Dems look to close the barn door after top DOGE dog has bolted Elon Musk is backing away from his Trump-blessed government gig, but now House Democrats want to see the permission slip that got him in the door. Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a pair of letters to White House Counsel David Warrington and the heads of several government agencies …
The Democrats decided that seniority was more important than ability or energy in putting their people onto these committees. AOC wanted to chair this committee, but she was pushed aside for a member in his 70s who had done his time. He has now stepped down due to his cancer reemerging.
AOC would have been very good and would had done great work holding the current lawless administration to account. The Republicans under the last regime demonstrated the power of this committee by pushing around many of the administration's appointees. Unfortunately, the Democratic party are just a sideshow to the bigger clown show happening now.
Hasn't David Hogg already had a wrist slapping from the DNC for abusing his position as vice chair?
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/23/dnc-gives-david-hogg-an-ultimatum-00307113
https://politicalinsiders.net/democratic-officials-question-david-hoggs-fundraising-tactics-as-dnc-vice-chair/
She is fighting the oligarchy while flying round on private jets paid for by the very people she is supposed to be fighting
And the most hilarious part of this is not the hypocrisy, though its worth a giggle. Nope its that most of the posters here cant even see the hypocrisy and yet somehow think they are enlightened. You couldnt make it up! Amazing :D
"And the most hilarious part of this is not the hypocrisy,"
There are indeed billionaires who don't like the unjust system as it is, and who are willing to help to change it.
And I know you hate that. Because it really helps.
Even a cursory glance over history shows that no revolution succeeded without support of a cross section of the population.
Peasant uprisings, without support of some of the other "classes" of society have always ended very, very badly for the peasants.
Just to reach the people of the US, you need support from those who can help you travel, give you a platform, and protect you from physical and legal violence.
That is well known in the reactionary circles. Hence the violent responses to anyone who help the opposition to reach the people.
Calling this support "hypocrisy" is just another way to alienate the opposition from the people who can and will help them.
"Oh, you mean just the billionaires that support your specific worldview?"
There are billionaires advocating higher taxes for the rich and those that advocate lower taxes for the rich.
So there are billionaires who support AOC and Bernie Sanders, and those that support Putin and Mad King Orange I.
"She is fighting the oligarchy while flying round on private jets"
It's not a good look in the same way as "save the planet" Musk does the same thing. The flip side of the coin would be that there could be many people that would not like to be on the same aircraft as a lightning rod politician. Depending on destinations, flying commercial might not be feasible. I've run into cases where, due to flight schedules, that it would take two days to get to a city from another specific city. By the time I could get to an airport with a flight that served the destination, the last flight that day would have already left. They should have called Florida Coach and booked a luxury tour bus with 3 drivers and a support vehicle.
They could use oversight committees for what they're for instead of half-heartedly going through the motions. They could withdraw all bipartisan support. They could throw every procedural spanner (wrench for leftpondians) in the works. They could have actual coordinated leadership instead leaving each representative to do their own thing. They could make state laws which counteract the nonsense happening at federal level in every state which they control. They could mobilise public support by working with pressure groups and unions and holding public meetings. They could stay on message and repeat day after day why Trump's policies hurt the average person instead of just chasing after the latest nonsense he throws out there. They could even give something like this a try. In other words, they could actually try doing something instead of just waiting for two years.
When they do have leverage the administration still seems to get a free pass.
But if you're old and wealthy, I suppose there's no real incentive unless, like Trump, you have messianic self-belief.
"They could even give something like this a try"
Wow, that guy has some serious TDS!! So essentially all the people who voted for Trump in 2024 have taken part in an insurrection and we must do everything we can to stop them! Yes, that will save 'our democracy'!
TL;DR Get Democrat controlled states to change state laws so that we can arrest democratically elected Republicans and SCOTUS judges we don't like right now and after the next election change federal laws and use the military to remove ALL Republicans from office at a state and federal level.
You don't seriously support this?
