DL Open Thread: Friday, May 30, 2025
Get Back, Taco Cat. Always Backing Down Just Isn’t Where It’s At:
TACO has the potential to hurt Trump.
(1) It’s simple. Trump Always Chickens Out. You can put that phrase anywhere, apply it to anything, and everyone knows what it means.
(2) It’s meme-able. You have the slogan. You have the word mark. And you have an universally recognizable image. Hell, there’s even a pre-built emoji for it. 🌮 You can put this thing anywhere and it will be a symbol of the democracy movement.
(3) It’s universal. You can apply it to any situation. Trump pulls back on tariffs? TACO. Trump gives in to Putin? TACO. Trump increases the national debt? TACO.
(4) It’s organic. No Democratic strategist came up with TACO. It’s an observation that emerged from the finance world—from the very same bros who voted for Trump in the first place. You can feel the disdain of his own supporters dripping off of it.
(5) It hits at something deep inside Trump. It’s about his soul. It’s about his weakness.
Yes, Musk Can Be Sued For DOGE:
A federal judge in D.C. Tuesday greenlit lawsuits challenging Elon Musk’s position in the federal government and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as unconstitutional.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said 14 states and a group of advocacy organizations plausibly argued that Musk and DOGE’s efforts to slash the government violate the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.
The judge said Musk appears to lack the legal authority to direct alterations to the government because he is not a Senate-confirmed official and DOGE was never authorized by Congress.
“The Constitution does not permit the Executive to commandeer the entire appointments power by unilaterally creating a federal agency pursuant to Executive Order and insulating its principal officer from the Constitution as an ‘advisor’ in name only,” Chutkan wrote.
Chutkan said plaintiffs have also sufficiently alleged that they were harmed by DOGE’s “unauthorized access” to “private and proprietary information” and other actions.
President Donald Trump’s creation of DOGE was done without statutory or constitutional basis, the judge said, though she dismissed Trump as a defendant in the lawsuits because she did not want to interfere with “the performance of his official duties.”
BTW, looks like Trump and Musk are having a press conference together today. ‘Misty watercolor memories…’:
Yet More Official Trump Graft And Grift:
President Trump received plenty of attention this month when he happily accepted a $400m Boeing 747 from the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar.
“Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our country,” Trump posted on social media.
But Trump and his golf buddy turned special negotiator Steve Witkoff landed a much bigger gift this month, likely to enrich them far more: a $2bn investment in their new cryptocurrency venture from the emirate of Abu Dhabi.
The investment by a firm controlled by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund will go to World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm whose biggest beneficiaries are the Trump and Witkoff families.
The deal isn’t as headline-grabbing as Qatar’s plane, but it’s a lot more valuable. It was the biggest single purchase of World Liberty’s cryptocoins yet – an immense injection of revenue into Trump’s most lucrative personal money-making scheme.
None of this is normal. Presidents don’t usually maintain private businesses that sell investment vehicles to foreign leaders who seek favor with the United States. Nor do they appoint their private business partners as diplomatic envoys to negotiate with the same leaders over war and peace.
But Trump and Witkoff have found a vastly rewarding way to straddle the line between public service and private profit.
The quid pro quo?:
“The White House is open for business, and the Trump family is proudly advertising to the world where to send the check,” Chris Murphy of Connecticut told the Guardian.
Murphy charged that the administration’s announcement that it plans to relax restrictions on semiconductor exports to the UAE, a change the emirates have long sought, is a “quid pro quo” for Abu Dhabi’s investment in the Trump-Witkoff crypto venture.
What do you want to talk about?
Unfortunate pairing: the beauty of Streisand’s voice with the ugliness of Trump and Musk.
TACO Motherfuckers!!!
Donald Trump and chicken just go together, like in this SNL skit from 2004:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2742678942412375
Shané Darby makes some good points in this latest episode of the REV’s podcast:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/e348-non-exit-w-130188942?utm_campaign=patron_engagement&utm_source=post_link&post_id=130188942&utm_id=f195b353-8934-4c4f-8755-eee3bc5f7a40&utm_medium=email
In particular, the lack of support City Council receives from the City delegation in Dover. Which is what happens when they take their marching orders from (recently-retired) Mayor Mike and Buccini/Pollin and their assortment of PACs.
Supreme Court To Immigrants: “Drop Dead”. Unbelievable, but not unexpected:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/30/scotus-parole-immigration-trump/
“A divided Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way, for now, for the Trump administration to revoke the temporary legal status of more than 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who have been allowed to live and work in the United States while their immigration cases play out.
The ruling is the second time in recent weeks the high court has given Trump officials permission to terminate programs that protect immigrants fleeing countries racked by war or economic turmoil. Earlier this month, the justices allowed the administration to revoke temporary protections that allowed a different group of nearly 350,000 Venezuelans to live and work in the United States.
As is common with decisions on the court’s emergency docket, the majority did not explain on Friday why it was lifting a lower-court block on revoking the Biden-era parole program. The majority’s action came over a fiery dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was joined by fellow liberal Sonia Sotomayor.
“The Court has plainly botched this assessment today,” Jackson wrote. “It undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”
Maybe we’re better off if Trump does back off on some of his terrible ideas. And it might dampen MAGAt enthusiasm a little. On the other hand, it’s satisfying to see him look like even more of a fool.