Turbotax business 2010 rapidshare

Around 2010 I remember coming across a (fiction) book in which a woman starts a bakery business and throughout the book are real-life recipes that you can make yourself. Unfortunately, I don't recall the cover or author. I think it had a title with "cake" or "cupcake" in the name, but I'm not certain.
It was a fairly short-looking book, probably not more than 350 pages? I don't know when it was first published, but I found it between the years of 2008 to maybe 2011 (thus my approximation of 2010, as that's pretty middle-ground).

Prosecutors said someone unlawfully disclosed the name of at least one witness in a murder case that's scheduled to begin Tuesday in Albany.
ALBANY — Jasper Mills, a longtime criminal defense attorney in Albany, was warned by a judge Friday that he could be subject to a criminal contempt charge if he disclosed — even inadvertently — the identity of at least one witness in a pending murder case who received death threats after the confidential document identifying him was shared with the defendants and others.
The case, which is set for trial next week, involves four men who are charged with murder in the January 2021 shooting of Shanita Thomas, who was pregnant with her third child when she was gunned down at a Central Avenue party. Four others were wounded in the shooting.
Mills, a candidate for Albany County Family Court judge, represents 35-year-old Vramir Branch, who with three other defendants is facing charges of murder, attempted murder, weapons possession and evidence tampering in connection with Thomas' death.
At a hearing Friday in Albany County Court, Judge Andra Ackerman heard arguments from prosecutors on their motion for an order to have the court review boxes of documents that were seized from at least three of the defendants' jail cells at Albany County Jail this week. Prosecutors filed the motion after a witness in the case, who is in federal prison, learned that he had become the target of a death threat and was placed in protective custody.
Prosecutors are asking the court to review the materials to see if there are documents among those found in the cells that were subject to a protective order, and should not have been provided to the men.
As the hearing began, Mills stepped forward and appeared to take responsibility for what he described to the judge as an inadvertent disclosure of the witness information. He said that he had been discussing the witness with another client on Tuesday, a day after he received the information from prosecutors, and then placed the document on a conference table in his office as he juggled a meeting with three other clients who were in his office that day.
“Just so I can be clear here: Did you have documents that were subject to the protective order out on display when you had other individuals that have charges that you’re dealing with and speaking with others on that case … ?,” Ackerman asked Mills. “Who else was in that conference room? Who else had access to that document?”
Mills confirmed that he showed another client — who is not involved in the case — a copy of the document and asked that person what they knew about the witness in the murder case.
“There was a lot going on,” Mills told the judge. “I showed the individual the document. There was nothing in the protective order that said you can’t show it, it just said that you can’t distribute or disseminate it.”
Mills said the next day — Wednesday — an ex-girlfriend of his client in the murder case texted him an image of the document and asked him about the witness listed in the record, and whether that person had given a statement.
But that image, according to prosecutors, is different than another image of the document that was being distributed on social media websites this week.
Assistant District Attorney Jessica Blain-Lewis, one of the prosecutors in the case, told the judge that meant that someone had apparently distributed a second image of the document — and that it was not the image in the photograph that Mills claimed had been taken in his office.
As Mills confirmed to the judge that the image of the document the woman had texted to him had markings on it that he had made, she interrupted him and asked, “(Do) you think it is advisable for you to receive counsel before you continue talking? Because it appears to me that it’s going in a direction, and whether it’s negligence or whatever, but this could be … a severe violation of the protective order which could subject you to a criminal contempt (charge).”
Mills responded that he “didn’t disseminate or give anyone anything.”
“Don’t you think you have an obligation, pursuant to the protective order, to protect those documents?" the judge said. "And you’re telling me that you’re leaving them lying on a conference table in the open and going to another office for about an hour, meeting with other clients, that there won’t be an issue here?”
As Mills began to respond, he was interrupted by Daniel Smalls, another defense attorney in the case, who whispered in Mills' ear for about 20 seconds.
Mills then asked to approach the bench, and moments later he said in open court that he would not say anything more until consulting with an attorney.
As the hearing unfolded, the four defendants — Branch as well as Raa’jiem Coleman, Terrence Anthony and Marcelle Perry — looked on and said nothing. They were clad in jail clothing, and at least one of them had a few supporters in the courtroom.
Blain-Lewis, one of the prosecutors, then asked the judge if she could clarify some of the admissions that had just been made by Mills.
She noted that a thumb was visible in the image of the document that Mills said was photographed, apparently without his knowledge, while it was on a table in his office. But Blain-Lewis said the photo of the document that has been disseminated on social media sites “is not the same photo,” although the markings on the document that were made by Mills are the same.
The document, known as a “witness disclosure,” is often turned over by prosecutors to defense attorneys shortly before a trial begins. They generally list the names of witnesses and summarize their testimony. In this case, that document was subject to a protective order, which meant Mills could discuss it with his client beginning one week prior to the trial that is scheduled to begin Tuesday.
Prosecutors in Albany routinely seek protective orders in cases involving murders, gangs and gun violence. Through the years, the district attorney's office has said that incidents of witness intimidation and death threats have caused many individuals to decline to testify in cases like this one.
The protective order prohibited Mills or any of the other defense attorneys from sharing a copy of the witness disclosure document with anyone, including their clients. Blain-Lewis said it also prohibited them from discussing the contents of that document with anyone but their client, although Mills admitted during Friday’s hearing that he had talked to someone else about one of the witnesses.
“What that means, your honor, is that someone has an actual copy of this document,” Blain-Lewis told the judge as she explained that there are two images of it. “I do believe that this court understands the length at which defendants will go to stop people from testifying, and in this case we had a legitimate, real death threat, and the effect that this is going to have not only on that witness but (the) trial itself concerns … my entire office.”
The case is assigned to acting state Supreme Court Justice Roger D. McDonough; Ackerman presided over Friday’s hearing because he was not available. Ackerman granted the order allowing the court to review the materials that were seized from the defendants' jail cells.
If there are documents in those materials that were subject to the protective order, it could lead to further investigation of how they were disclosed and by whom.
A violation of a protective order could lead to a criminal contempt charge, which is a misdemeanor crime. It may also be subject to review by the Attorney Grievance Committee for the Appellate Division, Third Department in Albany, which investigates allegations of misconduct by attorneys.
Thomas, 35, was an aspiring nurse and a promoter of her friends’ businesses who grew up in Albany. The father of her oldest son, Elijah Jr., was Elijah Cancer. Cancer was a former gang member turned anti-violence advocate for 518 SNUG. He was shot and killed breaking up a dispute at a party in July 2018. No one has ever been charged in connection with his death.
Court records indicate all four defendants charged with killing Thomas have lengthy criminal records, including convictions for violent crimes and weapons charges.
Anthony and Perry previously served time in federal prison after being convicted in a racketeering case against a South End gang known as the Original Gangsta Killas. They pleaded guilty in 2010.
Branch previously served time in state prison for attempted murder, weapon charges and promoting prison contraband.
June 7, 2024 Photo of Brendan J. Lyons Brendan J. Lyons MANAGING EDITOR
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/attorney-scrutinized-murder-witness-receives-19501061.php

