The Trump administration has been a Category 5 shit-storm for three years and change, so if you didn’t notice its abnormally frequent reliance on “emergency” SCOTUS relief to enforce its shitty policies, it’s no wonder, what with the galloping authoritarianism and all. But Trump’s flunkies have run to their stacked court more than the Obama and Bush administrations COMBINED. Justice Sotomayor noticed. Here’s her dissent in the recent “can’t we just restrict immigration to white Europeans” case:
The Supreme Court unveiled a 5-4 decision on Friday to allow the Trump administration to deny entry or green cards to immigrants based on a “wealth test,” claiming that low-income immigrants were likely to become a “public charge” and use social programs such as food stamps or Medicaid. All four justices nominated by Democrats voted against the case. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the blistering dissent and accused the court’s conservatives of bias in favor of Trump.
Sotomayor said the administration has too quickly gone to the Supreme Court to appeal unfavorable decisions made by lower courts, and that by taking the cases, the Supreme Court is “putting a thumb on the scale in favor of” the president.
“Claiming one emergency after another, the government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming limited court resources in each,” Sotomayor wrote. “And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow.”
“It is hard to say what is more troubling,” she added. “That the government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it.”
I suspect Chief Justice Roberts has no issue with Trump administration policies, but he cares very much about maintaining the fiction that the SCOTUS is above the political fray. Kudos to Justice Sotomayor for declining to participate in that ruse.
download my app in the app store mistermix
Unrelated but Weinstein found guilty on 2 counts
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/24/harvey-weinstein-guilty-trial-charges-verdict
Dorothy A. Winsor
Re the topic of court cases:
(Curse you, mistermix! You’re too quick for me.)
Jinchi
John Roberts one up side is his concern about the courts reputation and legitimacy. It’s past time more Democrats started calling him out on it. He was highly offended when his decision on the Muslim ban was compared to the infamous Japanese Internment decision. That’s unfortunately our only leverage against abuse at this point.
Jim Parish
The one redeeming feature is that this ruling is only a stay of a lower-court decision, pending appeal. Of course, the appeal will eventually reach SCOTUS, and the lower court will probably be reversed anyway. I’m leaning hard on the word “probably” not being “certainly”.
Amir Khalid
Repost from previous thread:
Completely off-topic, but Malaysia’s 94 year old PM Dr Mahathir resigned suddenly on Monday, throwing the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition government into turmoil. The Yang di Pertuan Agung (king) has accepted his resignation but appointed him caretaker PM until a new one can be appointed or a general election called. Deputy PM Anwar Ibrahim will have a job putting a majority together so that Pakatan Harapan can continue in power. Dr Mahathir’s party has left the coalition, and so have other parties who oppose Anwar assuming power.
And some more:
Pakatan Harapan is itself in crisis, with those parties pulling out. A lot of Malaysians are disheartened because the 2018 election win was something we never dared hope we’d see, and now the politicians we voted in are throwing it away by fighting over who gets to be Number One.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I saw a brief about the news and didn’t know what to make of it. I’m sorry to hear it’s worse that feared. :(
mali muso
@Amir Khalid: That’s troubling news. Any idea of the timeframe on a new election? I’m about to send a group of travelers to your lovely country in approx. two weeks. We have good contacts and hosts in country and I’m confident in their ability to shepherd our group, but always curious to get more intel from people on the ground.
Raoul
Chief Roberts (Justice? I don’t think so) is proving himself to be the authoritarian-enabler many of us always thought he’d be. He may have decided once upon a time to be the moderating vote to save some shreds of the ACA, but his finger is in the wind like all Trumpers, and he’s going for broke while the going is good (or bad, as it more and more seems to be).
I don’t know how we eventually dig out of this shit-pile. But it is going to be long and hard, and this country hasn’t had the gumption for long and hard in about two generations. Yes, I am pointing a finger at my own generation in this, even as I point upwards too.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Raoul: This.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid:
Nothing like having hope snatched away
joel hanes
@Jinchi:
Roberts … concern about the courts reputation and legitimacy
Is often alleged, but that narrative was completely falsified by Shelby County, in which he pulls the equal dignity of the states out of his ass to overturn precedent.
