#separation of powers

[tomorrowusa]

« If Mr. Trump continues to attempt to usurp the authority of the courts, the battle will be joined, and it will be up to the Supreme Court, Congress and the American people to step forward and say: Enough. As the Declaration of Independence said, referring to King George III of Britain, “A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Mr. Trump appears to have forgotten that Americans fought the Revolutionary War to secure their independence from the British monarchy and establish a government of laws, not of men, so that Americans would never again be subject to the whims of a tyrannical king. »

— Retired conservative Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig writing in the New York Times (archived).

Judge Luttig served in the federal judiciary from 1991 to 2006. He cannot be described as a "Radical Left Lunatic" which is how The Orange One refers to any judge who rules against Trump's unconstitutional measures. Judge Luttig was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.

Trump seems eager to provoke a constitutional crisis. He is depending on slim GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress to back him up. Craven Republicans on Capitol Hill worry themselves shitless about Trump unleashing primary challengers against them. But federal judges are appointed for life and are not subject to such pressure.

Judge Luttig, albeit indirectly, considers Trump as "unfit to be the ruler of a free people". Well stated.

[deadpresidents]

"I do not believe it is the function or indeed it is desirable for a President to express his approval or disapproval of any Supreme Court decision. His job, for which he takes an oath, is to execute the laws.

If he, in advance of such execution, says "I don't like it but I will do it," and in the other cases "I do like it, I will do it," he is constantly laying the whole law enforcement processes of the Federal Government open to the suspicion that he is doing his duty one time well and the other time not well."

-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, White House Press Conference, January 21, 1959.

[political-us]

Separation of powers at risk in the US

[alwaysbewoke]

the fix is in!!

[my-midlife-crisis]

[palatinewolfsblog]

When your lawmakers are above the law

you aren't governed

you are ruled (and fooled).

U.N. Owen.

[skypalacearchitect]

op disabled reblogs

where i found this post: https://www.tumblr.com/ninjakittenarmy/766102280532590592

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ahmed Baba at Ahmed Baba's Newsletter:

The biggest battles over President Trump’s agenda and executive overreach aren’t occurring in the halls of Congress - they’re happening in the courtroom. Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE team have been ignoring laws, unilaterally attempting to dismantle agencies, accessing sensitive data, sidelining civil servants, and testing the limits of executive power. This has been nothing short of an outright power grab, seeking to accomplish the core goal of the modern right-wing movement and Project 2025: to break down the federal bureaucracy and reshape the federal government into a tool of the far-right. Congress, with the Senate and House in Republican control, has done nothing to check the Trump Administration’s abuses of power. In spite of this administration’s effort to unilaterally seize the power of the purse away from Congress and to shut down congressionally-created agencies, Republican lawmakers have been largely silent or compliant. While the Legislative Branch fails in its duties to uphold the constitutional principle of separation of powers, the Judicial Branch is stepping up to the plate. [...] On Sunday, Vice President J.D. Vance joined the attacks on the federal judiciary, posting on Twitter, “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.” Elon Musk quote-posted Vance’s comments with American flag emojis. Vance, who graduated from Yale Law School, knows his claim that judges “aren’t allowed” to review executive power is pure nonsense. Having attended Yale, Vance is very aware of the Supreme Court’s 1803 Marbury v. Madison ruling, which established judicial review and cemented the judiciary’s authority to check the power of the other two branches of government. An administration like Trump’s is precisely why the Founders created our coequal system of checks and balances, designing the judiciary specifically to check this kind of power grab. This expansive view of executive power aligns with the unitary executive theory, which I’ve written about extensively. It’s the theory that Article II of the Constitution renders the president an all-powerful figure above accountability and checks on their power. The theory can be summed up in President Richard Nixon’s infamous words: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Or, in Donald Trump’s more precise words, “Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” As I’ve outlined, the Trump Administration is deliberately pushing the bounds of executive power. They believe the Supreme Court will further expand Trump’s power, as they did in their immunity ruling. But now, Vance and Musk are upping the ante with their attacks on the power of the judiciary itself.

