What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Syt]

[Zanza]

I am sure the Ayatollahs are trembling with fear.

[crazy canuck]

I can't wait to see what happens when someone points out that Iran supplies Russia with weapons

[Zanza]

I can't wait to see what happens when someone points out that Iran supplies Russia with weapons

So what? He is a Russian useful idiot after all. He might offer US equipment instead. The opposite direction might be more problematic for him, but a few assurances from Vladimir should cover that.

[crazy canuck]

I was thinking more about that person getting personally attacked and accused of being a Democratic plant or some member of the deep state.  In fascist governments it is the true believers who get put up against the wall first.

[HVC]

French politician is trolling trump back by demanding the Statue of Liberty back

[Syt]

French politician is trolling trump back by demanding the Statue of Liberty back

They should ask for the loans from the War of Independence back, plus interest (if not already refunded). Especially after the press secretary yesterday said that if not for the USA the French would be speaking German today.

Never mind: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans

In 1795, the United States was finally able to settle its debts with the French Government with the help of James Swan, an American banker who privately assumed French debts at a slightly higher interest rate. Swan then resold these debts at a profit on domestic U.S. markets. The United States no longer owed money to foreign governments, although it continued to owe money to private investors both in the United States and in Europe.

[dist]

Wouldn't mind the statue back. Just don't know where we could put it. Estuary of the Seine? Elba? Top of the Mont-Blanc? Landfill in New Jersey?

Trolling aside, it's seems that the final showdown between the courts and the executive is approaching fast after the deportation without due process of alleged Venezuelan gang members, the non-compliance with the judge's orders and the announcement by Homan on Fox that ICE won't stop and doesn't care what the judges think.

[Syt]

Wouldn't mind the statue back. Just don't know where we could put it. Estuary of the Seine? Elba? Top of the Mont-Blanc? Landfill in New Jersey?

There's a copy in Paris already. Just put them next to each other.

[dist]

Would have to cut it into pieces. That island is way too small for the big lady.

Other possibility would be too partially bury it into the Dune of Pilat...

[Zoupa]

We could send it to Odesa. It could replace one of the zillion statues of that Pushkin hack.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

We could send it to Odesa. It could replace one of the zillion statues of that Pushkin hack.

Now that idea a like

[Syt]

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-federal-judges-impeachment-29da1153a9f82106748098a6606fec39

Roberts rejects Trump's call for impeaching judge who ruled against his deportation plans

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an extraordinary display of conflict between the executive and judiciary branches, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected calls for impeaching federal judges shortly after President Donald Trump demanded the removal of a judge who ruled against his deportation plans.

"For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision," Roberts said in a rare statement. "The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose."

In a Tuesday morning social media post, Trump described U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg as an unelected "troublemaker and agitator." Boasberg recently issued an order blocking deportation flights under wartime authorities from an 18th century law that Trump invoked to carry out his plans.

"HE DIDN'T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY," Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. "I'm just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!"

Although Trump has routinely criticized judges, especially as they limit his efforts to expand presidential power, his latest post escalated his conflict with a judiciary that's been one of the few restraints on his aggressive agenda. Impeachment is a rare step that is usually taken only in cases of grave ethical or criminal misconduct.


He has routinely criticized judges, especially as they limit his efforts to expand presidential power and impose his sweeping agenda on the federal government. But his call for impeachment represents an intensifying confrontation between the judicial and executive branches.

The relationship between Roberts and Trump has shifted through the years. Roberts rebuked Trump on judicial independence during his first term, taking issue with the president's description of a judge who rejected his migrant asylum policy as an "Obama judge" in 2018.

Roberts had a prominent role in the now-dismissed criminal case against Trump last year, writing the majority opinion that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution and helped him avoid a criminal trial before the 2024 election.

Roberts, meanwhile, continued to champion judicial independence, warning against threats from all sides and calling for even unpopular court decisions to be respected shortly before Trump began his second term.

Trump greeted Roberts warmly earlier this month, thanking him and saying "I won't forget" as the justices attended his address to a joint session of Congress. Trump said later he was thanking Roberts for swearing him into office.