I agree that he often seems to turn up the burner under the frog to be boiled in smaller increments, but that decision amounted to throwing the living thing in a smoking cast-iron pan.
randy khan
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
I’m glad those women have gotten some measure of justice. I know he’s going to appeal, if for no other reason than to stay out of prison as long as possible, but 12 of their fellow citizens believed them beyond a reasonable doubt.
I will say I’m a little surprised that they convicted him on both of those counts but not on the counts for a pattern of predation, but this still means real time for Weinstein, and he has a trial coming up in California, too.
jeffreyw
I have seen nothing that tell me that Roberts cares one whit about the court’s legacy. Statements to the contrary are wishful thinking.
Mnemosyne
Butbutbut we weren’t supposed to hold people’s votes hostage over the Supreme Court in 2016! We were all just being crybabies who wanted to prevent real leftists from getting power! ?
Just wait until the Bernistas find out that Trump stacked the courts with his appointees over the past four years AND that the Supreme Court has the power to vacate executive orders. Without the courts, a whole lot of Bernie’s legislation is going to be DOA.
jonas
Don’t worry — as soon as there’s another Democrat in the White House, the Roberts court will suddenly become *very* concerned again about executive overreach and checks and balances.
neldob
I encourage us all to take to the comments sections of the intertubes with our opinions of the current SC. Playing the refs worked for the far right.
Amir Khalid
@mali muso:
Time frame? Who knows. Mahathir’s resignation as PM in such circumstances is unprecedented, and we’ve never had a ruling coalition collapse before. I suppose he’s acting PM until further notice.
I had a foreboding that Pakatan Harapan’s choice to hand Mahathir the keys would bring trouble, but I never expected anything this bad.
jonas
Yup. I’m not sure the country will recover from Trump’s court-packing spree. The Tangerine Shitgibbon will eventually be gone, but the basket of deplorables he and McConnell have appointed to the federal bench are going to continue running the country into the ground for decades. We are so fucked.
Conservatives will challenge every health care initiative, every climate change initiative, every education initiative. And they will find dozens of fresh, right-wing jurists chomping at the bit to declare it all unconstitutional.
Leto
@Mnemosyne: Hey, you, with the rationality and clear world view… mind keeping it down? Some of us want to stay in this dream state forever… :P
Mnemosyne
@jonas:
And it will STILL be all the Democrats’ fault for “letting” Trump and McConnell do that. ?
West of the Rockies
I don’t get the whole fabulous “comity” thing with the 9 justices. How can RBG and Co. really feel any warmth or civility to Kavanaugh or Thomas.
It’s like the old Looney Toons cartoons where Sam and Fred (a sheepdog protecting its flock and a coyote set on stealing sheep) tear each other apart all day and clock in and out with warm regard. It’s a kind of madness really. Maybe it’s one of those odd agreements that keep society functioning.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Sorry to hear about this. It seems like none of us can have nice things.
Mnemosyne
@Leto:
I have been reminded recently that the curse that the Greek gods put on Cassandra wasn’t only that she would accurately predict the future but no one would believe her — it was that people would mock and despise her predictions and still not believe them even after they came true.
Hillary Clinton, the modern Cassandra.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
Hypothetical President Bernie won’t have any more patience for the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act than Trump.
Not that it will matter.
Betty Cracker
A bit of good news for a doom-and-gloom day: Weinstein will await sentencing in jail.
Mike in NC
If Putin and Bernie manage to keep Fat Bastard in the White House, there are almost certainly going to be a couple of terrible new wingnut justices placed on the Supreme Court. It’ll be very ugly and another step towards fascism.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Okay, that does perk me up a bit. Will they let him keep his totally fake drugstore walker that they didn’t even bother to set up correctly for him?
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: You can lead a Berner to 218-60-1-5 but you can’t make them do the math.
Leto
@Mnemosyne: that’s definitely depressing. Typically human though.