Hello, I’ve previously used TurboTax in the past for simple returns married filing jointly but from 2019-2023 had an investment property rent then sale and wife start her own business. I have been using a local Tax Pro because of all of it to save time, educate myself and get things all in order but since we’ve sold the property in 2022 I’m not sure I need a tax pro anymore for assistance. Please let me know what you think!
If we file ourselves for Year 2024 during Q1 2025 this is what it would look like: Family of 4 1 W2 Income (Me - Husband) 1 Schedule C for Sole Member LLC (Wife)
NJ ES Payments: Currently making Quarterly ES Payments logged in as my (Husband) SSN for NJ (but has both of us associated with the ES since married filing jointly).
Federal ES Payments: My wife as a Sole Member LLC has been making ES payments logged in under her SSN.
Please let me know if I need to make any changes to future filing or ES payment strategy.
TIA!

This is what I read on the Nasdaq website
https://listingcenter.nasdaq.com/ViewPDF.aspx?Material_Search.aspx?mcd=LQ&cid=14&years=2016,2015,2014,2016,2015,2014,2013,2012,2011,2010,2009,2008,2007,2006,2005,2004,2003,2002&sub_cid=76&searchkeywords=&exactsearchddvalue=1&Print=N&materials=0&popularfl
(If a company trades for 30 consecutive business days below the $1.00 minimum closing bid price requirement, Nasdaq will send a deficiency notice to the company, advising that it has been afforded a "compliance period" of 180 calendar days to regain compliance with the applicable requirements. Thereafter, if such a company does not regain compliance with the bid price requirement a second 180-day compliance period may be available. A company listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market may be eligible for an additional 180-day compliance period if it meets the market value of publicly held shares requirement for continued listing, all other initial inclusion requirements for the Capital Market, except for the bid price requirement, and provides written notice that it intends to regain compliance with the bid price requirement during the second 180-day compliance period, by effecting a reverse stock split if necessary.)
Is it possible for FFIE to get an additional 180 days compliance period?
Another question for those who know what is the market value of public held shares requirement for continued listing?

