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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 2m

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · Mar 26

“They can’t do this” is a very different observation than “when they do this they are pulverizing the social contract that provides any pretext for the legitimate state use of force.”

Reposted by Sam Halpert

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 10m

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
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(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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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2h

Judge Illston’s temporary restraining order against the shutdown layoffs is scathing.

“It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party …” storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Those who have received RIF notices cannot prepare for their upcoming terminations because the
human resources staff who would typically assist them are also furloughed. One union president
representing workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described how human
resources staff were brought back into the office last weekend to work on issuing RIF notices, and
then, once they had completed this work, were told “to issue RIF notices to themselves.”2 Dkt. No.
47-3 (“Jacobs Decl.”) ¶¶ 2, 7. Unions are hearing from members who have serious health conditions
or are in the late stages of pregnancy, and who worry that their health insurance will be impacted by
the RIFs, but there is no one in the office who can answer their questions during the shutdown. Id.
¶¶ 9, 14; Gittleman Decl. ¶ 16; Robinson Decl. ¶¶ 6, 12.
It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a
government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party. But this is precisely what
President Trump has announced he is doing, by taking to social media on the second day of the
shutdown to post: “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought,[3] he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to
determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he
recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe
the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.” Dkt. No. 15 (“Am. Compl.”)
¶ 176; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Truth Social (Oct. 2, 2025, at 4:59 a.m.),
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115304455138824245 (last visited Oct. 15,
2025). The memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget that appears to have initiated
the shutdown RIFs says the same. See Dkt. No. 15-1, Am. Compl., Ex. A (“OMB Lapse Mem.”)
(directing agencies to “use this opportunity” of the shutdown to consider RIF notices, including in
those areas that are “not consistent with the Pr…

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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 42m

Here's the shutdown RIFs TRO: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 14m

bsky.app/profile/samh...

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 8d

Absent the structure of federalism, this would be an unambiguous act of aggression. And POTUS eliminated any ambiguity last week at Quantico, when he looked all his generals in the face and said, “this is a war.” He’s told us what these moves mean: he’s levying war on the United States. It’s treason

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 15m

I’m going to say it again: members of Congress need to draft articles & talk publicly & loudly about the case for treason. Trump told generals on camera in person: the campaign in U.S. cities is a WAR. The military needs to hear it laid out for them, how serious this is. Write for them, not the GOP.

Betcy Jose @betcy.bsky.social · 5h

"The dearth of military pushback... begs the question of how effectively Trump & Hegseth have cleaned house, rooting out those who might disagree with them. It is unclear if there are senior officers still objecting behind closed doors, or if everyone is keeping silent in order to save their jobs."

The Dilemma of Duty Under Trump

What his assault on the U.S. military means for America.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 30m

this isn't to say pritzker is above criticism but that *this* precise form of criticism at *this* precise juncture serves no purpose other than to center him as a target of a critique that the entire white house, the entire republican party, and its donors are all guilty of at scale x100 worse

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 2h

I don’t know if you’d seen: as I’ve been working to wrap my head around the details and the timeline of all this I noticed that the President’s own statement attempts to link his fiscal authority to his role as Commander in Chief (which is obviously incorrect) bsky.app/profile/samh...

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

If you look past the Pentagon's effort to rationalize what the President has ordered to his actual edict (on Truth Social), you'll see that he's invoking his "authority as Commander in Chief". He thinks he has an Article II power to pay his army (he doesn't). www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/33283

https://www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/33283

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump October 11, 2025, 1:35pm Truth Social

Chuck Schumer recently said, “Every day gets better” during their Radical Left Shutdown. I DISAGREE! If nothing is done, because of “Leader” Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th. That is why I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th. We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS. I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown. The Radical Left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT, and then we can work together to address Healthcare, and many other things that they want to destroy. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 2h

Thanks for flagging it; I’ll look.

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Charles Blanchard @fmrairforcegc.bsky.social · 2h

@samhalpert.bsky.social Now this is u questionable illegal. The President can't create transfer authority. Only Congress can do so. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Trump Signs Memo Expanding His Authority to Spend Federal Money

www.nytimes.com

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

Thanks; I’ll read this (and try my hand at what I mentioned). Also worth noting: I haven’t seen focus on what POTUS said, rather than the sanitized effort from DoD. He’s linked his power to order military payroll to his inherent authority as Commander in Chief: bsky.app/profile/samh...

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

If you look past the Pentagon's effort to rationalize what the President has ordered to his actual edict (on Truth Social), you'll see that he's invoking his "authority as Commander in Chief". He thinks he has an Article II power to pay his army (he doesn't). www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/33283

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

we’ve already seen Congress war powers fall entirely off it into an abyss! POTUS is blowing up boats of civilians! He summoned his generals to his presence and called them to war against US cities!

