#the commander in chief that I VOTED FOR bypassed congress

[mechieonu]

idk if this problematic in some way but i keep hope for a free palestine alive by being mad

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

Doesn't the President has the ability to bypass Congress on issues that relate to their status as 'Commander-in-Chief' - namely, military issues? So Biden can arm Israel, but any of his actions on abortion (he tried), student loans (he tried), COVID (he tried), climate change (he tried and succeeded), BLM, school shootings and Hawaii will just end up challenged in the Supreme Court (and defeated, because ignorant fucking Americans protest voted in 2016 and facilitated a conservative Supreme Court)?

I just want to take a moment to emphasise the importance of voting: if the disaffected, single-issue, middle-class protest voters actually cared about social issues in 2016, they could have prevented a Trump presidency, and prevented the Supreme Court from turning conservative.

[ericvick]

'The Squad' pushes Biden to cancel student debt — here's how they'd personally benefit

The four progressive congresswomen known as “The Squad” have been some of the most vocal advocates pushing President-elect Joe Biden to cancel student loan debt during his first 100 days in office — and would be among dozens of members of Congress to financially benefit from such a policy.

Fifty-nine members of Congress reported owing student loans in their latest financial disclosures published last year, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. Collectively, the 59 lawmakers with student loan debt owe at least $2.4 million.

Both Ocasio-Cortez and Omar reported owing between $15,001 and $50,000 in student loans (federal lawmakers report a range for their finances, but not exact amounts), while Tlaib reported owing between $50,001 and $100,000 in law school loans.

Representatives for the three congresswomen did not respond to a FOX Business request for comment.

SCHUMER CALLS ON BIDEN TO CANCEL STUDENT LOAN DEBT WITH EXECUTIVE ORDER

Ocasio-Cortez, who graduated from Boston University, has frequently spoken about her financial struggles before she started receiving her congressional salary of $174,000 a year. In 2019, the progressive firebrand, then 29, made a student loan payment during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing.

“I looked at my balance, and it is $20,237.16,” she said at the time. “I just made a payment that took me down to $19,000, so I feel really accomplished right now.”

Omar, who graduated from North Dakota State University, has also discussed being a “millennial with student debt.”

“I know the cost barriers to education is unacceptable especially when compared to the tax breaks we give to the wealthy,” she tweeted in August 2018. “Debt-forgiveness and tuition-free college is an investment in our students, our people, and our economy.”

The congresswomen are among a bevy of progressive voices urging Biden to use executive action and cancel student loan debt, which has doubled over the past decade, nearing a staggering $1.7 trillion.

Story continues

“Student loan forgiveness is good, actually,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Monday. “We should also push for tuition-free public colleges to avoid this huge debt bubble from financially decimating ppl every generation. It’s one of the easiest progressive policies to ‘pay for,�� w/ multiple avenues from a Wall St transaction tax to an ultra-wealth tax to cover it.”

WARREN URGES BIDEN TO BYPASS CONGRESS AND CANCEL STUDENT LOAN DEBT

Ocasio-Cortez previously introduced legislation alongside Omar, as well as Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would eliminate tuition and fees at all public four-year colleges and universities, and eliminate all $1.6 trillion in student loan debt for 45 million Americans. The proposal would be paid for by a tax on Wall Street speculation, with a 0.5% fee on stock trades; 0.1% bond fee and 0.005% fee on derivatives.

And in March, Omar and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., introduced the Student Debt Emergency Relief Act, which would cancel at least $30,000 in student loan debt for each borrower as part of a coronavirus pandemic relief measure.

“Student debt cancelation will ensure an equitable economic recovery from COVID-19, jumpstart our economy & close the racial wealth gap,” Pressley (who has not reported owing any student loan debt) tweeted Monday.

About one in six American adults owes money on federal student loan debt, which is the largest amount of non-mortgage debt in the U.S. It has been cited as a major hindrance in people’s “economic life” by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have urged Biden to bypass Congress and cancel billions of dollars in student loan debt with an executive order during his first year in office.

