Never appropriate. The actions are entirely unconstitutional. If the US decided to disband USAID it would have to be an act of congress, unelected friends of the president don’t come close to being able to make that call.
... right up until they pretend they're not and never were when the political winds shift again. Though, maybe the winds no longer shift in these parts ...
And of course, the executive branch has everyone from the FBI on down, you're not going to win a shooting (or shoving) war with them.
https://bsky.app/profile/newsguy.bsky.social/post/3lhcadi7oy...
> If there are no consequences, the law is immaterial.
That is exactly what I mean by "growth in executive power".
Edit: DOJ Says Administration Doesnt Have to Follow Court Order Halting Funding Freeze - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42923302
So much for checks and balances I suppose.
How long until Elon dismisses Trump? Let that sink in...
He will be cast aside and scapegoated in less than 6months.
He might end up in jail in 2-4 years.
You think the Trump administration is going to prosecute the wealthiest person on earth? Attention and wealth are the currencies of Trumpian politics, and I would be shocked to see Trump try to fight someone with such a massive ability to direct attention (via control over twitter and through having hundreds of billions of dollars).
Exactly this. And he doesn't even see it. There will be no "Elon dismisses Trump". Elon is not a natural born US citizen, Trump is. Trump wins, because if one has been paying attention, the people who put Trump in office don't like immigrants all that much.
The one thing even the richest can't avoid is time.
I'd bet on Musk as he has better connections among the Silicon Valley elite that are propping up this administration. Plus, the way that Trump is rubber-stamping everything Musk does as soon as he hears about it seems to suggest which one is actually in charge.
The MAGA mobs may only care about a few cherry picked bits from the Constitution, but the requirement of being a natural born citizen (usually meant as born on US soil with 2 US parents, but generally, either one is accepted) is definitely one of them. And he won't be getting meaningful support from anywhere along the other end of the scale anytime soon, so I left them out
Understatement of (this) century at least.
I'm in agreement. These people are softer than tissue paper. Where's the energy South Korean representatives had when their President declared martial law?
[Citation Needed]. Seriously. Heck, even a cursory read of the Wikipedia article would tell you they are controlled by the Legislative branch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol_Police
> The United States Capitol Police (USCP) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States with nationwide jurisdiction charged with protecting the United States Congress within the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its territories. It answers to the Capitol Police Board and is the only full-service federal law enforcement agency appointed by the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States.
Misinformation is infectious.
The Capitol Police Board oversees and supports the United States Capitol Police in its mission and helps to advance coordination between the Department and the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives and the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate, in their law enforcement capacities, and the Congress. Consistent with this purpose, the Capitol Police Board establishes general goals and objectives covering its major functions and operations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations.
The Capitol Police Board consists of the Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper of the U.S. Senate, and the Architect of the Capitol. The Chief of the United States Capitol Police serves in an ex-officio non-voting capacity. The Chairmanship alternates annually between the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms.
Even a Democrat landslide in two years wouldn't change it, because almost all Democratic politicians are unwilling to cause a fuss (or they are secretly happy with what the other branches are doing).
But the people are getting what they voted for, so is it really ethical to intervene in that?
I think that’s extremely debatable. Last I checked “unauthorized access to confidential taxpayer information” was not an election topic.
This is true on all sides of course, folks who voted for Obama didn’t vote for drone strikes against US citizens either. Winning a presidential election does not mean four years of dictatorship and silencing of criticism.
Whether most of the people doing so were smart enough to understand it is a good question, but the fact is we put a Perón-like figure into office, and only age will likely make him leave.
Power Wars by Charlie Savage covers this rhetorical zig zag.
Gee, I'm shocked, shocked, that a guy who stole large numbers of classified documents on his way out the door and stuffed them in unused bathrooms in his house(s) would fail to safeguard confidential taxpayer information.
You're right, it wasn't an election topic. Nobody who had any power cared to make it one, nobody who cared had the power... and nobody else was paying attention.
Obama didn't run on drone strikes, but everything Trump is doing has been a part of the Trumpist or Republican fringe platform for years. The Republicans have wanted to defund and destroy government ever since Grover Norquist said he wanted government to be small enough to drown in a bathtub. Purging academia of DEI and "woke," aggressive anti-immigration policies, tariffs, rule through executive order, none of it is new, all of it is established, boilerplate Trump-era Republican doctrine.
Trump ran on "draining the swamp." This is what "draining the swamp" means.
The only real exception to the norm seems to be Trump's sudden hard-on for invading Greenland and Canada.But even then you can look back at his infamous comments on not wanting immigration from "shithole countries" like Haiti versus places like Norway, or his comments on Mexico sending rapists over the border, and see how he might want to forcibly annex a few million white people to balance out the scales of white replacement or whatever racist paranoid shit goes on in his head.
I don't know. But let's please stop pretending no one who voted for Trump knew who he was or what he was about, or that what's happening now is not in effect what many Trump supporters wanted.
No electoral mandate (and the argument for a clear mandate for all of this is thin or nonexistent) makes unconstitutional/illegal action suddenly legal or constitutional.
Whether anyone with the relevant power chooses to punish these violations, is a different matter. The choice since January 2020 has been to repeatedly do nothing in the face of illegal action, but winning elections doesn't make criminal action magically non-criminal.
Playing devil's advocate - but the people asked for this, right? Isn't it time to amend the constitution then?
The will of people is the ultimate judge, isn't it?
> Playing devil's advocate - but the people asked for this, right? Isn't it time to amend the constitution then?
> The will of people is the ultimate judge, isn't it?
There are still laws. But you make a case for "might is right"
There's a process for amending the constitution. If they want to amend the constitution, follow the process. Even if they only follow it once to change the constitutional requirements and reduce the threshold going forward.
We are (theoretically) a nation that is governed by laws, with equal protection for all under those laws. This creates stability and predictability, which encourages commerce and development.
When you go all Calvinball with government, you destroy that stability and predictability, and investment drops.
This is the predictable outcome of the last 50 years of US politics, of the subversion of the rule of law and decency. The southern strategy, the 1994 Newt Gingrich legislative session, the failure of the supreme court to allow recounts in Bush V Gore, the teaparty, september 11th. All of it has only served to entrench and reward conservative opposition to the rule of law.
