In other words: Yes it’s evil. Yes, I KNOW they don’t give a crap that it’s evil. NO, though, neo-Nazis and fascists not caring that their white supremacist sadism/violently fascistic cruelty is evil isn’t a fucking reason to stop pointing out that it GODDAMN IS.

But didn't Merrick Garland's somnambulism, and the high intellectual plane the SCOTUS and Aileen Cannon live on, teach us differently? That indeed, some are above the law, thus semantics about legality are meaningless? I'm so confused...

Immunity from prosecution 1) doesn’t mean that the acts are lawful 2) doesn’t apply to anyone but Trump

but why should one be immune from prosecution that is applicable to others? Are we not one in the eyes of the law?

Literally just because the Supreme Court says so. I think they got it wrong, but that’s what the law is.

Then the law is an ass...

Frequently.

More often than people who are not in the legal field would like to think. There is a stunning lack of justice in the “justice” system.

I correct myself to say 'legal system' and have been for over a decade.

I think there are many places where people get frustrated with law I think is correct But what percentage of black men are in prison?

Plenty of law and importantly so many of its enforcers are fucking tyrannical and cruel.

The law is people and what they can do with it, and... yeah. You've heard of first in, first out. You've heard of garbage in, garbage out. Well... ass in, ass out.

For all intents and purposes, it's what the law is. The people who enforce the law believe it to be the law. But it's still not the law. The apparatchiks at SCOTUS can ignore but not actually override the Constitution. And we must never forget that we are living through an interregnum.

Right, but who controls the DOJ? Trump. Who enforces court orders? The US Marshalls under the DOJ. Who controls the SC? Trump. They've already said that they may have to ignore court orders that go against the executive branch. And no one can stop them if they do that.

From what I’ve gathered, the Attorney General (acting or otherwise) would have to be or become a non-lawyer if the USMS is ordered not to enforce a court order, as they’re obligated to under 28 USC 566(c).

You think the US Marshalls will make a stand against the President? Remember how the USSS lost all their text messages on J6? I wouldn't bank on it plus they have other shit they can pull. They might not do it right away but when push comes to shove, they will.

Well, something like executing a garnishment or attachment is a thing that happens or it doesn’t.

Well, isn't that what we're ultimately talking about? Something that should happen simply doesn't. That's how power grabs work.

Yes, but the illegal power grab would involve at the very least losing law licenses of those currently in charge of the DOJ, as direct court orders are continuously not executed. That alone is such a fundamental shock. The other avenues for courts that may exist are on top of that.

And if they refuse, then the court can authorize someone else to do it.

Put me in coach

I'm ready!

No, courts have their own inherent authority to enforce orders. The courts have authorized the Marshals to do so, but that authority is not exclusive

US Marshalls are under DOJ. If Trump tells the AG to tell them to stand down, they will. He's literally just said that if the president does it, it's not illegal and he will ignore the law as he has warned.

That doesn’t mean that the people carrying out Trump’s orders aren’t breaking the law, and just bc they can get away with it NOW doesn’t mean they will always be protected from consequences. Trump may have immunity, but they do not- and “my boss told me too” is not a legal defense.

I didn't say that. But if they effectively dismantle government and destroy elections they will never be held to account.

'Never' isn't really supported by history, imo. Sure, things can get absolutely terrible in the meantime, but I'm not sure I can think of many examples where people weren't held to account. At best(in their view) they had to sleep with one eye open for decades

Well, we've failed completely up till now to hold Trump to account, including the 4 years he wasn't in office. In the meantime, voter suppression initiatives continue apace. Something very radical will need to happen for Trump to see justice. Hope I'm wrong.

I won't say conclusively that will never happen. but it will surely happen a lot faster if we all just give up and decide not to fight.

Yeah, and if they stand down, the court can get someone else to do it.

I think I said this before, but if you have any pull to get one of the big-name law writers to write a piece about this, it would be enormously reassuring to lots of people!

Well let's see how well that works out in practice. You're still thinking that the systems will hold but they will subvert them. If somehow they do hold, great, but we've already seen major breeches.

So far, the administration has been largely complying with the court orders.

So far, is key. They're effectively lawless already with what they're doing.

And when the court tells them to stop it, they are pretty much stopping it. I agree that they’re totally lawless in their goals and their methods, but the idea that they’re just ignoring the courts is not founded in fact.

I suppose if we reach the point where we have to explore options for novel enforcement of court orders, we’re well and duly fucked already.

Who exactly?

Honest question — can a federal court “deputize” anyone to enforce an order via its inherent powers to enforce an order? Like if a state was willing to have its state police enforce a federal court order could a federal court authorize that?

Yep, as far as I'm aware.

Also seems like a really good "it's never been tried to this extent, let's try and see how it goes" issue

Remember when the line item veto was a thing for like 3 months before SCOTUS struck it down? This seems … significantly less constitutional.