BIDEN PLEDGES TO HIKE TAXES ON AMERICANS EARNING MORE THAN $400K

Schumer said that Biden could use existing executive authority under the Higher Education Act to order the Department of Education to “modify, compromise, waive or release” student loans. He estimated it would provide total forgiveness to more than 75% of borrowers and partial forgiveness for more than 95%.

“Biden-Harris can cancel billions of dollars in student loan debt, giving tens of millions of Americans an immediate financial boost and helping to close the racial wealth gap,” Warren tweeted last week, referring to both the incoming commander-in-chief and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “This is the single most effective executive action available for a massive economic stimulus.”

Such sweeping executive action would almost certainly face a legal challenge, and it’s unclear whether it could survive. Critics have argued that using such power exceeds the president’s authority granted by Congress. Canceling student loan debt would also add to the nation’s already-ballooning national deficit, which totaled a record $3.1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year.

Experts have said that Biden’s ability to follow through on his agenda, including canceling student loan debt, could be severely limited if the GOP retains control of the Senate, a battle that hinges on two January runoff races in Georgia. Democrats would need to win both races to secure a 50-50 tie; in that scenario, Harris could cast a tie-breaking vote to move the Democratic agenda forward.

Related Articles

[thisdaynews]

Trump prepares to bypass Congress to take on Iran

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trump-prepares-to-bypass-congress-to-take-on-iran/

Trump prepares to bypass Congress to take on Iran

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the media about attacks on merchant ships in the Persian Gulf, placing the blame on Iran. | Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images

Foreign Policy

But the administration is looking to pressure the clerical regime, not fight it, a senior official said.

The Trump administration and its domestic political allies are laying the groundwork for a possible confrontation with Iran without the explicit consent of Congress — a public relations campaign that was already well under way before top officials accused the Islamic Republic of attacking a pair of oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman.

Over the past few months, senior Trump aides have made the case in public and private that the administration already has the legal authority to take military action against Iran, citing a law nearly two decades old that was originally intended to authorize the war in Afghanistan.

Story Continued Below

In the latest sign of escalating tensions, National Security Adviser John Bolton warned Iran in an interview conducted last week and published Monday, “They would be making a big mistake if they doubted the president’s resolve on this.” Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced on Monday evening that the U.S. was deploying an additional 1,000 troops to the region for “defensive purposes.” And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted to Tampa, home of Central Command, on Monday evening to huddle with military officials to discuss “regional security concerns and ongoing operations,” according to a State Department spokeswoman.

The developments came as Iran announced it was on course to violate a core element of its nuclear deal with major world powers, exceeding the amount of enriched uranium allowed under the agreement in 10 days unless European nations intervened to blunt the economic pain of American sanctions. And they came as U.S. officials promoted video footage and images showing what they say were Iranian forces planting explosive devices on commercial oil tankers.

Yet even as the president’s hawkish advisers have highlighted Iran’s alleged bad behavior, administration officials privately stressed that direct military action remained highly unlikely absent an Iranian attack on an American ship or an American citizen. The president, who campaigned against getting the U.S. bogged down in unnecessary foreign wars, is considered the primary internal obstacle to a counterattack, officials said, noting that Trump continues to press for an improved nuclear deal.

Trump on Monday de-emphasized the international significance of the recent tanker explosions in an interview with Time magazine — downplaying the Gulf of Oman’s value to U.S. oil supplies and describing alleged Iranian acts of aggression as “very minor.”

“If you look at the rhetoric now compared to the days when they were signing [the 2015 nuclear deal], where it was always ‘death to America, death to America, we will destroy America, we will kill America,��� I’m not hearing that too much anymore,” Trump told Time. “And I don’t expect to.”

Still, to the alarm of Democrats and some Republicans, Pompeo has suggested that if the administration does take military action, it might rely on the 2001 congressional bill that greenlighted America’s military response to the 9/11 attacks to strike Iran. Asked Sunday by CBS host Margaret Brennan whether the administration believed it had the authority to initiate military action, Pompeo would say only, “Every option we look at will be fully lawful.”

And Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a close ally of the administration, urged the president to attack Iran outright — adding that he didn’t need permission from Congress. “Unprovoked attacks on commercial shipping warrant a retaliatory military strike,” Cotton told Brennan. “The president has the authorization to act to defend American interests,” he said.

