Extreme Commanders

Supreme Court upholds a lower court order to force USAID to pay contractors

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday reined in some of the Trump administration's sweeping effort to eliminate foreign aid that has been authorized by Congress.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices left in place a lower court order that so far has only required the Trump administration to pay contractors for foreign aid work that has already been completed — roughly $2 billion.

The case began two weeks ago when two major foreign aid contractors — the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council — went to court to challenge the Trump administration's cutoff of funds at USAID and the State Department.

Federal Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, subsequently issued a temporary restraining order to allow the continuation of foreign aid funding while he examined the issues in the case.

Six days later, the Coalition went back to court seeking a contempt order for the administration's alleged failure to comply. Judge Ali instead ordered the government to immediately pay its foreign aid contractors for work already done. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court to intervene, but the court refused to do that, at least for now.

Instead, in an unsigned order, the court noted that although Judge Ali's temporary restraining order has now expired, there are ongoing proceedings about whether he will make that order permanent.

Then the Court did something rather unusual. It gave Judge Ali some guidance on how to proceed, instructing him to "clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines." In other words, the court majority basically said: If you dot your I's and cross your T's, we've got your back.

Click on the link for the full article

Carmakers Get Monthlong Reprieve From Tariffs

The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would allow the Big 3 carmakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis — to escape the tariffs imposed on all goods from Canada and Mexico for one month. The announcement came a day after Mr. Trump imposed blanket 25 percent tariffs on all products entering the United States from those countries.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said President Trump had spoken with GM, Ford, Stellantis and decided to give them a one-month exemption on any autos coming through the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. “Reciprocal tariffs will still go into effect on April 2,” she said, “but at the request of the companies associated with USMCA, the president is giving them an exemption for one month so they are not at an economic disadvantage.”

Click on the link for the full article

In other words the CEOs of GM, Ford, and Stellantis told Trump if he didn't back off from the tariffs, the auto industry in this country would be decimated.

CobraCommander wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 12:55 pm

DCranon21 wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 12:03 pm

But the GOP supports the troops right? This is gutless, I don't care what aisle you are on. The sitting Commander in Chief is good with this.

They “support” troops, not bureaucrats. They will just tell them to get private sector jobs like they should have done to begin with.
I don’t agree with this policy but I know that’s what they would say.

As a former sailor who went into defense contracting since 2001, this is true. Notice how they are not messing with the large defense contractors that have large contracts in the intel sections. This is by design as they know where their bread is buttered and Elmo can't touch that sector.

Trump’s Rage Over “Low” Deportations Suddenly Gets More Unnerving

For weeks now, President Donald Trump’s propagandists have relentlessly glorified his mass deportations, even posting images of defeated-looking migrants getting frog-marched onto shiny military planes. If this is supposed to make the Audience of One feel strong and powerful, it has failed. Trump has privately raged about the supposedly inadequate pace of expulsions, and last month, that prompted officials to demand that officers hit wildly inflated arrest quotas. Yet deportations continue to remain stubbornly below what he hopes for.

Now, however, Trump’s angry zeal for mass removals appears to be helping to produce a particularly unnerving outcome.

The Trump administration is effectively declaring that the nation’s roughly 700 immigration judges can no longer count on civil service rules that safeguard their independence by protecting them from arbitrary removal, according to a Department of Justice memo that was sent to the judges. The memo from DOJ—which oversees the immigration courts—was flagged for me by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, or IFPTE, the judges’ union, which believes this will make it far easier to fire judges without cause.

The judges and their representatives fear that this is designed to pave the way for the removal of judges who don’t consistently rule against migrants in deportation and asylum cases—and thus frustrate Trump and his hard-line immigration advisers. Replacing them with judges who will more reliably rule against migrants could theoretically speed up the pace of deportations.

“What they want to do is fire immigration judges that don’t issue rulings to their liking,” said Matthew Biggs, the president of IFPTE, “and replace them with judges that will simply rubber-stamp what President Trump wants.”

