politics

Donald Trump is Congress’ Fault

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 1 Comment

As angry as I am with many of President Trump’s statements and actions—some of which are immoral and unworthy of the presidency, and some of which are demonstrably criminal—my ire today is reserved for Congress and the Supreme Court. Part of the genius of our Constitution is that it organized a government that is not dictated solely by one person or one body, but rather has three co-equal branches, each of which has certain powers over the other two, and other responsibilities to the other two. As we learned in elementary school: the Legislative branch (Congress) makes the laws, the Executive branch (the President and his departments) enforces the laws, and the Judicial branch (the Supreme Court) interprets the laws (tells us what they mean, and if they are in keeping with the Constitution).

The President appoints the members of the Supreme Court, but the Senate has to agree. The President spends the money, but only according to the budget that Congress creates. Congress writes the laws that the President can veto or accept, but the Supreme Court can say “no, that law is not Constitutional.” Congress can remove the President and the members of the Supreme Court for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

According to Article I of the Constitution, Section 8, the powers of Congress include the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises; to regulate commerce with foreign nations; to declare war; “to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions”; and a slew of others.

Article II, Section 2, lists the powers of the President, including serving as the Commander in Chief of the Army, Navy, and Militia, “when called into the actual Service of the United States”; making treaties, appointing ambassadors, Supreme Court judges, “and all other Officers of the United States,” all “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate”; and other things.

Article III vests “the judicial Power of the United States” in the Supreme Court and other inferior courts. Section 3, interestingly reads “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

This system of checks and balances among the three co-equal sections of the United States government worked pretty well for a long time. The relative power of the executive and legislative branches waxed and waned over the decades, but all three branches maintained their shared powers through the strength of their leaders over the years. Congressional leaders have worked with and against presidents, the Supreme Court has allowed and denied laws over the years, but always, the holders of those offices upheld the power of their position, the importance of their branch, and kept the tripod standing.

Lately, the tripod has collapsed, because two of those legs have been allowed to weaken before the onslaught of the third. Obviously, this collapse has been going on for longer than just the last decade, but no one looking at Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Tip O’Neill ever thought either one of them was subservient to the other. Since that time, however, we’ve been stuck with a series of ideologues who realized that the way to enforce their partisan will long beyond their service would be to enable a collapse of the system of checks and balances. Thus, Mitch McConnell’s lies and machinations have unbalanced the Supreme Court: in early 2016, he told us the Senate could not appoint a new Supreme Court justice during an election year, and kept Antonin Scalia’s seat vacant for 11 months, until Donald Trump’s election. Four years later, McConnell told us to ignore his four-year-old words, and that the Senate had to fill a vacant Supreme Court seat when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died a month and a half before the election of 2020. That’s the same Mitch McConnell who, on January 6, 2021, called Donald Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the attack on the Capitol, but then voted to acquit Trump of those charges at his second impeachment. McConnell is no longer the leader of the Senate, but his successor, John Thune, has not shown himself to be any more of a leader. His every utterance proclaims his subservience to the office of the President.

Chief Justice John Roberts has used his ideological majority of the Court to grant the president nearly complete immunity for anything he may do during his term of office, since the president in question supports his views. He also can’t imagine any of our recent or potential presidents hailing from the Democratic party ever running so far beyond the pale as Donald Trump has, so he’s not worried about karma coming back.

And now we have the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who has completely subsumed his authority to Donald Trump’s will. He has decided the House shouldn’t actually be conducting any business, because the president is happier to have the government shut down, so he can rampage however he wants.

The Supreme Court, unfortunately, is beyond our power to correct in the near term. The way the Justices are chosen requires waiting for those currently in office to leave in order to replace them. And let’s face it, there doesn’t appear to be anyone even on the horizon with the strength of John Marshall or the moral fiber of David Davis.

The make-up Congress, however, is—at least, theoretically (but see my several previous pieces on Gerrymandering)—something we can affect. I say it is time to elect Senators and Representatives who will stand up, not necessarily for me and my views, but for the strength of the Congress. Congress needs to restore itself to its role as a co-equal branch of the government.