But in a sign of some unease among other Republicans, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told POLITICO that she expected to discuss the legitimacy of that justification — and of military retaliation itself — with her Senate colleagues this week.

Trump has sent conflicting messages about his own intentions — one day signaling his desire to negotiate with the clerical regime in Tehran, the next dismissing Iran as unready for serious talks. “While I very much appreciate P.M. Abe going to Iran to meet with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” Trump tweeted last Thursday, “I personally feel that it is too soon to even think about making a deal. They are not ready, and neither are we!”

“The regime in Tehran is testing American patience with violence in the Gulf,” said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “The administration now has to weigh its options.”

In some of Pompeo’s recent pronouncements, many on the left, and a few on the right, see the Trump team paving a path to war.

In April, the State Department named the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization, a legal designation that some fear could be used to link the elite paramilitary force with al Qaeda. Later, Pompeo also said Iran had “instigated” a May 31 suicide attack on a U.S. convoy in Afghanistan, even though the Taliban claimed credit for the incident.

Pressed by CBS’s Brennan on Sunday, Pompeo reiterated the claim. “[W]e have confidence that Iran instigated this attack,” he said. “I can’t share any more of the intelligence. But I wouldn’t have said it if the intelligence community hadn’t become convinced that this was the case.”

The secretary of state’s efforts to link Iran and al Qaeda and to terrorism more broadly have become a flashpoint in multiple congressional hearings this spring — and they have taken on renewed significance given the growing possibility of a military confrontation between the two countries.

“It’s not surprising that you have a kind of revisitation of the AUMF because here you have what looks like the potential for a kind of real escalation,” said Dennis Ross, the veteran Middle East negotiator, referring to the 2001 bill that authorized military action against any national or individual involved in the 9/11 attacks.

“In the 2001 AUMF, there’s actually no real relationship to this,” Ross added. “It certainly didn’t name Iran and there comes a point where many in Congress want to have oversight over getting into a shooting war with Iran.”

As the president’s senior national security advisers huddled on Monday to consider how to respond to Iran, it was unclear how close the U.S. was inching to military action. Schanzer, for one, cast skepticism on an unattributed report in the Jerusalem Post on Monday that the U.S. had drawn up plans for a limited bombing campaign against an Iranian nuclear facility.

A senior administration official said Monday that the goal of the administration’s maximum pressure policy remains forcing the regime back to the table to negotiate a new and improved nuclear deal.

Iran has thus far been careful to avoid attacks on American vessels — an internal administration red line that would force a military response, this official said. Administration allies including FDD’s chief executive, Mark Dubowitz, said that while he expects U.S. sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to increase, it is less clear whether military action will result absent a direct attack against an American ship or an American citizen.

The president himself is caught between competing impulses: his disdain for the 2015 deal the Obama administration struck with Iran and his desire to strike a contrast, on the one hand, and his reluctance to get into another war in the Middle East on the other. He has long been more skittish than his hawkish advisers about ratcheting up tensions, but he sent a blunt warning to Iran’s leaders last month that “If they do anything it would be a very bad mistake.”

Last week, two lawmakers — Trump ally Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Democrat Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) — said that Pompeo had invoked the 2001 AUMF in a closed-door briefing with lawmakers about Iran, suggesting the administration could use it as a legal justification for war.

“We were absolutely presented with a full formal presentation on how the 2001 AUMF might authorize war on Iran,” Slotkin said. “Secretary Pompeo said it with his own words.”

Exiting an earlier closed-door briefing on May 21 by acting defense secretary Shanahan, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told reporters, “What I heard in there makes it clear that this administration feels that they do not have to come back and talk to Congress in regards to any action they do in Iran.”

The Trump administration’s case against Iran has rested in part on the argument that it has supported al Qaeda. Announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2017, for example, Trump said that the country “supports terrorist proxies and militias,” including al Qaeda.

“Iran’s connection to al Qaeda is very real,” Pompeo told lawmakers in April. “They have hosted al Qaeda, they have permitted al Qaeda to transit their country. There is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republican of Iran and al Qaeda. Period. Full stop.”

