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Newsweek
4 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Trump's Right. There Is a Judicial Coup—But It's a Counter-Coup
President Donald Trump and his minions continue to rage and blow as they lose one court case after another. In a case of Trumpian projection, the White House declared the recent decision at the U.S. Court of International Trade striking down most of his tariffs a "judicial coup." It was classic Trump. He always accuses his adversaries of committing whatever wrong he is trying to get away with—"lying," Hillary Clinton—"crooked" Joe Biden. But actually, Trump keeps losing in court because he is trying to overthrow law and order, and the courts are trying to stop him. With a steady and deadly stream of executive orders, Trump is mounting a coup against the checks and balances that have sustained democracy in America for over 200 years. The courts are the counter-coup—seeking to restore the established constitutional order. President Donald Trump answers reporters' questions after he posthumously awarded the new Medals of Sacrifice to fallen officers during a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House on May 19, 2025, in Washington,... President Donald Trump answers reporters' questions after he posthumously awarded the new Medals of Sacrifice to fallen officers during a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House on May 19, 2025, in Washington, D.C. MoreIn the case of the tariffs, the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs on goods entering the country. Yes, Congress passed a law allowing the president to impose tariffs targeted at emergencies, but Trump capriciously slapped them on the whole world without rhyme or reason. The tariff tsunami, like other Trump power grabs, was justified by a claim of an "emergency," but, wisely, the court would have none of it. The sham trade "emergency" wasn't as flashy as the "invasion" emergency Trump declared regarding the Tren de Aragua drug gang. But it was just as bogus. Courts correctly discerned that the United States wasn't being invaded. More importantly, they recognized that even enemy aliens in time of war have the right to challenge their arrests in court. Trump halting hearings and threatening habeas corpus is revolutionary stuff. It's the beginning of a road reminiscent of France's Reign of Terror where its glorious Declaration of the Rights of Man was pushed aside by men who confused their own impulses with righteousness. Trump can complain all he wants, but he is the insurgent, not the judges. The principal feature of the Trump coup is his attempt to use executive orders to seize Congress' law-making function. Trump and his people simply ignore that presidents don't announce laws, they carry them out as written by Congress. That's why presidents swear to "faithfully execute" the laws. In the case of the tariffs, the law limits Trump's power. It is no coup for courts to say Trump must obey these limits. In the case of his cuts to federal spending on everything from foreign aid to FEMA, the governing law is the budget passed by Congress. It says what the president must spend on, and the president doesn't have the option to rewrite the law so he can spend—or not spend—as he likes. Yet Trump has undone innumerable congressional spending decisions. Consider also Trump's attacks on major law firms and universities. His executive orders punishing people because he doesn't like who or what they stand for don't just seek to cancel acts of Congress, they seek to cancel the constitutional First Amendment guarantees of free speech and association. Was it judicial insurrection for the courts to say that Trump can't cancel the First Amendment? And is it mutiny for the courts to say that Trump can't use his office to punish his personal enemies like former FBI director Robert Mueller? The constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law requires official action to be aimed at legitimate government purposes—not personal ones. Likewise, is it a revolt for the courts to insist on the "due process" of law guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments? This promise means that before the government deports people or bans lawyers from federal buildings, it must give them a chance to defend themselves. No. The courts aren't in revolt. What's revolting is the hubris that has inspired Trump to ignore the law as declared by Congress and the courts and associate law instead with his own personal will. The courts have no physical force to deploy against Trump's coup. To sustain the judicial counter-coup, the courts have only the moral force of memory that our nation became mighty, that it became the envy of the world, because it was founded on a government of laws, not men. Let's hope it's enough. Thomas G. Moukawsher is a former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. He is the author of the new book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Boston Globe
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Carême' brings ‘yes, chef' energy to 19th-century France