I used to think that people really just weren’t paying attention to the sort of precedents they’re setting when they do certain things. But the older I get, the more I’m convinced that it’s intentional. Take the dreaded “filibuster” that supposedly prevents congress from anything (except apparently banning Tik Tok). The filibuster in general, and its current form specifically are entirely products of congresses own rules. At any time, congress can decide by simple majority to change the rules of their proceedings and they could do anything from requiring that you actually get on the floor and speak instead of just declaring “filibuster” like some Magic: the Gathering spell. Or they could reduce the vote requirements to override a filibuster. Or they could abolish the thing completely and declare all their laws pass with a simple majority vote. So there must be some reason why they don’t do this, why it’s not the number one agenda item the moment the Democrats get any major it in congress. And the only logical conclusion is the current state of affairs benefits the congressional reps and that’s more important to them than the overall functioning of the system.
No, not by sufficient margin.
Even assuming every state would decide this direct question the same way as they did the Presidency this past election, a Constitutional amendment requires ratification by 38 states.
> The will of people is the ultimate judge, isn't it?
Ultimately it has to be, but not always in the moment. The bar to Constitutional amendment is high for a reason.
Honest question: would the margin have been sufficient if the outcome was reversed? Would you be understanding of their position if Republicans had the same feelings and ideas of resistance if roles were reversed?
I don't really envision a Democratic administration making a similar illegal and unconstitutional flurry of bullshit, but if they did, I would absolutely call them out on it.
So this discussion is pretty confusing to me, because the Trump administration objectively does not have the level of support you seem to think they do. Are you saying the incoming administration should get a little amendment as a treat? Are you just not aware of the procedure? Where’s the disconnect here?
But they can’t, because that support doesn’t exist. You’re starting from the presupposition that this is “the people’s will”, but voter turnout was less than 2/3 and Trump only won a plurality of that. That’s not to say that he didn’t win, but you’re talking about whether we should amend the Constitution to satisfy less than a third of eligible voters.
On the grounds that I'm, y'know, human I will grant that I'd probably find myself filling in the details of where exactly the constitutional lines are drawn somewhat differently in line with my policy preferences, but the question wasn't whether this is within bounds of the Constitution, but whether we ought to (morally) consider the Constitution amended anyway because of the electoral victory. My answer to that will always be no - both because of the numbers and also because the election conflates a bunch of questions where ratification asks just the one question directly.
2. 49.8% of the popular vote is enough to elect an executive, but not enough to overturn the constitution, which places clear limits on the power of that executive. The more radical the change, the larger the consensus that it requires. In order for the executive to legally receive this power, you need a supermajority of states.
But in a world where the courts and the cops are on your side, nothing needs to be legal anymore.
Yes, but - if you want to review your arguments, it might be still useful.
> But in a world where the courts and the cops are on your side, nothing needs to be legal anymore.
Maybe not legal - but effective it could be. As a recent example, Syria changed the people at power disregarding laws - cops and courts weren't enough to prevent it.
There US state is also far more internally secure than the Syrian state ever was.
Frankly we haven't had any real rule of law for a long time, and that's finally filtered through to the general populace. The law has been selectively enforced for decades (the famous "three felonies a day"). Of course the people don't respect the law any more, why would they?
Knowing people in democratic politics, this isn’t true. The root of the problem is that they don’t understand or prioritize power.
They have overwhelming support for every major issue: abortion, gun control, corporate taxes, HNI taxes, healthcare, social security, climate, gay rights. All of them. And yet they lose. Minority on the Supreme Court, house, senate, presidency.
Think about Obama’s first presidency. Sixty senators. What happens if they:
1. Make DC a state. That’s two senators. I don’t think they could get Puerto Rico.
2. Make Election Day a federal holiday. That spikes turnout, which benefits democrats (see: advantage in every major issue.)
That’s the type of thinking that gives and maintains power. But they don’t think that way until it’s panic time and already over.
Also, think game-theoretically (or practically). If you don't dedicate at least some effort to gain and retain power, you will be displaced by those who do. The first priority of a pilot is to stay in the air, the second is flying in the right direction.
Obviously not, or they wouldn’t have lost.
From a purely power-based standpoint, Obama probably should have pushed more in 2008. But that’s the only time he could have done it - even passing ACA got the Democrats severely punished in the 2010 Congressional elections.
Climate change might not even be a major issue any more, people are cooling to it.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-t...
That doesn't follow. It would be true if everyone voted on a correct and comprehensive understanding of the issues and where candidates actually stood on issues, but a massive proportion of the population just votes on vibes and is completely ignorant of actual policies or issues. Trump is objectively more responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade than any other person, but ask a swing voter and it's pretty likely they won't know how Trump has anything to do with Roe v Wade and think he's pretty tolerant of abortion.
People don't vote on actual policy. They vote on vibes and other heuristics.
I'm in that camp, I'm extremely tolerant of abortion but the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade was good jurisprudence. Probably not well advised, if they're going to burn political capital there are more important issues.
Wrong. The Constitution grants a right to privacy.
* The 3rd amendment secures our privacy in our homes against demand for quarter by soldiers.
* The 4th amendment grants us privacy in our persons, homes, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure. ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...")
* The 5th amendment secures our privacy from compulsion to bear witness against ones self and secures our life, liberty, and property against deprivation without due process. ("nor shall any person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;")
* The 14th amendment explicitly extends that protection to guard against action by States ("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; ")
* And the 9th amendment makes it clear that not all rights are explicitly enumerated in the bill of rights.
It is incoherent to hold that the Constitution doesn't grant us a right of privacy and control over our bodies, and it follows that we have a right to remove things from our bodies. The aforementioned amendments limit the extent of rights when there's a compelling government interest, but our freedom to exercise the right must be balanced against that government interest and the right doesn't exist if the government can't just make it impossible for anyone to exercise the right.
Roe v Wade was an objectively good decision.
> the question is basically whether or not it counts as murder and in the US that is supposed to be resolved by state legislators.
