DJT declares a major step into dictatorship: I TOLDJA THIS WAS COMING!

Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), 2018: “. . . . . the people don't have a way to fire the bureaucrats. What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws. What we mostly decide to do is to give permission to the secretary or the administrator of bureaucracy X, Y or Z to make law-like regulations. That’s mostly what we do here. We go home and we pretend we make laws. No we don’t. We write giant pieces of legislation, 1200 pages, 1500 pages long, that people haven’t read, filled with all these terms that are undefined, and say to secretary of such and such that he shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our dang jobs. That’s why there are so many fights about the executive branch and the judiciary, because this body rarely finishes its work. And, the House is even worse.”

Assuming this not some kind of sophisticated hoax, at this link, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-reins-in-independent-agencies-to-restore-a-government-that-answers-to-the-american-people/ , DJT declares fully himself above the law in dealing with independent agencies in the executive branch. 

What this means

The executive order (EO) asserts that all executive power is vested in the President, and all executive branch officials and employees are subject to his supervision without any constraint by any court or law that congress passes. The EO falsely claims that the President has the complete authority to interpret laws within the executive branch, even if they contradict what the president says they mean. The EO specifies that the President and the Attorney General, allegedly under the President's supervision and control, will exclusively interpret all laws that impinge on the executive branch in any way. This is a de facto assertion of legal power and authority within the executive branch.

Think about that for a moment. Think what it means. When congress passes one of its sloppy, incoherent laws, as it routinely does, the ambiguity inherent in slop and irrationality gives DJT vast power tom interpret most laws in almost any way he wants. But even worse, even if a law is clear and coherent, but it infringes on any executive power, DJT can simply ignore it by saying it is unconstitutional. If the Senate rejects a DJT nominee for some federal position, he can ignore it. He can claim it is an unconstitutional infringement on his power. 

This EO will probably be challenged in federal court. I don't know how much or what kinds of damage this will cause before the courts intervene. Public Citizen comments:

“The Federal Election Commission, for example, is independent of presidential control so that it can serve its election integrity mission without partisan favor. For all the FEC’s many faults, it would be far worse under the thumb of Trump and his OMB hatchet man, Russ Vought.

“The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are charged with defending consumer and investor rights and protecting market integrity. Their independence is designed to enable them to perform these duties without undue political pressure from giant corporations, the super rich and the super-connected. Trump’s EO would dissolve that independence and put the agencies under Trump’s thumb, ensuring they turn a blind eye to wrongdoing by favored corporations and leave consumers and investors out to dry.

“Not incidentally, both the FTC and SEC have ongoing investigations or enforcement actions against companies owned by Elon Musk. “Americans should understand exactly what this is: A giant gift to the corporate class and a Trumpian power grab.”

Remember that post I posted yesterday? It focused on DJT neutering independent agencies that protect consumers and workers, by limiting the power of dictators, kleptocrats, billionaires and monopolists.  Specifically, DJT moved against the FTC (consumers, dictators, kleptocrats, billionaires and monopolists), the NLRB (dictators, workers, billionaires) and the CPSC (consumers, dictators, billionaires). This significantly expands on the scope of America's kleptocratic dictatorship to other independent agencies like the SEC and Federal Elections commission. Congress made them independent to try to keep them from being corrupted by a corrupt president or powerful corporations. 

DJT and MAGA elites now undeniably assert full blown dictatorship over a major, critically important portion of the federal government. They massively lie about it, calling it "restoring accountability." That is no different than Republican state legislatures passing voter suppression and election subversion laws, calling them "election integrity" laws. 

Qs: Is this just a temporary tempest in a teapot designed to create chaos and distraction, i.e., is it just a smoke screen to temporarily allow time for DJT and elite MAGA thugs to sabotage, break, pillage and loot the federal government? Or are DJT and MAGA elites making a dead serious run at full blown kleptocratic dictatorship, intending to expand unchecked executive power beyond independent agencies or even the executive branch itself?

 

He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2025

Too much time on my hands

 How many of YOU have too much time on YOUR hands?

Ok, so what is THIS thread about. It's about time on my hands and what is occupying my mind.

Let me be specific:

I find myself at home today with a winter bug of some sort, not feeling well, so got.................. time on my hands.

So, had my cuppa, turned on the news. Channel A - Trump. Channel B - Trump. Channel C - the other news dominating the Canadian news networks - the plane crash at Toronto airport, after that, guess what? Trump. 

As if there were NO OTHER NEWS in the world except for Trump this and Trump that.

Example:

Florida man shot Israeli visitors thinking they were Palestinians

https://www.reuters.com/world/florida-man-shot-israeli-visitors-thinking-they-were-palestinians-police-say-2025-02-17/

Won't find THAT story on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, CBC, Global, BBC, NBC, CBS. 