@Betty Cracker: that’s good. Does Stone have to wait in jail while awaiting appeal?
oldgold
More hell should have been raised over the Garland debacle.
Should Obama have nominated someone that the GOP could not have ignored without paying a significant price for doing so?
schrodingers_cat
Meanwhile in Delhi Modi is giving the Orange King lessons on how to deal with a minority that the ruling party does not like with state sanctioned violence. Delhi is burning, 4 people are dead.
My Twitter feed in case anyone is interested
Nicole
@Mnemosyne: The Cassandra myth is even more timeless when you think about how it was Apollo who cursed her because she wouldn’t put out for him. Even back then, the ancient Greeks were asking “But what were you wearing?”
Speaking of powerful males forcing women to put out- I’m disgruntled that Weinstein could get away with only 5 years, but having to register as a sex offender is not a small deal, so there’s that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike in NC: Trump’s not a fascist, he’s a monarchist.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@oldgold:
That guy was Garland*, they ignored him anyway.
*He was older, moderate, and well liked by even many of the GOP Senators.
Elizabelle
At some point, you have to look at “the consent of the governed.” I would expect that weighs on John Roberts.
His shitshow USSC is on the verge of illegitimacy.
You cannot have a hierarchy that skews way to the right of its citizens. Not for long.
mali muso
@Amir Khalid: Living in “interesting times” is really not all it’s cracked up to be. I’d settle for some boring times.
oldgold
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Obviously it was not.
They paid virtually no price.
There were other potential nominees that would have cost them.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: It is literally gloomy and raining here, and has been all day. Not sure if the gloomy day makes it worse, or if that’s better. Sometimes it can be hard to reconcile the world of hurt we are in with sunshine and the beauty of spring flowers.
Having taken the time to write that out, I think I prefer the sunshine and beauty. Maybe it’s a sign of better days to come.
Mnemosyne
@oldgold:
Sorry, but the online “pacifists” and leftists decreed that we could not support Garland because of one (1) Guantanamo decision that he made. Therefore, he was permanently impure and we needed to find a new Scalia since Scalia really cared about being anti-war.
Have I mentioned lately how much I fucking hate the “pacifists” who have decided that the Democrats must receive eternal punishment for any bad votes on Iraq while Republicans get to stay in power and fuck things up? We are now living in the world they created with their petty single-mindedness and it fucking sucks. Especially since they give Bernie a free pass on his AUMF and Guantanamo closing votes simply because he’s not a Democrat.
joel hanes
@Elizabelle:
You cannot have a hierarchy that skews way to the right of its citizens. Not for long.
Median duration seems to be about a decade.
This article briefly describes three earlier such episodes:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-22-2020
CindyH
@oldgold: such as?
Rina99
@Mnemosyne: There’s always a way for them to place the blame on Democrats. Always. I’d love to know the name of the paragon that would have had the country up in arms over not getting the nomination.
randy khan
@oldgold:
I agree conceptually, but I’m having a hard time coming up with someone who fits the bill. Garland was nearly tailor-made to be someone the GOP would have to go along with, and they ignored him. I suppose if you could come up someone with the stature of, oh, Earl Warren, you might have a shot at getting people outraged, but even that seems like far from a sure bet, and no such people really were on offer.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
John Oliver recently offered an informative general audience introduction to Modi.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I’m cynical about that, but if that were the case, the only thing that might (emphasis on MIGHT) get through to Roberts would be massive protests that block him, the other justices, and the lawyers from getting into the building every single day that the court is in session. Block the parking garage. Block the metro stop. Prevent anyone from accessing the building.
But I suspect that he would just order the police to bust heads and go on with his day whining about “incivility.”
WaterGirl
@joel hanes:
Do we know if that’s dog years or people years? Because right now, each day feels like a week, so we could get to that decade a lot quicker than you might think.
Betty Cracker
@oldgold: Are you saying that if PBO had nominated a woman and/or person of color, McConnell and the GOP would have paid a bigger price for stonewalling?
Mnemosyne
@oldgold:
Name three.