I want to file a late 45(2) election. However, I'm super confused about whether or not I'll be hit with the $100/month late filing penalty.
Here is some background...
I purchased my property in 2010. I started renting in 2012. I reported all the rental income on my tax returns correctly and on time.
However, I never filed a 45(2) election for the change of use of my property. I'd like to file one now so that I can have 2016 recognized as the year of the change of use of my property. The idea is so I can save a bit on capital gains tax should I sell the property in the future.
I know the section 45(2) election was introduced in 2016. Since my change in use happenend before then, am I exempt from the late filing penalty?

First of all, a premise which is the reality of today but 99% of the public is blissfully ignorant of.
The economy collapsed in 2008. Since then, the entire thing has been propped up completely artificially with Federal Reserve money. The Fed has literally bought half the stock market and bought out bad mortgage debt to keep asset prices high. This is a "we owe the money to ourselves" situation, but it's also a "if we don't keep making the system work this way, it will fall apart". So it's not a matter of running out of money to "borrow", it's a matter of at some point things stop working and inflation takes off.
If you are confused about this, here you go:
Assets: Total Assets: Total Assets (Less Eliminations from Consolidation): Wednesday Level (WALCL) FRED St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)
This graph is insane. I studied it in college in 2010 when the 2008 "blip" was like niagara falls in reverse. You have to actually be a mentally ill sycophant to look at it now and think everything is fine.
Anyway, when the Federal Reserve "bought" the global economy on credit in 2008, it didn't just give the money away. Its helicopter bux came with a mandate.
First "are there like any academic studies that demonstrate what you're claiming?" Yeah.
Corporate social responsibility and financial stability: evidence from the Troubled Asset Relief Program Emerald Insight
For you zoomers and Daily Show watching nitwits, more here: Obama Plans Financial Triage for Bad Bank Troubled Assets :: The Market Oracle ::
Keep in mind the financial sector bailout was started by Bush, but he was basically working hand in glove with Obama at that point, and then Obama took over and greatly expanded it. Reddidiots can't wrap their brains around what this was: a government takeover of the financial sector.
I remember reading that federal bail out money came with strings attached. I think this has been scrubbed from the internet, even the Russian search engine can't find anything (google is less than worthless by the way). But there was this:
Obama limits bailed-out bank CEO pay - MarketWatch
So we do see some reporting that the bail out money came with strings, and in a similar manner to Dodd-Frank, Wall Street was easily able to get around the ones that actually hurt.
Still, the fact of the matter is that when we hear about BlackRock and so forth, where companies like Disney WASTE 100s of millions of dollars OVER and OVER again on films they know piss off their audience, no one can make sense of why this is happening. Until you realize that BlackRock is the primary broker for the Fed.
Remember when the Fed bought half the stock market?
How Larry Fink’s BlackRock Is Helping the Fed With Bond-Buying - Bloomberg
Now we have to look at another tentacle of the Obama-Bush era octopus. Behavioral science.
Obama’s effort to ‘nudge’ America (politico.com)
Governments are trying to nudge us into better behavior. Is it working? - The Washington Post
Obama's Nudge Brigade: White House Embraces Behavioral Sciences To Improve Government (forbes.com)
Corporate America also employs "nudge" units.
Lessons from corporate behavioral-science units McKinsey
First the basics of what's wrong with behavioral science:
Behavioural Science at its Worst – The Daily Sceptic
But here is a good breakdown of practical nudging and a peak into the HELL of behavioral science's brave new world:
Nudge Theory: The Psychological Trick Influencing Your Behavior - Goalcast

Setting A Default Option
Typically, people won’t deselect a default option to choose something else. So when a certain option is intentionally selected as the default, this increases the chances that people will “choose” it, just like the organ donation example described above.
Making Certain Options Easier Or Harder To Select
This one depends on the level of ease when choosing certain options. For this nudge, either the so-called “good” option is easier for people to choose or the so-called “bad” option is harder to choose. This steers people toward selecting the good option.
Making Certain Options More Noticeable
Another way nudging can encourage people to choose a good option over a bad one is to make the good option more noticeable or the bad option less noticeable. This attracts people’s attention toward the good option, making them more likely to select it.

