A Possible Gov’t Funding Deal Comes Into View — As Trump’s Lawlessness Looms

Posted on by Emine Yücel

With about three weeks remaining in the current fiscal year, senators are scrambling to find a way to fund the federal government for fiscal year 2026.

A short-term continuing resolution (CR) continues to be the most realistic option for Republicans — who have the majority in both the House and Senate — to avoid a government shutdown. No matter how they decide to move forward, Senate Republicans will need some Democratic votes to fund the government.

Aware of the dynamics, Democrats are pushing for a deal to extend the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of 2025, in exchange for their support for a short-term CR. Despite some signals from Democrats in August that they might use this negotiation to push back on the Trump administration’s lawless disregard for Congress’ power of the purse, it is unclear if an Obamacare deal would address that. 

“They will be a major part of the negotiation for the bipartisan deal that we need to strike,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, told TPM on Tuesday, referring to the ACA subsidies. 

Republicans “were willing to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest,” Kaine continued, alluding to the so-called “Big Beautiful” reconciliation bill congressional Republicans passed earlier this year. “Why not extend support for everyday people who need to afford health insurance?” 

Indeed, many Republicans appear to be finding themselves in support of at least a one-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies, which raises a new question that hangs over the negotiations: why are Democrats only publicly leveraging this single issue in exchange for helping Republicans fund the government? Especially considering the White House’s ongoing undermining of Congress’ power of the purse. It’s a question that has prompted strenuous pushback from some in the Democrats’ base and from influential journalists (including some at this publication).

“We passed a CR in March and the President didn’t pay any attention to it. The budget, whether it’s a CR or not, isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if the President is going to act illegally and refuse to spend the money that’s in it,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters on Tuesday, giving voice to the concern that he raised repeatedly over the summer.

It’s a dynamic that will hang over Capitol Hill for the next few weeks. 

The Obamacare subsidies

The ACA enhanced subsidies were first put into effect as a part of the American Rescue Plan, the COVID-19 relief package signed into law in March 2021 by President Joe Biden. The enhancements worked in two major ways. It increased the amount of financial help available to those who were already eligible for assistance under Obamacare by lowering the amount individuals pay for their health insurance. And it expanded the eligibility of the subsidies to middle income families, eliminating the ACA’s “subsidy cliff.” Later, the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law under President Biden in August 2022, extended the enhanced subsidies and the expanded eligibility through the end of the 2025.

Experts warn if Congress fails to act before the subsidies are set to expire almost everyone who gets individual health insurance through the marketplace is going to see dramatic increases in their premiums.

“If Congress does not take action, everyone in the marketplace will see their premiums increase dramatically — that’s both people who receive the premium tax credit and people who don’t,” Claire Heyison, senior policy analyst on the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ health insurance and marketplace policy team, told TPM.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if enhanced premium tax credits are left to expire, 4.2 million people will drop their ACA marketplace coverage, largely due to the increased cost, and become uninsured.

Congressional Republicans already added a significant amount of red tape to the process for those trying to access the subsidies as a part of their recent reconciliation bill. The so-called “Big Beautiful” bill made it so that people who enroll in marketplace coverage cannot get the premium tax credit until they verify certain personal information. This change won’t come into effect until 2028 but Heyison told TPM “it’s expected that many people will not jump through those hoops” and in turn “not get the health insurance that they’re eligible for.” 

Many congressional Republicans seem to be on board

Several Republicans, from Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to Josh Hawley (R-MO), have already indicated they would get behind efforts to protect or extend the Obamacare subsidies.

“We’re gonna have to do something on that front, because if we don’t, premiums are gonna absolutely skyrocket,” Hawley said on Monday, according to The Hill. “I’m open to suggestions, but one option that will absolutely not fly is do nothing. We just can’t. People won’t be able to live, they won’t be able to see a doctor.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters Monday she also wants to see the subsidies extended.

Meanwhile, eleven GOP House members co-sponsored a bill, led by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), last week that would extend the subsidies for another year — effectively punting the expiration to after the 2026 midterms.

Even House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) recently showed some interest around the issue.

“I don’t love the policy, OK? But I understand the political realities and the realities of people on the ground. And this is real to folks,” Johnson told Punchbowl last week. “I don’t think we should be subsidizing high-income earners. It was a Covid-era issue, and so that’d be a big thing for the Republican Party to continue or advance that. At the same time, we don’t want anyone to be adversely affected by that.”

What about Congress’ power of the purse?

Looming over the negotiation, of course, is the White House’s ongoing undermining of Congress’ power of the purse.

