MAGA's road to a unitary executive: Hypocrisy hiding dictatorship

The USSC and MAGA legal experts have adopted the concept of a unitary executive (UE). Constitutional power for the UE comes from a single sentence in the constitution called the vesting clause: The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States. Republican USSC judges and MAGA dogma, e.g., Project 2025, take that to mean there is no limit on the power a president has over the executive branch.

MAGA's staggering but deadly hypocrisy about the US Constitution is pretty simple. when interpreting the constitution, MAGA legal dogma very broadly interprets language that gives the president and the USSC power, but it very narrowly interprets language that gives power to the people or congress. 

Slate and others report that in an unsigned, two-sentence USSC shadow docket decision in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, our Republican MAGA court transferred vast power from congress to our MAGA president. In essence, Trump now has line-item veto power over congressional spending laws via pocket recission.** This decision guts congress' core power. In its only two sentences, the USSC said (1) the plaintiffs probably lacked standing to bring the lawsuit in the 1st place, and (2) "the asserted harms to the Executive's conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm faced by respondents".

** MAGA's pocket recission in three steps: (1) Trump withhold funds congress mandated, (2) within 45 days before fiscal year end he submits a rescission request to Congress, (3) congress lets the spending expire because, in its usual incompetence or active acquiescence to Trump, it fails or refuses to reject Trump's recission by the deadline, which was Sept. 30.

It is now up to congressional Republicans to go to court and get this USSC decision overturned, which they may or may not choose to do, assuming they even can. Congress may not have either the power or the political courage to go to federal courts to get this reversed.** They probably won't do that because it would make Trump angry and vengeful. Almost all experts see what Trump has done here as illegal. However, since the USSC quietly sanctioned the illegality by shadow docket, the final outcome is unclear. This is very likely a delay tactic to push a final court decision until after the 2026 mid-term elections. 

** To get its power back, congress has to prove that Trump's recission "completely nullified" its vote to pass the law. Trump only whacked a part of the law, not all of it. Therefore, congress just might be SOL on keeping it own core spending power intact. Trump has vast veto power, but not quite absolute. All he has to do is keep some aspects of a law intact so the USSC can allow Trump to have line-item veto power, while hiding behind an argument of incomplete nullification. This is a brilliant, subtle MAGA legal strategy to establish an American dictatorship with Trump as dictator/kleptocrat-in-chief. 

Regardless of how this ultimately plays out, the main point is clear: The USSC, MAGA elites and Trump are all fully behind the idea of giving unfettered UE power to Trump. That makes him a de facto dictator-kleptocrat and the USSC and MAGA elites dictator-kleptocrat supporters.

Note: There are more legal subtleties in this awful story, but that would make this post more complicated and probably TL/DR. But, for the wonks who want to wade through more or all the Qs&As with Pxy this post is based on 👍, here's a link to most of the whole fascinating, terrifying shebang (and this for my SOL comment above). For verbatim fact and nuance checking, I had Pxy comment on most of what I wrote. What I write here is accurate and not vast hyperbole, manipulation or lies.

Qs: Is this post TL/DR and/or TC/DR? Is this not as important as this post says it is?

TC = too complicated because the legal stuff is too complicated or otherwise

American government incompetence is bipartisan

An American businessman operating in China, Kevin Walmsley, sources equipment for US companies. His company is located in the US, but his business deals are sourced mostly in China. In this 9 minute video, Walmsley discusses matters that make clear the staggering incompetence of top US officials and leaders. Apparently, they cannot see the reality of what China is doing and has done in terms of establishing global economic dominance. The US is asleep at the switch and distracted by Trump and MAGA. In his commentary, Walmsley makes little to no distinction between America's two main parties when it comes to incompetence in dealing at least with major international issues.  

At his substack Inside China / Business, Walmsley provides a transcript of his video along with the data charts he uses. Links to the information sources he relies on are given there. Medium-length story made short: Knowingly or not, most or all US political and business leadership is shockingly clueless and unjustifiably complacent. Most or all of the data Walmsley relies on is in the public domain. His reasoning looks to be solidly defensible.

If Walmsley is getting this right, which I believe he very likely is, Trump and MAGA incompetence and corruption are not our only problems. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties as political institutions are catastrophic failures.

Q: Is my assessment of the situation hyperbolic, reasonable, or something else, e.g., not clear based on the evidence presented.

