Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Alternet: Trump doesn’t just think of himself as the president | Opinion

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The American Revolution was a result of the tyranny experienced by colonists under the British monarchy. Many Americans had fled from Europe where they had been persecuted under the rule of powerful monarchs. The government produced by the revolution was designed to ensure no such tyranny could be reproduced in the newly formed United States.

The framers of the constitution created a checks-and-balances system of government to ensure that no single branch of the federal government (executive, judicial or legislative) could dominate the others. Each branch has powers to curtail or empower the others.

However, some Americans are concerned about a return of absolute rule due to the steps taken by Donald Trump’s second administration. This has sparked around 100 “no kings” protests all over the US, organised to coincide with Trump’s birthday on June 15.

No kings!

Trump doesn’t just think of himself as the president | Opinion

https://www.alternet.org/trump-doesn-t-think-of-himself-as-the-president

Daily Beast: Trump Admin Deports 2-Year-Old Girl Who Is American Citizen

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Manu’s parents were undocumented, but she was born in the United States.

A 2-year-old American girl has been left stateless after the Trump administration deported her alongside her family.

Emanuelly Borges Santos, known to her family as Manu, was born in a Florida hospital in 2022. She has an American passport and a Social Security card. Nevertheless, Manu and her parents, who are both undocumented, were packed onto a plane with 94 others and shipped to Brazil in February, according to a report from The Washington Post.

When they arrived, Brazilian officials were shocked to find the American toddler among the deportees.

“We’d never seen another case like this,” federal police officer Alexsandra Oliveira Medeiros Reis told the Post.

Manu is currently living in Brazil on a tourist visa as the government tries to resolve the bureaucratic predicament of the girl’s citizenship. In the meantime, she’s living with no right to healthcare or schooling in Brazil. Her visa is set to expire within weeks.

Trump Admin Deports 2-Year-Old Girl Who Is American Citizen
Manu’s parents were undocumented, but she was born in the United States.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-admin-deports-2-year-old-girl-who-is-american-citizen

Raw Story: Trump has a ‘verbal tic’ that is causing ‘a worldview problem’ in US: analysis

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President Donald Trump’s “verbal tic” is creating “cognitive dissonance in America,” according to a Washington Post column.

“The verbal tic of President Donald Trump that has always most fascinated me is his predilection for the word ‘beautiful,’” Monica Hesse wrote.

Giving several examples of the usage, she said, “On Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order titled ‘Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture.’ Golf courses are beautiful, but so are White House telephones, farming, fighter jets, notes from the Chinese president, chocolate cake, the Supreme Court, Harambe the gorilla, and Christians.”.

…

“The Big Beautiful Bill works for Donald Trump because it uses a common, euphonious word to sell a tantalizing concept: that the federal government is simple instead of being a giant, complicated mess,” she said.

Hesse believes Trump is using the phrase because “The Big Beautiful Bill is the One Ring of legislation, the only bill you’ll ever need. ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is a phrase that could lull you into believing it contained only good things. And it does not.”

Trump has a ‘verbal tic’ that is causing ‘a worldview problem’ in US: analysis

https://www.rawstory.com/big-beautiful-bill-verbal-tic

Associated Press: Federal court blocks Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs under emergency powers law

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A federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law, swiftly throwing into doubt Trump’s signature set of economic policies that have rattled global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised broader fears about inflation intensifying and the economy slumping.

The ruling from a three-judge panel at the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade came after several lawsuits arguing Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs exceeded his authority and left the country’s trade policy dependent on his whims.

Federal court blocks Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs under emergency powers law
A federal court is blocking President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-trade-court-0392dbd59f548e49ad4f64254ae3f94a

Guardian: A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king

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The bill could stop federal courts from enforcing their rulings, eliminating any restraint on Trump

Robert Reich

So what’s the next step? Will the supreme court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce the contempt citations?

Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress apparently anticipated this. Hidden inside their Big Ugly Bill is a provision intended to block the courts from using contempt to enforce its orders. It reads:

“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued …”

Translated: no federal court may enforce a contempt citation.

The measure would make most existing injunctions – in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases and others – unenforceable.

Its only purpose is to weaken the power of the federal courts.

…

But the provision inside the bill that neuters the federal courts is even worse. It would remove the last remaining constraint on Trump, and thereby effectively end American democracy.

A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king | Robert Reich
The bill could stop federal courts from enforcing their rulings, eliminating any restraint on Trump

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/27/a-hidden-measure-in-the-republican-budget-bill-would-crown-trump-king

Talking Points Memo: The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy

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The Trump administration is using the claim that immigrants have “invaded” the country to justify possibly suspending habeas corpus, part of the constitutional right to due process. A faction of the far right has been building this case for years.

When top Trump adviser Stephen Miller threatened on May 9 that the administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus in response to an “invasion” from undocumented immigrants, he was operating on a fringe legal theory that a right-wing faction has been working to legitimize for more than a decade.

…

Hard-liners have referred to immigrants as “invaders” as long as the U.S. has had immigration. By 2022, invasion rhetoric, which had previously been relegated to white nationalist circles, had become such a staple of Republican campaign ads that most of the public agreed an invasion of the U.S. via the southern border was underway.

Now, however, the claim that the U.S. is under invasion has become the legal linchpin of President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-immigrant campaign.