No. Murder is the unlawful and malicious killing of a human being [0]. Not only are abortions not typically done with malice, but US code defines "person" and "human being" [1] (relevant text included below) and fetuses are explicitly not human beings. Further, the 14th amendment explicitly prohibits states from making or enforcing laws that abridge Constitutional privileges.
|§ 8. ‘‘Person’’, ‘‘human being’’, ‘‘child’’, and ‘‘individual’’ as including born-alive infant
| (a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words ‘‘person’’, ‘‘human being’’, ‘‘child’’, and ‘‘individual’’, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
| (b) As used in this section, the term ‘‘born alive’’, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.
[0] https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2023-title1/pdf/U...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
the Dem leadership has done nothing substantial about their supposedly spotlight issues for 50 years.
there is a reason for this
"51" senators (when at least two aren't even democrats and one routinely votes against the party for his literal coal lobbyist cronies) isn't Power.
The one time Democrats held some power for about FIFTY DAYS, we got the ACA. We could have gotten medicare for all but a "Democratic" senator refused. Medicare for all has been on and off the Democrat platform since before RFK got got.
That so many "liberals" and "leftists" insist the democratic party hasn't done anything despite fifty years of being explicitly voted away from the reigns of power is part of the problem.
Go look at the coalition FDR had if you want to know what it takes to push Progressive policy in the US system.
The problem is for a lot of these this only becomes apparent when pollsters remove all context and political baggage. For instance, ask people if they like Obamacare/ACA and results are mixed. But go down the line and ask about the constituent pieces of it all and you'll see positive support.
The Democrats have completely and utterly failed at packaging these things up with a message that resonates with the people. Instead they've allowed their opponents to demonize their stances. And that's how we wind up with people holding signs that say things like "Keep government out of Medicare"
Creation is harder than destruction.
The Repubs found an infinite money/PR glitch.
1) They create an issue at Fox. 2) Sell it breathlessly 3) congress person brings it up in the legislature, points to news reports as proof 4) pass a new bill, or stall another 5) Refer to these actions on Fox, showing it as proof. 6) go to the polls after creating the arena you want to fight in.
Add in the internet and the media advertising incentives, and you have escalating sensationalism and extremism.
Post watergate, the Republican strategists decided to win at all costs. There is no messaging that is “nice”, and if dems are aggressive they get penalized for it. Because many people didn’t believe this was true. It was too outlandish.
They need to come up with a solution that'll actually work. Instead they seem to keep punching themselves in the face.
Are we sure? Them keeping quiet while fascists run rampage gives me the feeling of "not saying anything means you're consenting". A gruesome analogy that doesn't fit, because it's the nation getting raped (or since it's Trump, do we want to call it sexual assault), and it seems the Dems were supposed to be another guardian of the nation...
But I hope someone smarter than I figures out a better path.
This is the other magic trick that happens in America that I can’t figure out fully.
I’ve had the chance to talk to people across stripes in America, including people with significant seniority. I’ve made this point in more refiner points for YEARS now, well before Trump.
It’s not a point that people like to acknowledge. Like here ! It’s a massive issue, one that deserves its own conversation, and it’s reduced to a “whining about it”.
Step up for gods sake.
Here! this is a simple way to move forward, this is how I started to resolve it - why does free speech matter? In layman’s terms, it matters because it’s in support of a market place of ideas. In that case is it ok if you have a market place which has a monopoly? What happens if it’s ok for say… junk food and cigarettes to be sold by the same people who certify it as healthy?
How do you address the issue of advertising incentives that drive part of the escalation in rhetoric.
What do you do to throw a spanner in the free money glitch? Here, and everywhere in the world that is learning to replicate this?
We’re originally meant to be on Hacker news. It’s become VC unicorn hopeful land. Asking these questions, and finding an interest in providing if it’s wrong, or right is part of the most basic flame wars we indulge in.
1. Most US media (especially radio) being conservative allowed Republicans to define Democrats in their terms. Consequently, the "Democrats are all trans rights and DEI" was a Republican choice.
2. The Democrats certainly didn't make it hard for (1) to happen.
I'm no Trump fan, but losing to Trump required some serious efforts :-(
But the public dissemination of these positions is very conservative media driven.
Counterfactual: if progressive media had been as dominant as conservative media is, everyone would have spent the last 4 years hearing about government infrastructure spending and Project 2025.
In reality, you instead heard a relentless drumbeat of easily attackable Democratic positions, with nary a peep about Republican extremes.
So, yes, Democrat fault for having those positions in the first place. But the de facto situation is mostly created by conservative-dominated media being able to repeatedly broadcast those to an uninformed public.
The dems spent this last election cycle distancing, downplaying, and reversing each of these issues. Is it any wonder why they are losing? Rather than play to their strengths and party positions they endlessly and relentlessly try and shift right.
Do dems actually support abortion rights? Kamala didn't really campaign on that. How about gun control? Kamala was all too happy to talk about how she's a proud gun owner.
The Kamala/Biden campaign took painstaking measures to try and quash every single one of these issues rather than centering it in the discussion. Instead, they wasted an entire campaign talking about how much Liz Cheney loves them.
Even now, Schumer is saying "let's just sit back and let people watch what's happening" rather than pressing his advantage and Jeffries is saying "It's not great, but God is in control".
Dems desperately hate their base. That's why they lose. They simply transparent in the fact that the only thing that matters is corporate campaign contributions.
On the contrary, they very much want to “control” guns out of existence. But they know during election season they have to tone down the rhetoric in the hopes that people forget everything they’ve said about guns during the last three years.
On the contrary, abortion was one of the main issues the Democrats campaigned on. I live in California, and while I didn’t get presidential campaign ads for obvious reasons, down ballot Democrats campaigned hard on a pro-choice message, despite the fact that California is about the last place where pro-choice is under threat. (Gun control a little less, but I still saw it sometimes.)
The issue is that Democrats successfully passed a lot of pro-choice ballot measures in 2022 after Dobbs. In 2024 they couldn’t use this issue much, since the states with heavy abortion restrictions after 2022 are much less sympathetic to the pro-choice cause, particularly because Democrat party messaging has moved a long way from “safe, legal, and rare”. Also, Trump distanced himself from the pro-life cause during the 2024 election, even removing the strongest pro-life language from the Republican party platform.
