I urge you to take the time to listen to that discussion between Chris Hayes and Josh Marshall about the “anti-constitutional” posture being assumed by the Trump administration.
They discuss a couple of important articles from the past week. Here is a gift link to the NY Times piece they mention about Trump telling the cabinet members they are in charge of cuts. Here’s that one quote (oh my God…)
[Transportation Secretary]Mr. Duffy said the young staff of Mr. Musk’s team was trying to lay off air traffic controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?
Mr. Musk told Mr. Duffy that his assertion was a “lie.” Mr. Duffy insisted it was not; he had heard it from them directly. Mr. Musk, asking who had been fired, said: Give me their names. Tell me their names.
Mr. Duffy said there were not any names, because he had stopped them from being fired. At another point, Mr. Musk insisted that people hired under diversity, equity and inclusion programs were working in control towers. Mr. Duffy pushed back and Mr. Musk did not add details, but said during the longer back and forth that Mr. Duffy had his phone number and should call him if he had any issues to raise.
The exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be “geniuses,” he said.
Sure. We don’t need to fund anymore scientific research but the nuclear physicists can do something useful and become Air Traffic Controllers instead.
Here’s a gift link to the Washington Post article in which the Republican Senators give away their power to Elon Musk. But not to worry, Elon says all they have to do is give him a call if they have concerns about his cuts. I’m not sure why the taxpayers should pay their salaries anymore.
And here’s Josh Marshall’s scoop on the unbelievable new claim of executive power in which they say that the appointments clause in the constitution is unconstitutional:
O’Connell said that the White House’s line of reasoning could create an opening for the Trump administration to bypass the Senate and install commissioners and board members at agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Election Commission.
“That will be taking a lot of power away from the Senate power that is grounded in the Constitution and power that they have protected statutorily because they excluded these agencies from the Federal Vacancies Reform Act,” she told TPM.
It appears that the Senate Republicans would rather do anything than actually fight for their own prerogatives.They just can’t do it. So it will be up to the courts to decide whether “the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution” trumps “the Appointment Clause of the Constitution” which would mean that there is no constitution except Article II.