Let me say this as clearly as possible. If Trump follows through on his leaked trial balloon with regard to disregarding court orders, then any Republican member of the House or Senate who fails to vote to impeach and convict the president for effectively claiming to be a dictator above all law, is himself or herself endorsing that view, and is declaring his or her opposition to the Constitution of the United States of America.
11 February 2025
ChatGPT gets it
Here's what my good buddy ChatGPT has to say to my question.
Me: Are there historical parallels to the potential refusal of the current president of the US to obey court orders? Isn't this an unqualified failure of the checks and balances system of the Constitution, and the precipitation of an unprecedented constitutional crisis? This is not a political question, but one of Constitutional law.
ChatGPT said:
.............
RESIST.
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
08 February 2025
DOGE blocked.
I object to headlines in, for example, The Guardian, that refer to a judge "temporarily blocking" DOGE from illegally accessing private information in government records. Granting an injunction is not temporary, in the ordinary sense of the word, despite the legal terminology. One of the criteria, as anyone with a smattering of legal knowledge can tell you, for a "temporary" injunction is the assessment of a high probability of prevailing on the ultimate question before the court. So, the fact that an injunction is granted means the judge is "pretty darn sure" the petitioners' claims are meritorious and will ultimately prevail.
So the real question is whether these rogue oligarchs will obey the dictates of the court. The fact that the actions are illegal and violate the Constitution is well-nigh self-evident. This is a coup. Can the courts stop it? We are about to find out.
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RESIST.
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
07 February 2025
Resistance in the Courts
Judges faced with citizen lawsuits challenging the Trump usurpation of Constitutional powers who are inclined to rule against plaintiffs on standing issues need to ask themselves this question: If this court does not have the ability to consider and rule on grossly unconstitutional behavior on the part of the executive, how will that abuse of power be addressed? And if it goes unaddressed, is that not a systemic failure of constitutional governance?
The Constitution and the rules of courts must be interpreted as allowing courts to take action to preserve the Constitution itself.
Otherwise there will be no mechanism to prevent a totalitarian takeover. Americans must be prepared to resist this with every means at their disposal. It is the duty of judicial officers to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Time to step up.
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RESIST.
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
Resitance is ... absof*inglutely mandatory
I strongly urge everyone to listen to Norm Ornstein and David Rothkopf on the Words Matter podcast: "Screw your feelings, Time to Figure out how to Fix this Mess." Here.
We all need to call, e-mail, and write to our Democratic senators and representatives and demand that they get busy and resist the Trump fascist takeover by any and all legal means available, and make this their full time job and sacred duty to their country. We are not a majority; we cannot control the government, but we sure as hell can use the Republican playbook and slow-walk everything, demand roll calls and deny unanimous consent, vote against absolutely everything... and figure out more and better ways to resist. There is absolutely nothing normal about this regime, and it must be resisted... I'll say it again... in every legal way possible. And some illegal but nonviolent ways, too, namely Gene Sharpian civil disobedience. Inaction is complicity. Complicity is cooperation in evil. This is not a choice.
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RESIST.
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
The tide must turn
Is there a point at which a significant number of "ordinary" Republicans come to the realization that Trump is not helping their agenda or looking out in any cognizable way for the interests of the country, and turn against him? There was, for a brief few days, in January 2021, but since then it's been all retrenchment and domination of their party by the autocratic narcissism of the strong man. I fear that if, as right now it still looks, there is no such point, and the Rs in Congress continue their unquestioning fealty to him and his regime, we will be irreparably damaged and our republic can't survive. Does it do any good to call the House switchboard? Send letters and e mails? I don't know. But nothing can be more important. Somehow, the tide has to turn against this guy or we're in for it.
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DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
06 February 2025
The great test is upon us
So Norm Eisen is telling us on Bluesky that a court order has been obtained to block Musk and his teenage minions from illegally effecting policy changes which are the sole Constitutional purview of the Congress by directly modifying Treasury Dept. computer systems, without any authority under law at all. So now we will find out. Will the coup plotters openly defy the Courts? Because if they do, then there can be no further pretense: a coup is a coup is a coup. Pray for our country.
If the Trump executive branch, having rendered supine and feckless the entire Congressional branch, is also willing to simply defy judges, then it's all over, folks.
I hope every single sworn officer of the US military recalls that their oath is to the Constitution, not to the president. We are now being tested: will we remain a nation under the rule of law... or not.
