Summary
Senator Bernie Sanders condemned Trump’s order to freeze all federal loans and grants, calling it a “dangerous move towards authoritarianism” and “blatantly unconstitutional.”
The directive, exempting Social Security and Medicare, is expected to impact universities, nonprofits, food assistance programs, health centers, and disabled veterans.
Sanders emphasized that Congress holds the “power of the purse” and urged Americans to oppose the order.
Attorneys general are preparing legal challenges to overturn the freeze.
Unless someone actually does something, he effectively is a king.
Blasts! Slams! Eviscerates!
I’d quite like to see him face serious consequences for once
Sliced! Diced! Julien-fries’d!
There is nothing that dumpy is doing that cannot be undone or re-done by a future president.
Relying on a president that changes every 4-8 years to make overwhelming changes is going to cause a lot of issues. If we thought government was dysfunctional before, just wait until it’s maliciously dysfunctional.
I think all the suffering brought on by his stupid, selfish, cruel decisions can’t just be “fixed” by the next president.
The system is broken and will never work. It’s a downward spiral until the next collapse. Obviously i’m cynical but unfortunately my cynicism is rarely wrong :\
I may not personally be a fan of Bernie (hes a centrist and im a leftist) but he would be an absolutely incredible compromise candidate (granted ideally we would not need to compromise with capitalists). Sadly even a compromise between labor and capital is “too much” for the ruling class.
Bernie isn’t perfect, but he’s been the only candidate who holds some left-leaning ideologies without being totally impossible to elect.
It’s too bad he got shut down for Hillary, and now he’s much too old to start a pres. term.
The loans part doesn’t even make sense, thats money that will be paid back
According to the Supreme Court, he is a king. I do not know why everyone hasn’t been absolutely freaking out about that ruling since it came down. According to that court, he is allowed to do literally anything as long as it’s an official act. This is not a rules-based society anymore.
Weirdly enough, many if not most kings in history were not absolute monarchs and had to follow some rules and expectations or risk losing their power (and possibly life).
I read a book not too long ago with a line along the lines of “every nation is in some ways a republic”. It was in the context of someone trying to convince a monarch on a course of action, but they hadn’t realized their opponent had already convinced everyone directly below the monarch to do the opposite. There was no outcome where the monarch’s decision mattered, because without their knowledge their choice was actually going to impact if they got to keep their throne.
The constitution is just an established set of rules. The president is only the person those rules say gets to do certain things. Political power grows from the barrel of a gun, but at its core it is the ability to make people use those guns and to ensure that the only consequences they face are a pension and maybe a medal.
You know what we do to kings?
Live under their rule until they appoint another king/queen and then they die.
Nothing
The ruling is that he can’t be prosecuted for official acts. Not that he can do them.
He can order the moon to reverse its orbit without getting in trouble, but the moon doesn’t have to obey.
The biggest power he has is over the administrative state. Lots of executive agencies create regulations because of power granted to those agencies by Congress. Things like the FAA, EPA, FTC, SEC, ATFE, etc. A President can fuck up all those regulations.
But what Trump is already running into is the fact that his power doesn’t extend to overturning items passed by the legislature. His birthright citizenship order didn’t last a day. A judge has already thrown out the freeze because Congress pases budgets, not the executive.
He couldn’t overturn the ACA last time around because it was a law passed by the legislature. Even though he controls the ATF and can control some of their interpretations, he can’t declare machine guns and silencers legal because the NFA is a law passed by Congress.
And even his power over the administrative state is in some danger because over the overturn of Chevron deference last year that allows judges to ignore the opinions of administrative agency holdings.
That ruling removes any kind of criminal check on the president.
Theoretically there is still a congressional check, via impeachment, but we have learned that is not terribly viable given how difficult it is to convict.
There is the check provided by the 25th amendment, but again, the hurdle is so large that it may not be viable.
Of course there is also a political check, via elections and the 22nd amendment, but that takes years to kick in under the best circumstances, and has limited immediate influence on a second term president.
There is also violence. The president could be checked by an assassin, for example. But that is extremely unlikely.
Under the rules, the president has a limited scope of action as you’ve described. The problem arises when the president decides to overstep those rules, violate laws, or do things that the constitution assigns to other branches. We are in a situation where the checks on such overreach are vanishingly weak as described above. trump is already attempting such violations, such as with the freeze yesterday. Yes, a court has intervened for now, but there is every reason to believe that will be reversed or overturned. But, even if it isn’t, consider what happens if the president chooses to violate the courts ruling.