The Trump White House and Russ Vought’s Office of Management and Budget have already been lawlessly impounding funds, according to several decisions from the Government Accountability Office. And in late August, they sent an illegal “pocket rescissions” request over to Congress, triggering staunch criticism from many lawmakers.

Some Democrats did acknowledge to TPM this week that even if they can come to a deal to fund the government in exchange for extending the Obamacare subsidies, the Trump administration’s lawlessness may continue.

“We don’t like doing a deal and then have him saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll sign that now. I’m taking all the money away tomorrow,’” Kaine told reporters as he walked up to the Senate floor on Tuesday.

The Virginia Democrat added that he suspects the ACA subsidies would be part of a separate, full year funding deal.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not in the initial short-term CR — if we’re extending for a month or 45 days to reach a deal,” Kaine said. “I think it would be part of the ultimate deal, rather than part of the short term CR, but we’ll see.”

But one important fact complicates the timeline and a possible deal. 

“Open enrollment for marketplace coverage begins on November 1,” Heyison told TPM. “So if the enhancements were to be extended after November 1 — while it would still be much better for American families than if they weren’t — it would be confusing. The premiums people are seeing when they’re shopping for coverage would change. Marketplaces would probably need to do some kind of outreach campaigns to try to get people who had already seen the premium spikes to come back.” 

Heyison added ideally it’s not enough for the enhancements to be extended before November 1 “but with sufficient time for marketplaces, insurers and states to be able to make the adjustments that are needed.”

Murphy also pointed to the timeline issue, saying people will see their premiums going up before the end of the year. 

“You do a 30 or 40-day, 45-day CR, that doesn’t stop the fact that people are going to be getting nightmarish increases in their premiums,” Murphy told reporters. “So, we don’t have time to wait here. There’s going to be a meltdown in our health care system this fall and we have to act with some urgency.”

Judge Blocks Trump’s Firing of Lisa Cook From the Federal Reserve Board

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Biden Appointee Reinstated … For Now

In a late-night ruling, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of Washington, D.C. blocked President Trump from firing Lisa Cook as a member of the Federal Reserve Board.

In the closely-watched case over whether Trump’s jihad against independent agencies will take down the Fed, too, Cobb ruled that his purported “for cause” firing of Cook was unlawful.

Trump used bogus mortgage fraud allegations from a toady of his as a pretext to fire Cook and undermine the Feds’ independence. While the statute gives the president the power to remove Federal Reserve Board members for cause, Cobb concluded that Trump likely violated the statute:

The best reading of the “for cause” provision is that the bases for removal of a member of the Board of Governors are limited to grounds concerning a Governor’s behavior in office and whether they have been faithfully and effectively executing their statutory duties. “For cause” thus does not contemplate removing an individual purely for conduct that occurred before they began in office.

Cobb also found that Cook was likely denied due process. Cook had argued she was entitled to notice and a hearing before she could be removed for cause.

Cobb ordered the Fed to reinstate Cook and prohibited it from treating her in any way as having been removed. The next Fed meeting is Sept. 16-17, which made a timely decision from Cobb urgent.

In granting Cook’s request for an order blocking her firing, Cobb issued a preliminary injunction that is immediately appealable. Expect the Trump administration to immediately appeal on an emergency basis and for this case to remain on a fast track until the Supreme Court weighs in.

Bill Pulte Makes Some GOP Enemies

It’s not just Treasury Secretary Scott ‘I’m Gonna Punch You in Your F—ing Face’ Bessent who is put out with Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency who has spearheaded the mortgage fraud witch hunts against Trump adversaries. Some GOP members of Congress are shitting all over him to Politico — though none would do so on the record.

Another Rough Day in Court for the Anti-Trump Forces

Despite the temporary win for Lisa Cook, it was a day of more setbacks for those trying to rein in the rogue president:

  • Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay, pausing a lower court order that had required the Trump administration to begin the process of dispensing $4 billion in long-frozen foreign aid funds.
  • The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit by 20 blue states seeking to challenge the firing of thousands of probationary federal employees, ruling that the states couldn’t sufficiently show they were harmed by the Trump administration’s actions.

READ: Trump Agreement With El Salvador for AEA Detainees

The agreement between the United States and El Salvador for it to accept the Alien Enemies Act detainees who ended up at CECOT was made public this week for the first time, in litigation over the controversial arrangement.

