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Beau Baumann 🍏 @beaubaumann.bsky.social · 19h

I really think we need to reconceptualize this shutdown as the last stand for the rule of law and Art I. Bring it to default if that’s what it takes. If Congress can’t assert the power of the purse, we are in “move to Portugal” territory of screwed.

Beau Baumann 🍏 @beaubaumann.bsky.social · 20h

This cannot just be about healthcare. The existing constitutional system hangs in the balance. The rule of law is now baked into this shutdown in a huge way.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 21h

President Trump on Wednesday signed a memorandum expanding his administration’s authority to repurpose unspent federal funds to pay members of the military during the government shutdown, escalating his challenge to the authority of Congress on spending matters.

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Beau Baumann 🍏 @beaubaumann.bsky.social · 20h

This cannot just be about healthcare. The existing constitutional system hangs in the balance. The rule of law is now baked into this shutdown in a huge way.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 21h

President Trump on Wednesday signed a memorandum expanding his administration’s authority to repurpose unspent federal funds to pay members of the military during the government shutdown, escalating his challenge to the authority of Congress on spending matters.

Trump Signs Memo Expanding His Authority to Spend Federal Money

The president gave Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wide authority to repurpose funds to pay members of the military without approval from Congress, which has the sole constitutional authority to decide federal spending.

nyti.ms

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 21h

There's literally no reason for Congress to exist if any random freak in the presidential orbit can nullify laws and seize federal funds. All of this is plainly illegal, but Mike Johnson leads the most corrupt Congress in US history (and by a wide margin.)

Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

White House budget director Vought plans to shut down CFPB within months, says it's no longer protecting consumers reut.rs/4qjMIyT

White House budget director Vought plans to shut down CFPB within months, says it's no longer protecting consumers

White House budget director Russell Vought said he wants to close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and expects to do so within the next two to three months.

reut.rs

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Don Zeko @donzeko.bsky.social · 20h

This is almost literally what the English Civil War was fought over.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 21h

President Trump on Wednesday signed a memorandum expanding his administration’s authority to repurpose unspent federal funds to pay members of the military during the government shutdown, escalating his challenge to the authority of Congress on spending matters.

Trump Signs Memo Expanding His Authority to Spend Federal Money

The president gave Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wide authority to repurpose funds to pay members of the military without approval from Congress, which has the sole constitutional authority to decide federal spending.

nyti.ms

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 17h

Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.

26 U.S. Code § 7217 - Prohibition on executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations
U.S. Code
Notes
prev | next
(a)Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for any applicable person to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.

(b)Reporting requirement
Any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service receiving any request prohibited by subsection (a) shall report the receipt of such request to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

(c)Exceptions
Subsection (a) shall not apply to any written request made—
(1)to an applicable person by or on behalf of the taxpayer and forwarded by such applicable person to the Internal Revenue Service;
(2)by an applicable person for disclosure of return or return information under section 6103 if such request is made in accordance with the requirements of such section; or
(3)by the Secretary of the Treasury as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy.
(d)Penalty
Any person who willfully violates subsection (a) or fails to report under subsection (b) shall be punished upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

(e)Applicable person
For purposes of this section, the term “applicable person” means—
(1)the President, the Vice President, any employee of the executive office of the President, and any employee of the executive office of the Vice President; and
(2)any individual (other than the Attorney General of the United States) serving in a position specified in section 5312 of title 5, United States Code.

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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 22h

Deep sigh indeed.

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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 22h

Yeah, I know. I just hate that the focus is so exclusively on national stuff that people can't really impact. Of course, Trump sucks up all the oxygen.

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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 22h

I'm sure thousands of people will show up to the protests this weekend who never show up to anything local or state government related :(

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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 1d

The subtext of this comment is that the Mayor of Boston is Asian-American, whereas the Mayor of Chicago (like almost everyone else that Trump refers to as “a low IQ person”) is Black.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "Boston had a bad mayor who at least is a reasonable IQ person. Most of them are low IQ. I mean, what's going on in Chicago ... "

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Joshua Failé @joshuafaile.bsky.social · 1d

This is what so many political commentators and critics of the Democratic Party approach to the shutdown do not understand:

You CANNOT negotiate with bad faith actors that do not recognise the constraints of the rule of law.

Doing so is naive at best, and catastrophically dangerous at worst.

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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 1d

Trump and Vought are now breaking both sides of spending law. They’re illegally not spending where the law requires them to spend, and they’re illegally spending where they don’t have the money to spend.

What we have is an appropriations king.

Spending “deals” are meaningless under that setup.

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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 1d

Can states, and a little bit of faith, convert church land into affordable housing? • Idaho Capital Sun

Yes In God’s Backyard? Some states hope so. Lawmakers see the potential for much-needed housing on church-owned land.

idahocapitalsun.com

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 1d

So glad not a single politician on the planet has the intelligence to perceive how massive a con this is (AI will cure cancer we are told, instead we get this) or the political will to regulate this company and sector.

