5mo ago

'Visceral fury': Trump 'hitting a wall' as judges rush to block his executive orders

www.rawstory.com

Summary

Judges across the U.S. are blocking Trump’s aggressive executive orders, with some rulings expressing deep frustration.

A Trump-appointed judge halted his attempt to place 2,200 USAID employees on leave, while another blocked Elon Musk’s team from accessing Treasury records.

A Reagan-appointed judge condemned Trump’s disregard for the rule of law in a ruling against his birthright citizenship plan.

These legal setbacks are forcing federal agencies to reveal more details and raising concerns over Trump’s expansive use of executive power.

47 comments

Who will enforce the judges' rulings, is my question.
Or said another way: what prevents Trump and his goons and sycophants from simply disregarding them and carrying on whatever the hell they're doing unabashed?
- Nothing as far as I can tell, but the media, and even a lot of people on Lemmy still seem to think they care about the law or feel in any way obligated to abide by it. And I do not get it.
  
  It's not about this being some sort of firewall to stop him in his tracks or anything, the opportunity for that was last election, and we failed. It's now about being an effective opposition, just like they try do when we win.
  To paraphrase AOC, there needs to be sand in his gears. Yeah, he can push a lot of stuff through anyway, but we definitely want it to be as difficult as possible, costing them extra effort.
  Here's a kinda tired-seeming AOC chit chatting about all this stuff for 90 minutes on livestream:
  https://youtu.be/CVgNJf6CsBA
  Though the main battle is still over teaching logic and critical thinking to the public and individual civic dialogue imo.
  
  If he's willing to weaponize the pardon power (which we already know he is), there's no current way to stop him at all. Anything he does is protected by the 'presidential act' ruling, which is untested, but anything his lackeys do can just be pardoned, even pre-emptively before charges are brought. Since the pardon power is absolute and has no oversight, this would, as far as I can tell, stonewall any attempt to stop them unless that attempt is by literally barring the doors as they try to enter. The system was not designed to stand up to a bad actor of this magnitude; the recourse would be an impeachment but that's not happening unless he oversteps so massively that his own party turns on him.
  
  It provides cover for the resisting people in the agencies. Right now the nazis have the fig leaf of executing an EO when they enter these facilities and do their treason, and when the courts strip that it makes it legal (maybe required?) to bar physically them from the facilities
  
  i thought the ultimate rule was to follow the Constitution ... like if a tyrannical president orders the army generals to kill everybody on Earth (or similar insanity) then, those generals will refuse the order based on the Constitution ... and same would go for other people in authority ... ?
  
  Even if the Trump administration is not compliant, the alternative would be approval of this coup d'etat.
- In the end, I suspect he doesn't have the military sucking his cock. If he starts openly disobeying the rule of law, military officers have an obligation to overthrow him and protect the constitution. That's the one hope we have left.
  
  In the end, I suspect he doesn’t have the military sucking his cock.
  Yeah I think you got that right. He barfed on well-respected generals and disrespected veterans so much I don't think the military really loves Trump all that much.
  
  They'll never overthrow him. If he can't fill the top brass ranks with toadies, at most they'll just refuse to violate posse comitatus without a damn good reason for martial law.
- This is what I don’t get.
  There is a mechanism for doing this that’s fairly well grounded in the legal system. Go to a federal judge, explain that he’s continuing to break the law even though he’s not supposed to be, and ask for an order authorizing you to go and stop him, by force, with some officially designated force providers.
  It’s what you do if someone owes you money and won’t pay. It’s what the cops do when they want to violate someone’s privacy. It’s not the judge’s job to wander off the bench and into the real world and make it happen for you. But there are plenty of people who it is their job.
  Get a court order authorizing you to stop the illegality, get some law enforcement or military people to back you up, with the full force of the law behind them, and get to work. This cheat code of “IDC what the judge says” isn’t some new thing Trump discovered. People do it with their child support payments or bench warrants all the time.
  We nominated people in government to be our representatives in this democracy, and keep it safe. It is, to a certain extent, their job to make that happen. I don’t get what is all the waiting for “someone” to do something about it.
  
  Cops who work against Trump lose their jobs and risk having their names leaked to the Proud Boys and other J6 thugs. That's the difference.
  
