Duke of Bullshit: "The" Donald

[Dark Lightning]

George Washington wouldn't stand still for being crowned the king of the newly formed USA. I'm hoping we get past this chump trying to be king.

[billy rubin]

we ll get past him, but he's busy doing damage that will take a long time to turn around. his supreme cout has messed up the voting rights act pretty seriously, by asserting that redistricting gerrymanders are fine unless the say something explicit like "keep the darkies in their place .. ."

it used to be that gerrymanders could be overruled if they resulted in actual racial restrictions, even if the ostensible justification was political. now that has been removed, so restricting people by race is fine as long as you dont say so, which is what our conservatives are busy doing in the south. we re busy re-definng american democracy to be actually more undemocratic than its ever been in my lifetime.

the hollowing out of the state department and the department of justice are pretty bad too. we no longer have the diplomatic corps that used to administer our foreign relations overseas. and the justice department now is so messed up that they cannot even present cases in their own favour in a competent manner. lots of other agencies are in the same boat.

trump is going to go down in near history for the problem he is, but the really biggest issue is that we electted him. he is th epresident america wanted, and his administration is working as designed. the rich are getting very much richer, and the rest of us are stagnating.

thats the big issue. america is going down the plug hole, and half the country votes to keep it that way.

[Recusant]

Trump's bogus $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS was being shot down by the judge so his personal lawyer (literally) who's running the Department of Justice decided to set up a different grift. A slush fund of $1.7+ billion of government money to pay off the "patriots" who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 and any other deserving recipients. The corruption is glorious. If it could be painted gold it would be perfect.

"Trump Goon Cornered on $1.8B Slush Fund Paying Cop Beaters" | Daily Beast

[Dark Lightning]

I'm hoping he dies before his term is up. I'm also hoping for 8 years of law-abiding leadership after this term, during which (hopefully) at least the most egregious wrongs are mitigated. Lots of people are breaking the law and they know it. Blanket pardons are being discussed, but if the chump keels over too soon, that would be good, in my book.

Now he has the IRS saying they won't audit his spawn's previous tax returns. That just says that there are crimes there. It doesn't mean that once he's gone that the  IRS won't backtrack under law-abiding leadership.

[Recusant]

Yes, I was reading up on those aspects of the settlement that you mention. They haven't made big headlines like the Coup/Criminal Pension Fund but the source below claims the immunity clauses are more significant in the long run.

"'Forever Barred and Precluded': Trump's IRS Settlement and the Architecture of Federal Immunity" | Jurist News

The United States RELEASES, WAIVES, ACQUITS, and FOREVER DISCHARGES each of the Plaintiffs from, and is hereby FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims, counterclaims, causes of action, appeals, or requests for any relief...

— From the Office of the Attorney General order signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, May 19, 2026

The federal government's enforcement powers can be set aside for a particular person in two recognized ways. A president can issue a pardon, which reaches federal criminal offenses but not civil liability or state action. A court can approve a settlement, which binds the parties to a case. This week, an acting attorney general signed a one-page order that establishes a third mechanism: a contractual release granting the president, his family, his trusts, and his businesses permanent immunity from federal law enforcement for anything the executive branch chooses to characterize as politically motivated. The order arises out of the settlement of Trump v. Internal Revenue Service. The headline event is the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, but a more consequential one sits below in paragraph C.

[Continues . . .]

Meanwhile a couple of the cops who were overrun by the mob have sued to stop the government payout. Best of luck.

As for mortality, I'd just as soon the president live till at least shortly before the election. No love lost, but neither do I contemplate a President Vance with equanimity.

[Dark Lightning]

He has none of the chump's "gravitas" or "charisma". He's still a dickhead. Hard to say who is worse. It's like dragging the swamp, when they brought it with them.

[Recusant]

This item doesn't really directly pertain to President Trump, but to the right-wing zealot goons he and the Republican-controlled Senate have been installing to lifetime tenure in the federal courts. Amazingly a Trump judge in Texas is (at the request of the Trump administration) claiming jurisdiction over a case in Rhode Island. I think we're going to be seeing more of this shit in the coming years. That is, unless the blatantly corrupt US Supreme Court hands down some sort of ruling stating that Trump's judges have superior authority to all others. Judicial warfare, just what the country needs.

"A MAGA Judge's Shocking Power Grab Crosses Over Into an Impeachable Offense" | Slate

An ultrapartisan federal judge issued a stunning and possibly unprecedented order on Monday that simultaneously violated the rights of vulnerable children and the lawyers trying to protect them. At the Trump administration's bidding, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor—who sits in Texas—commanded Rhode Island Hospital to give him sensitive information about minors who received gender-affirming care, including their private medical records and Social Security numbers. He then issued an injunction claiming to prohibit the hospital from seeking relief in the federal courts that oversee Rhode Island under threat of contempt. And he barred the hospital from "aiding and abetting" any other party that might ask for help from these courts, including the children whose rights will be trampled by disclosure of their records.

O'Connor's order is an extreme abuse of power that verges on impeachable misconduct. He has absolutely no authority to prevent any party from seeking relief in another court, let alone the home courts with natural jurisdiction over this dispute. Nor may he gag any litigant from "aiding and abetting" others who wish to make their case in those courts; these prohibitions read more like the diktat of an autocrat than the lawful directive of a jurist. O'Connor's massive overreach seems designed to tee up a constitutional crisis over the ability of MAGA judges to facilitate the administration's persecution of blue-state residents many miles away. It also tests the resolve of judges in those blue states to hold the line against distant conservative courts attempting to encroach upon their constitutional authority at the president's behest.

