Judge Contreras relied on a very shaky 1935 precedent called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. This precedent established the, in my view, unconstitutional and un-republican plethora of "independent" boards and commissions that carry out executive functions but aren't answerable to the guy in whom the "executive Power" of the United States is "vested." Recent cases have held that any commission holding anything other than an advisory capacity must be controlled by the President; how the MSPB's role in adjudicating employment disputes will be viewed is unknown.

This case is headed to the DC Circuit and the Supreme Court. Another similar case, that of Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, is at the Supreme Court; Trump Sends Scorching Appeal of DC Court Order Reinstating Biden Appointee to the Supreme Court – RedState. In that case, Trump fired Dellinger, who had the same legal protections as MSPB judges. A judge ordered Dellinger reinstated, and the Supreme Court will get Dellinger's response to the government's objections at 2 p.m. Wednesday.

Other possible cases testing the limits of Humphrey’s Executor are the firings of 17 IGs, who, by statute, can only be fired after a 30-day notice to Congress and an explanation of the reasons, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board. //

Laocoön of Troy
10 hours ago
Remember corrupt FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page? Remember the friendly judge who they secretly met with at a party to plot their next moves against Trump? The crooked judge? Judge Rudolph Contreras (Obama appointee). Strzok referred to him affectionally as "Rudy" like they were old buds.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/strzok-page-texts-reveal-personal-relationship-between-fbi-official-and-judge-recused-from-flynn-case

Looks like the crooks from Trump's first term are trying to get the band back together.

all executive departments and agencies, including so-called independent agencies, shall submit for review all proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the President before publication in the Federal Register. //

The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. The President and the Attorney General’s opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties. No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General. //

If this order sticks, Trump has permanently and fundamentally changed the Executive Branch, as it has existed since 1935, in less than a month. //

bk
9 hours ago edited
Liberals: "Musk is unelected and therefore can't tell us what to do!"
Also libs: "How dare Trump interfere with tens of thousands of unelected bureaucrats who have been telling us what to do for decades!"

Mayor Pete failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system. In less than four weeks, we have already begun the process and are engaging the smartest minds in the entire world.

Here’s the truth: the FAA alone has a staggering 45,000 employees. Less than 400 were let go, and they were all probationary, meaning they had been hired less than a year ago. Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.

Mayor Pete chose to use this amazing department—that is so critical to America’s success—as a slush fund for the green new scam and environmental justice nonsense. Not to mention that over 90% of the workforce under his leadership were working from home - including him. The building was empty!

When we finally get a full accounting of his mismanagement, I look forward to hearing from him.In the meantime, I will not rest until I return the Department of Transportation and its incredible employees to its mission of efficiency and safety. //

jri500
8 hours ago
For 2 years during the Idiot Biden administration, the FAA DID NOT HAVE one single training classes for new Air Traffic Controllers (ATC). In the meantime, Biden's FAA refused to hire 1,000 newly qualified ATC graduates because they were WHITE.

When training finally resumed, FAA couldn't fill training classes because they couldn't find enough woke, minority, physically or psychologically challenged (WTF???) candidates to fill them. ANYTHING BUT WHITE. FAA is currently short about four (4) thousand ATCs. Add to that, the mandatory retirement age is 54!

The tower in DC called for a full staff of 30 ATCs. They had about half that. And the night the crash happened, 1 controller was doing the job of 2. Every airport in the country is short staffed. And democRATS are trying to blame Trump? He's been in office less than a month.

Thomas Hern @ThomasMHern
·
CNN interviewed eleven Arizonans who voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024.

All eleven said they support the job President Trump has done in his first month in office.

"He got transgenders out of women's sports, that's number one!"

Dana Bash did not seem very pleased.

5:42 PM · Feb 17, 2025 //

Jason Cohen @JasonJournoDC
·
🚨NEW: @FrankLuntz says former Biden, Clinton voters who flipped to Trump in 2024 "love" how fast he's moving 🚨
"They love the pace of change. They were very fed up over the last four years. They wanted action, they wanted results. They looked at prices, they looked at affordability, they looked at immigration. And they didn't see anything happening."

"They wanted to see a reduction in wasteful Washington spending and they're seeing that...For the first time they have confidence in the future, which is why you now see some significant shifts in the polling for the direction in the coming years."

