Latest news with #UnitedStatesSupremeCourt
Gulf Today
2 days ago
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Why Chief Justice Roberts is right and VP Vance is wrong
President Donald Trump returned to office bent on pursuing a more expansive view of executive power than he did in his first go-round. The manifestation of that intent by his young administration has been the dizzying flurry of executive orders targeting universities, law firms, foundations and other bastions of what Trump views as elitist resistance to his agenda; undermining by executive fiat congressionally established and funded federal bureaucracies, like the Department of Education; and detaining and often deporting noncitizens of various types. There have also been calls to impeach federal judges who temporarily halt Trump initiatives. Indeed, Trump himself has openly castigated judges who have blocked his legally questionable actions. 'These Judges want to assume the powers of the Presidency, without having to attain 80 Million Votes,' Trump wrote March 20 on his Truth Social platform. 'They want all of the advantages and none of the risks.' On that same day, Trump demanded, inappropriately, that Chief Justice John Roberts get federal judges in line. 'If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY,' Trump wrote, 'our Country is in very serious trouble.' An array of federal judges in districts throughout the country have overruled or temporarily halted many of the Trump administration's actions. That's prompted petitions to the US Supreme Court for a ruling to bar any single district judge from issuing an injunction covering the entire country. Trump even has ignored the Supreme Court itself. Kilmar Abrego García remains in an El Salvador prison nearly six weeks after the high court ordered the Trump administration to 'facilitate' Abrego García's return to the US. They'd ruled his due process rights were violated and he should have an opportunity to contest his deportation. (Trump officials argued, absurdly in our view, that the court's language meant only that they would have to allow Abrego García to return if he could somehow make his way back to the US border on his own.) All of which brings us to an illuminating back-and-forth recently between Roberts and Vice President JD Vance. Roberts in a May 7 'fireside chat' in Buffalo, New York, confronted the simmering issue head on: 'In our Constitution,' he said, 'the judiciary is a coequal branch of government separate from the others with the authority to interpret the Constitution as law and strike down, obviously, acts of Congress or acts of the president.' (Our emphasis.) Vance, in an interview with The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat published May 21, laid out an entirely different view. 'I know this is inflammatory,' Vance said, 'but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people.' While allowing 'most courts' weren't guilty of his (indeed) inflammatory charge, Vance went on to criticize Roberts for saying the role of the judiciary was to 'check the excesses of the executive. I thought that was a profoundly wrong sentiment.' Roberts and his colleagues ought to spend at least as much time policing lower-court judges as they do second-guessing the president, Vance asserted. But that's not the issue here nor what is troubling us. It's that the main idea behind Vance's case was that the president is due more deference from the courts than he's getting because he was directly elected. Presidents have been grumbling about unelected judges from the beginning of the republic. Still, Roberts is right. Of course he is right. The framers of our Constitution were particularly wary of placing too much power in the hands of the president, having recently gone to the trouble of going to war against a king. Both John Adams and James Madison warned against the 'tyranny of the majority,' and helped devise the checks and balances embedded in the powers given the separate branches of government to stave off the potential threat to liberty posed by the passions of the day. We met Thursday with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. The conversation was wide-ranging, but Trump's actions understandably were top of mind. Executive Director Colleen Connell said the Trump administration was 'just plain wrong' in its belief that the judiciary ought to defer to the executive. 'Our system of law is built foundationally (on the principle) that no person is above the law,' she told us. 'It goes back to Magna Carta in 1215.' Roberts took that stance a step further in his May 7 appearance. He said America's founders went beyond their English forebears, who had established the courts as a part of Parliament, and set up the judiciary as a separate, coequal branch. That 'innovation,' in Roberts' words, 'doesn't work' without judicial independence. Vance's critique, too, was off the mark in that it ignored Roberts' own assertion a few weeks ago that there exists a potent check on lower courts. It's the ability to appeal to higher courts and ultimately the Supreme Court, a path the Trump administration has taken frequently in its early months. Sure, some 'activist' district judges overstep, but that occurs at both ends of the political spectrum, the definition of an 'activist' judge typically being in the eye of the (losing) beholder. Ergo, that appeal process up to the highest level. It's effective, too. No federal judge of our acquaintance likes being slapped down by the Supremes. Tribune News Service
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Lawrence O'Donnell Says Trump Is Unworthy of Being President After Memorial Day Message
MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell took a scorched-earth approach Monday night to discussing President Donald Trump's inflammatory Memorial Day message on his Truth Social account. In his post, Trump called former President Joe Biden and so-called 'U.S.A. hating judges' throughout the country 'scum' for their border and immigration stances, writing, 'Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country.' Near the end of his post, Trump wrote, 'Hopefully, the United States Supreme Court, and other good and compassionate judges throughout the land, will save us from the decisions of the monsters who want our country to go to Hell.' 'Today, Donald Trump proved once again why he is unworthy to be President of the United States by posting on Memorial Day this poison on social media,' O'Donnell said in response. The 'Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell' host went on to note, 'Think back to Richard Nixon, who was literally driven out of the presidency by the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruling against him. Richard Nixon never once dreamed of using language like that.' You can listen to the full 'Last Word' segment yourself below. O'Donnell was eventually joined by Norm Ornstein, a political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who similarly slammed Trump's Memorial Day post. 'It's what a narcissistic sociopath would do,' Ornstein bluntly stated. He additionally criticized Trump's Saturday commencement address at West Point, calling it 'unhinged.' '[He] wore his campaign hat and then left before doing what every other president has done when they've given that address, which is to shake the hands of the people who are graduating from West Point,' Ornstein explained. 'He said, 'I have to deal with China and Russia,' and then went off to play golf.' 'The contempt that the Commander-in-Chief we now have has for our fallen heroes and for emerging military leaders is sickening,' the political scientist concluded. O'Donnell, for his part, once again questioned Trump's mental capacity, calling it 'completely inadequate for the presidency on any level, be it intelligence or knowledge or emotional stability or even appreciation of very fundamental things about what it means to be American.' 'That is relentlessly on display non-stop,' O'Donnell insisted. 'Some people want to just keep the focus on Joe Biden and what condition was he in in the final year of his presidency, when Joe Biden never, ever, ever said anything like what Donald Trump just said.' The post Lawrence O'Donnell Says Trump Is Unworthy of Being President After Memorial Day Message appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lawrence O'Donnell Says Trump Is Unworthy of Being President After Memorial Day Message
MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell took a scorched-earth approach Monday night to discussing President Donald Trump's inflammatory Memorial Day message on his Truth Social account. In his post, Trump called former President Joe Biden and so-called 'U.S.A. hating judges' throughout the country 'scum' for their border and immigration stances, writing, 'Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country.' Near the end of his post, Trump wrote, 'Hopefully, the United States Supreme Court, and other good and compassionate judges throughout the land, will save us from the decisions of the monsters who want our country to go to Hell.' 'Today, Donald Trump proved once again why he is unworthy to be President of the United States by posting on Memorial Day this poison on social media,' O'Donnell said in response. The 'Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell' host went on to note, 'Think back to Richard Nixon, who was literally driven out of the presidency by the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruling against him. Richard Nixon never once dreamed of using language like that.' You can listen to the full 'Last Word' segment yourself below. O'Donnell was eventually joined by Norm Ornstein, a political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who similarly slammed Trump's Memorial Day post. 'It's what a narcissistic sociopath would do,' Ornstein bluntly stated. He additionally criticized Trump's Saturday commencement address at West Point, calling it 'unhinged.' '[He] wore his campaign hat and then left before doing what every other president has done when they've given that address, which is to shake the hands of the people who are graduating from West Point,' Ornstein explained. 'He said, 'I have to deal with China and Russia,' and then went off to play golf.' 'The contempt that the Commander-in-Chief we now have has for our fallen heroes and for emerging military leaders is sickening,' the political scientist concluded. O'Donnell, for his part, once again questioned Trump's mental capacity, calling it 'completely inadequate for the presidency on any level, be it intelligence or knowledge or emotional stability or even appreciation of very fundamental things about what it means to be American.' 'That is relentlessly on display non-stop,' O'Donnell insisted. 'Some people want to just keep the focus on Joe Biden and what condition was he in in the final year of his presidency, when Joe Biden never, ever, ever said anything like what Donald Trump just said.' The post Lawrence O'Donnell Says Trump Is Unworthy of Being President After Memorial Day Message appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lawrence O'Donnell Says Trump Is Unworthy of Being President After Memorial Day Message
MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell took a scorched-earth approach Monday night to discussing President Donald Trump's inflammatory Memorial Day message on his Truth Social account. In his post, Trump called former President Joe Biden and so-called 'U.S.A. hating judges' throughout the country 'scum' for their border and immigration stances, writing, 'Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country.' Near the end of his post, Trump wrote, 'Hopefully, the United States Supreme Court, and other good and compassionate judges throughout the land, will save us from the decisions of the monsters who want our country to go to Hell.' 'Today, Donald Trump proved once again why he is unworthy to be President of the United States by posting on Memorial Day this poison on social media,' O'Donnell said in response. The 'Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell' host went on to note, 'Think back to Richard Nixon, who was literally driven out of the presidency by the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruling against him. Richard Nixon never once dreamed of using language like that.' You can listen to the full 'Last Word' segment yourself below. O'Donnell was eventually joined by Norm Ornstein, a political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who similarly slammed Trump's Memorial Day post. 'It's what a narcissistic sociopath would do,' Ornstein bluntly stated. He additionally criticized Trump's Saturday commencement address at West Point, calling it 'unhinged.' '[He] wore his campaign hat and then left before doing what every other president has done when they've given that address, which is to shake the hands of the people who are graduating from West Point,' Ornstein explained. 'He said, 'I have to deal with China and Russia,' and then went off to play golf.' 'The contempt that the Commander-in-Chief we now have has for our fallen heroes and for emerging military leaders is sickening,' the political scientist concluded. O'Donnell, for his part, once again questioned Trump's mental capacity, calling it 'completely inadequate for the presidency on any level, be it intelligence or knowledge or emotional stability or even appreciation of very fundamental things about what it means to be American.' 'That is relentlessly on display non-stop,' O'Donnell insisted. 'Some people want to just keep the focus on Joe Biden and what condition was he in in the final year of his presidency, when Joe Biden never, ever, ever said anything like what Donald Trump just said.' The post Lawrence O'Donnell Says Trump Is Unworthy of Being President After Memorial Day Message appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trump rants at ‘monster' judges, then one accuses WH of ‘manufacturing chaos' in South Sudan deportations
A frustrated federal judge accused Donald Trump's administration of 'manufacturing chaos' after the government failed to give a group of deportees due process and violated court orders against removal flights to war-torn South Sudan. District Judge Brian Murphy last week warned that administration officials could face contempt charges after violating his weeks-old court order against summary removals of immigrants without 'meaningful' notice before they are sent to countries where they could face violence or death. He then allowed the government — by its own request — to hold those deportees overseas, in U.S. custody, while giving them a chance to receive a 'reasonable fear interview' to explain how they would face persecution or torture in South Sudan. They are currently being held on a military base in Djibouti. But government attorneys have now 'changed their tune,' Murphy wrote in a late-night order on Monday. 'It turns out that having immigration proceedings on another continent is harder and more logistically cumbersome' than the administration anticipated, he said. Murphy, who was appointed by Joe Biden, has faced a barrage of attacks from the White House, which labeled him a 'far-left activist' who is trying to 'protect the violent criminal illegal immigrants.' Trump called him 'absolutely out of control' and accused him of 'hurting our country.' White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller has derided Murphy as a 'local city judge' who is endangering Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. In a Truth Social post on Memorial Day, Trump raged against 'USA hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick and very dangerous for our country.' 'Hopefully the United States Supreme Court, and other good and compassionate judges throughout the land, will save us from the decisions of the monsters who want our country to go to hell,' he wrote in an all-caps message on Monday. During a hearing last week, Murphy found that the government violated a court order that deportees receive notice of their removal — in a language they can understand — with at least 15 days to challenge it. Instead, deportees were given fewer than 16 hours' notice. 'Defendants have mischaracterized this court's order, while at the same time manufacturing the very chaos they decry,' Murphy wrote. 'By racing to get six class members onto a plane to unstable South Sudan, clearly in breach of the law and this Court's order, Defendants gave this Court no choice but to find that they were in violation of the Preliminary Injunction.' Murphy said he restrained himself by not ordering the government to 'simply return' the men so they can receive due process in the United States. 'Instead, the Court accepted Defendants' own suggestion that they be allowed to keep the individuals out of the country and finish their process abroad,' he wrote. 'To be clear, the Court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories. But that does not change due process,' he wrote. 'The Court treats its obligation to these principles with the seriousness that anyone committed to the rule of law should understand.' Murphy denied a request from government attorneys to block his earlier order. In court, government attorneys characterized the administration's failures to comply with his court orders 'as a big misunderstanding,' according to Murphy. 'From this course of conduct, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that Defendants invite lack of clarity as a means of evasion,' he wrote. The class-action case in Murphy's court — involving several deportees challenging their removal — is among several high-profile immigration cases playing out in federal courts across the country. Immigration officials have raced to deport immigrants to El Salvador as well as war-torn African countries including Libya and South Sudan — often with little notice or opportunity for a lawyer, raising alarms among judges, attorneys and legal aid groups that the administration is willfully denying due process rights as Trump pushes for sweeping deportations for potentially millions of immigrants.