Among the terms of the agreement:

  • The Trump administration gave El Salvador a grant of $4.76 million for “law enforcement and anticrime needs.”
  • That money could be used to cover the “costs associated with detaining the 238 TdA members recently deported to El Salvador.”

The agreement was dated March 22, about a week after the administration rushed the Alien Enemies Act removals to avoid court scrutiny.

Quote of the Day

“I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching, because according to our president there’s only two genders … and I don’t want to promote something that is against our president’s laws as well as against my religious beliefs.”–unidentified Texas A&M student, objecting to LGBTQ content in a university course in a viral video that led to the removals of a dean and department head and the firing of a professor

Michigan Fake Electors Case Dismissed

A state judge in Michigan ruled that the fake electors from the 2020 election were so completely bamboozled by Trump’s Big Lie that they lacked the requisite intent to sustain fraud charges and ordered the criminal case against them dismissed.

A First for NATO

Polish and Dutch fighters shot down Russian drones that had penetrated deep into Poland’s air space overnight. It was the first time that NATO fighters had engaged enemy targets in allied airspace.

Together at Last …

Former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, 81, and his one-time secretary Fawn Hall, 65 — of Iran-contra fame in the 1980s — have married, Michael Isikoff reports.

They reportedly renewed their acquaintance in November at the funeral of North’s wife of 56 years.

North’s adult children were apparently unaware of their father’s Aug. 27 marriage to Hall.

“We were not at the wedding because we didn’t know it was happening,” his daughter Sarah Katz told the NYT on Tuesday night. “And mostly we hope it won’t impact our relationship with our dad because we do love him and we’re still in the process of mourning our mother.”

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Missouri House Advances Gerrymandered Map for Trump

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Republicans in the Missouri state House passed a map, gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, in a 90-65 vote, advancing President Trump’s nationwide attempt to pressure Republican state legislatures around the country to force House seats that have typically gone to Democrats in their states to flip.

Continue reading “Missouri House Advances Gerrymandered Map for Trump” →

Supreme Court Gives Early Thumbs Up To Trump’s Theft Of Congress’ Power

Posted on by Kate Riga

The Supreme Court on Tuesday froze a lower court judge’s decision ordering that foreign aid money already approved by Congress be spent. The ominous move may signal a coming embrace of the Trump administration’s radical “theory” that a president can choose to withhold appropriated funding. 

Continue reading “Supreme Court Gives Early Thumbs Up To Trump’s Theft Of Congress’ Power” →

Judge Lets Michigan Fake Electors Walk Because They ‘Sincerely Believed’ 2020 Big Lie

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

A group of Michigan fake electors learned on Tuesday that believing the 2020 election was stolen can still pay off: a state judge dismissed a criminal fraud case against them after finding that they “sincerely believe” there were irregularities in President Trump’s defeat that year.

Continue reading “Judge Lets Michigan Fake Electors Walk Because They ‘Sincerely Believed’ 2020 Big Lie” →

Conservative Justices Declare Racial Profiling Just Fine If Trump Asks For It

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes. 

On Monday, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority issued an order that allows federal immigration agents in Los Angeles to resume arresting Latino people en masse simply because they are Latino. The conservative justices did not sign the order in Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo; the public only knows who is responsible because Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by the two other liberal justices. (Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence, but no other justice joined it—perhaps they reasoned that it was better to remain silent and be thought a racist fool than to speak, as Kavanaugh did, and remove all doubt.)

Because there is no majority opinion, there is no way of knowing which, if any, of the legal arguments advanced by the Trump administration on appeal the Court actually found convincing. What we do know, from Sotomayor’s dissent and from the lower court opinions that the conservative justices tossed aside, is that people are going to get hurt.

One plaintiff, for example, an American citizen and Latino man named Jason Gavidia, was accosted by masked men with guns as he was working on his car in a tow yard. The agents demanded to know if he was a citizen, and Gavidia told them at least three times that he was. Then the agents asked him what hospital he was born in. When he didn’t immediately remember, Sotomayor recounts in her dissent, “the agents racked a rifle, took Gavidia’s phone, pushed him up against the metal gated fence, put his hands behind his back, and twisted his arm.” The agents only released Gavidia after he handed over his ID card.

“The Government…has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction,” Sotomayor wrote. For Gavidia, that ID card can’t even protect him any longer—the agents never gave it back to him. 

Gavidia’s arrest is only one of thousands made by federal agents in the Los Angeles area on President Donald Trump’s orders. Other run-ins with immigration agents have involved “even more force and even fewer questions,” Sotomayor said. “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.” 