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DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
05 February 2025
Rothkopf: How to Stop the People Who Are Destroying Our Government
This is extremely important... please read this and don't say TLDNR. ("Too long did not read").
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DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
This is content especially prepared for subscribers to "Need to Know" by David Rothkopf. Thank you for subscribing. How to Stop the People Who Are Destroying Our GovernmentThey are sowing the seeds of their own undoing
You could hardly think of a more destructive and inefficient way to bring "efficiency" to our government than the wholesale chaos that has recently been unleashed. Yes, there are plenty of ways to root out and eliminate waste and fraud. No, violating the Constitution and shutting down entire agencies with a promise of later "review" or simply firing great swaths of people or persuading them to randomly pick up and go are not the ways to do it. My friend, the always brilliant Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University Law Center, described the current approach on the latest DSR Podcast as the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" method of reducing the size of our government. It's cuckoo and it's dangerous. (Really? We want to just gut big critical agencies from the CIA to USAID?) Need to Know by David Rothkopf is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a free or (better yet) paid subscriber.  Making matters worse is that—as intended—everything that is currently happening that is so overwhelming that people hardly know how to react. The media can't keep up with it. Neither can opposition "leaders" (I use the term very loosely). The result is lots of…feelings. But what, a reasonable person who sees how serious this crisis is, can or should we do? There are lots of approaches and the answer is: do all of them. If you can advance legal action to stop what's illegal, do it. If you can donate to those who are coordinating such actions, do it. If you can run for office, do it. If you can reach and influence large audiences, do it. If you are in the Congress, for chrissakes, do something. (Tune in to our DSR Words Matter podcast tomorrow—Thursday—for a detailed discussion with Congressional guru Norm Ornstein about what to do. Or, if you're in a Substack-y mood, read this recent post by Norm:  The ContrarianElon Musk has no position in government. His "organization," the fancily-named Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has no official responsibility, and its "employees" have no governmental standing. It is a Potemkin Village of a federal agency. None of those involved have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. But they are leading … a day ago · 821 likes · 72 comments · Norm Ornstein But I think in the not to distant future other critically important approaches will work. Because…consequences. You see, I do not know a single person in DC who has not been directly negatively impacted by the "sudden disassembly in flight" of the U.S. government. In most cases the impact is major and professional and pyschological as well as economical. You might shrug it off and say, "It's about time." "It's about time those DC insiders got their comeuppance." First, of all, most of these people are just people who have devoted their whole lives to public service, often eschewing career paths that could have brought them a great deal more wealth and security. They're not rich. They're just people trying to do the right thing, to help, to serve their communities. But, listen, this is not just a DC phenomenon. In fact, it is very likely to very rapidly be a signature consequence of the Trump Administration. It will impact every community in America. Everyone will feel it if the Department of Education is shut down. Teachers. Schools. Programs to provide food for kids in need. Parents of kids with special needs and of course, the kids themselves. Everyone will feel it if the weather bureau shuts down and you can't get early warning of disasters. Everyone will feel it as infrastructure projects are stopped before they are done. They'll feel the impact of the jobs lost. They'll feel the impact of the traffic jams. They'll feel the impact of the slowed economic growth. Everyone will feel the impact of tariffs. Prices will rise. Farmers will see lose markets to overseas competitors. Everyone will feel the market shocks. Everyone will feel it when big plants that depend on trade--like auto manufacturers--are shut down. Everyone will feel the sting of foreign countries retaliating. Everyone will feel the impact of federal agencies shutting down. If an NIH research program is no longer there or a US AID program is no longer in place to stop the spread of a disease, people will die or be sick and suffer. Not on the other side of the world. But next door and across the street. The litany of local costs of the wholesale,reckless, destruction without a plan of the U.S. government will be huge and it will compound daily and weekly and monthly. Because our national political leaders are proving ill-equipped to stop what's happening, these local stories will gain significance. We can each translate our awareness of these consequences into the kind of actions that can make a difference. Tally them up. Talk to your neighbors. Understand their experiences. Present what you see at meetings of school boards and town councils. Move beyond red vs. blue politics. Show the real, granular, meaningful human consequences of what's happening. Such actions will move mountains and set the terms for the political discussions to come in this country. It will be mayors, governors, towns, cities and states that end up providing the real resistance to what's happening. What's more by taking this approach you will be undercutting the big power of the oligarchs who are intimidating members of Congress w/threats of primaries. Raising the human costs of the anti-government approach to government, making these issues local, will restore general elections to centrality. It must made crystal clear that anyone who supported this-regardless of the wing of the GOP (or Democratic Party) that they're from--will pay the ultimate political price. We must once & for all send the message that we expect government to serve & protect us not to sacrifice us to political stunts. The Trump-Musk-Bannon-Putin approach to all this is to play to the weaknesses of Washington and the media. So our response must be to acknowledge this and then disintermediate those groups. This is not abstract. This is big and for each of us it will become deeply personal. We must turn that into our power to produce the change that will undo the damage and ensure this kind of wanton destruction of the institutions of government that were created to serve us at the behest of billionaires who just want to fund further tax cuts will never ever happen again. Need to Know by David Rothkopf is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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Fwd: February 4, 2025