Feathers
@Mnemosyne: Plus the fact that there is an indictment with his wife’s name on it, just sitting there waiting to be announced just before the Democratic Convention. She misstated facts on a loan application for Burlington College, FFS! It’s all out in the open, just sitting there. Oddly enough, it’s not being mentioned by the media folks attacking him. There is enough actual shit to bury the guy, but all they do is sputter about socialism and actually increase his support.
JPL
@Jinchi: He’s afraid of trump also. Say bye to DACA and the ACA.
Kent
They mistakenly thought that Garland was a gift to the GOP and that Hillary would appoint someone younger and more liberal. Of course the past 3-years of norm-smashing by Trump gives us a different retrospective than we might have had at the time.
However….”more hell raised’ and “paying a significant price” is mealy mouthed mush. Honestly, all I think that Obama could have done is forced a constitutional crisis in order to force a vote. In other words, simply declare that without a vote he is going to declare that the Senate is “consenting” in his appointment and send him up to the Supreme Court to take his seat with a Secret Service escort and dare the 4-4 Supreme Court refuse to seat him. And dare the Senate to not take a vote. Most likely outcome of that sort of high-stakes move would be to spur hearings and a vote in the Senate. Force Collins and Murkowski and the rest of the more moderate GOP to do McConnell’s bidding and vote him down. Which was always in their power anyway. They got away with not voting because Obama never really forced their hand.
oldgold
@randy khan:
A female African-American would have been my choice.
JPL
@Feathers: I would not bet against that statement.
Betty Cracker
@joel hanes: Interesting essay — thanks!
JPL
@oldgold: Preferably from KY
?BillinGlendaleCA
@oldgold: Who
Hint: The Turtle was going to ignore any nominee by Obama.
West of the Rockies
@Nicole:
I don’t think registering as a sex offender cramped Epstein’s style much.
oldgold
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
There a number of African-American women serving on the federal bench and as professors in good law schools. From this pool there are many good nominees.
Emerald
As to the SCOTUS (yes, I’m going here) I recall that judges were included in the Nuremberg trials. And went to jail.
Because we must prosecute these lawbreakers.
If we can, after January 2021. If there’s still a government.
Gravenstone
No such person existed. McConnell was going to steal that seat, come Hell or high water.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@oldgold: Wouldn’t have made a difference. The Turtle wasn’t going to move forward with any Obama nominee.
randy khan
@randy khan:
I see that Weinstein was put into custody immediately. As he’s an obvious flight risk (still lots of money, etc.), that seems wise.
Emerald
@?BillinGlendaleCA: True, but Obama did not know that at the time. It’s why he picked Garland, because Garland could get GOP votes.
Nobody previously had ever been denied any vote at all.
The first significant erasure of government, really.
Kent
Little bit off topic but is anyone following the so-called Trump Purges in the executive branch? We are getting downright. We are descending into the days of Ancient Rome during the time of Sulla and his proscriptions of his enemies in the Senate.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/24/awful-new-details-about-trumps-purge-should-alarm-us-all/
As a former Federal employee I’m watching this development with some interest and a bit of amusement. Due to civil service laws, Trump has no ability to purge any professional civil service managers, which is 99.9% of the civil service. All he can do is purge his own political appointees who chose to be Trump’s political lackeys in the Federal agencies in the first place.
Any time a political appointee is purged, their duties will fall onto permanent professional managers until some new political appointee can be put into place and brought up to speed. All they are really doing by purging out those folks who they think are not loyal enough is turning more power over to the nonpartisan permanent agency staff and undermining whatever policy objectives they have.
In the government it is very hard to do new things and very easy to not do things. Action is always harder than inaction. In an environmental agency, for example, a new regulation that relaxes air or water pollution standards needs to go through a long process of analysis, hearings, comment, review. There are a lot of steps that need to be done or the result will not stand up in court. Yanking out your own people who are pushing this sort of thing forward in an agency in which the professional staff are likely opposed to the action in the first place is going to bring a lot of that kind of thing to a rapid halt. The way to get shit done is to put effective aggressive experienced managers into place who are also highly ideological. Your John Bolton types, for example. And then turn them loose. Bringing in flunkies who don’t actually know how to get shit done basically means your agenda will go into holding pattern.