Without the pro-choice vote that delivered the midterms, and combined with the general incompetence of the Kamala campaign, Democrats really had little to offer, especially since they’re associated with unpopular policies like DEI, open borders, trans advocacy, inflation, etc.
Unfortunately, they then moved on when there is a lot that the federal government (the FDA, for example) can still do to effectively limit access.
And state constitutions can’t override a federal ban that’s supported by a Supreme Court that upholds it.
This may not occur to you, you assume other people are like yourself. That they work in an office and perform a similar job as your own. Given that scenario, if the turnout of Democrats is lower than you expect, the only reasonable conclusion is that some bosses are less reasonable than your own, and ducking out for 40 minutes to go vote at 2pm just isn't allowed! And therefor if it was a federal holiday, their office jobs would just call it off for that whole day, they'd vote, and the Republicans would never win an election ever again.
However, the people who would vote for Democrats don't have such jobs. The jobs they have are menial, they are working all hours of the day and night, someone has to cover that shift on election day, and if somehow one or another of them does have an office job, there's no guarantee that it will be a paid holiday at that employer. My own employer ignores several federal holidays and instead gives us off days for Easter (Good Friday) and some other Christian holidays.
Your political opponents would hoof it through a warzone to cast their ballot. Having to vote early (or late, or apply for a mail-in) isn't why your numbers are down.
Did people vote for this? I thought people were voting on the price of eggs. Trump dishonestly disavowed the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 ghostbuster containment system of horrible policies when people started becoming aware of the horrors that were in there. Sure, Trump is releasing those demons on us now, but a lot of voters claimed to believe Trump's dishonest disavowals.
Trump wouldn't have won if he had been honest about what he would do. Voters didn't choose *this*.
E.g. 'Trump was coopted by the deep state, and that's why I couldn't get it done.'
Also convenient once Trump is (a) term limited and more importantly (b) too old to be politically useful anymore.
Nobody ever votes for the President's cabinet or anyone else they bring in.
They have no power. They can't set the agenda; they can't get legislation to the floor; they can't call investigations. They certainly can't arrest lawbreakers. All they can do is make a case against the ruling party. And if they do it quietly and politely, no one will hear it. So really, it is political malfeasance for them not to be theatrical.
All they can do is make Republicans pay some price for the destruction they are bringing to the country and the world. And this requires theatrics. They have no other levers they can pull.
Not only that, but the impeachment first needs to make it past the House Judiciary Committee, which is controlled by Republicans and chaired by Jim Jordan. Democrats have no tools to impeach. Their best bet is to focus on the midterms.
Elections have consequences.
Democrats can’t force an impeachment, but they can try to find a handful of Republicans who still care about the rule of law. They can continue to make the case all day, every day.
Assuming that a policy can only be achieved if you can ram it down opponents throats is a sad commentary on just how authoritarian the US has become.
From afar, it's grotesque seeing what's happening over there. Perhaps you're too close to see it.
Making a noise today about impeachment would be similar. It would play into a strategy for winning the midterms. It’d generate more headlines about the blatant illegality occurring under our noses, it’d be a stick to beat rivals with come election season. No, there would be no hope of it actually resulting in an impeachment, but that would be beside the point.
Democrats were warning that he was lying about his intentions, and that he would in fact implement Project 2025, but that is not equivalent to him campaigning on Project 2025. I think this is an important distinction.
there simply are none
They have been doing that. The issue is that people just look at it all and think "its all political theater"
The only way anything will change is if the ~200m americans who didn't vote actually start to realize that voting matters. Texas could turn blue if all the people in the liberal areas actually voted, which would basically win the election for Democrats.
I grew up in a "democracy" with rigged elections and decades of one president. From TV we thought "Oh, America is such a better place, the politicians are clean, the cops are honest and can't be bought...". Hah, fucking Hollywood fairytales.
Martin Bormann's son: "What is National Socialism?"
Bormann: National Socialism is whatever the Fuhrer says it is.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archi...
Hell, the guy is able to re-run and win the elected office again after being impeached a few times during his previous administration. Congress needs to affirm his impeachment to force him out of office and that requires a supermajority, which will never happen. Trump could kill someone on national TV and he would maybe get impeached, but he'd have enough friends in congress defending his actions that he would still be president. I mean he's already a convicted criminal.
That's why he just doesn't care anymore and is going crazy as if no laws exist. Laws mean nothing to him. At worst they are an annoyance or noise to him, but he already proved that nothing can stop him.
Now are there any cracks in this system? Probably. But we dont have a president with unlimited power than can only be checked by congress at this point.
US Doomers are expecting something similar to the Civil War movie in the next few years, the reality will be more similar to "The Lives Of Others".
"The rest of the world" will not carry on unscathed if the worse end of the range of possible outcomes for the US happen.
(I'm deeply curious about how fiveeyes intelligence operations with Canada are going right now.)
Yes the reality of the situation is bleak. But to give up on impeachment would cede even more power to the executive branch.
That's not true, most just relied on him being a former president at the time of impeachment.
McConnell:
> “Former President Trump’s actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty…There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day… There is no limiting principle in the constitutional text that would empower the Senate to convict and disqualify former officers that would not also let them convict and disqualify any private citizen. ...The Senate’s decision today does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day.”
More quotes with sources:
https://www.justsecurity.org/74725/in-their-own-words-the-43...
All they would really need to do is take the existing Trump "speeches" and present them as the.word salad they are too prove him incapable of serving. That story would viewership so the media would be all over it 24-7. That's one reason Trump is rubber-stamping everything Elon says or does - he knows they have him by the balls.
As the economy crashes, proletariat sentiments will change. If trump is unable to get a war going, or it doesn't develop how he expects, the economy will be the obvious narrative. And if they get trump out before midterms, his endorsement isn't the same thing.
You're assuming that the founders were actually correct about a power rivalry between the branches producing a system of checks and balances between them.
As it turns out, when the whole team is rowing in the same direction, congress doesn't actually care that they've abdicated power or all responsibility to check the executive. Their personal comfort is not threatened by it, and this particular congress doesn't care about governing well.
Sure, the republic will be destroyed, but in the meantime, they'll extract a lot of value for their paymasters.
Congressmen that had a spine, and refused to do that all got primaried out.