  There is a mechanism for doing this that’s fairly well grounded in the legal system. Go to a federal judge, explain that he’s continuing to break the law even though he’s not supposed to be, and ask for an order authorizing you to go and stop him, by force, with some officially designated force providers.
  The issue is that this is all in Federal Court, and all of the "officially designated force providers" at that level are part of the Executive Branch. So who would agree to enforce this when Trump can just immediately fire them, even if he doesn't have the legal right to do so? Even the US Marshals, who are intended to enforce stuff like this, are still part of the DoJ under the Attorney General. Can a court compel an AG to take an action if the President can just pardon all of her contempt citations from ignoring it?
  Since these are States that are suing, can a Federal judge authorize State police to take control of a Federal building with the purpose of enforcing a Federal order that Federal forces refuse to enforce (and keeping the Muskovites out)?
- The actually physical people that are supposed to be affected play a big role. Short of locking people our of a space and systems, if an EO declared an agency "closed" but a judge said "nope, do it legal-like," people still showing up to work and expecting to get paid are all following the law.
  They hoped to be able to just wish this all away because they hate doing the real work of governing.
  
  people still showing up to work and expecting to get paid are all following the law.
  People aren't going to risk putting up a fight to defend their job. If Trump and Musk post goons at the entrance, no employee in their right mind will try to force their way in because they're legally supposed to be at work. They'll all stay at home and demand to be paid their salaries, because they were willing to work but were prevented to.
- It would have to be us.
- Eventually it comes down to the military. If the military decide to park their tanks in front of the white house and shoot or bombs protesters it's game over. If they decide the president is a traitor and go after him then he's gone.
lets hope this visceral fury has a critical, detrimental impact on his visceral pump
Good. Let the courts resist him on all fronts for what he is; a fascist. The more legal material the Democrats have laid at their feet; the faster they can use it to rebuild and build the case against Trump to convict him of base tyranny, treachery and treason.
Trump deserves to rot in solitude in our worst federal prison until he expires naturally.
- it would be unconstitutional to convict him of treason and give him life imprisonment. the constitution says, in no uncertain terms, that the punishment for his crimes is death by hanging
  
  If the constitution decrees it; sure. I think death is too kind though. But it might be the only option; seeing as how the next GOP idiot who takes the Oval Office will probably pardon him out of it.
- Guantanamo Bay, even
  
  That is our worst federal prison by far; and it's no longer only a military-prison; with the immigrants stopping there. :)
Hard to execute your Machiavellian overnight decapitation conquest when so many people believe in the checks and balances designed to inhibit takeover by a King.
The relevant section of Machiavelli's The Prince (1532) that Trump, despite having four years to have his loyalists prepare a government takeover, has failed to do over the past few weeks:
... on seizing a state, the usurper should make haste to inflict what injuries he must, at a stroke, that he may not have to renew them daily, but be enabled by their discontinuance to reassure men’s minds, and afterwards win them over by benefits. Whosoever, either through timidity or from following bad counsels, adopts a contrary course, must keep the sword always drawn, and can put no trust in his subjects, who suffering from continued and constantly renewed severities, will never yield him their confidence. Injuries, therefore, should be inflicted all at once, that their ill savour being less lasting may the less offend; whereas, benefits should be conferred little by little, so that they may be more fully relished.
- Great aneurysm, the very best aneurysm, the very most painful and debilitating aneurysm
It's not clear to me what penalty there can be if Trump simply ignores Court orders he doesn't like. Even if the Supreme Court rules against him, what can they do? The sole remedy for an out-of-control President is impeachment, and that gets started by Congress.
- I seem to recall some additional failsafe being put in place shortly after the Constitution was written. In fact I believe it was the second idea they had on how to strengthen our system of government. Unfortunately, I'm so forgetful I can't quite put a name to it.
Trump’s temper tantrums hit judicial kabuki theater – media gasps as the orange wrecking ball smashes their porcelain institution. Where was this performative horror when Roberts greenlit Muslim bans or Citizens United? Courts aren’t ‘under attack’ – they’re just tasting the bile they’ve been brewing since Dred Scott.
This outrage is curated amnesia. The same hacks who mythologized Scalia’s ‘originalism’ now clutch rosaries over ‘norms’? Spare me. Trump’s judicial meltdowns are feedback loops of a system that legalized torture and mass surveillance – suddenly allergic to its own toxins.
And for those who didn't click the link, the 'visceral fury' is that of the judges. Not of Cheeto, which is the way I first read it. It sounds like a headline mean to provoke fear of Drumpf, 'Oh no, daddy is mad, really mad, quick, hide under the bed!". No. Pity, it would be all the better if it was Orange Diaper Baby's visceral something or other (probably filling his diaper), it's fun to watch a spoiled brat rage. Muskrat is already coming unhinged at not being able to play with ALL the toys he wants.
- What about those of us who clicked the link but got turned away due to content blockers :p
"Impotent rage": trump "shitting a pant" as his illegal blustering is upset by objective reality.
Keep on making him madder maybe hell give himself an aneurism and be forced to resign
My apologies for the pessimism, but any judge's ruling against Trump is at best a temporary delay. All findings that this that or the other Trumpocalypse is unConstitutional will be appealed to the Supreme Court, which is a subsidiary of the Republican Party. The Supremes will say NO to a few lesser outrages to maintain credibility, but YES to all the most outrageous outrages.
The Constitution and the Law no longer matter.

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