Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:
Donald Trump is trying to use the Department of Justice as a weapon, claiming that, because of his conviction on 34 felony counts, he has “every right” to go after political opponents should he be elected in November.
This isn’t new for Trump. In 2017, he pushed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Later, he drove Attorney General William Barr to investigate ludicrous claims against President Joe Biden, resulting in a series of embarrassing international trips to support a baseless conspiracy theory.
Trump’s four years in office were all about politicizing the DOJ by breaking down the barriers intended to keep the department from being used as a cudgel by the White House.
His desire to hurt his opponents isn’t new, but the threat he represents is infinitely greater than it was four years ago.
The only thing that stood in Trump’s way during his four years in the White House was a kind of institutional momentum. Enough career officials remained in place that Trump faced strong pushback. Even Sessions, Barr, and acting Attorney General Jeffery Rosen had limits on where they would go for Trump.
But that won’t be a problem if he returns to Washington.
Trump has already made it clear that he intends to purge the federal government of impartial career officials and replace them with Trump loyalists. Project 2025 is centered around destroying the DOJ's impartiality and turning it into an attack dog for Trump.
Even before Trump went to trial in New York, Republicans were lamenting the weaponization of the justice system. Those complaints were supercharged after Trump was convicted. As always seems to be the case, the GOP is accusing Democrats of something that it’s already doing. In this case, it’s not just deflection; It’s an excuse to vastly increase the level of politicization in the justice system.
As The Washington Post reports, Republicans aren’t just crossing their fingers and hoping that Trump gets his hands on the DOJ a second time. They’re moving forward with an aggressive plan to blunt the effectiveness of the DOJ and target Trump’s enemies ahead of the election.
[...]
Punishing entire states for refusing to let Trump escape prosecution has become a popular theme among Republicans. It’s unclear how such a plan would work, but Republicans are expected to attach defunding federal investigations into Trump to upcoming must-pass legislation.
Republicans are also expected to pass along more criminal referrals, like the ones targeting Hunter and James Biden on Wednesday, which allow Republicans to pretend they’ve found crimes by political opponents, then attack the DOJ for failing to follow up on their make-believe evidence.
[...]
Trump spent four years knocking holes in that wall between the White House and the DOJ, and he’s been furthering that damage even while out of office. As bad as Barr, Sessions, and Rosen were as attorney generals—and they were awful—they won’t be a patch on what’s to come.
The GOP isn’t waiting for Trump to carry out his quest for retribution. They're getting a head start by urging Republican attorney generals and Congress to use every tool they can find to attack Biden and Democrats ahead of the election.
The GOP is weaponizing the DOJ and playing lawfare games to enact revenge on Donald Trump's opponents to aid and abet in his crime spree. If Trump gets elected again, what remains of the DOJ's impartialness will erode and become a fiefdom for Trump's lawlessness.
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My Super Gay/Queer Reading List
The Long Run by James Acker
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Another Dimension of Us by Mike Albo
Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak
Alan Cole Is Not a Coward by Eric Bell
Alan Cole Doesn’t Dance by Eric Bell
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
Felix Yz by Lisa Bunker
Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron
Dragging Mason County by Curtis Campbell
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara
Peter Darling by Austin Chant
Carry the Ocean by Heidi Cullinan
The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich
Half Bad by Sally Green
Half Wild by Sally Green
Half Lost by Sally Green
Heartbreak Boys by Simon James Green
Gay Club by Simon James Green
You’re the One That I Want by Simon James Green
We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra
Totally Joe by James Howe
After School Activities by Dirk Hunter
At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson
The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson
We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson
A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson
The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly Straight by Jeff Jacobson
Haffling by Caleb James
The Lightning-Struck Heart by T.J. Klune
A Destiny of Dragons by T.J. Klune
The Consumption of Magic by T.J. Klune
A Wish Upon the Stars by T.J. Klune
The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune
Flash Fire by T.J. Klune
Heat Wave by T.J. Klune
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg
The Bridge by Bill Konigsberg
Destination Unknown by Bill Konigsberg
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Every Day by David Levithan
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
Ryan and Avery by David Levithan
How to Repair a Mechanical Heart by J.C. Lillis
Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell by Tobias Madden
When Ryan Came Back by Devon McCormack
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Fraternity by Andy Mientus
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller
Hero by Perry Moore
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
More Than This by Patrick Ness
Junior Hero Blues by J.K. Pendragon
The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros
When Everything Feels Like the Movies by Raziel Reid
Kens by Raziel Reid
Emmett by Lev A.C. Rosen
Jack of Hearts by Lev A.C. Rosen
Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez
Rainbow High by Alex Sanchez
Rainbow Road by Alex Sanchez
So Hard to Say by Alex Sanchez
The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer
All Kinds of Other by James Sie
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
Freak Show by James St. James
Ray of Sunlight by Brynn Stein
The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis
366 Days by Kiyoshi Tanaka
The Language of Seabirds by Will Taylor
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas
Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas
Spin Me Right Round by David Valdes
Always the Almost by Edward Underhill
Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
Tumblr got rid of yellow so I couldn't do pride colors, sorry!
