Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Kazinski]

Extremely interesting case where Greenpeace is trying to use Dutch Anti-SLAPP law to avoid a North Dakota Judgment of about 400 million against Greenpeace for illegally trying to stop the Dakota Access pipeline.

It may work because Greenpeace is headquartered in the Netherlands, just like an American entity sued for First Amendment protected activities can protect their American assets.

But I don't think it will work to protect Greenpeace's American assets.

"Energy Transfer identified two U.S.-based Greenpeace entities and the umbrella group Greenpeace International as the ringleaders responsible for the pipeline fiasco. During a three-week trial in March, the pipeline company presented evidence that Greenpeace personnel funded and trained protestors and even equipped them with lockboxes to chain themselves to pipeline equipment. It also said that Greenpeace attempted to deprive the project of funding by falsely claiming the pipeline would encroach on tribal land. Greenpeace tried to distance itself from the violent conflict surrounding the pipeline. But the group couldn’t take back a 2016 email from Greenpeace USA’s executive director stating the “massive” support it provided to the protests. The jury returned a nine-figure verdict, including $400 million in punitive damages."

WSJ article, but non paywalled version here.
https://archive.md/MbtrO#selection-553.0-557.92

[Dr. Ed 2]

" It gives European courts significant leeway to relitigate American cases when the result doesn’t conform to their values."

That's an act of war.

Forget Greenpeace, let's seize both the assets of the Dutch Government and all Dutch citizens. If they're not going to recognize out law, we shouldn't recognize theirs.

The real solution will be to pass an American law explicitly authorizing the use of deadly force against Greenpeace. ND was starting to legalize running over protesters.

[not guilty]

Jeh Johnson, who served as secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration, and, before that, general counsel of the Department of Defense, has an op-ed column in yesterday's New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/opinion/hegseth-boat-strikes-killings.html

It is quite an effective rejoinder to the MAGAt whataboutists who posit equivalence between the Caribbean boat strikes and the targeted killings of other bad guys around the world by previous administrations, including that of Barack Obama.

As the Sesame Street jingle goes, one of these things is not like the others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsRjQDrDnY8&list=RDrsRjQDrDnY8&start_radio=1

[Mr. Bumble]

“Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine,”
Who said this?

[Drewski]

Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. There's no other evidence in the public record that Obama said it, only the claims of two guys with legal problems who did not personally work for or with him.

[Mr. Bumble]

So, we should reject as hearsay claims by people who were not actual witness to words and deeds?
Good to know.

[Malika la Maize]

Yeah, Bumble usually derides reports on anonymous sources when it’s about pols he likes.

[Mr. Bumble]

You got me.
So, we should [probably] reject hearsay claims by people who were not actual witness to words and deeds?
Better?

[Frank Drackman]

Could be Barry Hussein, but you left out all the "Uhhh"s

[Commenter_XY]

Paywalled. NG, feel free to swallow what The Old Grey Hag publishes. The rest of us take whatever The Old Grey hag publishes with a huge dose of salt. Jeh has an opinion; you know what they say about opinions and anuses.

Regardless, the reality is there will be many more narco-terrorist POS killed trying to smuggle drugs to America. It doesn't trouble me, or most Americans, either; double tap them all. Why? Try looking at a video of Kensington in Philly and you'll know why. Every year, these narco-terrorist POS kill thousands of Americans with their product. Enough!

You're right about the Sesame Street song...we finally have a POTUS who is merrily and efficiently killing drug dealers who kill thousands of our people every year. He is certainly different than the others.

But you do you, counselor. Take up the cause of narco-terrorist drug dealers; align yourself with them. Go defend them in court, pro bono. Become a customer of their product, help them out. Because drug dealing POS and narco-terrorists need friends, customers, and useful idiots too.

[Malika la Maize]

“we finally have a POTUS who is merrily and efficiently killing drug dealers who kill thousands of our people every year.”

Some of us are old enough to remember that libertarians used to deride the “war on drugs.”

[Sarcastr0]

Also not efficiently, and these people aren't drug dealers.

Bloodlust people swiftly get unmoored from the facts.

[Malika la Maize]

XY certainly is a bloodluster.

[Commenter_XY]

How many Americans dying every year of ODs from the POS narco-terrorists product is acceptable to you, Queenie (and Vibe Man)? Is that 10? 100? 1,000? 10,000? 20,000? Why don't you tell us what that number is. Just in the last decade, we are well past 200K.