So, with all this time on my hands, what should I do with myself today?

Oh, I know, pop onto Germaine's and bitch how we are spending too much time thinking about Trump, or watching what he is up to 24/7............ while not realizing the irony of doing so.

Authoritarian DJT and MAGA attacks against consumers and worker protections

CLARIFICATION UPDATE: The 1936 law that DJT wants the DoJ to not uphold and have the USSC overturn, Humphrey’s Executor, blocks a president's power to hire and fire protected employees without cause. DJT now argues he has unlimited power and congressional laws that infringe on a president's power to hire and fire people in the executive branch are unconstitutional. The USSC has not held that a president has unlimited power to hire and fire, but it has come pretty close. In Myers v. United States (1926) the USSC held that the President has the exclusive power to remove executive branch officials without the approval of the Senate or any other legislative body. 

The hair being split here is exclusive power does not necessarily mean unlimited power. For example, the Senate has advise and consent power. The Senate can thus reject presidential nominees that require Senate consent. Also, in Collins v. Yellen (2021), the USSC said that the President's removal power is broad but not absolute. DJT wants to break through the restraints on him so that he can flood executive agencies with corrupt, loyal MAGA thugs.

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DJT and MAGA have launched a new line of legal attack on consumer and worker protections. This is part of the authoritarian Project 2025 plan to fire all important federal employees and replace them with loyal, corrupt, MAGA thugs. MSNBC reports:

Project 2025 called out a 1935 Supreme Court precedent protecting federal agencies’ independence. Now, the Trump administration says it’s prepared to ask the Supreme Court to overturn it.

In a letter dated Wednesday, the Justice Department’s acting solicitor general, Sarah Harris, said the DOJ is ready to ask the justices to ditch the case, called Humphrey’s Executor. The 1935 ruling has long upheld agency independence at a time when Donald Trump is attempting to amass power in a White House now under Republican control.

In this legal tactic, DJT's MAGA DoJ will no longer defend statutory tenure protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Protections for members of those agencies relied on Humphrey’s Executor, but our corrupted DoJ claims those protections are unconstitutional. If and when that precedent stands in the way of the government’s new stance, the DoJ will just ask the justices to overturn the 90-year old law.

By getting rid of statutory tenure protections, DJT can fire existing federal employees and replace them with corrupt DJT MAGA thugs. Under existing law, DJT just cannot fire those people for no reason.

Think about that. Laws that stand in the way of MAGA’s corrupt, authoritarian wealth and power agenda will simply not be enforced any longer. In the past, the DoJ defended laws almost all of the time. Now, it will pick and choose what laws it like and what laws have to go. This amounts to a massive power shift from the law to DJT and plutocrats. Now the burden is on the law to defend itself. 

For the FTC, a President may remove any FTC commissioner, but only “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” as per 15 U.S.C. § 41. 

For the NLRB, Section 3 of the National Labor Relations Act provides that NLRB Members “may be removed by the President, upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.”

For the CPSC, commissioners are not at-will employees and can only be removed for cause, similar to the protections for FTC and NLRB members. Protections for employees in those agencies are there to limit political and special interest interference with protecting consumers and workers.

So what?

Some might think, so what? Big deal. Who cares? This won’t affect me. This is just DJT being boisterous DJT. Well, maybe that’s true. But maybe not. It will definitely affect most consumers and workers.

What the FTC does: The FTC is an independent federal agency with a dual mission of protecting consumers and promoting competition. For consumers, the FTC investigates and prevents unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices in the marketplace. This includes enforcing consumer protection laws to prevent fraud, deception, and unfair business practices. Guess what laws will not be enforced? Yup, you guessed it.

The FTC enforces antitrust laws to prevent anticompetitive business practices, including (i) challenging mergers that may have an anti-competitive effect on the market, and (ii) investigating and preventing unfair methods of competition or unfair or deceptive acts or practices affecting commerce. Guess what laws will not be enforced? Yup, you guessed it.

The FTC also has the power to promulgate rules defining unfair or deceptive practices and to establish requirements to prevent these practices. Guess what power is not going to used to define unfair or deceptive practices or to establish requirements to prevent these practices. See where I'm going with this?

What the NLRB does: The NLRB is an independent federal agency in the United States responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as the Wagner Act. The NLRB protects the rights of most private-sector employees to organize, engage in collective bargaining, and choose whether or not to have unions as their bargaining representatives. This includes the right to join together, with or without a union, to improve wages and working conditions. The agency enforces the rules and regulations under the NLRA. Those rules and regs. prohibit employers from discriminating against employees for union activities or for engaging in protected concerted activities. 