Far too often, among the Republicans and Trumpians in the Congress, we see people who are far more interested in doing what Trump wants so that he won’t attack them. Can they possibly be proud of their service? Or are they merely keeping their seats warm? Liz Cheney stood up for right over party, and was punished for it by losing her seat. But as much as I disagree with many of her views, she earned my respect. The problem was, she was one voice in a vast sea of the voiceless, and thus, easy to target. The other members of Congress need to find their voices, to stand up, not to keep knuckling under.

I may not have agreed with their policies or their actions, but did anyone ever doubt the Congressional allegiance, the strength, the patriotism, of prior Senate Majority Leaders such as Robert Byrd, Mike Mansfield, Everett Dirksen, Lyndon Baines Johnson, or Henry Cabot Lodge? Similarly, will the House of Representatives ever feel the need to remember the service of Mike Johnson as it does Tip O’Neill, Carl Albert, Sam Rayburn, or Nicholas Longworth?

Donald Trump has gone off the rails. He cares nothing for the Constitution, law, or tradition, and is interested only in lining his own pockets and glorifying his own name. But if the rest of the government was functioning as it should, the damage Trump could inflict would be minimized. But with the Supreme Court saying only “Yes, sir,” while Congress’s leaders say “We’ll do whatever Trump wants,” our government, our nation, is in danger.

And yes, I know I’ve not mentioned the Democratic leaders. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, too, are falling down on their jobs. They’re doing what they can in their minorities, but it sure feels like they could be doing, could be saying, more. And their younger colleagues, the flaming liberal branch of the party who don’t recognize that good government is negotiation, compromise, and not getting everything? They, too, are not doing us any favors.

Term limits are not, and never have been, the answer. But whether you vote Republican or Democratic, I urge you—in the strongest terms possible—to vote for someone who wants to serve in Congress, not someone who wants only to kowtow to or attack the president.

We Are the Frog

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

I’m starting to feel like the frog in the slowly heating pot of water.

National Guard troops patrolling Los Angeles. A judge just ruled it’s a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, but that ruling doesn’t change much.

The military take-over of the federal district. “Crime is out of control,” according to the White House, though the city’s administration says those figures are a lie. No matter who’s right, we’re becoming inured to seeing troops in the streets.

Talk of next sending the troops into Chicago or some other major city. We’ll survive that, won’t we? After all, New Yorkers have gotten used to heavily armed people in fatigues at major events and gatherings. Those troops may not have chosen to be here, but we still have to thank them for their service.

Pair that increasing military presence at home with the spate of national emergencies the president is in love with declaring: the national emergency over immigration that the administration is using to justify increasing number of deportations. And the national emergency over international trade that was the justification for illegally imposed tariffs. And now there’s talk of the president declaring a national emergency over housing, because people in their 20s and 30s can’t afford to buy houses, because not enough new houses are being built.

Add in the president’s continual whining about that elections aren’t “secure,” that we can’t trust the mail-in paper ballots, or the electronic voting machines, or any other facet of the system, and that the federal government is going to have to take over the machinery of elections, just to ensure that they’re fair.

Do you see where this is going? This is all in the first seven months of this presidential administration. We are being inculcated to the steady stream of major emergencies demanding extraordinary governmental intervention. We are being taught to distrust the institutions of free and open government that have served us so well for two centuries. And we are growing desensitized to the elements of control such as the Army patrolling our cities.

It isn’t very much of a leap of reasoning to imagine we’ll be told we have to respond to some emergency in the summer of 2028, while the government is trying to make our electoral system “safe,” which will require a delay in election day, perhaps “just a few months.”

I think we’re in trouble. I feel the temperature of this water rising, but will we be smart enough to turn off the gas before it starts boiling?

Don’t do as I did

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

President Trump on Monday tweeted about his dismissal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. His “reasoning” is that he claims Cook made false statements on mortgage documents, which was evidence of “gross negligence” and “potentially criminal.”