When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pushed Pompeo in that hearing to pledge that the administration would not rely on the 18-year old war authorization to attack Iran, the secretary demurred, saying that he would “prefer to leave that to the lawyers.”

“I can tell you explicitly you have not been given power or authority by Congress to have a war with Iran and in any kind of semblance of a sane world you would have to come back and ask us before you go into Iran,” Paul retorted.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who was the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF back in 2001, included an amendment repealing the provision in the defense appropriations bill currently being debated on the House floor. Her legislation would repeal the AUMF eight months after the appropriations bill becomes law, providing time, she has argued, for Congress to properly debate and vote on a replacement bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last month that the administration could not rely on the 2001 law to take military action in Iran, and more than 100 House Democrats followed up on her remarks by penning a letter to the president making a similar case.

“They cannot call the authorization, AUMF, the authorization for the use of military force that was passed in 2001, as any authorization to go forward in the Middle East now,” Pelosi said at a press conference in May.

Several Democratic presidential candidates have made similar comments. “If the administration wants to go to war against Iran, then the Constitution requires them to come to Congress to ask for an authorization for the use of military force,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), told The Intercept on Friday, calling it “Constitutional Law 101.”

In his campaign’s maiden foreign policy speech, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg argued for repealing and replacing the 2001 law in order to narrow its scope — an idea that has gained traction among some Democrats.

Some Republicans, however, say the administration could respond without getting a stamp of approval from Congress, drawing comparisons to the Reagan administration’s decision in 1987 to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attacks in the midst of the Iran-Iraq war. Because U.S. law prohibits the use of Navy ships to escort foreign vessels, the Kuwaiti ships flew American naval flags.

“Reagan ended up sinking about half the Iranian Navy,” said Eric Edelman, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration. “Admittedly, it was a small navy, but they noticed.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to reporting.

Read More

[newstfionline]

Disrupter in chief: How Donald Trump is changing the presidency

Linda Feldmann, CS Monitor, January 4, 2018

WASHINGTON--It was President Trump’s first real national security scare.

North Korea had just tested a ballistic missile, and Mr. Trump was dining outside at his Florida resort with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. Aides hovered around them; one shined the light of his cellphone on documents the two leaders were reviewing. A Mar-a-Lago Club member sitting nearby snapped pictures and posted them on Facebook.

“Wow.....,” Richard DeAgazio wrote, “the center of the action!!!”

The Mar-a-Lago terrace had, in effect, become an open-air White House Situation Room, but without the high-level security of the West Wing basement room where the president and top aides usually meet to address world crises. At that moment, just 24 days into Trump’s presidency, some Americans’ fears of having a novice to government serving in the top job crystallized.

Would Trump accidentally reveal classified information in public? Would he respond prudently to North Korea’s provocation? Was he really ready to do the job he had won, defying expectations, just a few months earlier?

A year into Trump’s presidency, North Korea remains a top security threat--and Trump’s freewheeling, norm-busting approach to the presidency is the new normal. The dizzying turnover of top staff and breathless media reports of palace intrigue--as evidenced by the recent brouhaha over the new tell-all book on Trump’s first year, “Fire and Fury”--have only enhanced the sense of reality-TV-style drama. So has the investigation into possible Russian collaboration with Trump associates in the 2016 campaign. Ditto the women accusing Trump of past sexual misdeeds.

The explosions around “Fire and Fury” are only the latest disruptions--from former top Trump aide Steve Bannon’s reported assertion of “treasonous” behavior by Trump family members, to Trump’s break with Mr. Bannon and threats of legal action against him.

In countless other ways, from his provocative use of Twitter to his aggressive use of executive power to his attacks on the news media, Trump has disrupted American life, the American presidency, American politics, and America’s place in the world.

“As Winston Churchill once said of an American cabinet member, ‘He’s a bull who carries his own china shop with him,’” says Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

To Trump supporters, that’s exactly the point: They voted for someone who would “fight back” and shake up a Washington power structure--”the swamp”--that they believe stopped serving the people a long time ago. And they say he is delivering. Trump’s war on government regulation has rolled back scores of policies on the environment, education, law enforcement, energy, and the internet.

