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Area Fascist Demands Voters Show Their Papers

From Mock Paper Scissors:

Yesterday, Lord Damp Nut signed another Executive Order, this time demanding that the states surrender election control to the federal government or else he will pull funding to the offending state, which is impoundment and is patently illegal:

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a sweeping executive action to overhaul elections in the U.S., including requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and demanding that all ballots be received by Election Day.

The order says the U.S. has failed "to enforce basic and necessary election protections" and calls on states to work with federal agencies to share voter lists and prosecute election crimes. It threatens to pull federal funding from states where election officials don't comply.

The move, which is likely to face swift challenges because states have broad authority to set their own election rules, is consistent with Trump's long history of railing against election processes. He often claims elections are being rigged, even before the results are known, and has waged battles against certain voting methods since he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden and falsely blamed it on widespread fraud.

[Before we fall too far into the rabbit hole, remember the executive orders are essentially memos, and not laws. And duh, a memo that instructs someone to break a law is definitionally not allowed. ]

We've covered the civics of elections before, our pals at Electoral-Vote explain to us why this memo is stupid:

Broadly speaking, this XO is mostly bark, and not a lot of bite. The federal government has very little role in administering elections, and so has little right to dictate terms under which elections are conducted. Indeed, even the provision of federal law that prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections, which was only adopted in 1996, might not be legal—it just hasn't been tested in court. Whoever it is that is writing Trump's XOs for him clearly knows all of this, which is why "enforcement" of the order rests not in any existing legal authority, but instead in the threat that if states don't do what they are told, they will lose federal funding.

The emptiness of the order is best illustrated by looking closely at the portion that made all the headlines yesterday, namely the part about proving one's citizenship in order to be able to vote. Since there is absolutely no way that blue states are going to go for that (as doing so would effectively justify Republicans' phony arguments about mass voter fraud), what the order actually does is order the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to change the federal voter registration form to include a proof-of-citizenship requirement.

There are many problems here from the vantage point of the Trumpers. First, the EAC is an independent agency, and not subject to presidential orders. Further, like the FEC, it is deliberately set up to have an equal number of Democratic and Republican commissioners (2 of each in the case of the EAC; 3 of each in the case of the FEC). So, there is no reason to think the EAC is going to play ball here. And even if they do, then people who don't have proof of citizenship, or don't feel like proving their identity just 'cause The Man says so, will just use their state's registration form. And all of this is before we talk about the lawsuits that are coming, and that the administration will lose. Oh, and if Trump does try to yank funding in order to punish a state for not following his decrees, that's a different set of lawsuits, since that would be impoundment, which is illegal.

So we've seen this movie before, we know the ending. I'll add to the mix that the Constitution very clearly gives election management to the individual states, and to change that it would require an amendment to the Constitution, requiring ⅔ of both houses of Congress to approve and ¾ of the States to ratify.

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You Can't Make This Shit Up! 🤣 🤣 🤣

From Politico:

Judge targeted by Trump is assigned to Signalgate lawsuit

Judge James Boasberg will preside over a case alleging that Trump administration officials violated federal record-keeping laws when they used Signal to discuss military plans.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg was randomly assigned to preside over the Signalgate case. | Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images

By KYLE CHENEY

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — the object of President Donald Trump's fury for blocking his effort to summarily deport Venezuelan nationals using wartime powers — just got a second crack at the administration's handling of national security: Signalgate.

Boasberg on Wednesday morning was assigned to preside over a lawsuitalleging that Trump cabinet secretaries and national security aides violated federal record-keeping laws when they used a Signal chat group to discuss a planned military strike in Yemen — and inadvertently included an Atlantic journalist in the group.

The twist of legal fate arrived just as the scandal exploded further with the Atlantic's release of the full text exchange — in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previewed, with specific references to timing and weapons, an attack on Houthi militants. The exchange, initiated by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, included Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

A spokesperson for Boasberg confirmed that the case was assigned to him through the court's typical random assignment process. There are 20 judges on the federal district court bench in Washington, D.C.

The assignment of the case to Boasberg comes just two days after the Trump administration, in the Venezuela deportation case, invoked the "state secrets" privilege to refuse to share details with the Obama-appointed judge about the timing of deportation flights to El Salvador.

Boasberg is pressing the administration for details about the flights to determine whether officials violated his order earlier this month barring Trump from deporting people under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law last invoked during World War II. But administration lawyers argued that "disclosure would pose reasonable danger to national security and foreign affairs."

Rubio, notably, submitted a declaration to Boasberg justifying the state secrets invocation, saying that sharing details about the flights with Boasber—even under seal or in a classified setting—would endanger national security.

