#Don the Con

[spotlightstory]

Trump's Education Secretary went a conference on AI and Education. Oh, Linda!

[democracyunderground]

THIS IS WHO THEY ARE

"The U.S. House has passed a bill that voting rights groups have repeatedly warned would make it harder for millions of Americans, including married women, to vote.

The Republican-controlled House on Thursday voted for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The legislation purportedly aims to block non-citizens from voting, which is already illegal and is very rare.

The bill would require an individual to present in person a passport, birth certificate or other citizenship document when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information.

Voting rights groups have said the bill will pose a barrier for millions of American women and others who have changed their legal name because of marriage, assimilation or to better align with their gender identity. An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name.

Republicans who support the bill claim that states will be able to create processes so people can prove their citizenship if their name doesn’t match their birth certificate.

Voting rights groups also worry the bill will disenfranchise others from marginalized communities who are less likely to have the necessary documentation on hand. More than 9 percent of citizens of voting age — or 21.3 million people — do not have documents that prove their citizenship readily available.

They also warn the bill, if it becomes law, would eliminate popular methods of voter registration, such as online, mail and registration drives — adding demands on a women-led election workforce that has faced burnout and harassment after years of disinformation about election integrity.

The House also passed the SAVE Act last year, but it died in the Senate. It’s now headed back to upper chamber, where Republicans have a 53-seat majority and the legislation needs 60 votes to pass."

[lost-carcosa]

He is the most lawless president in American history.

As Donald Trump’s law-breaking continues, America’s last defense is the federal courts.

But the big story here (which hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves) is that the Trump-Vance-Musk regime is ignoring the courts.

On Sunday, JD Vance declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”.

This is bonkers. In our system of government, it’s up to the courts to determine whether the president is using his power “legitimately”, not the president.

Consider Trump’s freeze on all federal spending. Article I, section 8 of the constitution gives Congress the power to appropriate money, not the president.

So far, two federal judges have ordered Trump’s freeze on spending stopped, pending full hearings on the lawsuits. But Trump is ignoring these court decisions and continues to freeze funds Congress has appropriated.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, says the freeze will continue even though Trump’s office of management and budget (OMB) has withdrawn the memo implementing it.

Today, federal judge John L McConnell Jr ordered the Trump administration to comply with what he called “the plain text” of an edict he issued last month to release billions of dollars in federal grants.

It’s the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House is disobeying a judicial mandate.

Last week, US district judge Loren AliKhan reprimanded the OMB for disregarding a similar order:

It appears that OMB sought to overcome a judicially imposed obstacle without actually ceasing the challenged conduct. The court can think of few things more disingenuous.

On Saturday, federal district court judge Paul A Engelmayer temporarily denied Musk’s young recruits access to the treasury’s payment and data systems, finding a risk of “irreparable harm”. The judge ordered anyone who had been granted access to the systems since 20 January to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded” from it.

Another federal judge, John Coughenour, has blocked Trump’s executive order altering birthright citizenship, calling it “clearly unconstitutional”. The judge didn’t pull any punches:

It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.

Meanwhile, in a lawsuit filed on Friday, several “sanctuary” cities and counties are challenging both Trump’s executive order withdrawing federal funds from places that refuse to help carry out his immigration agenda and his justice department’s threat to prosecute any jurisdiction that refuses to comply.

Plaintiffs are seeking to “check this abuse of power” by asking the courts to declare the Trump regime’s actions unlawful and prevent their enforcement.

The law is clearly on the plaintiff’s side. The supreme court has repeatedly held that the federal government cannot force cities and states to adopt laws or to enforce federal mandates.

But Trump isn’t budging.

Over the next months, these and dozens of other federal cases will be appealed to the supreme court – either by the plaintiffs arguing that Trump is ignoring lower-court decisions, or by Trump’s justice department appealing those decisions.

Then what?

You have every reason to be cynical about the current majority on the supreme court. But the cases I’ve just cited, along with many others, are based on the supreme court’s own precedents that say that Trump cannot legally do what he’s doing.

The Roberts court has shown itself willing to reverse its prior opinions (see: Roe v Wade), but my betting is that at least on some of these issues the high court will rule against Trump.

[folksonomy]

Ezra Klein: "If you're always consumed by the next outrage, you can't look closely at the last one. Then the impression of Trump's power remains and the fact that he keeps stepping on rakes is missed."

[grrlscientist]

Jaime Raskin: "You have to think of the Trump phenomenon as a religious cult surrounding an organized crime family."

A convicted felon & rapist should be in PRISON, not the White House

[moonbean117]

[spotlightstory]

Sen. Ossoff - The are literally the "elites" they pretend to hate.

[democracyunderground]

[correllian]

[luegootravez]

© Getty Images

[suzilight]

“...so appalling they’re a form of performance art.”

AG - Matt Gaetz, known pedo, sex trafficking charges & Unqualified

National Intelligence - Tulsi Gabbard, past accusations of being a Russian asset or spouting Kremlin talking points & Unqualified

Defense Sec - Fox News’s Pete Hegseth, to lead a panel for firing current Generals & Unqualified

Health and Human Services Secretary - anti-vaccine crusader Robert F Kennedy Jr For his support on the campaign Trump vowed to “let him go wild on health” & Unqualified

Get it now????

DT DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOU or YOUR FAMILY

Your health, safety, and justice given to unqualified ass kissers to weaken those departments in mockery of what they stand for.

9 Days after the election

[spotlightstory]

Let's see... Trump Republicans are attacking Dept of Education, defunding public libraries, attacking free speech and now museums.

Idiocracy could be a doc film after the trumpocalypse.

[democracyunderground]

[correllian]

[lost-carcosa]