DL Open Thread: Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Smith Folds. He had to, you can’t try a sitting President. The villain amongst all the villains in the piece: Merrick Garland:
A judge dismissed the federal election-obstruction charges against President-elect Donald Trump on Monday, ending a historic investigation that never went to trial but led to enduring changes in the legal landscape over a president’s immunity from prosecution.
Together, the two motions essentially mark the end of the Justice Department’s first federal prosecutions of a former president — and the triumph of a remarkable strategy by Trump’s lawyers.
Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped Smith — a former public corruption prosecutor who was investigating war crimes in The Hague — to take over the Trump investigations in November 2022, days after both Trump and Biden indicated that they would again run for president.
There should have been a special prosecutor the day after Garland was confirmed. There wasn’t. As much as anybody, Trump owes his second term to Merrick Garland.
25% Tariffs On Day One? That’ll lower the cost of groceries:
President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he will impose a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods, effective from his first day in the White House.
“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” he wrote on Truth Social. “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
Oh, and the farmers are begging Trump not to deport their workforce:
U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally.So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan.Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.
His plan, known as “impoundment,” threatens to provoke a major clash over the limits of the president’s control over the budget. The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to appropriate the federal budget, while the role of the executive branch is to dole out the money effectively. But Trump and his advisers are asserting that a president can unilaterally ignore Congress’ spending decisions and “impound” funds if he opposes them or deems them wasteful.Trump’s claim to have impoundment power contravenes a Nixon-era law that forbids presidents from blocking spending over policy disagreements as well as a string of federal court rulings that prevent presidents from refusing to spend money unless Congress grants them the flexibility.
“This company makes billions of dollars in profits every year,” said Ben Lovett, a Whole Foods store employee in Philadelphia who along with 300 colleagues is hoping to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). “And my coworkers and I are not paid anywhere near a living wage for living in Philadelphia. I’ve worked two jobs. Many of my coworkers do two jobs, even three jobs.”“We’ve seen the cost of living going up. We’ve seen Whole Foods raising the price of groceries. We cannot really afford to buy our groceries at Whole Foods. I don’t really know any of my coworkers who buy their groceries at the store that we work at,” he added. “We want other Whole Foods and Amazon workers to see us going up against one of the largest companies in the world. This is a scary thing to do, but we want to show other workers it is possible.”
A federal judge in Pennsylvania has rejected Delaware’s attempt to intervene in a lawsuit that has stymied port expansion plans in Wilmington, saying the state waited too long to try to join.Diamond State and Enstructure argued this month they should be allowed to be “movant-intervenors,” a legal term for groups that intervene as a party to the lawsuit to protect their ability to appeal that ruling. They accuse the upriver ports of having “weaponized” federal permitting procedures to help their own economic interests.“Movant-intervenors do not know whether the Corps will appeal the court’s decision,” their motion argued. “Therefore, movant-intervenors seek to intervene in this matter to preserve the right to appeal.”
But Kearney dismissed the argument because he said the motion was not made in a timely manner.
“Diamond State and Enstructure admit knowing and following the suits from day one, but chose not to intervene to conserve resources notwithstanding investing hundreds of millions of taxpayer money into the Edgemoor Project,” Kearney stated.
Ouch. That hurt. Don’t worry, well-paid fuck-up Jeff Bullock will resurface somewhere–assuming Matt Meyer replaces him. Which is far from a sure thing.
What do you want to talk about?
The Constitution is clear on the president’s powers: The office exists to carry out the laws of Congress. That’s it.
Of course, the takeover of the courts by a cult that can’t read plain English – we’d have gun control laws if they could – could render that null and void.