Trump's latest statement comes after a court challenged of his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. It has been used only three times before in U.S. history, all during congressionally declared wars. Trump issued a proclamation that the law was newly in effect due to what he claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. His administration is paying El Salvador to imprison alleged members of the gang.

Boasberg, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, convened a hearing on Monday to discuss what he called "possible defiance" of his order after two deportation flights continued to El Salvador despite his verbal order that they be turned around to the U.S.

Trump administration lawyers defended their actions, saying Boasberg's written order wasn't explicit, while an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union said "I think we're getting very close" to a constitutional crisis.

The Justice Department is also pushing in court to have Boasberg removed from the case.

The Constitution gives the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority, the power to impeach a judge with a simple majority vote. But, like a presidential impeachment, any removal requires a vote from a two-thirds majority from the Senate.

The president's latest social media post aligns him more with allies like billionaire Elon Musk, who has made similar demands.

"What we are seeing is an attempt by one branch of government to intimidate another branch from performing its constitutional duty. It is a direct threat to judicial independence," Marin Levy, a Duke University School of Law professor who specializes in the federal courts, said in an email.

Only one day earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "I have not heard the president talk about impeaching judges."

Just 15 judges have been impeached in the nation's history, according to the U.S. courts governing body, and just eight have been removed.

The last judicial impeachment was in 2010. G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of New Orleans was impeached on charges he accepted bribes and then lied about it. He was convicted by the Senate and removed from office in December 2010.

Calls to impeach judges have been rising as Trump's sweeping agenda faces pushback in the courts, and at least two members of Congress have said online they plan to introduce articles of impeachment against Boasberg. House Republicans already have filed articles of impeachment against two other judges, Amir Ali and Paul Engelmayer, over rulings they've made in Trump-related lawsuits.

Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

It's increasingly hard to tell with his fantasies what is delusion and what is bald-faced lying.

[The Minsky Moment]

And yet between the two it may be Roberts who is more delusional.

Trump knows what he is doing.  He doesn't expect the judge to be impeached.  He is riding the refs.  The target is not Judge Boasberg, it is Justice Roberts himself.  This administration has one* legal strategy to every problem: emergency appeal right to the Supreme Court. A tactic that was reserved in the pre-Trump era for only the gravest of emergency situations but has become a routine courtesy for Trump.  The point of Trump's social media post is not to threaten the district judge, who has sufficient bone material in his back to rip the DOJ in a hearing this morning. The point is tip off Roberts about he and his fellow justices can expect if they don't do Trump's bidding.

This is a problem of Robert's own creation.  He has posed as an institutionalist but opened the door to a Clarence Thomas led court majority that has enshrined some of the nuttiest right wing academic scribbling as the constitutional law of land, dismantling long accepted precedents and leaving a hopeless muddle that has given free rein to openly partisan decision-making.  When faced with the case of constitutionally ineligible Presidential candidate, he sided with the solution of tearing the offending clause out of the constitution, rather than disturb the candidate.   He led the Court's gambit of taking the extraordinary measure of halting a federal criminal prosecution for months, again to carry the water for the same candidate.

But worst of all, he personally drafted the most appalling Supreme Court ruling since Korematsu, turning the entire constitutional system on its head, transforming an American republic founded on the core principle of containing unchecked executive power into one where the Executive enjoys a sweeping immunity from sanction that would make Louis XIV blush, justified not by any cognizable constitutional text or principle, but on the perceived need for executive "efficiency."  He did this knowing that the next person who might enjoy this outrageous impunity was a rage-filled maniac, openly declaring his intent to act as a dictator and to purse brutal vendettas against political enemies. As much as anyone else, Roberts helped create Trump 2.0.

Very soon, the constitutional crisis will be at his door.  If he fails the next test, America could go down with him, and he will join Roger Taney in the hall of shame of Supreme Court justices who helped unmake the nation.  If he at last stands up for the Republic, he will face the full force of the tyrannic brutality he helped create.

*The other legal strategy is bring cases in Palm Beach and shake the venue to get their pet judge assigned.