9:00 PM · Feb 17, 2025. //

InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022
·
📊 President Trump Job Approval

🟢 Approve: 55% (+12)
🔴 Disapprove: 43%

Was net: +6 (51-45) on Feb. 6
——
• @NapolitanNews | RMG Research
• #63 (2.3/3.0) | 3,000 RV | 2/10-14 | ±1.8
11:40 PM · Feb 15, 2025. //

Weminuche45
7 hours ago edited
They focus on change itself, and the pace of change, while mostly ignoring the direction of change, the goals, the policies, the results.

Their conclusion will almost certainly be that they should double down on their existing religion of toxic ideology and policies by driving their garbage faster and harder, with more screeching, wailing, fear, outrage and deconstructing of traditional American values.

The harder and faster they drive unwanted unpopular change, the more they will self-destruct. Changing what to change would require loosening their external TDS riddled tunnel vision and spending some difficult time looking in the mirror at what they see there. I dont see much sign of that, yet anyway.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: If you just watched that video, but shut your eyes and listen to the words from those Democrat politicians, you would think you are listening to President Trump, Elon Musk and our entire administration, who are saying the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades. President Trump is just the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it. And now you see the Democrat Party and the mainstream media spiraling out of control about a very simple promise: rooting out waste, fraud and abuse from our federal bureaucracy. This is a promise President Trump campaigned on. He is now delivering on it.

I've been fighting fake news reporters all day long here in the Washington, D.C. swamp who are trying to fearmonger the American people into believing that this administration is going after their hard-earned tax dollars and their hard-earned Social Security checks. So I want to set the record straight on your show tonight, Sean, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do so. President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the Doge team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration. They haven't dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments and so their goal in going into the Social Security Administration is to identify three things: Number one, to identify duplicate payments and to end them, Number two, to identify payments that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no longer be receiving that money and number three, to protect the integrity of the system for hardworking Americans who have been paying into it their entire lives.

The crux of the case brought before Chutkan is that Musk's participation in government is illegal as the US Senate has not confirmed him as a "principal officer" as required by Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 or the Constitution and Congress does not have oversight of DOGE because it exists within the Executive Office of the President. This sounds rather bizarre to me as the President has clear authority, in my view, to set up an ad hoc task force to carry out a time-limited mission and to appoint anyone he wishes to lead it. But I'm not a judge on the DC Circuit.

In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority. Accordingly, it cannot issue a TRO, especially one as wide-ranging as Plaintiffs request, without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm to these Plaintiffs. The current record does not meet that standard. //

NavyVet
32 minutes ago
I am sick and tired of this "unelected official" BS. It is "unelected officials" that have been malfeasant allowing massive fraud waste and abuse. That's the way it works.

So the entire "unelected official" mantra is a smokescreen for the ignorant and stupid. That means it works on democrats and their media bootlickers, but has no credibility with the rest of us.

In fact, all it shows us is that the democrats are corrupt and stupid.

Western Lensman
@WesternLensman
·
Follow
🚨Hakeem Jeffries left grasping for a response after ABC's Jon Karl reads off massive favorability numbers for Trump:

“Donald Trump's favorability rating is HIGHER than it ever was the first time around.”

63% favor govt recognizing only two sexes

60% favor deporting illegals

60% favor expanding O&G production

59% favor declaring emergency at southern border

Trump has put Democrats in the position of opposing his massively popular positions — “defending the indefensible” — and they have no coherent answers.
3:53 PM · Feb 16, 2025. //

My favorite part about this whole clip is the expression of utter shock on Jeffries' face. He looks like a deer in the headlights on a dark highway. I was half expecting him to splutter, "But, but… CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS! THERE’S A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS!”

Though they lost, they got a solid dissent to work with and went to the Supreme Court.

Their arguments are that the president has absolute authority to remove officials at will and that every time the Supreme Court has heard a case similar to Dellinger's, they have agreed. //

Whatever the agency, for the President to discharge his constitutional duty to supervise those who exercise executive power on his behalf, the President can “remove the head of an agency with a single top officer” at will. Collins 594 U.S. at 256. On that basis, President Biden in 2021 fired the single head of the Social Security Administration without cause. //

!This Court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the President how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will. “Where a lower court allegedly impinges on the President’s core Article II powers, immediate appellate review should be generally available.”. //

As a general matter, the Constitution “scrupulously avoids concen-trating power in the hands of any single individual” save for the President, who is“the most democratic and politically accountable official in Government.” Id. at 223-224. Single agency heads thus must be accountable to the President through at-will removal. There are only four single agency heads upon whom Congress has sought to confer tenure protection: the Directors of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the Commissioner of Social Security, and the Special Counsel here. The former three are undisputedly subject to at-will removal under Article II. This Court’s precedents foreclose any special exception for the Special Counsel.