Impeachment and removing him from office means the dems will need to control congress. Which can’t happen until 2027. Then, those dems will need convince at least a double digit count of GOP senators to vote to remove him and not care about facing the wrath of the MAGA base…just to get him out a couple of years before term limits do?
I kinda imagine the next 4 years will work hard towards the singular goal of eliminating those. Or he might just ignore them with a whole lot more preparation than the badly organized insurrection of last time.
He’s out in January 2029 without a doubt.
Of course, that'll be a moot point if he continues to just ignore the constitution as he has been so far this entire term, and the other two branches continue to just let him.
We are still working on approving the equal rights amendment. That’s one that started 102 years ago, and we have been trying to get the 3/4 state’s agreement for it for only 53 years.
So no, I seriously doubt with a 50/50 divided electorate in this country that we will repeal the 22nd amendment in the less than 4 years that the US would have to do it before Trump could run again.
Why wouldn't Pelosi want the National Guard there?
Kent State. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Putting a bunch of moderately trained military in a chaotic situation with angry civilians is a recipe for disaster.
And if they'd opened fire on the crowd? Do you really think Trump and the Republicans would have backed that use for force?
After how they treated the United States Capitol Police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt for climbing through a broken window into the Speaker's lobby, after ignoring multiple orders to stop?
Pray for us in this hour of our stupidity. In truth, there have been many other hours of stupidity, but the suffering begins now.
Real. This bunch is going to tear the US apart, Vagabundo
Think something should be illegal? It's probably in there somewhere. Want to do it anyway? It's probably allowed somewhere else. Want to know if you can or can't do something? Well, good luck figuring that out. With enough time spent in lines talking to civil service workers you can get an answer that may be correct. Or maybe not. Probably best to hire a lawyer at hundreds of dollars an hour to tell you whether you can or not. (The lawyer will say "no", because if he says "yes" and is wrong, now he's in trouble, and nobody wants that.)
The system has grown and changed and mutated, and now it's a behemoth that nobody really understands. It's such a mess that people are genuinely hopeful that an AI will ride in and help us all untangle all that we humans did.
And the people that we've put in charge of doing all of this are collectively the most unaccountable folks ever. They routinely skirt, side-step, or ignore the rule of law as they see fit, and they still enjoy a 90%+ re-election rate and an incredibly high barrier to entry for reformers.
“And if I did, you deserved it.”
In the narcissist's prayer in your approved overthrow of our government.
Also, it was their job to keep Congress safe, and there are a lot of people that take their job and their honor seriously. Maybe they don't make the podcasts, but they are out there keeping our society safe.
Interestingly after 50 years and 2.5 coups, the kind of people they pushed out are the ones running the country for the past 20 years and they're stronger than ever. I take it as a signal that the problem wasn't specific individuals and parties, but they were merely symptoms of deeper problems with the Turkish people.
Maybe it's the same for US as well.
That'd be a major change in the US.
Not that it couldn't happen, but military peers would feel some kind of way about their superiors who did that.
Edit: not only that, but they didn't close USAID entirely: they just closed the USAID headquarters, and installed Marco Rubio as the new head of USAID. While this may or may not be desirable, I don't see how this is actually illegal. The specific organization of USAID was established by executive order; this is one of the many consequences of the Republicans winning control of the executive branch of government.
Edit: Daww, no sense of humor?
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1:
> The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States
I’m suspicious, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised we’ve hit the “one simple trick” era of governing.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Aeronautics_and_Space...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Inter...
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?hl=false&edition=prelim&...
Unless abolished pursuant to the reorganization plan submitted under section 6601 of this title, and except as provided in section 6562 of this title, there is within the Executive branch of Government the United States Agency for International Development as an entity described in section 104 of title 5. [1]
And here's the text of section 6601, which explains how to abolish USAID:
(a) Submission of plan and report Not later than 60 days after October 21, 1998, the President shall transmit to the appropriate congressional committees a reorganization plan and report regarding-
(1) the abolition of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the United States Information Agency, and the United States International Development Cooperation Agency in accordance with this chapter;
(2) with respect to the Agency for International Development, the consolidation and streamlining of the Agency and the transfer of certain functions of the Agency to the Department in accordance with section 6581 of this title;
(3) the termination of functions of each covered agency as may be necessary to effectuate the reorganization under this chapter, and the termination of the affairs of each agency abolished under this chapter;
(4) the transfer to the Department of the functions and personnel of each covered agency consistent with the provisions of this chapter; and
(5) the consolidation, reorganization, and streamlining of the Department in connection with the transfer of such functions and personnel in order to carry out such functions.
The President can abolish USAID, or can streamline it, or terminate functions within it, according to your own provided links, and only has to submit a report about it.
1: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?hl=false&edition=prelim&...
2: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:22%20section:...
That provision expired 26 years ago.
“Not later than 60 days after October 21, 1998”
Regardless, the agency is a party to contracts which it is currently breaking. The actions of DOGE are causing the US to break contracts, which is illegal.
That was true in 1961, but not in the 63 years since then. The Foreign Assistance Act has been amended many times with specific requirements since written for the by then already existing United States Agency for International Development[1]
[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/pdf/COMPS-107...
This framing seems disingenuous given the already far reaching effects of the frozen funding, the layoffs, the shut down of communications, the shuttered offices, and, apparently, giving non government employees unfettered access to its computer systems.
But yes, shutting down the USAID or trying to muddy the waters by saying it'll totally still exist, they'll just somehow run it out of the state department and not fund anything should indeed not be possible without an act of congress.
1: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:22%20section:...
> Not later than 60 days after October 21, 1998
I’m pretty sure it’s now 2025, which is more than 60 days after Oct 21, 1998. Therefore, the president does not have power to abolish USAID. Please try again.
>> Memorandum of President of the United States, Mar. 31, 1999, 64 F.R. 17079, provided...
(It was actually delegating power to revise the USAID reorganization plan—which was not a abolition—and to set the effective date of then part of the reorg that was not transfer of mandatory functions to the Secretary of State.)
We haven't declared war since WWII, but we've waged a number of them.
