt”) [This is a bait and switch that Republicans have been pulling since Reagan – blow up the deficit with tax cuts when in power, then howl about the deficit when out of power and demand that social spending be cut back – it’s so obvious, but voters don’t just have short memories – they have no memory)
Trump spokesman Jason Miller (“As many legal and constitutional scholars have argued, executive impoundment authority is an important tool that American presidents used throughout history to rein in unnecessary and wasteful spending. President Trump agrees with the experts that this power has been wrongly curtailed in recent decades. As he works to curb Joe Biden’s colossal spending binge that triggered uncontrolled inflation, President Trump will seek to reassert impoundment authority to cut waste and restore the proper balance to spending negotiations with Congress.” [This is pure fiction, as voluminous economic data proven over and over again.]
Longtime Trump allies (discussing potential targets to test executive impoundment Authority)
Trump (told Fox News last week he would “end” the Education Department and cut unspecified environmental agencies “immediately”
Free market pushing think tank and GOP adviser - “A lot of people…within Trump circles [are] talking about [this]
“Third Trump ally” - former administration officials “have also discussed using new impoundment authority to scrap international aid programs approved by Congress…a tactic to do other things, and particularly to defund some parts of the government”
Trump (has vowed to massively expand the White House’s power in other ways as well (mass deportations, purging the federal workforce, deploying the military domestically to fight crime and break up gangs.
Russell Vought (slammed the “onerous” 1974 law as promoting “the very opposite of what good government should be” and fostering a culture of “wasteful and inefficient spending….Presidents had the ability to impound funds for 200 years until a bad law got passed that we think is unconstitutional under President Nixon…We want to go back in a different direction.”
Two other Republican lawmakers are then quoted: Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who hopes Trump would work with legislators to cut spending (Trump “work with legislators”???) and Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who “could not object until he sees how Trump uses impoundment in practice.”
“Other GOP lawmakers” don’t want the executive branch to take more power away from Congress on spending, but only because they object to Biden canceling student debt, which they call an overreach, and consider as in some way parallel to Trump’s plans to defund the WHO. They also mention the boogeyman deficit (that their own party is responsible for).
On balance, the Washington Post does a very poor job of explaining how utterly dangerous, chaotic and economically harmful it would be for Donald Trump to personally decide about anything the federal government will or will not pay for.
They give far more space to numerous partisan, counterfactual assertions from Trump and his supporters and campaign staff, without correctives, than they do to impartial, scholarly knowledge about economic facts. This is a disservice to their readers and endangers the entire country, normalizing Trump as just another candidate for President, the flip-side of Joe Biden, rather than the deranged demagogue he is, using fascist rhetoric to stir up hatred.
The most frightening aspect of this is what Trump proposes to do is not constitutionally approved but he also owns the Supreme Court. I wonder what the three Trump appointed Justices are thinking about what he is proposing. ?
If the past is any indication, all 6 of the rogues are probably trying to figure out how to give Trump immunity without bringing down the house around their ears.
I call them The Injustice 6.
I think he will get partial immunity.
Agree. Some “carve-out” for Himself alone. Never have I so desperately wanted to be wrong.
I appreciate and support Robert's recommendation to expand the Supreme Court. But that will take many years to accomplish. We need immediate relief. We must impeach the corrupt insurrectionists, Clarence and Sam. They are both spouting huge lies--about accepting $4m in bribes (Clarence), about flying flags supporting insurrection, whose fault it was, and what police reports say about it (Sam)--right at this moment. Such egregious lies alone deserve impeachment, let alone trying to overthrow the government and taking millions of dollars in bribes from billionaires.
I think Mr. Reiter's observation is the correct one - they will fashion a response that accomplishes their goal - coherence is not required. they will push that as far as they think they possibly can.
And he obviously owns the sycophantic, incompetent Judge Cannon in his backyard in Florida. If Trump gets in and when Thomas and/or Alito retire, watch him nominate her to SCOTUS.
I believe Cannon's moves are being controlled by the Federalist Society, et.al., as they are insidiously clever in that they seem incompetent but are brilliantly creating delays that will cover Trump for years even if/when he loses. There is great coverage of this on podcasts such as Lawfare, Jack, and Clean-up on Aisle 45. Very concerning. At some point, DOJ will maybe able to take her to 11th circuit to get her removed; the worst thing would be to have her actually preside over a trial, as she could then find a reason to dismiss the case that is not reviewable, and which would set Trump free based on Double Jeopardy. So the delays might actually lead to getting her out before that happens...
How do you know she is corrupt? How many times does Trump hate-tweet about her and her family? That tells you all you need to know.
Gary, I hope this comment gets a lot more 'up' votes. Excellent and frightening summary of the article, which I read yesterday.
