Traitor Watch - The 45 & 47 Thread

[Axaday]

Trump said on the campaign trail that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on immigration and now he's done it. Federal judge put a stay on it immediately.

If Trump was reading the Allspark last fall (?) he should have seen where I pointed out that Congress would have to declare war. Idiot.

 

[Covert Agent Rodimal]

What do you think Doctor Jones? I think goosestepping morons like you should try reading books instead of burning them!

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

It's tough to get Trump supporters to turn on Trump because tribal-minded people judge others by their allegiance, not their actions. Instead of thinking "he's on my side because he does these helpful things", they think "he must be helping me because he's on my side". It's backward logic, and as long as they feel like he's part of their tribe, they will never turn on him no matter what he does.

They will only turn on him when they finally decide he's not part of their tribe.

Yes, I know, it was completely absurd for them to think a snobby country-club Manhattan real-estate billionaire was ever part of their tribe in the first place, but these people are ... not smart.

I know you Americans mean well when you say "I don't support him" and "Not all of us are like that". But honestly, that just means you're the Dr. Jekyll half of the Mr. Hyde monster living next to us.

We're still stuck living next-door to a monster, and that will remain true even if the Dr. Jekyll half comes back.

People give Trump way too much credit when they assume his annexation talk about Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal is some kind of negotiating strategy. It's not a strategy: he is definitely enough of a stupid asshole to be 100% sincere about this.

I think that despite his bravado, he is acutely aware of his own age and his mortality. I think he's obsessed with the idea of leaving his mark in the history books before he kicks the bucket, and he has a plan, however stupid, that involves using these tariffs and threats to enormously expand America's land area.

He's a big fat stupid spoiled child in an old man's body. He just looked at the map and thought "wouldn't that be glorious". I wouldn't be surprised if he already has a revised map in the White House where Canada's name has been crudely scribbled out with a Sharpie and replaced with "Trump Land".

 

[Pocket]

Yeah, a book burning just isn't the thing it used to be. In the digital age it would be very difficult to keep a book from getting anywhere.

I'm sure they're working on that too.

 

[Paladin]

nice note going into hurricane season:

If you're not white and you need assistance; TOUGH jive.

Trump admin makes Asheville remove ‘DEI’ language to access hurricane relief aid

The Trump administration recently denied a funding request from the city of Asheville, North Carolina, to help its recovery from Hurricane Helene, telling the city it must cut a program meant to aid female and minority contractors.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Axaday]

FB friend:
People give Trump way too much credit when they assume his annexation talk about Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal is some kind of negotiating strategy. It's not a strategy: he is definitely enough of a stupid asshole to be 100% sincere about this.

I think that despite his bravado, he is acutely aware of his own age and his mortality. I think he's obsessed with the idea of leaving his mark in the history books before he kicks the bucket, and he has a plan, however stupid, that involves using these tariffs and threats to enormously expand America's land area.

He's a big fat stupid spoiled child in an old man's body. He just looked at the map and thought "wouldn't that be glorious". I wouldn't be surprised if he already has a revised map in the White House where Canada's name has been crudely scribbled out with a Sharpie and replaced with "Trump Land".

People who think it is just some gimmick have forgotten that they elected a real estate developer to the White House. What was he thinking as soon as he saw Gaza in ruins? He was thinking he knew people with concrete trucks and cranes and welding torches and he could make that into a resort. Every place he sees on the globe, this is his first impression. Every square mile of land on the globe could probably be monetized better and who better to do that than me?

I'm sure they're working on that too.

I don't think Trump sees books as dangerous, because he doesn't see them as powerful.

 

[wonko the sane?]

nice note going into hurricane season:

If you're not white and you need assistance; TOUGH jive.

Trump admin makes Asheville remove ‘DEI’ language to access hurricane relief aid

The Trump administration recently denied a funding request from the city of Asheville, North Carolina, to help its recovery from Hurricane Helene, telling the city it must cut a program meant to aid female and minority contractors.

www.yahoo.com

That's not what the article says.

So, trump enacted the alien enemies act. Functionally declaring war on Venezuela.

 

[Axaday]

Invoking the Alien Enemies Act presupposes that Congress has already declared war on Venezuela, which they have not done. It doesn't declare war. It just gives him the ability to suspend normal procedures for people from Venezuela. If Congress has declared war on Venezuela, which they have not done.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Right, so what happens when congress just goes along with it? Cause... they will.