I gotta think that there are long-term civil service employees who right now are scheming to get their unliked political appointee bosses “purged” by Trump. Confidential emails or memos sent to the right people questioning their loyalty. That sort of thing. I know that I, for one, would be doing some of that shit stirring. The faster you can make that revolving door spin, the less effective your control over that agency will be.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Emerald: We’re in agreement.
randy khan
@oldgold:
I suppose there’s a chance a female African American nominee might have helped with turnout in November (and, of course, the margins in the relevant states were so small that it could have mattered), but any likely female African American nominee would have been to the left of Garland, and so easily painted as a radical leftist, which would have made it to generate general outrage.
Yutsano
@Kent:
Ohh I would love an excuse to get rid of either Mnuchin or Rettig. It probably won’t happen though.
Mike in NC
We just watched “Last Week Tonight” and the segment on the odious Modi and his minions trying to demonize Muslims. I wonder if fucking Trump gifted him a “Make India Great Again” hat?
oldgold
@Gravenstone:
Then, Obama should have given him hell and high water!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Trump believes that the US Government works the same way as his small company. He can say something and it’s done, and if it’s not he can fire the person in charge of that property and the new person will bring in a whole new staff. Government doesn’t work like that by design.
Baud
Katherine Johnson has passed away. 101.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/katherine-johnson-nasa-mathematician-depicted-hidden-figures-dead-101-n1141566
Brachiator
@Kent:
Trump ain’t smart enough to realize this.
For the most part, Trump is more interested in scrapping existing regulations (especially anything put in place by Obama) rather than crafting new regulations.
tobie
Sonia Sotomayor is quickly becoming my favorite Supreme Court Justice. I can’t love her enough for her brilliance and boldness and toughness. Someone had to call out the rank hypocrisy of the court. I’m still galled that they take up every emergency appeal the Republicans bring and yet held off on the ACA case till after the election. Could John Roberts & Co be more transparent about serving the interests of the Republican Party? Even the Party’s electoral interests?
Kent
@Yutsano: Trump has completely demolished the normal chain of command everywhere within the Federal government. So it is probably possible to get secret word to some 29 year old Trumper in the White House who isn’t in any chain of command but has the power to get anyone fired for disloyalty. That sort of thing could never have happened in any other administration where normal chains of command are respected. It’s the flip side of Trump always wanting to have acting folks in various positions that aren’t subject to confirmation or oversight. Something very Sun Tzu about using your enemies own weapons against him.
Brachiator
@Baud:
I know a pretty good amount of black history, but never knew her story until the book and movie “Hidden Figures.” It was good to see her be recognized within her lifetime.
As far as I know, none of the women human computers, black or white, were acknowledged in the book “The Right Stuff,” nor in the subsequent hit movie.
it is crazy the degree to which some people have often been omitted or slighted when it comes to history and culture.
Kent
But that’s the thing. Scrapping existing regulations is functionally the same thing as creating new ones. Both are accomplished through amendments to the Code of Federal Regulations and both require the exact same regulatory process, NEPA review, APA review, etc. etc. Trump can refuse to enforce existing regulations until maybe the courts force him to do so. But he can’t just tear up existing regulations without going through the entire process, same as creating new ones. And if they cut corners they will leave a paper trail and risk having the entire effort tossed out by the courts.
If they want to repeal existing regulations then they need competent and dedicated people in place to make sure it happens. I guarantee you there are dedicated Federal employees who are carefully laying easter eggs all over the administrative record for these sorts of actions so they can be rescinded by the next administration. Detailed memos to the file, for example, that lay out all the procedures that were not properly followed that are just sitting there waiting to be “discovered” in the first lawsuit.
JPL
@tobie: I was so proud of her when she issued her statement and wish it had received more coverage.
schrodingers_cat
Delhi update. Will the Orange King condemn violence against Muslims? I miss a decent person as the President. As for the India’s PM, the less said about the butcher of Godhra the better.