This represents a serious escalation of Trump’s assault on the immigration system. Last month, DOJ fired 20 immigration judges with no public rationale; those were largely probationary officials. Then, last week, DOJ let it be known that it will no longer observe restrictions that constrain the removal of administrative law judges, a category that decides federal government agency cases and doesn’t include most immigration judges.

But now, DOJ is signaling that it will disregard restrictions on removal for the broad category of immigration judges as well, according to the DOJ memo, which was addressed to all employees of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, the agency within the DOJ that oversees the immigration courts. The memo acknowledges that under current law, these judges benefit from “multiple layers of for-cause removal restrictions,” meaning they can’t be fired at will. But it adds that EOIR “may decline to recognize those restrictions if they are determined to be unconstitutional.”

Translated into plain English, this means that if restrictions on removing immigration judges are “determined” by the DOJ to be unconstitutional, they will no longer apply, immigration lawyers say. It’s only a matter of time until this “determination” is made.

“They’re saying they can fire judges without cause,” Tom Jawetz, a former senior lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security, told me.

There are good reasons for immigration judges to enjoy protections from at-will firing. Right now, they cannot be fired unless the administration can cite a strong rationale. The restrictions on removals are rooted in statute, procedure, and precedent, and if the DOJ goes forward with the idea that they’re unconstitutional—in keeping with an expansive reading of Trump’s authority to fire subordinates—it will trigger a major legal battle.

Click on the link for the full article

I guess we can expect a new lawsuit once this happens.

The African Development Foundation (budget ~$40 million) is putting up a fight and denying DOGE + Pete Marocco — the State Dept official dismantling USAID — access to their building:

‘Greenland is ours’, island’s PM declares, in clear rebuttal of Trump proposal

Greenland's prime minister has issued a firm rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the US could acquire the Arctic island, declaring, “Greenland is ours.”

In a Facebook post published in Greenlandic and Danish, Múte Bourup Egede said that Greenland's citizens were neither American nor Danish, but Greenlandic, and that their futures would be decided by themselves.

The post followed a direct appeal from Trump to Greenlanders during a speech to Congress on Tuesday.

Trump’s address, delivered just a week before Greenland’s parliamentary elections, offered support for Greenland's self-determination while simultaneously expressing a desire to acquire the territory.

“We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America,” Trump stated.

He further promised to “keep you safe”, “make you rich”, and “take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before”.

However, Trump also revealed his administration's efforts to acquire Greenland from Denmark, a long-standing US ally, stating they were “working with everybody involved to try to get it”.

"We need it really for international world security. And I think we're going to get it. One way or the other, we're going to get it," Trump said.

Many in Greenland, a vast and mineral-rich island that is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, are worried and offended by Trump's threats to seize control of their homeland.

Asked about Trump's comments, Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said on Wednesday he did not think Greenlanders wanted to separate from Denmark in order to instead become "an integrated part of America”.

Click on the link for the full article

Doug Ford has a plan to hit Trump hard. And it’s good.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that Donald Trump was softening up Canada by attacking our economy ahead of an attempt to annex the country.

Let that sit for a moment.

Because it’s easy to miss the significance of the statement. We live in an era of exaggeration, and a moment of frenetic happenings. But the prime minister of Canada has said that the global hegemon is attacking this country economically in the hopes of later annexing it. To put it mildly, the stakes right now are high, and our leaders must rise to meet the challenges these stakes imply.

At least one premier understands the assignment. After Trudeau spoke, Ontario Premier Doug Ford held his own press conference in Toronto. “I want to inflict as much pain as we possibly can until we get to a deal,” Ford said.

He laid out a plan to hit the United States hard in response to Trump’s attack on Canada’s economy and sovereignty. You could write a book about Ford’s failures. Some people have. But his approach to dealing with the Trump regime is spot on.

Ford’s plan, at least the initial phases of it, includes support for federal retaliatory tariffs in what he called the “first round of retaliation.” The premier has directed the LCBO, the province’s monopolist wholesaler of alcohol and one of the largest purchasers of beer, wine, cider, and spirits in the world, to pull American booze off its retail store shelves and to halt sales to other retailers, including bars and restaurants. As Ford highlighted, that’s $1 billion worth of product a year from 35 states, dried up more or less overnight.