If there were a protracted border war between us and say, Canada, and 200K Americans were killed over a decade, how would America react? Do you think we would just sigh and say, 'That is just the price we need to pay'? Uh no. We would absolutely destroy Canada to stop it.

Do either of you even care about these deaths of despair? They are Americans, in case you forgot. But I guess not just the kind of Americans you actually give a shit about. They don't live in nice homes in beltway neighborhoods, with neatly blown leaves to the curb.

Now we have a POTUS who is exacting retribution and significantly raising the stakes of smuggling illegal drugs to America. If you attempt to smuggle drugs to America, we will find you and you will die. This POTUS is not looking the other way and saying, 'Tut, tut, just another number'. No, this POTUS is actually doing something about it, not just talk; you could call it 'Doing Duterte'.

From a purely libertarian POV, the law is being enforced. You just don't like the terms of engagement.

[DDHarriman]

No rejoinder that has taken your position has ever been declared "ineffective" by you.

Naturally.

[Martinned]

It's been nice having the US as an ally for 110 years (from Europe's perspective) or literally since its founding (from a Dutch perspective). Hopefully someday we can be allies again.

In the meantime you can shove your national security strategy where the sun don't shine. It's a good thing that the US Regime is so incompetent, otherwise it might actually be a problem that it is now the official strategy of the US to make sure more far right parties get elected in Europe, so that there will be fewer brown people there. At least pre-2022 the Russians were quite good at election interference, which is how we got into the mess we're in today.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

[Martinned]

Yes, too many brown people and not nice against Trump's friends in Russia.

Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.

This lack of self-confidence is most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia. European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons. As a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, European relations with Russia are now deeply attenuated, and many Europeans regard Russia as an existential threat. Managing European relations with Russia will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.

[Martinned]

"Majority non-European"

Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European. As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What part of that isn't true?

[Dr. Ed 2]

You presume that "racism" is bad and being a "racist" is bad.

That has not always been the case, and it will not always be the case in the future.

[Martinned]

I guess interfering with foreign elections is fine, as long as it's the current US Regime doing it:

Our broad policy for Europe should prioritize (...) Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations

That reminds me: Whatever happened to those tariffs on Canada? No, not the fentanyl ones, the "Doug Ford hurt Trump's feelings" ones.

[Commenter_XY]

Eurotrash 1, when the Russians run your sorry socialist asses over, call us. We'll bail you out a third time.

[CountmontyC]

Personally I believe next time Europe calls we laugh at them and hang up the phone.

[Commenter_XY]

Well, with like-minded useful idiots like Eurotrash 1, they'd invite the Russians in and hail them as ideological liberators. They would not call for help.

Then the question is: Does RUS dominating europe represent a direct threat to the vital interests of the US?

The answer is yes. Which would put us in the challenging position of 'helping' a bunch of ingrates who did not ask for help.

[OpinionsVary]

Wait, I'm confused. Why would Martinned invite the Russian's in? Your position is that Martinned is very left wing. Russia isn't Communist any more. It's hard right nationalist. Shouldn't Martinned therefore be against Russia entering Europe?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Never forget that the Austrians invited Hitler in.

[Malika la Maize]

Not all of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_resistance

Enough with this collectivist nonsense.

[OpinionsVary]

Shouldn't that be the other way around? Hilter was Austrian and was 'invited' into German where he built his power base?

But even taking it your way - Austria inviting in Germany - the truth is Austria as 'the first victim of Nazi aggression' was pretty much post-war propaganda. The Anschluss vote was rigged but it would have easily passed even if it hadn't been (if not to the same farcical degree as the the rigged version). The public wasn't tricked by a trojan Hitler horse who pretended to be nice. They broadly supported it, invasion and all. Yes there were resistance fighters but they were a small minority.

[Commenter_XY]

The Communists never left. They simply changed the badges on their uniforms. And they're corrupt AF.

As an aside...The corrupt kleptocrats of RUS are a perfect match to the corrupt kleptocrats of UKR.

