dhork

Well, according to Powell, he can say no. We'll see how well that works.

He is correct, though, that as the law currently stands, Trump can't just get rid of him on his own authority. And changing the law does take time, theres a process to go through. It's not like they can just pass a bill that says "Trump can do whatever he damn well pleases". It has to be worded properly to pass legal muster. There are specific committees that deal with that stuff, and the legislators in charge of that want to keep ownership of it. And he would need to get the entire Republican Caucus to agree, since it will get no Democratic support at all. A handful of Republicans might have their own reasons to not make the changes Trump demands.

Trump can try without going through all that trouble, but the Powell gets to tell him to go pound sand, and the courts got the final say. Even if the courts are in the tank for Trump, it will still take time to resolve

If Trump wants him gone, he could probably manage it eventually, with enough effort. But will the administration be disciplined enough to see it through? They might decide other things are more important, like putting brown people in camps.

You had a good run, CFPB, but Project 2025 is coming for you.

The American Constitution says that Presidents can't accept gifts from any foreign source, and that has been interpreted in the past as a general prohibition on Presidents operating in any capacity in any private enterprise. Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust.

Not only was Donald Trump allowed to circumvent this during his first term, retaining ownership of his businesses and nominally putting his kids in charge while they pursued foreign deals, but today Trump is waist deep in Crypto, and owns a majority share of a publicly traded company whose ticker is his initials. Foreigners can (and likely do) shovel money into both. Do you think anyone will ask him to divest, like the Constitution requires him to?

The Constitution is useless unless it is enforced. It relies on checks and balances between competing branches, and right now they are broken. The only checks on Presidential power are the military (whose oath is to yhe Constitution, not to any one President) and the individual states (who retain all powers not explicitly given to the Federal government).

Right, but with that much money they could have paid for Ubers for all of their missing voters in PA/MI/WI to get to the polls, and possibly nationwide. I thought they said they had a superior GOTV operation. Where did the vote go?

One of the many problems with the Democratic primary was the attitude that we can skip them altogether for incumbents. Dean Phillips got a lot of criticism for daring to challenge Biden, but I have to admit (in hindsight) that he was onto something. If they had staged a debate early in the primary cycle, we might have seen Biden's decline earlier. Phillips might not have ended up the nominee, but we might have had a more rigorous verring of the eventual nominee.

If there is one reform I want to see in the Democratic party going forward, it's that all Primaries be contested. we shouldn't give an incumbent a pass. We should hear him defend themselves in debates before they become the nominee. Heck, have the sitting VP debate the incumbent. Why not?

The Constitutional text is very broad:

The President ... shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

So it looks rather absolute, for Fedral crimes. However, the real situation is complicated. This is just one clause in the Constitution, while the President is supposed to be bound by all of it. So, presumably, he can't exercise his pardon power in a way that violates something else in the Constitution. If you go deeper into the Federalist papers, it's quite clear that the Founders held that no man should be his own judge, and a self-pardon effectively does just that.

Here is a good write-up, although I do note it was written before the Supreme Court put their thumb on the scale and said he could do whatever the hell he wanted, as long as he doesn't get impeached for it:

https://protectdemocracy.org/work/the-presidential-pardon-power-explained/

I expect him to do it anyway. It will be challenged, but courts will reject it due to "lack of standing" and sidestep the messy business of having to tell the King he went too far.

A reminder that the Harris campaign raised a mind-boggling amount of money this election cycle. They significantly outraised the Trump campaign (and lets face it, Trump was likely skimming off the top of whatever his campaign did raise.) What good did it do? Where did it all go?

https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race

Yup, just double-checked

https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race

Seems kind of trite to complain about money in politics now that we have proof it doesn't fucking matter