- “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday. The Office of Management and Budget “withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act.”
...
Under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, the executive branch is legally obligated to spend the money that Congress approves and which the president signs into law.
More evidence of deep trouble, from a new book: Another example: While visiting Pearl Harbor, according to John F. Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, Trump seemed to have no idea what had actually happened there. Throughout he is misinformed and confused while at the same time utterly certain of himself. An example of small but nonetheless piquant news: Administration lawyers came up with a nickname for Matthew Whitaker, the former acting attorney general. They called him Mongo, after the illiterate galoot played by Alex Karras in the Mel Brooks movie “Blazing Saddles.” And kleinbl00, I think I actually believe what Parnas told Maddow last night, that Yovanovich wasn't really under surveillance, and the 24/7 drunk wannabe-GOP-rep, Robert Hyde, saying all that stuff was "joking". We'll see, 'cuz the FBI apparently showed up at his house and business office yesterday. Maybe without a cyclical economic cycle, democracy is much more likely to fall apart? It's sad that I'm jonesing for a downturn in the hopes of preserving American democratic institutions. And it genuinely affects my state of mind. Trumpers would delight in this.[The authors] report that in the spring of 2017, Trump implored Rex Tillerson, then secretary of state, to help him jettison the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. “It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump whines to a group of aides. Nearly every line from Trump, in “A Very Stable Genius,” is this venal.
My favorite book of the Reagan '80s is The Clothes Have No Emperor, Paul Slansky's 8-year response to waking up with an actor as president. He patiently clipped news articles, put them in folders, and basically edited it into a chronology. And Reagan is the closest thing the Republicans have to a saint. They've been trying to put him on Mount Rushmore since he was alive. Ukraine is not Russia, but both Ukraine and Russia used to be the USSR. It makes more sense to me that if Yovanovich was under threat she'd be dead. However, it makes total sense to me that a bunch of off-rez MAGA cowboys fumbling around in the dark made noises that Yovanovich was under threat, and I mean... you kinda gotta play that as it lays from a security perspective. You don't joke about a bomb in the metal detector.
Oh yeah, agree that the possible stalking should be handled with the utmost seriousness. Pompeo today finally came out and said that the state department would be looking into it. Apparently, Trump is still working to scrap or modify the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Unfuckingreal. Consider these my news clippings. And these are only a semi-random selection, we're not even talking about rolling back rules that protect kids from being served nutritionally bankrupt meals at public schools. The motivation on that one? Probably because Michelle Obama did it. They made the announcement that they're planning the repeal today, her birthday.
The GAO has previously also ruled against the Obama administration at least once on a matter of foreign policy, and the administration came back with this (OSTP=Office of Science and Technology Policy): I don't much like the sound of that either, but the Obama instance 1) didn't involve withholding Congressionally-approved funding to an ally at war with a foreign adversary that just tampered in our election, and 2) was entirely unrelated to not the first, but a second instance of soliciting foreign interference in U.S. elections. So when people are like, "Why do you wanna impeach him?! Are you afraid he'll win the election?", it's like, "Yes, actually, I am worried that he could win the election, even with three years of accumulated polling statistics showing that he has almost never had over a 45% approval rating, and because his postponement or avoidance of an almost-certain prison sentence depends on re-election, if the Senate acquits him, he'll do something even worse between now and November," but no one's mind will ever be changed. There's no reason to engage in a conversation, because I'm just an insane guy with Trump Derangement Syndrome. Their ideology is already impenetrable, especially on the faceless side of the internet. The only way I have a chance is to infiltrate them, with my white maleness, and also skipping leg day (basically why we invented pants), even mimicking them in some mannerisms. I'll be curling a dumbbell, but with a transcript of Trump's Ukraine call taped to it. "Oh, what's this? Funny you asked, yeah, here, these five pages are just the right weight, a little under two pounds, just the increment I needed for this final superset. Here, we can tape it to your barbell plates on one side, and I've got another thing here, Giuliani's wise words, another five pages of transcript to balance out the bar, here, let me read you my favorite bit, while I pull the tape outta my bag..." I'll let you know how it goes, everyone, but I'm pretty sure there's no way this won't work. Anyway, how much do I owe you for this therapy session?OSTP sought the Department of Justice’s guidance on Section 1314(a)’s legal effect because of the extent and the importance of OSTP’s role in bilateral diplomacy with China on science and technology issues,” said Holdren. “The Department of Justice advised us that the activities that OSTP has been carrying out in connection with that role fall under the President’s exclusive constitutional authority to conduct foreign diplomacy, and thus are not precluded by the statute.
I'm not sure how any of this was ever unclear or up for debate. Combined with the Lev Parnas documents and testimony, if a shitton of people don't go prison over all of this, especially the coverup attempts, the United States is in deep trouble.