Three Different Federal Courts Dealt Butt-Kickings to the President In Just 90 Minutes

And people say that our system is inefficient. Balderdash, says I. On Tuesday, three federal courts dealt out ass-kickings to the president in right around 90 minutes. Then, I suppose, everybody went to lunch or something. Two of the courts were in D.C. The other was in the state of Washington. The president lost on his spending freeze, his impoundment of foreign-aid money, and his executive order that suspended a refugee settlement program. From CNN:

Meanwhile, across the country in Washington state, a federal judge in Seattle issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday that halts Trump’s executive order suspending refugee admissions and funding.

Judge Jamal Whitehead, who was also appointed by Biden, said that Trump’s “actions amount to an effective nullification of congressional will in establishing the nation’s refugee admissions program.”

“While the president has substantial discretion to suspend refugee admissions, that authority is not limitless,” the judge said.

Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day back in office, also directed a review of the refugee program and stated that resettlement should only resume if deemed to be in the “national interest”—a move critics argue is a de facto refugee ban.

The two D.C. judges were just as plain-spoken.

In DC, Judge Loren AliKhan issued a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocks the administration from freezing federal grants and loans. The ruling expands an earlier block the appointee of former President Joe Biden issued last month shortly after the White House ordered the funding freeze.

“In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning. Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable,” AliKhan wrote in her ruling.

Judge Amir Ali teed the president up on his having frozen the foreign-aid money.

“We’re now 12 days in, and you can’t answer to me whether any funds you acknowledge are covered by the court’s order are unfrozen?” said District Judge Amir Ali. “You can’t give me any facts about funds being unfrozen?”

Department of Justice lawyer Indraneel Sur told Ali he was “not in a position to answer.”

You will not be surprised to know that this triple legal homicide was not well received inside the hive-mind. Elon Musk was beside himself, which is two too many. President Musk's study of The Federalist seems to have been somewhat superficial.

What is the point of having democratic elections if unelected activist “judges” can override the clear will of the people? Well, that’s no democracy at all!

If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY.

Our unelected South African co-president sought comfort in cyber-flirting with the dictator of El Salvador.

Unfortunately, as President Bukele eloquently articulates, there is no other option. We must impeach to save democracy.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Please pick up your special parting gifts at the back of P.W. Botha Hall.

Turns out that Musk didn't need to go all the way to Central America to find support.

Corrupt judges should be impeached. And removed. Pass it on if you agree.

That was Senator Mike Lee, the famous konstitooshunal skolar from the state of Utah, who has been dancing on a string since 2016 and who now, apparently, has two puppeteers instead of one. Lee also has proposed to jack around with the judiciary system so that it will be harder for the courts to check and balance the whimsical approach to executive power demonstrated by the current White House, as well as subordinate acts of Congress to presidential executive orders. From KSL:

Sen. Mike Lee is drafting legislation to limit judges from blocking executive orders.

The proposed bill requires a three-judge panel for nationwide injunctions, with appeals to the Supreme Court.

Back in 2016, I watched as Mike Lee led a doomed revolt against the president's first nomination on the convention floor in Cleveland. The revolt was crushed, ruthlessly, in the first indication that the Trump political operation had hijacked the institutional power of the Republican Party. From Politico:

“I have never in all my life, certainly in six years in the United States Senate, prior to that as a lifelong Republican, never seen anything like this,” said Utah Sen. Mike Lee, one of the most prominent signatories to the push for a roll call vote. “There is no precedent for this in parliamentary procedure. There is no precedent for this in the rules of the Republican National Convention. We are now in uncharted territory. Somebody owes us an explanation. I have never seen the chair abandoned like that. They vacated the stage entirely.”

“It’s coercion masking as unity,” Lee said later. “It may well be the case there were only 9 states that submitted the petition… if that’s the case, then it appears we did not satisfy the threshold,” Lee continued.

In the years since, Mike Lee has found ways to satisfy every threshold.