summer_in_TX
summer_in_TX's JournalThe case for impeaching and removing every Federalist Society judge and justice
Fascinating article with lots of detail supporting the argument.
The Case for Impeaching and Removing Every Federal Judge and Supreme Court Justice Who Has Ever Been a Member of the Federalist Society or Endorsed Unitary Executive Theory.
Christopher Armitage
Let’s start with the doctrine. Unitary executive theory says the president alone controls the entire executive branch of the federal government. Every official who enforces federal law, from cabinet secretaries down to line prosecutors and agency inspectors, works under presidential command. The president can hire them, fire them, override their decisions, and direct their actions. No part of the executive branch operates independently of the president’s will. The theory rests on the opening line of Article II, which vests “the executive Power” in a president, and proponents read that grant as complete. If executive power belongs to the president, the argument goes, then anyone exercising executive power must answer to the president, and Congress cannot insulate executive officials from presidential control.
Unitary executive theory (UET) is a forty years old legal theory, attached to “originalism, although the Constitution it claims to interpret is nearly two hundred and fifty years old. UET was invented in the Reagan administration, by lawyers who needed a constitutional argument that would expand presidential power in directions the conservative movement wanted it expanded. Reagan took office in 1981 and the Federalist Society launched the following year at Yale and the University of Chicago, founded by law students who would become the architects of the project, including Steven Calabresi, who would later coauthor the foundational law review articles claiming unitary executive theory as the framers’ original design. Edwin Meese became Attorney General in 1985 and turned the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel into a workshop for the new doctrine, producing the originalist briefs and internal memoranda that would become the movement’s intellectual scaffolding. Antonin Scalia joined the Court in 1986 and wrote the founding dissent of the project two years later in Morrison v. Olson, arguing the independent counsel statute violated the Constitution by placing an executive officer outside presidential control. That dissent became scripture, taught in Federalist Society reading groups and cited in law review articles as the suppressed truth about Article II.
The historical claim was always thin. The first Congress, sitting with many of the same people who wrote the Constitution, created executive offices with mixed structures and debated removal at length without treating presidential control as absolute. Alexander Hamilton, the framer most associated with executive powers, wrote in Federalist 77 that the Senate’s advice and consent role extended to removal, a position the strong unitary theory cannot accommodate. The Comptroller of the Treasury, established in 1789, operated with explicit independence from presidential direction. Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, decided in 1935, upheld for-cause removal protections for Federal Trade Commission commissioners and stood as settled law for nearly ninety years. Constitutional scholars including Jed Shugerman, Jane Manners, and Lev Menand have documented in recent work how thin the originalist case becomes when the sources receive honest treatment. The theory’s proponents knew this. They built the doctrine anyway, because the doctrine was useful, and they spent four decades credentialing the lawyers who would become the judges who would convert a Reagan-era policy preference into binding constitutional law.
The record of the debate by the founders in the Federalist Papers refutes what the theory of the unitary executive claims. The Federalist Society's claim of original intent a smokescreen for what they are actually doing. It is a remaking of the Constitution to say what they want it to say. Long article, but essential reading.
Religious extremism has gained hold of federal and red states government. How do we shove it back?
What we have done so far isn't working. It's spreading like a metastasizing cancer.
Is it because we keep using phrases like Christian Nationalists, Christian Fascists, and the Christian Taliban? I suspect it is, because that just constantly reinforces their supposed Christianity, as if those are just branches of the "true vine." New denominations, if you will.
All of those are forms of christopretensism. Those promoting it are christopretenders. As we use the word, it clarifies what is really going on and keeps from reinforcing their ability to pass themselves off and deceive people to gain power, control, and money. Hope it makes the dictionary before long.
The person who proposed it is very flawed, but the word and its derivatives is too useful to let that stop it from getting used.
So encouraged after a visit with our older son.
He was utterly disgusted with Trump and all the lies. He started the conversation too, very unusual around us. He'd closed his ears, at least to me, until the other day. He listens to a lot of podcasts including Joe Rogan and says a whole lot of people who had previously voted for Trump were angry and disillusioned that he'd said one thing over and over and was doing the exact opposite.
He didn't fall into the camp of the MAGA cultists exactly, but he has flirted with the conspiracy theory crowd after 9/11. Plus he has been vulnerable to propaganda and being influenced by friends and co-workers.
They have a large family to feed and clothe and though he makes good money as the IT director for his city, both he and his wife are trying to earn some extra money to make ends meet and afford groceries.
Christopretensism is the new word I just learned. So descriptive!
The word has the definition built in – pretending to be Christian, performing it – devoid of the actual teachings of Jesus.
When I've talked about Christian nationalism it seems still like it must be a valid branch of Christianity. No, it is heretical, a pretense and distortion, defamation of Christ and Christians.
