Also, the judge has has asked questions that indicate he thinks the government's case is incredibly weak, and that it does not have any authority to cut off specific appropriations like that.
I think the Trump Administration accidentally wandered into the wrong battlefield here. It is one thing to pretend that you are simply cutting back unneeded things, spending less money while continuing its mission. It is another thing to walk in and announce are fully dismantling an organization that exists by law, and by law was handed money that it is supposed to give to explicitedly-listed other organizations.
Ie, if an appropriation bill, aka the law, says that USAID is to pay X million dollars to the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition a year in return for specific services, the executive cannot just refuse to do it and dismantle the agency.
There might be some certain level of fudge around appropriation, some fudge of which exist by law, some of which is perhaps even more malleable than that, but that is so for outside of it that the judge isn't going to go for it.
One can imagine a universe in where a different Administration was canny and sort of tried to work its way up to that point.
Meanwhile, in other news, the executive has announced that it is going to try to start prosecuting U SAID workers. 'Why' appears to be unclear except that, you know, the poem 'First they came for' needs a couple of stances, and 'foreign aid worker' should fit quite nicely in there.
2025-03-07 01:03:19
Alito: The executive can make 'regulations' all they want, but Chevron is dead, we will no longer defer to to those regulations. Instead, the courts themselves will look at the law, the actual code passed by Congress and signed into law., which the executive has to follow, without paying much attention to 'regulations' that the executive has invented to go on top of that.
This will result in a lot of people (including the most important people, corporations) that are bound by those regulations suing, to try to get them overturned. And if this happens, the court will direct the executive to stop enforcing those regulations and do something else.
This is clearly what we want and understand will happen.
*one year later*
Alito: Yes, the executive has chosen to do things that appear in violation of the plain letter of law, and court decided that it was in violation.
But, like, let's ask ourselves, what are we really talking about here: Does that court even have the _jurisdiction_ decide something like that? Do we, as the courts, even have a right to comment on how they understand the law with regard to themselves? That seems like an internal matter for the executive branch.
--
I guess it's not really the same thing, in that DOGE is operate entirely outside the entire regulatory system set up by law, and moreover is operating in complete violation of basically every law and even the constitutional 'advise and consent' clause. (Is Elon in charge of this thing, or not?!). Instead of Congress explicitly delegating power by making a law that says 'Hey, Executive branch, we want you to enforce rules to accomplish X, a thing that is way outside our scope of knowledge, so we won't make the specific rules. Instead, here is a system for that that will take people with expertise and a bunch of outside comment to make some regulations regulating X in a long careful process. Do that, and then enforce those regulations'.
The Executive coming up the exact amount of fire resistance a building needs, and requiring that: Conservatives on the Supreme Court say no, only _they_ get to decide how much a building needs.
The Executive driving down the road shooting off shotguns and hurtling Molotov cocktails at buildings: Conservatives on the Supreme Court say 'Are we really allowed to say they can't do that?'
Alito is imagining an entirely different case in front of him. Alito seems to think the case will eventually get to whether or not DOGE can do what it is doing.
As an aside: He's probably wrong about that. This case sounds like basic contract and employment law. Those contracts will have penalties for breaking them, and the government will have to pay them. Likewise, the various labor violations for failing to pay employees while overseas.
And, people can disagree on that, that's why we're having a court case, but my point is, in this case, it doesn't matter why the government has done these harmful things to the plaintiffs or what process they did or did not follow, the issue is the harmful things. Even if this had been done because Congress had passed a law and the president signed it, this suit would exist. (Not the Congress would ever be so stupid as to pass a law stranding employees overseas or trying to not pay debts. And a chunk of this was the sheer lack of warning.)
HOWEVER, more to the point for what Alito said, the specific decision in front of him is solely over a temporary restraining order stopping the government from failing to pay already completely work. It doesn't matter what the case is over, the TRO is 'Keep printing the checks for the money you already owe people. (You goddamn lunatics.)'. It has nothing to do with DOGE or whether they or the executive in general can cut off contracts or withhold appropriations or anything.
I think the fact that Alito and three other justices jumped the gun here (For a case that probable isn't relevant at all to DOGE.) says a hell of a lot about their honesty.
And over the next few months, it's going to be incredibly weird watching people on a court that just decided that they, not the executive, got to decide how to interpret the law, suddenly deciding that the executive can just break laws.
I like the idea that a 'single judge' is somehow not enough.
What does that mean?
Yes, Alito, a single judge can, via due process of the law, decide that a party cannot stop disbursing payment to the another part yin a lawsuit, in violation of the law. Because things in individual cases are generally decided by single judges. The judge in charge of the case.
We don't really have a process where multiple judges vote on a thing in a case, or whatever you think happen, except at the Supreme Court level...which you did? You were part of it?