The evidence he is basing this decision on? Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi accusing Cook of taking out mortgages for homes in Michigan and Georgia in 2021, and telling banks in both cases that she planned to use the homes as her primary residences. Pulte alleges that was a fraudulent attempt to gain more favorable lending terms. Cook has not been convicted of anything, not even been indicted. But Caesar’s wife must be above reproach.

Sound familiar?

In the case commonly known as New York v Trump (2023–2024), the judge ruled that “In order to borrow more and at lower rates, defendants submitted blatantly false financial data to the accountants, resulting in fraudulent financial statements.”

The pot calling the kettle back? It takes one to know one? The crime he’s accusing Cook of committing is the smaller version of the crime of which he was convicted. He says it’s a disqualifying crime (mind you, the accusation; there has been no trial) to serve on the Fed’s Board of Governors, but that the much larger version (which was adjudicated) is not disqualifying for him to serve as president.

I’m embarrassed that he’s the president, and I’m scared of what he’ll do next.

Trump says he’s fired Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook

People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Allen Weisselberg, Jeffrey McConney, The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, The Trump Organization, Inc., Trump Organization LLC, DJT Holdings LLC, DJT Holdings Managing Member, Trump Endeavor 12 LLC, 401 North Wabash Venture LLC, Trump Old Post Office LLC, 40 Wall Street LLC, Seven Springs LLC

Embrace the Gerrymander!

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 2 Comments

The Republican redistricting scheme currently causing so much consternation in and toward Texas gives me hope. Not, perhaps, in the way you might think. But in it, I see the seeds of potentially, maybe, if if if, a solution to the gerrymandering that has plagued this country for two centuries.

Allow me to explain.

I’ve been railing against gerrymandering for years. Gerrymandering is the drawing of boundaries on political districts in order to group blocks of voters together, either to increase the power of one group, or to decrease the power of another. Sometimes it is used to increase the chances that a member of a minority group can win an election. But far more often these days, it is used to cement a political party’s hold on a district, to make it “safe.” (For the problems safe districts cause, see my previous writings.)

In normal times, Congressional district boundaries are redrawn every ten years, after the decennial census data is received, so that the districts accurately represent where the people live and what those people want. These are not normal times.

Governor Abbott of Texas, kowtowing to President Trump’s request, is urging the Texas legislature to redraw the state’s Congressional map right now, half-way through a decennial period, in order to concentrate the Democratic minority voters into fewer districts, and thus give the Republicans, potentially, three to five more seats in the House of Representatives. Democratic members of the Texas legislature have left the state, in order to prevent the legislature from reaching a quorum, which would—at least, in theory— prevent action on the proposal. But they’ve tried such a quorum-break in the past; it has not been successful. I doubt it will be this time, either.

So we have to accept the reality that Texas is about to further marginalize their Democratic population and flip five of their seats in the House to the Republican party.

Governor Newsom of California has been making noises about attempting the same scheme in his state, which would flip several seats from the Republicans to the Democrats. There’ve been whispers elsewhere—such as Governor Hochul in New York—that other states might do something similar if Abbot and Trump get their way in Texas. The problem I foresee is an ongoing character flaw of the Democrats: the party insists that it must be holier than thou, purer than thou, that it will play be the rules even when their opponents have shown absolutely no compunction about violating those rules. While doing so may give them a moral victory, it will inevitably lead to an actual loss. To my mind, in these cases, the Democrats are those crying “life isn’t fair.” No, it isn’t. Everyone should follow the rules. Everyone should be a good, moral, decent human being. Everyone should be more interested in the good of us all than in our individual results.

But not everyone is.

We don’t need Governor Newsom and Governor Hochul warning “don’t do it or we might do something, too.” We need him and his fellow Democratic governors to act! Today! We need them to implement precisely the schemes Abbot and the Texans are planning. We need to gerrymander the country to a fare-thee-well, to legislate out of existence those last 40 competitive seats in the House.