See HRC's report, below. This is totally shocking. It's a coup. Period. Democrats need to draft a letter to Trump telling him he is violating all manner of laws by allowing this to occur, demand that he stop at once; and then proceed with the impeachment resolution. It may take months... or it may never happen... that the great majority of Americans are aroused to demand that the Trump administration's coup d'état be stopped, whereupon there's at least the hope that, one by one, Republicans will come around to voting to impeach. But this is not normalizable... either we stop them, or our country is no longer going to be a republic. There may not be much... or enough... time, but the hour is at hand for patriotic Americans, at the risk of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, to stand up and say No! You will not violate the Constitution and destroy our republic! We, the People, will not stand for it. There is no alternative.
DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
Shortly after 1:00 this morning, Vittoria Elliott, Dhruv Mehrotra, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman of Wired reported that, according to three of their sources, "[a] 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies [SpaceX and X], has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government." According to the reporters, Elez apparently has the privileges to write code on the programs at the Bureau of Fiscal Service that control more than 20% of the U.S. economy, including government payments of veterans' benefits, Social Security benefits, and veterans' pay. The admin privileges he has typically permit a user "to log in to servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files. That could allow someone to bypass the security measures of, and potentially cause irreversible changes to, the very systems they have access to." "If you would have asked me a week ago" if an outsider could've been given access to a government server, one federal IT worker told the Wired reporters, "I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the f*ck knows." The reporters note that control of the Bureau of Fiscal Service computers could enable someone to cut off monies to specific agencies or even individuals. "Will DOGE cut funding to programs approved by Congress that Donald Trump decides he doesn't like?" asked Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday. "What about cancer research? Food banks? School lunches? Veterans aid? Literacy programs? Small business loans?" Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reported that his sources said that Elez and possibly others got full admin access to the Treasury computers on Friday, January 31, and that he—or they—have "already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system." They are leaning on existing staff in the agency for help, which those workers have provided reluctantly in hopes of keeping the entire system from crashing. Marshall reports those staffers are "freaking out." The system is due to undergo a migration to another system this weekend; how the changes will interact with that long-planned migration is unclear. The changes, Marshall's sources tell him, "all seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked." Both Wired and the New York Times reported yesterday that Musk's team intends to cut government workers and to use artificial intelligence, or AI, to make budget cuts and to find waste and abuse in the federal government. Today Jason Koebler, Joseph Cox, and Emanuel Maiberg of 404 Media reported that they had obtained the audio of a meeting held Monday by Thomas Shedd for government technology workers. Shedd is a former Musk employee at Tesla who is now leading the General Services Administration's Technology Transformation Services (TTS), the team that is recoding the government programs. At the meeting, Shedd told government workers that "things are going to get intense" as his team creates "AI coding agents" to write software that would, for example, change the way logging into the government systems works. Currently, that software cannot access any information about individuals; as the reporters note, login.gov currently assures users that it "does not affect or have any information related to the specific agency you are trying to access." But Shedd said they were working through how to change that login "to further identify individuals and detect and prevent fraud." When a government employee pointed out that the Privacy Act makes it illegal for agencies to share personal information without consent, Shedd appeared unfazed by the idea they were trying something illegal. "The idea would be that folks would give consent to help with the login flow, but again, that's an example of something that we have a vision, that needs [to be] worked on, and needs clarified. And if we hit a roadblock, then we hit a roadblock. But we still should push forward and see what we can do." A government employee told Koebler, Cox, and Maiberg that using AI coding agents is a major security risk. "Government software is concerned with things like foreign adversaries attempting to insert backdoors into government code. With code generated by AI, it seems possible that security vulnerabilities could be introduced unintentionally. Or could be introduced intentionally via an AI-related exploit that creates obfuscated code that includes vulnerabilities that might expose the data of American citizens or of national security importance." A blizzard of lawsuits has greeted Musk's campaign and other