 

[Axaday]

I can't always tell when people are joking and being facetious. Congress will not just go along with declaring war for the first time since 1942. On Venezuela? So they can deport some guys? They're going to let Trump have his court battle.

 

[Axaday]

I know some people who wear red hats and fly Trump flags at their house. There are a couple trucks in my city that fly huge Trump flags on the bed of their pickup. Some of these people are totally all in on the man Trump. There are a handful of Congress members that may fall in that category. There are two larger groups in Congress, whose relative size I cannot measure, who like how Trump makes their job easier and who are afraid of what Trump will do to their career if they don't seem to be aligned. Neither of those groups is declaring war on Venezuela, because that would make their jobs harder and hurt them worse than Trump can. And the damage done to them by not doing it is minimal because Mike Johnson is in that middle group and will not bring it to the floor. They don't have to actually vote against it.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Not joking, not being facetious, not being sarcastic. Congress is controlled by republicans are they are currently aligned with trump, to facilitate his whims. If they don't openly go along with it, they'll simply not call him on it.

The question isn't "who will let him" the question is "who will stop him" and congress has proven they will not stop him. They will cede their power to him, and they already have.

 

[Rhinox]

Pretty much. For some gods unbeknown reason, people who have spent their entire lives clawing for every scrap of power they could get their hands on have not ceded all of it to this orange man-child. I really don't understand why, I don't know how he's managed to cow the world's largest collection of septic egos, but he has. They bow before his altar. The courts are the only ones left and SCOTUS bears his taint as well.
We have to rely on John Roberts desperation for a legacy beyond leading the greatest kangaroo court in SCOTUS history and Amy Cohen Barrett's demand that they subvert democracy the right way, dotting all the is and crossing the ts before they get to her.

 

[Axaday]

The question isn't "who will let him" the question is "who will stop him" and congress has proven they will not stop him. They will cede their power to him, and they already have.

To more closely deal with your question is a little hard. The judge ordered a plane en route to turn around and I heard that it didn't turn it around. Courts aren't good at stopping crimes in progess. But that judge is still going to have a hearing concerning this. I don't know what penalty they can level for breaking this law. In the end, maybe one of the reasons Congress won't declare war (and look, they AREN'T going to) is because there is no need for it. It may not matter what words Trump uses to justify his actions. Our system was not designed to operate where the President would do whatever he wanted even with courts telling him he has to stop and Congress won't impeach him. Those checks were supposed to work. And I just don't think the framers expected a President that had no idea what they were doing and no intention of following the law.

 

[Pocket]

I don't think anyone is saying that Trump is going to actively go to war with Venezuela. Because he has no reason to do that. We're saying that, sure, the Alien Enemies Act officially can only be invoked against countries we're at war with, and we're not at war with Venezuela or anyone else at the moment, but he's ignoring that and invoking it anyway for whatever it is he plans to do with it, and nobody's going to stop him.

 

[NovaSaber]

I can't always tell when people are joking and being facetious. Congress will not just go along with declaring war for the first time since 1942. On Venezuela? So they can deport some guys? They're going to let Trump have his court battle.

How does that prove Congress will actually prevent it from being applied without a war?

 

[Axaday]

How does that prove Congress will actually prevent it from being applied without a war?

I acknowledged the point you're making further down.

I think the only thing Congress can do to prevent him from applying it without a war is to impeach him. Or they could censure him or pass a resolution or something. It is the courts' job to prevent him from misapplying the law. I am not sure how that works in a situation with a President who doesn't care if the courts agree. Usually a President would be trying not to get reprimanded by the judicial branch.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Keep in mind, his favorite previous President is Andrew Jackson.

 

[Covert Agent Rodimal]

The President can send troops wherever he wants for up to 90 days, I believe, without Congressional approval. However, after that, they set the budget for such thing and have to give approval for any continuation of military intervention. Only Congress can declare War. That's why the history books call everything we've been involved in since WW2 conflicts or police actions. Neither Korea nor Vietnam nor any of our conflicts in the middle east were declared wars. Not that that really matters to someone like Trump.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

The question becomes what other countries will call an armed invasion. Especially launched by a moron who openly talks about annexing other countries. Especially when the entire world knows at this point that Congress doesn't have the collective spine to go against him.

Regardless of what he calls it, sending in the troops for no reason other than Trump says so is an act of war, Congressional semantics be damned. And everyone paying even the slightest attention knows it.