Señor Trumpanzee Threatened To Adjourn Both Chambers Of Congress

The Trumpists want to flex their authoritarianism and just flat out take over the government. Who didn't see this coming? The pandemic is the perfect excuse for him to try to do whatever it takes to seize extra-constitutional power. Yesterday, at his daily televised shit-show he threatened to force Congress to adjourn so he can appoint all the neo-Nazis it wants to put into position:

We have a tremendous number of people that have to come into government and now more so than ever before because of the virus and the problem. We have to do it and we have to do whatever we have to do... If the House will not agree to that adjournment, I will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress. The current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro-forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American people cannot afford during this crisis. It is a scam what they do. It's a scam and everybody knows it, and it's been that way for a long time.

To Trump, the normal functioning of government is obstructionism. He insists his sub-par nominations should have been approved without hearing and in just one hour because... um... they left law firms and jobs to come work for him. Fact is, the 47 Senate Democrats are, unfortunately, not blocking his putrid nominees. The GOP makes every single decision about how the Senate runs and all the Democrats can do to protect the country is stall-- for a couple of hours... literally TWO hours. That's what he's whining about? Two hours? Or is he trying to deceived manipulate people? Trump? Deceive and manipulate?

Brett Samuels and Jordain Carney, writing for The Hill, noted that "Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution grants Trump the power to 'on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.' That means that in order for the president to step in and dismiss both, the GOP-controlled Senate would have to adjourn while the Democrat-held House objected. Senate Democrats also have procedural tools to prevent the Senate from adjourning. The National Constitution Center noted that 'no President has ever exercised' the authority."

Senate Republicans were expected to set up another three weeks of pro forma session on Thursday afternoon to last through the chamber's new May 4 return date, after the recess was extended because of the coronavirus. Spokesmen for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about if they would now try to pass a resolution by unanimous consent.

The Trump administration has long been plagued by vacancies across the government. Trump has declined to nominate full-time appointees to key positions, instead relying officials in acting capacities.

One hundred and fifty of 749 "key positions" tracked by The Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service do not have nominees, while another 15 are awaiting nomination.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a key agency in guarding against the coronavirus and other national security threats, has not had a full-time secretary in over a year. A number of other top positions in the department remain unfilled.

Trump cited the director of national intelligence, two members of the Federal Reserve Board, the undersecretary of agriculture responsible for administering food security programs and the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media as nominees he has put forward who are awaiting confirmation amid the pandemic.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) nominated to be the director of national intelligence has not yet received a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Judy Shelton, one of Trump's Federal Reserve Board nominees, has not yet received a vote before the Senate Banking Committee, after hitting early skepticism from GOP members of the panel.

Trump's comments are likely to pour new fuel into the fight over nominations, which have emerged as a lightning rod in recent years. Senate Republicans went "nuclear" in 2019 to change the Senate's rules and cut down on the amount of time it takes to confirm most executive nominees and district judges. But Democrats are still able to force McConnell to eat up days of floor time for a single nomination under the chamber's rules.

Trump touted the number of judicial nominations, a top priority for McConnell, confirmed by the Senate: 193. But he argued that nominees for the executive branch were stuck in limbo for up to years because Democrats were "holding this up."

"It's a very unfair system," Trump said. "There's no time for anybody else and many of these people have been waiting for two and a half years... We can't get them approved by the Democrats... It's just a concerted effort to make life difficult." 

February 24 wasn't that long ago, was it? Should this man really be making any decisions in the middle of an existential, worldwide crisis like this, a crisis he only exacerbated every single time he involved himself in it in any way? If his followers keep taking his stock tips, much of the rest of America is going to get rich.