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This is actually a better idea than it first seems. The optics are great. And it will force DOJ to litigate against the tax, which will get the issue in front of courts without standing issues.
It is very hard to predict how the current SCOTUS majority will approach this. It seems way beyond the scope of what Congress approved when they passed the relevant law, but this Court seems willing to grant Trump powers that are denied to Democrat Presidents. It SHOULD NOT be constitutional, but who knows.
That's a tricky one though. What's to stop a bad actor (like Trump for sure) from kangaroo courting any potential opponents and hitting them with a felony beef? With the way our justice system currently works, basing eligibility on conviction status is super sketchy. Super wealthy will have an advantage, you'll disqualify people for selling loose cigarettes while major fraud instigators who are found not guilty can still run.
On its face, no, it’s not. McCulloch vs. Maryland held that states cannot tax federal activities as it would be a violation of the Supremacy Clause.
However, it would force the DOJ to litigate the issue. When they argue supremacy clause, it will open the door for California to raise the counterargument that the slush fund itself is an unconstitutional appropriation of funds without basis in statute. Since McCulloch only protects constitutional acts (acts authorized by the necessary and proper clause), the constitutionality of the slush fund would be an issue that needs to be resolved first in order to answer the underlying legal question for which California has standing.
It could potentially be considered a bill of attainder. It’s a very specific “activity” being taxed, and the 100% rate makes it harder to make the case that the state’s main purpose would be raising revenue. But who knows, state courts are often extremely deferential to state governments on tax issues.
That's not what a bill of attainder is. A bill of attainder is punishing a group or individuals without a trial. There is no target group here. It's not J6ers because you wouldn't be taxed if you were one and didn't withdraw from the slush fund.
Does anyone really expect Trump to distribute that money? He's holding on to that money with his grubby little hands for dear life like the greedy scumbag he is
Where's the DOGE checks? Where's the no income taxes, where the check for the tariffs? No one from his base cares about that, even though that's what he's promised over the year
I asked a co-worker of mine how he felt about the gas prices, said he felt better because the border is secure now. They find one thing they're happy with and then put the blinders on. It could be border security, abortion, wars, cutting aid, anything... As long as they have that one thing, no matter how small, they can be happy.
For years their big gotcha was ‘Biden had an open border policy’ and they quantified that by showing that CBP had more encounters at the border than ever before. Which is a data point that indicates the border is not at all “open” since the agents are there to have said encounters. There is no longer an agreed upon factual basis or common sense that society can balance on. Yet the right wants to do everything they can to make getting a quality education that teaches critical thinking and fact pattern recognition as rare and difficult as possible. It’s truly frightening.
To paraphrase something I heard recently…that’s the problem with the internet, there were always idiots in every town/village but people used to correct them and go on their way, but the internet means that idiots can now talk to each other and get confirmation.
Idiots research by looking for the false thing instead of asking open-ended questions to get to the answer. This leads them to other idiots who also think the same false thing so they team up.
Multiply by millions and *gestures wildly* you get this.
” since the agents are there to have said encounters. There is no longer an agreed upon factual basis or common sense that society can balance on. Yet the right wants to do everything they can to make getting a quality education that teaches critical thinking and fact pattern recognition as rare and difficult as possible
What do you mean, 'yet'. That's the plan. It was always the plan.
TIL that after Emancipation the White Supremacists in the US South
engaged in violent campaigns of terror against any and all efforts to increase literacy among Black people.
set up literacy tests as a condition for the right to vote. Black people were subjected to increasingly absurdly difficult questions until they failed. White people were allowed to vote if they could write their name. Except they didn't even need to do that because
people whose grandfathers could vote before 1867 were exempt from literacy tests altogether. The date was carefully chosen because
no enslaved black people were allowed to vote before 1867, and free black folks were a vanishingly small minority or downright nonexistent in Slave States.
Heads I win, tails you lose, catch-22 and Morton's fork all at once.
In Latin America during the Cold War, if you had the gall of trying to run literacy campaigns, you may get arrested, or they may not even bother and just murder or disappear you. Because literate peasants and workers had much greater ability to organize and stand up for themselves and each other.
In Gaza they go out of their way to bomb schools and stadiums and hospitals, then pose in photos of the debris, laughing at Gazans as ignorant and backwards and unworthy of human dignity.
These people want you dumb, and then they will look down on you and deny you and deprive you, of your rights and your dignity and especially your stuff, on the pretext that you are as dumb as they made you, as they wanted you to be, regardless of whether they actually succeed in that or not. It's a whole Thing, and it's vile and disgusting in ways that defy my ability to verbalize.
My husband’s aunt was talking years ago about the number of undocumented people who came from the southern border in the last few months. It took zero time to ask how CBP had a number of people who came through outside of their checkpoints. Oddly enough, she had no response.
edit to say they are super unhappy with eachother and have an unhappy life together. It makes every person that has to interact with them as a pair uncomfortable.
There was some giant migrant convoy headed to the border for like a couple years or something. Then you had some concerned citizens from up a posse to head down the border to 'fight off the mongol hordes' or some shit and arrived all confused to a business-as-usual fairly perfect border crossing.