Indeed, non-Francophiles may need a second to orient themselves to this particular slice of history; the series caters more toward those already steeped in France's political evolution than those who need a beginner's guide. The fast-paced, handsomely shot show is set a few years after the French Revolution, where Carême's namesake Marie Antoinette and her husband, King Louis XVI, were guillotined and Napoleon Bonaparte (a little-seen Franck Molinaro) took charge as First Consul of the newly formed French Republic. It's ostensibly a time of peace, although lingering royalists and revolutionaries often clash with Bonaparte's supporters, and everyday Parisians are worried they've traded one totalitarian regime for another. In other words, things are tense for just about everyone, including the show's pulled-from-the-history-books political players. Fresh off butchering dissenters during the Reign of Terror, officious chief of police Joseph Fouché (Micha Lescot doing his best Javert) is quick to crush any threat of rebellion in Paris. Napoleon's wife, Joséphine (Maud Wyler), meanwhile, is focused on the kind of soft-power and glad-handing her husband detests, even as she worries this whole Republic experiment may collapse if she can't produce an heir. Advertisement And working from the shadows is nobleman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (Jérémie Renier), a savvy statesman who's happy to change up his stances, allies, and tactics in order to hold France together — and elevate his own position in the process. (The history books now remember 'Talleyrand' as a nickname for crafty, ever-shifting diplomacy.) Into that political hotbed comes Carême, a culinary savant everyone wants to use as their political pawn — ostensibly because chefs have easy access to the elite, but mostly because he's too sexy to resist. Lanky, tousled, and playfully flirtatious, Voisin reads like a cross between Jeremy Allen White and Timothée Chalamet; both brashly demanding and boyishly charming. It's a seductive central performance, and his modernized costuming only adds to the idea that Carême is the bad boy of French cooking. (While everyone else is vaguely period appropriate, he's styled like a pirate prince wearing Primark's fall coat collection.) Introduced, uh, experimenting with whipped cream with his paramour Henriette (Lyna Khoudri), Carême has an ambitious desire to elevate French cooking to new heights by bringing architectural elements to his work. (Think elaborate cakes styled as Egyptian pyramids, sugar sculptures made to look like ships, and a new dish called vol-au-vent.) Though he's no Napoleon fan, he's more interested in petit fours than France's political woes. Advertisement But when his adoptive father/patisserie mentor Sylvain Bailly (Vincent Schmitt) is arrested by Fouché on trumped up charges, Carême reluctantly agrees to work for Talleyrand in exchange for help freeing him — taking up a role as both head chef and unofficial spy. That makes Talleyrand half mentor introducing Carême to high society and half crime boss demanding his protégé do his bidding. While the real-life Carême really did work for Talleyrand on important diplomatic meals, the series heightens that idea into a full-on espionage thriller. Though 'Carême' is based on a biography by British writer-actor Ian Kelly, who serves as co-creator along with Italian writer Davide Serino, the show plays pretty fast and loose with history. It frequently embraces a ' It's a bit of a goofy premise that also gives the show a welcome episodic structure. Each week features a new high-stakes meal in which Carême must pull off some kind of mission for Talleyrand. In one episode, he delivers a booze-soaked buffet as part of an entrapment scheme. In another, he uses the cover of a luncheon to search for a hidden piece of evidence. At one point, he's shipped off to Warsaw to cook a meal so good it will convince Louis's exiled brother to renounce the throne. When food fails, Carême often turns to sex to get what he needs instead. (Though he doesn't sleep with the exiled king, he does suggest it.) The tone of it all sits somewhere between knowingly ridiculous and emotionally committed. Advertisement "Carême" combines food and political intrigue. Apple TV+ Of course, given that the real Carême is most famous for his massive impact on French cooking, it's a little weird that the show foregrounds the spy stuff so much. When it comes to the food, the series relies more on montage than exposition to explore what made Carême's cooking so influential — simple but innovative ingredients, elaborately detailed presentations, and a focus on streamlining the process of working in a kitchen. (Get ready for perhaps the first 'yes chef' in culinary history.) The scenes where Carême and his kitchen staff pull together a meal or invent a new dish are exhilarating in their own right. And one of the show's most electric relationships is between Carême and his talented sous-chef Agathe (Alice Da Luz), which plays like an even more sexually charged riff on the dynamic between Still, though it's odd that there are more double crosses than double creams in a show about a famed pastry chef, the French history riffs are at least zippily delivered. The series is also gorgeous to look at, with great production design for its bustling kitchens and opulent banquets. And Carême's complicated relationship with Talleyrand is a strong central anchor, particularly as the season goes on. (This is clearly a show that's gunning for a second season.) While 'Carême' never reaches the refinement of fine dining, it delivers a historical smorgasbord with a little something for every palate. Advertisement CARÊME Starring Benjamin Voisin, Jérémie Renier, Micha Lescot, Alice Da Luz. On Apple TV+
Russia Today
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Opposition to ‘Eurofascism' driving rapprochement with US