To critics, Trump represents the sum of all fears: a populist demagogue who preys on voter anger, stokes racism, enacts self-enriching policies, and fans the flames of class division and partisan polarization that have been growing for decades. Some House Democrats are already pushing for impeachment, and held a symbolic vote in December, despite opposition from Democratic leaders.

In truth, the Trump disruption so far hasn’t proved to be as, well, disruptive as it could have been. Trump is not a dictator--far from it. Respect for the Constitution remains deeply embedded in the American psyche. The two-party system remains vibrant, as seen last month in Doug Jones’s stunning upset in the Alabama special Senate election--a rare Democratic victory in a deeply Republican state.

“It looks so far like our system is more resilient than a lot of people thought it was,” says Gene Healy, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute and author of the book “The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.” “The courts and to some extent Congress have pushed back.”

In July 2016, Trump presented himself at the Republican National Convention as a savior who could solve the nation’s ills all on his own, from poverty and violence at home to war and destruction abroad.

“I alone can fix it,” he boomed.

Trump’s grand rhetoric brought convention-goers to their feet, and on the political left, sowed fears of an authoritarian-in-the-making. One year into his tenure, experts on presidential power see a man who has, in some ways, pulled the levers of power with singular abandon--both formally and informally--even as he discovers the limits of that authority.

“It’s a fascinating case study,” says Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University in Washington. “As controversial as many of the statements and actions of President Trump are, he has not pushed the envelope of executive privilege as much as President Obama did during his presidency.”

Indeed, Trump’s use of executive power so far has centered on undoing Barack Obama’s legacy, many elements of which Obama had bypassed Congress to carry out. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and the Paris climate accord, decertified the Iran nuclear pact, and in perhaps his most explosive decision, announced the end of DACA--Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects some 800,000 young unauthorized immigrants from deportation.

Obama himself foresaw the risk of relying on executive authority--and even warned President-elect Trump to be careful about going down that path.

It wasn’t until the third year of Obama’s presidency, after the Democrats had lost control of the House, that he began to rely on executive power to enact major policy shifts. So comparing one year of Trump with eight years of Obama isn’t quite fair.

Trump, like Obama, began his presidency with both houses of Congress under his party’s control, and so going the legislative route to enact major policy change made sense. Besides, matters involving the federal budget and taxation must go through Congress. Initially, Trump struggled to learn the art of the legislative deal--failing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” before passing tax reform. It was the only major piece of legislation he got through Congress in his first year.

The true test of Trump’s approach to executive power may come a year from now--after the November 2018 midterm elections--if the Republicans lose control of one or both houses of Congress.

“If one of the houses does flip, there will be a lot of pressure on Trump to act as Obama did in the face of legislative opposition,” says Mr. Turley.

And if Trump does move toward more aggressive use of executive authority, he will be following a certain tradition. Obama was dubbed an “imperial president,” just as he had accused his predecessor, George W. Bush, of being. Presidents Richard Nixon, Harry Truman, and Franklin Roosevelt were all parties to landmark Supreme Court cases challenging their aggressive uses of executive power.

A larger question may be whether Congress can find its way back to its rightful place as a vehicle for bipartisanship and compromise. Scholars on the left and right speak of how polarization and other factors have made the legislative branch increasingly dysfunctional.

“I think the greatest challenge facing the Trump administration--or actually, any administration--these days is that Congress is broken,” says Daniel Bonevac, a philosophy professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He blames budgeting procedures put in place after Watergate that had the unintentional effect of making compromise more difficult.

“I don’t think President Trump is responsible, in short, for the change in norms,” says Mr. Bonevac. “I think he’s a response to the change in norms.”

In his inaugural address, on Jan. 20, 2017, Trump painted a bleak picture of “forgotten men and women” and “American carnage.”

“Now arrives the hour of action,” the new president pledged.

A week later, Trump announced a “travel ban,” temporarily barring entry into the US by nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries. It was Trump’s first major executive order, and it suggested that the billionaire businessman used to issuing commands and seeing them carried out would try the same approach from the Oval Office.

The checks and balances limiting the power of American presidents, as enshrined in the Constitution, were in for a test.