The Congressional budget process is fundamentally broken and increasingly nondemocratic - the leadership of both parties get "continuing resolutions" passed while they draft a mountainous "omnibus" bill that includes all their pork and graft, then they whip the members of the majority party to pass it without reading it.
The Congressional oversight committees are usually captured by the industries and/or agencies they oversee.
Congressional hearings are not used to inform Congress or the people; they're nakedly partisan acting gigs for committee members.
Congress has unconstitutionally delegated much of its authority to a bureaucracy run by the executive branch, intending to have it operate independently of the president. Now we have a president who is choosing to exercise his authority over the executive branch.
Of course, it is illegal and unconstitutional for the president to eliminate programs that are established by law. But remember the executive branch bureaucracy ONLY exists to allow the president to implement the laws passed by Congress. If the laws aren't explicit or delegate to an executive branch agency HOW they law/program will be implemented, then the president has enormous authority over how to implement it, and there is nothing Constitutionally wrong with that. So if the president says "we don't need 10000 people to implement CFR 1.2.3 section 4, we only need 10", and he can implement the law/program as passed by Congress with 10 people, then he's allowed to do that.
The big problem is that Congress MUST depend on the executive branch to, er, execute. Whatever is required to implement the law, that isn't specified in the law, is up to the executive branch, and the President is the head of that branch.
And all this BS about "classification" again only exists to enable the president to do his job. If the president says someone can have access to something, that is non-negotiable, as two USAID folks found out over the weekend. The bureaucracy has for decades used classification to make a currency out of secrets and to try to avoid oversight. Looks like that ride has ended.
Unfortunately, the speedrun to an autocracy won't be, the market's fine with that one.
You can't, though. It's ossified too much. The constitution was always meant to be a living document, but now it's a sacred text for which new amendments are practically inconceivable.
What generation was raised to respect those institutions? Because the boomers were against them and their policies, and Gen X was cynical about them...
As we Millenials have gotten older, we too have seen through the veil and realized the system isn't perfect. More importantly, perhaps, we've seen the wide range of ways people react to this imperfect system. Some have chosen to undermine its very foundations to get their way, leaving many to wonder what we're left with if -- to loosely quote Whose Line Is It Anyway -- the rules are made up and the points don't matter.
Much as we like to kvetch about Clinton (and I've certainly done my share of it, and certainly much of the criticism has merit), if there was a "golden age" of America in recent memory, the Clinton era was it.
Where did you go? I am in a position to leave, but not sure where to go.
If you move anywhere else, you risk making it worse for yourself.
One option is Taiwan which gives gold cards to people with impressive GitHubs.
Ummm... yeah, I think that could easily end up in the category of "making it worse for yourself" given the geopolitical risk.
As far as the article, Musk is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I think it is a good idea to have an entity concern itself with improving the efficiency and reducing the bloat of the bureaucracy of the federal government and Musk is not a dummy, he is the richest person in the world and runs some quite high-profile companies. On the other hand, it is hard to deny Musk is a little bit of a buffoon: fighting with Asmongold on X over his clear lies about video games is sort of unbelievable, telling Americans to "F [themselves] in the FACE" if they don't want all high-skilled jobs in this country to go to H-1Bs, and various other sort of juvenile things. Having these kids that Musk has hired to run-around the federal government is probably not the best thing but I think this doomsday stuff is completely silly.
He also just pardoned a bunch of criminals who physically assaulted police, desecrated Congress, because… they were on his side? That’s simply unprecedented. I don’t need a “party leader” to tell me that’s wrong.
Their goal seems to be to dismantle the federal government and buy up assets and land. Then form micro countries like above with themselves as king/CEO.
So good luck relying on rule of law.
Which Congress authorized and funded.
Congress, historically, has made formal declarations of war only at the request of the President. No President has asked for one in decades nor are they required to make war.
Furthemore, the Constitution's Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 specifically enumerates declaring war as a power of Congress:
>> [The Congress shall have Power] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-8...
The precedent is well understood. The President may ask for authorization for any extended war and for a formal declaration, if desired. Then, and only then, will Congress act. Congress will not issue a declaration absent being asked by Commander of the military, for obvious reasons.
This idea that Congress is somehow not doing its job because it's not issuing a formal declaration that were not requested nor required, is simply nonsense.
Frankly, if requesting authorization was the same thing as requesting a declaration, then one could just as easily argue Congressional approval of funding for a war is a declaration.
And the president doesn't have the authority to declare war on his or her own accord, full stop, because the constitution explicitly gives that right to Congress (and no other branch).
Any convoluted timelines around requests are immaterial to those facts.
If the president uses the military to attack an enemy of the state, without Congressional approval, that's outside of his or her authority.
We desperately need term limits. Age limits might make sense too but term limits would mostly take care of that.
Impeach. Subpoena. Then arrest if subpoena ignored. Pass laws (supermajority to bypass veto). Cut funding to executive office. Then go nuclear with things like amendment putting the armed forces under legislative control. Lots options. All require a united front.
Which requires Republicans to honor their oath to uphold the Constitution. So it's a non-starter.
So in other words "no options" because we will never have a unified front in the legislative branch.
What did Parliament do during the English Civil War?
"So Sue them"
It will take a long time to go through the courts, the courts may not care, and even if they do, you can usually appeal and drag your feet long enough that it doesn't matter. Oh, and bonus here, if you become president again you get another reset. It's illegal, but there's no recourse for action.
It's a DDoS on the legal system and he's got all three branches by the balls. The courts can intervene in some of the cases some of the time, but it won't intervene in all of the cases all of the time.
The only way forward here is if everybody in the federal government either does the same thing, or that they become so ineffective and unreliable at _their_ jobs that everything is slowed down enough for the courts to intervene.
Capturing the courts is the first step in a fascist takeover. The Republican controlled legislature isn't going to send the sergeant at arms and arrest him.
There is nothing in the way now. "It could happen here."
"Gödel told Morgenstern about the flaw in the constitution, which, he said, would allow the United States to legally become a fascist state." [1] Unfortunately Morgenstern never completely specified what this flaw was. As pointed out in the wikipedia article speculation is that "The loophole is that Article V's procedures can be applied to Article V itself. It can therefore be altered in a "downward" direction, making it easier to alter the article again in the future." But given how difficult it is to amend the constitution it doesn't seem like the problem lies there.
