Judge blocks key provisions of Trump’s bid to punish Democratic-linked law firm
President Donald Trump’s retaliation against a prominent Democratic-linked law firm is likely unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell blocked the Trump administration from enforcing central provisions of an executive order that seeks to punish the law firm, Perkins Coie, by barring its attorneys from interacting with federal agencies or even entering federal buildings.
Howell said the “retaliatory animus” of Trump’s order is “clear on its face” and appears to violate constitutional restrictions on “viewpoint discrimination.” The executive order, which Trump issued last week, “runs head on into the wall of First Amendment protections,” the judge concluded.
Perkins Coie, which is based in Seattle, has often represented Democratic politicians and causes, including Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Trump has long targeted the firm as a political and legal adversary for its role in commissioning the anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele in 2016. That dossier, whose salacious allegations against Trump were never confirmed by federal investigators, helped fuel the long-running probe of his 2016 campaign’s interactions with Russia.
The executive order, if allowed to take effect, would hamstring the firm’s ability to represent clients who have business with the federal government. The firm claims that Trump’s directive has already led clients to abandon the firm and is likely to prompt federal officials to cancel or deny meetings on a wide array of pending matters.
Howell noted that the order would harm not only the firm’s 1,200 lawyers — most of whom had nothing to do with the Russia probe — but its 2,500 non-lawyer employees, from IT staff to secretaries.
The judge said Trump’s order was also flawed because it was issued without any notice to the firm or due process to challenge his determination.
“This may be amusing in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where the Queen of Hearts yells, ‘Off with their heads!’ at annoying subjects … and announces a sentence before a verdict,” Howell said, “but this cannot be the reality we are living under.”
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Life in Post Democracy Era: The Trump 2/Elon Dictatatorship
CEOs say they are losing faith in Trump: ‘I don’t trust that what’s said today will be true tomorrow’
How quickly CEO optimism has turned. I’m just back from the Yale CEO Caucus in Washington, where 100 CEOs gathered with 60 big-city mayors, policymakers, and journalists like me to talk off the record about “navigating Trump 2.0.” Gone is the optimistic dream of economic growth spurred by Trump’s pro-business mindset around taxes and regulation. In its place is the grave uncertainty of not knowing what this administration will do next. As the host, Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, noted afterward, the consensus was one of bewilderment, condemnation and a feeling that “Trump’s policies were bad for the U.S. economy.”
Though the attendees identified as 60% Republican to 40% Democrat, the mood was dour. In a flash poll at the summit, 80% of CEOs said they find themselves “apologizing to our international partners for Trump’s capriciousness.” Eighty-five percent oppose his approach to tariffs and think they’re backfiring. Almost all—92%—are now concerned about recession. Indeed, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist just downgraded the entire U.S. economy.
Click on the link for the full article
How quickly CEO optimism has turned. I’m just back from the Yale CEO Caucus in Washington, where 100 CEOs gathered with 60 big-city mayors, policymakers, and journalists like me to talk off the record about “navigating Trump 2.0.” Gone is the optimistic dream of economic growth spurred by Trump’s pro-business mindset around taxes and regulation. In its place is the grave uncertainty of not knowing what this administration will do next. As the host, Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, noted afterward, the consensus was one of bewilderment, condemnation and a feeling that “Trump’s policies were bad for the U.S. economy.”
Though the attendees identified as 60% Republican to 40% Democrat, the mood was dour. In a flash poll at the summit, 80% of CEOs said they find themselves “apologizing to our international partners for Trump’s capriciousness.” Eighty-five percent oppose his approach to tariffs and think they’re backfiring. Almost all—92%—are now concerned about recession. Indeed, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist just downgraded the entire U.S. economy.
Click on the link for the full article
Sounds like Titler is going to do for SS what he did to Twitter. Great“The President Wanted It and I Did It”: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump“
https://www.propublica.org/article/reco ... l-security
Since the arrival of a team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is in a far more precarious place than has been widely understood, according to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. “I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said in a closed-door meeting last week, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica. He also said that it “would be catastrophic for the people in our country” if DOGE were to make changes at his agency that were as sweeping as those at USAID, the Treasury Department and elsewhere...
… The layoffs — and the looming specter of potentially thousands more employees taking a buyout by a Friday deadline — have meant even less attention to the complicated casework of low-income elderly people and people with physical and intellectual disabilities, as ProPublica has reported.
Meanwhile, DOGE, which Musk has portrayed as a squad of techno-efficiency geniuses, has actually undermined the efficiency of Social Security’s delivery of services in multiple ways, many employees said. Under DOGE, several Social Security IT contracts have been canceled or scaled back. Now, five employees told ProPublica, their tech systems seem to be crashing nearly every day, leading to more delays in serving beneficiaries. This was already a problem, they said, but it has gotten “much worse” and is “not the norm,” two employees said.
The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies. -John LesCroart
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CobraCommander
- Posts: 133
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Emir of Schmoe
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It's Biden's faultCobraCommander wrote: Thu Mar 13, 2025 9:21 amRussia has declined the ceasefire. How will Trump spin this?
Emir of Schmoe wrote: Thu Mar 13, 2025 9:28 amIt's Biden's faultCobraCommander wrote: Thu Mar 13, 2025 9:21 amRussia has declined the ceasefire. How will Trump spin this?
The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies. -John LesCroart
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/1 ... g-00228721
Gotta hire the bulk of the fired folks back, across multiply agencies, judge says.
Who knows how much impact this will have on Trump's agenda in the end as the ruling and further appeals plays out.
But wowsa, the lack of thoughtful competent planning in this generations-long build up to the GOP finally being in the position to drastically shrink the fed gov, including all that party's think tank commandos as organized under Project 2025, is sure a historical indictment of their actual intelligence level as well as the their substantial absence of ethics and principles.
Gotta hire the bulk of the fired folks back, across multiply agencies, judge says.
Who knows how much impact this will have on Trump's agenda in the end as the ruling and further appeals plays out.
But wowsa, the lack of thoughtful competent planning in this generations-long build up to the GOP finally being in the position to drastically shrink the fed gov, including all that party's think tank commandos as organized under Project 2025, is sure a historical indictment of their actual intelligence level as well as the their substantial absence of ethics and principles.
It ain't what you don't know that's a problem. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.~~~Mark Twain
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PleaseBlitz
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Imagine being a civil servant right now. You're fired, youre NOT fired. Only certain employees at your agency are fired, and its not clear who. You're REHIRED! The government is about to shut down, so you are furloughed.
Regardless of the outcome of a particular court case, all of the capable civil servants are going to GTFO rather than deal with this bullshit.
Regardless of the outcome of a particular court case, all of the capable civil servants are going to GTFO rather than deal with this bullshit.
While I am not a civil employee, what I can tell you, most of the agency where I work at is pissed tf off and sick and tired of this bullshit. Mango Mussolini is becoming more and more unhinged every day. Unfortunately, the GOP is allowing him to implement Project 2025 without any checks. People keep saying they need to 25th Amendment him, but you have to have a willing VP and Cabinet to invoke it, along with a congress that will agree he is unfit. That is not happening anytime soon.