I understand that the president can’t literate do anything. But no king in history has ever actually has unlimited power and we are in the early days of this new imperial presidency. This is a group project between all three branches. Both congress and the court are working diligently to enshrine the president as a king and the populace has shown little willingness to resist any of this. I would argue that we are effectively there already, but I suppose there are a few remaining hypothetical threads holding him back.
Yes, it’s bad.
But we’ve already had some small judicial pushback, and from Republican judges.
We need to throw wrenches into every gear we can for 2 years, and it’s going to suck, but we can get there.
Though what’s neat politically (and horrible socially), is the stuff he can do is the sort of thing that will result in severe economic consequences. That’s the number 1 indicator of how the next election will turn out. Trump and the GOP are lighting fire to their own rope right now.
There’s enough GOP senatorial seats up for re-election in 2026 that if he fucks up bad enough he and Vance could be removed from office in January 2027, giving the Dems the White House and the ability to pack the Court before his term is even half-finished.
I don’t think the GOP will give him enough rope to do that to their party.
I feel bad for Bernie. I never agreed with his politics 100% across the board but I have the utmost respect for the man. He has stuck to his guns basically since he started. It’s a real shame the Democrats shot him down to shove Hillary down our throats in 2016.
That was basically the moment when it became apparent that the Dems chose oligarchy. Had they let Bernie run and win, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Had they chosen to prosecute crime instead of protect wealth, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Yeah but to prosecute crime would have involved going after many of their own voters and donors.
Gasp!
Integrity? Can’t have that!
What’s the last politician that legitimately had integrity? Besides Bernie.
AOC?
She voted against the railroad workers strike, so nah. She sold out to the DNC for a chance at power only for Pelosi to go assist her anyway.
She’s still one of the best politicians y’all have though. But that bar is so low it’s underground, so…
Ehhhhhh. I like her somewhat. I appreciate that she calls shit out instead of trying to PR speak everything all the time.
But she has been caught lying or misrepresenting data a handful of times (I mean what political figure has ever told the truth 100% of the time).
That Photoshoot of her crying at the border just really rubbed me the wrong way. She could have posted photos of the actual camps or tried to shed light on the situation in a more direct way. The photos of her fake crying at some chain link fence just really sst wrong with me and it still does.
Not that she’s the first politician that ever staged a photo op in the history of the world, but I expect better from her ya know?
It’s important to be critical of people we support, but it’s also important not to throw the baby away with the bathwater.
OK, she took a photo you don’t like. Who the fuck cares? It’s politics. Does her policy positions agree with yours? That’s what’s important, not what she does to get attention on social media.
The handcuff photo-op she did was ridiculous
Republicans, everyone who voted for him and everyone who decided to not vote or to vote for third parties all decided that he should be king.
Absolutely. There are also Dems in Congress/Senate that have been voting yea to his bills. It’s disgusting.
“Yeah, every single Republican hates us and are openly corrupt, but like 2 Dems (usually caucusing Independents) are also bad.”
Im confused, are we supposed to pretend that there aren’t also democrats that are voting for Trump initiatives? Because trying to remove accountability for that seems idiotic.
Drawing attention to the outliers that vote against party lines is something that is often done by concern trolls to argue both sides are the same and sow apathy for democrats. This is most noticeable around election time.
You may not be trying to do that but your comment resembles what they would say. Usually blaming all democrats for the actions of a few going against the party.
The Democrats (there’s five or six of them) that are voting for Trumps insane bills need to be named and shamed. It doesn’t have have anything to do with “both sides”.
So name those Democrats instead of painting the whole party with the same brush as the Republicans
I never said all of them. You’re way over reacting. The ones that are voting for the bills are easily found on the gov site that documents bills.
The comment you replied to literally says five or six of them.
Here’s me naming and shaming them:
https://lemm.ee/post/53639210Notice it’s not the entire party like you dumbly assume for some reason.
If you don’t want those laws to pass, vote and vocally support parties in a way that opposes Republicans. Shitting on Dems in this context will give us: fuck all, jack shit, and a real bad time.
Republicans don’t shit on themselves and each other over all the horrible stuff they do. They celebrate it. And that strategy is winning against us.
Im not American, I’m just looking on in shock and horror at your two party system and the justifications you all seem to give your favourite team honestly.