The US and Russia are natural allies against 'Eurofascism' and the tyrannical tendencies prevalent in Western European countries, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. The spy agency published a text on its website on Wednesday titled 'Eurofascism, just as 80 years ago, is the common enemy for Moscow and Washington.' The SVR argued that Europe has a 'historical predisposition' to 'various forms of totalitarianism that periodically produce devastating, global-scale conflicts.' It cited the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and the 'bloody actions' of Napoleon as examples. It also referenced the Charlemagne Division of the SS, made up of volunteers from Nazi-occupied France. The agency credited French author Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, who collaborated with Nazi Germany, with introducing 'the concept of Eurofascism... and its ideology.' According to the SVR, la Rochelle believed that 'Eurofascism … [is] inherent not only to the Germans but to other European 'societies' as well.' The agency cited unnamed experts as saying that the current rift between the US and the EU facilitates a 'situational rapprochement of Washington and Moscow.' 'The United States is free due to the willingness of the ancestors of modern Americans to confront such dictatorships as the British Monarchy or the Jacobin Revolution,' it said. The SVR claimed that 'conservative expert circles in the USA believe that the British elite … is very much inclined to commit the gravest crimes against humanity.' 'America felt the effect of similar inclinations of the British back in August of 1814, when the British troops occupied Washington, burned the Capitol and the White House,' the SVR claimed. The agency said that 'foreign expert circles' are hopeful that Russia and the US will work together to prevent 'a new global conflict' and confront 'possible provocations both from Ukraine and from the 'maddened Europeans' traditionally urged on by Great Britain.' The statement was released as the US is attempting to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Russian officials said that, unlike the Biden administration, President Donald Trump and his team have shown a readiness to listen to Moscow's positions and understand the root causes of the conflict.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
From stage to page: A Chicago poet honors her prima ballerina mother and Osage heritage
CHICAGO (WGN) — Some believe destiny is whispered through the wind. Among the tall grass of Oklahoma's Osage Tribal Reservation, many stories slip between its reeds. Some stories are about wealth, greed and murder, but one is of a mother and daughter who would make certain the world wouldn't forget the elders who lived it. Elise Paschen is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation. She is the author of six poetry collections, gracefully penning the words her ancestors once spoke. Forced relocation to reservations in Fairfax, Oklahoma, was deadly for Osage Indians. Oil was discovered on the reservation, and headrights, or royalty payments from the oil produced, were given to those in the tribe. What followed was a period known as the Osage 'Reign of Terror' when as many as hundreds of Osage Indians were reportedly murdered by outsiders hoping to gain control over the valuable assets. 'The year my mother was born in Fairfax, Oklahoma, white men were marrying Osage women and killing them for their headrights,' Paschen said. 'My mother was born a year after the Indian Citizenship Act was passed.' The hallway outside her Chicago home displays framed photos of Paschen in graduation tassels from Harvard and Oxford, clippings of her work in Poetry Magazine, and a faded Newseek Magazine featuring the first U.S. prima ballerina – an icon Paschen knew as 'mother.' 'My mother, the prima ballerina, Maria Tallchief, grew up on the Osage reservation,' she said. As a child, Paschen watched her mother dance across the world's most prestigious stages. 'Standing in the wings and watching my mother perform and turn into these amazing creatures, into Cinderella, a swan queen, a firebird… then she'd come out of the wings, and she'd be panting and catching her breath and mopping her brow,' Paschen said. But it wouldn't be until years later that Paschen realized her mother's greatest act was refusing to let the world trim her name to fit their tongue. 'They wanted her to change her name to Maria Tallchief,' Paschen said. Ignoring the headline 'Red Skin Dances at the Opera,' Maria demanded the playbill proudly reflect her Osage name. 'It was huge that she held onto her last name and didn't succumb to the Russian influence,' she said. While her mother danced out her identity, it was words, not movement that called Paschen. She began to write about the sepia pictures hanging in the hall, braiding a beat of generations with her own coming of age. When Maria Tallchief took her final bow, passing in the presence of her daughter in 2013, Paschen knew their art, though different, pulsed with the same purpose. 'Nothing gives me greater pleasure than writing a poem,' she said. This week, Paschen released her latest collection of poems titled 'Blood Wolf Moon,' a moving dance of words in both English and Osage Orthography. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - The liberals' license: How the left finds release in an age of rage
