Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Imperial Presidency Watch: Congress Loses Control Over The Purse

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On July 15, 2025

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So, the Supremes have decided, without even bothering to write an opinion, that the Department of Education can be massively reduced without Congressional approval:

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Trump administration may fire more than half of the Department of Education’s workforce — mass terminations that, in Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s words, are “the first step on the road to a total shutdown” of the entire department.

The Court’s decision in McMahon v. New York, was handed down on the Court’s “shadow docket,” a mix of emergency motions and other expedited matters that the justices often decide without full briefing or oral argument. As is often the case in shadow docket decisions, none of the Republican justices explained their decision.

This is, in my opinion, and in line with most lawyers, 100% unconstitutional.

The McMahon decision is particularly unnerving because it suggests that President Donald Trump is allowed to “impound” federal spending — unilaterally refusing to spend money or to continue federal programs that are mandated by an act of Congress. While McMahon does not explicitly authorize impoundment, it allows the Trump administration to fire so many federal workers, in so many key roles, that the practical effect is to cancel entire federal programs.

Most of the creep of imperial presidency has been Congress giving its powers away: war acts which make it so the president can go to war without Congress, for example, or giving the President tariff authority (which Trump has misused, pretending everything is “national security”) and so on. Some have been unilateral grabs, such as using “signing statements” to change the clear intend of laws.

But this is a Presidential grab that the Supremes are waving thru. Even if they later rule that some stub of the Education department must remain, it’s clearly allowing the President to over-ride spending that Congress has mandated. I am unaware of any reasonable reading of the Constitution that allows this: the President is to execute Congress’s directives and does not have the authority to say “nah, we’re just not going to do that any more.”

Especially of interest here is that the Republicans didn’t bother to explain the ruling and didn’t give it a full trial. They know it’s completely indefensible on legal grounds, and they aren’t even going to try.

Ever since Citizen’s United I have told Americans to get out if they can and if not to prepare for horrific times. Children, we are now at the start of the collapse. Before this it was mostly gradual, but this is the real thing.

I mention Citizen’s  United (which allowed unlimited cash into US elections under the proposition that money is speech) because, of course, smashing the Department of Education while it’s something that Christofacists want, so they can ban books and write fantasy textbooks and fire teachers and Professors for saying things like “gay sex might not be bad,” or “American slavery was terrible” and so on, it’s also about privatizing as much of the education system as possible.

Remember that Trump’s main act, amidst all the Kabuki, was his budget, which slashed four trillion in taxes from rich people while cutting health care for poor people to partially pay for it. Trump’s priority, as per his actions, is to make the rich, richer. (His tariffs, while real, have been TACO: Trump chickens out when rich people start screaming.)

Make the public education shit for poor people, let the middle class have vouchers for some shit “charter” school and the upper class, as always, will send their kids to elite private schools.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Benjamin Franklin

Kept it for almost 250 years, but if this stands, if Congress loses its last real power, it’s over. A Republic is something rather specific, a divided form of government. And if one of the three branches has no effective power left, it’s not a Republic, especially since the Supremes, in other orders, are gutting the Judiciary’s power. The end of nationwide injunctions is particularly instructive. And let’s not forget the President’s Gestapo force, ICE, arresting Judges who try to interfere with immigration snatches.

Nothing is over till it’s over. But no one with sense would offer good odds that the US is going to come out of this era as the sort of place anyone with sense would want to live. Say what you will about China, but it’s light authoritarianism and actually delivers prosperity. At this point everyone not in the top 1% is seeing declines in wealth in America, plus you’re losing your civil liberties (citizenship revocation is very likely), plus you’re losing your Republic.

I consider it my duty to try and give a clear picture of the world to my readers so they can make good decisions. Other than the necessity of eating and not dying of exposure, it’s why I write. So… If you can get out. Get out. If you can’t, make preparations for Hell.

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 13, 2025

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On July 13, 2025

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by Tony Wikrent

 

Trump not violating any law

‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’

 

Dean Obeidallah, July 12, 2025

“We need to be aware, as a country, how quickly this can get much, much worse.”

That is the warning from Andrea Pitzer–an expert on concentration camps who wrote the 2017 book, “One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps”-on where we find ourselves today under the Trump regime….

