The Art Of The Deal
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes formerly of Como Park emails:
The President issues Executive Orders which apply to the whole nation. Opponents shop around for a sympathetic judge to block the orders.A federal judge for the District of Massachusetts blocked the federal employee buy-out offer at the request of employee unions.
A federal judge for the Western District of Washington blocked the Executive Order against birthright citizenship.
One federal judge for the District of Columbia has blocked the DOGE team from scrutinizing Treasury Department payments, and a different one in that district has blocked release of the names of FBI agents assigned to the J6 investigation.
And that’s just in the last two weeks. The Trump administration faced 22 nation-wide injunctions in his first term.
How can we have a nation of fair and impartial equal justice under the law, if judges in random jurisdictions can overturn the law of the whole land at whim?
Justice Thomas criticized the practice of nation-wide injunctions in Trump v. Hawaii, saying, “. . . if their popularity continues, this Court must address their legality.” Seems to me that time has come.
Joe Doakes
That time has definitely come.
February 10th, 2025 at 7:19 am
How can we have a nation of fair and impartial equal justice under the law, if judges in random jurisdictions can overturn the law of the whole land at whim?
I’m happy someone has brought this up. In brief, we can’t, because like everything else, DemoCommies ruin everything they touch.
There was a time when it was widely accepted, or assumed, that judges, whatever their personal politics would try to be impartial and rule according to law. It was a naive and lazy assumption but it’s now become quite obvious that judges are just as biased as everyone else and some are even berobed political activists. Like say, the MNSC that simply contradicted the procedures of the Legislature in spite of what was clearly written.
Oh, yeah, lets not forget all the rulings of “No standing” for lawsuits over the last four years regarding electoral shenanigans, in which, voters clearly have standing. I will say, however, that the DemoCommies on the other side of the bench probably played a role; you know, like say, those threats of violence (eg, Schumer’s “reaping the whirlwind”) if judges don’t rule as DemoCommies demand.
I used to be kind of offended when Andrew Jackson said that “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it”, but here all are now.
PS, maybe it’s time to start threatening to impeach judges – and, oh, yes! pack the court. Isn’t that how this works?
February 10th, 2025 at 10:43 am
Mr Doakes, I would be interested to read your reaction to this, “Pain Is Coming: Why Democrats Are Making a Huge Mistake Picking a Fight Over the Bureaucratic State”
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/02/10/pain-is-coming-democrats-are-going-to-regret-picking-a-fight-over-the-bureaucratic-state-n2185408
These issues are going to make it to the Supreme Court, and when they do, does anyone really think the conservative majority is going to rule that the executive branch can’t fire bureaucrats under their statutory control? Or that a department secretary can’t access their own department’s information? I wouldn’t count on it. On the contrary, I’d expect the high court to rip away many of the current protections benefiting federal “servants” and hand the president near total control to reform the agencies under his purview.
February 10th, 2025 at 1:21 pm
Now a judge for New Mexico
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-court-blocks-trump-admin-from-sending-detained-venezuelan-immigrants-guantanamo-bay
February 10th, 2025 at 1:22 pm
And New Hampshire
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/just-federal-judge-indefinitely-blocks-trumps-birthright-citizenship/
February 10th, 2025 at 1:40 pm
Trump lawyers are pushing back on the grounds that these rogue judges are violating Article II of the Constitution, preventing Trump from providing guidance to run the financial affairs of the country.
February 10th, 2025 at 2:14 pm
The problem is not merely Never Trump activist judges. The problem is the scope of judicial power asserted by the courts.
In the Constitution, Congress (legislative) and the President (executive) were intended to be equal to the court (judicial). The balance of power got tipped in Marbury v. Madison, decided just 20 years after the Constitution was adopted.
The supreme court gave itself the power to throw out acts of congress and halt acts of the president in the name of justice, at their whim, which is how we ended up with abortion and gay marriage.
Now, lesser courts sitting in venues scattered all across the nation assert they have the same power. And they don’t need a trial to hear evidence from both sides, they can act on pleadings without giving the President’s lawyers a chance to speak at all.
Nobody really expects these orders to be upheld on appeal but that isn’t the point. The point is to disrupt the other side’s momentum, to run up their attorneys fees, to generate news stories to drum up fundraising. There’s never a severe enough penalty to deter bad faith litigation.
The Doakes answer is for the President to refuse to obey the orders on the grounds the courts had no power to issue them. I do not expect the Supremes to agree but with luck they will restrict issuance of such orders to the Supreme Court itself.
