Donald Trump has done it again. He has found a Fox News blonde who will get up and lie her ass off for him, all the while vowing to the press corps, “I will never lie to you.” That was the exact same phrase Kayleigh McEnany spoke when she first took the job and you know what ensued. McEnany went on to her rightful place on Fox News, which is the American government’s hiring pool in this day and age. People mostly come from Fox News, but sometimes they enter *government* (as that term is understood under Trump) and then water seeks its own level and they wind up a talking head on Fox.
Which is undoubtedly where Karoline Leavitt is headed when all is said and done but we are early in the game here. Whatever a piece of work McEnany may have been, she did not create a judicial emergency cum scandal on Day One on the job. Leavitt did. Chalie Sykes tried to decide the “most embarrassing” person in Washington and Leavitt ranked under RFK, Jr.
Also in the embarrassment sweepstakes: Trump’s new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who bumbled her first day so spectacularly that she got a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order against the administration’s sweeping spending freeze order.
The federal funding freeze never rested on anything approaching firm legal footing, so when the administration swiftly issued a retraction before Judge McConnell of the District of Rhode Island was set to hear the matter, that seemed to be the end of this farcical episode. But it was actually the beginning of an even dumber legal strategy that has now imploded like one of Elon’s rockets.
All because the new White House Press Secretary decided to head to social media to brag that the administration would never back down and appears to have accidentally admitted that the administration was trying to defraud the court all along.
Oh really? said the judge.
I confess to being completely baffled by her “rescission of a memo” argument. The concept of rescission (which simply means taking back, revoking, canceling) is something you learn in the first semester of law school in contracts class. But I swear, there was never a scenario where a contract itself remained in force but a memo regarding that contract was rescinded.
The illogic of it is simply stunning and only an idiot would try to justify it. A memo, any memo, memorializes something and if you revoke the memorialization of details of a thing, it doesn’t affect the thing. I think. This is a new one in jurisprudence coming straight out of left field from a non lawyer, no less, and it’s completely asinine. And I would guess that maybe Stephen Miller, another non lawyer, is behind this, although maybe Russell Vought dreamt it up on his own. And he should know better.
If the memo says it, it must be right. And then I love the part where she quotes the “White House Counsel’s office, that it is within the president’s executive authority” to fire a bunch of people. This is Alina Habba calling the shots now and you know what a terrific trial lawyer she was. She said just the other day, and we wrote about it here, that the law is what she and Pam Bondi determine it to be.
It’s going to be a lonnnng and grueling four years watching this kakistocric oligarchy eat into our democracy. Will the guardrails hold? I guess we’re going to find out.
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I swear, the very first action that the next Democratic President MUST take is to put an end to Fox “News.” (Let the GOOD Fox stay–the entertainment network that brings us “The Simpsons” and “The Masked Singer” and other shows–but completely dismantle the “news” network and ALL the related propaganda channels by declaring them to be “enemies of democracy.” After all, Fox “News” won a lawsuit a couple of decades ago which allowed them to get away with their lies and BS because the network was simply an “entertainment” network, not a real news network.)
Or, at least, have them cease and desist in the use of “News” as part of their name. An interesting test of the 1st amendment. Better to reintroduce the fairness doctrine
I think it would be much better to develop a TRUTH & FACT network. Not like that horribly misnamed “fair & balanced” but one that would share reality not 100% lies.
Many commenters here and elsewhere are wondering where the Democratic Party has been since November. Maybe there’s somebody is in the backroom splicing together all the CSpan clips and writing good commentary. Heather Cox Richardson does a great roundup every day. Others like video. (I’d rather read that do video, but each of us likes different ways to get input.)
In lieu of doing the “Where’s the Democratic Party? Dance”, get involved in something, anything, at your local level. School board, other community meetings that affect YOUR life…it’s a great way to start.
“In lieu of doing the “Where’s the Democratic Party? Dance””, be the Democratic Party at local level….