| | | (Rob Dobi for The Washington Post) | | You might breathe a sigh of relief that Matt Gaetz — more on him shortly — won’t be Donald Trump’s attorney general, but the erstwhile congressman and alleged sex trafficker is, alas, just the beginning of Americans’ worries. Ruth Marcus has pulled together what she calls a “concerned citizens’ guide” to the constitutional challenges coming soon from the president-elect. These are not just bad policies or bad personnel picks, Ruth writes, but “structural changes” that once undertaken would be “nearly impossible” to roll back. Ruth lumps Trump’s plans into four buckets: - Expanding recess appointments. This is what we’re already seeing with his stated intent of eviscerating the Senate’s advice-and-consent role so he can stuff his nominees through (at least the ones who don’t pull out amid scandal).
- Refusing to spend money appropriated by lawmakers. Congress has the power of the purse, but the president is the person who spends what gets set aside. Expect Trump to argue — against plenty of case law — that he doesn’t have to spend as directed.
- Stripping agencies’ independence. We are talking about the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission — all the bodies that work precisely because they’re not right under the president’s thumb. Alas, that is where Trump threatens to put them.
- Politicizing the civil service. Trump says he’ll do this by making fireable tens of thousands of currently protected bureaucrats and then, should they not bend to his will, firing them.
There’s worse, of course, that Trump plans to do — separating immigrant families, for instance. But for Ruth’s money, there’s no more direct assault on the “architecture of democracy” than what she outlines above. But! Ramesh Ponnuru sees the withdrawal of Matt Gaetz from consideration as a sign that one of Ruth’s worst fears — Trump operating entirely without checks and balances — may be overblown. At least for a candidate as troubling as Gaetz, the Senate was apparently not willing to stand aside. Ramesh says that two additional Trump-redux illusions should go down in flames, too: - That any of Trump’s Cabinet picks deserve deference. Presidents normally “should have leeway” on this front, Ramesh says, but Trump’s record so far suggests unprecedented scrutiny is necessary.
- That Republicans should help Trump by removing all constraints in a second term. In fact, for Trump’s sake, they might want to do the opposite. As Ramesh writes, “when Republicans balked at Trump’s wishes during his first term, it was often not only justified but also even helpful to him.”
Chaser: In a second column, Ruth Marcus echoes Ramesh, writing that Gaetz’s demise is not a pass for senators to now let other unqualified Cabinet nominees slide through. |  | | From a column about a particular Kubota LX2610 tractor owned, against all odds, by Dana Milbank, who says his spanking-new farm equipment will either extend his life or end it very, very swiftly. On the gorier end, he notes, the tractor could squish, squash, splatter or spiralize him. (“The operator’s manual lists so many potential means of my demise that it separately categorizes those things that ‘will result in death or serious injury’ and those that merely ‘could result in death or serious injury.’”) Should he manage to restrict the bushhogging to what’s beneath him rather than what’s within him, however, tractor operation could do wonders for his longevity. Mental sharpness, Dana reports, benefits greatly from “learning new, complex skills, such as dancing, playing team sports, speaking different languages, taking up a musical instrument — or even riding a tractor.” Don’t everybody rush to trade in your sudoku puzzles all at once. Less politics I am going to see “Wicked” tonight. I think this is an act of free will? But after seeing Edith Pritchett’s latest cartoon, I’m not entirely sure. |  | | (Edith Pritchett/The Washington Post) | Smartest, fastest It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku. Puttering tractor Bushhogs ’cross the brain’s furrows Fertile gray matter Plus! A Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from readers Bruce W. and Kevin B.: The clown car beckons Stooges clamor to hop in Who gets the last laugh *** Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. Have a great weekend. | | |
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