President Donald Trump claimed Friday that "the law" gave him the authority to deport undocumented migrants without having to explain himself to a judge.
On Friday morning, Trump continued his attack on the judiciary, posting to Truth Social, writing, "No District Court Judge, or any Judge, can ...
Exactly. While we need a strong judiciary right now it’s important to understand that the “near miss” scenario of dictatorship leaves us with a supreme court that has too much power and has abdicated its sense of responsibilities.
Our government is supposed to be that the legislature decides broad policy, the executive implements it in accordance with the will of the people, the spirit of the law, and knowledge of their in house experts, and the judiciary (post maybury) serves as a check that blocks laws and policies. As it is today, the judiciary and executive decide policy, the executive does whatever it damn well pleases, and the legislature and judiciary attempt to block various things.
I remember when government shutdowns were a thing so rare as to be absurd but today we do them all the time except when needed
Government shutdowns are a unique situation, specific to the US Congress, because Congress has decided to structure the government to be inefficient, on purpose:
It authorizes new programs and appropriates money for them in separate process, leaving the real possibility that an authorized program does not have funding.
It often cannot agree on appropriations levels, but needs to continually appropriate funds to keep the government running, leading to these continuing regulations that just kick the can down the road
It sets a statutory limit on the amount of debt the government can take on, but then appropriates more money than it takes in, making it so that even if all appropriations bills are on time, the government may run out of cash on hand unless the debt limit is increased.
Congress does this, on purpose, to make sure that there is plenty of opportunity to debate spending levels. But in practice, since nobody can agree in a long-term vision, we just lurch from crisis to crisis.
Exactly. While we need a strong judiciary right now it’s important to understand that the “near miss” scenario of dictatorship leaves us with a supreme court that has too much power and has abdicated its sense of responsibilities.
Our government is supposed to be that the legislature decides broad policy, the executive implements it in accordance with the will of the people, the spirit of the law, and knowledge of their in house experts, and the judiciary (post maybury) serves as a check that blocks laws and policies. As it is today, the judiciary and executive decide policy, the executive does whatever it damn well pleases, and the legislature and judiciary attempt to block various things.
I remember when government shutdowns were a thing so rare as to be absurd but today we do them all the time except when needed
Government shutdowns are a unique situation, specific to the US Congress, because Congress has decided to structure the government to be inefficient, on purpose:
It authorizes new programs and appropriates money for them in separate process, leaving the real possibility that an authorized program does not have funding.
It often cannot agree on appropriations levels, but needs to continually appropriate funds to keep the government running, leading to these continuing regulations that just kick the can down the road
It sets a statutory limit on the amount of debt the government can take on, but then appropriates more money than it takes in, making it so that even if all appropriations bills are on time, the government may run out of cash on hand unless the debt limit is increased.
Congress does this, on purpose, to make sure that there is plenty of opportunity to debate spending levels. But in practice, since nobody can agree in a long-term vision, we just lurch from crisis to crisis.