U.S. Politics


Trump's ‘pocket rescission' is a rarely used flex on Congress. Here's why some say it's illegal​

By The Associated Press​

President Donald Trump during a Cabinet meeting, Aug. 26, 2025.
Trump’s budget office is telling Congress it won’t spend funding for nearly $5 billion in foreign aid projects that had already been approved by lawmakers, just weeks before the end of the fiscal year.

It’s a flex on Congress’s authority that hasn’t been used in nearly 50 years, in part because it’s so legally dubious. Here’s why.

Usually, funding rescissions from the White House have to be approved by Congress, but because this rescission request was made so close to the end of the fiscal year, Congress doesn’t have time to act within the 45-day window it’s given under law to either accept or reject the request.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which acts as a watchdog for Congress, has already weighed in to say that such a move — called a “pocket rescission” — is illegal. Essentially, it allows a president to subvert Congress’ constitutional power over government funds.

But the White House went ahead and did it anyways, setting up a clash with lawmakers as they try to work out a funding package in the coming weeks.
 

and here comes the next pandemic...
Damn, I've been curious about this as I have some people who have been posting a lot of pandemic and mask content with every other crisis at their disposal. Wasn't sure how serious it really might be.
 
Don't worry guys - I'm sure 2025 United States will be literally the first time in history that the rise of fascism was stopped before it went too far.
 
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I was pretty encouraged by that article. We have a ton of tools at our disposal. Our situation is also unique because our would-be dictator is 79.

I think assuming Trump will die soon is false hope (his father died at 93), but he doesn't have more than 15 years left.
 
I just don't see him making it 15 years. His father seemed to be in better shape and probably didn't have his bad food habits. I don't even see him lasting 5 years with the way he is looking and what we know about him.
 
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I just can't envision an American Civil War even in the wake of the movie.

The National Guard is patrolling the streets of American cities.

Masked and armed ICE agents are abducting civilians off the streets and "disappearing" them.

Tanks are on our streets.

Free speech is being extinguished.

Elected politicians and judges are being arrested.

Court orders are being completely ignored.

Laws are being broken, lies are being normalized and threats are being made.

We're getting farther and farther away from our republic and our democracy.

I hate that it's come to this, but I don't see anyway around it. We're going to have to fight for our freedoms or lose them.
 
(warning long read)

He wasn't as bad as Trump but I'm surprised at this foreshadowing. Stupid moron refused to pass a budget trying to force his agenda.
Karma is coming for those rural MAGA voters I'm sad for the others there in the crossfire.
 
The National Guard is patrolling the streets of American cities.

Masked and armed ICE agents are abducting civilians off the streets and "disappearing" them.

Tanks are on our streets.

Free speech is being extinguished.

Elected politicians and judges are being arrested.

Court orders are being completely ignored.

Laws are being broken, lies are being normalized and threats are being made.

We're getting farther and farther away from our republic and our democracy.

I hate that it's come to this, but I don't see anyway around it. We're going to have to fight for our freedoms or lose them.
Sure.

I still can't envision armed or violent resistance based on how people behave and react in person and online.

So I'm in Canada. I had two violent incidents in the last year. I'll share one:

I was going to the movies in my neighborhood. It was about 9:30 at night and I'm walking up to the theater through a darkened parking lot. I'm on the sidewalk, there's a whole mostly empty parking lot to the left but I'm walking on the sidewalk because those are the little rules I abide by. My therapist says it's due to neurodivergence, particularly autism, that I have a really strong sense of justice and just obeying the rules as they are told to me. So. I walk on the sidewalk.

There are high school or early college kids coming up the sidewalk towards me. They are well out. I'm minding my own business. Now as they approach it becomes increasingly clear they are not going to be moving out of the trajectory that we both have. Myself, I'm on the sidewalk. I treat the sidewalk like the road, I'm on the oncoming traffic side. But they are walking wide across the sidewalk and as they close in, one of them decides to start strutting around like a velociraptor and growling and s*** talking me.