Pitzer explained that in writing her book documenting the history of concentration camps, she found that when the leaders go down the path of dehumanizing a group of people as a political tool – be it Jews in Nazi Germany or migrants today with Trump—we must understand it doesn’t end there. It continues down a road that can lead to mass detentions or even genocide.

What is deeply disturbingly is just how fast Trump has—and continues to move—in his embrace of this age-old playbook. Pitzer noted that in just the first few months into his term, “We were already seeing people being kidnapped off the streets by agents who are masked.” Now we are at the next step in the fascist playbook with the “Alligator Alcatraz” camp that opened in Florida.

Pitzer stated point blank that “Alligator Alcatraz” is a “concentration camp.”

…Trump’s DOJ is now criminally investigating two of Trump’s critics, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey. In addition, Trump in April signed an executive orders directing his DOJ to find crimes to punish two former aides, Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security official who criticized Trump, and Christopher Krebs, a top cybersecurity official who refused after the 2020 election to back up Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

And on Saturday morning, Trump threatened to strip U.S. born Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship, writing on Truth Social: “Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.” From a legal point of view, there is no current provision to strip a U.S. born citizen of their citizenship….

 

Worst case scenario

Jonathan M. Katz, July 08, 2025 [The Racket]

Trump has promised 10,000 new ICE agents. That would bring the total to 30,000 — approximately one (generally masked) agent for every 11,000 people in this country. The pressure of such a massive hiring spree, combined with ICE’s plummeting reputation among the general public, pretty much guarantees a mix of corruption and the hiring of, to borrow a phrase, the worst of the worst to fill out the expanded force.

At the same time, Trump and his team trumpeted the opening of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a new state-funded but federally protected immigrant detention camp on an abandoned airstrip in the Florida Everglades that is expected to house at least 5,000 detainees at a time. Overseen by Gov. Ron DeSantis (who, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is a former Guantánamo Bay prison guard), it is being billed as a model for a nationwide network, funded by compliant state governments and the new mammoth federal bill.

The first detainees today reported intolerable conditions including overcrowding, a lack of bathing water, maggot-infested food, blinding 24-hour lights, a lack of medicine, and a lack of mosquito control in a virus-rich swamp. “They’re not respecting our human rights,” one detainee told CBS News. “We’re like rats in an experiment.”….

So, to summarize: An authoritarian president, accountable to no court and with a cowed legislature in his pocket, now has all the legal and monetary tools he needs to build out both a massive federal secret police force answerable only to him, and an equally massive archipelago of Gitmo-style concentration camps4 at home and abroad in which to house and process their captives.

 Trump loves ICE. Its Workforce Has Never Been So Miserable

[The Atlantic, via The Big Picture July 11, 2025]

Legal Ping-Pong

Joyce Vance, July 11, 2025 [Civil Discourse]

Today was legal ping-pong. Your head had to zing back and forth to keep up with everything that was happening as we went from courts to the Trump administration’s actions to breaking news from investigative reporting. We’ll go through what it all means, so we can stay on top of the most important developments.

They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals

Trump, Epstein and the Deep State

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Open Thread

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On July 12, 2025

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

I Mean, It Is Theoretically Possible That Epstein Committed Suicide

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On July 11, 2025

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Wired:

Footage tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s death in federal custody appears to have been altered before it was shared with the public—despite being presented as unedited surveillance video—according to a joint investigation by WIRED and multiple independent video forensics experts.

Here’s what the analysis uncovered:

Hidden metadata embedded in the video file revealed that the footage wasn’t a direct export from the prison’s internal surveillance system. Instead, the file had been processed—apparently using Adobe Premiere Pro, a professional-grade video editing program. Evidence suggests it was stitched together from at least two separate clips, saved multiple times, and exported before being posted on the Department of Justice’s website as if it were “raw” footage.

But you’d have to be really stupid to think it’s the most likely possibility.

So, there are no Epstein files, Ghislaine was not involved in pimping underaged girls and it’s all just a big nothing. Good to know.

The US-UK Special Relationship is Officially Dead

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On July 11, 2025

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I doubt any of you will recall, but in 2003 I wrote a long post over at a different place, that NATO was dead. It was useless, much like the Concert of Europe that emerged after the 1848 Revolutions in Europe recast and sought to revise the settlement of 1815, set up by Castlereagh-Metternich and Talleyrand.