But that is the fate to which the Court is condemning a fearful populace. The Trump administration is waging a sickening assault on Latino residents and foundational constitutional commitments, and as the judicial arm of the Trump administration, the Court is equally culpable.

Trump’s siege of Los Angeles started on June 6, and people impacted by the mass deportation campaign sued in federal court soon thereafter. Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong found a “mountain of evidence” showing that roving patrols of immigration agents were indiscriminately arresting and detaining people without reasonable suspicion and then denying them access to lawyers, in violation of both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. On July 11, the trial court issued an order indicating that the administration “may not rely solely on” four factors—apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent, presence at a particular location (like a bus stop or a day laborer pickup site), or the type of work—to “form reasonable suspicion for a detentive stop, except as permitted by law.”

The administration asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the trial court order. Curiously, the administration did not actually argue that the lower court’s findings were wrong. Instead, they argued that plaintiffs had no right to secure future relief because they were unlikely to be hurt in the future, and that the court’s order was impermissibly vague. The Ninth Circuit modified the order slightly, clarifying that the administration could not make arrests based “solely” on these factors. Basically, no one is saying the government can’t arrest a Latino person at Home Depot whom it has reason to believe is committing a crime. The court is just saying the basis for the government’s belief cannot be simply that a Latino person is at Home Depot.Then, the administration asked the Court to block the order—a “once-extraordinary step,” said Sotomayor, that the conservative justices have made entirely commonplace, whenever the Trump administration declares that its desire to do harm right now constitutes an “emergency.” Sotomayor called the Court’s bucking of the normal process that exists “to consider these troubling allegations” as “yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket.”

Without a majority opinion, one can only assume that the Court’s conservatives agree that immigration agents should be able to rely on the four prohibited factors, and that racial profiling is reasonable—despite the facts, as Sotomayor points out, that nearly half of the region’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and a third speak Spanish at home. Being Latino and speaking Spanish is not probative of anything but being Latino and speaking Spanish. The only way the Court could conclude otherwise is if it thinks being Latino is incompatible with innocence.

The Supreme Court’s order in Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo is best viewed not as law but as plain old white supremacy. White people are not the ones being hounded for their freedom papers. They’re considered citizens by default, and, also by default, nonwhite people are considered others who do not belong in the country, and to whom the country could not possibly belong.

The Court’s conservatives have given their blessing to wanton racial profiling, without so much as a word of reasoning. And as a result, no one—not the lower court judges applying the law, or the people oppressed by the law—has any idea if people of color have any constitutional rights which the Trump administration is bound to respect.

Trump Admin Returns Russian Dissident Asylum Seekers to Putin

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

In late August, a group of Russians who had asked and not received political asylum from the U.S. government found themselves back home. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had put them on a circuitous route: after being picked up from an airport in Alexandria, Louisiana, they made stops in the Caribbean before moving onwards to Cairo, Egypt.

From Cairo, a plane took them to Moscow.

Continue reading “Trump Admin Returns Russian Dissident Asylum Seekers to Putin” →

TV Nudity Scandal, Impeachment Calls, a Meeting No-Show: Troubles Pile Up for Oklahoma’s MAGA Schools Chief

Posted on by Allegra Kirkland

This story was originally reported by Nadra Nittle of The 19th. Meet Nadra and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

In the weeks since he was accused of showing explicit content on his office television, Oklahoma schools chief Ryan Walters has canceled a State Board of Education meeting and skipped a subsequent one on September 3, calling into question his ability to oversee public education and renewing threats to oust him from leadership. 

Walters has not commented publicly on his absence, but a spokesperson for him said in a statement, “Superintendent Walters is focused on tackling the big issues facing Oklahoma schools.” 

His decision to miss last week’s meeting, following his cancellation of the August session, has drawn attention to the multiple controversies he’s entangled in and reignited calls for his impeachment. His absence Wednesday reportedly marked the first time in decades that a superintendent skipped the board meeting.

In July, two education board members, Ryan Deatherage and Becky Carson, said they saw full-frontal nudity on Walters’ office TV during an executive session of the board. The state superintendent not only vehemently denied the claims but also accused the duo of spreading “falsehoods” about him in a coordinated attack spearheaded by Gov. Kevin Stitt, a fellow Republican with whom Walters has clashed.

An investigation into the July incident remains ongoing. However, Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert said in August that his preliminary findings suggested that neither Walters nor the board members had acted improperly. Nudity did appear on Walters’ office TV, Hilbert said, but only because of a “bizarre accident involving a newly installed television defaulting to a pre-programmed channel.”