And here we come to an anecdote.
I have rich parents. They bailed me out of my last semester of college because I lost my scholarship because of having bad grades in my second to last semester because a girlfriend faked a pregnancy before being committed (more like she quit work to spend a year with her parents) with a b-series disorder. I didn't live in poverty growing up, and I was able to go on a couple family trips to disney world - I'm grateful - but my parents' success never bought me anything in life. I never used their connections, they never paid for more than a few clothes from JC Penny. I went through college on a scholarship and they demanded I work too.
When I started working, I paid them back with my first six months of surplus savings. Just to make it clear when I say I had rich parents.
My sister is a basket case with drugs and other things. They pay everything for her. She basically has a venmo recurring payment, though it's only recurring in practice since there's always some new bullshit she's charging like a sick dog, running over a tree, forgetting to pay a fee and incurring late charges, and insane wastes of money you haven't even heard of.
Anyway, paypal, zelle, venmo, her bank account. Every 6 months or so, chunks of $500-1500 just disappear from her accounts, or my parents' zelle/Paypal accounts. Like, 3 $500 charges. The typical notification doesn't occur, my sister's account doesn't see the money (they checked). My parents aren't slouches. They've filed claims, wrote letters, threatened to involve a congressperson who's a family friend.
These banks won't budge. The payment systems themselves are untouchable.
One bank in particular, Suntrust, was notorious because you look up online and see hundreds of poor people with the same story of money that just disappears in chunks. Fraud shouldn't even be possible. It's the type of thing where if hackers or fraudsters COULD hack that, they're jacking directly into the bank's infrastructure, not the individual's personal account details. Meaning, even if it's true conmen, it's like the bank leaving their vault door cracked open and making you pay for it.
I began to seriously wonder if these banks were just stealing the fucking money! But wait, they couldn't get away with that for long, it would be the story of the decade, right!
Well, unless this is POLICY.
These bank bailouts, they ended the idea of market-driven distribution of resources. It's all funny money now, a money printer casino for rich people. What happens when shortages come up? How do you unfuck real economy hiccups without price mechanisms and markets to actually convey this information to entreprenuers?
Enter, Aladdin.
Aladdin the terminator of Blackrock Financial Markets by Jorgeacevedoarnaldo May, 2024 Medium

How would you react if I told you that a robot has more wealth than all the nations on Earth combined? A robot so strong that, in the last ten years, it has secretly built the largest corporation on the planet. This is the narrative of the robot Aladdin, born on Wall Street. The best kept secret, capable of consuming all asset classes in all sectors. To put it in perspective, Aladdin currently controls $21 trillion of the global economy.
Aladdin has become a system responsible for more than four times the value of all the money in the world this robot directs stocks in the United States.
from the federal reserve of almost all major banks and investment funds on Wall Street and more than 17,000 traders. It controls half of all ETFs, the bond market, the global stock market and makes a quarter of a million trades every day and billions of forecasts every week, year after year, accumulating trillions of data points in each market.
In 2008, the global financial crisis arrived and with 21 years of existence. The US government used Aladdin to decide which assets to keep and which assets it wanted to leave in the $30 billion bailout package. It was the robot that saved the United States from disaster. It is a little-known story. With that first success, not only the American government but now the European and Japanese central banks began to trust Aladdin to determine how
The $5 trillion of new money they printed should go, most of it into bonds and funds to prop up mortgage companies and banks, assets in which Aladdin and Blackrock were already invested. Money printing expanded
causing assets controlled by America to grow rapidly to $11 trillion in 2013.
In the last decade, Aladdin has gone from being a leader to dominating all financial markets with the acquisition of Barclays by Blackrock, obtaining Barclays shares, units of exchange-traded funds or ETFs, and with that Aladdin went from dominating bonds and stocks to ETF dominator, just like everyone else. The biggest investors moved from mutual funds to ETFS and that’s when in 2017 everything changed, on Aladdin’s 29th birthday, Larry launched a top secret project on blackrock under the code name Monarch which led to the firing of its managers. funds and By replacing its funds with Aladdin funds, the robot was now removing humans from the equation entirely and, as a result, today more than 70 percent of all transactions in the US stock markets are made by it. They decide robots with Aladdin leading the way these transactions are completed from the beginning.

BlackRock Boosts Aladdin’s Forward-Looking Sustainability Analytics and Reporting Capabilities Through Strategic Partnership with Clarity AI Business Wire
Oh and look at this, Aladdin is being used to focus on funding sustainability AKA ESG.
Hmm..
So what happens when your financial uber-robot fucks up and runs short on a cash, or needs to take cash out of the consumer market? Is there a way to enable it to just simply STEAL from people (it already controls your pensions, folks, your "wealth" is already stolen and will be nationalized soon enough, de facto or otherwise)?
So here's what happened when my father say $1000 of charges to his bank via venmo, without receiving a venmo notification, and without my sister - the beneficiary - receiving the money

1. He tried to log in to the venmo app "server error try later".
2. He went online to see if he could file a dispute "disputes are filed from the app".
3. Finally the app came back "to file a dispute, click get help on your transaction under the me tab". This button was missing
4. He called the bank and filed a dispute "well since this was money sent to your daughter, not a vendor, there's little we can do."
5. "But my daughter never got the money, and the vendor I'm disputing is Venmo."
6. "Well, Venmo's not a vendor but we'll see what we can do."