Very kind of you, thanks, Jenn. If you want to see more of my writing like this, send me an email to bertrandbartok@gmail.com and I can send you my sort-of-newsletter, Random Guy Noticing Stuff. Hey, after all, writing just for friends, family and some colleagues is how Robert got started. I don't have that level of ambition, but I am enjoying doing it.
We are in deep doo doo. These are terrible plans for our country and they would negatively impact the rest of the world as well. Simon Rosenberg had an interview with George Whitesides who is running for Congress here in California. He is so incredibly normal, smart, and “can do” that I felt recharged. Listen to the interview if you want a reminder that sanity exists. Voting for George Whitesides and others will be a joy.
With Felon Trump’s conviction, Florida’s GOP is now “woke” to social justice. There has been an epiphany and everyone from DeSantis on down *appears to be concerned* about the voting rights of convicted felons.
Florida has wrongfully convicted more people of murder and sent them to death row more than any other state in America.As we approach Juneteenth,I wanted to share this story of a local Florida man who awaits news of his possible forever freedom.Please send your positive thoughts, prayers,energy for Crosley Green’s release.
66-year-old Crosley Green has been in prison for decades. Many believe, and some truly know, he was wrongly convicted of murder by an all-white jury.Prosecutors also withheld exonerating evidence.
Crosley has been a model citizen and inmate. He was released for a couple years when a federal judge overturned his conviction. Crosley was then returned to prison,due to no fault of his own, when our current Florida Attorney General appealed.
The Florida Parole Commission on Offender Review chairman acknowledged that they wrongly calculated Crosley’s release date by 45 years….to when he’ll be 97. The FPCOR must make a decision by July 1. Let’s hope the Republican-appointed Commission is truly able to “see the light”.
https://www.crowell.com/en/insights/firm-news/on-the-anniversary-of-his-return-to-imprisonment-crosley-greens-lawyers-ask-a-florida-court-to-correct-the-miscalculation-that-could-cost-him-40-years-of-his-life
https://abcnews.go.com/US/crosley-green-ordered-back-florida-prison-2-years-after/story?id=98403263
Don’t be the ranch on it.
Character is so important but is often overlooked in Presidential candidates. Character is you Robert taking a night off from your writing to spend uninterrupted time focused on your wife and her birthday. A certain convicted felon certainly could not do that. Thanks for sharing Rebecca Soinit’s prescription for our troubled world. Her advice about defending the facts with ardor and what we often forget is we are not in this alone. There are more of us than them and they maybe louder but we are going to show up and vote.
That's why "trump hates dogs" works.
Republicans flipping: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/former-trump-voters-say-lock-him?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=87281&post_id=145416290&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&r=zc69i&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
"Trump hates dogs." That's genius. Can't some progressive influencer get that going? I have little doubt that it's true, since dogs can't provide Trump what he wants and needs. Sure, they provide loyalty, but that loyalty doesn't translate to something transactional that puts money in Trump's pocket or his name on a building.
THOMAS: First of all, the reports are untrue.
OK, they're true, but I 'm not required to identify the source of the gift.
OK, the source of the gift is Harlan Crow. Satisfied??
Sounds remarkably like the Felon. (But never admitting.)
Roberts is complicit.
Happy happy birthday, Jill! Travel safely and thank you both for the noble causes and endeavors you and your awesome family champion, day in and day out! You are grass roots in action, always hopeful, never complacent, networking with widely informed proactive momentum, all for good! The lives you touch and inspire are beyond measure! May that same energy fuel and uplift in kind so that we move forward together to triumph through these times of planning, as we continue to gather forces for our own November 5 D-Day successes, God willing! May the groundswell build to a nigh deafening exhortation to VOTE and to be part of activity to GET OUT the VOTE!!!!!
Maybe infammatory, but not inaccurate:: start referring to them as injustice Alito and Injustice Thomas. Could put the In within parentheses to mitigate (or intensify). Or at least drop the J to lowercase
Could it be that public pressure is getting to Thomas? Seems that way.
Great idea
When the 12 jurors delivered the guilty verdict I felt elated. Pure elation at the fact that truth had prevailed over darkness. What an exquisite feeling! Things got quickly heavy again but I am not forgetting that flash of light I saw. I am more committed than ever to do the deep work of bringing a new vitality to our country. Something new, more solidly anchored
You rightly point to the critical nature of the Senate races in Ohio and Montana, two red states. An unfortunate part of our situation is, as everyone knows, our deep division between rural and urban, and between deep red and deep blue in all but a handful of states.