Death count is 5 now.
Baud
@Brachiator:
I didn’t know about her either. I completely agree with your last paragraph. It’s remarkable how easy that happens.
Kent
That’s exactly why I’m not wringing my hands in worry like the Washington Post is doing. If you WANT Trump to be successful in implementing GOP policy objectives in the executive branch then you wring your hands when he goes all Sulla on us and starts purging all his appointees. If you want to see the Federal government go into a holding pattern until the next administration then you cheer it.
This is all about personal loyalty and obsequiousness to Trump as he sinks into a morass of corruption. It is not at all about effective implementation of GOP policy.
Brachiator
@Kent:
I can’t believe who Trump has in charge of this.
Trump definitely believes in recycling his garbage.
Unfortunately, this works in favor of those conservatives who do not believe in an effective federal government, and want to starve the beast in favor of a plutocrat or faux libertarian nirvana.
Mnemosyne
@West of the Rockies:
That’s because prosecutors in FL and NYC let Epstein skate, so he flew under the radar. I don’t think that Weinstein is going to get the same courtesy — too much immediate bad publicity.
James E Powell
@jeffreyw:
Agree completely. If Citizens United and Shelby County aren’t enough to convince people that he is a right-wing ideologue who is determined to roll back the 20th century, then nothing will.
I would like to see more elected Democrats and Democratic associated pundits just hammer the right wing supreme court and appellate courts who are helping Trump with his various cover-ups.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
I would not be so sure that Trump is not going to illegally fire permanent staff and then dare them to sue, but I’m feeling a little gloomy today.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kent:
Thanks for this perspective. I hope you’re right.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Sadly, I cannot imagine Trump saying anything about this.
The only news I’ve heard is about the tremendous trade deal with India that Trump is touting. Human beings, nothing to be concerned about.
Mandalay
@randy khan:
I thought the same, but was pleasantly surprised to read this:
I’ve just come to expect that the rich and powerful get to walk free until their appeal is heard, not matter what they did.
Baud
@Mandalay:
I think it’s because white collar crime is treated differently (more gently) than violent crime, and white collar criminals tend to be rich and powerful.
Kent
So far that doesn’t seem to be happening. And he doesn’t really have a mechanism to do that. There is a long process for firing civil service employees and it is controlled by the HR staff in these agencies who are all civil service folks themselves and not political appointees. In the executive branch the political appointees are a very tiny veneer of top people in corner offices who basically have to depend on civil service staff to get anything done. They don’t even get to bring in their own secretaries, for example.
I promise you the civil service unions are keeping a very very close eye on this sort of thing. While you can indeed fire civil service employees, you have to have a rock solid paper trail and it can take a long time and you have to go through “improvement plans” and so forth.
Kent
@Mandalay: What is the over/under estimates on how many years he is going to get?
Mandalay
@Mnemosyne:
Just thinking about how he would resolve that would give Trump a chubby for the first time in a long time.
Nothing would make him happier than killing a few protesters in the name of justice, and his base would go wild with delight.
Bill Arnold
@schrodingers_cat:
Have to say the identify of the PM and the timing of Trump’s visit and the location of his rally are(combined) seriously creeping me out.
joel hanes
@Kent:
Scrapping existing regulations is functionally the same thing as creating new ones. Both are accomplished through amendments to the Code of Federal Regulations and both require the exact same regulatory process, NEPA review, APA review, etc. etc.
Good information.
But please to be noting the exact extent to which laws and regulations and procedures are hindering the hasty construction of Trump’s Wall across our southern border, through protected national monuments and wildlife refuges and across private property.
The Trumpies simply ignore laws and norms, and there is apparently no one with the power and the will to stop them.
catclub
@Kent: There are a lot of steps that need to be done or the result will not stand up in court. Yanking out your own people who are pushing this sort of thing forward in an agency in which the professional staff are likely opposed to the action in the first place is going to bring a lot of that kind of thing to a rapid halt.