This shit reminds me of when I tried to cancel/change my cable bill a couple times. Have you ever tried to do that? It's typically like this:

1. Oops the web site is down try later
2. Okay, you're logged in just click here
3. Oops there's a server error, why don't you try our live chat
4. "Hi, I'm pradeesh from India, what can I help you with?"
5. "I want to cancel my cable"
6. "Ok, I'm absolutely going to help you with that, but first maybe I can save you money with this other deal"
7. "No I don't want that"
8. "Okay, but I can save you $50 a month for a year if you sign up for this 2 year plan"
9. "What about year 2? You know what, just cancel please"
10. "Okay, sure, I'll help you with that. Just let me work out the details.
11. 10 minutes on hold
12. "Okay, I've sorted out some of your details, but there's actually this great new deal I found."

THAT SHIT is behavioral science.
They want you permanently subscribed to service based systems, and while your wages will slowly, barely increase over time, the amount of your money bogged down by this shit will see your saving be next to nothing. They will make your life hell if you try to escape or manage this, but not so much that you wake up enough to see what's happening and make radical changes to your life.
With data science, they can tell exactly who you are, exactly whether you have access to money from somewhere to keep paying these charges.
For instance, I'm 1000% certain that a data science platform identified my sister as a poor, dysfunctional, high-spending, unlikely to notice or address fraud kind of person. Then, it identified my parents as high-income who, no matter how pissed they get, will never stop sending money to my sister in semi-regular increments.
So, based on this data science, their accounts were targeted for literal fraud that I'm certain has to be built into the algorithm of even the Venmo app. Like, conveniently timed "server errors" so my parents quit trying to fix the problem. Or mysteriously absent dispute claim buttons.
Reddit does shit like this all the time. You try to post when your post has controversial keywords, or you have controversial karma? "I'm sorry there's some sort of server error." Lol, okay, so I just go to old.reddit and it posts fine.
Anyway, we're ALREADY LIVING IN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE HELL.
Also the economy is 1,000,000% fake as hell.
This is literally the reality we're in, and probably 99% of the country doesn't even have any idea.

As-Salamu Alaykum,
In the UK, an employer is NOT legally obliged to give you time off for religious observances. However, there are still ways around this which can be backed up by law- namely the Equalities Act 2010.
1- The first thing a person might try is to simply ask honestly. Explain that the Friday prayer in congregation is a necessary faith observance for Muslims and must be in congregation and thus cannot be done in ones own time like other prayers. Also mention that the denomination (I know it's not the correct terminology here but usually easier for HR to grasp) between various Muslims, their beliefs, and level of adherence to their faith may vary.
This will minise them saying that X employee is also Muslim and managed by praying when he gets home.
2- if this fails then argue it is unlawful for an employee to refuse to make reasonable adjustments for a protected characteristic- religion in this case- which is outlined in the equality act.
They may try and push back by saying the section in the equalities act about making reasonable adjustments is regarding disabilities. You can counter by saying the general concept of adjustment where reasonable applies and has been demonstrated in various court cases over the years.
If this doesn't work then do then state the following:
3- section 19, 2d of the equalities act 2010 states that a provision criterion or practice (in this case working during Jummu'ah prayer time) is discriminarionary if the employer "cannot show it to be a proportionate means or achieving a legitimate aim"
Therefore is you ask your employer to let you make up those hours a different day, work and extra 30 mins later, or something other reasonable adjustment and they refuse they are legally obliged to demonstrate that your request is:
1-disproportiante and unreasonable
2-that the legitimate business aim of what you would otherwise be doing cannot be reasonably achieved if your suggested adjustment is made
3- That it is necessary for the company that you work during those specific hours
Jazāk Allāhu Khayran, hope that helps!

Half of the year has passed by with no releases (not even a single from Thugger) and Business is Business will be a year old in a couple of weeks. 2022 was the first year in his career since 2010 with no album, plus From a Man must have started his rollout for the bloody cover mixtape. Do y'all even think we will get new music before his case is fully resolved?
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Trump and his rabid segregationist and Christian Nationalist zealots are planning the coup of coups.
The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