Using implied authority to raise an army is a big bright line. Crossing it is observably a bad idea.

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

(I think that Congressional leadership refusing to move a single-issue bill to fund military payroll is more than clear enough, fwiw, but that’s not what the transfer authority typically contemplates I’m told.) The broader point is that we don’t have to *imagine* the slippery slope here— 3/4

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

Ppl who see this as a valid use of “General Transfer Authority” look at how (the current strategy) only extends a single paycheck, how Congress can rewrite the transfer authority in the next appropriations bill if they don’t like this trick, & how Congress hasn’t technically refused to pay this 2/4

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

Exactly! I don’t have the time but I’ve been imagining a piece looking at this bit of Federalist 69 in the context of this moment. 2 things separate a President from a King wrt military power: declaring war & raising armies. 1/4

Secondly. The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy
of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would
amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets
and armies, all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.l The governor of New York, on

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 6h

If you look past the Pentagon's effort to rationalize what the President has ordered to his actual edict (on Truth Social), you'll see that he's invoking his "authority as Commander in Chief". He thinks he has an Article II power to pay his army (he doesn't). www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/33283

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 7h

It isn’t needless, imo. It’s a test balloon. It’s a calculated decision to sever military payroll from Congressional appropriations, & the move is unambiguous b/c if Rs chose they could gavel a session & fund payroll in an unquestionably legal way. No one forced them to chose this path. It’s policy.

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 8h

Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything.

It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in.

Long thread.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-8/

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 7h

And an “appropriations king” who directs his attention to unconstitutionally appropriating funds to raise an army is poised to become, simply, a “king” bsky.app/profile/samh...

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 2d

This approach is spreading. Again, this is the most serious kind of spending clause encroachment I can imagine, since the framers expressly relied upon the fact that POTUS cannot sustain armed forces w/o Congress to prevent him from becoming king. (Federalist 69 below.) bsky.app/profile/task...

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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 7h

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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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 8h

briefly interrupting my shame posting to tap one of the other signs: a society that would like to keep functioning must discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

Nick Turse @nickturse.bsky.social · 8h

SCOOP: Trump Fabricates Story of Hand-to-Hand Combat Between Troops and Child Gangsters in D.C.

Trump’s claim that National Guard members beat child gang members on the streets of Washington was disputed even by the military.

theintercept.com/2025/10/15/t...

Trump Fabricates Story of Hand-to-Hand Combat Between Troops and Child Gangsters in D.C.

Trump’s claim that National Guard members beat child gang members on the streets of Washington was disputed even by the military.

theintercept.com

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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 7h

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 literally says that all persons “can “make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens.”

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 11h

“the constitution forbids race conscious remedies” would be news to the people who wrote the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments

Michael Li (李之樸) @mcpli.bsky.social · 11h

Griem goes there, arguing in response to Justice Jackson that there can be no race-conscious remedy absent a finding of intentional discrimination.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 7h

The Supreme Court's Republican appointees sound ready to transform the 14th and 15th Amendments into a weapon against the very racial minorities they were meant to protect—handing Republicans 15-19 additional House seats in the process. A disaster for democracy.
slate.com/news-and-pol...

Is it racist to remedy racism? That’s the question at the heart of Callais v. Louisiana, which the Supreme Court heard on Wednesday. The case asks whether the Voting Rights Act gives Black Louisianans too much political power—and if so, whether the landmark law violates the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to rule that it does. Throughout oral arguments, they suggested the VRA protects minority voters too effectively, dragging the government into race-conscious considerations that offend the equal protection rights of the white voters who sued in this case. And they floated various ways to gut what remains of the statute by twisting it beyond recognition or striking it down altogether. The result would be a windfall for Republicans, who stand to gain at least 19 seats in the House of Representatives if the Supreme Court frees them to gerrymander Black communities into oblivion. Such a decision would also devastate minority representation in Congress, eliminating up to 30 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus.

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Michael Sainato @msainato.bsky.social · 8h

Judge grants temporary restraining order blocking Trump administration from administering reductions in force during the shutdown

Michael Sainato @msainato.bsky.social · 9h

Federal judge in northern California starts hearing on injunction to block Trump administration from firing workers during the shutdown by stating she is inclined to grant motion

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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 9h

I've shared this before, but I wrote this in 2021 about shame and covid and one of the things we get wrong is where shame needs to come from. I cannot be shamed by fascists because I don't care what fascists think of me. These people have people next to them whose opinion they care about /1

In Defense of Shaming People for Breaking COVID Restrictions

And some guidance for doing it.

slate.com

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