If you want help picking something out just send me an ask with what kind of thing you're looking for and I'll select something for you, and if you end up reading something because you saw this list, please let me know
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Cabinet Endorsements
One thing that's flown a bit below the radar in this election is that former cabinet members haven't been acting like they usually do. Normally, former cabinet members will automatically endorse their former boss for re-election, but Trump's have not been doing that.
This is of particular interest because, while we, the voters, get to see the President give speeches and the like, we don't actually work with him. Presumably a cabinet member is someone who agrees with the president and who the president trusts and who gets to work closely with the president, so their opinion of the president is an important benchmark.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the 44 former cabinet members of the Donald J. Trump administration and the 2 former cabinet members of the Joseph R. Biden administration. I'll put an (E) next to the ones that have endorsed their former boss, an (H) next to the ones who haven't yet, and an (R) next to the ones who have outright refused to do so.
Cabinet Members of the Donald J. Trump Administration
(R) VP Mike Pence
(H) Sec. State Rex Tillerson
(H) Sec. State/CIA Director Mike Pompeo
(E) Sec. Treasury Steven Mnuchin
(R) Sec. Defense James Mattis
(H) Sec. Defense Patrick Shanahan (nominated)
(R) Sec. Defense Mark Esper
(H) Sec. Defense Christopher Miller (acting)
(H) AG Jeff Sessions
(R) AG William Barr
(H) AG Jeffrey Rosen (acting)
(E) Sec. Interior Ryan Zinke
(H) Sec. Interior David Bernhardt
(H) Sec. Agriculture Sonny Perdue
(E) Sec. Commerce Wilbur Ross
(H) Sec. Labor Andrew Puzder (nominated)
(H) Sec. Labor Alex Acosta
(H) Sec. Labor Eugene Scalia
(H) Sec. HHS Tom Price
(H) Sec. HHS Alex Azar
(H) Sec. HHS Pete Gaynor
(E) Sec. HUD Ben Carson
(H) Sec. Transporation Elaine Chao
(H) Sec. Transportation Steven Bradbury (acting)
(H) Sec. Energy Rick Perry
(H) Sec. Energy Dan Brouillette
(H) Sec. Education Besty DeVos
(H) Sec. Education Mick Zais (acting)
(H) Sec. VA David Shulkin
(E) Sec. VA Ronny Jackson (nominated)
(H) Sec. VA Robert Wilkie
(R) Sec. HS John Kelly
(H) Sec. HS Kirstjen Nielsen
(H) Sec. HS Chad Wolf (nominated)
(E) US Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer
(H) DNI Dan Coats
(H) DNI John Ratcliffe
(H) UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
(H) OMB Directory Mick Mulvaney
(E) OMB Director Russel Vought
(H) CIA Director Gina Haspel
(H) EPA Admin. Scott Pruitt
(H) EPA Admin. Andrew Wheeler
(H) SBA Admin. Linda McMahon
(H) SBA Admin. Jovita Caranza
Cabinet Members of the Joseph R. Biden Administration
(E) Sec. Labor Marty Walsh
(E) OMB Director Neera Tanden (nominated)
(H) Office of Science and Tech. Director Eric Lander
The first thing we notice, obviously, is that there are a whole lot more former Trump cabinet members. This is partially because Biden is still in office so his 23 current cabinet members are not counted (it'd be a huge surprise if they didn't endorse him and they probably wouldn't still be working for him if they didn't), but it's also because Trump had way above average turnover for cabinet officials, 19 in the first four years not including the 5 who resigned due to his handling of the 2020 election results (not included because Biden hasn't reached that point in his first term yet), while Biden has had far below average turnover, only 3 so far.
So a lot more people shuffling in and out of the Trump administration, but we also notice a ton more H's than E's there. Heck, there's almost as many R's among Trump's people as there are E's (5 to 7). Meanwhile, Biden's shooting 2 for 3 and the third one hasn't (at least not that I could find) ruled out endorsing him.
Keep in mind, endorsing the nominee of your party is pretty much the bare minimum that any party operative needs to do. Imagine if you applied for a job somewhere, the first question was "do you think this company should be in business", and you answered "no". You probably wouldn't be getting a job there. In other words, refusing to endorse has some big consequences for the people doing it, not just costing them a job in the potential next Republican presidency, but locking them out of the party entirely, and yet a good deal of the people who worked for Trump disliked working with him so much that they're doing it anyways.
As I said, this tends to fly below the radar because it's kind of a formulaic ritual; of course members of the President's party who are closely tied to him are going to endorse him for re-election! That's why you should pay attention now that most of the people who've worked with Trump aren't doing so. It says something, something big.
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