The answer came quickly. Within days, amid protests at American airports, a federal judge blocked the measure nationwide. Legal experts slammed the order as sloppily drafted. Trump responded with decidedly unpresidential rhetoric, lashing out on Twitter at “this so-called judge”--an echo of his 2015 slur against the Mexican-American judge handling the lawsuit against Trump University.

But the government agencies implementing the ban backed down, following the judge’s order. A revised travel ban was also blocked, and in December, the Supreme Court allowed a third version to proceed in full while lower courts review the merits.

That decision suggests the Supreme Court could uphold the ban, in keeping with the principle that presidents have broad authority to control who may enter the country. And so, in the end, Trump may well prove victorious on this issue. But the path to fulfillment has been bumpy.

Despite Trump’s desire to present himself as the biggest and the best, his use of executive orders has not been unusual. Obama issued an average of 35 per year, President Ronald Reagan 47, and President Jimmy Carter 80. Trump is on track to issue 59 in his first year (he had signed 55 through the end of 2017). But it’s not about numbers; it’s about what the orders do.

Most journalists covering the White House have the same routine: Wake up, grab phone, check @realDonaldTrump to see what’s on POTUS’s mind.

Trump’s early-morning tweets can set the day’s agenda. At times, they merely let people know what he was watching that morning--often Fox News. They can be witty or pungent, controversial or straightforward. Some contain falsehoods.

Sometimes Trump’s tweets push the bounds of good taste, as when he called North Korean President Kim Jong-un “short and fat.” But over the course of a day, Trump’s Twitter feed is rarely dull. And it is arguably the most revolutionary aspect of his presidency. With this simple tool, Trump has changed the tone of an office that is usually dignified, often a force for national unity, and turned it on its head. Internationally, Trump tweets have stoked diplomatic riffs. In the US, political polarization has deepened.

But Twitter is Trump’s way of communicating directly with his base, and his supporters appreciate that.

“I follow him because I want to see what he’s saying myself and not have someone interpret it for me,” says Annie Anthony, a 50-something Trump voter who runs a volunteer center in Wilmington, N.C.

But she calls Trump’s language “unprofessional”--a common complaint, even among Trump supporters. “He uses words like ‘sad’ and ‘bad.’ That’s first-grade language,” says Ms. Anthony, speaking at a recent focus group organized by pollster Peter Hart. “We’re an intelligent population who elected you. Represent us!”

Trump’s Twitter feed, in fact, isn’t just about the president and his phone. It’s an entire enterprise, with input from social media director Dan Scavino and other advisers.

A Trump White House insider identifies three types of Trump tweets. “There’s one kind where he’s sitting there at 5 in the morning in his pajamas, tweeting,” he says. “These are the kinds of things that make his staff scream into pillows.”

The next kind of tweet involves Trump saying, “Hey, Dan, get in here,” referring to Mr. Scavino. Trump says what he wants tweeted, then Scavino composes the words and puts it out. “I’ve been in the Oval Office and seen this,” says the source.

Then there’s the third kind of tweet that never crosses Trump’s desk. Most are anodyne, and come from senior aides.

Presidential historians are struck, perhaps above all else, by how Trump’s use of Twitter has shaped his presidency. “Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy had had a hot mic in the Oval Office, and that every time they had a thought, it would go out over the airwaves,” says Ms. Perry of the University of Virginia.

She notes that Roosevelt did just 30 radio “fireside chats” over 12 years, and President Kennedy held an average of two TV news conferences a month.

“They had a sense that they didn’t want to be overexposed,” says Perry. “Now, it’s fascinating there’s someone in the Oval who doesn’t worry about overexposure.”

Presidential scholar Matthew Dickinson says that beneath all the “surface churning,” it’s too soon to say if the Trump presidency has brought more fundamental shifts in the relative power of the president vis-à-vis Congress and the courts.

“But I do see a president who has transformed our expectations on a daily basis about what a president can do in social media, in public relations,” says Mr. Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College in Vermont.

On the regulatory front, Trump’s first year has been momentous--and highly controversial. In January, one of his first executive orders required that two regulations be eliminated for every new one. By December, Trump claimed a ratio of 22 to 1, including two eliminated through congressional action that reportedly saved the government more than $480 million.