The Trump administration set off this conflict when it issued a subpoena seeking to compel Rhode Island Hospital to turn over a mountain of information about transgender minors whom it had treated. This demand was part of a nationwide assault on doctors who offer gender-affirming care, and seven courts had already blocked similar subpoenas issued against other providers. The basic problem, as these courts identified, is that the government failed to accuse these doctors of any plausibly unlawful conduct, rendering the subpoenas invalid. When the Justice Department took aim at RIH, however, it sought to enforce its subpoena not in the Rhode Island federal courthouse. Instead, it went to O'Connor's court, in Fort Worth, Texas, and asked him for an order to enforce the subpoena. (O'Connor, a far-right partisan, invites Republicans to shop their cases to his court.) He complied without even allowing RIH the opportunity to respond, directing the hospital to give the government the records it sought.

RIH, joined by Rhode Island's Office of the Child Advocate (a state agency), then asked for the federal court in Rhode Island to quash the subpoena. On Wednesday, Judge Mary S. McElroy of the state's U.S. District Court did just that. McElroy castigated the DOJ for "appalling" and "reckless disregard for the duty of candor" while calling out O'Connor for playing along with the department's brazen judge shopping. Most important, she outmaneuvered the Texas judge by quashing the subpoena itself, finding that it was an illegitimate and unconstitutional invasion of privacy. By rendering the subpoena a nullity, McElroy left O'Connor nothing to enforce, making his earlier order toothless.

On Monday, however, O'Connor struck back with a shocking order that used wildly inappropriate intimidation tactics to wrest back control of the case. In a testy opinion, he rejected the conclusion reached by McElroy (and seven other courts) that the subpoena is invalid, as well as repeated accusations against RIH that McElroy had found to be "deceptive, if not intentionally and knowingly false." He decried RIH's pleas for relief in Rhode Island's federal court as "flagrant attempts to avoid compliance with lawful orders" designed to "circumvent the authority of this court." And he ordered RIH to give him all the documents demanded by the government's subpoena by Tuesday, implying that the hospital might destroy these records if he did not obtain them immediately.

In reality, RIH had every right to ask McElroy for relief. Indeed, the hospital's attempt to litigate this case in Rhode Island—where it is located—is far more defensible than the DOJ's efforts to drag the fight to Fort Worth, 1,750 miles away. Yet O'Connor condemned RIH's move as an underhanded gambit to "circumvent" his authority, as though he alone had a claim to litigate this dispute and McElroy was an impudent interloper. Only a judge drunk on unaccountable power could mistake a party's right to petition its own courts for a gross act of defiance.

[. . .]

[O'Connor] is evidently eager to escalate this skirmish into full-on judicial warfare over his self-proclaimed right to rule over Rhode Island, its citizens, and its federal courts. At stake is the prerogative of uncaptured judges to enforce the law free from interference by robed partisans halfway across the country.

[Full article.]

[Recusant]

He has none of the chump's "gravitas" or "charisma". He's still a dickhead. Hard to say who is worse. It's like dragging the swamp, when they brought it with them.

While I agree that Trump has a carnival barker version of charisma in abundance, I don't see gravitas in him at all. Meanwhile Vance lacks charisma of any sort, while attempting (and failing) to project a caricature of gravitas. I think he would need some sort of on-ramp to get the MAGAs (and the less informed Republican-leaning occasional voters) sufficiently motivated to vote him into the presidency. Some time in the position after Trump kicks the bucket might do that. Of course the prospect of a President Rubio or Carlson isn't any less disgusting.

[Dark Lightning]

Yeah, I shouldn't have used "gravitas". Pretty sure even the MAGAts don't think that. I hope that you don't mean Tucker Carlson. 

I don't see any of those people on the right as desirable, personally.

[Recusant]

There is definitely talk around Tucker Carlson throwing his hat in the ring.

At one time, decades ago, there were decent Republicans. One I can think of off the top of my head is Tom McCall. That sort of Republican doesn't exist anymore and hasn't since at least the era of Newt Gingrich, if not earlier. With the party's complete surrender to Trumpism it's no longer worth consideration. I think the Democratic Party is rubbish for the most part but the Republicans have completely betrayed the supposed ideals of the country. See for example the item above about the MAGA judge trying to usurp power that he has no business wielding.

[Dark Lightning]

I read that article. These guys will do anything including breaking the law to do the chump's bidding. So many criminals.

[Recusant]

The president leads by example and he's a convicted felon so . . .

I was mistaken about one thing though. Trump didn't select that judge, he's one of Bush II's wonderful appointments. It's not as if that guy was anything but a turd in the punchbowl himself.

During Obama's presidency one right wing meme was a photo of Dubya waving from the White House lawn with the text "Miss me yet?" Not hardly, and though his repulsive bumbling pales in comparison to the overt corruption and cruelty of the current occupant of the position, I'm not nostalgic for his presidency by any means. His legacy is abominable itself (the Iraq debacle for one) and includes thoroughgoing creeps like Judge O'Connor. It's abundantly obvious O'Connor feels right at home with the wannabe fascism of Trump.