Supporting an insurrectionist is not allowed in the constitution (14th amendment section 3). This should have been applied at the federal level but wasn't so it can be applied at state level instead.
What's the point of having all these checks and balances if they're never used (as Trump has realised)?
But Trump is not an insurrectionist. However much you wish something to be true doesn't make it so. And William L Miller is calling for CHANGES to laws, not use of existing laws.
14th amendment section 3 does not apply to the president as Trump has never been an 'officer of the United States'.
Trump did not incite a rebellion or insurrection. If that was true you could equally use it against all the Dems during the 'summer of love' who were encouraging the riots and supporting the bail funds.
Actually 18 U.S. Code § 2383 applies quite well to the judge that got arrested last week.
A Colorado court makes it official: Trump is an insurrectionist
“The court finds that . . .Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech.”
14th amendment section 3 does not apply to the president as Trump has never been an 'officer of the United States'.
Ah, so the 14th amendment doesn't include the office of the President of the United States?
"or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States"
Again you can wish it, but it isn't true.
"She held that a president is not a federal “officer”"
"She also held that because the presidential oath is to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution, Trump never vowed to “support” it, as Section 3 requires. "
So even the judge couldn't make the 14th stick.
As for your quote of the 14th, you are quoting the wrong bit.
"having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state"
He wasn't a member of congress, wasn't an officer of the United states (as the Colorado judge ruled), wasn't a member of any state legislature, wasn't an executive of any state or a judicial officer of any state.
"A Colorado court makes it official: Trump is an insurrectionist"
Doesnt that just apply to Colorado where a judge's opinion doesnt have the right to override the United States? I didnt realise there was a place stupid enough to actually try and legally claim Trump was an insurrectionist so had a look and found this-
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/feb/08/us-supreme-court-justice-trump-14th-amendment-opinion-analysis
It is difficult to honestly say there was an insurrection when there is a shortage of insurrectionists or even anyone being charged with insurrection.
@ecofeco
"You mistake your delusions for facts."
And yet the fact remains- "It is difficult to honestly say there was an insurrection when there is a shortage of insurrectionists or even anyone being charged with insurrection." or are you going to disprove it instead of your usual nothing nonsense?
"How cute. In a foaming at the mouth kind of rabid way."
Then stop foaming, calm yourself and see if you can muster a valid response.
>Then stop foaming, calm yourself and see if you can muster a valid response.
OK, please describe what happened on 6th January 2020. You are not allowed to say that the masked and armed people smashing the doors and windows of the US Capitol were "enthusiastic" tourists or "ANTIFA agents provocateurs" while they were shouting Trump's name (you can look up what an agent provocateur means if you manage; I know it's a "foreign language"); you are not allowed to say that all the video is deep-state fake as they show Trump supporters baseball-batting police; you are not allowed to simply dismiss hundreds of court cases, tried by jury, which convicted people, pardoned subsequently by Trump, of violent felonies. You are not allowed to whatabout shite about things which have nothing to do with the above. "The Dems done worse. They illegally suppressed the Confederate State of America! The courts are all Dem-controlled (when a majority of federal judges and the vast majority of the Supreme Court of the US have been appointed by Republicans). But of course, what you will do is just wank off over your picture of "the Donald" needlessly in public. I urge you to take the high road and jizz off your authoritarian fantasies in the privacy of your bathroom. No need to share.
"OK, please describe what happened on 6th January 2020."
Well most if it was a legitimate and legal 1st Amendment protest requesting redress from the government.
What then happened was after the capitol police removed barriers to allow the protesters onto the grounds and the police proceeded to kettle the protesters, fire huge amounts of non-lethal rounds and tear gas into the crowd until the crowd decided enough was enough.
The big difference is during 2020 and other 'social justice' protests the Dems are very careful to ensure that their useful idiots attack and destroy private property rather than government property. It is much easier for the DA to dismiss burning down a block of apartments and the local walmart compared to a broken window and some dropped water bottles in a federal building.
