Originally published at: Trump Loses On USAID Spending Freeze At Supreme Court
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberals Wednesday in reining in some of the Trump administration’s effort to block foreign aid that has been authorized by Congress. The justices left in place a lower court order that required the Trump administration to lift its freeze on paying about $2 billion…
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Breathing a sigh of relief here. Of course, that pleasant feeling could end when Trump defies the order.
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TPM: Editor, please. Duplicate paragraphs at the end of the story.
Actual story: There aren’t any surprises anymore from the rightiest wing of the court, but it’s still disturbing to see Alito, et al opine that a federal judge is way over the line for ruling that the administration must follow through on spending allocations passed by congress and signed into law.
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Make the DOGE douches testify.
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Donnie hates the word “loser” because it describes him so aptly!
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And in his head, he always hears it in Papa Fred’s voice.
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The “swing” justices were predicted to be Roberts, Barrett and Kavanaugh. So the first two passed this seemingly very obvious test, at least.
I’m sure in Kavanaugh’s head he was only ruling on some “narrow procedural ground about a judge’s authority to compel spending” or some similar pretzel-logic, never mind that that judge was trying to make amends for a blatantly unconstitutional act. With enough contortions you can argue anything, it’s very freeing!
Also Alito is just gross.
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Are we sure that the government has the capability of paying the contractors? This feels less of a “We don’t have to do what you tells us” as opposed to “Um, broken? No. We didn’t break anything. Why do you ask?”
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This is not really a win, it’s just further delay. This is key:
Judge Ali will instead have to show “due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines” and further “clarify” what the Trump administration needs to do in order to restart funding.
The govt will be all “the DOGE ate my homework, we can’t resume funding ever” then it’ll get appealed again back up to SCOTUS who will shrug and go “welp, we’ve tried nothing and it didn’t work”.
In the meantime, the organizations and programs that depend on the cash will have collapsed.
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That’s when we face the biggest test of our democracy of all. There’s little question that Trump, Musk & F*Elon will try to defy it, but what will everyone else then do? We’ve seen this sort of show-down in Pakistan and other places around the world. I suppose it will be US against Trump’s Jan 6 army-- but we saw what a lame job they did before.
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WTF is Alito raving about?
“The Government must apparently pay the $2 billion posthaste — not because the law requires it, but simply because a District Judge so ordered,” Alito wrote.
The “law” allocated the funds and contracts signed by the government are enforced by “law” are they not?
He’s clearly ready to grant Trump literal free rein to tear up the Constitution. The very document that allows for Alito to have this position he holds.
I could sorta hope SCOTUS does let Trump run wild so that the next elections would sweep the GOP out of office, impeach Trump and then Vance when he tries to carry on. Then elect a Democrat that could also by fiat fire the right wing “Justices” and fix a few things. But if they do allow the destruction of the Constitution there won’t be any elections to right things.
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Alito proudly continues to let his freak flag fly. Sorry…his wife’s flag.
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If we have learned anything from this Republican Court it is that this is likely a hollow victory.
Per the ruling, the payments will not resume immediately. Judge Ali will instead have to show “due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines” and further “clarify” what the Trump administration needs to do in order to restart funding.
I think this means more appeals/stalling.
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Yup. The “clarification” demand gives away the game. It’s not the judiciary’s responsibility to figure out how the administration is supposed to fix what they’ve broken.
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The way I read it, dump doesn’t even have to defy the order, which is a good thing, I guess, in that the dump administration’s failure to unfreeze the aid will not invoke a full blown Constitutional crisis. In the way that the SupCt sent it back to the District Court, the Supremes gave the administration all sorts of ways to structurally delay release of the funds. I.e., “with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.” That language is so broad you could drive a freakin’ truck through it.
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“Now comes the second part of the test. Roberts and Barrett, at least, proved willing to reject the administration’s attempt to withhold congressionally appropriated funds for foreign aid work that has already been completed.”
Stiffing contractors is a thing with the Felon. This is an oblique journey back to nullifying the 14 Amendment, imo. The gov’t doesn’t have to pay its debts to anyone. Birthright citizenship is wrong. Citizens don’t have rights unless they’re white and male. Insurrectionists can too legally be president and high-ranking public officials!
As I listened to Richard Haas of the Council of Foreign Affairs list his concerns with the stunning and radical upheaval caused by trump 2.0 in trade agreements, treaties, alliances, economics and established global order in his interview with npr a couple of days ago, it hit me: If the constitution stands, and we hold future elections, precedent has been set for any administration to “start over” as a nation…every 4-8 years. Sure, erase everything in place from the previous administrations; what could possibly go wrong? Hundreds of millions of people and business world- unable to rely on any stability and consistency from gov’t. That clinched it for me: this situation is truly clinically insane.
So, my new focus is pushing dems to impeach the Speaker of the House et al for dereliction of duty to defend and implement the fiduciary management role of Congress, noncompliance with the constitution’s procedure for impeaching presidents and other public officials for breaching its mandates, and refusal to defend and protect the people of the US, etc. I want to see these accomplices held personally and publicly responsible and it would only take 3 gop members to make it happen.
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A no brainer for SCOTUS. It should have been unanimous 9-0 but the fact that there were 4 votes for tRump is mind boggling. He’ll just find a way around this.
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the Trump administration’s campaign to cripple parts of the federal government
I, Donald J Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, keep the other branches on life support, if I can, so help me God.
Do you think he misunderstood “execute”?
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I fully expect King Trump to defy the court by having DOGE reply that they can’t comply because they fired the employees who could follow that order.
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You can’t impeach the Speaker BUT a majority of the House can boot him.
But since the Republicans run the house that isn’t gonna happen.
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