#separation-of-powers

#separation-of-powers

In an emergency shadow docket application filed late last month, the Solicitor General asked the Supreme Court to stay a D.C. Circuit injunction that allows Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter to continue serving in her position. The dispute centers on the separation of powers question: Is the Library of Congress an "Executive agency" subject to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA), or did Congress deliberately exclude it from that category (and does Congress even have that power)?

Today, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in one of those rare cases that could reshape all three branches of government. The justices deciding Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, a challenge to the current tariff regime, could determine whether the imperial presidency is entrenched or arrested. They could either cajole Congress out of its dormancy or render it even more inert.

there were some pretty serious allegations (and video!) that federal agents - and Bovino, specifically - violated a temporary restraining order issued by Ellis. A group of journalists, protesters, and clergy sued the Trump administration over the military occupation of Chicago, and Ellis issued a TRO limiting the tactics federal agents can use. Amongst the banned methods of riot control include the use of tear gas and other kinds of noxious gas unless there is an immediate safety threat.

On November 5, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case testing the limits of presidential emergency powers. At issue is whether a president may use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from countries around the world. The stakes of this case reach far beyond trade policy. The Court's decision could shape whether the use of emergency powers to bypass Congress becomes a tool of routine governance, with profound implications for the constitutional separation of powers and limits on presidential authority.

The law, passed as part of the infrastructure bill, was slated to bring millions in new broadband grants and digital literacy tools, education, and training to Americans (of all kinds). The bill helped everybody (including Trump-supporting rural veterans and rural residents), but because Trump's team seemed to assume that the word equity meant "help minorities," the program was the brutal victim of our mad, incoherent, con man king and his army of mindless earlobe nibblers.

No, it's simply a factually accurate statement that when a judge assumes for him or herself the powers that have been delegated by the Constitution to the president, that that is a form of illegal insurrection.

Let's see, so, conflicts between the president and the judiciary are not new, Barrett said. They existed between Andrew Jackson and the Supreme Court. Even Abraham Lincoln, you know, there was some conflict. There was some conflict between FDR and the Supreme Court. So, I think that when we talk about the separation of powers and the balance of power and there being a tug and a pull between the branches of government this is a dance that we've seen before.

For the left, there is little more terrifying than an emboldened Donald Trump. Deep into the first year of his second term, he has behaved like an imperial president, thriving off new precedents set by the Supreme Court to shred democratic norms. He has gutted the federal bureaucracy, wantonly dispatched the National Guard to Democrat-run cities, unilaterally imposed tariffs, unilaterally launched a missile strike on Iran, and wrongfully deported an immigrant to El Salvador.

In a 37-page ruling, US district judge Thomas Cullen of Virginia's western district who was nominated and confirmed to his position during Donald Trump's first presidency wrote that any fair reading of the legal authorities cited by defendants leads to the ineluctable conclusion that this court has no alternative but to dismiss. To hold otherwise, Cullen added, would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law.

Cullen normally serves in the federal court system for the western district of Virginia, but since all 15 judges in Maryland's district court system were named as defendants in the case, someone from outside the state had to be brought in to resolve the case. The lawsuit was a highly unusual, broad-strokes attack on the federal judicial system in Maryland, where Trump's immigration agenda has faced several high-profile setbacks.

"It's an authoritarian power grab that blatantly violates the Federal Reserve Act, and must be overturned in court," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, in a statement.

The US supreme court allowing the president effectively to abolish the Department of Education only reinforces this sense; Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, explicitly wrote that the threat to our Constitution's separation of powers is grave.

That's America's secretary of defense. To use a military term, it's conduct unbecoming. He looks rattled. He obviously looks thin-skinned. He's extremely aggressive and volatile.