Pearl clutching, along with historical ignorance, is a bad look Wall Street Journal.
Burn of the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
When is the print media including the Wall Street Journal going to apologize to all of us for the complete and total baloney they fed us starting with covid and continuing to the present day? I’ll wait.
Amen, LKL. I also await their apologies for smearing Trump and his appointees for years over the entirely fictional “Russian collusion” narrative and its odiferous spawn. The WSJ lost me 30 years ago and continues to descend into irrelevance.
Theodore Roosevelt was correct about Oliver Wendel Holmes
Lead kindly light:
Correct…and abortion, oh I mean womens’ health care, global warming, the whole cultural smear.
A good ruling, recognizing that the Constitution limits the authority of the executive branch. My biggest complaint with the WSJ’s opinion on this is the idea that Trump doesn’t do five worse things than this every month.
the idea that Trump doesn’t do five worse things than this every month.
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He’s been in office for five years. You want to give us a list of 300 ‘worse things’?
Speaking of COVID, the Biden administration put through a nationwide moratorium on evictions for lack of rent payments by creating CDC “health recommendations.” These “recommendations” were upheld with penalties including a 250k fine and a year in jail for the landlord. This was brought to the Supreme Court review, but the majority declined stating that the recommendation was going to expire anyway, though noting that the action was almost certainly unconstitutional. On top of that Biden himself stated that the action was probably unconstitutional, but they’d try it out anyway. So of course the Biden administration immediately renewed the moratorium after it expired.
That’s the world that live in with respect to presidents and the constitution.
That being said, the President Trump’s tactics have been different. When the law is unclear, he acts and forces the Supreme Court to react. If they say that his actions are 100% constitutional, so much the better. If not, he has his team look closely at the ruling and readjusts to get what he wants while still technically being in compliance with the Supreme Court. (In this case Justice Kavanaugh even gave explicit advice in his dissent about how President Trump could enact new tariffs while staying clear of the current ruling.)
Roosevelt was quite unhappy when the court invalidated some of his New Deal programs. He simply made some revisions and continued to go in the same direction. President Trump may wish to consider something similar.
Let’s have some fun with this. How about next month? We’re both regulars here. I’ll comment in the Open Forums about any cases where Trump merits public criticism from a fan of the Constitution, Catholic teaching, and human decorum.
I’ll comment in the Open Forums about any cases where Trump merits public criticism from a fan of the Constitution, Catholic teaching, and human decorum.
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You’re a bit short of the 300 mark here.
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I’m not sure what ‘Catholic teaching’ Trump policies have contravened. Anthony Annett (Morning’s Minion) used to peddle the idea here that you could use the social encyclicals to differentiate between extant modes of government-financed medical care and whatever BO’s bait-and-switch crew was plotting. I suppose you could offer a complaint about various military actions; before you do, I’d suggest you contemplate some of the odd little corners into which the Catholic social justice crew has argued itself.
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No, Trump isn’t decorous and he talks in obnoxious sales blarney of the sort you used to see from car dealers advertising on local television. George W. Bush was decorous; he’s also betrayed everyone who ever voted for him.
A good ruling, recognizing that the Constitution limits the authority of the executive branch. My biggest complaint with the WSJ’s opinion on this is the idea that Trump doesn’t do five worse things than this every month.
Pinky, what specifically do you think was the correct part of the ruling? Which of the justices in the 6 making the decision do you agree with (as they had different reasons for ruling against the tariffs.) In particular, do you believe that the president has any authority to enact tariffs, or is the problem that these specific tariffs were too broad in scope or not specifically tailored enough to an emergency?
What do you think of the dissenting argument that congress can and has delegated the ability to enact tariffs? Were previous presidents who directly oversaw trade with the Indian Nations acting unconstitutionally, or was that within the power delegated to them by congress? What about previous tariffs issued by Nixon, citing the same legislation? Do you think that the president is allowed to “regulate” imports without the use of tariffs (and if so what would that look like) or must the president avoid all trading policy?
If your reaction is based on the actual supreme court decision itself, you should be able to answer these questions.
Roosevelt was quite unhappy when the court invalidated some of his New Deal programs. He simply made some revisions and continued to go in the same direction.
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He never obtained the comprehensive cartel formation he sought, but the court allowed it in particular sectors and allowed cartel formation in the labor market. Also, the distinction between inter-state and intra-state commerce was effectively erased. The Roosevelt Administration’s affection for cartel formation, price controls, price manipulation, and distribution of benefits by public agency per occult criteria were its worst impulses.
If you’ve had a look at the Standard International Trade Classifications, the idea of Congress legislating each line item therein is pretty amusing.
Pinky is correct on the decision itself. If you want it boiled down, I encourage everyone to read Gorsuch’s concurrence, which is perhaps one of the most masterful opinions I’ve ever read. It is a masterclass in that he not only pokes holes in Kavanaugh’s and Thomas’ dissents, he even pokes holes in the other concurrences. He calls out the liberal justices for their complete hypocrisy and inconsistency in applying their judicial standards here and in the previous cases where Biden’s executive overreaches were called into question. He more gently distances himself from Barrett, who didn’t think the major questions doctrine needed to be applied here.
As for the dissents, Gorsuch is correct in observing that Thomas’ opinion, if taken to its logical conclusion, would permit Congress to just about delegate all of its powers away. And he does a great job in dissecting Kavanaugh’s opinion, which would read into the statutory interpretation language that wasn’t even there.
You can be supportive of Trump’s approach to tariffs, but there was really no constitutional support for his use of IEPPA to apply those tariffs.