I don't know man, all this "illegality" is feeling more and more like UN resolutions where smart people write strongly worded letters and white dudes rub their nipples and continue doing what they do

Yes. The illegality matters. But I fear it matters only on an abstract theoretical plane when the president has immunity, the pardon power, and a Congress that will never impeach.

If theyre doing it anyone and noone arrests them for it it stops really mattering if its illegal.

Clearly, it is an issue that the taxpayers & the courts have no federal law enforcement working for us.

Keep saying it, Jamelle. It matters!!!!

Even if it is all in ashes, the illegality will still be there, and in the end it may matter most. This must later be either a dictatorship or a lawless interregnum.

That’s what drives me nuts about these Dem messaging bills to codify Trump’s actions as illegal. They’re already illegal under existing law, why the hell just not say that? If anything, those bills are counterproductive because they give the impression that his conduct is legal under current law.

Yeah we should've learned this after January 6.

As a person on a fed DoEd grant that was cut, thank you for saying this.

🤷🏿

@jamellebouie.net, consider spreading the word on this? Your megaphone (and your clout within the NYT) would obviously help.

You're totally right, sir.

What I keep wondering is what these people will have to do, to who will they owe, to get their housing funds back. Pick crops for 6 months? Swear allegiance to the convict? If CEOs will pay, what will others do?

Legality only matters to those that abide by the law. The Supremes already declared that Trump is above the law. Do you honestly believe anything the legal system does can stop him? He’s a lawless criminal in a multinational crime syndicate turning the US into a mafia state.

It's friction, at least, in some cases. An example is prosecutors resigning to delay the dismissal of charges against Eric Adams. It's not enough, it's not what we really want, but it's also not nothing. Trump slithered out of legal trouble by delaying. Buying time does matter.

Also even if the president is above the law, those who do his bidding can still be held accountable. Trump can't pardon for civil or state prosecution. Legality matters both now and later. Making sure people are aware of the illegality also matters.

I'll add that I'm all about doom and gloom more than anyone I know. Nobody who knows me would call me an optimist. Despite that, I'm not going to tell folks that pursuing justice is irrelevant, even if the odds are against complete success.

Indeed! All this talk of DOGE saving so much money is misleading. Spending cuts must be enacted by Congress.

But little Mikey Johnson says it’s totes cool, so I guess Congress is just extraneous now and the Constitution no longer matters? www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/u...

I’m curious what Kevin McCarthy’s take is on all of this. I know he has no influence, but he was someone who supported Trump in the past, and I just wonder if he approves of Congress being neutered.

I guess we’ll find out in his memoir, if books still exist in a few years. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Clearly not 🤷‍♀️ just like it didn't ~100 years ago

They don't do "laws" dude they are fascists. Fascists do fascism, they don't do anything else. Look it up.

So far, it’s mattered to judges. Like, SCOTUS has rejected *actual legislation* for a line item veto, so “the president feels like it” isn’t gonna fly I feel like the immunity case, as shitty as it was, has made people forget that Roberts and co. REALLY don’t like having their intelligence insulted

I'm not understanding how violating Federal law will matter with Bondi's DOJ and an FBI run by Kash Patel

because if you think the constitutional republic will be around to prosecute them for their crimes, recording early and repeating often the many numberable ways they are flouting the constitution is important

I am not sure the constitutional republic will be the government that dethrones this silicon valley putsch, but it’s clear to me as a long term Bouie reader why he would be invested in emphasizing illegality.

Theree is no evidence that the constitutional republic is going to be around in four years. Can you imagine JD Vance certifying a presidential election where a Democratic presidential candidate won? Do you think a Bondi DOJ or Patel FBI will not barrage a Dem nominee with investigations?

There's no evidence so I guess we should preemptively give up. Might as well cook and eat your neighbors, it's the Purge

Who said anything about giving up? But a more realistic understanding of what will be necessary to actually fight back and win is going to be necessary. Sure, it's illegal. That's not going to matter at all.

If you truly think it's worthless, at least log off and leave the rest of us to the work. You are wasting your own energy and everyone else's yelling at people who agree with you.

It won't stop the harm, but that does not mean it does not matter.

A friend of mine who grew up in an African dictatorship said “When they come, give them what they ask, but take a receipt.” Point is to keep a record or they come back and say it never happened. Even the Jews in Germany kept records of their oppression. It didn’t save them, but it educated us.

Skipping mentioning the illegality just gets them closer to forcing people to roll over and play dead. So keep on mentioning it.

Stop spending. Boycott one big company at a time. Protest. Unite. Soon they’ll control our money in order to prevent us from doing that.

It's a #Blitz , at the end the results will matter more than the means

Please explain why it matters. The law requires the governed to generally consent. With no consent and no enforcement...?