'We should replace our piece of crap Constitution.' Those words from author Elie Mystal, a regular commentator on MSNBC, are hardly surprising from someone who previously called the Constitution 'trash' and urged not just the abolition of the U.S. Senate but also of 'all voter registration laws.' But Mystal's radical rhetoric is becoming mainstream on the left, as shown by his best-selling books and popular media appearances. There is a counter-constitutional movement building in law schools and across the country. And although Mystal has not advocated violence, some on the left are turning to political violence and criminal acts. It is part of the 'righteous rage' that many of them see as absolving them from the basic demands not only of civility but of legality. They are part of a rising class of American Jacobins — bourgeois revolutionaries increasingly prepared to trash everything, from cars to the Constitution. The Jacobins were a radical group in France that propelled that country into the worst excesses of the French Revolution. They were largely affluent citizens, including journalists, professors, lawyers, and others who shredded existing laws and destroyed property. It would ultimately lead not only to the blood-soaked 'Reign of Terror' but also to the demise of the Jacobins themselves as more radical groups turned against them. Of course, it is not revolution on the minds of most of these individuals. It is rage. Rage is the ultimate drug. It offers a release from longstanding social norms — a license to do those things long repressed by individuals who viewed themselves as decent, law-abiding citizens. Across the country, liberals are destroying Tesla cars, torching dealerships and charging stations, and even allegedly hitting political dissenters with their cars. Last week, affluent liberal shoppers admitted that they are shoplifting from Whole Foods to strike back at Jeff Bezos for working with the Trump administration and moving the Washington Post back to the political center. They are also enraged at Mark Zuckerberg for restoring free speech protections at Meta. One '20-something communications professional' in Washington explained 'If a billionaire can steal from me, I can scrape a little off the top, too.' These affluent shoplifters portrayed themselves as Robin Hoods. Of course, that is assuming Robin Hood was stealing organic fruit from the rich and giving it to himself. On college campuses, affluent students and even professors are engaging in political violence. Just this week, University of Wisconsin Professor José Felipe Alvergue, head of the English Department, turned over the table of College Republicans supporting a conservative for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He reportedly declared, 'The time for this is over!' Likewise, a mob this week attacked a conservative display and tent on the campus of the University of California-Davis as campus police passively watched. The Antifa protesters, carrying a large banner with the slogan 'ACAB' or 'all cops are bastards,' trashed the tent and carried it off. Antifa is a violent and vehemently anti-free speech group that thrives on U.S. college campuses. In his book 'Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,' Mark Bray explains that 'most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists. … From that standpoint, 'free speech' as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.' Of course, many of the American Jacobins are themselves bourgeois or even affluent figures. And they are finding a host of enablers telling them that the Constitution itself is a threat and that the legal system has been corrupted by oligarchs, white supremacists, or reactionaries. This includes leading academics and commentators who are denouncing the Constitution and core American values. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, is the author of 'No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.' In a New York Times op-ed, 'The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,' law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the nation to 'reclaim America from constitutionalism.' Commentator Jennifer Szalai has scoffed at what she called 'Constitution worship.' 'Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us,' she wrote. 'A growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.' As intellectuals knock down our laws and Constitution, radicals are pouring into the breach. Political violence and rage rhetoric are becoming more common. Some liberals embraced groups like Antifa, while others shrugged off property damage and violent threats against political opponents. It is the very type of incitement or rage rhetoric that Democrats once accused Trump of fostering in groups like the Proud Boys. Members of Congress such as Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) have called for Tesla CEO Elon Musk to be 'taken down' and said that Democrats have to be 'OK with punching.' Some take such words as a justification to violently attack a system supposedly advancing the white supremacy or fascism. Fortunately, such violence has been confined so far to a minority of radicalized individuals, but there is an undeniable increase in such violent, threatening speech and in actual violence. The one thing the American Jacobins will not admit is that they like the rage and the release that it brings them. From shoplifting to arson to attempted assassination, the rejection of our legal system brings them freedom to act outside of morality and to take whatever they want. Democratic leaders see these 'protests' as needed popularism to combat Trump — to make followers 'strike ready' and 'to stand up and fight back.' For a politician, a mob can become irresistible if you can steer it against your opponents. The problem is controlling the mob once it has broken free of the bounds of legal and personal accountability. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of 'The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
