Welcome to our community

Be apart of something great, join today!

Russia - Ukraine “peace negotiations”

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 3K
  • Views: 145K
  • Politics 


“… After a roughly hourlong call with Trump on Wednesday that both leaders said went well, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that “technical” talks in Saudi Arabia this weekend would seek to resolve what types of infrastructure would be protected under the agreement. …”

Read more at: Zelenskyy and Putin agree to limited ceasefire, but implementation is work in progress
Source - Stars and Stripes
 

How Trump Is Trying to Consolidate Power Over Courts, Congress and More​

President Trump’s expansive interpretation of presidential power has become the defining characteristic of his second term.


“President Trump called for one federal judge seeking basic information about his deportation efforts to be impeached amid mounting concern about a constitutional showdown.

Another judge found that Mr. Trump’s efforts to shut down a federal agency probably violated the Constitution and stripped Congress of its authority.

The president was accused of overstepping his executive authority yet again in firing two Democratic commissioners from an independent trade commission.

And that was just Tuesday.

Nearly two months into his second term, Mr. Trump is trying to consolidate control over the courts, Congress and even, in some ways, American society and culture. …”
 

How Trump Is Trying to Consolidate Power Over Courts, Congress and More​

President Trump’s expansive interpretation of presidential power has become the defining characteristic of his second term.


“President Trump called for one federal judge seeking basic information about his deportation efforts to be impeached amid mounting concern about a constitutional showdown.

Another judge found that Mr. Trump’s efforts to shut down a federal agency probably violated the Constitution and stripped Congress of its authority.

The president was accused of overstepping his executive authority yet again in firing two Democratic commissioners from an independent trade commission.

And that was just Tuesday.

Nearly two months into his second term, Mr. Trump is trying to consolidate control over the courts, Congress and even, in some ways, American society and culture. …”
“… Congress, which is controlled by Republicans, has ceded some of its core duties to Mr. Trump, handing off elements of the legislative branch’s spending authority to the White House and standing aside as congressionally chartered agencies are shuttered. The president has threatened to “lead the charge” against the re-election of the rare Republican who dares challenge his agenda, and the party has bent to his will at every turn.

Mr. Trump has dismantled independent measures of checks and balances, fired inspectors general and installed loyalists at the Justice Department willing to carry out his campaign of retribution. He has targeted private law firms with connections to those he views as political enemies and cowed previously skeptical or hostile business leaders into pledging public support, even as he has imprinted his “MAGA” stamp on the private sector by trying to dictate hiring practices.

… But Mr. Trump’s latest target — the judiciary — has been described by constitutional scholars and historians as perhaps the most alarming power play to date.

… Mr. Trump has never been consistent in his attacks on the judicial system generally and on judges in particular. Last week during a speech at the Department of Justice, he suggested that criticism of Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Florida jurist who dismissed the classified documents case against him last summer, may not be legal.

But he has applied the same logic of fairness to court cases that he has to presidential elections: They’re fair if he wins but not if he loses.

… Mr. Trump’s allies often point out that he is doing what he said he would do during his campaign, when his policy platform, Agenda 47, laid out an agenda of maximalist presidential power. He and his advisers believe he was stymied in his first term through investigations and a resistant federal bureaucracy.

… Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, a former acting deputy Homeland Security secretary in the first Trump administration and a contributor to Project 2025, said those who criticize Mr. Trump’s use of executive power “are doing so primarily to weaken the presidency and this president in particular under the guise of ‘conventional wisdom’ that has no constitutional foundation.”

… Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University who studies fascism and authoritarianism, singled out what she said were some of Mr. Trump’s most troubling behaviors: the expansion of executive power, the politicization of the other branches of government, the dismantling of an oversight and accountability structure, and the targeting of those who seek to hold the president and his allies accountable.

The ultimate beneficiary of the acts that we’re seeing happen, whether it’s with the judiciary or other agencies, is Trump himself, because it’s an expansion of his personal power,” she said.

The scale and the speed of what’s going on is terrifying.””
 
Back
Top