With various courts blocking the unlawful moves by the Trump-Musk-Vance triumvirate of evil, JD Vance and Elon Musk launch attacks on judicial authority with the intent to plunge the US into a constitutional crisis.

See Also:

Daily Kos: Trump seems to think he can just ignore court orders he doesn't like

Public Notice: Trump and his lawyers embrace the logic of dictatorship

[commonsensecommentary]

“As much fun as it might be to be a “rock star judge” who finds new and inventive ways to circumvent judicial limitations and seize the powers delegated to the legislative and executive branches of government under the Constitution, the price to pay is the destructive surrender of all-important perceptions of restraint and impartiality.”

(From my blog archive)

[gwydionmisha]

Illegal take over of Library of Congress, Patents and Trademarks, and Consumer Protection Round Up, Published 5/15/25

They want to censor huge amounts of things. It's all illegal as it's literally the library of Congress, not of the Executive Branch. U.S. Congress needs it for things like research. It stores government documents, historical documents, etc., and not just ordinary books.

If you can't see why an autocrat wants to get rid of all this, may I suggest rereading 1984.

They fought back against the illegal mass firings:

The goal is to allow companies to avoid expensive recalls for dangerous products.

If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options for contacting your Congress Critters:

Five Calls to your critters: https://5calls.org/

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

Snail Mail Campaigns: https://conuly.dreamwidth.org/3622760.html

[tomorrowusa]

"You're gonna need a bigger mallet."

[deadpresidents]

This is a real message sent out on social media by Donald Trump and retweeted by the White House, amplifying the fact that it is an official statement from the President of the United States --- leader of the "free world".

Notorious dictators with insane personality cults like Turkmenbashi or Emperor Bokassa would see this and say, "Declaring yourself above the law is textbook authoritarianism, but the constipated glare in the portrait is a bit over-the-top."

I don't know about you guys, but it seems like allowing Trump to run out the clock and just walk away unscathed after being charged with 91 felonies might have given him the idea he's untouchable. Fortunately Congress is a co-equal branch of government and will strongly defend the powers granted to it by the Constitution in order to preserve the sacred separation of powers carefully constructed by the Founders, right? Hopefully there isn't some sort of Supreme Court decision that gives him broad immunity against prosecution for crimes he might commit as President.

[karadin]

ELON MUSK "special" government employee alert

On Tuesday, millions of federal employees received an email from the Office of Personnel Management demanding that they either accept a huge set of changes to the workplace or resign. a copy of Musk gutting Twitter when he purchased it - you know the social media platform that has lost more than 60-80% of it's value.

Musk is acting without consulting Trump’s inner circle - this is what money can buy you if you offer to keep Trump out of jail.

Musk and a team of college age kids “have locked fed officials and employees out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of people. And security officers were suspended for trying to stop these people Who Have No Security Clearances.

Musk cronies are being put into the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration and the Commerce Department.

The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department retiring in protest of Musk breaking into sensitive payment systems that disburses trillions of dollars - affecting the lives of tens of millions of Americans who, among other things, receive support from Social Security and Medicare.

Musk also had Investigators General removed, including a woman who was investigating his company Neuralink.

Musk forced out the Head of the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating Space X.

Musk and the Trump are attempting to take over both the Legislative Branch (Congress) and the Judicial Branch (The US Court System) - by STEALING the power of the purse from the House and Senate and OVERRIDING the power of the Courts by stating that they Will Not Follow Court Orders.

The Department of Justice is now threatening lawsuits against anyone who attempts to bring Musk and any of his cohorts to account.

Musk is in the General Services Administration terminating leases for federal offices. This will affect federal contracting and technology services (including those business rivals of Elon Musk) across the government.