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Well, yesterday the judge gave them until Monday to release already incurred costs.
https://apnews.com/article/usaid-trump-foreign-aid-funding-freeze-02e8ed553e55c79c43fe8811de952d02
Let's see if they manage to hit the deadline.
Also, the judge has has asked questions that indicate he thinks the government's case is incredibly weak, and that it does not have any authority to cut off specific appropriations like that.
I think the Trump Administration accidentally wandered into the wrong battlefield here. It is one thing to pretend that you are simply cutting back unneeded things, spending less money while continuing its mission. It is another thing to walk in and announce are fully dismantling an organization that exists by law, and by law was handed money that it is supposed to give to explicitedly-listed other organizations.
Ie, if an appropriation bill, aka the law, says that USAID is to pay X million dollars to the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition a year in return for specific services, the executive cannot just refuse to do it and dismantle the agency.
There might be some certain level of fudge around appropriation, some fudge of which exist by law, some of which is perhaps even more malleable than that, but that is so for outside of it that the judge isn't going to go for it.
One can imagine a universe in where a different Administration was canny and sort of tried to work its way up to that point.
Meanwhile, in other news, the executive has announced that it is going to try to start prosecuting U SAID workers. 'Why' appears to be unclear except that, you know, the poem 'First they came for' needs a couple of stances, and 'foreign aid worker' should fit quite nicely in there.
Alito: The executive can make 'regulations' all they want, but Chevron is dead, we will no longer defer to to those regulations. Instead, the courts themselves will look at the law, the actual code passed by Congress and signed into law., which the executive has to follow, without paying much attention to 'regulations' that the executive has invented to go on top of that.
This will result in a lot of people (including the most important people, corporations) that are bound by those regulations suing, to try to get them overturned. And if this happens, the court will direct the executive to stop enforcing those regulations and do something else.
This is clearly what we want and understand will happen.
*one year later*
Alito: Yes, the executive has chosen to do things that appear in violation of the plain letter of law, and court decided that it was in violation.
But, like, let's ask ourselves, what are we really talking about here: Does that court even have the _jurisdiction_ decide something like that? Do we, as the courts, even have a right to comment on how they understand the law with regard to themselves? That seems like an internal matter for the executive branch.
--
I guess it's not really the same thing, in that DOGE is operate entirely outside the entire regulatory system set up by law, and moreover is operating in complete violation of basically every law and even the constitutional 'advise and consent' clause. (Is Elon in charge of this thing, or not?!). Instead of Congress explicitly delegating power by making a law that says 'Hey, Executive branch, we want you to enforce rules to accomplish X, a thing that is way outside our scope of knowledge, so we won't make the specific rules. Instead, here is a system for that that will take people with expertise and a bunch of outside comment to make some regulations regulating X in a long careful process. Do that, and then enforce those regulations'.
The Executive coming up the exact amount of fire resistance a building needs, and requiring that: Conservatives on the Supreme Court say no, only _they_ get to decide how much a building needs.
The Executive driving down the road shooting off shotguns and hurtling Molotov cocktails at buildings: Conservatives on the Supreme Court say 'Are we really allowed to say they can't do that?'
Alito is imagining an entirely different case in front of him. Alito seems to think the case will eventually get to whether or not DOGE can do what it is doing.
As an aside: He's probably wrong about that. This case sounds like basic contract and employment law. Those contracts will have penalties for breaking them, and the government will have to pay them. Likewise, the various labor violations for failing to pay employees while overseas.
And, people can disagree on that, that's why we're having a court case, but my point is, in this case, it doesn't matter why the government has done these harmful things to the plaintiffs or what process they did or did not follow, the issue is the harmful things. Even if this had been done because Congress had passed a law and the president signed it, this suit would exist. (Not the Congress would ever be so stupid as to pass a law stranding employees overseas or trying to not pay debts. And a chunk of this was the sheer lack of warning.)
HOWEVER, more to the point for what Alito said, the specific decision in front of him is solely over a temporary restraining order stopping the government from failing to pay already completely work. It doesn't matter what the case is over, the TRO is 'Keep printing the checks for the money you already owe people. (You goddamn lunatics.)'. It has nothing to do with DOGE or whether they or the executive in general can cut off contracts or withhold appropriations or anything.
I think the fact that Alito and three other justices jumped the gun here (For a case that probable isn't relevant at all to DOGE.) says a hell of a lot about their honesty.
And over the next few months, it's going to be incredibly weird watching people on a court that just decided that they, not the executive, got to decide how to interpret the law, suddenly deciding that the executive can just break laws.
I like the idea that a 'single judge' is somehow not enough.
What does that mean?
Yes, Alito, a single judge can, via due process of the law, decide that a party cannot stop disbursing payment to the another part yin a lawsuit, in violation of the law. Because things in individual cases are generally decided by single judges. The judge in charge of the case.
We don't really have a process where multiple judges vote on a thing in a case, or whatever you think happen, except at the Supreme Court level...which you did? You were part of it?