If you’re not here to support the solution to the problem then fuck off, you’re not helping.
Yeah I’ll fuck off about your dumb ass countries politics when you stop trying to imperialize mine. The liberal do-nothingness that’s plagued your country is a bullshit attitude that is now affecting my country, and im not going to sit here and pretend it doesn’t piss me off.
I’m curious what you do to support the solution, other than keyboard warrior.
Im not understanding what you’re trying to say. There are five or so Democrats voting for Trumps antics. And yes, all the Republicans vote down the line, that’s what they do.
I’m trying to say we need to support Democrats unconditionally if we want anything to improve. Any Democrat is better than Any Republican.
Whats your example on 5?
Support democrats unconditionally? You’ve lost your fucking mind.
Any Democrat is better than Any Republican.
No
In optimization problems where you are trying to find the minimum or maximum, you can get stuck in a local valley/crest where one option looks better than any other nearby options but if you move far enough away, you start getting even better options.
Any American politician that helps your country fall or divide is better for the rest of the world.
They hated Jesus because he spoke the truth
Supporting democrats unconditionally was what brought you guys into this mess in the first place lmao 🤣
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100% this. He’s going to operate as a king, and remove anyone in his way that disagrees. He will take every concession afforded to him by the spineless Republican party and some spineless Dems also.
Many people that voted for Bernie in 2016 voted for Trump in 2024. Many people eople who voted for Trump in 2024 also voted for AOC down ballot.
The Democratic party has basically made every single mistake they could possibly make in the last 8 years. To lost to fuckin Trump not once but twice is fuckin embarrassing.
Let’s see if they learn anything by 2028. I doubt they will but here’s to hoping.
I’m hoping the voters will learn again by 2028 if there are any left.
Yeah the Neolibs would rather burn the country down than lose power.
We need a new leftist party that isn’t the Democrats.
The leftists were the ones who back Trump to own the libs.
Hopefully they realize their mistake for the next election.
Nice Strawman,
Now let’s see Paul Allen’s
Trump is full of McDonald’s not straw.
I’m pretty sure that people who didn’t vote or voted for other candidates didn’t decide he should be king, kind of by definition.
To quote rush
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice \ if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
Nah they saw the choices and didn’t care to participate in any meaningful way so they can’t just wash their hands of the choice they made.
“If you don’t want to eat your vegetables, then you can go to bed without dinner. Which do you want, vegetables or bed?”
“I WANT ICE CREAM!”
“That’s it! GO TO YOUR ROOM!”
“I DIDN’T VOTE FOR THIS!”
This is the perfect analogy
Little did he know, there was a mini fridge at the room stocked with ice cream
And also an ICE squad, for extra care
I mean, Harris got more votes than Biden did in the majority of the swing states. It’s okay to lay the blame squarely on the people who, you know, actually chose Trump.
It’s okay to lay the blame squarely on the people who, you know, actually chose Trump.
And I did, along with the other people who are to blame.
Well that’s not squarely then.
Trapezoidal
If they just follow his orders and there’s no consequences for laws walked over in the process then it isn’t really illegal is it?
I fucking hate this timeline.So anyway bernie started blasting
Wasn’t Trump f**King a porn star?
Yes. Not sure why this is relevant here though.
With the definition the GOP uses he is married to a porn star as well, also not relevant here, but if we are on the topic
I’m sure it’s not legal, but I don’t think that matters anymore.
I’m pretty sure the constitution outlines this sort of changes in budget and allocation as Congress’ sole authority.
I just gave it a quick read-through and it doesn’t state anywhere in Article II that he has the power to do this, and further he is required by Article II Section 3 to enforce all laws passed by congress. This is supposedly the section that they used to Impeach Bill Clinton, as his perjury in a civil case was considered breaking the law and therefor failing to enforce it.
Fun fact, the new admin has removed the Constitution from the website, promises to put it back eventually.
Read the whole thing this morning thanks to Leejay over on Patreon, you can also listen to her read the whole thing as well has highlight and explain parts of it here: https://youtu.be/VoNp_ExiOyI
I recommend we all read it wherever you like. But read it nonetheless. Unfortunately it’s not that long.
But yeah he doesn’t have this power according to our constitution.
He is a king and all that stuff about taxes and representation and kings has been tossed by the people.
This is what they want.
I have so many friends in conservation that will be losing their job.