[OpinionsVary]

It's true that many members of the current ruling Russian elite were formally part of the communist state apparatus. Putin is famously ex-KGB for example. But as part of the post Soviet transition, they seem have kept the authoritarianism, jettisoned any actual communist ideology and replaced it with right wing nationalism. I mean, Putin is out there passing laws against gay propaganda while the standard Trump talking point is the left wanting to turn your kids into trans-gay-dragqueens or whatever. It's pretty clear that modern Russia and modern Putin bares little resemblances to either the western left or their communist past. They are, however, quite a good match for the right wing authoritarian strongman types.

[Commenter_XY]

Putin is a badge changer. And corrupt AF. And a very dangerous opponent.

[OpinionsVary]

I thought the current Trump line was that the idea Russia would attack Europe is farcical and, in fact, worrying about it inflaming tensions? See pulling troops out of Romania.

[Frank Drackman]

Who's this "We" Kimo-Sabe??

[Commenter_XY]

We (The USA). A third time.

[Frank Drackman]

I'm USA, I'm not with you

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah it sucks. It’s also not going to have any practical impact on anything. It’s a white nationalist document put out by the Stephen Miller faction.
Don’t listen to the bitter hater man who has no interest in the future of the GOP and who couldn’t win a popularity contest in a room alone.

[DDHarriman]

The Monroe Doctrine is White Nationalistisms put out by a POC Jew!!!

Will someone please think of the White Supremacies!?!?!?!

[Frank Drackman]

I guess you could call the Nation that lost millions of young men freeing you Pussies from the Nazi's an "Ally"
Might want to decide on Shit-ite or Sunni, we ain't doing it again.
One word (OK Two)
"Prayer Rugs"

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

Don't forget the first and third times -- inside of 80 years -- 1911-1991 -- we had to save Europe three times.

No mas!

[DDHarriman]

Get off our teats. We don't subsidize red-diaper-doper babies anymore.

Pay for your own shit.

[Martinned]

Meanwhile, after years of rampant legal violations, the Commission has finally fined Twitter under the DSA. Here is a short analysis of this decision: https://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-digital-services-act-main-character.html

And yes, it is an excellent question why the European Commission still posts on Twitter. https://euroblog.jonworth.eu/musk-wants-to-abolish-the-eu-while-european-commissioners-keep-posting-on-x/

[Mr. Bumble]

"And yes, it is an excellent question why the European Commission still posts on Twitter."
Because like politicians and bureaucrats everywhere, they are hypocrites?

[DDHarriman]

Quick send billions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops to protect these European bureaucrats who are censoring Americans IMMEDIATELY!!!

EVERYONE DROP EVERYTHING AND DEFEND OUR NATION'S GREAT ALLY...THE PEOPLE CENSORING AMERICANS!!!

[Michael Ejercito]

The Minneapolis police chief is gewtting into dangerous territory.

https://www.ms.now/news/minneapolis-police-chief-unlawful-force-ice-jobs

“If unlawful force is being used by any law enforcement officer against any person in this city and one of our officers is there, absolutely, I expect them to intervene, or they’ll be fired,” O’Hara said when asked how his officers should respond to excessive force by ICE agents.

O’Hara noted that cases of “excessive” force that were “readily apparent” would merit officer intervention. A sergeant from O’Hara’s department later clarified that while Minneapolis Police Department officers may physically intervene in the case of unlawful force, they would stop short of arresting ICE agents.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I'm waiting for ICE to start arresting cops ....

[Mr. Bumble]

Did you miss this?
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-illegal-alien-serving-local-police-officer-after-attempting-unlawfully

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/12/07/were-not-backing-down-owner-of-pro-ice-idaho-saloon-undeterred-by-violent-threats/

Ok, this article made me wonder about something.

Could a state, say The People's Republic of NJ, offer citizens a bounty of $1,000 to ID illegal aliens, paid upon successful apprehension of the illegal alien? Is that legal?

Could the fed gov't offer citizens a bounty of $1,000 to ID illegal aliens, paid upon successful apprehension of the illegal alien? Is that constitutional?

This bar owner better have paid up life insurance, and be a strong supporter of 2A in the case of self-defense.

[Brett Bellmore]

Both would be legal. What would also be legal, would be for the administration to create a program where illegals who reported their employers to the government got a bounty and a 6 month waiver of immigration enforcement. Not a work permit, just assurance of benefiting from discretion. So that an illegal alien could remain indefinitely and well paid, too, as long as they burned one employer after another.

[OpinionsVary]

If you actually wanted to fight illegal immigration, such a employer bounty would actually be highly effective. Maybe also let them sue for retroactive minimum wage back pay?