The term fascism has long been associated with Trump, and with good cause. From his vow to amend the Constitution to his threat to fully politicize the justice Department, to his praise of Hitler and other dictatorial tyrants (including quoting Hitler on occasion), to his actual meetings with known American fascists, Trump make no secret of his anti-American sentiments.
To this point it has mostly been just rhetoric to arouse the white supremist and Christian nationalist traitors. But now things have taken a new turn; he and his staff, along with a group of treasonous cohorts are actively in the planning stages of reorganizing the United States government to a point of near dictatorship backed up by the Military should there be any civilian dissent.
Make no mistake, there are rabid fanatics actively planning to overthrow our government, all they need is a Trump presidency to achieve their insidious goals.
The following article is a long one, so for the sake of brevity I edited it to highlight the salient points. A link to the full article follows -- all Italics mine.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.”
He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.
'...Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations."
Since Trump left office, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, part of a network of conservative advocacy groups staffed by former and potentially future Trump administration officials. Vought’s rise is a reminder that if Trump is reelected, he has said he will surround himself with loyalists eager to carry out his wishes, even if they violate traditional norms against executive overreach.
“...We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Last week, after a jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records, Vought tweeted: “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution....”
"...But in a sign of Vought’s status as a key adviser, Trump and the Republican National Committee last month named him policy director for the 2024 platform committee — giving him a chance to push a party that did not adopt a platform in 2020 further to the right. Trump personally blessed Vought’s agenda at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his group and said Vought would “do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again.”
"...Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.."
“...I am concerned that he is willing to embrace ends justify the means mentality said Marc Short, formerly chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he won’t endorse Trump. Vought, Short added, is embracing “tactics of growing government and using the levers of power in the federal bureaucracy to fight our political opponents.”
"...Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort."
“...We’re going to plant the flags now,” Vought told Trump’s former strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on his far-right podcast. “It becomes a new governing consensus of the Republican Party.”
"...Years before the Freedom Caucus enforced right-wing ideology on Capitol Hill, Vought was the bomb-throwing executive director of the conservative House Republican Study Committee. His prime targets: big government and entitlement spending. He worked under Pence, then a congressman, who called him “one of the strongest advocates for the principles that guide us” in 2010."
"...When Congress blocked additional funding for Trump’s border wall, the budget office in early 2020 redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to what became one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in U.S. history. And it was Vought’s office that held up military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressed the government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, prompting the president’s first impeachment. Vought defied a congressional subpoena during the impeachment inquiry, which he mocked as a “#shamprocess.” The Government Accountability Office concluded that his office broke the law, a claim Vought disputed."
"...Near the end of Trump’s presidency, Vought helped launch his biggest broadside at the “deep state” — an order stripping civil service protections from up to tens of thousands of federal employees. The administration did not have time to fully implement the order."
"...Since Biden took office, Vought has turned the Center for Renewing America into a hub of Trump loyalists, including Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer later charged in Georgia with trying to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. Vought called Clark, who has pleaded not guilty, “a patriot who risked his career to help expose voter fraud.”
"...As Vought and other Trump allies work on blueprints for a second term, he is pushing a strategy he calls “radical constitutionalism.” The left has discarded the Constitution, Vought argues, so conservatives need to rise up, wrest power from the federal bureaucracy and centralize authority in the Oval Office."
"...In practice, that could mean reinterpreting parts of the Constitution to achieve policy goals — such as by defining illegal immigration as an “invasion,” which would allow states to use wartime powers to stop it."
"...Vought also embraces Christian nationalism, a hard-right movement that seeks to infuse Christianity into all aspects of society, including government. He penned a 2021 Newsweek essay that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”
"...Looking at immigration through that lens, Vought has called for “mass deportation” of illegal immigrants and a “Christian immigration ethic” that would strictly limit the types of people allowed entry into the United States. At a 2023 conference organized by Christian and right-wing groups, he questioned whether legal immigration is “healthy” because, in a politically polarized climate, “immigration only increases and exasperates the divisions that we face in the country.”
“...The Civil War taught us that America is big and broad and strong enough to include non-Christians and non-Whites,” Miller wrote in an email to The Post. “It also should have taught us that the greatest threat to the American vision are racial and religious supremacists.”
"...Vought argues that protocols intended to shield criminal cases from political influence, which were adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, have allowed unelected prosecutors to abuse their power. Even as Trump vows to “go after” Biden and his family without providing clear evidence of alleged crimes, Vought wants to gut the FBI and give the president more oversight over the Justice Department."
"...Echoing Trump, Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated the president and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
"...Vought favors boosting White House control over other federal agencies that operate somewhat independently, such as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces consumer protection laws, and the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and internet companies. Trump’s never-implemented order from his first term making it easier to fire government employees would allow the White House to excise policymakers who resist the will of the elected chief executive."
"...Vought also recommends reviving presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress; the practice was outlawed after President Richard M. Nixon left office, but Vought calls that move “unconstitutional.” And he supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement."
"...On abortion policy, Vought calls for Congress to outlaw the drugs used in medical abortions — a hard-line stance at odds with some Republicans, who are sidestepping an issue that has galvanized Democrats in recent elections."
"...Vought proposes in his Project 2025 chapter a new special assistant to the president to ensure “implementation of policies related to the promotion of life and family.” To Vought, that means curbing abortion — and boosting the birthrate. “The families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure,” he wrote in a Center for Renewing America policy paper."
“...No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of this organization,” Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-loyalist-pushes-post-constitutional-vision-for-second-term/ar-BB1nR8D5?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=50a2631c502d4e2387c3c5330be89094&ei=169