Tensions between Walters and the board members did not dissipate after Hilbert’s findings. Carson, in particular, said she was offended by the suggestion that she and her colleague would lie, and Walters fumed over the damage to his reputation.

About two weeks after the accusations, hundreds of protesters — members of Oklahoma’s new, independent Sooner State political party — rallied at the state capitol to demand his impeachment. The protesters raised concerns that Oklahoma ranked 50th in a report on public school quality across the country, a criticism that connects to a wider net of controversies involving Walters.He announced this summer that Oklahoma students would receive free lunch although the state legislature hadn’t budgeted funding to public schools for such a massive undertaking, and a federal deadline lapsed that would have helped many school districts achieve this goal. He has also started requiring California and New York transplants who apply for Oklahoma teaching jobs to take an ideologically-driven “America First” test designed by conservative organization PragerU.

Due to his ongoing tensions with Stitt over issues including immigration — Walters wanted to question public school families about their legal status and the governor objected — the superintendent was not present when Education Secretary Linda McMahon visited Oklahoma as part of her nationwide “Returning Education to the States” tour in August. Stitt, however, did appear with the secretary. President Donald Trump had reportedly considered Walters for McMahon’s position after becoming president-elect in November. The state superintendent famously sparked a backlash in 2024 after trying to get Trump-endorsed Bibles in all Oklahoma public school classrooms to the tune of $3 million, a plan he later walked back.

Walters’ absence from the board meeting has increased scrutiny of his leadership. During Wednesday’s brief session, the board decided to hire a new attorney to replace its previous lawyer, who recently resigned. Board members and lawmakers say Walters’ cancellation of the August meeting and nonattendance at Wednesday’s means pressing issues aren’t being addressed. 

State Sen. Mark Mann, a Democrat from Oklahoma City, described Walters’ behavior to Oklahoma’s News 4 as “really just dereliction of duty.” He added, “That agency is barely functioning; it’s in the worst shape it’s ever been in.” 

State Rep. Ellen Pogemiller, also a Democrat from Oklahoma City, said it is not too late to pursue impeachment.

“As a taxpayer, I would have wanted my state superintendent to show up in a meeting like that,” she said. 

House Education Chair Dick Lowe, a Republican, said he is unhappy with Walters’ leadership, too. But he is not ready to oust the superintendent from office.   

The State Board of Education is scheduled to have its next regular meeting September 25.

Trump Lays the Groundwork to Rig the 2026 Midterms

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

The Ratfucking Is Already Underway

The Trump Justice Department is taking the unprecedented step of compiling a national voter database, the NYT reports:

The effort to essentially establish a national voting database, involving more than 30 states, has elicited serious concerns among voting rights experts because it is led by allies of the president, who as recently as this January refused to acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. fairly won the 2020 election. It has also raised worries that those same officials could use the data to revive lies of a stolen election, or try to discredit future election results.

The effort is being speared by two DOJ components acting in parallel: the civil rights division and the criminal division. They have been seeking individual voter data from around the country, involving 16 GOP-controlled states and 17 Democratic or swing states, the NYT reports:

In a private meeting with the staff of top state election officials last month, Michael Gates, a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division, disclosed that all 50 states would eventually receive similar requests, according to notes of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times. In particular, he said, the federal government wants the last four digits of every voter’s Social Security number.

Part of the motivation for the data collection appears to be stoking claims of widespread voting by undocumented immigrants, according to the report. But election law experts and state election officials are sounding the alarm about other uses the Trump DOJ may make of the data, ranging from sowing further doubt about the 2020 election to interfering in the 2026 midterms.

Combine the NYT report with recent comments from longtime GOP election lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who before she became a major player in the Trump effort to overturn the 2020 election had spent decades trying to make it harder to vote, and you can start to see the groundwork being laid first for delegitimizing, then for rejecting a loss in the 2026 midterms:

Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell says Trump may try to declare a “national sovereignty” crisis in 2026 to claim “emergency powers” over elections and override the states

— People For the American Way (@peoplefor.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T18:23:54.459Z

Mitchell and those of her ilk must create a corrupt permission structure for Trump to involve himself in the midterms because constitutionally there is no legal role for the president. Indeed there is no national election, but rather concurrent state-level elections.

Law professor Justin Levitt, a noted election law expert at Loyola Marymount University, compared it to Trump’s takeover of D.C.: “It’s wading in, without authorization and against the law, with an overly heavy federal hand to take over a function that states are actually doing just fine,” Levitt told the NYT, “It’s wildly illegal, deeply troubling, and nobody asked for this.”

