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Comment by pfooti | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I think the actual underpinning support that broke this time is recission. In the past, of congress passed a budget with money for the some department or line item, that money would be spent. Now the president has claimed that he doesn't have to spend money he had been directed to spend by finding bills, and (importantly) the supreme court has upheld this stance.

This means that there is no longer the ability to negotiate a budget in good faith. The Dems can fight for more health care funding (or whatever) and the compromise can happen, and then the president can just say "sike!" And not do it.

And, political leanings aside, this president has shown that he will indeed break any agreement he decides to, so there doesn't seem to be any reason to negotiate. So I'm thinking this shutdown lasts a Long time.

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Yeah, that seems like a pretty major problem. It isn’t even clear really how negotiations should start, without any ability to make binding deals.

Impeachment. Negotiations should start with impeachment. The President is not faithfully executing the laws passed by Congress, and the Supplicating Council has decreed that the only remedy is impeachment. It's time to impeach and convict.

The third time will totally be different guys!

It's one of the very few remaining in-system ways for the Constitutional US Government to continue existing. So yes, I would say it's worth banging that drum again. Maybe Susan Collins has even learned a lesson of her own.

No impeachment has ever worked.

When about half of congress is more okay with the executive collecting power than with impeaching the executive, that threat is meaningless.

Well yes, the follow up to my point is that every member of Congress who is not currently supporting impeachment/conviction is complicit in this abject failure of governance.

Congress has had problems for decades (thanks to Newt and the childish boomers), which is what has been accreting so much power in the Presidency to begin with. But there is still time to pull up by Congress reasserting its authority as an institution, and that time is now.

The balance shifts after the midterms, even if the Republicans win big.

Then the president is on his way out, and Republicans start looking for and building favor with the next person.

(Which is really what all the "third term" BS is about. Trump has no intention, age-wise, of running for a third term, but talking about it keeps the lame duck calculus on ice. Hence why there aren't any details about "how", just a vague "we have a plan")

Sure, but they won’t actually do that. So, indefinite shutdown I guess?

I think the top level comment really sets a great context for discussing this. The Republican goal has been to destroy, part out, and sell off our Constitutionally-limited government. Whether the government is nominally "shut down" or not doesn't really matter to that overall plan.

So yes, this is not going to be resolved in a matter of weeks. But something has to happen in order for it to resolve one way or another, and one of those possibilities (that you should be championing if you appreciate our Constitutionally-limited government!) is for Congress to start exerting their authority independent of Dear Leader's grip on the Party.

> and (importantly) the supreme court has upheld this stance

Caveat: on a preliminary basis in most of the decisions

Important to differentiate SCOTUS saying "there isn't a compelling reason to block this power before we decide" and "here's our decision about the legality of this power"

Rough summary of current state: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/after-courts-hampered-...

I'm half-curious if Roberts is playing for time to avoid a constitutional crisis, figuring it's better to cede a temporary power (and avoid the executive stuffing the bench or whatever insane shit they'd try) than to cast it in case law. Not great for the rule of law, but I can see the realpolitik (which Marbury v. Madison shows has always been a consideration for inter-branch squabbles)

The Roberts courts is in on this. They know Trump won't last forever and when he's gone, they get Vance to carry on with their Dominionist project. People need to stop thinking that the branches are playing realpolitik games... the various Republicans are either all in on Christofascism or they're fooling themselves that they're not, or they're too spineless to fight back.

Yeah, I think too many people (especially dem leadership, but also a lot of centrist Republican voters) are waiting for things to "go back to normal."

There's a kind of mental trap (Frances Fukuyama and the end of history) where you consider the modern liberal capitalist democracy an attractor state of such strength that anything like the current admin is a temporary aberration,that we can wait it out.

And just like the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, I think the populist demagogue class can retain power longer than the liberal institutions can endure. I certainly hope I'm incorrect about this.

I presume that the court knows what it is doing, which is playing a partisan game. Last administration it invented a whole new legal doctrine (major questions) to fabricate a way to block the biden agenda, this administration it is doing its best to give the trump administration a huge amount of power _without_ ceding that power indefinitely to the next administration via precedent.

Frankly, it's time to look into seeing how recall elections work in various states.

"Our legally elected representative directly refuses to represent us" should be plenty of grounds.

The Constitution forbids states from recalling Congressional representatives.

Which part?

Citation needed, as I can’t find evidence of this.

They aren't wrong: https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS98/rpt%5Colr%5Chtm/98-R-1540.htm

Recalling congressional representatives is probably not allowed. AFAICT, however, there has never been a federal court ruling on the (likely) exclusive right of congress to expel members.

The closest I could find was Burton v. U.S., where the court declined to rule, since the law in question didn't apply to senators at the time.

> Now the president has claimed that he doesn't have to spend money he had been directed to spend by finding bills, and (importantly) the supreme court has upheld this stance.

So this means the Supreme Court has unilaterally implemented the line item veto ? So much for "balls and strikes" eh.

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