Two big stories today that together reveal a broader landscape.
The first is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics today released another blockbuster jobs report. The country added 272,000 jobs in May, far higher than the 180,000 jobs economists predicted. A widespread range of sectors added new jobs, including health care, government, leisure and hospitality, and professional, scientific, and technical services. Wages are also up. Over the past year, average hourly earnings have grown 4.1%, higher than the rate of inflation, which was 3.4% over the same period.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 3.9% to 4%. This is not a significant change, but it does break the 27-month streak of unemployment below that number.
The second big story is that Justice Clarence Thomas amended a financial filing from 2019, acknowledging that he should have reported two free vacations he accepted from Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. While in the past he said he did not need to disclose such gifts, in today’s filing he claimed he had “inadvertently omitted” the trips on earlier reports. ProPublica broke the story of these and other gifts from Crow, including several more trips than Thomas has so far acknowledged.
Fix The Court, a nonprofit advocacy group that seeks to reform the federal courts, estimates that Thomas has accepted more than $4 million in gifts over the last 20 years. As economic analyst Steven Rattner pointed out, that’s 5.6 times more than the other 16 justices on the court in those years combined.
These two news items illustrate a larger story about the United States in this moment.
The Biden administration has quite deliberately overturned the supply-side economics that came into ascendancy in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan took office and that remained dominant until 2021, when Biden entered the White House. Adherents of that ideology rejected the idea that the government should invest in the “demand side” of the economy—workers and other ordinary Americans—to develop the economy, as it had done since 1933.
Instead, they maintained that the best way to nurture the economy was to support the “supply side”: those at the top. Cutting business regulations and slashing taxes would create prosperity, they said, by concentrating wealth in the hands of individuals who would invest in the economy more efficiently than they could if the government interfered in their choices. That smart investment would dramatically expand the economy, supporters argued, and everyone would do better.
But supply-side economics never produced the results its supporters promised. What it did do was move money out of the hands of ordinary Americans into the hands of the very wealthy. Economists estimate that between 1981 and 2021, more than $50 trillion dollars moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.
In order to keep that system in place, Republicans worked to make it extraordinarily difficult for Congress to pass laws making the government do anything, even when the vast majority of Americans wanted it to. With the rise of Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to the position of Senate majority leader in 2007, they weaponized the filibuster so any measure that went against their policies would need 60 votes in order to get through the Senate, and in 2010 they worked to take over state legislatures so that they could gerrymander state congressional districts so severely that Republicans would hold far more seats than they had earned from voters.
With Congress increasingly neutered, the power to make law shifted to the courts, which Republicans since the Reagan administration had been packing with appointees who adhered to their small-government principles.
Clarence Thomas was a key vote on the Supreme Court. But as ProPublica reported in December 2023, Thomas complained in 2000 to a Republican member of Congress about the low salaries of Supreme Court justices (equivalent to about $300,000 today) and suggested he might resign. The congressman and his friends were desperate to keep Thomas, with his staunchly Republican vote, on the court. In the years after 2000, friends and acquaintances provided Thomas with a steady stream of gifts that supplemented his income, and he stayed in his seat.
But what amounts to bribes has compromised the court. After the news broke that Thomas has now disclosed some of the trips Crow gave him, conservative lawyer George Conway wrote: “It’s long past time for there to be a comprehensive criminal investigation, and congressional investigation, of Justice Thomas and his finances and his taxes. What he has taken, and what he has failed to disclose, is beyond belief, and has been so for quite some time.” A bit less formally, over a chart of the monetary value of the gifts Thomas has accepted, Conway added: “I mean. This. Is. Just. Nuts.”
As the Republican system comes under increasing scrutiny, Biden’s renewal of traditional economic policies is showing those policies to be more successful than the Republicans’ system ever was. If Americans turn against the Republican formula of slashing taxes and deregulating business, those at the top of the economy stand to lose both wealth and control of the nation’s economic system.
Trump has promised more tax cuts and deregulation if he is reelected, although the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently projected that his plan to extend the 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire in 2025 will add more than $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. In April, at a meeting with 20 oil executives, Trump promised to cut regulations on the fossil fuel industry in exchange for $1 billion in donations, assuring them that the tax breaks he would give them once he was in office would pay for the donation many times over (indeed, an analysis quoted in The Guardian showed his proposed tax cuts would save them $110 billion). On May 23, he joined fossil fuel executives for a fundraiser in Houston.
In the same weeks, Biden’s policies have emphasized using the government to help ordinary people rather than to move wealth upward.
On May 31 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that it will make its experimental free electronic filing system permanent. It asked all 50 states and the District of Columbia to sign on to the program and to help taxpayers use it. The program’s pilot this year was wildly successful, with more than 140,000 people filing that way. Private tax preparers, whose industry makes billions of dollars a year, oppose the new system.
The Inflation Reduction Act provided funding for this program and for beefing up the ability of the IRS to audit the wealthiest taxpayers. As Fatima Hussein wrote for the Associated Press, Republicans cut $1.4 billion from these funds last summer and will shift an additional $20 billion from the IRS to other programs over the next two years.
Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued five new reports showing that thanks in part to the administration's outreach efforts about the Affordable Care Act, the rate of Black Americans without health insurance dropped from 20.9% in 2010 to 10.8% in 2022. The same rate among Latinos dropped from 32.7% to 18%. For Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, the rate of uninsured dropped from 16.6% to 6.2%. And for American Indians and Alaska Natives, the rate dropped from 32.4% to 19.9%. More than 45 million people in total are enrolled in coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
President Biden noted the strength of today’s jobs report in a statement, adding: “I will keep fighting to lower costs for families like the ones I grew up with in Scranton.” Republicans “have a different vision,” he said, “one that puts billionaires and special interests first.” He promised: “I will never stop fighting for Scranton—not Park Avenue.”
—
Notes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/07/may-jobs-unemployment/
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/jobs-report-may-06-07-24/index.html
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/07/jobs-report-may-2024-us-job-gains-totaled-272000-in-may.html
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-gift-disclosures-harlan-crow
https://fixthecourt.com/2024/06/a-staggering-tally-supreme-court-justices-accepted-hundreds-of-gifts-worth-millions-of-dollars/
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-money-complaints-sparked-resignation-fears-scotus
https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
https://apnews.com/article/treasury-income-taxes-irs-audits-direct-file-04c3b4b55ca0d37b2c40697a392c78aa
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/06/07/biden-harris-administration-releases-data-showing-historic-gains-health-care-coverage-minority-communities.html
https://thehill.com/business/budget/4652668-extending-trumps-tax-cuts-would-cost-us-trillions-of-dollars/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/16/donald-trump-big-oil-executives-alleged-deal-explained
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/trump-oil-industry-campaign
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/us/politics/trump-biden-affordable-care-act.html
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/06/07/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-the-may-jobs-report/
X:
SteveRattnestatus/1799058177373381097
SteveRattnestatus/1798749555002941930
gtconway3d/status/1799122270037713027
gtconway3d/status/1799123230772568563
BidenHQ/status/1799098652297769271
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-7-2024