No single province can take on the Trump administration on its own, but Ontario is the most populous province in the country and home to the largest economy in Canada — and it’s got a government that fits its scale. Ford is banning U.S.-based companies from bidding on government procurement, which, he noted, is worth $30 billion a year all told, with the potential for another $200 billion upcoming as part of provincial infrastructure growth. That move will cost the Yankees tens of billions of dollars, Ford said, as he urged municipalities to do the same. Coupled with the LCBO directive and Ford’s cancellation of a $100 million contract with Trump-toady Elon Musk’s Starlink to provide rural internet access in the province, the lost revenues start to add up. You know what they say, a billion here, a billion there, and soon you’re talking about real money.

Bullies like Trump only understand the language of power. You can’t smile or handshake your way out of their attacks. You’ve got to sock them in the kisser. Ford says he’s “ready to escalate” his response, promising a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exported to the US — to millions of homes — if tariffs don’t come off right away. He’s also threatening to halt electricity imports all together in April if Trump ramps up tariffs even further, as promised.

If that’s not enough, Ford is considering, and urging other premiers to consider, taxes or export controls on critical minerals, which the U.S. desperately needs to build and maintain products that range from cell phones to fighter jets. He mentioned high-grade nickel, of which Ontario provides half of what the U.S. needs, and potash, which is essential for fertilizing crops. “Without potash down there,” Ford said, “they don’t have a farming system.” People who can’t afford to feed themselves? Well, that’s how you get revolutions. Ask the French.

Click on the link for the full article

DOGE Cuts Off Government PACER Access Because They Are The Dumbest People On The Planet

Elon Musk and his “CoD waiting room-cum-audit team” continue their clumsy speedrun through the federal government. Each day brings another comical cockup from DOGE’s teenaged staff, from firing all the people in charge of nuclear weapons to casually spawning a whole army of foreign intelligence assets.

A couple of weeks ago, the DOGE team proudly-yet-accidentally canceled the SEC’s Westlaw subscription while trying to punish Reuters—never bothering to check if they were even the same thing, let alone realizing that Westlaw access is, you know, kind of essential for the SEC’s job.

Crackerjack work, guys!

While chaste by virtue of women with self-respect, the DOGE team was unchastened by the SEC experience and followed up by cutting off government access to another essential legal resource:

After eliminating SEC's access to Westlaw, DOGE briefly limited Treasury's access to PACER.

This is extra funny given that, unlike a privately owned tool Westlaw, this effort to reduce government spending was immediately offset because PACER is a government revenue stream.

Click on the link for the rest

CobraCommander wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 12:52 pm

They’re ripping the bandaid off for sure. Gotta get it all done before midterms. The damage will be done. Then they can just blame the democratic led congress for 2 years leading up to the next election.

I don't think that will work if Trump is still in office. He'll still make wild promises and fail to deliver, people are already tired of him failing and blaming others.

Trump is driving Republicans to drink...

House Speaker Mike Johnson's chief of staff arrested on DUI charge after Trump speech

Hayden Haynes, the chief of staff to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and one of the most powerful aides on Capitol Hill, was arrested after President Donald Trump's joint address to Congress for drunken driving after his car struck a Capitol vehicle, two law enforcement sources told NBC News. Johnson's office also confirmed the incident.

One of the sources told NBC News that a police report indicated that Haynes hit a Capitol vehicle around midnight and was arrested and released with a citation to appear in court. The arrest came after Trump's speech Tuesday night, when Johnson presided over the House floor and sat just behind the president's left shoulder.

While most crimes in Washington are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, DUI offenses are prosecuted by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, an office headed by D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb.

The distinction could be meaningful, because the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin is a conservative activist with ties to Republicans on Capitol Hill. Martin, whom Trump wants to be the city's chief federal prosecutor on a permanent basis, was granted access to Capitol Police footage from Jan. 6, which Martin used to spread conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack. Schwalb's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Click on the link for the full article