For all the fetishization of the constitution popular media has led me to believe Americans engage in, when push comes to shove it doesn’t seem to be worth the paper it’s written on.
If they do not disperse the money as directed by Congress to specific causes by the end of the fiscal year then there is a problem, but not until September 30th
I remember you pushing this idea (that the independence of independent executive agencies are unconstitutional, or unaccountable, or similar) heavily in a thread a couple days ago. Where is it coming from? AFAIK virtually everyone on both sides has agreed that the independence of these agencies was a Really Good Thing for the last hundred years.
Given that, they've operated on a consensus model for so long, it's hard to say that the current admin is doing something illegal by changing (as long as the money is spent by end of fiscal year, due to impoundment laws). This may be a "constitutional crisis" in the parliamentary sense, but hardly in the American sense.
>virtually everyone on both sides has agreed
This is something I've talked about elsewhere, but the electorate that put Trump in office did it specifically in rejection of the Dem & GOP cooperation of the last several decades which led to the same things happening regardless of who was in charge.
From that perspective (and without saying anything about legality or wisdom, etc) Trump is doing exactly what the people who put him in office asked him to do.
So it's not like there isn't precedent for this, it's just that the consensus was as you said, the independent (some would say unelected) bureaucracy running things. But that was only ever a convention.
I don't think anyone's claiming that they're "unsavory" - just that they are creatures of the executive that were created by the executive and may be abolished by the executive as well.
And I don't think it's a new position either? The Ron Paul types have been complaining about them for literally decades.
I challenge you to find 1 in 30 Trump voters who could say what USAID stands for or its intended purpose or any of its effects on global politics.
So I dont know about "exactly"...
Besides all of that, there is the danger that if Democrats try to play the 14th card against him, Trump will declare the immigrants enemy combatants. At which point they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the United States at all, and he can do more than simply deport them. The left has been out-maneuvered at every step here, it's unlikely that this is the point at which they start winning.
But that's not true. Only their offspring gains US citizenship, not them.
But I suspect that isn't the limit anti-14th-amendment people's ambitions.
The text of the 14th amendment follows:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
For better or for worse, the amendment does not make any exceptions for denying citizenship to persons born of late term pregnant women who just arrived on the shores.
Marking lawful citizens as enemy combatants for simply being born in the US sounds like a very bad idea to me, and should be to you too. Why would I not be a potential enemy combatant for making this comment on hacker news right now?
"and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" could easily be read to exclude those who are born to people present unlawfully and/or in violation of their visa. I think it's pretty plausible that the Supreme Court might overturn Wong Kim Ark.
> Marking lawful citizens as enemy combatants for simply being born in the US sounds like a very bad idea to me, and should be to you too. Why would I not be a potential enemy combatant for making this comment on hacker news right now?
Welcome to how it's always been for anyone who didn't have citizenship. The "enemy combatant" concept is some tinpot dictator bullshit, but at this point it's been well established in the US and supported by both sides of the aisle, the Dems wouldn't have a leg to stand on in campaigning against it. Talking about applying it to "lawful citizens" is purely circular logic - Trump will take the position that they aren't and were never lawful citizens.
Indeed, one of the Senators (Cowan) against the amendment feared millions of invaders who settle as trespassers leading to a loss of control over immigration due to the amendment.
It is simply impossible to read the debate and argue that Congress' understanding of the amendment didn't include exactly the group people today are trying to exclude.
https://www.justfacts.com/document/1866_birthright_citizensh...
A criminal is very much "subject to the jurisdiction of" the US, far more so than an illegal immigrant who if caught will likely not be imprisoned or even tried, but simply deported.
> It is simply impossible to read the debate and argue that Congress' understanding of the amendment didn't include exactly the group people today are trying to exclude.
What Congress believed at the time is not binding on today's courts if they don't want it to be, as the history of interpretation of many other parts of the constitution shows.
Deported using......jurisdiction?
You think if they do some big crime the US is going to ignore it and do nothing but give a referral because oops no jurisdiction?
This argument doesn't work.
No, just deported. When the Navy shoots at Somali pirates they don't worry about jurisdiction. The left has been at pains to point out that illegal entry is not a crime and border patrol is not law enforcement, but that cuts both ways.
> You think if they do some big crime the US is going to ignore it and do nothing but give a referral because oops no jurisdiction?
If they do a medium-sized crime the US ignores it and just deports them, that much happens all the time already, no-one wants more people in prison.
If they do a big enough crime then I'm sure the US would find some way to charge them, but that's no different from what they do for full-on foreigners who never come anywhere near the US. E.g. if they kill a US citizen on US soil then the US would claim jurisdiction on that basis, even if the perpetrator stayed on the other side of the border the whole time.
If you were being reasonable, you might realize that short of those crimes deserving the death penalty, our country is better off just deporting. I don't want to spend $50,000/year (and up) on sequestering someone from our population, when deportation accomplishes that same result. Just make sure the deportation is successful. Send them with a crate of evidence for local prosecutors (who, in theory, should want to prosecute them... unless they really were sending them here to destablize our country with sabotage and rape).
This would remain true for me, even if it had no impact on citizenship of their children.
And I could imagine situations where it makes sense to prosecute and then deport with a suspended sentence, which keeps costs relatively low but also gives them a much bigger incentive to never come back.
Indeed, Senator Cowan feared "Gypsies" who "settle as trespassers wherever they go" and whose "cunning is of such a transcendent character that no skill can serve to correct it or punish it." He argued the amendment to make those born here citizens would prevent their removal, as a class.
He went beyond that of course. His diatribe includes floods of "Mongol race", Chinese, Australians and even cannibals.
Really, the arguments against jus soli today almost sound like they're channeling the man.
It means that even if your citizenship never gets worked out, your descendants will be handled.
Having it so extreme as to be "anyone born on the soil (except diplomat kids)" is a novelty. Not necessarily a bad one, but also not obviously what the 14th was attempting.
It is extremely common in the Americas though. I think only Colombia and a few island countries don't have birthright citizenship here. I think it is a good concept for us, the US has historically been a nation of immigrants and our country has a culture that is shaped (and IMO strengthened) by people from all over the world.