Because then, and only then, will we all see just how egregious the gerrymandering has become. Only then will it be brought to the Supreme Court. And to my mind, regardless of the Court’s political slant, there is no way it can allow such outrageous diminution of the minorities to survive. In such a case, I think, the Supreme Court will only be able to rule that the gerrymandering violates the people’s rights to be fairly represented, and that political maps must be drawn in a fair, impartial manner.

(Yes, I know, I’m an idealist. It may not work out that way. But I don’t see any other way to fix the mess we’re in.)

And if, IF my dream comes true, may I humbly suggest new legislation regarding how districts are drawn? A fairly simple test, actually:

No Congressional district, when drawn on a Mercator projection map, shall be drawn in such a way that a straight line drawn on that map shall be able to cross into the district more than once. That is, except in cases where the state border itself violates this dictum.

I don’t expect any of this to happen. I expect the Democrats will continue to purge their own ranks, as they threw out Al Franken. I expect they’ll yell and whine and do nothing, while Texas rejiggers their Congressional map, and that the election of 2026 will result in a Trumpian increase in the House, and we’ll continue bitching and moaning about their self-serving actions for years to come.

But wouldn’t it be nice if I was wrong, and we could actually make things better?


Democrats flee Texas to block Republican redistricting map backed by Trump


Texas Democrats arrive in Illinois to block vote back home on redrawn House maps sought by Trump


Limited options for Democrats to retaliate if Texas Republicans redraw congressional map

Two weeks, never: whatever

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump left the G7 summit in Canada early, “because he needed to be close to his advisors in the White House, to decide on our course of action with regard to Israel and Iran.” But once he got home, he decided to maybe make a decision… in two weeks. Honestly, no one should have expected anything sooner, because the only things he acts on today are the internal culture wars he keeps fighting. Real policy decision, things of global import, those are the things that are always “in two weeks,” because he doesn’t want the blame for actually doing something. Remember “I’ll end the war in Ukraine on day one”? Remember “I’ll negotiate trade deals with every country in the world”? Remember “we’ll take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into a tourist destination”? Remember “we need to take over Canada, or Greenland”?

As Jen Psaki very clearly lays out in this segment, “two weeks” is Donald Trump’s version of “I talk big, but I’m not actually going to do anything, and you’ll forget about it.” He’s been “two weeks”ing us since he took office the first time.

I’ve been thinking about his two weeks, and comparing it to Ben Bova’s story “Crisis of the Month.” In Bova’s story, the heads of the news media get together when they realize the public’s attention span for any story peters out after a month, so they need a new story with which to entrance and enrage the public every four weeks. Bova wrote it in 1988, before the internet and the 24-hour news cycle. Apparently, Trump has learned that Bova’s one month span has dropped to two weeks or less, so that by the time his “two weeks” rolls around, we’ve already forgotten whatever it was we needed him to say or do, and we’re on to the next story.

It’s time we realized that when he says “in two weeks,” what he actually means is “I’m not doing anything. Forget it, please.” Or we could just look at his record: he’s done a great deal with executive orders, but none of it is the least bit presidential, none of it is what we elect a president for, and none of it can be taken seriously.

Edited June 21, 2025 at 21:50 EDT: Sure, the one time he decides to act in less than two weeks. Oy.

Even door-to-door canvassers represent the campaign

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

A fellow wearing a New York Police Department T-shirt just rang my doorbell, campaigning for Heshy Tischler. I told him that a political campaigner wearing that T-shirt made me uncomfortable, and he started yelling at me that he had a First Amendment right to wear the shirt because he has a relative who is a police officer. I didn’t get his name as I closed the door in his face, yet I heard him continue to yell through the door. Based on that interaction, I am far less likely to vote for Tischler for New York City Council in the upcoming special election.

The things that influence our votes.

Young Adults are Not Happy

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

I find it ironic that two of the news channels both quoted the same Harvard Youth Poll, which was taken by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School (see it here: https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/50th-edition-spring-2025), this afternoon. On CNN, they touted the finding that—among young adults—President Trump’s approval rating is 31%. On Fox, they touted the finding that—among young adults—the approval rating of Democrats in Congress is 23%. Neither one (at least, while I was watching) mentioned the approval rating of Republicans in Congress (for the record: 29%).