The Treasury Department has targeted some 90 banking and financial regulations. The Department of Education has rescinded Obama-era rules on sexual assault on campus and regulations on for-profit colleges. “Net neutrality”--the principle of equal access to internet content--is gone.

“Like it or not, [deregulation] seems to be one area where he’s doing what he said he would do,” says Susan Dudley, director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.

Many business leaders believe Trump’s deregulation effort has fueled the booming stock market. True or not, it has at least forced a rebalancing of power in Washington. “The bureaucracy, scarcely mentioned in the Constitution, is a huge branch of government now,” says Dickinson. “It’s not the sexiest topic, but increasingly it’s where the action is. It’s where all these competing powers are vying for influence.”

Trump’s attention to the “administrative state” is a welcome development, at least from a constitutional standpoint, says Turley. “I don’t happen to agree with his priorities,” says Turley. “But there was a need to rebalance power, particularly between Congress and the agencies. We’re seeing a real effort now in Congress to find ways of reinforcing congressional oversight.”

Soon after taking office, top aides to Trump and the congressional leadership met to deploy a little-used law called the Congressional Review Act to eliminate Obama’s final regulatory actions. In all, 14 regulations were overturned in short order.

It was a quiet but significant effort--and a reminder that Congress, as a co-equal branch of government, has more power than it often chooses to use. And it enabled Trump to add to his tally of promises kept.

Prototypes for Trump’s promised wall on the US-Mexican border went up in October. His “travel ban” is in effect. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, bucking decades of US policy and sparking an uproar. He took action against “sanctuary cities,” though a federal judge blocked the order. He passed the first major tax reform in 30 years.

Though Trump failed to repeal Obamacare, he used tax reform to kill off a key component--the individual mandate to buy health insurance. A record number of appeals court judges were confirmed in Trump’s first year, as was conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“Probably more than any president in my lifetime, he’s kept his promises,” says Turley.

This, despite the dark shadow hanging over the Trump presidency from the start--the Russia investigation, led by special counsel Robert Mueller since May. Inside the White House, there’s no doubt the probe has been a distraction, especially after the indictments and plea deals of former Trump advisers. But checking off agenda items has been a salve.

Through it all, Trump has held onto his core supporters--albeit with historically low job approval for a first-year president, at 39 percent on average through the end of 2017, according to Gallup.

“On the homefront, there’s been a lot of bluster, though I think he’s learning that the government domestically doesn’t run like a reality show or a business,” says Mr. Healy of the Cato Institute. But overseas, he adds, “the executive branch seems as unrestrained as ever.”

Trump’s ability to act unilaterally abroad has sparked particular concern over nuclear-armed North Korea. In November, fears over whether Trump can be trusted with US nuclear weapons--whose use he can authorize on his own--spurred the first hearings in Congress in 41 years to examine who should control the arsenal.

No further action has been taken, though on another matter--Trump’s ability to remove economic sanctions against Russia--Congress did vote to constrain the president. The larger questions over how Trump handles the powers of the presidency, both formal and informal, hang in the balance. The Trump Show, Year 2, has just begun.

[newstfionline]

Can Tillerson steer US foreign policy into calmer waters?

Howard LaFranchi, CS Monitor, February 3, 2017

WASHINGTON--When Rex Tillerson arrived an hour late to his first day on the job as secretary of State Thursday, he told assembled State Department employees that the National Prayer Breakfast he’d attended was to blame.

It seemed that “this year,” he said in his Texas drawl, “people felt the need to pray a little longer.”

Perhaps Mr. Tillerson felt the need for a little extra prayer himself.

With the president who nominated him badgering allies over the phone and on Twitter, with hundreds of diplomats signing a “dissent channel” memo to express their dismay at recent executive orders on immigration and refugees--moreover, with a national security team in place at the White House that seems primed to bypass and overrule anything the State Department might advise--the nation’s new top diplomat faces an almost impossibly complex and daunting job.

“It’s practically unprecedented, the situation he’s coming into, at the department itself and then with everything President Trump has managed to put on the table in just two weeks,” says Wayne White, a former US diplomat who was deputy director of the State Department’s Middle East intelligence office.