I ignore them, but again, if I don't step aside, we're going to collide. I don't know why I should have to step aside, I'm on the right side of the sidewalk.

Dinosaur guy closes the distance to me and at this point, maybe he has a knife, maybe I'm going to get mugged, I don't know. I don't genuinely live my life concerned about these things, but they are things you have to be concerned about.

All this happens within like 20 seconds:

Closes the distance like he steps up to me chest to chest. Comes out of his dinosaur stands so we are chest to chest face to face. And he calls me a homophobic slur in a Jamaican accent. He's white, for the record.

It was when he closed the distance chest to chest face to face, that my own boxing hobby and former military training kicked in. Someone was in my space. In my personal hitbox like we were shoe to show.

So I grabbed him by the neck with one hand and I grabbed him by the back of his hoodie with the other and I slammed him to the sidewalk.

His friend just made a wide-eyed face and then stepped clear away from me and started walking away. Dinosaur guy stood up.

"It's just jokes, bro!"

And ran away.

My immediate thought was regret. I was ashamed. I did that, and I was very concerned that with my stature and frame and muscle I might have done this little skinny twerp a lot of harm. I could have killed him had he landed wrong.

Now obviously my adrenaline is up. So I tell my best friend what just happened.

He tells me I'm in the wrong and you're never supposed to lay hands on anybody and violence is never the answer and that he's lost a lot of respect for me. I hang up because that made me feel worse.

I text some other friends, and it becomes very clear that I am the villain and the problem.

I should have moved. I should have stepped out of the way. I should have backed up. I should have let them do whatever they were doing.

And I felt like s*** for a month and my therapist thought I was ridiculous for feeling guilt at all, but that's why I pay her.

I will spare the second long-winded story, but within the month I had another situation where I was out with a friend on the street. No drinking or anything involved. Just another Young Buck thinking they could talk s*** and harass a woman, and when I intervened because I don't think anyone should be treated like that. Guy three the first punch and slur.

I love slurs, because I'm so vaguely brown nobody can ever actually nail down what it is.

Had to repeat.

Once again. I am terrible. Violence is never the answer. I shouldn't have instigated. I shouldn't have intervened. Let other people handle it. Da da da.

So when I see people posting memes and ranting on social media about how we need to do something.... The problem is nobody's actually doing something. Everybody is waiting for someone else to do something. And as we've kind of covered previously, especially with this story, when people do do things, there's a lot of other people who claim to be the opposition, but will also shame those people reacting in certain ways.

But I'm 42, I came up in a different world, and I think sometimes, as someone who was bullied and someone who does not like violence, I do think an ass whipping is sometimes the deterrent and solution. But I know too many people these days that tell me it's not. That tell me violence is wrong. That tell me standing up to authority is wrong. Etc.

And that's the lens I'm viewing things through. I see a lot of tough talk and I don't see a lot of people online or in meatspace, who truly, madly, deeply, would walk any sort of walk.

And maybe Batman is a fascist,.too? I don't f****** know. Sometimes it's the only language people understand. I don't know.

TLDR: It just seems to be the general attitude of America, and the Western World, that someone else should do it, and no one else is actually going to do it.

Someone earlier mentioned a point I had never considered: that if it does kick off it's really just going to be about rural versus urban. And I think that's more realistic and I think it will just become some longer blood feud mired with no clear goal. Who's going to do it? How? What's the steps and real endgame?

Even now everything is, "Well, it'll go too far at one point," ad nausuem.

I'd love to be wrong, though. Which is why I'd like to know how strategically people think this would work.
 
Jesus. Next time can you just call me so I can tell you "well, they fucked around and found out" or some other shallow yet supportive bullshit? I don't believe in violence and wish it wasn't necessary, but basically... Fuck yeah. You left out the part where he was wearing his "please body slam me" shirt.
 
Maybe when.they were collecting heads in France there were naysayers and performative activists. I say that with no sarcasm, because even deep diving WW2 there were apologists. Famously even stayed out of it all until Pearl. Hey, there's the historic precedence for benchwarming.
 
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