I ask this genuinely as someone woefully ignorant of law: if there is no opposition to stop them from doing it & hold them accountable, what does it matter if the illegality is acknowledged? If they get to strip everything back despite the courts, what does it matter? For the possible future trials?

There's no easy answer, which sucks. But calling out that they are burning the house down must be done in the meantime

This will be a long war (and we are at war now). Battles count even when they don't individually win the war

I agree with that. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, it absolutely needs to be detailed and catalogued for the trials in the future (if a strong enough coalition of power does true trials for these crimes) it just feels so hopeless right now seeing it unfold and no one of power stepping in.

I wish I could share some hopeful answer, I really do It's not for everyone, but I've been trying to recenter on the thought of *duty*

Oh absolutely. I feel very similarly to understanding everyone's roles in organizing and attempting to salvage the pieces this admin will leave behind. Others will, eventually, inherit the mess. We have a responsibility to one another to help keep what we can intact and rebuild when/where we can.

Because the public needs to know that a crime is being committed so they can hold them accountable

It matters to fight them every step of the way. It matters because some people are not informed and don’t know it’s illegal you may educate someone to know it for the first time. It matters to remind ourselves this is not normal. Also they don’t want us to so do it 😊

Perhaps you can actually show the legal basis behind your declaration. What you may disagree with morally does not make it illegal. You must point to a certain statute and show how an executive action or policy specifically violates the law. The best first place to look is in the Constitution

It's literally in the first article.

Lmao it’s unconstitutional on its face. That’s why all these “patriots” moaning about the constitution are a laugh. The Congress has the power to appropriate funds. These funds have already been appropriated. The president cannot impound already-appropriated funds (impoundment control act of 74)

Yes. U.S. Const. art. I § 8.

Show me the precedent, the crime, the impact, the loss and the solution. The burden is on the plaintiff.

bsky.app/profile/kath...

We cannot just say it is illegal action by any party without being prepared to defend that claim. Argue it here in public as you wish to argue everything.

bsky.app/profile/kath...

Your argument bears the burden of truth, do you know?

Buddy, your initial question was answered. Will you deal with the answer?

bsky.app/profile/kath...

This is why I’d rather slather myself in bbq sauce and jump into the lion enclosure at the zoo than try to argue with you about the law.

You'd probably be ok. The people who fail are usually those who can't bother reading what she has to say because they already know they are right(even though they can't back anything up)

Oh, I’m happy to have a discussion, I normally learn a lot when I engage with her or others on legal topics. I’m just not dumb enough to argue.

but that's what argu...oh, wait, pause legal brain

And here we have the difference between lawyers and technical analysts🤣

How would you argue to the Supreme Court that this statute has been broken/defiled?

The power of the purse is granted exclusively to Congress. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 897 F.3d at 1231. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the President to unilaterally enact, amend, or repeal parts of duly enacted statutes. Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417, 438–39 (1998).

Congress’s spending power includes the power to attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206–07 (1987). As a result, the President's duty to enforce the laws, U.S. Const. art. II, § 3, includes honoring Congress's appropriations. 897 F.3d at 1234.

His failure to do so is an abdication of his Constitutional role. 2 U.S.C. §§ 681–688. Congress has not delegated the authority to attach conditions to the receipt of funds to Trump, so he's prohibited by the Constitution from doing so. City of L.A. v. Barr, 929 F.3d 1163, 1175 (9th Cir. 2019).

The Executive Order thus amounts to an end-run around the separation of powers; Trump has no authority to thwart congressional will by canceling appropriations passed by Congress or to ignore a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections. 897 F.3d at 1232. Make sense?

And he was never heard from ever again

they never want to stay friends :-(

Actually, I don't normally reply to replies. That just invites vitriol. I asked a question and received an answer. Whether I agree or not doesn't matter. I'm not on the Supreme Court where this will be determined.

You are the @dieworkwear.bsky.social of legal threads.

As a municipal employee I really don't know how to respond to all this - the funds we were promised cannot legally be withheld; yet if they are they expose us to millions of dollars we don't have

Doesn’t to them apparently

I understand it’s illegal, but unfortunately, so have been most “western” revolutions (French, Russian). None of them have been reversed, no matter how ‘illegal’ they were. And that’s the thing. Unless Musk is immediately stopped-LIKE RIGHT NOW-the destruction will be irreversible.

Not if nothing is being done about it. That's the rub. The courts can only do so much. What happens when they don't abide by the rulings? Is there a plan in place 4 that? I think not except 2026. That seems to be the Dems only strategy rt now & I'm not sure there is any other options truthfully.

If they don’t abide by the rulings, the court can enforce the rulings via its own authority.

