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. 

Canards and Tropes

 

canard

noun

: a false or unfounded report or story

: a groundless rumor or belief

trope

noun

a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression.

a significant or recurrent theme; a motif.

More and more lately I have wanted to stay away from Politics. I got into it with someone I consider a friend yesterday. In my opinion he was displaying some canards that I found offensive but he didn't see them as such.

AND I GET IT!

When some whitey calls a black criminal a thug......... that is viewed nowadays as a "trope". Yet the literal meaning of the word is race free. 

It's how it is used.

Same with canards. The BLM riots were violent. Yes, some were, but any analysis of those riots would dispel the notion that the BLM protests were "riots" except in isolated instances. Yet the canard persists.

I am NOT here today to get into it again with anyone! I just wanted to express my frustration with our tendencies to use canards and tropes in order to prove a point.

AND while the worst examples may be found on the Right, the Left has their canards and tropes they use on Trump voters or Republicans, or those who lean Right.

BUT......................... and this is a big BUT.............

When heated debates happen, we have the tendency to lean on canards and tropes and characterizations and stereotypes and beliefs that this group of people or that group of people are this or that.

Why discussing politics, particularly in THIS era, cannot be civil.

Am I wrong? 

Simple question ........................ YET not so simple.

 The quote, “He who saves his country does not violate any law,” which Bonaparte used during his reign as emperor, was shared by Trump on his Truth Social platform.

So............................

Is it time for the Left, the Democrats, even normally civil-minded people, to start breaking the law in order to "save" the country from Trump?

Amid Democrats’ shock and bickering over how much to respond to President Donald Trump is a deeper question rippling through leaders across the Capitol and across the country: How much should they rely on the same institutional and procedural maneuvers they used during the first Trump term, and how much are they willing to wield their own wrecking balls?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/16/politics/democrats-strategy-powerless-trump/index.html

And what would breaking the law to save the country from Trump look like?

Dictatorship bits: Vicious retribution; DoJ's subversion; Crapifying jobs; MAGA gits ’er done

The AP reports that DJT has banned the AP from access to the Oval Office and Air Force One because an AP reporter used the phrase Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America:

The White House barred a credentialed Associated Press reporter and photographer from boarding the presidential airplane Friday for a weekend trip with Donald Trump, saying the news agency’s stance on how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico was to blame for the exclusion. It represented a significant escalation by the White House in a four-day dispute with the AP over access to the presidency. 

AP reporters and photographers travel with the president virtually everywhere as part of a press “pool” and have for decades. AP journalism serves millions of readers and thousands of news outlets around the world.

Here is the real reason DJT banned the AP:

This is the face of irrational, vindictive American dictatorship under the deeply corrupt DJT and his MAGA.

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The letter I posted about yesterday from DoJ MAGA thug Emil Bove to federal prosecutor Danielle Sasson has really shaken me. To me that evidence is about as clear as possible of how blatantly corrupt, weaponized and politicized the DoJ now is. 

MAGA thug Bove

It blows me away that Bove justified dropping the DoJ's ongoing investigation and prosecution of New York City's corrupt mayor Eric Adams for political reasons. Bove's letter explicitly stated that the ongoing prosecution was “unduly limiting Mayor Adams' ability to focus entirely on the illegal immigration and violent crime that have escalated under the previous administration's policies. .... [prosecuting Adams amounts to] unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies.” 

The Adams case is removed from the U.S. attorney's office of the Southern District of New York and transferred to Washington, where it will be dismissed. On the day Bove sent his poison letter, five prosecutors in the Public Integrity unit there also resigned rather than drop the case. 

This is full-blown evisceration of a neutral rule of law in the federal government. Elite friends of DJT and MAGA are now free to commit white collar federal crimes with little to no risk of ever being prosecuted in federal courts.

This letter and some other things are leading me to reassess the human condition and American politics in major ways. I’m starting to that maybe think I’ve been rather blind and naive. 

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Elon Musk plans to reduce the federal work force by making conditions of their work crappy: DOGE looks to shrink the federal workforce by making buildings and commutes ‘so crappy’ that employees will quit, report says -- "Part of the Department of Government Efficiency's plan to slash spending and personnel is to boost attrition by depressing morale, sources told the Washington Post. To do that, up to half of the government's nonmilitary real estate will be liquidated, the report said, resulting in office closures and forcing workers to make longer commutes to comply with President Donald Trump's return-to-office mandate. "We’ve heard from them that they want to make the buildings so crappy that people will leave," a senior official at the General Services Administration, which manages federal property, told the Post. "I think that’s the larger goal here, which is bring everybody back, the buildings are going to suck, their commutes are going to suck.""

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From MAGA’s git ’er done files: Among things like Senate Republicans lying to the public as a major part of what they now do, a long Salon article reports about Senate GOP efforts to sanctify conspiracy theories. One planned item is a plan by MAGA crackpot and all around freak Laura Loomer to interview the attending physicians at President John F. Kennedy's deathbed. Thing is though, they’re all dead. Presumably the looney Loomer will find a channel or seer to interview the spirits of the dead folks. 