I would love to see this spread far and wide.
"I Saw It on TikTok. It's Actually in the Congressional Record."
I Saw It on TikTok. It’s Actually in the.Congressional Record.STATEMENT FROM MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS; Congressional Record Vol. 172, No. 76 (Senate - April 30, 2026)
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-172/issue-76/senate-section/article/S2162-1
The author, Rachel @ This Woman Votes, was startled to learn about the statement for medical professionals on TikTok rather than on professional news sources. She provides a very thought-provoking discussion of why the Press has not picked it up.
She really examines the whole question of a president who has become incompetent and the history of the 25th amendment and how it was set up. Why has it been historically hard to remove a President who needed to be removed?
Insightful.
Demise of Voting Rights Act already hurting minority voters across the country
The immediate wave of filings and court orders offers a stark preview of what’s to come as the heart of the VRA becomes almost impossible to enforce and the consequences unravel ahead of the 2026 elections.
Snip…
A day after the decision, U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) called on the Justice Department to review congressional maps across the country and identify districts “improperly drawn using race,” urging officials to reopen Section 2 cases and issue new guidance reflecting the court’s ruling.
“Senator — we are ON IT!” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon wrote in response.
The exchange signals that a law long used to protect minority voters could now be deployed to target the very districts created to ensure those voters have a voice.
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/demise-of-voting-rights-act-already-hurting-minority-voters-across-the-country/
The Trump regime is going after blue states voting maps now.
Did any state mention race as they drew their maps? Expect the attacks that are coming.
We know Trump is planning to interfere with the mid-term elections. The antidote to despair is
planning and action.
THE EXISTENTIALIST REPUBLIC
[link:THE EXISTENTIALIST REPUBLIC
What You Do About The Despair.|What You Do About The Despair.]
The 2026 midterm election and races for offices across the country are seven and a half months away. A law redirecting federal tax withholdings tells a federal government determined to end free and fair elections exactly what it will cost them. It makes clear that if they sever the constitutional bonds in an extreme enough fashion, there will be an immediate, appropriate, and proportionate response. It passes the legislature now, sits on the books, and fires automatically the moment the federal government crosses a defined line. The full legal framework for the trigger law is in the free Tax Warfare ebook at buymeacoffee.com/theer/e/485448, along with an entire array of individual, private, and public tax-based responses: what you can do with your own taxes, what businesses can do, and what governments at every level can do to fight back through the tax system.
Someone will tell you that redirecting federal tax revenue is illegal. Sure. So is sending ICE agents to polling places. So is refusing to certify an election your side lost. So is nullifying results you don’t like. The people aiming at our elections are not waiting for legal permission, and the question worth asking is not whether our response is tidy; it is what we plan to do if they succeed. A trigger law is that plan, written into statute before November arrives. The moment they cross the line they are already moving toward, the law fires. The legal challenge to the tax redirection and the financial pressure on the federal government land at the same time. We do not scramble. We do not negotiate. We tell them now, in writing, what happens the moment they follow through. That is not a threat. That is a law.
Call your governor, your state representative, and your state senator and say this:
“I am calling to urge you and the legislature to introduce trigger legislation before the 2026 election. This legislation should order all employers to redirect all federal tax revenue in the event of the federal government interfering with our state’s election administration or refusing to certify our legitimate election results. We need this protection in place now, not after our elections are stolen.”
Christopher Armitage and a whole online and irl community are working in overdrive to get these and other specific ways to counter the fascist takeover in front of state legislators, crafting model legislation tailored for particular states. They're doing the research and scripts to ask state AG's to investigate and file state criminal charges against Trump officials for laws broken in their states.
Brilliant stuff, just brilliant. Using the sovereign power of states to shut down federal overreach and authoritarian takeover. Several states are actually taking action. It's so encouraging.
Texas school districts are facing major financial hurdles.
Austin ISD is ending the current school year with a $49 million deficit. The board is closing ten schools at the end of this school year, but they are going into the 2026-'27 school year with a projected $181 million shortfall. The deficit is caused by several factors: a reduction in property tax values, enrollment decline, increased costs and delayed real estate deals led to a $30 million increase in the current year budget deficit.
https://www.austinisd.org/announcements/2026/04/08/austin-isd-faces-deeper-budget-cuts-due-growing-budget-deficit
Hays Consolidated ISD, another district in Central Texas, is having to trim next year's budget by $12 million, affecting at least 120 jobs. Record inflation and no increases in the basic student funding allotment from the state between 2019 and 2025 have taken a heavy toll.
Eastside ISD (San Antonio) projects a $49.5 million deficit.
San Antonio ISD is working to cut $19 million – including probably eliminating 220 positions – as budget deficit hits $46 million.
The Alamo Heights Independent School District (San Antonio) is projected to face a $181 million budget shortfall for the 2026-27 school year.