Most of the State Department’s 75,000 employees at home and abroad just want to do their jobs effectively and will look to Tillerson for direction and inspiration, Mr. White says. But he adds that whether “the new guy,” as Tillerson dubbed himself Thursday, is just a good manager largely sidelined in foreign-policy making, or a commanding force globally, will depend largely on the relationship he develops with the White House.

“How he manages to work with Trump & Co.--that will determine his strength, both in the building and outside around the world,” White says.

No one doubts the former ExxonMobil CEO’s management skills, his ability to move smoothly in powerful circles, or his know-how in cutting international deals. As Tillerson puts it: When Mr. Trump picked him--a lifelong businessman with no formal diplomatic experience--his wife, Renda, told him: “You didn’t know it, but you were in a 41-year training program for this job.”

Tillerson also takes his new job with less than robust support in Congress, having squeaked through the Senate on a 56-43 confirmation vote--the narrowest for a secretary of State in at least a half-century.

But while developing a working relationship with Congress and managing the State Department may be one thing, experts say, imposing oneself at the White House and carrying the day on policy is quite another.

“The most important factor in determining if a secretary of State will be successful or not is his or her relationship with the president,” says Karl Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of State for South Asian affairs. “Without that strong tie, the secretary ends up an outlier on policymaking.”

But almost as important, he adds, is the secretary of State’s relationship with the foreign policy advisers the president has chosen to surround him on a daily basis.

“The key to Tillerson’s effectiveness with the president will be his relationship with the national security staff,” says Mr. Inderfurth, who is now an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “How is Tillerson going to create the absolutely essential relationship with President Trump when there are those closer to the president with stronger and sometimes extreme views that they want to see carry the day?”

Tillerson’s moderately drawn-out confirmation effort gave Trump time to build and consolidate a White House national security team that looks to many experts like Fort Knox--not so easy to penetrate. Early White House decisions and priorities suggest four principal players are setting the agenda: retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the national security adviser; Trump’s domestic political adviser, Steve Bannon--whom Trump elevated to a permanent seat on the National Security Council with an executive order; and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, completes the quartet of key advisers, close White House observers say.

General Flynn made it clear he intends to handle Iran policy when he publicly put Iran “on notice” this week over its ballistic missile testing and the White House announced Friday new sanctions on Iran. Mr. Kushner is said to have put dibs on Mexico affairs and Israeli-Palestinian issues.

It certainly isn’t unheard of for the secretary of State to be the odd man out in foreign-policy making--just ask Colin Powell, who was sidelined to the State Department while the White House national security team plotted war on Iraq. President Nixon’s first secretary of State, William Rogers, “was totally out of the loop on the breakthrough with China until after it happened,” Inderfurth notes.

The Trump White House has also wasted little time in airing its disregard for the State Department and its thousands of nonpolitical foreign-service officers. When nearly 1,000 US diplomats signed a “dissent channel” memo expressing their opposition to Trump’s orders suspending refugee resettlement and placing a temporary travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, White House reaction was swift and public.

“I think they can either get with the program or go,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at a White House briefing, either unaware or unimpressed that the dissent channel is a decades-old provision for career diplomats to express disagreement with policy.

Another challenge Tillerson faces as America’s top envoy to the world is Trump’s attack-dog approach to other leaders, including some allies. The president sent shock waves around the world this week when he got belligerent with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over an Obama administration refugee agreement and then abruptly ended their phone call. Earlier Trump told Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto over the phone that he might send US troops across the border if Mexico didn’t round up its “bad hombres” on its own.

With much of the world rattled by Trump’s “tough” style, Tillerson might want to set off overseas soon to smooth ruffled feathers. But Inderfurth cautions the new secretary of State against too much time out of Washington--and away from the White House--if he wants to play a determining role in steering US foreign policy.

“Tillerson is going to need to do a reassurance swing through Europe and with other key allies, but he’ll also have to keep in mind that while he’s away, the White House mice will play,” he says. “Everyone who knows Trump says the last person he speaks to is the most influential on a decision, so it will work against Tillerson if he’s not only not in the White House, but often out of town.”