[Sarcastr0]

If you actually wanted to fight illegal immigration

Just as with abortion and antisemitism, these are not problems they want to solve they are excuses.

The GOP has become a delivery device purely for:
- binding the outgroup and protecting the ingroup.
- fascism-flavored content creation that has no actual effect.

[Brett Bellmore]

I realize you don't want to admit that the previous administration abjectly failed at securing the border, and let millions of illegal aliens flood the country, because that's what they intended to do.

But nobody really cares about your pretense that it wasn't deliberate.

[Sarcastr0]

Everyone that doesn't do policy exactly like you want it is a leftist doing a conspiracy.

This is what you need to believe to allow you to support MAGA doing performative cruelty, but not actually much else.

And you really really seem to want to support the cruelty.

[Brett Bellmore]

If I rob a bank it's not cruel to take the bags of money away from me. If I squat in somebody's house, it's not cruel to evict me. And if I illegally enter and/or remain in another country it's not cruel to deport me. It's not cruel to take from people what they never had a right to in the first place, just stole.

EVERY illegal alien gets deported. Every single solitary one.

Maybe if we weren't at the end of decades of selective enforcement, we could afford to make exceptions. But we ARE at the far end of those decades, with the widespread and entrenched perception that our immigration laws are just pro forma, and can be violated without consequence.

And we need to reestablish that they WILL be enforced, no matter what excuses you make, no matter how long you manage to hide before you're caught. You WILL be thrown out on your ass as soon as you are caught.

We need to make people around the world believe that we have borders again, and making exceptions is counterproductive under these circumstances.

[Malika la Maize]

Cruelty isn’t limited to violations of rights. To take a timely example I don’t think Dickens thought Scrooge violated any legal right of Cratchit’s but he thought his treatment of him cruel.

[DDHarriman]

>Everyone that doesn't do policy exactly like you want it is a leftist doing a conspiracy.

Don't forget all the data and all the public statements!

Those help also correctly classify the mass importation of brown people into White countries as intentional.

Don't forget all that evidence and stuff.

[Malika la Maize]

It’s bad enough to forget the maxim about ascribing malice where incompetence would suffice, but there’s also another easy explanation for Biden’s fail on immigration: overreaction to what many on the left saw as the cruelty of Trump’s enforcement efforts.

IMHO, Democrats mocked Romney with his self deportation approach but that’s the one they themselves should have adopted. You have to control immigration, and fining businesses that employ illegal labor effectively would likely dry a lot of that up without the enforcement many on the left probably wouldn’t stomach. But they whiffed on that.

[Brett Bellmore]

And I'm saying that they whiffed on it deliberately.

[Malika la Maize]

Well, yeah, that’s the nature of the partisan conspiracy theorist, latching onto theories that center on subversive bad guys when there are others with explanatory value available.

[DDHarriman]

What other explanations do you have for what we saw/see happening?

Make sure it covers all the documented evidence we've seen.

[Commenter_XY]

I have precisely zero sympathy for Americans who knowingly employ illegal aliens. They are exploiting illegal aliens for personal profit; jail those employers w/o bail until a trial. I can understand an illegal alien who comes here to work and try and get a better life; who would not do the same? Still, they are criminals b/c they broke the law. But the exploiting employer...no, they know exactly what they are doing, and I don't understand or forgive that; one punishes that behavior severely.

Considering the employment side of the equation:

Could a state or fed gov't offer US citizens a bounty of $5,000 to ID employers who employ illegal aliens, to be paid upon successful apprehension of illegal aliens identified as employed by those employers? (IOW, if you know an employer is exploiting a specific illegal alien(s), can one get paid for reporting it)?

[Mr. Bumble]

"Could a state, say The People's Republic of NJ, offer citizens a bounty of $1,000 to ID illegal aliens, paid upon successful apprehension of the illegal alien? Is that legal?"
You do know that Mikie Sherrill won the governorship, right?
More likely that the bounty would be on anyone reporting illegal aliens to ICE.

[Commenter_XY]

Turn on your irony meter. 😛

[Malika la Maize]

Former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown filed a motion this week to dismiss the second-degree attempted murder charge against him in Miami, citing Florida’s “stand your ground” law. The motion was filed electronically with the 11th Judicial Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County on Thursday by Brown’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh.