Dangerous Cult Leaders

 

What makes a pathological cult leader?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/spycatcher/201208/dangerous-cult-leaders

Having studied at length the life, teachings, and behaviors of Jim Jones (Jonestown Guyana), David Koresh (Branch Davidians), Stewart Traill (The Church of Bible Understanding), Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara (Aum Shinrikyo), Joseph Di Mambro (The Order of the Solar Temple a.k.a. Ordre du Temple Solaire), Marshall Heff Applewhit (Heaven’s Gate), Bhagwan Rajneesh (Rajneesh Movement), and Warren Jeffs (polygamist leader), I can say that what stands out about these individuals is that they were or are all pathologically narcissistic. They all have or had an over-abundant belief that they were special, that they and they alone had the answers to problems, and that they had to be revered. They demanded perfect loyalty from followers, they overvalued themselves and devalued those around them, they were intolerant of criticism, and above all, they did not like being questioned or challenged. And yet, despite these less-than-charming traits, they had no trouble attracting those who were willing to overlook these features.

When a cult or organizational leader has a preponderance of these traits, then we can anticipate that at some point those who associate with him will likely suffer physically, emotionally, psychologically, or financially. If these traits sound familiar to leaders, groups, sects, or organizations known to you, then expect those who associate with them to live in despair and to suffer, even if they don’t know yet that they will.

And when the leopard starts to eat their faces, remind THEM that they are the ones who chose their cult leader.  😁

MAGA poison: Federal government collapse; Training the US military to kill civilians in US cities

The AZ Express reports that ~100,000 federal workers plan to resign today because they're in a snit or something. A FEMA employee said that after months of pressure and vilification by MAGA thugs, “Federal workers stay for the mission. When that mission is taken away, when they’re scapegoated, when their job security is uncertain, and when their tiny semblance of work-life balance is stripped away, they leave.”

Djt's MAGA spin on this is what one would expect. This is integral to his promise to “drain the swamp.” He has made his hostility to government clear and undeniable: “The bureaucracy is the enemy of the people. They’ve blocked us every step of the way. On Tuesday, we’re taking our country back.”

Today is that Tuesday.

MAGA's unjustifiable, immoral unpleasantness, pressure and vilification of federal employees is intentional. Project 2025 and rhetoric from MAGA elites have made it crystal clear that getting rid of federal agency presence and power was and still is a central authoritarian-kleptocrat goal. News that ~100,000 federal employees plan to resign is cause for the elite MAGA crowd to pop champaign corks, do lots of back slapping and guffawing, and unleashing loud cries of HUZZAH!! Wealthy and/or powerful Trump and MAGA allies are cheering their black, morally rotted little hearts out. If there was such a thing as hell, that's where MAGA elites would be destined to go.

MAGA elites want two big things. First, they want most of the executive agencies to collapse and melt away (but not all, e.g, the FBI, DoJ, ICE, and the military). Second, they want almost all of the rest of what power and wealth remains with us and the public interest to be redirected to themselves. They want a lot more wealth and power than they already have.

Folks, believe it or like it or not, this is what the end game for our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties looks like. 

Yup, she is right --- the rules have changed

The rank & file are gonna get 

what they asked for good and hard

Unfortunately, so are we

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The NYT is doing real time reporting (not paywalled) and updates on the ongoing meeting at Quantico, VA with ~800 high level US military generals and admirals. Trump and Pete Hegseth are in attendance and speaking. Here is a description of some of it while it is still ongoing:

• The president just said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” referring to urban areas within the United States. He’s now talking about the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago and Portland, Ore.

• There does not seem to be a clear point or purpose in President Trump’s address to military generals today. It’s a garden variety tear; he’s talking about tariffs, Joe Biden and the autopen, the southern border, CNN, his personal feelings about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his anxieties that he won’t be given a Nobel Peace Prize he feels he deserves. .... “I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships by the way” he said at one point in the middle of a riff about tariffs. “I used to watch Victory at Sea. I love Victory at Sea.”

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• Trump says he expected more fury from the left when he changed the name of the Defense Department to the “Department of War.”** But, he said, in his view, he has so worn out his critics over these last 10 years that they’re just rolling over. (Though Trump renamed the department, Congress has not yet approved the change.)

** Maybe there was no fury because Senate Democrats knew the name change could not be made into law without their votes. There was nothing to be furious about. Trump is just trolling the Dems.

So there we have it. Dictatorship fans must love this stuff. Trump wants to train the US military to commit mass murder of US citizens using US cities as training grounds. And even though they are obsolete and expensive but useless, he loves big, fat battleships. What fun!! 

That's what Trump thinks war looks like

neat and tidy cannon blasts from a neat and tidy distance

He looks at the delivery end of the horror

This is just a tiny glimpse of what real war looks like from the receiving end of the horror, you know, the messy part of war that Trump, the idiot monster that he really is, cannot see or doesn't have the guts to look at:

What Trump voters voted for is what we are going to get good and hard, whether we want it or not. 

Q: Do you support using US cities to train the US military to commit mass murder of US citizens, or does that mischaracterize what Trump really does want to do to US citizens that he hates?