It’s because Republicans fight and do shit like this, but for four years Biden kept saying a president has zero control over the government.

This really can’t be repeated often enough, the last four years was such a wasted opportunity for everyone outside of the wealthy companies that got climate money and CHIPS act money and other pork barrel crap. If doing that corrupt bullshit is the only way we get infrastructure and semiconductors then whatever, I’ll live with it, but pursuing that crap while ignoring the Republican threat was like baking a cake while the kitchen’s on fire.

While Presidents normally operate the Executive Branch in service of the people

Not in my lifetime they really haven’t, but that is the way it should be

Only time I can ever remember ever upvoting a Fox News link

Off the top of my head, individual lawmakers could have put holds on his cabinet nominees to slow down their consideration and limit the amount of damage they could do, but instead they let people like Marco Rubio sail through and only started exercising that power on lower level appointments after Rubio had already destroyed USAID

Archive copy at https://archive.is/JlUdp

I am hoping for a 9 Thermidor

tl;dr Robespierre and his buddies had been doing a Reign of Terror and guillotining all sorts of his former allies in the Assembly for a bit, when Robespierre gives a speech to them and says (basically) “I know some of you in here are counterrevolutionary traitors, and I will have your heads chopped off too soon enough, but I haven’t decided who yet, so you better all be really nice to me.” That makes a bunch of people in that legislature say (basically) “This crazy little asshole is going to kill us all one by one if we let him, I hate you almost as much as I hate him but let’s work together and stop this already.” Within a few days, Robespierre was dead and France had a new government, which was pretty terrible and got overthrown by another government (which was also pretty terrible, and etc., because French Revolution), but it chopped off fewer heads than Robespierre’s did.

I like to support workers too, but these ones can absolutely go get fucked. The guards say they’re just now striking over a 2021 law to restrict solitary confinement use (archived), which is enough to make me say they can get fucked, but I’m pretty sure that’s all a pretext and the real reason they’re doing this is because it takes attention away from the criminal case against a bunch of guards for beating a prisoner to death (archived). Either way, this going on is causing prisoners to be denied meals showers and medical appointments (archived link within).

If they want to agitate for better pay, more staffing, and better treatment for prisoners (e.g. get them their medical appointments and prescriptions so they’re less likely to have violent mental health episodes), I’m right there with them, but if their definition of decent working conditions means they get to be unrestrained and unchecked sadists then let’s please go full Pinkerton on them all.

The moves are an abrupt shift for the Justice Department, which had previously argued that the “plain language” of Trump’s pardons covered only crimes that occurred on the actual day of Jan. 6 and in proximity to the Capitol

DOJ: “Our position is very reasonable, the January 6th prosecutions were a political witch hunt and we’re just trying to undo the damage from them. It’s not like we’re handing a get out of jail free cars to people for any crimes they ever did just because they showed up for our boss on that day.”

Trump administration: “[glares silently].”

DOJ: “… Our position is very reasonable, the President can hand out get out of jail free cards to whoever he wants and anyone who suggests otherwise hates America.”

I think Trump* did name the people he was pardoning, he just didn’t name what he was pardoning them for

*And by “Trump” I of course mean whatever flying monkey lawyer he got to do all the research and writing for him, because the man himself is a dumb and lazy bastard

This would be a good time to rewatch Mississippi Burning

And they’re doing the same thing they did with the criminal cases against Trump where they don’t actually issue an order saying “fuck America” but instead just put a pause on a lower court order to stop America from getting fucked because they’re a bunch of idiots and cowards who don’t want to admit what they’re doing and think this hides it somehow, real neat stuff

Police unions aren’t real unions. Also, they have problems with extremism and organized crime like you mentioned really frequently, so I don’t think this is anything unique to Chicago.

I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion.

He doesn’t give a fuck about whether his statements reflect reality at all, he only cares that his statements push reality towards being like how he thinks it ought to be, with him in charge and us under his thumb

I would say there’s pretty strong evidence he’s committing disability fraud, but I am no doctor or lawyer and we would need one of each to take a look at his shoulders and the contract in question to say that for sure

Fair enough, I’ll see if I can come up with something easier to understand

Connolly should ask him why he’s refused to sign off on an arrest warrant the DC police asked him to issue after they responded to a domestic violence call and found a Republican lawmakers beating his mistress (archived)

Yeah, it also appears to be just a little mom and pop shop that’s hiring people from their community, not like some big corporate chain that’s got dozens of labor violations going on

Related reading, “Big, Big Scandal Brewing at DC US Attys Office” (archived)

in reality the way to fascism, is that the democracy fails to protect itself against it.

Yeah, uninspiring centrists don’t like to do the whole protecting democracy thing because it might be controversial, so not really seeing your disagreement with this (admittedly simple and meme-ified) model

USA is very much a flawed democracy. Where all the checks and balances don’t work, when the executive branch is filled with corrupt traitors that don’t give a shit about decency or democracy.

Couldn’t agree more

AFAIK congress cannot overthrow a president for being unworthy or acting illegally.

It’s called impeachment under our system, but I think that’s a lot higher vote threshold than a general no confidence vote like what I think you’re suggesting would be

And yeah, our legislature being filled with the same kind of corrupt traitors that don’t give a shit about decency or democracy as our executive makes this essentially impossible

Americans probably thought they were safe, because they have about 200 years of tradition for democracy, so they thought it was so ingrained that it couldn’t fail, because the country is built on it, and the institutions would protect it.

I would also blame the uninspiring centrists who didn’t want to upset their potential voters by telling them the truth about the dire situation we were/are in. Everytime they brag about some bipartisan legislation like bipartisanship with fascists is a good thing the picture gets muddier for the average voter.

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