Trump Lays Siege to the Federal Government From Inside Its Walls
INSIDE: Russ Vought ... Brett Kavanaugh ... Lisa Cook
‘Maximize the Pain’
The government shutdown has again laid bare how Republicans, especially but not exclusively in the Trump era, see government as a little more than a social service agency for poor people. In this distorted view of politics, shutting down and dismantling government equates to punishing Democrats since Democrats support and are supported by poor people.
Trump, as he is wont to do, gave voice to this punitive approach to governance earlier this week, saying the quiet parts out loud:
Trump posted on social media this morning that OMB Director Russ Vought is going to seize on the shutdown not just to impose the widespread layoffs previously threatened but to dismantle more government agencies. Predictably, the administration already took advantage of the shutdown to shutter Voice of America (which has stayed on air during past shutdowns), a convenient runaround on a judge’s order to reinstate fired workers and restore programming.
In the Trump worldview, where you either dominate or are dominated, it’s obviously not a great cognitive leap to turn the government shutdown into a chance to punish blue states and Democrats. Likewise, misusing government resources to wage the messaging battle over the shutdown is perfectly on brand with Trump’s view of government as his personal plaything.
The NYT put it well:
The Trump administration took steps on Wednesday to maximize the pain of the government shutdown, halting billions of dollars in funds for Democratic-led states while readying a plan to lay off potentially droves of civil servants imminently.
The moves by the White House appeared both unprecedented and punitive …
And to be clear, this isn’t me blaming the Democrats for taking this strategy. They did not bringing this on themselves. If it weren’t the shutdown it would be something else that Trump seizes on to justify punitive actions — or simply do it anyway without even a wisp of justification.
But embedded in this thinking is so much of what has sent the Republican Party off the rails. Government isn’t for everybody, only for the winners of the last election. Government benefits are doled out preferentially based on tribal loyalties. Government is a liberal game that conservatives refuse to play. When in power, conservatives don’t run the government, they occupy it like an invading force.
All of these political attitudes are anathema to democratic governance, civil society, and the rule of law. It’s why the political fight of our time is so asymmetrical. Trump doesn’t care if he breaks government, leaves it in a shambles, or inflicts extreme collateral damage along the way. He’s taking the government hostage because he (rightly) believes Democrats care about it and want to save and preserve it.
That’s the perverse advantage he has in the government shutdown negotiations. It’s what wrecks the chance of political compromises that might have been possible in a different time with different politics. Trump doesn’t give a fuck. It’s like negotiating with a terrorist. He’ll hold anyone and anything hostage if it advances his immediate interests.
It’s why the old template for news coverage of a government shutdown is so not compelling. This isn’t an impasse over policies or legislation. It’s most assuredly not the old “gridlock” in Washington. It’s not even a partisan fight in the traditional sense. Trump and the MAGA hordes have laid siege to the government from inside its walls, much as they auto-couped on Jan. 6. We’ve never seen anything like it in our entire history.
Kavanaugh Stops
The legal nerd humor on social media (I know, but bear with me …) is all about Kavanaugh stops, a play on Terry stops, an actual legal term. Kavanaugh stops arise from Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s hollow concurrence in the Supreme Court emergency ruling last month that permitted the Trump administration to resume “roving” ICE raids in Los Angeles.
Kavanaugh obtusely envisioned a make-believe-world in which immigration officers would only “briefly” detain people on reasonable suspicion that they were undocumented migrants and then quickly send on their way the temporary detainees who could prove their proper legal status. It’s all fiiiine, Kavanaugh insisted:
… as for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U. S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.
Legal experts and immigration lawyers immediately heaped scorn on Kavanaugh’s concurrence — which used some form of “brief” or “briefly” eight times in its roughly nine pages — and subsequent events have born out how wrong-headed Kavanaugh was.
In Alabama, a construction worker who is a U.S.-born citizen has filed a class action lawsuit alleging he’s been detained twice on the job after his REAL ID was deemed insufficient by immigration officers. But that’s nothing compared to what allegedly happened in Chicago this week.
Immigration and law enforcement officers raided a five-story Chicago apartment building in the middle of the night Monday that allegedly swept up numerous U.S. citizens. The Department of Homeland Security said 37 people were arrested in the raid. But residents claim they were detained for hours while their citizenship statuses was checked, the Sun-Times reported:
Rodrick Johnson, 67, is one of many residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid. A U.S. citizen, he said agents broke through his door and dragged him out in zip ties.
Johnson said he was left tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before agents finally let him go.
The ABC News affiliate talked to a resident who reported similar mistreatment:
ABC7 spoke to Pertissue Fisher, a woman who lives in the building. She said ICE agents took everyone in the building, including her, and asked questions later. …
Fisher said she came out to the hallway of her apartment complex on the corner of 75th and South Shore Drive in her nightgown around 10 p.m. Monday only to find armed ICE agents yelling “police.” …
Fisher said she was handcuffed before being released around 3 a.m. …
Is that the kind of reasonable suspicion Kavanaugh had in mind?
Mass Deportations: Catching You Up Edition
The full 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will rehear the Alien Enemies Act case in which a three-judge panel found President Trump unlawfully invoked the wartime statute.
An immigration judge — whose executive branch job was probably on the line — rejected the request by Kilmar Abrego Garcia to reopen his deportation case. The judge said there was “insufficient evidence” to show that the Trump administration would send Abrego to Uganda, even though DHS posted on social media that it would deport him to Uganda and a government lawyer said it “may remove him to Uganda.”
If you want more on this week’s epic Trump era ruling by U.S. District Judge William Young of Boston, Chris Geidner goes deep on it: “Young does more in one decision than perhaps any public official has done this year to detail the specific methods President Donald Trump and the Trump administration use to act illegally and unconstitutionally, the many ways the other branches and outside institutions have capitulated to those acts, and the essential and powerful ways people — and the legal system — can push back.”
Trump’s Attack on Higher Ed: ‘Compact’ Edition
The earlier reported Trump administration threat to peg federal funding to pledges of fealty to the Trump agenda has manifested itself as a “compact” for universities to sign in order to get preferential funding treatment. The so-called compact enshrines many of the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education.
Lisa Cook Survives for Now
The Supreme Court rejected a Trump request for his firing of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook to take effect while the appeal of the case proceeds.
The Purges: Still Going, Still Absurd
Under public pressure online from a conservative activist, the Trump DOJ fired a top national security prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia who was falsely accused of being resistant to the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey. The prosecutor, Michael Ben’Ary, was not involved in the Comey case, CNN reports.
The Trump White House on Wednesday abruptly fired nearly all of the members of the National Council on the Humanities.
The head of the Dwight Eisenhower presidential library was reportedly forced to resign after he refused to allow President Trump to gift King Charles a sword that belonged to Eisenhower during the president state visit to the United Kingdom last month. Todd Arrington, a career federal employee, resisted the request for the sword because it belongs to the U.S. government and under federal law and agency regulations, he could not provide it, according to reports.
The REST of the Story
A feel-good followup to a viral 2011 moment in the struggle for LGBTQ civil rights:
That last story made up for all the crap ahead of it. Thank you for that moment of sweetness and joy 🥰.
Looking at Rs in fed govt: "[B]ut embedded...an invading force." To all those who ever voted R -- you made this possible. To all those who called us alarmists and pessimists -- you made this possible. General strike, at a minimum, now.