“If the remaining 46 months of Donald Trump’s resurrection resemble the first two, this administration will have a remarkably high ratio of theatrical action to substantial achievement. And it will exacerbate the fiscal incontinence that is the nation’s foremost domestic crisis. Trump is the taunter of Canada, coveter of Greenland, threatener of Panama, re-namer of the Gulf of Mexico, scourge of paper straws and demander that Major League Baseball ‘get off its fat, lazy ass’ and enshrine Pete Rose in Cooperstown. He fulminates about everything. (Does he even know for what he promises to pardon Rose? Tax evasion, not betting on baseball.) The in-your-face-all-the-time trophy goes, however, to Trump’s apprentice. The black-clad, chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk is a master of the angry adolescent’s dress and of the now-presidential penchant for vulgarity.” (03/19/25)
“The president has less de facto control of the executive regulatory agencies than he ought to have as the head of the Executive Branch. But he himself also has too much power. One example now conspicuously in the public eye is the de facto powers the president now enjoys to unilaterally tax imported goods — that is, to levy tariffs. According to the Constitution, the power to levy taxes lies with Congress.” (03/19/25)
“Generally, Americans prefer single-family homes. All explanations for why urban populations across the country are collapsing as suburbs swell centering on public safety concerns, lack of schooling options, and rising costs aside, most people genuinely like living in a house with a yard more than they do in an apartment complex. If they can afford it. Trump campaigned on a vision of building ten new Freedom Cities. Details are scant on Trump’s plan, but directionally, the Trump administration announced plans yesterday to repurpose underutilized federal lands for the construction of affordable housing. … The desire to transform open public spaces into housing units is not new. In New York City, one mayoral candidate proposes building affordable housing on four of the city’s twelve municipal golf courses.” (03/19/25)
“On Saturday night, James Boasberg, a federal judge in the District of Columbia, issued a pair of emergency orders. The government, he had just been told at a hastily convened hearing, was removing from the country, without due process, more than a hundred alleged gang members. The planes, he learned, were already in the air. To justify this stunning move, President Trump had issued a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. At around 6:45 p.m., Boasberg orally ordered the planes turned around. … The government ignored both orders. … THIS IS NOT A SET OF PROCEDURAL MISSTEPS. It is not simple incompetence. It is malice toward our constitutional structure. Simply put, the Trump administration has begun its defiance of the courts in earnest.” (03/19/25)
“Although Mahmoud Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the United States, the Trump administration says, he is ‘subject to removal’ because Secretary of State Marco Rubio ‘has determined’ that his ‘presence or activities’ would ‘have serious adverse foreign policy consequences.’ That vague rationale, which alludes to Khalil’s participation in anti-Israel protests as a graduate student at Columbia University, is an open-ended license to expel any of the 13 million people who share his immigration status when they engage in controversial speech.” (03/19/25)
“Say what you will about the president who is dismantling our democracy, but at least he says ‘thank you’ once in a while. Two weeks ago, after delivering a lengthy and divisive address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Donald Trump mingled with the crowd, shaking hands with his supporters. In a revealing moment, he patted Chief Justice John Roberts on the back and said, ‘Thank you. Thank you again. I won’t forget.’ Presumably President Trump was thanking Chief Justice Roberts for aiding his election victory and granting him unprecedented power, and not for some great tips on fixing his backswing. Either way, Justice Roberts appeared much obliged. After all, it’s nice to hear a ‘thank you’ when you compromise your personal integrity and trample the Constitution to help a convicted felon win an election.” (03/19/25)
“In the past few weeks, federal officials have conducted aggressive attempts to squelch protest and dissent on college campuses, intimidating higher education administrators into adopting standards that inherently violate First Amendment guarantees of free speech and freedom of association. The government prescriptions for campus conduct, if actually implemented, expose the academic institutions to civil lawsuits. There is an open assault on the First Amendment. College students who have peacefully exercised their constitutional right to freedom of speech and association—by challenging government policies or the policies of a foreign government—have been arrested in droves, suspended, expelled, or even faced deportation. Much of this government activity claims to target anti-Semitism as a civil rights violation, which, on its face, seems reasonable. However, the way this policy is being applied has significant implications for free speech and so needs to be examined.” (03/19/25)
“The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the quasi-official advisory board led by Elon Musk to recommend workforce reductions and cost-savings in the Federal Government, has a laudable goal. There certainly is a lot of waste in the government. Fraud, too. There are probably many tasks that the Feds currently do that states or private entities could do better. Furthermore, without substantial changes, the Federal budget deficit is unsustainable. There is a lot of fat that must be trimmed from the Federal government budget. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to reduce budgets. When facing cuts, one wants to right the ship in the least painful manner. Indiscriminately cutting can make the situation worse.” (03/19/25)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Good for John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States, for chastising President Trump and lecturing him on the principles of our constitutional judicial system.” (03/19/25)
“If you put your faith in any politician, sooner or later, you will be betrayed. Whether you admit you’ve been betrayed depends on how fervent your faith in this politician is. The same goes for loyalty to a political party. I remember the political party my parents belonged to when I first became aware of such things. I also remember when they changed parties because the party they had always belonged to had turned into something they could no longer support. They stuck to their principles. I’ve noticed most people change to follow the party rather than let it go when this happens. Then there are those of us who don’t belong to any political party because none are principled enough for us. Or they have the wrong principles entirely.” (03/19/25)