A little more color on those numbers. Previous iterations of the poll were run in Spring 2017 and Fall 2020. Those numbers (in order) were:
Trump: 32%, 29%, 31%. So he’s been remarkably steady, and the only one to improve since the previous poll.
Republicans: 28%, 31%, 29%. Again, steady.
Democrats: 42%, 48%, 23%. The biggest drop of the three. They should be embarrassed.

Both used the poll to show that those on the other side of the political aisle are in trouble, by quoting one or two specific numbers. But hearing them both within minutes of each other made me wonder: just what do those young people approve of? So I went dug out the poll itself. The answer, at least among the top ten issues this report is talking about, is “not much.” This group of young people is not happy with pretty much anything having to do with the government, world, or social issues.

They have very little sense of community, almost none of them think the country is heading in the right direction, their life goals are not the same as their forebears’, and very few of them trust the federal government to do the right thing.

Both CNN and Fox used the survey to make political hay, though only briefly and in passing. But neither, it seems, took the time to realize the survey says something far more important: it doesn’t matter which political party you support, your party is not doing a good job of serving the people, and the next generation is noticing. Bloviating and blaming the other side is easy, but it’s not enthusing anyone who isn’t already a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the bloviators and the blamers.

Pump-and-dump, the Trump way

~ ianrandalstrock ~ Leave a comment

While I’m glad President Trump wised up and paused the tariffs, I’d have been much happier if he’d canceled them outright. But the whole activity—indeed, the past week’s worth of financial news coming out of the White House—points out that we don’t have a thoughtful, considerate person sitting in the Oval Office. We have a capricious, egotistical fool. And while such a person is not normally dangerous, the fact that he’s the president of the United States gives his every utterance global import.

I have to wonder how much of his decision process was driven by a recognition of the global pain he’d caused, and how much of it was yet another misuse of governmental power for his own financial benefit. A week ago, he started a global trade war all on his own (on the flimsiest of reasons and with absolutely execrable math to justify it). He continued harping on his attacks for a week. Last night, he told us he was thrilled with how other countries were “kissing his ass” to negotiate lower tariff rates (all class, that president of ours, just not high class). And just after 9:30 this morning, he apparently truthed out [is “truthed” the word for tweeting on his proprietary Twitter competitor?] “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” He followed it up with “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”

Remember, this is the only presidential candidate in a generation to not release his tax returns, and the only president in memory to not divest himself of his non-presidential businesses. Will we ever know how well he and his super-wealthy buddies did today after he “paused” the tariffs and popped the stock markets more than we’ve ever seen before?

I don’t think he knuckled under, and I don’t think he’s stupid. I think he’s an excellent grifter, and he’s just pulled off a brilliant scam for himself and his friends. For those of you not seeing it: he depressed the price of almost every stock in the US by fifteen or twenty percent, in one week, giving his cronies a great chance to buy. And today, he popped those prices back up ten percent.

He’s in the Oval Office to steal as much as he can, and he’s doing a pretty good job of it.

Defunding intellectual freedom?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 1 Comment

What is the value of intellectual freedom? of academic integrity? of political independence? The story just now on MSNBC was about the forthcoming meeting and negotiations between Harvard University and the Trump administration; that the government is demanding… well, I’m not entirely sure, other than the Trumpians are angry with the “liberal agenda supported by colleges and universities.”

I’m wondering what will happen if the leadership at Harvard can bring themselves to say “Our intellectual freedom, our academic integrity, is more important to the Harvard community than our federal funding. We have this massive endowment, so we’re going to draw on it to make up for the shortfall in federal funding. President Trump: you can shove your ideology.” Such a move, I think, would lead to an alumni fund-raising windfall. While the Trumpians might tout it as cutting needless federal spending, it could be viewed as a win by both sides. And who better to take that hit to show that Trumpism is not forever and ever than a university which was founded more than a century before the country in which it stands?

