Congress needs a Supreme Court jolt to rein in a rampant presidency
A Madisonian moment has arrived. Power vested in the judiciary by the Constitution's Article III might yet prod Congress into exercising its atrophied Article I powers to restrain today's rampant presidency, whose Article II powers can only be checked by the courts, and by a Congress reinvigorated by the courts.
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Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Judge temporarily halts Trump's proclamation blocking Harvard students' visas
A federal judge late Thursday temporarily blocked President Trump's proclamation that blocks visas for foreign students planning to attend Harvard University until after a hearing later this month. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs's order came swiftly after Harvard rushed to court to ask the judge to immediately block Trump's proclamation, which he signed a day earlier. Burroughs issued her order before the government responded, saying the school would otherwise 'sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.' The judge, an appointee of former President Obama who serves in Boston, said she would hold a June 16 hearing on whether to block Trump's proclamation indefinitely. Trump's proclamation marked a shift in the administration's expanding battle with the Ivy League School over its refusal to comply with a list of demands, which include changes to its admissions and hiring policies and a stronger stance against antisemitism. Harvard first sued the administration in April for freezing more than $2 billion in federal funding. It filed a second lawsuit last month after the Department of Homeland Security revoked its certification to admit foreign students. The development prompted the school to seek emergency relief, quickly convincing Burroughs to block the revocation as the case proceeds. Harvard amended the second lawsuit on Thursday after Trump signed the new proclamation, urging Burroughs to immediately block it and accusing the president of circumventing the earlier order. 'The Proclamation simply reflects the Administration's effort to accomplish the very result that the Court sought to prevent. The Court should not stand for that,' the school's legal team wrote in court filings. Trump's proclamation cites a federal law authorizing the president to suspend entry of a group of noncitizens whose entry would be detrimental to national interests. 'In my judgment, Harvard's conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers,' the proclamation states. 'Until such time as the university shares the information that the Federal Government requires to safeguard national security and the American public, it is in the national interest to deny foreign nationals access to Harvard under the auspices of educational exchange,' it continues. 'This lawsuit seeks to kneecap the President's constitutionally vested powers under Article II,' assistant DHS secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Hill about Harvard's lawsuit. 'It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system; no lawsuit, this or any other, is going to change that. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Chicago Tribune
21 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Federal vs. state power at issue in a hearing over Trump's election overhaul executive order
BOSTON — Democratic state attorneys general on Friday will seek to block President Donald Trump's proposal for a sweeping overhaul of U.S. elections in a case that tests a constitutional bedrock — the separation of powers. The top law enforcement officials from 19 states filed a federal lawsuit after the Republican president signed the executive order in March, arguing that its provisions would step on states' power to set their own election rules and that the executive branch had no such authority. In a filing supporting that argument, a bipartisan group of former secretaries of state said Trump's directive would upend the system established by the Constitution's Elections Clause, which gives states and Congress control over how elections are run. They said the order seeks to 'unilaterally coronate the President as the country's chief election policymaker and administrator.' Elon Musk's threat to withdraw Dragon capsule would leave NASA with 1 option: RussiaIf the court does not halt the order, they argued, 'the snowball of executive overreach will grow swiftly and exponentially.' Trump's election directive was part of a flurry of executive orders he has issued in the opening months of his second term, many of which have drawn swift legal challenges. It follows years of him falsely claiming that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election was due to widespread fraud and an election year in which he and other Republicans promoted the notion that large numbers of noncitizens threatened the integrity of U.S. elections. In fact, voting by noncitizens is rare and, when caught, can lead to felony charges and deportation. Trump's executive order would require voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, prohibit mail or absentee ballots from being counted if they are received after Election Day, set new rules for voting equipment and prohibit non-U.S. citizens from being able to donate in certain elections. It also would condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the strict ballot deadline. The hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Boston comes in one of three lawsuits filed against the executive order. One is from Oregon and Washington, where elections are conducted almost entirely by mail and ballots received after Election Day are counted as long as they are postmarked by then. The provision that would create a proof-of-citizenship requirement for federal elections already has been halted in a lawsuit filed by voting and civil rights groups and national Democratic organizations. In that case, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, the judge said the president's attempt to use a federal agency to enact a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voting usurped the power of states and Congress, which at the time was considering legislation that would do just that. That bill, called the SAVE Act, passed the U.S. House but faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Trump's executive order said its intent was to ensure 'free, fair and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion.' The Justice Department, in arguing against the motion by the attorneys general for a preliminary injunction, said the president is within his rights to direct agencies to carry out federal voting laws. The order tasks the U.S. Election Assistance Commission with updating the federal voter registration form to require people to submit documentation proving they are U.S. citizens. Similar provisions enacted previously in a handful of states have raised concerns about disenfranchising otherwise eligible voters who can't readily access those documents. That includes married women, who would need both a birth certificate and a marriage license if they had changed their last name. A state proof-of-citizenship law enacted in Kansas more than a decade ago blocked the registrations of 31,000 people later found to be eligible to vote. The two sides will argue over whether the president has the authority to direct the election commission, which was created by Congress as an independent agency after the Florida ballot debacle during the 2000 presidential election. In its filing, the Justice Department said Trump's executive order falls within his authority to direct officials 'to carry out their statutory duties,' adding that 'the only potential voters it disenfranchises are noncitizens who are ineligible to vote anyway.'