SCOTUS Okays Racial Profiling in Immigration Raids

With no explanation, the Supreme Court used its emergency docket to give the Trump administration a greenlight to continue targeting people in immigration raids who look Hispanic, speak with an accent, or gather where undocumented Latinos are more likely to be found.

The court’s decision to lift a lower court injunction while the appeal proceeds suggested it was enforcing a lower standard than the individualized suspicion required by the 4th Amendment, though Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied as much in a concurring opinion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor vigorously dissented and was joined by the other two liberal justice.

Sifting through the implications of the case:

  • Orin Kerr: “[A]ll of this means a lot more practically than legally.  Legally, this doesn’t change the law, as far as I can tell. It’s an order with no reasoning, and Kavanaugh’s opinion can be read in different ways but I wouldn’t think of it as changing the law (at least on Fourth-Amendment-related issues).  What matters here is the practical reality that the Trump Administration’s enforcement program can continue.  That’s a very big deal on the ground.”
  • Charlie Savage: “The ruling is not the final word in the case, which stems from the Trump administration’s attempt to carry out mass deportations. But the court’s Republican-appointed majority will allow the government to continue using aggressive — and unconstitutional, in the eyes of its critics — tactics in immigration sweeps as the litigation slowly plays out.”
  • Adam Klasfeld: SCOTUS swallows “10%”: The disputed stat behind a racial profiling ruling in LA

Quote of the Day

“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”–Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo

Constitutionally Infirm

At least 11 defendants arrested during President Trump’s show of force in D.C. have languished in jail longer than the constitutionally-permitted 48 hours before their initial appearance in front of a judge, the NYT reports.

Roberts Court: Farewell, Indy Agencies

The Supreme Court action on immigration raids in Los Angeles was not the day’s most glaring example of its misuse of its emergency. In an important independent agency case, Chief Justice John Roberts allowed President Trump to proceed with firing Democratic FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter while the appeal of the case is heard.

The emergency docket action effectively reversed Humphrey’s Executor, the landmark 1935 Supreme Court case that held President Franklin D. Roosevelt could not unilaterally remove FTC commissioners without cause. It wasn’t a surprising outcome given the Roberts Court’s steady undermining of the Humphrey’s Executor.

The Downfall of CBS News

A right-wing think tanker was chosen as the first ombudsman to oversee CBS News under the Trump administration’s condition of approval for the merger of its parent company. Kenneth R. Weinstein, a former CEO of the Hudson Institute who also spent time at the Heritage Foundation, has no experience overseeing news coverage.

Puerto Rico Becomes a Staging Ground for U.S. Saber-Rattling

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Puerto Rico as part of the Trump administration’s effort to destabilize Venezuela.

E. Jean Carroll Keeps on Winning

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld E. Jean Carroll’s $83.3 million defamation judgment against Donald Trump.

Texas A&M Removes Dean and Dept. Head Over LGBTQ Content

An unidentified professor faces discipline and a department head and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences have been removed after a student objected to LGBTQ content in a children’s literature class, the Texas Tribune reports.

The employment actions came after a video of a in-class confrontation went viral:

The video, which does not show anyone’s face, captures audio of a student objecting to a professor teaching that there are more than two genders. The student says this conflicts with President Donald J. Trump’s executive order and her religious beliefs, and the professor responds she has a right to teach the lesson and the student has a right to leave.

Texas A&M University President Mark A. Welsh III defended the employment actions in a statement on X, framing it as misleading to students to include content in the classroom “that was not consistent with the course’s published description.”

‘Fascist at Home, Fascist Abroad’

John Ganz:

It used to be that one could roughly say that while paleocons were fascists at home, reimagining America as a white ethnostate, they were relatively more dovish abroad and skeptical of foreign entanglements, while the neocons were fascists abroad, favoring unabashed imperialism, foreign adventures, and unilateral wars, but broadly in support of center-right liberal democracy at home. The current fusionism of the right is the worst of all possible worlds: fascist at home, fascist abroad.

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Missouri Republicans Now Also Poised to Do Trump’s Mid-Cycle Redistricting Dirty Work

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

While Missouri Democrats stage protests and push Republican leadership to engage with them, it appears that Republicans in the Missouri state House will ultimately be able to pass redrawn congressional district maps this week, bowing to pressure from the Trump administration.

Continue reading “Missouri Republicans Now Also Poised to Do Trump’s Mid-Cycle Redistricting Dirty Work” →