Mind you, I am emphatically in favor of rooting out the antisemitism poisoning college campuses. But it doesn’t seem to me that Harvard is dragging their feet on this issue.

And I’m going to throw in a few numbers which caught my ear. According to that MSNBC story, Harvard receives “$9 billion in federal grants and contracts.” Though the same report did also say that Columbia, after having theoretically acquiesced to similar demands, is still waiting for the $400 million in federal funds it receives to be restored.

I question that $9 billion, which may actually be an aggregate of many universities. This Washington Times piece from 2023 said Harvard had $3.3 billion in grants and contracts over the 2018–2022 period.

And in January, the Harvard Crimson said “In fiscal year 2024, the University received $686 million from federal agencies, accounting for two-thirds of its total sponsored research expenditures and eleven percent of the University’s operating revenue.”

But the point remains: can—should—a university bow to political whims, and change its policies to suit a presidential administration, which is by design temporary?

Yes, there is no place on college campuses—or anywhere else in the country—for supporters of kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. But on the other side of the discussion: is this what we have a government for? Isn’t this rather an issue to which a true Republican would have a laissez-faire attitude? Let the market decide, such a Republican would say. If people disagree with the university’s policies, they’ll stop donating to it, stop applying to be students there, stop respecting it. Apparently, the Trumpians are not so secure in their own beliefs to think they’ll win out in the marketplace of ideas, so they have to put the government’s financial thumb on the scale.

Democrats Can No Longer Afford Moral Purity

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I’ve said it before in a different context: when only one side is playing by the rules, they’re setting themselves up for a moral victory accompanied by a crushing actual defeat.

The Democratic party’s insistence on moral purity is what led them to purge their own Senator Al Franken. It’s what allowed Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat to sit vacant for ten months, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s was filled in ten days. And it’s what continues to cause massive headaches for those of us who actually worry about the future of the country.

Chuck Schumer was absolutely correct in his vote for the “continuing resolution” to keep the government funded: voting against it is what the Trumpians wanted. There may have been moral purity in rejecting the bill, but then what? Shut down the government? Declare moral purity by not voting for the bill? That is exactly what the Trumpians wanted.

Indeed, they’re already doing it. Look at what has happened during Trump 2.0: USAID has been shut down. NOAA has been shut down. The Department of Education is nearly shut down. They’re shutting down the government piecemeal while patriotic ex-employees file pitiable lawsuits, hoping to keep their jobs.

Not adopting Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution would have done in one fell swoop what Trump & Co. are doing slowly, department by department: it would have shut everything down.

“But then shutting down the government would have been the Republicans’ fault,” the purest of the pure cry.

“So what?” respond the rational people. “That’s what they’re doing today. That’s what they want to do.” And that appears to be what the voters asked for.

Regardless of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s commentary, there was no pathway to negotiate a clean four-week extension. If that negotiation could have occurred, it would have happened weeks ago. But Trump’s minions in the House had no interest in doing so. They have the majority there, so they don’t need to talk to the Democrats about anything.

Had the staunch Democrats succeeded in delaying the bill and shutting down the government, the Trumpians would have been celebrating. And they would have had no reason to negotiate anything to re-open it. We would be suffering through a government shutdown that would last until the next election, all while Trump and Elon Musk determine which pieces of the government are “necessary” and which are not. They would have had the time of their lives, selling off pieces of the government to their cronies at bargain prices, while the Democrats would be mewling for negotiations to fund and re-open the government.

I disagree—vehemently—with almost every action taken by the president and his gang of thieves. I disagree with their policies, their stated goals, and their methods. But the moral purity of the Democrats is a danger we can no longer afford. Adherence to the rules is a path to victory only if both sides are playing by the rules, and if the judges of the contest care about them. November 5, 2024, showed us that a plurality of American voters don’t care about following the rules, and that saddens me. But if we’re going to save our country from the predations of Trump 2.0, we’re going to have to get dirty, get down in the mud with our foes to fight back, hard.

Was Schumer morally impure for allowing the continuing resolution to pass the Senate? Yes. But was it the right thing to do in an attempt to save the country? Also, yes.