Hump Day Linkfest Ten Pack

A quick look at ten stories that are in the news this week.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.

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So, let’s look at what’s happening in the world this week …

• Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says he “wholeheartedly “ agrees with the Trump administration making cuts to federal spending without congressional approval. Johnson, who was a constitutional lawyer before entering politics, is undoubtedly aware that the Constitution grants the power of the federal purse solely to Congress. The executive branch’s job is to spend money authorized and appropriated by Congress … not decide how to spend it after Congress has provided it.

  Johnson’s retreat is not necessarily surprising, but it’s also emblematic of the polarized age In which we live. Back in the day, members of Congress generally defended their institutional power and prerogatives, irrespective of partisanship. But those days are long gone, and now the only thing that matters, at least to Republicans, is not where you sit (in the executive or legislative branch) but your tribal affiliation. So, if Joe Biden wanted to impound spending authorized by Congress, that would, for Republicans, represent a “constitutional crisis” (most Democrats would likely take a similar view). But if a Republican president wants to do the same thing, “Well, go right ahead, take away Congress’s most essential power.”

  • Philip Bump has a smart take on Congress’s cowardly retreat.

• Speaking of illegal executive branch actions, Elon Musk and his DOGE minions are now directly assaulting the Department of Education.

  Elon Musk’s cost-cutting effort announced a variety of cuts at the Education Department totaling over $900 million … Most, if not all, of the contract cuts hit the Institute of Education Sciences’ portfolio, including Education Innovation and Research grants and review projects associated with the What Works Clearinghouse, which produces and curates research on best practices in education, according to three people familiar with the department’s contracting. The people requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal because they were not authorized to discuss the cuts.

  … Projects that lost funding included a large-scale effort to gather and analyze data on how American students perform academically relative to peers around the world; a data report on school safety; and an effort, which was supposed to continue through 2030, to understand what sorts of supports are most effective for disabled youths.

  I expect/hope this cost-cutting will be challenged in court and blocked, but ultimately, this is the problem with giving someone like Musk, who has no idea how the federal government works, control over federal spending. Why should anyone expect that Musk or his 19-24-year-old staffers would know why this research is important or its role in improving American education? It’s like giving me oversight of a lab focused on molecular biology and saying, “Cut the fat.”

  • However, according to CNN, while Republican members of Congress are publicly supporting Musk’s cost-cutting efforts, “under the surface, some GOP lawmakers are growing concerned by the effort to usurp Congress’ control of the federal purse strings.” Real profiles in courage, ain’t they?

• The Senate is likely to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence, but as NOTUS points out, there’s a real question about whether foreign governments will share intelligence information with the US as readily as they have in the past and whether various US intelligence agencies will seek to shield intelligence from her. It’s not just that Gabbard is a legitimate national security threat as head of DNI, but she will likely face enormous bureaucratic hurdles in doing her job.

• Rep. Nancy Mace went to the floor of the House of Representatives on Monday and “accused her former fiancé and three other men of having drugged and raped her and other women, and of filming and taking lewd photographs of women and underage girls without their consent.” Mace also went after Alan Wilson, the South Carolina attorney general, for failing to investigate the charges (for his part, Wilson said he had no idea what Mace was talking about and said she had never brought any evidence to his office of criminal wrongdoing).

  This is not the first time Mace has sexual assault accusations.