Trump administration efforts to undermine Congress. Today, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leaders in their respective chambers, announced they were introducing legislation to stop Musk's unlawful actions in the Treasury's payment systems and to protect Americans, calling it "Stop the Steal," a play on Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. This evening, Democratic lawmakers and hundreds of protesters rallied at the Treasury Department to take a stand against Musk's hostile takeover of the U.S. Treasury payment system. "Nobody Elected Elon," their signs read. "He has access to all our information, our Social Security numbers, the federal payment system," Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said. "What's going to stop him from stealing taxpayer money?" Tonight, the Washington Post noted that Musk's actions "appear to violate federal law." David Super of Georgetown Law School told journalists Jeff Stein, Dan Diamond, Faiz Siddiqui, Cat Zakrzewski, Hannah Natanson, and Jacqueline Alemany: "So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they're playing a quantity game and assuming the system can't react to all this illegality at once." Musk's takeover of the U.S. government to override Congress and dictate what programs he considers worthwhile is a logical outcome of forty years of Republican rhetoric. After World War II, members of both political parties agreed that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. The idea was to use tax dollars to create national wealth. The government would hold the economic playing field level by protecting every American's access to education, healthcare, transportation and communication, employment, and resources so that anyone could work hard and rise to prosperity. Businessmen who opposed regulation and taxes tried to convince voters to abandon this system but had no luck. The liberal consensus—"liberal" because it used the government to protect individual freedom, and "consensus" because it enjoyed wide support—won the votes of members of both major political parties. But those opposed to the liberal consensus gained traction after the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. Three years later, in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, sent troops to help desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Those trying to tear apart the liberal consensus used the crisis to warn voters that the programs in place to help all Americans build the nation as they rose to prosperity were really an attempt to redistribute cash from white taxpayers to undeserving racial minorities, especially Black Americans. Such programs were, opponents insisted, a form of socialism, or even communism. That argument worked to undermine white support for the liberal consensus. Over the years, Republican voters increasingly abandoned the idea of using tax money to help Americans build wealth. When majorities continued to support the liberal consensus, Republicans responded by suppressing the vote, rigging the system through gerrymandering, and flooding our political system with dark money and using right-wing media to push propaganda. Republicans came to believe that they were the only legitimate lawmakers in the nation; when Democrats won, the election must have been rigged. Even so, they were unable to destroy the post–World War II government completely because policies like the destruction of Social Security and Medicaid, or the elimination of the Department of Education, remained unpopular. Now, MAGA Republicans in charge of the government have made it clear they intend to get rid of that government once and for all. Trump's nominee to direct the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was a key architect of Project 2025, which called for dramatically reducing the power of Congress and the United States civil service. Vought has referred to career civil servants as "villains" and called for ending funding for most government programs. "The stark reality in America is that we are in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover of the country," he said recently. In the name of combatting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Trump administration is taking down websites of information paid for with tax dollars, slashing programs that advance health and science, ending investments in infrastructure, trying to end foreign aid, working to eliminate the Department of Education, and so on. Today the administration offered buyouts to all the people who work at the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that anyone who opposes Trump's policies should leave. Today, Musk's people entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides daily weather and wind predictions; cutting NOAA and privatizing its services is listed as a priority in Project 2025. Stunningly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today that the U.S. has made a deal with El Salvador to send deportees of any nationality—including U.S. citizens, which would be wildly unconstitutional—for imprisonment in that nation's 40,000-person Terrorism Confinement Center, for a fee that would pay for El Salvador's prison system. Tonight the Senate confirmed Trump loyalist Pam Bondi as attorney general. Bondi is an election denier who refuses to say that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. As Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket noted, a coalition of more than 300 civil rights groups urged senators to vote against her confirmation because of her opposition to LGBTQ rights, immigrants' rights, and reproductive rights, and her record of anti-voting activities. The vote was along party lines except for Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), who crossed over to vote in favor. Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is the logical outcome of the mentality that the government should not enable Americans to create wealth but rather should put cash in the pockets of a few elites. Far from representing a majority, Musk is unelected, and he is slashing through the government programs he opposes. With full control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans could cut those parts themselves, but such cuts would be too unpopular ever to pass. So, instead, Musk is single-handedly slashing through the government Americans have built over the past 90 years. Now, MAGA voters are about to discover that the wide-ranging cuts he claims to be making to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs skewer them as well as their neighbors. Attracting white voters with racism was always a tool to end the liberal consensus that worked for everyone, and if Musk's cuts stand, the U.S. is about to learn that lesson the hard way. In yet another bombshell, after meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump told reporters tonight that the U.S. "will take over the Gaza Strip," and suggested sending troops to make that happen. "We'll own it," he said. "We're going to take over that piece, develop it and create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something the entire Middle East can be proud of." It could become "the Riviera of the Middle East," he said. Reaction has been swift and incredulous. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, called the plan "deranged" and "nuts." Another Foreign Relations Committee member, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), said he was "speechless," adding: "That's insane." While MAGA representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) posted in support, "Let's turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago," Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) told NBC News reporters Frank Thorp V and Raquel Coronell Uribe that there were "a few kinks in that slinky," a reference to a spring toy that fails if it gets bent. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) suggested that Trump was trying to distract people from "the real story—the billionaires seizing government to steal from regular people." — Notes: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-payment-system/ https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musk-cronies-dive-into-treasury-dept-payments-code-base https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/technology/musk-allies-ai-government.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/feb/04/donald-trump-tariffs-live-blog-news-updates-canada-trudeau-mexico-china (This is the Treasury protest.) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/04/pam-bondi-confirmed-trump-attorney-general https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/04/elon-musk-government-legal-doge/ https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-vought-center-renewing-america-maga https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/americas/el-salvador-migrant-deal-marco-rubio-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/world/middleeast/trump-gaza-take-over-reactions.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/politics/cia-workforce-buyouts/index.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/04/doge-noaa-headquarters Bluesky: trisresists.bsky.social/post/3lhezjt6kmc2r X: You're currently a paid subscriber to Letters from an American. If you need help receiving Letters, changing your email address, or unsubscribing, please visit our Support FAQ. You can also submit a help request directly.
© 2025 Heather Cox Richardson
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04 February 2025
Demanding Impeachment
This is my letter to my representative in the House, Janelle Bynum. I intend to send a version of it to her, and to both my Senators, every week until something changes.
Ms. Bynum: I am 71 years old and more alarmed about the future of our country than I have ever been. I believe that we... you.... must labor against all odds with the goal of bringing about the impeachment of President Trump, and his removal from office. However difficult it may be to convince those on the other side that this man, who is clearly trying to undermine the institutions of our government completely and become an actual dictator, MUST BE STOPPED, at whatever cost. NOTHING is more important; no other issues can be effectively moved forward until this crisis is dealt with.
No Republican can honestly claim that had Biden or any Democratic president unilaterally shut down an agency of the United States government, created and funded by Congress for many decades and serving the vital interests of the United States, locking out its employees without notice, that they would not have called for, and voted for, that president's expedited impeachment and removal from office as soon as humanly possible; or that many of the members of the opposite party would not have joined with them in removing such a rogue president for flagrant violation of his oath of office to "take care that the laws of the United States" be "faithfully executed." Because of course they would have. But Trump has now done exactly this. And what will the Republican dominated Congress do unless we work assiduously to convince them to change their minds? Precisely nothing.
Slowly, member by member we... you.... must strive to convince Republicans as well as Democrats that the impeachment of Trump is an existential mandate if our republic is to survive. Everything you can think of to convince them. This is actually the only thing that matters right now. It is that stark. I pray for our country but am not optimistic. PLEASE take this as seriously as a heart attack.
Thank you. [signed]
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DEMAND IMPEACHMENT
03 February 2025
This is the end
No Republican can honestly claim that had Biden or any Democratic president unilaterally shut down an agency of the United States government, created and funded by Congress for many decades and serving the vital interests of the United States, locking out its employees without notice, that they would not have called for, and voted for, that president's expedited impeachment and removal from office as soon as humanly possible; or that many of the members of the opposite party would not have joined with them in removing such a rogue president for flagrant violation of his oath of office to "take care that the laws of the United States" be "faithfully executed." Because of course they would have. But Trump has now done exactly this. And what will the Republican dominated Congress do? Precisely nothing. Our constitutional republic is at an end, my friends. It is not a certainty that it cannot be revived, but I would not bet on it.
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