open eyes, people can see what's happening
"The United States is in a cons utional crisis"
Agree: 54%
Disagree: 27%
Unsure: 19%
YouGov / Feb 6, 2025 / n=1106
so then, summing up
after 2 1/2 weeks, Congress no longer controls spending, and court orders are optional
very dictator-ish
open eyes, people can see what's happening
"The United States is in a cons utional crisis"
Agree: 54%
Disagree: 27%
Unsure: 19%
YouGov / Feb 6, 2025 / n=1106
Neocons aren't even conservatively democratic anymore. They're openly, brazenly neo-monarchist reactionaries who want to install a Caesar who can "fix" all of their problems.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: we're lucky Trump isn't Hitler's age when he gained power. There's no one on the right -- currently -- with the persona to make it all work. There's a time coming when there will be, and there will just as likely follow a democratic "candidate" who's just as well positioned with his billions. The little guy is, perhaps permanently now, lost in the sauce; and our friends the monarchists love it.
If Plato is worth any reflection, he spells it out clearly in Republic. Generally speaking, democracy eventually becomes oligarchy, oligarchy an aristocracy, aristocracy a tyranny, tyranny and its excesses leads (eventually, usually via anarchy and rebellion) to democracy. The cycle repeats.
Already we have essentially an oligarchy. In many ways (RFK Jr's application to Harvard comes to mind) our oligarchy already has aristocratic tendencies, though they're relatively hidden from the masses. How long before simply being the spawn of such and such name is enough to assume power? And how long before one of those take ultimate power and do not heed even his fellow aristocrats? It's a generalization, but the facts fit the theory.
the other day my step dad said, "Vance is worse than Trump in many ways, but the best thing would be for Donald Trump to drop dead"
"Trump's lawyers" at DOJ couldn't even summon any bs to support their claim of "fraud and corruption" at USAID
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red states will be hurt too
https://www.al.com/news/2025/02/kati...n-alabama.htmlOn Friday night, the NIH announced it was cutting payments toward overhead costs for research ins utions that receive its grants, a policy that could leave universities with major budget gaps, The Associated Press reported.
Currently, some universities receive 50% or more of the amount of a grant to put toward support staff and other needs, but that would be capped at 15%, according to AP.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Alabama in Huntsville are examples of the state ins utions that could be affected by the cuts.
UAB alone has received more than a billion dollars in NIH funding in recent years, AL.com’s John Archibald reports. UAH also receives NIH funding, university spokesman Russell Nelson said Saturday but couldn’t say how much.
Steve Ammons, president of the Birmingham Business Alliance, said he was unsure of the specifics of the cuts, “but certainly any reduction in funding would be a hit to UAB since they were in the top 30 for 2024 for NIH funding. Certainly something we need to watch and make sure we advocate for the state’s largest employer.”
what's the good government rationale for illegally suspending the CFPB?
https://prospect.org/power/2025-02-0...illegal-order/No federal agency has had a bigger target on its back in the last fifteen years than the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Pro-business conservatives are simply offended by an agency with a mission to protect ordinary people, the lowest rung on America’s totem pole, from financial scams, and they have yearned to litigate, legislate and intimidate it out of existence. All of the lawsuits have failed at erasing the CFPB’s fundamental structure; the last opinion preserving it was written by Clarence Thomas. Legislative efforts to kill the bureau never got off the ground.
Frustrated in Congress and the courts, MAGA has turned to snuffing out the CFPB by executive fiat. And even there, they haven’t gotten everything that they wanted, while their success are likely to be beaten back in the courts.
Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect and White House budget director who took over as acting CFPB director on Friday, expanded a shutdown of the bureau’s activity in a Saturday night memo, in ways that conflict with established law. He then attempted to defund the CFPB, only to find that it was already funded for the rest of the fiscal year.
As former CFPB official Julie Margetta Morgan explains, supervision is the lifeblood of any financial regulator, the “first line of defense against scammers, predatory banks, and tech companies stealing your financial data.” This takes hundreds of examiners who oversee financial firms out of the field, leaving the multi-trillion-dollar consumer financial markets exposed and ripe for scam artists.
It also means that small community banks are now regulated more than big banks. As part of a political compromise during the creation of the CFPB, it supervises only banks with more than $10 billion in assets. The other banking regulators handle banks under $10 billion. Since the other regulators are still active, smaller banks are the only ones being checked right now for compliance with things like the Truth in Lending Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and more. This could threaten compe ion, since big banks will for the time being have lower compliance costs and a freer rein to profit from cheating customers. The playing field was just unbalanced in favor of the big banks.
Adam Levitan at Credit Slips grades Russ Vought on his first day at work
Https://www.creditslips.org/creditsl...-director.htmlThe CFPB's acting Director, Project 2025's Russell Vought notified the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board that the CFPB would not be making its permitted annual draw on the Fed for funding this year. He also direct the CFPB to cease all examination and supervision activity. Both actions are illegal.
What's more, Vought's got his numbers wrong. The CFPB does not have $711.66 billion sitting around. It doesn't even have a measly $1 billion.Instead, as of the end of FY 2024 the CFPB had unobligated balances of $203 million. If the head of the OMB head can't tell millions from billions, this country is in deep trouble. But perhaps it's easy to confuse millions with billions when you are working for a fake billionaire.... (Vought subsequently corrected his tweet...)
CFPB sues Vaught
https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...277287.1.0.pdf![]()
https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/1888671717624623166
what a ing moron Trump is
...that's the only way to stop him.
Smart enough to make President not once, but, twice.
And he's canning one mother er after anothern.
"How's that for wet work, huh?"
Trump might continue to lose his mind in public to a point where it would no longer be tenable to prop him up and tell him what to say
He's as sharp as a tack, son.
Each day he'll continue to blast hair all over them walls.
& you know he has a list, a list.
4 years, Winester.
Best stand down AGAIN, son.
They ain’t got nothing except taking to the streets and shopping judges that are going get steam rolled
And wishing he drop
Yep, that's it & that's all.
Are you gonna drag a black man behind your truck now?
also, posting through it here
Lol SECEDE Texas right in the middle of the pack with our hand out
Ignoring adverse court orders is autocracy 101
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