Posts Tagged ‘ Coup ’

Because he knows that no one will stop him

Jun 4th, 2018 12:52 pm | By

Will Bunch on Trump the norms-buster.

The main reason that Trump violates long-standing norms and established rules, or tells so many easily disprovable lies from the presidential podium, is because he knows that no one will stop him. And that exercise of unchallenged power isn’t just a weird quirk of the Trump presidency. It is, rather, its driving force.

…

I’m talking about forbearance, and if that word lulls you to sleep, maybe that’s part of the problem. What that term means — and it’s laid out brilliantly by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in their 2018 best seller with the chilling title, How Democracies Die — is “not deploying one’s institutional prerogatives to the

… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 3 comments
Tags: ,


The constitutional conservatives don’t much care

Jun 4th, 2018 11:24 am | By

Jennifer Rubin points out that Republicans have done everything they can to enable Trump so far – refusing to legislate to protect Mueller, refusing to remove Nunes from the House Intelligence Committee – with the result that Trump is seizing even more rope.

Trump and his legal team seem to have drawn the lesson from Republicans’ muteness that there is little Trump could do or say that would cause Republicans to stop his executive overreach and attacks on the rule of law. Seeing no objection, Trump and his legal team now feel comfortable throwing around talk of self-pardon or making claims that he is beyond the reach of laws prohibiting obstruction of justice.

And the world seems to be yawning … Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 5 comments
Tags: , ,


A day that will live in infamy

Jun 4th, 2018 10:12 am | By

The Times leans back and puts its feet up and swirls the ice cubes around in its glass of bourbon, and drawls comfortably that the legal thinking on whether Trump can pardon himself isn’t quite as simple as he thinks.

President Trump declared Monday that the appointment of the special counsel in the Russia investigation is “totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!” and asserted that he has the power to pardon himself, raising the prospect that he might take extraordinary action to immunize himself from the ongoing probe.

Yes but that’s not the only prospect that extraordinary assertion raises. It also raises the prospect that he thinks he can do anything at all with impunity. Why should we assume that Trump is thinking … Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 1 Comment »
Tags: , ,


This is not a drill

Jun 4th, 2018 9:40 am | By

To be exact…Trump’s announcing this is surely an emergency. He’s saying he’s not constrained by any law, because he has an absolute right to pardon himself.

We can’t be having a president, with the powers a president has, who thinks and says he is bound by no law.

He could do anything. He’s a lunatic, and a rage-prone vindictive impulsive lunatic at that. He’s all of that and he claims the law cannot touch him.

Sure looks like an emergency to me.… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 3 comments
Tags: ,


Trump declares himself above all law

Jun 4th, 2018 9:23 am | By

Trump walks farther out on the tightrope.

… Read the rest

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: , ,