Mad King Trump Seizes Your Money

[Passages]

The president is doing almost exactly what Charles I did to touch off the English Civil War.

by Ryan Cooper, David Dayen October 17, 2025

One of the few things that tends to stick in high school civics class is that Congress has the power of the purse. Article I, Section 7 reads: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives,” while Section 9 emphasizes that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

That’s yet another part of the Constitution that Trump is fully flushing down the toilet, and arguably the most important one. We’ve written before about how he is spending money on all kinds of things without congressional authorization, with the open support of the corrupt Republican hacks on the Supreme Court. Now, with the government formally shut down and no end in sight, Trump has ramped up this practice, to cover for how the unwillingness to negotiate with Democrats has real-world consequences. It is revealing that Trump wants to hide the impact of the shutdown, and it suggests that he knows he would be held responsible.

Some of these tactics are at least colorably legal. For instance, there is a way to use a portion of tariff funds as an auto-appropriation for agricultural purposes, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935. So Trump is shifting that money to keep the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program going. Another scramble uses fee revenue to keep small airports open under the Essential Air Services program.

But when Trump decided that he had to pay military servicemembers, he directly violated congressional statute. It is “by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything,” writes Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress. “The mechanism through which Trump is paying the troops is the most blatant large Antideficiency Act (ADA) violation in US history.”

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-10-17-trump-congress-constitution-revenue/

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. MaddowBlog-As Republicans slander No Kings rallies, the party is proving progressive activists' point

Centuries after “L’État, c’est moi,” Republicans are putting their own twist on the adage: “I am the state” has effectively become “Trump is the state.”

The more Republicans argue that to oppose Trump at No Kings protests is to “hate America,” the more they prove the protesters’ point.

For too much of the GOP, “L’État, c’est moi” has effectively evolved into “Trump is the state.” www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-10-17T16:01:01.982Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/republicans-slander-no-kings-rallies-party-proving-progressive-activis-rcna238179

Ahead of Saturday’s No Kings rallies, Republican officials haven’t exactly been subtle in what they want to convey. The Washington Post reported:

Ahead of thousands of anti-authoritarian ‘No Kings’ protests planned for Saturday across the United States, Republicans are trying to brand the demonstrations as ‘hate America’ rallies, ramping up their rhetoric about the millions of people expected to peacefully protest President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies as they did in June.

After House Speaker Mike Johnson used the line a week ago, claiming the No Kings protest scheduled in Washington, D.C., deserved to be seen as a “hate America rally,” I started taking notes on how many GOP officials embraced that phrasing.....

“L’État, c’est moi” is a phrase attributed to 17th century French King Louis XIV. Now, 370 years later, Republicans are putting their own twist on the adage: “I am the state” has effectively become “Trump is the state.”

The party has been headed down this path for much of the year. Indeed, the president, not long after his second inaugural described himself as a “king,” which came just days after he similarly declared, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” a phrase often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Link to tweet

It was around this time when an official White House social media account released a portrait showing a grinning Trump wearing a crown.

Eight months later, his party has decided that anti-Trump protests deserve to be labeled “hate America” events.

If the goal was to discourage participation in the rallies, I have a hunch the GOP slurs will have the opposite effect.

Here is a better pdf of trump wearing his crown

trump really does believe that he is king and it taking these rallies very personally

[Passages]

2. My husband and I will be out there tomorrow.

I hope it will be an unprecedented turnout around the country.

[Celerity]

3. kick