Brown is accused of snatching a handgun from a security official at a May boxing match in Miami and firing shots. Brown allegedly engaged in an altercation earlier in the night, and video appeared to capture him chasing after a man, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, while holding a black pistol.

Eiglarsh said last month that Brown was holding his own handgun and didn’t fire in anyone’s direction…

According to Brown’s motion, Nantambu previously stole Brown’s jewelry and spent 30 days in jail in Dubai in 2022 as a result, and Nantambu attacked Brown at a concert in 2023. The motion argues that Brown’s use of force was “fully justified” because he believed Nantambu intended to harm him.
Police questioned several people at the scene, and Brown was briefly detained. No arrests were made at the time, and no injuries were reported, according to The Associated Press. Later that night, Brown wrote on social media that he had been jumped “by multiple individuals who tried to steal my jewelry and cause physical harm to me.” He also said he had not been arrested, but Miami police issued an arrest warrant for Brown shortly thereafter.

The former wide receiver evaded authorities for more than four months. During that time, Brown, 37, posted frequently on social media, including 13 Instagram posts showing him in a luxury sports car, at a barbershop and lounging poolside.
U.S. Marshals apprehended Brown in Dubai in early November and extradited him to the U.S. Brown’s lawyer filed a not guilty plea on his behalf, and he was released from a Miami jail in mid-November.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6868526/2025/12/06/antonio-brown-case-dismissal-attempted-murder-charge/

[Frank Drackman]

"Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu"??
Let me guess,
Black guy??

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

This is, appropriately, a "hail Mary pass".

Trivially, stand your ground doesn't apply to chasing somebody.

[Malika la Maize]

Clever first line!

[Commenter_XY]

Surprising exactly no one, hamas has still failed to comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreement. And now wishes to renege, altogether. A typical palestinian.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/418975

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal renews calls for Israel’s destruction, rejecting Trump’s peace plan and UN demands to disarm

Hopefully, the Israelis will be successful the next time they try to kill Khaled Mashaal. And there will be a next time, I am quite sure.

The war is over when both sides say it is. This war is not over, regardless of what The Donald says. The human animals known as hamas will be disarmed, or they will killed in place.

Turkey should have thought about this; no way they get F-35s.

[Malika la Maize]

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that he divested from his holdings of thousands of acres of North Dakota soybean farmland last week to comply with his federal ethics agreement.

The move will separate Mr. Bessent from properties that posed potential conflicts of interest as he leads President Trump’s trade negotiations with China, including Beijing’s commitment to buying American soybeans.

The divestment took place nearly eight months after Mr. Bessent was originally supposed to shed the assets. Federal officials are required to sell assets and investments that they could influence through their work for the U.S. government…

According to his financial disclosure forms, Mr. Bessent owned as much as $25 million of soybean and corn farmland in North Dakota. The land constitutes thousands of acres in Burleigh, Kidder, Eddy, Benson and Wells Counties and earned Mr. Bessent as much as $1 million a year in rental income.

The farmland was controlled by a limited liability partnership called High Plains Acres. According to the most recent filing with the office of North Dakota’s secretary of state, Mr. Bessent’s husband, John Freeman, was a managing partner. An official with the North Dakota secretary of state’s office said last Friday that no additional documents had been filed that would indicate a change in management of the fund.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/business/bessent-divest-soybean-farms-ethics.html

[Sarcastr0]

An official with the North Dakota secretary of state’s office said last Friday that no additional documents had been filed that would indicate a change in management of the fund.

They lie. Until I see proof, I'm not going to assume anything based on Bessent's say so-

[Mr. Bumble]

"They lie"? Vibes?

[Sarcastr0]

Randy Barnett really making a cottage industry of running academic cover for anti-birthright citizenship movement.

Pretty dispiriting where the VC of 10 years ago ended up.
Good job Prof. Kerr for dodging that bullet.

[Malika la Maize]

The College Football Playoff bracket was revealed Sunday, and Nick Saban wasn’t happy to see Notre Dame be the first team out in favor of Group of 5 programs Tulane and James Madison, which earned guaranteed berths in the 12-team bracket as two of the top-five ranked conference winners.

The ESPN analyst and seven-time national championship coach with LSU and Alabama was asked for his thoughts after the final two at-large spots went to Alabama and Miami, leaving the Fighting Irish out of the Playoff.

