Where Be The "Considerate Men" Rising To Block The "ILL Humors" Of "Designing Men"?
Trump's Budget Bill Would Block Federal Courts From Checking Trump
Budget Bill Also Strips Judicial Review Of Alaska Energy Projects
"JUDICIAL PRECLUSION"
The pending Trump budget bill, if passed by the Senate in its current form passed by the House, would strip the federal courts of power to stop Trump's illegal actions and thereby end the US Constitutional democracy.
“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued…”
Repeat: if that bill is passed, it's over folks and the US officially becomes a fascist dictatorship. The bill is Trump's Enabling Act.
The Trump regime has openly attacked the federal judiciary, defied and ignored Court orders (including the Supreme Court), violated the Constitution and federal laws multiple times, and usurped Congress's budget, war, and legislative powers via Executive Orders, dictates, and administrative actions (including weaponizing the entire federal government to wreak vengeance on the press, universities, States, cities, elected officials, political opponents, and dissent and protest).
All of this is an unprecedented abuse of power never seen in US history.
Congress, controlled by Trump, has abdicated and allowed the Trump abuses to go unchecked.
The Courts are the last institution able to check Trump's consolidation of dictatorial power.
Thus far, the federal courts have found Trump's actions blatantly unconstitutional and illegal. Courts have issued opinion, injunctions, and restraining orders to block many Trump moves and even threatened to issue criminal contempt citations for Trump's violations.
The provision in the House bill is retroactive and would block courts from holding Trump officials in contempt for all these illegal acts currently being litigated.
It would wipe out virtually ALL of the pending lawsuits and allow Trump to ignore and openly violate opinions of the Court.
It also would prospectively limit the ability of people and non-profits to legally challenge the Trump regime by effectively requiring large up front filing fees.
And these are only the first Congressional steps in the attack on judicial power. We know that the language - if enacted - will embolden and be interpreted broadly by Trump's Department of Justice to apply to other legal challenges to Trump's power and be used to support even more attacks on the Courts by Congress.
The Courts are the last stop on the Trump dismantling of republican government and consolidation of fascist power.
So, I found it astonishing that The NY Times, in a "news analysis" that explicitly focused on Trump's abuses of power and open attack on the judiciary (see: Judges Keep Calling Trump’s Actions Illegal, but Undoing Them Is Hard, buried the fact that the pending budget bill would strip the federal courts of power to stop Trump.
This was not only buried deep in the story, but it was cavalierly mentioned, without explication, left to a link to a prior story
But the Republican-dominated Congress is also considering reducing the power of judges to hold people in contempt as part of the budget bill.
This casual single sentence sentence was offered after noting that the Supreme Court had already granted Trump near blanket immunity for "official acts"; that Congress abdicated oversight and impeachment powers; that Trump violated the law several times and a federal judge found Trump engaged in "a gross usurpation of power"; and that the Vice President was openly attacking the judiciary:
In an interview with the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, Vice President JD Vance declared, “I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people.”
Vance is profoundly wrong about the law and democracy, the powers of the Executive, and the Constitutional role of the Courts.
It is the Court's job to "overturn the will of the American people" when the expression of that will violates the Constitution or when the Executive violates law.
This is astonishing and should be reported as a red alarm moment.
The prior NYT article on this provision in the budget bill linked in that sentence vastly understated the significance of "reducing the power" of judges and implied that this is a partisan political issue:
Democrats have argued that House Republicans’ measure would rob courts of their power by stripping away any consequences for officials who ignore judges’ rulings.
The sprawling domestic policy bill Republicans pushed through the House on Thursday would limit the power of federal judges to hold people in contempt, potentially shielding President Trump and members of his administration from the consequences of violating court orders. [...]
It is not clear whether the provision can survive under special procedures Republicans are using to push the legislation through Congress on a simple majority vote. Such bills must comply with strict rules that require that all of their components have a direct effect on federal revenues.
"Potentially"? What kind of qualified lame ass framing is that?
Finally, the House budget bill also mounts another unprecedented assault on the judiciary that I have not seen reported.
The bill includes a provision that blocks judicial review of all federal reviews and approvals of energy projects in Alaska.
Here's some fine print in Big Beautiful Bill - page 595 - it blocks judicial review and lawsuits on Alaska oil and gas.
(h) JUDICIAL PRECLUSION.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in paragraph (2), no court shall have jurisdiction to review any action taken by the Secretary, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a State or municipal government administrative agency, or any other Federal agency (acting pursuant to Federal law) to—
(A) reissue a lease pursuant to subsection (c) or issue a lease under a lease sale conducted under subsection (d); or
(B) grant or issue a right-of-way, easement, authorization, permit, verification, biological opinion, incidental take statement, or other approval for a lease reissued pursuant to subsection (c) or issued under a lease sale conducted under subsection (d), whether reissued or issued prior to, on, or after the date of the enactment of this Act, and including any lawsuit or any other action pending in a court as of the date of enactment of this Act.
The Founders anticipated this kind of abuse. Madison wrote in Federalist No.78: (bold mine)
This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community. Though I trust the friends of the proposed Constitution will never concur with its enemies,3 in questioning that fundamental principle of republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness, yet it is not to be inferred from this principle, that the representatives of the people, whenever a momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their constituents, incompatible with the provisions in the existing Constitution, would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation of those provisions; or that the courts would be under a greater obligation to connive at infractions in this shape, than when they had proceeded wholly from the cabals of the representative body. Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge, of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act. But it is easy to see, that it would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the Constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice of the community.
But it is not with a view to infractions of the Constitution only, that the independence of the judges may be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. These sometimes extend no farther than to the injury of the private rights of particular classes of citizens, by unjust and partial laws. Here also the firmness of the judicial magistracy is of vast importance in mitigating the severity and confining the operation of such laws. It not only serves to moderate the immediate mischiefs of those which may have been passed, but it operates as a check upon the legislative body in passing them; who, perceiving that obstacles to the success of iniquitous intention are to be expected from the scruples of the courts, are in a manner compelled, by the very motives of the injustice they meditate, to qualify their attempts. This is a circumstance calculated to have more influence upon the character of our governments, than but few may be aware of. The benefits of the integrity and moderation of the judiciary have already been felt in more States than one; and though they may have displeased those whose sinister expectations they may have disappointed, they must have commanded the esteem and applause of all the virtuous and disinterested.Considerate men, of every description, ought to prize whatever will tend to beget or fortify that temper in the courts: as no man can be sure that he may not be to-morrow the victim of a spirit of injustice, by which he may be a gainer to-day. And every man must now feel, that the inevitable tendency of such a spirit is to sap the foundations of public and private confidence, and to introduce in its stead universal distrust and distress.
This perfectly fits the "designing men" behind the Trump regime's abuses and the "ill humors" of MAGA.
[End Note: Adding another layer of dictatorial impunity (in addition to the immunity provided by the Supreme Court), Trump has destroyed the independence of the Department of Justice, so there will never be federal indictments, no matter how egregious the illegality. Moreover, he has promised pardons for any one of his henchmen that manage to get convicted and he issued pardons already to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.]