"The more widely information is shared the greater the risk that the information will reach the public (even if unintentionally)," Rubio wrote.

Now, Rubio is a defendant in the Signalgate lawsuit brought by American Oversight, a left-leaning government watchdog group. He is being sued not only for his involvement in the text exchange but also for his dual position as acting head of the National Archives, which is responsible for preserving records used by government officials in the course of their work. The Atlantic reported that Waltz set the text thread to automatically delete.

Boasberg prompted a furious backlash from Trump and his allies when he halted the administration's deportation efforts earlier this month, ruling that the administration appeared to be violating due process requirements by tagging Venezuelan nationals as terrorists and rushing them onto planes with virtually no chance to contest the designation.

Trump called for Boasberg's impeachment, a call that was echoed by some members of Congress, and has unleashed near-daily attacks on the judge

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But This Is Trump

From Greg Fallis:

By now, everybody is aware of the colossal fuck-up in which senior Trump national security officials conducted a high level discussion about launching at attack in Yemen using…and it sounds so stupid to write this, but it's true…using a messaging platform that IS NOT approved for exchanging classified or secret intelligence.

These weren't low-level aides we're talking about. This was Trump's Vice President, his Director of National Intelligence, his National Security Adviser, his Secretary of Defense, his CIA Director and his Chief of Staff. Oh yeah, and the editor of The Atlantic. The fact that these people had this discussion on a commercially available cell phone app is scandal enough. But it's just ONE OF MANY scandals revealed by this fuck-up.

For example, Trump's national security team isn't quite sure if Trump has actually ordered the attack. They were discussing the timing of the attack–when the attack should take place–when Trump's Chief of Staff says, "As I heard it, the president was clear: green light." Seriously, this attack took place when it did because Stephen Miller interpreted some comment from Trump as a 'green light.' Apparently nothing was signed; apparently no official record exists authorizing an attack on a foreign nation. In any normal administration, that would be unthinkable. But this is Trump.

Another thing. One of the members of Trump's national security team, Steve Witkoff, was in Moscow at the time (he's Trump's Ukraine negotiator) meeting with Putin and his people. Let me just say that again. This guy was part of a group chat discussing highly sensitive information involving the military's attack capabilities, using an unapproved app on a cell phone while waiting for a meeting with Vlad Putin IN MOSCOW. In any normal administration, that would be unthinkable. But this is Trump.

There's more. During this astonishingly stupid group chat on a non-secure cell phone, Trump's Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, used the name of an active intelligence officer. He basically outed a working spy, which is a criminal act. In any normal administration, that would not only be unthinkable, but would lead to criminal charges. But this is Trump. His Attorney General and Director of the FBI will almost certainly refuse to investigate the matter, let alone bring criminal charges.

'I don't know anything about it."

And if that's not scandal enough, when confronted by news media about the incident, Trump said he wasn't aware of it.

"I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time."

This is Trump, so that's almost certainly a lie. Almost certainly, also because this is Trump. It's entirely possible his national security team 1) had decided Trump probably intended to order an attack on Yemen and didn't bother to get the decision confirmed, 2) were too lazy or incompetent to use secure communications systems to organize the attack, 3) and when it became public that they'd not only used wildly inappropriate and insecure tech to discuss the attack BUT ALSO INCLUDED A FUCKING CIVILIAN WHO WAS THE EDITOR OF A GODDAMN NEWS MAGAZINE, they decided NOT to tell POTUS that they'd fucked up. Which would mean Trump can't trust his own hand-picked national security team to keep him informed or tell him the truth. Which is entirely possible. Although it's more likely Trump just lied about not knowing, because that's what he does.

In any normal administration, an incident like this would lead to mass resignations and/or terminations as well as criminal charges. But this is Trump.

Right now, it appears the Trump administration is attempting to put the blame for all this on National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who set up the 'group chat' and accidentally included the editor of The Atlantic. But every single person who participated in the discussion should have known the proper protocol; they should have objected to having the discussion outside a sensitive compartmentalized information facility (SCIF); they should have refused to participate.

What will happen? Who knows? Democrats will be outraged, but will they actually DO anything? Who knows? Will anybody be held accountable for such a colossal fuck-up? Who knows? It's possible that this scandal, like every Trump scandal, will be buried beneath the next cascade of scandal. It's possible nothing at all will happen; nothing will change.

Because this is Trump. Nothing is ordinary anymore. No rules apply, no norms are maintained, no standards exist. There is only Trump and his cadre of trolls, banging around randomly, ignoring actual governance in their pursuit of performative trolling.

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Oopsies! Plastered Pete Texted Classified War Plans To A Journalist. Was That Wrong?