@Citizen of Nowhere
"OK, please describe what happened on 6th January 2020."
The fact is it wasnt an insurrection as there were no insurrectionists and they couldnt even pin an insurrection on Trump for saying 'march peacefully'. So we can be certain of what it was not.
What did happen was a riot which entered the Capital building. Some people did cause damage and there was violence.
What we also know (feel free to try and dispute these):
> 3 pipe bombs were found, one in the capital building, one outside a democrat building and one outside a republican building. For so many cameras and the security sweeps of the areas it is amazing that nobody knows who planted them. Also the FBI gave up looking.
> These rioters who 'broke into' the Capital building didnt and the story changed quickly when video evidence showed the doors were opened for the rioters to enter. There is plenty video evidence of the police welcoming people in and giving guided tours.
> We know a lot of people who committed no crime but to enter the building (see invited in and given guided tours) were hunted down as a threat to democracy etc.
> We know people were embedded in the crowd and video even shows Ray Epps telling people at a rally to march on the Capital building and being called out as an FBI guy, only to be caught out the day of the riot encouraging the removal of barriers. After lying during the investigation (his phone records showed different to his account) he was released and wasnt even of interest to the FBI until 'conspiracy theorists' suspected him publicly and suddenly he was sentenced to a year of probation. The FBI eventually admitted to having 'non-agents' embedded- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn850jj44mjo
> The Capital police in a secured building now flooded with protesters were abandoned by their command structure. No direction. No help. Just left to their own actions.
> Only 1 person died in this event, an airforce veteran and peaceful protester. Note this is very different to the narrative that tries to find any deaths and try to link them. She was shot under questionable circumstances and the officer involved in the shooting was quickly cleared without much investigation.
So lets start there.
Nobody was charged with insurrection BEFORE the pardons and the Democrat led committee destroyed the evidence.
Although most of their 'evidence' was Liz Cheney's coaching of Cassidy Hutchinson to say she overheard someone saying they overheard something at 31 flavors. So it must have been bad!
Its actually true.
https://nypost.com/2024/12/17/opinion/liz-cheneys-secret-discussions-with-jan-6-witness-absolutely-merit-investigation/
https://www.newsweek.com/liz-cheney-donald-trump-january-6-committee-witness-cassidy-hutchinson-1969922
And there was zero corroborating evidence to back up what Cassidy was saying. It was all 'trust me bro'. Not even Lionel Hutz would have picked her as a witness.
@Dan 55
"Well there's nobody charged with insurrection now because they've all been pardoned and the evidence destroyed."
Destroyed by the J6 committee? But these people were being charged before Trump became president. A lot of effort and resources were dedicated to finding people who only entered the building to charge them. So why didnt any of these people get charged with insurrection? Noting you cant have an insurrection without insurrectionists.
And yes the people were pardoned. And rightly so. Not pre-emptive pardons for crimes without admitting to committing any crimes (see Bidens flurry of pardons) but pardoning what was a gross abuse of the state as a political weapon against Trump supporters.
What are you on about? Insurrectionists were charged and convicted, this is a matter of public record.
On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, disrupting the joint session of Congress assembled to count electoral votes to formalize Biden's victory in the 2020 United States presidential election.[1]
By the end of the year, 725 people had been charged with federal crimes.[2][3] That number rose to 1,000 by the second anniversary of the attack,[2] to 1,200 by the third anniversary (three-quarters of whom had by then been found guilty)[4][5] and to 1,500 before the fourth anniversary.[6] As of January 20, 2025, 1,575 people were charged in connection with the January 6 attack. The FBI has estimated that around 2,000 people took part in criminal acts at the event.[7]
Try this, scrunch up your fists and close your eyes REALLY tight, click your heels together three times while you cackle like a drunk and say '32 Days' and wish really REALLY hard that an insurrection actually happened.
Trump told them to peacefully protest, as is their right enshrined in the 1st amendment of the US constitution. He was not 'in on it'.
"And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." and "We're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country." doesn't sound very much like peaceful protest to me.