The agency also investigates claims of unfair labor practices by both employers and unions. These practices can include interference with the formation of labor unions, discrimination against employees for union activities, refusal to bargain collectively, and other actions that undermine employees’ rights. 

Guess what rights will no longer be protected, and what and illegal employer practices will no longer be prosecuted? Guess who will win (hint: people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, ExxonMobil, Wells Fargo Bank and other behemoths), and who will lose (hint: previously protected workers). Workers will now be at the gracious, generous mercy of businesses and their owners and investors. Power flows from workers to plutocrats and businesses.

What the CPSC does: The CPSC is an independent federal regulatory agency established in 1972 by the Consumer Product Safety Act. Its primary mission is to protect the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with consumer products. The CPSC develops voluntary standards with industry, issues mandatory standards when necessary, and can ban consumer products if no feasible standard would adequately protect the public. This includes setting safety requirements for products like toys, power tools and household chemicals. The CPSC can recall of unsafe products. The agency works with manufacturers to develop plans to reach consumers who have purchased recalled products, offering remedies like refunds, repairs, or replacements. 

The CPSC also conducts research on potential product hazards, collects data on consumer product-related injuries, and maintains the National Injury Information Clearinghouse to track and analyze injury data. The agency enforces its standards and regulations, ensuring that manufacturers comply with safety requirements. This includes investigating complaints, enforcing recalls, and taking legal action when necessary.

Guess what will happen when the CPSC is run by corrupt MAGA loyalists. Power and legal protections will flow from consumers to special interests who have little to no interest in protecting consumers. But those interests have a huge interest in profit. Research on potential product hazards will stop, and data on consumer product-related injuries will no longer be collected (safety data is inconvenient to profits).

Qs: Is this merely a “so what” thing of little consequence, or is there cause for serious concern? Is it hyperbolic or irrational to argue that most power will flow from those agencies and related laws and regulations to special interests who are motivated by power, wealth and profit? Is it fair to argue that for DJT and nearly all MAGA elites the main goals are wealth and power, with almost everything else being of moderate to no concern.

Dictatorship updates: MAGA attacks and abandons NATO; The DoJ attacks the rule of law

In yet another clear, undeniable sign of authoritarianism controlling American politics, the NYT reports that MAGA has rejected NATO because it is pro-democracy:

The leaders of many of Europe’s biggest countries on Monday will descend on Paris in an effort to forge a strategy for their own security as President Trump’s envoys prepared for talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine without them.

The meeting in Paris was pulled together rapidly, after Vice President JD Vance’s scathing speech in Munich criticizing Europe’s exclusion of far-right groups from power and the fast-emerging American plans to begin peace talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia this week, without the presence of Ukrainian or European leaders.

In a recent NATO meeting in Germany, Vance brutally attacked Germany for resisting the rise of the authoritarian neo-Nazi AfD party. The AfD’s rhetoric and policies significantly overlap historical far-right and neo-Nazi ideologies, especially anti-immigrant policy and radical nationalism. Vance’s attack stunned hundreds of attendees at the Munich Security Conference. The top-level politicians, diplomats and analysts expected to hear DJT’s plans to (i) end the Ukraine war, and (ii) bolster Europe’s defense against rising Russian threats. Instead, they got a hard kick in the nuts. Vance told the conference that “there is no room for firewalls” against extremist authoritarian groups like the AfD.

In my opinion, this constitutes a major rejection of democracy and the NATO alliance by DJT and MAGA elites. They are openly supporting bigoted, radical authoritarianism not just in the US, but also everywhere else. This is a very big deal, not just a big deal.

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Within the last hour or so, DJT through his corrupt MAGA thug subordinate Pam Bondi or one of her subordinate thugs, probably Emil Bove, has ordered all Integrity Section lawyers, I think in the DC office, to get into a room and decide who among them will dismiss the criminal prosecution of New York City's corrupt mayor Eric Adams. If no one chooses to dismiss the case, all of the DoJ lawyers in that room will be fired. 

This is an absolute catastrophe for the rule of law. Our democracy is rotting away in front of our eyes. And there still are tens of millions of American who cannot see it, don't believe it or don't care. That is evidence of the deadly serious rot and weakness in democracy. This is also evidence of the failure of the MSM to inform the American people and the Dem Party to have avoided this disaster when they could. Now it is too late. DJT and MAGA elites are going to do their very best to kill our democracy and rule of law. Civil liberties will fall shortly thereafter.

Apparently, at least one has pre-emptively resign instead of doing DJT's corrupt bidding.

DJT wants the Adams prosecution stopped because Adams is his political ally. No doubt, DJT and MAGA elites want all of those lawyers fired and replaced with loyal, corrupt MAGA thugs.