That sounds good on paper, Kathryn...but it is likely that Trump will not comply. The GOP will not impeach him. www.npr.org/2025/02/06/n...

He's already complying, at least partially. And if he doesn't, again, the court can enforce its own orders.

The United States Marshals Service (USMS) enforces court orders issued by the federal courts. The USMS is part of the Department of Justice. That would be Pam Bondi. Just sayin...

The US Marshals are the typical enforcement arm, but their authority isn't exclusive. If they refuse to do it, the court can authorize someone else to do it.

ugh!

I’m wondering the same thing and going to check with the DNC directly to see what the plan is, what they got cookin? Plus we need to get a special interest conglomerate too 🤨! Because it’s not going to be all trusting them the next time!! We’re allowed to add to the constitution

the Dems didn't even have a plan for the 4 years Biden was in the White House? why would they have one now. they don't. they let us all down first by not filing charges against filthy don for J6 & then by Biden not stepping down a year before he did to give the Dems a chance to hold their primary

Also DOGE isn’t a government entity. They have no authority and no funding at least from US.

they've already stolen $100 million apparently to conduct they're purge so they are getting "funding" of taxpayer dollars

The repetition reminds me that I’m not going insane. (I don’t think.)

Reply quality here has significantly degraded (…he replied)

why aren't ppl stopping him? bc his appointees or republicans are in place to enforce it?? i really dnt understand this

executive branch executes/enforces, everyone else is slower by design. temp injunctions are the quickest thing we have to respond

They are stopping him. More slowly and less effectively than would be ideal, but they are.

Yeah, but it's not like anyone actually working for the government has said something like, "I won't do what you're asking & I will quit if you try to make me". /s

I feel this too, but it's not correct. Look up the group prosecuting the NYC mayor. Several quit. True at archives, too, I think.

Hence the /s I think

Indeed. bsky.app/profile/soma...

The GOP wants this. They have the power.

The DNC wants it too, makes it real easy to ask for donations to continue to do nothing

Oh shut the fuck up. The DNC are out of power; they literally can't do anything. Best they can do is create a government shut down on the 14th of March because the GOP lack the votes to pass through a funding bill

What'd they do when they were in power in just two years ago? 21-23, also 07-11. 87-95 they controlled Congress and Senate and had the presidency for the last two years. So glad they spent that time pushing prog policy and not saying "not now, wait until after the the next election."

What the fuck are you talking about? What's your point? What do you want them to do? Pass more laws to try and constrict them when they're already ignoring THE GOD DAMN CONSTITUTION? The bedrock of the entire country and legal system?

GOP is in charge of everything and setting it on fire. But "on both sides" won't die.

When the DNC is in charge they adamantly refuse to put out the fires set by the GOP claiming if they did that, they'd lose the next round of elections. And then lose the next round anyway. Imagine calling 911 and they said "hold up, we can't send a truck because the arsonist may strike again"

Explain in three hundred characters what on earth the DNC has to do with this. When they're in charge of WHAT?

I guess you're right that the DNC will email you for donations! You can click unsubscribe, as I did to ALL of those emails a long time ago. Then the DNC will have no effect on your life whatsoever lol. They certainly don't have anything to do with setting policy.

It's a sad day when the Heritage Foundation has nicer things to say about Democrats than your Friendly Neighborhood Anarchist. Maybe you don't like climate change legislation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ www.heritage.org/budget-and-s...

And right after Biden expanded lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, including ANWR. Aren't you edgy with the political ad hominem attack. Yeah I'm a hater of climate change legislation just like *checks notes* the Sierra Club? Or oilchange.org, or politico. Biden oil sales outpaced Trump 🤦🏻‍♀️

The Sierra Club praised the Inflation Reduction Act.

You link a tweet, I linked an actual publication on their site. IRA has some good stuff in it but it also MANDATES more oil drilling than Trump BEFORE investment in renewables can even begin. Still this is a very limited win compared to everything from genocide to women's rights. 🎉 Eco-fascism 🎉

Oil Change International are trying to push degrowth policy without using the word "degrowth". Good luck with that. Politico??

They literally could do anything to obstruct it and slow it down, and most of them refuse to, because this way they get to enrich their corporate masters without it being "their fault." Dems do not care about you, they just don't actively want to kill you as much as Republicans.

Weird how Republicans can do that shit whenever Dems are in power, but whenever Republicans are in power the Dems are helpless to do anything but make condescending statements.

thank you for repeating it. It's important not to forget.

How

What is it called when someone ignores the law, what do we call that person Ah well

It only matters if someone has the means and the balls to do anything at all to stop it. No one has both.

Also worth documenting all of the illegalities, since there's a chance that the fever will break and there'll be hearings, whether they be criminal and/or impeachment. Also-also worth reminding ourselves that this is not normal nor acceptable, lest we forget and start to accept this madness.