{"id":2435713,"date":"2025-06-17T14:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/?p=2435713"},"modified":"2025-06-17T14:54:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:54:53","slug":"no-kings-except-for-the-bureaucrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/2025\/06\/17\/no-kings-except-for-the-bureaucrats\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNo Kings,\u201d Except for the Bureaucrats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/articles\/no-kings-except-for-the-bureaucrats\/\">\u201cNo Kings,\u201d Except for the Bureaucrats<\/a><br \/>\nby <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/author\/brownstone\/\">Brownstone Institute<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\">Brownstone Institute<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/play.ht\/embed\/?article_url=https:\/\/play.ht\/drafts\/VNtZn92Yxve7RsXivZySefxGa2k2\/FmFt8ru6D&amp;voice=en-US-Wavenet-J\" scrolling=\"no\" height=\"90px\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">Over the weekend, thousands of anti-Trump advocates gathered for \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests across the country, but their aims were not directed at constitutional norms; instead, they are engaged in a protest against the President\u2019s authority over the Executive Branch.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The chief issue in Washington since the second Trump inauguration is whether the commander-in-chief is empowered to control the Executive Branch, which houses nearly all federal agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Vesting Clause answers that question with absolute certainty: <em>The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In response to the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to abolish the government\u2019s vast censorship apparatus, however,<em> <\/em>Democrats and judicial activists offer an anti-constitutional alternative for the country: <em>The power to fire taxpayer-funded bureaucrats or reduce their funding shall be vested in no person<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In April, Secretary of State Rubio <a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/protecting-and-championing-free-speech-at-the-state-department\/\">announced<\/a> the closure and defunding of the State Department\u2019s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R\/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under Rubio\u2019s predecessor, Antony Blinken, the GEC was <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/articles\/the-censorship-industrial-complex\/\">instrumental<\/a> in silencing dissent, as it worked to \u201climit the reach of, the circulation of, and render unprofitable, disfavored press outlets by funding the infrastructure, development, and marketing and promotion of censorship technology and private censorship enterprises to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press,\u201d according to <a href=\"https:\/\/texasattorneygeneral.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/press\/Censorship%20Motion%20for%20PI%20Filestamped.pdf\">one lawsuit<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But this week, California District Judge Susan Illston upended the President\u2019s control of the executive branch and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/afl-cio-vs-trump-order-re-scope-of-injunction.pdf\">ordered<\/a> Secretary Rubio to halt the abolishment of R\/FIMI. According to Judge Illston, not only is the Ministry of Truth <em>permitted <\/em>to censor Americans for alleged \u201cdisinformation,\u201d such as the Hunter Biden laptop, the lab-leak theory, or natural immunity; but the Constitution actually <em>prohibits<\/em> the president from exercising control over the State Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unsurprisingly, the \u201cNo Kings\u201d crowd offered no pushback to the judge\u2019s defense of a censorious cabal\u2019s entitlement to taxpayer funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is familiar territory for Judge Illston. Previously, she issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting President Trump from \u201creorganizing\u201d or \u201creducing\u201d staff at 22 executive branch agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (annual budget, $1.8 trillion), the Social Security Administration (annual budget, $1.5 trillion), the Department of Veterans Affairs (annual budget, $350 billion), and the Treasury Department (annual budget, $1.3 trillion).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Illston is not alone. After President Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/05\/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media\/\">ordered<\/a> \u201call executive departments and agencies to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/05\/27\/g-s1-69017\/npr-and-katherine-maher-ceo-of-npr-statement\">outlets<\/a> responded that the First Amendment <em>requires<\/em><em> <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/pbs-sues-trump-administration-over-funding-cuts-alleging-they-violate-first-amendment\/\">the disbursement of taxpayer funds<\/a> to their operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In February, five former Secretaries of the Treasury <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/10\/opinion\/treasure-secretaries-doge-musk.html\">wrote<\/a> in the <em>New York Times<\/em> that the nation\u2019s payment system is \u201coperated by a very small group\u201d of \u201ccareer civil servants\u201d and that allowing the duly appointed members of the Executive Branch to change that bureaucratic mandate would be \u201cunlawful and corrosive to our democracy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More recently, judges have blocked the President from exercising control over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/05\/22\/nx-s1-5407521\/trump-education-department-layoffs-injunction\">Department of Education<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2025\/04\/30\/biden-appointed-judge-blocks-border-patrol-from-arresting-suspected-illegal-aliens-without-warrants\/\"> the border<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/EricLDaugh\/status\/1934679748929609795\">NIH<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cd62d8jp046o\">the National Guard<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Viewed as a whole, President Trump\u2019s opponents insist that they have an unalienable right to taxpayer funding, control over the citizenry, and deployment of government resources. They fight for a monarchy without splendor, and their aim is to usurp the President\u2019s explicit authority to control the executive branch, as the Constitution makes clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we live amidst the grave irony. Many of the people who came out to proclaim loyalty to no king only recently were pushing for business, school, and church closures without legislation, in addition to wild social protocols, travel restrictions, pharmaceutical controls, limits on gatherings, and forced masking and injections, all forced under conditions of quasi-martial law.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the same crowd that is now proclaiming to be against kings. The question is: what do they favor? If the lockdown era is any indication, this is a movement not about freedom and self-government but of millions of Lilliputians \u2013 in the public and private sectors, elites with high incomes and job security \u2013 throttling, tethering, and restricting the freedom of the people and funding their armies of bureaucrats with taxes and debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/articles\/no-kings-except-for-the-bureaucrats\/\">\u201cNo Kings,\u201d Except for the Bureaucrats<\/a><br \/>\nby <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/author\/brownstone\/\">Brownstone Institute<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\">Brownstone Institute &#8211; Daily Economics, Policy, Public Health, Society<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"attribution\">The post <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/articles\/no-kings-except-for-the-bureaucrats\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">\u201cNo Kings,\u201d Except for the Bureaucrats<\/a> was first published by <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Brownstone Institute<\/a>, and is republished under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. <a href=\"https:\/\/brownstone.org\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Please support their efforts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNo Kings,\u201d Except for the Bureaucrats<br \/>\nby Brownstone Institute at Brownstone Institute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":2435715,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2435713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2435713"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2435716,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435713\/revisions\/2435716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2435715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2435713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2435713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2435713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}