From Jeff Tiedrich:

hey, remember when that commie rat-bastard Hillary Clinton ran a private email server? of course you do. it was the crime of the century — front page news on every paper. HILLARY FUCKS UP BIGTIME, the headlines screamed, in thousand-point boldface type. THE EMAIL LADY IS A WITCH. BURN HER! BURN HER!!!

Republicans fell all the fuck over each other in a mad dash to be the first to demand she not just resign, but impale herself on her dagger, immediately.

I mean, what the fuck, Hillary? how could you endanger national security like that?

Republicans, as everyone knows, are careful stewards of America's security. you'd never catch a Republican doing something as foolhardy as, for instance, absconding with dozens of boxes of classified documents, lying about having them, refusing to return them, hiding them, bragging about their contents to golf cronies, waving them in the faces of randos, scrawling to-do lists on them, even sleeping with them — and then stashing them in the unspeakably ugly shitter of their vermin-infested Florida golf motel.

that simply wouldn't happen. that shit's for traitors like the email lady.

you would never catch Republicans doing anything as clownfucklingly insane as texting war plans to each other over a phone app. and you would most certainly never ever, ever, EVER catch one inadvertently including a journalist in such a discussion, because that would be—

oopsies.

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

was that wrong?

because Piss-Drunk Pete has to plead ignorance on this thing. because if anyone had said anything at all to him when he first started at the Department of Defense that that sort of thing was frowned upon…

seriously, check out this Three Stooges level of dipshittery. a couple of weeks ago, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was minding his own business, when out of the clear blue—

I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump's national security adviser.

and then,

Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the "Houthi PC small group."

Goldberg's phone started blowing up with actual fucking war plans.

so, who besides Couchfuck McGee and Piss-Drunk Pete were on this text chain? according to Goldberg, he received messages from Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, Tulsi Gabbard, Susie Wiles, Scott Bessent, and other sundry Sewer Clowns.

now, the government has its own secure means of communicating internally. there's no need to use third-party messaging apps that are prone to, y'know, facilitating embarrassing fuck-ups. so why do it? over to you, Heather Cox Richardson.

The decision to steer around government systems was possibly an attempt to hide conversations, since the app was set to erase some messages after a week and others after four weeks. By law, government communications must be archived.

so, were any laws broken? of fucking course laws were broken — this is Donny's administration we're talking about here. openly flouting the law is what they do. Heather Cox, please explain it to the nice people.

the use of Signal may also have violated the Espionage Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the national defense. The app is not approved for national security use, and officials are supposed either to discuss military activity in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, or to use approved government equipment.

and then on top of that, there's that whole we sent classified information to a journalist who didn't have clearance thing.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was fucking steamed, and immediately called for everyone involved to be prosecuted.

"when I'm president of the United States, neither she nor any of these other people are going to be above the law. whether it's her, or Eric Holder, for what he did on Fast and Furious, or any of these other folks. people are going to be held accountable if they broke the laws of this country. nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton."

[taps earpiece] hold on, I'm being informed that this clip isn't from yesterday. it's from January 12, 2016, when Marco was campaigning for president and vowing to throw the email lady in jail.

by the way, it should be stated that — despite the howls of outrage from the entire wingnut media ecosystem — no classified information was ever found on Hillary's server.

so Marco, you were fairly pissed off when Hillary allegedly played fast and loose with her emails, do you have anything at all to say about Donny's entire administration disseminating war plans to a reporter?

we'll take your silence as a no, then.

let's check in with Nosferatu McGoebbels. he's had a lot to say about the email lady over the years.

"One point that doesn't get made enough about Hillary's unsecured server illegally used to conduct state business (obviously created to hide the Clintons' corrupt pay-for-play): foreign adversaries could easily hack classified ops & intel in real time from other side of the globe."

but about today's scandal? no comment from Stephen Miller. he's busy having lunch.

oh, looky here — it's Piss-Drunk Pete himself.

"imagine if it was, I don't know, Donald Trump, what the media would be doing to him right now. eviscerating him. or imagine if it was a member of the military … they still go after these guys for a tiny tiny fraction of what she willfully did."

fortunately, we no longer have to imagine. let's see whether or not media is actually eviscerating Donny right now.

"I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. to me it's a magazine that's going out of business. but I know nothing about it. you're saying that they had what?"

weird how Donny never knows anything about anything. in eighty years we've gone from the buck stops here to why the fuck is should I know what's going on?

watch Donny and the Sewer Clowns sweep this whole thing under the rug — and watch how the media will be too distracted by the inevitable next scandal to follow up on the one that's happening right under their noses today.

(credit where credit is due: props to Bulwark Sarah Longwell, who did the hard work of tracking down all those old tweets and clips.)