The claim is Trump’s central justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport roughly 140 Venezuelans to CECOT, the Salvadoran megaprison, without due process. (The administration cited different legal authority for the remaining deportees.) The Trump administration contends they are members of a gang, Tren de Aragua, that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is directing to infiltrate and operate in the United States. Lawyers and families of many of the deportees have presented evidence the prisoners are not even members of Tren de Aragua.

The contention is also the throughline of Trump’s day one executive order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” That document calls for the expansion of immigration removal proceedings without court hearings and for legal attacks against sanctuary jurisdictions, places that refuse to commit local resources to immigration enforcement.

So far, no court has bought the idea that the U.S. is truly under invasion….

And therein lies the problem: The Trump regime is off pursuing an unconstitutional tangent to solve a problem that is improperly framed as an “invasion”.

It’s a long well-researched article. Please click on the link below and read the entire article.

The ‘Invasion’ Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy
This article first appeared at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign…

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-invasion-invention-the-far-rights-long-legal-battle-to-make-immigrants-the-enemy

Reuters: FBI announces new probes into Dobbs Supreme Court leak, White House cocaine incident

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More revenge meddling from the whacked out right wingers:

The FBI will launch new probes into the 2023 discovery of cocaine at the White House during President Joe Biden’s term and the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a top official announced on Monday.

Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster-turned-FBI deputy director [quite a promotion!], made the announcement on X, where he said he had requested weekly briefings on the cases’ progress.

Is Bongino even qualified to clean the toilets?

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fbi-announces-new-probes-into-dobbs-supreme-court-leak-white-house-cocaine-incident/ar-AA1Fvilt

?url=httpswww.reuters.comworldusfbi-announces-new-probes-into-dobbs-supreme-court-leak-white-house-cocaine-2025-05-26

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-announces-new-probes-into-dobbs-supreme-court-leak-white-house-cocaine-2025-05-26

The Nation: The Supreme Court Gifts Trump Even More Power

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The court seems ready to give the president extraordinary power over what had been independent worker- and consumer-protection agencies.

The court seems ready to give the president extraordinary power over what had been independent worker- and consumer-protection agencies.

Here’s a troubling news alert for everyone who cares about workers and consumers being protected from illegal, exploitative, and dangerous business practices: The Supreme Court appears ready to give President Donald Trump extraordinary power over what for nearly a century have been independent expert federal worker and consumer protection agencies insulated from White House interference.

The court showed its hand in Wilcox v. Trump—the case involving Trump’s unprecedented effort to fire Gwynne Wilcox—a Senate-confirmed member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the first Black woman to ever serve as a member of the NLRB.

Members of independent agencies like the NLRB, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), are nominated by the president and confirmed by the US Senate for defined terms. They are protected by law against being removed from office except where there has been wrongdoing and only after notice and a hearing. The Supreme Court has recognized and respected these “for cause” removal protections for 90 years.

That is, until now. Upon taking office for his second term, Trump decided that he has the power to unilaterally remove members of independent boards and commissions whenever and for whatever reason he wants. The list of casualties is long—in addition to Wilcox, he has fired members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the FTC, the CPSC, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and more. And by firing these officials, Trump has left these consumer- and worker-protection agencies without a quorum to act and hold corporations accountable.

…

The court’s order is going to embolden a president who has already shown himself willing to push or violate the boundaries of his power. Now that the Supreme Court has nodded at his power to fire members of independent boards and commissions, he will undoubtably continue to do so, even before the Supreme Court definitively rules on the merits of the question in its next term.

The Supreme Court Gifts Trump Even More Power
The court seems ready to give the president extraordinary power over what had been independent worker- and consumer-protection agencies.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/wilcox-trump-federal-agencies

New York Times: As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests

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The president and his family have monetized the White House more than any other occupant, normalizing activities that once would have provoked heavy blowback and official investigations.

When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.

Thirty-one years later, after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.

The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and are opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.

Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Mr. Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.

And Mr. Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Mr. Trump personally.

trump-money-plane-crypto.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/us/politics/trump-money-plane-crypto.html

MSNBC: Judge warns of Trump’s ‘pernicious’ law firm targeting in ruling against it

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It’s the latest ruling striking down one of Trump’s revenge orders against law firms the president doesn’t like.

Fully blocking Trump’s order against the firm Jenner & Block, the George W. Bush appointee noted that the order in this case is one of several targeting firms that “did not bow to the current presidential administration’s political orthodoxy.” The judge said the order went after the firm “because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed.”

Sitting in Washington, D.C., Bates called the order “doubly violative of the Constitution.”

“Most obviously,” he wrote, quoting a recent Supreme Court precedent, “retaliating against firms for the views embodied in their legal work — and thereby seeking to muzzle them going forward — violates the First Amendment’s central command that government may not ‘use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.’”

The judge also highlighted the “more subtle but perhaps more pernicious” issue of “the message the order sends to the lawyers whose unalloyed advocacy protects against governmental viewpoint becoming government-imposed orthodoxy.”

He said the order “seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers. It thus violates the Constitution and the Court will enjoin its operation in full.”

Judge warns of Trump’s ‘pernicious’ law firm targeting in ruling against it
It’s the latest ruling striking down one of Trump’s revenge orders against law firms the president doesn’t like.

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/judge-jenner-block-trump-law-firms-rcna208847