This is what happened from 2005 to 2009. During his second term, President Bush violated the following crucial electoral maxims:

1. A Second Term Republican President Should Never Abandon the Party Base on Important Issues;
2. A Second Term Republican President Should Never Surrender on the Political Battlefield;
3. A Second Term Republican President Should Never Fall for the Sweet Nothings of the MSM and the Democrat Establishment; and
4. A Second Term Republican President Should Also Beware the (Similar) Sweet Nothings of the GOP Establishment and more liberal Republicans.

Post-2005, President Bush abandoned his GOP party base multiple times.

misterright
13 hours ago
Am I misremembering that some of the documents the National Archives demanded be returned from Mar-a-Lago had been sent, unsolicited, by the National Archives to Mar-a-Lago?

When the charges against Adams were revealed, he was accused of big stuff...like taking airline upgrades and helping the Turkish embassy navigate NYC's byzantine building code system; see BREAKING: We Now Know the Charges Against New York Mayor Eric Adams – RedState. The charges were framed to look big time, but they were eerily reminiscent of the hit jobs done on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, where normal activities were mutated into federal felonies by lawyers out to get a scalp.

A sea change happened when Adams defended Trump at a press conference in the last days of the election: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Breaks With Dems Over Despicable Rhetoric: Trump Not a 'Fascist,' 'This Is America' – RedState. //

There was some speculation that Trump might pardon Adams; that didn't happen, but Trump did order DOJ to dismiss the charges against him; New: Trump Justice Dept. Directs Prosecutors to Dismiss Federal Corruption Charges Against Eric Adams – RedState. That's when the fun started. //

This shootout is nowhere near over. Bondi and Bove are still surrounded by disloyal and hostile staff. The judge in NYC is bound to do something other than accept the filing; otherwise, he'll be a social pariah. Ultimately, a judge can't force the government to prosecute a case it wants to dismiss.

It is good that this first battle came this early and over a fairly trivial issue. A lot of unreliable staff have been identified and are no longer employed. The attorneys who came to work for DOJ as a government service and not as a political commissar should now feel more comfortable knowing they have the support of the DOJ leadership team.

Pam Bondi wrote to DOJ on her first day in office, “Any attorney who because of their personal political views or judgments declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination, consistent with applicable law.” There is no doubt she is serious. //

Skibum
a day ago edited
If you want to know if the prosecution of Mayor Adams was political, ask yourself whether the DOJ would have prosecuted Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago under the same circumstances?

The answer is "NO"! Johnson just got caught with a closet full of bribes with more to come and DOJ prosecutors are nowhere in sight.

Adams went off the Democrat reservation when it came to illegal immigration and Johnson did not. Adams was prosecuted.

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland
·
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland
3/3 As drafted, the Order would prohibit Donald Trump & heads of agencies from assessing data or firing anyone. Would be most restrictive of all TROs entered to day if Court enters.
10:23 PM · Feb 15, 2025

Slowly but surely, these multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration, often for exercising the barest amount of oversight of agency expenditures, are being settled. The Trump agenda is being slowed, but not as much as the first time around. The actions by the administration are much better planned and coordinated than they were in 2017, and the lawyering is much superior. When the dust settles, Trump will have had his way on these ridiculous ankle-biter cases, and I think he will score a huge win at SCOTUS that will crush the administrative state. More on that to come in a VIP post.

The White House @WhiteHouse
·
Happy Valentine's Day ♥️

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Come here illegally
And we'll deport you!
4:44 PM · Feb 14, 2025

Alex Berenson @AlexBerenson
·
…and Trump’s approval rating goes up another five points
The White House @WhiteHouse
Happy Valentine's Day ♥️
6:12 PM · Feb 14, 2025. //

Cynical Optimist
7 hours ago edited
Roses are red
Violets are blue
We won all seven swing states
And the popular vote too

The country's a red one
The country's not blue
Trump can hire old Elon
And send aliens home too

They're cutting the spending
Cutting down on fraud too
If you were a recipient
There's nothing you can do

There'll be no more pronouns
Child sex changes too
No more trans in the military
DEI is all through

Oh, I see it all the time….