Planning a trip to Kauai next year in May. Wife and I visited there back in 2010, now we want to bring our 4 kids and my mom. I've been looking at vacation rentals and resorts, with 4 kids we're going to be spending equal time at a pool and beach. There are a lot of vacation rentals with access to the Poipu Beach Athletic Club. Anyone rented one of these before and used that? How busy is it? Is access easy? Anything else you can tell me about it would be greatly appreciated.

Will you join me in rating and reviewing our beloved Jellyfish on MAL MyAnimeList at some point? Just an honest rating and an honest opinionated review will be so cool!
I hereby promise I will try to write a Jellyfish review at some point. After eps 12 most likely because I have been busy (and lazy) but I will try.
Based on what I saw in eps 01-09, it looks like the Jellyfish creators are very much willing to risk it all in pushing the show creatively to create a "Masterpiece" in one season, I hope.
I honestly hope & wish creators of Jellyfishes will risk failures in eps 10-12 to try their best to give themselves, to give us, a chance to experience a Masterpiece in one season. Why only S1? Partly because having only S1 is much harder a task. Yes, we LOVE our Jellyfishes and would LOVE to keep watching them forever and ever in S2, S3, S4, ... and at some point, either we will feeling like being turned into "Cash Cows", at worse, our Jellyfishes may overstay their welcome. So the silly me think, why not aim for Absolute Perfection in S1 and S1 alone?
I believe, and I may be wrong as I often do, the Jellyfish creators are very capable (given what we have seen in eps 01-09), so capable that I feel and think they should just aim and shoot for perfection in S1. Time will tell. Will see.
At times I often like to quote my fellow Canadian Director, the multi-billion box office, James Cameron words he once he gave at a TED talk. So here they are, copied and pasted from my long list of Quotes I LOVE collected since 2008. I hope you enjoy reading it and watching the linked YouTube clip so you can watch James said it himself.
//
“Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t bet against yourself. And take risk.
NASA has this phrase that they like, “Failure is not an option.” But failure has to be an option.
In art and exploration, failure has to be an option. Because it is a leap of faith. And no important endeavour that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. […]
in whatever you are doing, failure is an option. But fear is not.” – James Cameron (1954 -) at his 2010 TED talk [at time code 16:11]
//
This concludes my brand of poison. ❤😜❤