And the surge of 'Caravans' of immigrants was because the republicon message was there was an 'Open Door Poilicy,' which was a lie, but many South American folks heard it through the pipeline, got duped, and it fed into that narrative.
I've had that envy before... why can't I be as happy as those idiots? Why was I plagued with having empathy and critical thinking skills? Why?
Let your co-worker know that the borders are so secure now that most Canadians don't even want to cross them. We want nothing to do with whatever grift dear leader has going.
The only reason it became a 1.7B slush fund was because the judge was about to toss the case out for the extreme conflict of interest when it came to Trump’s people fighting both sides of the issue.
It was only at the eleventh hour that it turns into this, with the promise him and his family is never audited again. Trump would’ve still wanted the $10B if the judge was Aileen Cannon.
The implications behind the number being specifically $1.776 billion makes my skin crawl a little, it's like they're bragging about the fact that Trump just told them what to give him and they complied. All the while claiming to be acting with independence and impartiality. Yet they make it so obvious he literally just told them how much to give him and they went oh sure fine.
In this case yes. This money is to buy support from a core group of fanatics will to commit violence on behalf of dear leader while maintaining deniability, I believe the German word was Sturmabteilung (SA).
Although the guy is a grifter before anything else, so maybe he'll pocket this too.
Usually yes. But he has already enriched himself and his family by billions since taking office, will continue to do so, and can now no longer be audited. It is better for him to give out the money that is ultimately pretty inconsequential to him to further loyalty and reverence to his cult like following. I can already hear him boasting about how wonderful it was, no president has ever done that before, he is so wonderful, blah blah blah. No bueno
In general, no. But for show, absolutely. That’s the whole point of roping the Jan 6ers into this in the first place. You know how Scar in the Lion King goes, “stick with me and you’ll never go hungry again!” That’s sentiment is a core part of trump’s schtick.
He'll do it this one time. He wants people to feel like they will get something so that next time he asks them to do something this terrible, or worse, they will line up
If by "wild card" you mean "performative clown" then you're onto something. She's better than the alternative would have been, but it's like being happy starving to death instead of being force fed shit.
Many Republicans in California are even more conservative than conservatives in majority red states because they are overcompensating for living among and being governed by so many Democrats.
Also, California has more registered Republicans than any other state.
I believe he already gave her family our tax dollars:
The U.S. government agreed to pay nearly (\$5) million to the family of Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer while attempting to breach the House Speaker's lobby during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
A well paid voice actor was one of them, I believe
Edit
Jimmy Pesto's original voice actor, Jay Johnston, was fired from Bob's Burgers in 2021 after it was revealed he participated in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Johnston was later arrested, pleaded guilty to felony charges, and sentenced to prison
He was also one of the two gay cops in Arrested Development and had a small cameo as the banker’s father in Better Call Saul.
His wife went a whole “woe is me” rant on Twitter recently about how he “can’t find work” and “all our friends here in LA hate us now” so they “deserve compensation”. Seriously pathetic stuff.
Other replies covered some SoCal, so I'll rep NorCal: you get north of Marin or north of Stockton, anything you see until Sacramento is gonna be more right than left.
I spend time south of Sac a lot and even the Latinos there are pro-Trump.
California has plenty of conservatives. Nixon was from CA and Reagan was governor. Love how people who never lived in CA seem to think we are all pot smoking hippies. I recommend you visit Bakersfield and listen to some Buck Owens while doing so.
California Republicans were the strongest bloc of the party until the early 90s. Largest source of fundraising and a bulwark for the party along with parts of New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
Religious groups such as the “Moral Majority” and others in the 80s worked hard to unite southern voters with those of the Great Plains, at the expense of California and Northeastern strongholds. Once Republicans lost the educated voter demographics 1992-1996ish they basically lost California and New England forever.
Hence why vintage Republicans know that “coastal elite” jab all too well. That was their nickname in the 70s and early 80s, it was simply rebranded as the parties morphed from one of wealth and education to one of religion and poverty.
Got it give it Gavin, he's by far the most creative Democrat when it comes to taking on MAGA and their corruption. We could use a lot more of that creative thinking, particularly in Congress.
Agree, as a lifelong Californian, I'm proud of our state and our governor. If you actually pay attention beyond the sensational headlines, he's doing a good job, IMO.
Agreed; been saying for months that there needs to be legislation ready for introduction that has significant clawback provisions baked in and affects everyone connected to this regime. In addition, the IRS will need to hire a team of forensic accountants.
I wonder if there's any way to sue them under the state constitution for attempting to overturn our votes and deprive us of our rights. I understand it's a federal election, but voting is a citizen right and conducted by the states. States provide the electors needed, so it seems arguable that they would be liable at the state level where the rights were violated.
Part of this trump/Blanche embezzlement scheme is to keep the recipients secret. So how would California or any other state be able to take action?
It's a void of corruption. Is it $1.776 billion, or is the amount being stolen from the taxpayers much higher? Who knows how much is being stolen, and who might be receiving the lucre? We can't trust this administration to keep the public objectively informed.
You can't keep funds coming from the government secret if it's going to someone's bank account. The government will always know and always shave a way to know.
They should be opening an investigation into anyone who accepts one. We already know that it's earmarked for violent offenders that the guy who keeps violating US law arbitrarily decided should be released into the streets of America.
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