So, today it’s official: the US-UK Special Relationship is dead. It’s been moribund for a long time, since after the Iraqi invasion there was a huge groundswell of UK citizens that resented their country being the American poodle. Lip service was paid, but now, no longer. That the Brits have to turned to the French says a lot.

With the Northwood Declaration the Brits have indicated their nuclear arsenal will no longer be under the unified command of SACEUR. The Brits will instead “Decouple” from the Americans and integrate with their continental ally, France. For decades the UK’s nuclear arsenal was inoperable without the USA, as it is so much based on American technology, command and control dependency, even the Brits boomers (SSBN) are dependent on US technology, namely the UGM-133 Trident II, a submarine launched ballistic missile made for the US and Royal Navies in America.

The UK has four Vanguard-class boomers in service, which each carry a potential total of 16 SLBMs. Each SLBM Is MIRVed, deploying a potential total of 192 nuclear warheads with yields of 100kt each per submarine. In 2021 the government of Boris Johnson implemented a policy of ‘deliberate ambiguity’ so the exact size and scope of the UK’s nuclear arsenal is unknown.

France, like the UK, maintains a small fleet of four Triomphant-class boomers. Each French boomer can carry up to 16 French-made M45 or M51 SLBMs, that are MIRVed, and French warhead yields fall between 150kt-300kt. Both British and French boomers have four torpedo tubes, the French can also launch the Exocte anti-ship missile while underwater. French boomers got some teeth.

France also maintains a small aircraft deliverable stockpile of nuclear weapons. The UK decommissioned their nuclear aircraft years ago. By French and UK law each country must have at least one boomer at sea at all times.

In the video I linked above the Deutsche Welle interviewer asks Phillips O’Brien the main question, “how historically significant this is this shift in nuclear posture from France and the UK?”

Phillips answers with typical British understatement, “well particularly from the UK but also from France because both of their nuclear deterrence particularly the UK has basically been inoperable without the USA that it’s been based on American technology a lot of it and very close cooperation uh and the idea that sort of the British would would go in a way to try and establish a nuclear deterrent that could be operated, developed and operated without the USA would be something quite extraordinary because they’ve not done anything like that before. I think it’s a sign that the United States is no longer seen as quite a reliable defense partner.”

This is decline observable in real time. This is the world that Trump has created. The nation that I once called the USS Unsinkable, no longer finds the US a reliable security partner. Imagine what our allies in Asia are thinking?

The Northwood Declaration is a concrete manifestation of how the rest of the world now sees the United States: the primary rogue nation. I knew the world would change a great deal in my lifetime, but I honestly did not think that I would see this. Thirty one years ago this summer I got my first passport and headed to Europe. I remember thinking about my passport as almost like one would think of an American Express card. It was my key to the world and I could go anywhere. That was true until about 10 years ago. What a world we Americans pissed away.

 

As Churchill once said, “friends are not permanent, interests are.”

Equal Tests For Men and Women in Front Line Combat Roles: Progress or Regression?

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On July 10, 2025

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There has been a lot of back and forth about men and women being tested equally for front line combat roles.

First, let me make it very clear, I am one hundred percent for equality between men and women. I’ve worked under women bosses, had no issue with it. While at Morgan Stanley I had a woman business partner for a year and a half. It was a very sucessful relationship, we’re still friends.

I’ve learned a lot from the women in my life, begining with my mother; the vast majority of which has added significant value to my life. And although I can’t say much nice about my two ex-wives: I learned hard lessons from each of them as well.

Finally, I’ve no issue with men and women serving in combat roles together on the front lines. To put it at its most crude: a woman can stop a bullet just as well as I can.  But, and it is a big one, in any physical role in which men and women serve together as physical equals, they must be physical equals. Full stop.

So, this new army fitness test rolling out this summer is a very good outcome. 

Disagree? Please explain then.

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Trump’s Absolutely Crazed Tariff Policies: Brazil and Copper Edition

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On July 9, 2025

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So, Trump sent a letter to Brazil announcing 50% tariffs. His demands are that Brazil stop prosecuting Bolsonaro (ex-President who tried to steal the last election, and stole the one before by getting Lula locked up on bogus charges) and that they let US social media platforms operate unfettered the country. If Brazil puts tariffs on US goods, then the US will increase its tariffs by the same amount.

