Tag: russell vought
White House Chief Of Staff Rips Vance, Musk, Vought -- And Trump's 'Alcoholic Personality'

White House Chief Of Staff Rips Vance, Musk, Vought -- And Trump's 'Alcoholic Personality'

President Donald Trump's former campaign manager and current chief of staff, Susie Wiles left no one untouched speaking to a Vanity Fair reporter

In a new tell-all article, Wiles calls Vice President JD Vance "a conspiracy theorist for a decade."

There has been speculation about Vance's conversion from calling Trump "Hitler" to becoming a fierce defender of the president. Wiles reveals in the interview that Vance has been "sort of political" in his conversion.

Wiles also criticized Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought was the "architect of the notorious Project 2025," the Heritage Foundation plot to radically change the U.S. government from the inside.

According to Wiles, Vought is nothing more than "a right-wing absolute zealot."

Vought was closely involved with the effort to eliminate thousands of federal workers, leading to a brain drain of some of the smartest experts in government, Reuters reported in September.

Vanity Fair asked Wiles about the effort under Elon Musk to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Toward the end of his time in the White House, Musk confessed he would only able to cut about $150 billion by the end of 2026.

In March, the billionaire argued, in a since-deleted posted, that leaders like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler "didn't murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did."

Wiles said of the statement, “I think that’s when he’s microdosing.”

Wiles remark was in reference to reports of Musk's heavy drug use while working in the White House. In May, the New York Times reported Musk had a daily supply of 20 ketamine pills. He mixed the ketamine with ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and Adderall, according to the Times.

Wiles said she never had first-hand knowledge of Musk's drug use.

...

At one point during the interview, which involved a number of Trump staff members, Wiles said Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality."

She explained that he “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

Trump's brother, Fred Trump Jr., was an alcoholic, and Trump doesn't drink alcohol at all. However Mary Trump, the president's niece, has said that for the president, "nothing is ever enough."

"This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism," Trump's niece, who has a degree in clinical psychology, said of Trump. "Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be."

Mary Trump wrote that her grandfather bullied his son, Fred Jr., into alcoholism.

Later in the Vanity Fair report, it explains that Wiles' father "was an absentee father and an alcoholic, and Wiles helped her mother stage interventions to get him into treatment." He finally got sober and stayed there for the 21 years before his 2013 death.

"Alcoholism does bad things to relationships, and so it was with my dad and me,” Wiles said.

“Some clinical psychologist that knows one million times more than I do will dispute what I’m going to say. But high-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities.” Wiles said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Danziger Draws

Danziger Draws

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City and Vermont. He is a long time cartoonist for The Rutland Herald and is represented by Counterpoint Syndicate. He is a recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons, a novel and a memoir. Visit him at jeffdanziger.com.

Russ Vought

'Dictator' Cancels Congressional Authority -- And Republicans Roll Over

Russell Vought is the ultimate Trumper. The head of the Office of Management and Budget just anointed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to wind down the U.S. Agency for International Development ("wind down" being one of his favorite words) had a new stunt to try out this week to subvert constitutional separation of powers. You remember — Congress has the power of the purse. It must be on the citizenship exam. The answer should have an asterisk for President Donald Trump.

Trump's new trick this week is called the pocket rescission. The beauty of this one, unlike your usual rescission (of PBS funding, for instance) is that Congress doesn't have to do anything. The president just asks for the money to be rescinded — which freezes it automatically for the next 45 days, and if that should coincide with the end of the fiscal year, the money goes poof! And Congress' power of the purse is rendered a nullity.

So sayeth Mr. Vought:

"Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission," the White House Office of Management and Budget posted on X.

Even some Republicans spoke up. "Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse," Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the Senate Appropriations chair, said in a statement. "Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law."

The funds Trump canceled were largely intended for USAID, a global peacekeeping and anti-poverty agency that Trump has done everything he can to destroy; so it continues.

This was the script for the second term, and it is being carried out in every quarter. Accumulate power in the executive. Use it aggressively. Make of it a veritable show. Belittle and cast doubt on the courts and their authority. Undercut their esteem. Play chicken. And, of course, Congress. Play chicken and win.

Watching it, day-by-day, trick-by-trick, it is easy to miss the whole picture.

Is this what it looks like when a dictator moves in to take over?

Trump has been musing, aloud of course, about himself as dictator. "The line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting, "So a lot of people say, 'You know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator.'"

He later added: "Most people say ... if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants."

Not that Trump wants to be a dictator. He made that clear, sort of, the night before, albeit still fascinated with the idea that people might prefer dictators.

"'He's a dictator. He's a dictator,'" Trump said of his critics. "A lot of people are saying, 'Maybe we'd like a dictator.' I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator."

Really? Asking permission to rescind is all that it takes?

Russell Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist, had this same job at the end of the first Trump administration. He was a key contributor to Project 2025, which as you recall was all about this, and some of us didn't want to believe it then, so here it is again. He said then that his final goal of Project 2025 was to "bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will" and use it to send power from Washington, D.C., back to America's families, churches, local governments and states. He has said that he wants to "traumatize" federal employees. He comes from the Heritage Foundation.

Just this week's stunt. Just $5 billion in aid. I wouldn't bet against him. And I can only imagine what's next.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.



Don Bacon

GOP Rep. Bacon Rebels Over Funding Withheld From Omaha District

One of President Donald Trump's Day One executive orders that flew under the radar is provoking significant pushback from Congress — including from at least one House Republican.

The Atlantic reported Tuesday that Trump is apparently violating Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution with an executive order pausing the disbursement of federal funds already appropriated by Congress. On January 20 — the same day Trump pardoned January 6 insurrectionists and attempted to repeal birthright citizenship — Trump issued an executive order entitled "Unleashing American Energy."

That order includes a section dubbed "Terminating the Green New Deal," which freezes hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for various infrastructure projects launched during former President Joe Biden's administration. However, that money was already approved via the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which members of Congress were counting on for jobs in their districts.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who represents a purple district in the Omaha area, toldThe Atlantic that Trump's executive order was "alarming," particularly for his constituents, who were counting on $73 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to upgrade Omaha's airport.

"You just can’t determine what laws you want to execute and what you don’t," Bacon said, adding that executive orders from presidents representing both parties have "gotten out of hand."

"“You can’t change the law,” he added. “I think Republicans should stay true to that notion.”

According to The Atlantic, Bacon called the White House after that executive order was signed, which later prompted the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue a memo clarifying the scope of the "Green New Deal" section of the executive order in question. The Nebraska Republican said he was told the order mainly applied to the IRA provision pertaining to electric vehicle mandates, and was not a blanket cancellation of federal appropriations.

But Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), who is the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, wasn't convinced, saying she believed "everything is at risk." She flatly called the executive order "illegal," and characterized the president's move to freeze federal funds as "stealing."

"It’s creating chaos,” she continued. “I honestly don’t think the people who are dealing with this know what they are doing.”

During his confirmation hearing last week, OMB Director-designate Russell Vought (who was a leading architect of the far-right authoritarian Project 2025 playbook) refused to say whether he would allow Trump to violate the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which prevents presidents from denying the disbursement of federal funds already appropriated by Congress. He refused to say under oath whether Trump would abide by the law, telling the Senate Budget Committee: "For 200 years, presidents had the ability to spend less than an appropriation if they could do it for less."

Trump's executive order may not survive muster in the federal courts if the administration is sued over the impoundment issue. His executive order denying 14th Amendment protections to the children of undocumented immigrants was recently paused by U.S. District Judge John Cougheneur, who called it "blatantly unconstitutional."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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