Oh sweet child, are we really going to play this game? Using the word 'fight' means insurrection??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4vt0uvXbp4
Chuck Schumer says he is going to 'fight this fight'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao6bcYgYG1Q
Robert Garcia calling on people to bring actual weapons to the fight.
Yeah "fight like hell" (among others) is definitely peaceful. And don't forget all the others on the stage that said for him in plain English what Trump was afraid to say. You could of course claim that Trump was smart enough to get others to say what he wanted to say and cover his ass but there is overwhelming evidence that this is not possible.
No-one said to storm the capitol. There are many videos of Dems calling for violence against Trump supporters. Maxine Waters famously told her supporters to harass Trump supporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCDe7vdFfw
Inciting violence much?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKzSJzqnsuU
When they unconstitutionally ban protest actions and limit free speech. There are 36 states in which citizens are not allowed to criticise one particular foreign country. Hell, you can boycott other states, you can call the President demented, a dementia patient, an orangutan, a traitor whatever. But oppose the mass slaughter of unarmed civilians, that is a hanging offence.
Oh A/C you sad, sad numpty.
Yes, they voted for a 34 times convicted, fraudster, rapist and insurrectionist.
Your recto-cranial-inversion is textbook. Have you thought about donating your body to science? Oh wait, that's commie lefty crap.
Er, I mean, the Glorious Orange Messiah? Just be sure to wear a suit. ------------------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>
Except he was never actually convicted of most of that.
He was found liable in a civil court for deformation relating to alleged sexual assault and he was never convicted in any court or insurrection. And it seems that the AG who campaigned on 'getting him' and helped to come with the the fever dream charges has actually done exactly the same thing.
Ermm...didn't Pol Pot start out as a Buddhist monk? His theology didn't go so well in the end.
And there's some good parallels here - the Fat Oafish Orange Felon is conducting a war on the US civil infrastructure, and the country's most intelligent. But still, in the US it is democracy in action - most of the electorate clearly connected with Trump's values of misogyny, dishonesty, bullying, tax evasion, and Homer Simpson levels of stupidity.
The problem with that is that no matter how bad the Democrats candidate was, Trump is 1000 time worse, on his best day. If there is some kind of doubt about this take a good look at the US now. The really stupid part is that nobody believed he would do what he said he would do. Kind of like when they believed that he would, like Pinocchio change into a real president.
Oh no, we WANTED this!
And even on the best day Joe or Kamala were so much worse. Neither could speak coherently without scripts and either stimulant drugs or booze. That time Kamala's autocue broke and she was left cackling and saying '32 days' over and over. She didn't (or as it appears was told not to) distance herself from Joe's failings and had no actual achievements herself except standing in front of a group of leaders and saying 'don't come' over and over.
The whole TQA+ stuff is not of interest to the vast majority of US voters. Abortion seems to be less of an issue than the Dems thought. And also bashing the people who vote for the opposition and calling them garbage doesn't work either. The Dems should have learned from Hillary.
As Winston Churchill famously said: "The United States invariably does the right thing ...
... after having exhausted every other alternative."
My worry is that Trump & his team will continue to exhaustively explore all sorts of other Right Things for some time,
before the US as a whole gives its head a good wobble and finally does the right Right Thing.
And deport them if he declares them an "enemy from within" the precedent would be set for democrats to someday exercise the same power. If Trump is able to do that even once I hope the first person so deported by a future democrat president is Elon Musk. Canada is already trying to do the same thing (somehow he has Canadian citizenship) which would mean he'd be forced to go back to South Africa. Not far enough away as far as I'm concerned (I want to deport him to Mars) but it would be great if he was barred from entering the US. If anyone fits the definition of "enemy from within" better than he does, I'm not aware of them.
"somehow he has Canadian citizenship"
Yes, he moved there when he left South Africa, where he has family links, before later on moving to the USA. IIRC, the bit of the family the left Canada in the first place to move to SA were nazis too.
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