Gizmodo
31 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
The Funniest Memes About Elon and Trump's Messy Divorce
What a glorious day on the internet. President Donald Trump and billionaire oligarch Elon Musk are fighting. Like, fighting fighting. And social media is enjoying the drama in the only way it knows how: By sharing memes. In case you were somehow in a remote cave without internet access recently, here's the recap before we get to the chuckles: Musk had a going-away ceremony at the White House last Friday and earlier this week started to get more bold criticizing the budget bill passed by Republicans in the U.S. House. It was weird, but not as weird as it was about to get in just a few short days. Trump addressed the criticism when he was asked about Musk's plea to 'KILL THE BILL,' during a press conference Thursday morning. But Trump seemed to escalate things into more personal territory after Musk had been pretty good at just criticizing the Republican bill without calling the president names. Trump mocked Musk's mysterious black eye and said he was 'very disappointed' in the billionaire, suggesting that perhaps he now had 'Trump Derangement Syndrome.' That set off Musk, who went nuclear on X, saying that Trump was named in the Jeffrey Epstein files and that's why they haven't been released by the U.S. Department of Justice. Trump also shared a post about how Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should become president. Trump shot back on Truth Social that maybe he should kill all the subsidies for Musk's companies and cancel his lucrative government contracts. Musk responded by saying that SpaceX would 'begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,' before later backing off that threat. It was quite a thing to watch play out on each man's respective social media network and it's not even over yet. Musk owns X, of course, and Trump owns Truth Social, making their dispute odd in a very 21st-century way. Others participated in the debate as well, with Steve Bannon calling for Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act in order to seize SpaceX and deport Musk from the country. Musk wrote that Bannon was a 'retard.' The memes started flowing immediately and they're still going. There are jokes about Musk being deported, riffs about the billionaire trying to overthrow the federal government, and jokes about JD Vance being caught in the middle of it all. There are also plenty of zingers about Jeffrey Epstein. Below, we've compiled some of our favorite memes we've seen circulating. But given the size of the internet, we surely missed some things. If we missed your favorite we're sure you'll let us know in the comments. Who gets custody of JD in the divorce? — Tina Smith (@ June 5, 2025 at 1:54 PM JD Vance crying in the wood paneled rumpus room thinking the divorce is his fault. — Leeman Kessler (@ June 5, 2025 at 1:20 PM the thing about 'bread and circuses' is that you're not supposed to double the price of bread and then become the circus — Janel Comeau 🍁 (@ June 5, 2025 at 12:55 PM El Salvador's CECOT prison has just received a new inmate after he was deported from the U.S. for illegally overstaying a student visa in 1995. [image or embed] — Oliver Alexander (@ June 5, 2025 at 2:32 PM this is like drake and kendrick lamar but they're both drake — Anna Hughes 🍁 (@ June 5, 2025 at 1:22 PM Jeff Bezos on the phone with his Blue Origin CEO right now: — Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) June 5, 2025 Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever horror the future brings, whatever disaster justifiably curses us all forever, at least we had a pretty funny day today — Mike Drucker (@ June 5, 2025 at 3:11 PM Trumps new foreign policy by tomorrow — 🌸sports tweeter Matthias🌸 (tonesetter) (@sportswaatcher) June 5, 2025 Elon you can do this. You have the resources to march on DC with a private army. You'll be greeted as a liberator — pixelatedboat aka 'mr bluesky' (@ June 5, 2025 at 2:27 PM