If that fails, the DOGE answer is to impound all funding for the entire judicial branch until they agree to act constitutionally. Judges are politicians too.
If that fails, the Obama answer is next. Launch national security investigations of those judges, IRS audits, no fly list for them and their families, strip their Marshall Service protective detail, revoke thrir passports, debank their campaign donors, hire busloads of protesters to bullhorn outside their houses, send investigators to their wives clubs to question other members as about the activities of “a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.” Find journalists willing to ask the local Social Services director whether she cares to comment on allegations her office is covering up for the judge.
Hopefully it ends before getting to the Madame Defarge answer.
That’s not who we are? We don’t stoop to their level? No, but playing fair is how we got here. Time to push back.
February 10th, 2025 at 2:16 pm
The problem is not merely Never Trump activist judges. The problem is the scope of judicial power asserted by the courts.
In the Constitution, Congress (legislative) and the President (executive) were intended to be equal to the court (judicial). The balance of power got tipped in Marbury v. Madison, decided just 20 years after the Constitution was adopted.
The supreme court gave itself the power to throw out acts of congress and halt acts of the president in the name of justice, at their whim, which is how we ended up with abortion and gay marriage.
Now, lesser courts sitting in venues scattered all across the nation assert they have the same power. And they don’t need a trial to hear evidence from both sides, they can act on pleadings without giving the President’s lawyers a chance to speak at all.
Nobody really expects these orders to be upheld on appeal but that isn’t the point. The point is to disrupt the other side’s momentum, to run up their attorneys fees, to generate news stories to drum up fundraising. There’s never a severe enough penalty to deter bad faith litigation.
The Doakes answer is for the President to refuse to obey the orders on the grounds the courts had no power to issue them. I do not expect the Supremes to agree but with luck they will restrict issuance of such orders to the Supreme Court itself.
If that fails, the D0GE answer is to impound all funding for the entire judicial branch until they agree to act constitutionally. Judges are politicians too.
If that fails, the Obama answer is next. Launch national security investigations of those judges, IRS audits, no fly list for them and their families, strip their Marshall Service protective detail, revoke thrir passports, debank their campaign donors, hire busloads of protesters to bullhorn outside their houses, send investigators to their wives clubs to question other members as about the activities of “a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.” Find journalists willing to ask the local Social Services director whether she cares to comment on allegations her office is covering up for the judge.
Hopefully it ends before getting to the Madame Defarge answer.
That’s not who we are? We don’t stoop to their level? No, but playing fair is how we got here. Time to push back.
February 10th, 2025 at 2:46 pm
^ If that fails, the Obama answer is next
Professor Terguson : Good answer. Good answer. I like the way you think. I’m gonna be watching you.
February 10th, 2025 at 3:53 pm
I forgot the Trump answer.
“For years, Democrats insisted the Supreme court is too small, we need more justices. I agree. I want to appoint five new ones and I already have candidates from The Federalist Society lined up. I call on congress to give me a permanent majority on the court.”
BOOM go the talking heads.
February 10th, 2025 at 11:51 pm
Rhode Island weighs in.
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/10/ri-judge-orders-halt-to-trump-federal-spending-freeze/78386668007/
See what I mean?
February 11th, 2025 at 12:04 pm
I did see something interesting about the DOJ requiring a bond in the amount of potential damages that the injunction could cause.
That would be an amount similar to the multi million bond Trump had to file to appeal his NY lying on the loan application case.
February 11th, 2025 at 12:27 pm
I’m not a lawyer, but when I see plantiffs without standing getting nationwide injunctions before the DOJ and AG even get to file a brief, what we have is judges ignoring rules of standing, venue, and more as they seem to have their decisions written even before the plaintiff makes his case. If I’m reading that correctly, I’d argue this suggests the judges ought to be de-benched if not disbarred, and the lawyers who are working hand in hand with these judges ought to be disbarred.
You can not have confidence in the justice system if you have a large number of cases where the fix was clearly in. I remember a case from 2017 where a judge issued his 43 page ruling two hours after a Trump executive order. If you issue a ruling on a policy before you can even possibly have read the policy, I think it’s fair to say “the fix was in”. De-bench, dis-bar.
February 11th, 2025 at 5:09 pm
D.C. judge again, ordering the Executive Branch to restore gender pages on websites.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/breaking-federal-judge-orders-trump-admin-restore-gender/