February 17 News

When Donald posted “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law” and Elon and the Russian Asset maga posters on Twit magnified that post, former VP Mike Pence (you know, the one Donald tried to have killed) had thoughts. Within hours of Donald’s post, the former VP reposted a 2010 article he wrote about the Presidency and the Constitution. It’s pretty long. Here are a few excerpts.

"America is not a dog, and does not require a “because-I-said-so” jurisprudence; or legislators who knit laws of such insulting complexity that they are heavier than chains; or a president who acts like, speaks like, and is received as a king.

The president is not our teacher, our tutor, our guide or ruler. He does not command us; we command him. We serve neither him nor his vision. It is not his job or his prerogative to redefine custom, law, and beliefs; to appropriate industries; to seize the country, as it were, by the shoulders or by the throat so as to impose by force of theatrical charisma his justice upon 300 million others. It is neither his job nor his prerogative to shift the power of decision away from them, and to him and the acolytes of his choosing."
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The powers of the presidency are extraordinary and necessarily great, and great presidents treat them sparingly.

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It depends entirely upon character, self-discipline, and an understanding of the fundamental principles that underlie not only the republic, but life itself. It communicates that the president feels the gravity of his office and is willing to sacrifice himself; that his eye is not upon his own prospects but on the storm of history, through which he must navigate with the specific powers accorded to him and the limitations placed on those powers both by man and by God.

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A president who slights the Constitution is like a rider who hates his horse: he will be thrown, and the nation along with him. The president solemnly swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He does not solemnly swear to ignore, overlook, supplement, or reinterpret it." Article here.

This PatriotTakes information below isn’t a one off. Donald has never changed and never will but to get worse as he’s given more unfettered power. All of us remember the horror of the morning of 9/11, watching the towers burn and people jumping to their deaths. When he was asked about it, his response was that his building was now the tallest in New York.

Being in the country illegally is a MISDEMEANOR. Donald is taking critical resources from other agencies doing more important work to “hunt down” people guilty of a misdemeanor. “[DHS Acting Secretary] Huffman authorized Department of Justice law enforcement officials, including the U.S. Marshals, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to do immigration enforcement…”Those organizations don't normally fulfill that role," said Pete Hermansen, a retired Border Patrol agent who served more than two decades, including as director of special operations. Those agencies have their own missions, including fighting drugs and weapons trafficking and protecting federal judges and judicial facilities.” Great way to cut down on waste, fraud and abuse! Article here.

Donald’s administration stopped posting arrest numbers. That’s a huge red flag. Feb 16 article here.

”White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed NBC News’ reporting and said that 461 migrants have been released [back into the US] after arrest since President Donald Trump took office.” Older Feb 3 article here. Where the article says ”ICE policy prioritizes immigrants deemed to be public safety threats for detention” we know this part is a lie based on what I documented in a prior Stack via CATO Institute’s FOIA proving Donald released MANY criminal migrants into the US last time and focused on deporting asylum seekers. Here.

This is Elon’s “burn it to the ground” mentality that he used to ruin Twitter. We’ve already had many air traffic accidents since Donald’s coronation.

Reminder from yesterday’s Stack of the number of incidents

Example #6,179 that Elon is NOT about free speech.

This is exactly how we have today’s catastrophic level of ignorance and why we have to fight back with verifiable facts.

GOP Rep David Schweikert of Arizona shares stats on how all the cutting of infrastructure makes no impact on the national debt. For example, cutting ALL USAID only pays for one week of the debt, but does a lot of harm. Thank you to Carol Benke for the video here.

Umm, I missed this from January 22! The “cutting waste fraud and abuse” guy is going to spend half a TRILLION dollars of YOUR money for “infrastructure” to make the US dominant in AI (he also that same day removed the guardrails Biden had for it here.). Article here.

Marcy Wheeler, PhD (specialist in national security and civil liberties) has a very informative article on DOGE and the real world fallout proving they are the epitome of incompetence and destruction, costing us MORE money. Excerpts: “Part of the DOGE hype is that after they fire everyone, they will figure out better ways to do the job using, uh, AI and such. But there is no second act where it gets better. They don’t have a plan to fix what they are breaking because they don’t understand or care about the damage they are doing. Breaking government is the point. It is not as if DOGE has some magical IRS plan up their sleeve. There is no plan.
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It’s not just that the DOGE2025 attack on government has destroyed critical expertise. But absent that expertise, Trump’s minions are finding it difficult to reverse the ill effects of their initial assault, because the initial damage they do to both systems and expertise makes it far harder to reverse their initial failures.”


I can’t even…

Gavin Kilger is the 26 year old assigned to do this. He reposts Nick Fuentes’ racist garbage where “Fuentes mocks a post praising a photo of an apparently white couple pictured with two light-skinned children and a dark-skinned baby. In his post Fuentes referred to "adopted Black kids", denigrating the apparent interracial adoption. He also used the word "huzz", a pejorative term for women.” Source here. Thank you to Kit Adeich for the heads up on DOGE getting IRS access.

Two senators are “investigating and fighting back.”

“Bad Hombre Jim” on Bluesky makes a good point: “Trump won’t share his tax returns, but he gives Musk access to ours. The hypocrisy is blazing.”


JD, the Vice President of the United States, calling a journalist a “dummy” because banning AP from pressers for not referring to the Gulf of MEXICO as the “Gulf of America” as Donald proclaimed it wasn’t violating free speech, but only if they were jailed. This Yale graduate ignores the 1st Amendment’s statement on freedom of the press. Elon in a “hold my beer” moment posts that 60 Minutes should be jailed for “lying” (hint, they were not lying, he just makes crap up).

Some good news, Donald’s favorability ratings are falling less than a month in. Keep up the great work of exposing what the media won’t! It’s making a difference! We have to push hard before the roots of the corruption are too deep to recover from. Chart from YouGov here.

In maga-world, the more vile you are the better. It’s a fascist cult. This guy will likely be head of FBI.

ARGH!

Funny picture of Harley to end. He wasn’t quite full grown. On the top of the door.