It appears that Trump has found a new permission slip that allows him to do whatever he pleases without any oversight from Congress, the courts, states or other responsible parties. It’s in addition to his now standard emergency declarations which I assume they are seeing as possible roadblocks to their untrammeled power. Now, everything is a matter of “national security.”
They announced that Trump is halting wind power projects on the east coast. Axios reports:
It’s among the most sweeping broadsides yet against the renewable energy source that’s most directly in President Trump’s crosshairs.
- It follows billions of dollars in investments into the large-scale projects.
The Interior Department announcement alleges there are national security risks “identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports.”
[…]
- It alleges that unclassified reports show that offshore wind can create radar interference called “clutter.”
We know why this is happening. First and foremost it’s because Trump has a maniacal hatred of wind turbines because Scotland refused to remove them from offshore of his golf club and he thinks they destroy the view. Remember this greatest hit?
Check out the moron they hired to be the Sec. of Energy:
National security? No.
But that’s not all. Get a load of this one:
Donald Trump’s administration has argued in a court filing that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must continue for reasons of national security.
The filing came in response to a lawsuit filed three days earlier by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt the ballroom project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.
In its filing, the administration included a declaration from the deputy director of the US Secret Service saying more work on the site of the former White House East Wing is still needed to meet the agency’s “safety and security requirements”. The administration has offered to share classified details with the judge in an in-person setting without the plaintiffs present.
The government’s response to the lawsuit offers the most comprehensive look yet at the ballroom construction project, including a window into how it was so swiftly approved by the Trump administration bureaucracy and its expanding scope.
The filings assert that final plans for the ballroom have yet to be completed despite the continuing demolition and other work to prepare the site for construction. Below-ground work on the site continues, wrote John Stanwich, the National Park Service’s liaison to the White House – and work on the foundations is set to begin in January. Above-ground construction “is not anticipated to begin until April 2026, at the earliest”, he wrote.
Utter nonsense, of course. They’re lying as usual. And even if it were true, a normal person would be embarrassed that they’d gone ahead and demolished the building without taking this under consideration. But he’s anything but normal.
Whoever came up with the national security rationale is pretty smart. (It’s certainly not Trump.) We have let presidents run wild for decades using that as an excuse and they’ve been allowed to keep the reasons secret and the motives obscure. Nobody until now has thought to use it for such petty, personal projects but we’ve never had such a petty, ridiculous president before either.
Traditionally, the Supreme Court has held that the president has extremely broad power in this realm and the Congress has been content to go along. There’s little reason to think that the Court who said the president couldn’t possibly do his job is he isn’t allowed to commit crimes with impunity won’t allow this. (And in the case of the ballroom, it will be moot anyway since he’s just going to go ahead and do whatever he wants anyway.)
There’s going to be more of this, much more. Maybe even this:
In fact, I would guess he’ll blathering about “national security” whenever he sees some land he wants. I’m sure they can cook up a reason why we absolutely need to invade someplace to protect ourselves. It wouldn’t be the first time that a would-be conqueror did such a thing.
Update —
Fergawdsake:
Happy Hollandaise everyone!