Fort Worth ISD is $40 million in the hole.
Dallas ISD is projected to close out the current budget year with a $16 million deficit and head into the 2026-27 budget year with a $181 million deficit.
Houston ISD is projected to have a $33 million deficit next year.
Corpus Christi is $24.5 million in the hole.
Abilene faces a $13 million deficit.
Amarillo heads into 2026-27 with a projected $181 million shortfall.
Odessa a $49 million deficit and enter the 2026-27 budget cycle with an estimated $181 million shortfall.
The Texas Legislature has refused to increase Texas's per pupil funding allotment since 2019 in spite of significant inflation. Many of our public school systems in Texas are in deep distress. Republicans in the Legislature and the governor seem determined to break public education.
Don't Lose Heart: A Blueprint for Staying in the Fight
This post from Adam Kinzinger has stayed with me all day.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-191391455
These people matter. And we need to make room for them.
This isn’t about abandoning our principles. It’s about understanding what we’re actually defending. Democracy is not a club for the already-converted. It is a system that belongs to everyone — and a pro-democracy coalition that keeps shrinking will eventually lose, no matter how right it is.
Here is a reasonable, firm standard: welcome anyone who is willing to say that MAGA was wrong. Not a perfect accounting of every past position, not ideological purity — just the basic honesty to admit that what happened was not okay, that January 6th was not okay, that cruelty dressed up as strength is not okay. That shooting Americans in the face is not okay.
Much good stuff at the link.
Are our favorite news pundits and podcasters undermining hope or boosting our resolve?
In Dear Pundits, Susan Wagner with the Substack The Grassroots Connector, has a wake-up call for all the hosts, producers, and staff of her favorite political content. She includes (by name) Nicole Wallace, Tim Miller, Jen Rubin, Jon Favreau, Chris Hayes, Katie Phang – and the rest in that category.
Have we fallen into an echo chamber, where the same few guests are repeatedly on? Where the focus is overwhelming and relentless:
"…Democracy is collapsing. Institutions are failing. Our opponents are ruthless".
They rarely "feature grassroots stories or host activists from organizations that are part of the solution."
But there is only one essential goal for 2026 – to win every possible election and loosen the MAGA grip on this country. To do that, to meet this moment, requires all hands on deck. The overwhelming drumbeat of the negative doesn't leave space for us to hope that our small actions can make a difference. It undermines our determination.
Take sports fans. If they don't believe that their team can win, would they show up at stadiums? Would they take the time, make the effort, spend the money?
All of us, you included, need to be informed of concrete actions being taken to save our democracy. Grassroots activists recounting small and large examples of organized resistance across the country are missing from your coverage.
Wagner has a list of some people who ought to be featured on the shows, those whose actions can and do inspire people:
• Susan Bolle and Cecilia Minalga, co-founders of the Bay Area Coalition (responsible to a large extent for the success of Prop 50)
• Jody Kass who created Deceived Nation, a platform for fighting lies in real time (after running the grassroots campaign that got George Santos expelled from Congress)
• Andrea Miller of Center for Common Ground, whose work for voting rights inspires thousands of black and Hispanic volunteers
For a show on voter registration:
• Jason Berlin of FieldTeam 6 who helps volunteers register voters in person, online, and through postcard reminders
• Laura Brill of the Civic Center who helps get high school seniors registered.
For a segment on immigrant rights:
• Monica Sarmiento of Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, a multi-racial and multi-ethnic coalition of organizations fighting for the immigrant community
For a program on how to reach rural voters and the issues they care abou:
• Lynlee Thorne of the Rural Ground Game or
• Jess Piper from Blue Missouri
On state legislatures:
Melissa Walker from The States Project to speak about the thousands of Giving Circles now financing the candidacy of state legislators throughout the country.
To understand the priorities of Spanish-speaking voters:
• Katharine Pichardo-Erskine from Latino Victory
Want to feature ceative approaches to political commentary? "There are groups out on the street in costume, with clever signs and lyrics. The grassroots movement brings together all ages. Ask a Raging Granny about joy and laughter and love of country."
If you agree and know anyone connected with such shows, Wagner asks for help getting this message to them. I wish I knew someone personally to contact, but I don't.
Who would you add to her list?
I'd add Christopher Armitage, a U.S. Air Force veteran, journalist, and founder of the fast-growing Substack The Existentialist Republic, who advocates for resisting authoritarianism and protecting democracy through localism and community-based action. He is an outspoken proponent of "soft secession" — building parallel local structures and asserting state sovereignty as a response to creeping authoritarianism at the federal level. He is rapidly building a community and they are writing model legislation for state legislatures.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Austin, Texas
Home country: United States
Current location: Central Texas
Member since: Mon May 15, 2017, 12:06 AM
Number of posts: 4,318