“I think the fact of the matter is, all three of those teams should have gotten in and deserve the right to play in the College Football Playoff,” Saban said. “… You’re going to have two teams in the playoff — no disrespect to the Group of 5 — that are nowhere near ranked as highly as some other teams that are much better than them.”

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6870296/2025/12/07/nick-saban-notre-dame-cfp-bracket-reveal/

[Malika la Maize]

Related:

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish announced on Sunday the team will forgo playing in a bowl game after it was left out of the College Football Playoff field.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/notre-dame-opts-out-bowl-game-after-being-left-out-college-football-playoff.amp

[Dr. Ed 2]

Has Gaza been stabilized?

[OpinionsVary]

Hard to say. We've had phase 1 ceasefires before (Biden forced one a while back but it broke apart and wasn't extended). Hopefully this one can get into phase 2, which should be happening soon.

Signs are mixed.

There's some good signs. Fighting has generally been sporadic and some new elements are rolling forward, like opening the Rafah crossing.

On the bad side, the phase 2 stuff is quite a bit harder and hamas is playing up again - rejecting key parts of the peace proposal. If we're lucky, they're just sounded off to their base and/or can be forced into compliance by regional actors.

https://www.jns.org/hamas-chief-rejects-key-points-of-trump-peace-plan-calls-for-israels-destruction/

[ReaderY]

The original meaning of the word vested meant clothed or adorned, very close to the word vest. The word vestments still retains the relationship. ILike the word president, conoting a figure who merely presides and by no means has absolute control, the word vested means that the President is adorned amd ceremonially resposible for the Executive branch. “Vest” once meant a robe of the sort British mMonarchs wear at theie coronation. If came to mean a lesser article of clothing only later. British monarchs are to this day vested, with executive power exactly like American Presidents, they receive literal vestments of office at their coronation. Yet nobody would today claim this implies any absolute control.

An American President, to be sure, can never become a pure figurehead, because the Constitution gives the President several specific enumerative powers. But the Constituion very notably did not give the President any absolute power to appoint any of his nominal subordiantes. All Presidential appointments, every pne, require the consent of the Senate. This alone is a sign the Constitution nevee intended to give the President any absolute power over the executive branch. Nobody unable to select appointees without another’s consent can ever have complete control. And the constitution gives the President no enumerated power to fire anyone.

I am going to advance the position that the President’s wnumerated powers are the only ones he has, that he can do nothing else whatsoever without Congress’ permission. If he wants to fire someone, he needa to ask Congress to pass a law, nust as he does if he wants to create or rename an office or hire someone.

Indeed, it would be entirely anomalous to let the President fire someone at will, yet not be able to hire anyone without asking for permission. The Framers were extremely aware of the consequences of partisan divides, and they were wise enough not to countenance a situation where a President could simply get rid of executive officers yet, facing a Senate of different persuasion, be unable to fill them with ones he deems better.

The crisis we are in is entirely one of judicial making. We have fundamentally misconstrued what “vested” means, been beholden to Presidential grandiosity, and have given too much weight to certain passages of Hamilton when he was attempting to sell his own vision of what the President should be rather than fairly representing the compromise office the Constitutional Convention in fact created.

Even there, Hamilton’s careful walk through the President’s enumerated powers should belie the idea that he somehow has every other possible executive power just from the mere use of the word “vested.” The requirement to get the advice and consent of the Senate before appointing is no anomaly.

I want to point out a specific reason numerated power of the President, the power to ask for a written report on any subject from his officers. If the vesting clause really grants actual rather than purely ceremonial control, this clause becomes an inexplicable anomaly. Of course the President can do that! How could it not be obvious! But its presence is a sure sign of the real relationship between the President and his nominal subordinates that the Framers actually had in mind. Without that enumerated power, his “subordinates” wouldn’t even have any obligation to tell him what they are up to! That, I think, is the most powerful indication imaginable that the Framers never gave the President any power or authority to fire anyone. But for their textual onligation to tell the President what they are doing, absent a Congresssional grant of authority the President presides over them and is “vested” with them in a purely symbolic, figurehead sense, with no actual power over them whatsover. Once appointed, the only say he has in what they do is whatever say Congress gives him. He certainly can’t fire them unless Congress says he can.

[Mr. Bumble]

Thank you for filling in for Lathrop.

[Malika la Maize]

Several good points here.

[Mr. Bumble]

Lots of word games.