Here’s the thing, Brazil and the US have essentially even trade:

(light blue is exports, dark blue is imports)

The most recent services data I can find indicates that the US has a services surplus.

But more to the point, Trump wants to interfere in Brazil’s internal politics in a way that no Brazilian patriot could countenance. Nor would would Lula be wise to submit.

And Brazil’s exposure to the US market isn’t as serious as it may seem, the exports amount to a bit less than 2% of Brazil’s GDP. It can weather this storm easily. It’ll just sell more elsewhere or even just eat the loss.

What it does do is encourage Brazil to move away from trade with the US entirely, and the US’s main exports to Brazil are refined petroleum, aircraft and parts, nuclear reactor parts and electrical machinery and parts. With the partial exception of aircraft parts and nuclear parts (for US manufactured aircraft and US designed reactors) there’s nothing there Brazil can’t buy from someone else and Brazil imports the things any sane trade policy would want other countries to import: largely manufactured goods other refined petroleum.

Even with nuclear and aircraft, China is now an alternative for new planes and new plants.

So Trump doesn’t have much leverage, actually. Way less than with Europe and Canada and Mexico and Japan and even Canada, Mexico and Japan have resisted his trade war.

All Trump is doing is pushing Brazil away and into the arms of Chinese, and giving them reason to de-dollarize sooner and faster.

Insanity.

Then there’s Trump’s announced 50% tariff on copper imports. Now, on the face, this makes some sense: copper is important in industrial manufacture and having the US dependent on other countries, especially China is bad.

BUT starting at 50% just means that costs for virtually all manufacturing in the US will go up and US manufacturing will be less competitive.

Once again, the way to do tariffs is announce they will happen in X years, where X is the amount of time it will take to build new mines and refineries in the US. Or you could star them at 1% say, and raise them another percentage point every two months till they reach whatever level is necessary to get people to mine and refine in the US.

Just imposing them is the stupidest possible way to do it.

Trump’s just fundamentally incompetent at policy. He can’t do it. Policy under Trump only works if he lets someone else do it and leaves them alone, but for anything high profile he constantly wants to meddle, and he’s a boob.

Trump’s economicpolicy mix — defunding research wholesale, starting a trade war with the entire world, vastly slashing social welfare, discouraging visitors and immigration and getting rid of migrant workers is just accelerating America’s decline.

Trump is an idiot, a fool and the will likely go down as the President who sealed America end as a hegemonic great power. Among post-war Presidents only Obama and Reagan are in competition with him for last place, but because they started and managed US decline, they will avoid much of the blame.

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Trump’s Admin Claims the Epstein Files Don’t Exist, Why?

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On July 8, 2025

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How stupid do they think everyone is?

I’ll state the obvious, then make one observation.

The Obvious Epstein was an intelligence operation, probably US intelligence and Mossad working together. Every room had cameras, and everyone who partook can be blackmailed.

Observation: The great temptation with the Epstein files isn’t to release them or destroy them, the great temptation is to use them, because they represent a vast amount of power.

Anyway, British and American elites have a predilection for under-age sex and various sexual pecadillos. A taste for being spanked and buggery, in particular, are endemic in the English ruling class due to what goes on in a lot of boys boarding schools. This is so much the case that enjoying being beaten used to be called “the English vice”. We pretend it was just a Victorian thing, but it continues.

Being part of the ruling class traditionally comes with the ability to ignore conventional mores, but members of that class didn’t (and still don’t seem to) fully understand what the changes is surveillance technology mean. Every time some idiot is outed because they filmed their own sexual perversions I laugh, but, simply put, if one must be depraved, keep it in house, don’t film it, you moron, and don’t trust anyone. (This isn’t exactly advice, but a powerful person being blackmailed is even worse than a powerful person with a private vice.)

Trump’s has so far been able to push his program thru, but his approval ratings are underwater and important goals, like the end of birthright citizens immunity to revocation of citizenship are still to come. Trump needs leverage. I suspect he’s decided to use the leverage on hand.

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