> Mr. Cowan: I am really desirous to have a legal definition of “citizenship of the United States.” What does it mean? ... Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? Is the child of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen? ... If the mere fact of being born in the country confers that right, then they will have it; and I think it will be mischievous. ...
> Mr. Conness: If my friend from Pennsylvania, who professes to know all about Gypsies and little about Chinese, knew as much of the Chinese and their habits as he professes to do of the Gypsies ... he would not be alarmed in our behalf because of the operation of the [proposed amendment] ... so far as it involves the Chinese and us. The proposition before us ... relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens.
It is very hard to look at the debates and argue it was just done for ex-slaves and has no other effect given they very clearly debate the effect.
However, disagreeing about the interpretation of the constitution when it is not actually that "plainly" clear, it has been supported by precedent is not the same as ignoring the constitution. In fact, it sets up a challenge for the Court to decide and it will almost certainly find in favor of this kind of citizenship.
Many presidents, including Obama, have put forth orders and supported legislation that was ultimately found to be unconstitutional; it does not mean they were running a monarchy or whatever the left is implying.
> It'd be interesting to find out why people think moving the USAID organization under the Secretary of State is unconstitutional.
If there are no existing laws to prevent this, then it probably is legal. Given the voluminous laws in existence, I would not be surprised if there was one out there which is relevant.
> If they do not disperse the money as directed by Congress to specific causes by the end of the fiscal year then there is a problem, but not until September 30th
While this might be a "strict letter of the law" kind of thing (again IANAL), violating the spirit of a law is still illegal. Disbursement schedules are a real thing, with real-world impact when they are not adhered to, and can cause very real problems.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/uslm/COMPS-10...
That means that the President can’t wipe it out as an independent agency unilaterally. He could go to the members of his party in the legislature and ask them to create a bill rechartering the agency but then it would get public debate and they’d have to own what they’re doing, so he took the path of daring anyone to enforce the law. It’s like hot-wiring your buddy’s car because you don’t want to ask if you can borrow it, except that it’s disrupting millions of lives.
I didn't see where the chartering is in that, all the refs I saw assumed the group's existence, and only a few referred to it as an "agency"--but maybe I missed it?
Most of what I saw was that USA was supposed to follow the guidance of the Secretary of State, or work with other departments. That was Rubio's claim, that not only did it not work with the State Department, but it subverted that department's work and that there was no cooperation with Congressional oversight committees.
In some constitutional democracies there is a court that sits above the apex court, and they rule on constitutional matters only. I feel this is is an effective check/balance, as it makes the interpretation of the constitution completely unambiguous.
Some more recent constitutions have established a separate court that only rules on constitutional issues, but the US doesn't have that.
What does it even mean to say that the state department is by definition political? There are political appointees, but the overwhelming majority of the state department is career foreign service or career civil service, which are apolitical. The same is true for USAID.
None of what you're saying makes any sense or has any relation to reality.
Marco Rubio (head of the state department) stated that they refused to audited. So did other congressmen. https://x.com/cspan/status/1886473339201360210
Do you disagree with what he says in the above video? They denied to be audited. The US in USAID stands for United States. Can we not ask what they spend the money on?
USAID was not created by congress. It was created by executive order 10973 by JFK. It can be undone by executive order. It's function can be rolled into the state department.
Also, Congress codified it as an independent agency in 1998. So.. that last part isn't true either. This stuff isn't hard to look up.
This stuff isn't hard to look up, but feel free to send an explicit link explaining why they can spend money and never have to answer any questions about what they are spending it on. Some of the alleged things that they spent the money on are ridiculous (not going to repeat them here).
This same court invented prisidential immunity out of thin air. They invented "history and tradition" doctrine out of thin air (and then selectively applied it). They invented "major questsions" doctrine to allow them to act as all three branches whenever they want to.
There is absolutely no opposition to any of this. There are only the perpetrators and the controlled opposition who are 100% complicit with what's going on.
Nobody is coming to save you and certainly not the courts.
No one is stopping the people at the top of the US Government from doing what they want. In fact, there is a whole apparatus in place, at this point, to protect their ability to continue to operate unchecked.
Irrespective of whether our system of checks and balances is working (it isn’t) it’s still worth pointing out exactly what rules and norms are being broken.
At this point, who cares? The democrats in power have proven themselves wholly incapable of doing anything for many years now.
https://www.crisesnotes.com/elon-musk-wants-to-get-operation...
And can incite people against anything he chooses on X, like:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1885964969335808217
and he can certainly act quicker than any checks and ballances. We'll see how the system works to get rid of the chaos monkey on the inside.
This is a problem for the left and for neo-cons; they flouted the constitution for so long, that now that someone else (Trump) is doing it to them, the left/neocons don't really have a base that responds well to cries of "Unconstitutional!".
The first amendment says congress can't abridge freedom of speech OR freedom of the press. So obviously you don't need one to exercise the other.
The second amendment has much worse wording.
“A thriving community of professional musicians, being essential to the existence of great art, the right of the people to keep and play musical instruments shall not be infringed.”
I really don’t think anyone would be arguing that it restricts the right to keep and play musical instruments only to people who are already professional musicians.
> able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States
So I'm not sure "a rule the you have to engage with the militia" is going to get any better of a reading on the 2nd amendment from an "individual" vs "some group of people defined by the government that aren't 'the People' of every other part of the constitution" perspective.
And wouldn't "well-regulated" mean organized?
> "a rule the you have to engage with the militia"
To be clear, I was not implying that wording. You changed the musician version too much to swap out single words like that.
As far as I know that’s been the definition at least since the 50s though I’m pretty sure at least the “able-bodied males 18-45” part has been around even longer
You can't look to the US Code for definitions of terms in the Constitution; the US Code definition applies to the portion of the US Code that that definition is applicable to, but (except where the Constitution expressly gives Congress the power to define something) cannot define terms in the Constitution, otherwise, Congress could simply rewrite the Constitution by redefining the language used in it, and would never need to use the more difficult process of Constitutional Amendments.
It seems reasonable to conclude then that the right must be conferred to all the people because if they meant for it to be limited to the Militia they would have said “the right of the Militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
This source apparently talks about it, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14359253/joni-ernst...