Robert Reich: Trump’s legal setbacks for the past week

Long read but a good wrap-up for the week:

Today I’m feeling nauseously optimistic. (Nauseous optimism is when your heart aches and you’re sick to your stomach but believe you’ll live to see the dawn.)

Although every other constraint on Trump is gone — congressional Republicans are in the MAGA cult, Democrats are zombies, big business doesn’t dare oppose Trump, and high-tech has gone over to the dark side — one constraint remains: the federal courts.

And the federal courts seem to be holding firm, at least so far.

Consider what the courts did this week:

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1189986192494826

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launch a progressive airstrike on Trump’s billionaire-backed demolition of democracy

https://www.facebook.com/FearAndLoathingCloserToTheEdge/posts/639846732017966

https://www.facebook.com/VietVetsforDems/posts/1714510345934210

Howard Lutnick, Fool: Grannies won’t complain if they don’t receive their Social Security checks

Presumptuous moron!

Howard Lutnick, Fool
Howard Lutnick, Fool

The fastest way to start a revolution and throw Krasnov out of office is to start withholding the Social Security checks of 70 million Americans.

As the staff cuts at the Social Security Administration leave monthly benefit payments to tens of millions of Americans up in the air — alarming former SSA leaders on both sides of the aisle — Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, doesn’t think you should be complaining if your check doesn’t show up.

“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month — my mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t,” Lutnick told All-In Podcast hosts David Friedberg and Chamath Palihapitiya on Thursday. “She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says his mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if her Social Security check didn’t arrive this month

Musk Offers $100 to Wisconsin Voters, Bringing Back a Controversial Tactic

By offering cash to voters who sign a petition opposing “activist judges,” Elon Musk’s super PAC can help identify conservative voters in a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Elon Musk is bringing back his most controversial gambit from the 2024 presidential election: paying voters as part of a plan to identify and turn out conservative-leaning ones.

The super PAC that Mr. Musk founded to funnel his fortune into Republican causes, America PAC, said on Thursday that it was offering $100 to registered voters in Wisconsin who sign a petition “in opposition to activist judges” or refer others to sign it.

Musk Offers $100 to Wisconsin Voters, Bringing Back a Controversial Tactic – The New York