The truth is, though, that no state is a single-party monolith. See our unfortunate congressional losses in California and New York in 2022 as a reminder. The flip side of that coin: There are Democrats and people who share Democratic values all through our rural areas. They just feel abandoned and often believe themselves to be totally alone, which discourages them from speaking up. One of the best writers on this topic is Jess Piper, whose substack is here: jesspiper.substack.com but I want to point to one of her essays on this topic from a different website https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2024/03/27/uncontested-races-are-undemocratic/. Please note the post-script: "I wrote this post before I heard the news after the end of filing. Friends, in 2022, over 40 percent of the legislative seats in Missouri were uncontested. In 2024, only 18 percent will be uncontested. We have 135 filed for House seats as of March 26. This is progress! WE ARE DOING IT!"
Now, how is this progress happening in the time of Trump? Well, Democrats everywhere have had enough and are organizing in unlikely places. Under the umbrella of an organization called All States Blue, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee have put together organizations to provide at least minimal support to anyone courageous enough to step up and say, "I have had enough of the extremism at the state house. I am running for office," Bluemissouri.org, Blueohio.org and bluetennessee.org all pool resources from donors and members to make sure that those people can print some literature and distribute yard signs and not be completely alone. We need to build on this model. And let me point out that Missouri and Tennessee have two of the most execrable Republican senators up for reelection, Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn, and both are being challenged by serious, progressive candidates. They are long shots no doubt, but imagine a world in which one or both have been defeated! Giving the lonely rural Democrats someone to vote for locally significantly increases the likelihood that they will bother to show up at the polls and vote for Senate and President. Is Biden going to win those states? No, but we have got to start building our power in rural areas and not leave these people behind to be utterly demoralized. Plus, their lives are being ruined by the insanity of their legislatures. I would encourage people who agree to consider checking out these organizations.
On a similar note, I recently learned of a project by RuralVote.org to distribute yard signs in Ohio, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, targeting towns with populations below 45K. They are seeking "vocal locals," people willing to express their values and have conversations. Many of these people are not active with the Democratic party, if there even is one in their area, but they are fed up with what is happening to their communities. They are sick of seeing Trump flags and signs all around them without any push back. It's a two-part project, first they put up a yard sign just about their values. For example the Ohio signs say "We support Freedom, Choice, Healthcare" on one side and "Democracy Delivered Lower Prescription Drug Costs for Families and Seniors" on the other. The people who put out the signs recruit others to do the same, and they track the conversations they have with friends and neighbors, which turns out to be around 5 per sign, just by putting them out there. In August, they will be replaced by candidate specific signs. Here's a document about the program and the pilot studies they have done https://actionnetwork.org/user_files/user_files/000/108/410/original/Campaign_Strategy_Memo___RuralVote.org.pdf.
The thing about these projects is they do so much with so little money! All that RuralVote.org needs to fully implement their program is $50K. What does that buy in an urban media market? Not that much, if I'm not mistaken. Far be it from me to tell campaign experts how to spend their resources, but I just can't believe we benefit by completely giving up on rural areas. I know this has been a long, link-filled post, but I am passionate in my belief that there are people everywhere who care about healthcare access, public education, democracy, reproductive rights, the climate, civil rights, and who dread a theocratic autocracy as much as anyone in San Francisco or New York, and they need to be part of our movement too.
Can we be surprised that "Trump is now threatening to ignore the Impoundment Control Act on the grounds that it is unconstitutional"? The same crack crew of legal advisors and political strategists who brought us fake electors and Ukraine extortion are at it again. The Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" is providing the intellectual muscle to make the imperial presidency synonymous with a monarchy. Only they call it re-establishing executive power to its rightful place. It's the same mis-reading of history that brought us, in a perverted way, the fake elector scheme. To help articulate what executive power in our democracy is supposed to mean, try looking at:
https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/three-branches/what-president-can-do-cannot-do
I'll be darned, Robert. My wife Deborah will be 72 on Sunday. We were married on April Fools Day 1973. That night we flew to Germany where I served three years as captain and major in the US Army Dental Corps. Deb still hasn't agreed with me on anything, so I'm giving her another nine years to do so. That will be sixty years. We visited all those places that President and the First Lady visited. Television coverage brought all that back to me. The people of Brittany welcomed us with open arms...they never will forget. We never saw graves for "suckers or losers" anywhere. Those comments made me, and still make me cringe. Thank you and your Lady for the marvelous daily work. Truly, Ted
Warm birthday wishes to Deborah, your wife of all these years, Theodore. And thank you for your service in the US Army Dental Corps, and appreciation for Deborah's accompaniment in your service.
Absolutely loved Jill's birthday video. Have a wonderful birthday dinner. All my thanks to you both! And enjoy your dinner and your time together. Happy birthday, jill!
November 5, my birthday, and I will be wishing for the greatest gift of all, the defeat of former President Trump.