Jack Smith’s final say: Takeaways from the special counsel’s report
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/14/jack-smith-special-counsel-report-takeaways-00198252
Tag: dictatorship
Chief justice allows Trump administration to keep foreign aid frozen for now
“Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday night granted a respite to the Trump administration as it seeks to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid frozen, despite a judge’s order directing the administration to resume payments immediately.
Roberts’ intervention heads off the possibility of administration officials being held in contempt for failing to comply with the order from U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, who imposed a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday for the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion in unpaid invoices from foreign-aid contractors.”
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“Ali, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ordered the administration on Tuesday to pay the accumulated bills by the end of the day on Wednesday. The judge acted after finding that the Trump administration had essentially flouted earlier orders he issued requiring the State Department to lift a blanket freeze on overseas aid programs.
Rather than take steps to unfreeze that aid, as Ali had directed Feb. 13, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development found new legal rationales to keep it on hold, the judge said.
As a result, Ali gave the administration the midnight Wednesday deadline to send the payments for what officials have estimated is $2 billion-worth of unpaid work completed by aid contractors.”
LC: Basically, the Trump administration flouted the courts, the law, and the separation of powers, and Roberts bailed them out rather than forcing the issue. Under Trump, the U.S. constitutional system is deeply degrading.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/26/trump-supreme-court-freeze-00206381
What an F.B.I. Under Patel and Bongino Might Mean for America
FBI second-in-command has said he doesn’t believe in the separation of powers and all that matters is power. If someone would have said that he’d be appointed second in command before it was done, he would be accused of Trump-derangement syndrome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZBa_0IOasY
The Republican Party’s NPC Problem — and Ours | The Ezra Klein Show
Republicans in Congress are not acting like a co-equal branch designed to be a check on power grabs from the president. They are acting like a non-person character, or a non-person Congress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lckYPwQj_NM
There’s No Need to Guess. JD Vance Is Ready to Ignore the Courts.
“Vance’s most comprehensive statement of this radical position came in an interview I conducted with him in January 2023 for a profile in POLITICO Magazine. During the interview, I referred to comments that he had made on a conservative podcast in 2021 suggesting that Trump, if reelected, should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, [and] every civil servant in the administrative state … and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
I asked Vance if this was still his view.
“Yup,” he responded.”
…
“Vance’s rhetorical quibbling aside, his suggestion is radical. The course of action he is recommending — the president openly defying a Supreme Court order and then challenging the courts to enforce it — would amount to a full-fledged constitutional crisis of a different sort, one that would entirely upend the existing rules governing the separation of powers between the courts and the executive branch.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/jd-vance-trump-executive-power-supreme-court-00203537
How to make sense of all the court orders against Donald Trump
“Still, only the most naive legal analyst would conclude right now that the US constitutional system will survive Trump’s second term intact, or that the courts have definitively ruled that Trump’s agenda is in jeopardy. It is certainly possible that, when all of this litigation is over, Trump will face loss after unambiguous loss and be forced to give up many of his attempts to defy the Constitution. But it is far too soon to predict how all of these lawsuits will play out — or even if Trump will comply with any court orders against him.
To date, no appellate court — the mid-tier courts in the federal system — has weighed in on any of these cases, not to mention the Supreme Court. Similarly, while some federal trial courts have ordered Trump to stop some of his illegal actions, many of these decisions are temporary stopgap orders that expire quickly, and that are intended largely to maintain the status quo while the judges hearing these cases get up to speed on the legal issues that they present.
It’s a lot to keep track of. And, in many of these cases, there are likely to be months or even years more litigation before the legal issues presented by these cases are fully resolved.
It’s also worth noting that, as these cases make their way through the federal appellate process, they are more and more likely to be heard by judges who tend to be sympathetic to Trump — including a Supreme Court that has held that Trump may use the powers of the presidency to commit crimes.”
https://www.vox.com/scotus/399265/supreme-court-lawsuits-donald-trump-appeals
Jon Stewart & John Oliver Welcome America to Its Trump Monarchy Era | The Daily Show
If Trump can act the way he is, breaking the law, taking powers clearly meant for Congress, and if he runs over the judiciary to do it, The United States will no longer be a Constitutional democracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdygrcFcyyY
Tim Pool HUMILIATED By His Own Laziness AGAIN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW3juy61B3s
Trump administration orders consumer protection agency to stop work, closes building
“The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down an agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal.
Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget, directed the CFPB, in a Saturday night email confirmed by The Associated Press, to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama pushed to include it in the 2010 financial reform legislation that followed the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
The email also ordered the bureau to “cease all supervision and examination activity.””
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“Since the CFPB is a creation of Congress, it would require a separate act of Congress to formally eliminate it. But the head of the agency has discretion over what enforcement actions to take, if any.”
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“Vought said in a social media post that the CFPB would not withdraw its next round of funding from the Federal Reserve, adding that its current reserves of $711.6 million is “excessive.” Congress directed the bureau to be funded by the Fed to insulate it from political pressures.”
How is this legal?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-official-orders-consumer-protection-160835011.html
Paramount Shouldn’t Fold to Trump
“CBS is back in the news. Less than two weeks into President Donald Trump’s second term, the network’s parent company Paramount is considering settling his lawsuit claiming CBS’ coverage of the presidential campaign—and, in particular, an allegedly deceptively edited interview with Kamala Harris—was unfair and somehow harmed him. Reports have tied this possible settlement to Paramount’s planned merger with Skydance, which Paramount shareholders fear the new administration could try to block or delay.
Notably, this also comes against a backdrop of President Trump’s appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr rattling his saber at broadcast networks that have earned the president’s ire.
Shortly before the inauguration, under the guidance of its former, Joe Biden–appointed chair, the FCC dismissed complaints against ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC regarding broadcasts during the campaign—including CBS’ 60 Minutes Harris interview. In doing so, the FCC emphasized the importance of honoring CBS’ editorial discretion and broadcasters’ First Amendment right to report on matters of public concern as they see fit. But Trump’s handpicked successor has indicated the FCC will reconsider that dismissal, along with the NBC and ABC dismissals (but not the Fox dismissal, unsurprisingly).
Freedom of the press protects journalists and the news media in publishing information—especially in the political sphere—free from official censorship. In that way, a free press serves a vital role as the “Fourth Estate” in our democratic society, keeping citizens informed so that individuals may oversee their government’s actions. As Ida B. Wells stated, “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.”
That’s why it’s concerning that CBS would go to the mattresses over a halftime show for a game it gets once every fourth year, or even a bread-and-butter scripted show like Without a Trace, but would capitulate when it comes to its news and political coverage. Already the network is reportedly poised to comply with an FCC demand for the transcript and camera feeds from the 60 Minutes interview.
When parties to legal disputes resolve them with monetary payments rather than seeing them through to a decision, it is often said they are “buying peace.” Here, there is no peace to be bought, at least not without reassurance from the courts that CBS can cover political matters as its editorial discretion dictates, no matter how much it might displease the president or his appointees.”
https://reason.com/2025/02/04/paramount-shouldnt-fold-to-trump/