Trump’s method is to block enforcement of the standards he wants to drop. He says: “Just go ahead and do it. Who is going to stop you.” And if he can block EPA enforcement, he will.
Kent
I don’t disagree with you at all. But the Wall project is rather unique in that it is an actual physical structure. 99% of the other stuff they are doing to vandalize Federal agencies are regulatory changes. For example, Trump’s EPA is taking regulatory steps to limit the kinds of scientific information that can be used in decision making. And they are trying to abandon the Obama car mileage requirements. There are a bazillion other examples. If these actions aren’t taken 100% correctly (and they likely aren’t) then any affected party can sue. And if they wait for a new administration, the new administration can simply agree with the lawsuit and then cancel the Trump changes without going through lots more process.
This is why it is going to take some seriously competent managerial types getting appointed in the next administration. People who know how to do this shit and have balls to just tear up as much of Trump’s stuff as they can get away with despite the squealing of the affected industries. That is why I fear a Sanders administration with a bunch of inexperienced purity pony types who will be more likely to do performative bullshit that looks good in the media rather than the hard nitty gritty unglamorous bureaucratic work of rolling back Trumpism.
Gravenstone
@oldgold: You really aren’t that naive, are you?
eddie blake
yeah, no. obama nominated garland because he was assured garland was a shoo-in.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-hatch/republican-would-back-garland-for-supreme-court-idUSTRE6456QY20100506
Kent
@catclub: Oh, I agree, 100%. There are endless things that the Trump administration can do to not follow the law. And that stuff is bad. But it stops the day a new president gets inaugurated. The more important stuff are the changes he is making that will persevere past the end of his administration. Regulatory changes that are hard to reverse. Judges, that sort of thing.
artem1s
that’s what happens when you appoint angry Latinas to the bench. Can we haz more plz!
Geminid
Sotomayor has an advantage in experience and perspective over her colleagues: she tried a lot of cases as a U.S. District Court judge. The rest had a mix of Justice Department and academic jobs before being made judges on Federal Appelate courts, a relatively easy job.
J R in WV
@West of the Rockies:
I don’t have the steel trap of a memory I used to have, but I’m pretty sure one of the worst things about Jeff Epstein’s guilty plea in Florida was that he didn’t have to register as a sex offender!
Happy to hear that the despicable Harvey W. is going directly to jail to await sentencing, and will probably stay in custody while being tried in California! Orange jump suit and shackles for the win!
J R in WV
@Baud:
I teared up a little reading that obit. I’m proud to say I attended grad school on the West Virginia State (University now, then college) campus a very long time ago. A great small college.
randy khan
@Mandalay:
Yeah, that was good news.
Brachiator
@Kent:
So far, Trump has the courts in his pocket, so this is not much of a problem for him.
schrodingers_cat
How is Warren going to win, what is her path? BS is now ahead in MA polls?
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Actually, the federal courts have by and large thrown out many of Trump’s more outrageous edicts right out. Think of the first Muslim ban not long after he was inaugurated!
Right outa here!!
Now, he hasn’t given up on his hate, but he hasn’t really succeeded in making it law. Not really even regulations, just Executive Orders, and of course, putting fascists in charge of TSA, Customs, Immegratation and Border Patrol. Getting rid of the fascists will be hardest, as many of them will have civil service protections, until they get arrested and convicted for brutality and failure to follow actual laws and regulations.
taumaturgo
@jonas: Wave the white shit stain flag because there is absolutely nothing the new wave of voters can do or would do. This defeatist attitude before the actual battles is an unhelpful condition that the new breed of voters lacks.
LongHairedWeirdo
Part of me wants to scoff, and say “you only *SUSPECT* that?” but that’s the kind of thing that only works between close friends, where you can see the smile that shows I’m teasing, and only saying that I, personally, am convinced, and feel there’s (at least) clear and convincing evidence – and, if you’re being careful by using “suspect”, (like saying “DJT allegedly has abused the power of his office one or more times” – he has, and it’s not just allegations – okay, yes, but, “alleged” avoids libel accusations.) I’m on board with that.
debbie
Glad she spoke up. Wish the other justices would also.