“A divided Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Education Department to fire almost 40 percent of its workforce four months after President Donald Trump ordered his administration to begin closing down the department.
The justices, by an apparent 6-3 vote announced Monday, lifted an injunction a federal judge in Boston granted in May against the firings. That judge found that the staff cuts were so drastic they would prevent the department from carrying out duties mandated by Congress. He also said the mass firings appeared to be part of Trump’s plan to eliminate the Education Department entirely, despite a lack of congressional authorization to do so.
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The high court’s majority offered no explanation for its decision, but all three liberal justices joined a 19-page dissent that accused the court’s conservative majority of favoring the Trump administration when considering emergency appeals.
“When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
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The majority stressed in that decision that the high court was not giving its legal blessing to any specific plan to downsize any particular agency. But now it appears to have done just that with the Education Department.”
“Trump on Monday went further than he ever has in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia, greenlighting a European purchase of Patriot missile defense systems and other weapons for Ukraine.
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Even as Trump wants to up the pressure on Moscow, bucking the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement, he is insisting that this latest move aligns with his “America First” strategy and fits into a decades-long view that America has been ripped off by allies and that Europe, in particular, has gotten a free ride on defense.
Trump, during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday, exaggerated how much money the U.S. has already spent on aid to Ukraine and emphasized that Europeans would finally pay their fair share.”
“It has been several months since the first major law firm brokered a deal with Trump to get out from under an executive order penalizing the firm for conducting work or hiring lawyers that the White House disfavors. Eight firms followed that precedent in order to avoid becoming targeted themselves, ultimately committing a combined total of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services to largely unspecified initiatives supported by the Trump administration. Four firms refused to buckle and successfully challenged the orders targeting them in federal district court in Washington, D.C.”
“Most Medicaid recipients (92 percent) under the age of 65 already work full- or part-time jobs, according to KFF.”
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“States have attempted to implement work requirements for their Medicaid programs, but have faced challenges to successful implementation. In 2018, when Arkansas attempted to implement similar Medicaid work requirements, confusion with paperwork resulted in 18,000 people losing health care, and there was no improvement in employment rates. Georgia’s work requirement program, which began in 2023, spent $55 million verifying eligibility. It enrolled only 2.3 percent of the estimated 240,000 Georgians who were eligible for the program.”
The supply of eggs only dropped a little bit, yet, the cost of eggs and the profits of big egg producing companies grew a lot. They took advantage of the situation to tell a story about an egg shortage, and made it more expensive for people to eat eggs.
Giving people cash to have babies works, just not very efficiently. It’s expensive. In the U.S., we’d get one baby per $200,000 to $400,000. Lifetime taxes paid by the average person is $150,000 to $400,000. So fiscally, the government may break even. Childless people are dependents on society so should pay higher taxes. Their future retirement depends on the labor of younger people, and younger people depend on the labor and money of parents.