Actually, Elon called me, he said, you know they're trying to drive us apart. I said absolutely. No, they said, “we have breaking news that Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting at 8 o'clock.” [Musk cracks up in laughter at this point.]

And I say, it's just so obvious, they' so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They're actually bad at it because if they were good at it, I'd never be president. …I think nobody in history has ever gotten more bad publicity than me. I could do the greatest things. I get 98 percent bad publicity. //

Owen Gregorian
@OwenGregorian
·
Follow
TV Hits Trump With 85% Negative News vs. 78% Positive Press for Harris | mrcNewsBusters

One week before Election Day, a new analysis from the Media Research Center finds that broadcast evening news coverage of the 2024 presidential race has been the most lopsided in history.… Show more
11:17 AM · Oct 29, 2024. //

anon-x8p1 Maximus Decimus Cassius
2 hours ago
He just did [ridiculed the press], with the greatest one-liner of all.

While the Democrats' stance on the matter is divorced from MAGA's—hardly news—what is notable is that it's also quite divorced from what was traditionally the Left's position on USAID.

Prolific mainstream and left-wing journals have reported on some of USAID's more nefarious dealings for many years, often posting critical coverage of the organization itself. Just a few weeks ago, an opinion article in American socialist magazine Jacobin kicked the organization while it's down as it became clear Trump aimed to gut it. Left-wing website The Grayzone published a similarly critical feature around the same time.

Though Democratic President John F. Kennedy established USAID in 1961 with humanitarian ambitions in mind, the organization has been distorted far beyond its intended use.

Over the years, USAID has indubitably used "humanitarianism" as a veil for regime change efforts in countries the U.S. sees political climates as unfavorable. //

Many suggest USAID also aided a regime change effort in Ukraine in 2004. This narrative came not from pro-Trump media, as one may expect it to—it was actually reported by The Guardian at the time. //

Onetime left-wing hero Matt Taibbi tore into USAID as far back as 1997 when he blamed it for making the world more hostile for American citizens because of its attempted manipulation of international politics. Furthermore, he suggested that on top of its shortsighted political engagements, it made life worse for those it intended to help. A February 3 tweet indicates he still feels largely the same about the organization. //

It's just another example of how Trump has so emphatically destroyed the traditional American political axis and recruited a cult of supporters so disillusioned with the federal government that they've gleefully adopted a traditionally left-wing viewpoint.

As for the Democrats, their marching in defense of a regime change tool that Trump's base is giddy to destroy is extraordinary, but unsurprising. The USAID saga is a further indictment that the party's messaging and actions have estranged portions of the Left—so much so that some of them are even in Trump's cabinet.

Rasmussen Reports has revealed that for the first time in two decades — two decades! — their Presidential Approval Roundup shows a majority of Americans believe the country is on the "right track."

Axios is confirming this sentiment in a focus group of swing voters that they surveyed. The focus group included 11 people who had voted for Biden in 2020 but switched to Trump in the 2024 election. Eight were independents, two were Republicans, and one was a Democrat.

Every Arizona swing voter in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they approve of President Trump's actions since taking office — and most also support Elon Musk's efforts to slash government.

Vice President JD Vance appeared in Germany on Friday for the annual Munich Security Conference and didn't hold back against America's ostensible allies. In a blistering speech that drew groans from the crowd, Vance ripped European hypocrisy on democracy and freedom of expression, pleading with them to get their houses in order.

Greg Price @greg_price11
·
JD Vance went to the Munich Security Conference and roasted the entire continent of Europe for being petty tyrants and criminalizing freedom of speech, including a British man arrested for praying at an abortion clinic.

2:02 PM · Feb 14, 2025. //

VANCE: I'm here today not just with an observation but with an offer. Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite and I hope that we can work together on that. In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald Trump's leadership we may disagree with your views but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.

Margot Cleveland
@ProfMJCleveland
·
Follow
🚨🚨🚨Judge in ⬇️case denies stay pending appeal. Court's reasoning based on his huge walk back of what he really enjoined saying basically "oh, I've only ordered you to not do what you can't legally do." 1/. //

The pattern seems to be that judges respond immediately to requests for temporary restraining orders with overbroad language, then quietly walk the language back once the headlines pass.