Musk demolished Twitters value and sparked a mass exodus of users. It’s deeply disturbing to think what he could do to something as complex and consequential as the U.S. government.

[stillnaomi]

The principle of the separation of powers, so prominent in most states, including some democratic republics, is wholly absent in the Soviet Republic. The reasons for this are as follows:

a) The separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial is primarily a political matter. It corresponds to the structure of the bourgeois state where the principal task is the balancing of the main political forces, viz., the possessing classes on the one hand and the toiling masses on the other. Being by nature an inevitable compromise between exploiters and exploited, the bourgeois state has to balance and divide power … This balancing and dividing tempers the ferocity of class domination, and the arrangement is cherished by all states which exist for the purpose of continued oppression.

The separation of the judicial power … has an additional advantage in that it tends to subordinate the administrative power to the judiciary in the interest of the bourgeois class, at the same time giving the character of impartiality and objectivity to what is, in fact, class justice …

b) it is well known that in order to secure the above-mentioned impartiality of the judiciary power all bourgeois states adopt a series of measures intended to secure the independence of the judges’ conscience. Among such measures are non-recall, appointment for life, high salaries, etc. Even in a democratic republic, where, by virtue of popular sovereignty, concessions had to be made to the masses, we encounter, alongside the practice of electing judges, certain remnants of the past in the form of non-recall and life tenure for members of superior courts. But the principle of non-recall never guaranteed the independence of the judges and the inviolability of the judicial conscience. On the contrary, judges appointed for life had always tended to form a special caste beyond the reach of the uninitiated and separated from the needs of the people by a high impenetrable wall, thus making them narrower and more intolerant defenders of the dominant class. One can say without exaggeration that in a bourgeois society the jurists are the most determined defenders of capitalism.

c) The Russian Socialist Republic has no interest in any division or balancing of political forces, for the simple reason that it bases itself on the domination of one all-embracing force, i.e., the Russian proletariat and the peasant masses. This political force is engaged in the realization of a single end, the establishment of a socialist order, and this heroic struggle requires unity and concentration of power rather than division. Furthermore, our Republic stands in no need of hiding or camouflaging its purposes, and, in so far as it leads an active fight against counterrevolutionary forces, it comes out openly with its Revolutionary Tribunals as a weapon of revolutionary struggle. Finally, our Republic is based on the sense of justice possessed by the masses and not on the justice of the oppressors, so that the thing we need is not an artificial system of rights and laws imposed from above but a system of rights emerging from the masses, In the same way our Republic does not need a caste of trained and cunning jurists who, under the guise of the law, defend the narrow interests of a propertied minority; we need judges able to understand and interpret the sense of right inherent in the masses. We need a people’s court, elective, subject to recall, and amalgamated with the Soviet Government by an identity of purpose and the revolutionary struggle …

M. A. Reisner, Justice in the Proletarian State, April 22nd, 1918

[ivygorgon]

An open letter to the U.S. Senate

Vote NO on Project 2025 author Russell Vought for OMB!

9,081 so far! Help us get to 10,000 signers!

I’m a constituent writing to say that I’m outraged that Trump is working with Elon Musk to shut down the functions of our federal government. I’m also furious about the attempts to “freeze” federal spending. And I know that all of this goes straight back to Trump’s nominee for OMB Director, Russell Vought. If confirmed, moreover, I know that Vought will further enable Trump’s and Musk’s unconstitutional power grab.

Vought has made it clear in his confirmation hearings that his allegiance is to Trump and not to our Constitution. If he is put in charge of OMB, he will greenlight Trump and Musk’s coup which would cause devastating harm to millions of people in our communities.

Please stand up against Trump’s assault on our democracy. I expect the Senator to call for Vought’s nomination to be withdrawn and to vote NO if his confirmation moves forward. Remember that you work for us. Thanks.

▶ Created on February 4 by Jess Craven · 9,080 signers in the past 7 days

📱 Text SIGN PYEICM to 50409 to sign!

🤯 Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409