The Verge @theverge.com · 2d

Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon sext with verified adults

ChatGPT is about to get flirty.

buff.ly

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 2d

There is no statute of limitations for murder, including under UCMJ.

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 2d

Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.

Amarnath Amarasingam @amaramarasingam.bsky.social · 2d

The military has now killed 27 people as if they were enemy soldiers in a war zone and not criminal suspects. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 1d

Was this the key to Julius Caesar's victory?

Napoleon certainly thought so.

allancienthistory.substack.com

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Chris Davies @crd37.bsky.social · 3d

As someone who studied classical history as an undergraduate in the 90s, this list is excessively exciting.

What do you mean we’ve redefined our understanding of hoplite warfare?!

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 3d

Maybe this is simply a difference in the expected 'rate' of knew knowledge, but this take puzzles me, because there's quite a bit of new data and studies needing to be done that I can see pretty easily in Roman history.

Knowledge creation steady and clearly visible.

A tweet by Theo Nash, which reads, "The problem is that (almost) no one, at least in the humanities, is able to produce ‘new knowledge’ at anything like the rate expected. So scholars grasp at faddish trends and voguish theories to publish books that seem exciting in the moment but have no enduring value."

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 3d

Maybe this is simply a difference in the expected 'rate' of knew knowledge, but this take puzzles me, because there's quite a bit of new data and studies needing to be done that I can see pretty easily in Roman history.

Knowledge creation steady and clearly visible.

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Gluon Spring @gluonspring.bsky.social · 2d

The idea that someone could hire 100 thousand people, to say nothing of a million, to engage in protest is the sort of thing only a child could believe. 100? Sure. 1000? Possible. 100,000? You are a mental child.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

Sean Duffy: "The No Kings protest, Maria, really frustrating. This is part of antifa, paid protesters. It begs the question who's funding it."

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 2d

#ICYMI: Yesterday’s “One First” summarized just how weak the defenses of the Supreme Court’s behavior on Trump-related emergency applications have been—and explained what someone would have to do to *actually* defend all that the Court’s majority has been doing:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/183-the-mi...

After all, maybe one can defend the Court granting emergency relief more often than ever before and in cases with far greater real-world (and structural) impacts. And maybe one can defend the Court altering (if not completely scrapping) the traditional balance of the equities in these cases. But does that defense extend to the Court doing so especially in cases in which President Trump is a party-and no others? And does it extend to the Court doing all of this without usually providing written explanations of what it is doing-or why? And even if the answer is somehow "yes," does it also extend to the Court doing all of this, not usually explaining what it's doing or why, and nevertheless accusing lower courts who fail to read the justices' minds of "defying" the Court?

I have a very hard time believing that anyone can genuinely make it through even three of those sentences with a coherent defense of what the Supreme Court has done over the past seven months-let alone all five of them. I'd love to see such an argument, if it exists, but I haven't been-and won't be-holding my breath.

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hilzoy @hilzoy.bsky.social · 3d

At this moment, anyone who tries to convince you that it’s a good time for any kind of violence is just wrong. There is nothing Steven Miller would like more than us being violent right now.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 3d

someone on the Internet who really wants to convince you to shine lasers at manned aircraft as a protest tactic “because they did it in Chile in 2019” is either:

1. a fascist fed, or,

2. so terminally stupid that they have become functionally indistinguishable from one

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Osprey Bluesky Account @caseinsensit1ve.bsky.social · 3d

Either elections still matter and we've got about a year of Trump steadily making himself more and more hated before a Dem wave causes a deadlock between Congress and the WH, or they don't and we're in the long game. Either way, undermining their popular legitimacy is step 1.

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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 2d

Fiscal conservatism means cutting vital services so that you can cut taxes for rich people by a billion dollars over a few years and half a billion dollars in one year. #idpol #idleg #idgop #idahogop #Idaho

Idaho Capital Sun @idahocapitalsun.com · 5d

No decisions have been made, but state officials are discussing the possibility of additional cuts and deeper cuts, said Lori Wolff, administrator of the Idaho Division of Financial Management. #idleg #idpol

Idaho projected to end fiscal year with unconstitutional $56.6M state budget deficit • Idaho Capital Sun

The Idaho Constitution prohibits the state from running a budget deficit where expenses exceed available revenue.

idahocapitalsun.com

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Lee Drutman @leedrutman.bsky.social · 9d

or we could just move to proportional representation, make one statewide multimember district for Utah, and stop all this goddamn endless litigation.

Democracy Docket @democracydocket.com · 9d

UPDATE: Shortly after Utah GOP lawmakers passed another congressional gerrymander, pro-voting plaintiffs challenging the current map submitted fair map proposals to the court, arguing the legislature’s plan still violates Prop 4. A judge will decide which map complies by November.

Utah GOP Passes Gerrymandered Map, While Handcuffing Courts