Rep. Luna appears to suggest that she intends to bring in members of the Warren Commission as part of her JFK investigation pic.twitter.com/9oLjt9rqlJ

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 11, 2025

The State of Our Union...

 

I’m gonna pull a Germaine on everyone and give you a monster post.  Hey, turnabout’s fair play, my friend! 😜

A week or so back, one of our (ir)regulars here, Adam G. Yoksas, made an excellent point about the status quo of America.  It has to do with how the U.S. Society has become culturally and patriotically “fractured.”  Here’s an excerpt from one of Adam’s post:

Despite over two hundred years of effort, any attempt to give the Americans a common culture has failed. In fact, the longer that time goes on, the less Americans think of themselves as a people, but as peoples. What unites us is law, not culture. That Constitution is really the only thing that makes us a single people.

Without it, we become--at best--Italy during the Renaissance, a collection of small principalities, confederations, and oligarchies all vying for advantage, with mercenary inclinations. At worst, we become post-Yugoslavia, a chaotic mess of ethnic, religious, and cultural tribes that view one another with suspicion and even open hostility.

The only language that cuts across the cultures in America is the language of the Constitution, the debates over rights, limits, expressed and implied powers, ambition cheching ambition, freedoms and equalities. That these things exist "under the law" is assumed, given that there's no source available to grant us these things outside of the law of that Constitution. No king is going to guarantee them. No church is going to make a case for them. No deep cultural myths are there so that notions of justice can take root.

Only the Constitution keeps us together. It is far more essential to us than any other civilization before or since.

Now, for my thoughts.

As our U.S. melting pot grows more diverse with each passing decade, I suppose a “cultural and patriotic separation” was destined to happen. As a result, there become fewer and fewer “focal points” for the greater society to hang on to, other than our Constitutional system of laws.  I agree with Adam, we still do have those in common… at least for the moment.

I think it’s true, one’s heritage plays a big part in how we see each other.  For example, in Spain, indigenous people all consider themselves to be Spaniards. Or, in Greece, all indigenous people consider themselves to be Greeks.  But here in America, we don’t have that common ancestral heritage to cling to. (Btw, the Native American Indian would have something to say about that!!)  So while we may each, individually, revere our familial ancestry, as a group, there is no common “heritage bond” to hold us together, like in other countries. 

Still, I love our country’s diversity.  I think it can (and in theory should) make us stronger, in a lot of ways.  I think it could (and should) be that “shining city on the hill” model to help show the rest of the world “how it’s done,” or can be done.  But that’s not what’s happening; indeed, the opposite.  

Seems our familiarity and freedoms have instead bred contempt among our people.  Like with our personal families, we can and have gotten “too comfortable” like that.  But unlike with our families, where “kinship forgiveness” seems to have a way to survive the family discord, cultural differences tend to breed a kind of paranoia and take on the form of “otherness.”

Because we are all so different, with different values and from different ethnic backgrounds, it seems too many groups want to vie for some kind of dominance in the U.S. (or feel they must defend their perceived dominance (e.g., see Whites supremacy groups).  Every group seems to aspire to get to the top of the “alpha dog” totem pole; some groups more than others.  Some just want to live in peace and rather not get involved; at least for the moment, until they one day may have the numbers to back themselves.  In the meantime, they are just happy/grateful to be here to enjoy our cornucopia.

Personally, I think that alpha dog dominance is a lot of what the MAGA movement is about.  They call it Make America Great Again, but what they really mean is, Make American WASP-y Again… because they feel they are “losing dominance control.”  That’s what all the hullabaloo is about with illegal immigration.  And, don’t get me wrong. I agree there has to be some kind of immigration controls.  I understand that too.

Okay, now for the questions:

1. Do you agree that America has become a fractured society in the ways I’ve mentioned?  If you disagree, give your reasoning.

2. As Adam Yoksas surmised, is the Constitution now the only “glue” that holds us together?

3. What can make the U.S. an e pluribus unum (“out of many, one”) country again?  What is it going to take?

1. I had suggested mandatory paid community service of some kind, say two years right out of high school, and not many here agreed with that.  They didn’t like the idea of the government controlling people in that way (even though I think it would be for our own long-term good).

2. Is some sort of innate “human decency” a contender for bringing the US together?  Or is that kind of caring/compassion a thing of the past?  Or has paranoia and suspicion taken over a majority of us and we can’t trust anyone anymore.  Has human decency reached a low point of no return, thanks to distrust and paranoia? 

3. [Your e pluribus unum suggestion(s) here]

4. Is the true (root) problem here that “division is just the nature of diversity?”  In other words, a built-in problem/condition that’s never going away?

Take your time and think about it, even into the weekend. 😉😁

(by PrimalSoup)