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Supreme Court Rules POTUS Has Authority To Remove “Independent Agency” Heads

How can an agency in the Executive Branch be “independent” from the president?

Justices Overturn 1935 Precedent, Backing President’s Power to Remove Agency Heads

The Supreme Court on Monday handed President Trump a sweeping victory over the administrative state, ruling that Congress cannot shield the heads of independent regulatory agencies from presidential removal, and overturning a landmark 1935 precedent that had underpinned the modern regulatory framework for nearly a century.

The 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter arose from the President’s firing of two Democratic-appointed Federal Trade Commission commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, at the start of his second term. Trump cited his constitutional authority under Article II rather than any cause recognized by the FTC’s governing statute, which permits removal only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that the FTC’s for-cause removal protection is incompatible with the Constitution’s vesting of executive power in a single President. Officers who exercise executive power, the Court held, must remain accountable to the President — and accountability requires the ability to remove them at will.

The ruling explicitly overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which had carved out an exception to presidential removal authority for agencies exercising so-called quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions. The Court found that characterization had never made sense and had become increasingly untenable as the FTC’s powers expanded to cover virtually every corner of the American economy.

The decision’s reach extends well beyond the FTC, potentially exposing the leadership of dozens of independent agencies — including the SEC, CFTC, and NLRB — to at-will presidential removal.

If the POTUS doesn’t have control of an agency that what is the POTUS? The only way to shield these people is to pass a law out of the Legislative Branch and have a POTUS sign said law. Or refuse to sign but not veto, allowing it to become law with no action. The above article does briefly mention that SCOTUS held that the president has less power to fire a member of the Federal Reserve in a companion ruling, but, mostly because Lisa Cook was not given time to respond. More on that here.

And another big ruling that Trump lost

SCOTUS Rules 5-4 to Permit Counting of Mail-In Ballots that Arrive After Election Day

The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled that state laws allowing for the counting of mail-in ballots after election day are not in violation of federal law, a blow to the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s administration.

On Monday, SCOTUS issued a 5-4 ruling that permits states to count mail-in ballots — sent on or before election day — that are received by state election officials after election day.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority’s opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Two principles are important here. First, post-election-day receipt, considered on its own, does not conflict with the election-day statutes,” the Court writes:

Well, I kind of agree. If they were postmarked, and there really must be a clear, real postmark, then they should be counted per state law, since the Constitution gives states this power to set laws. I also understand this point by Alito

But if that is all that the election-day statutes require, there is no sense in which the electorate as a whole can be seen as making its choice on election day. Rather, the electorate’s choice would be made piecemeal over an extended period prior to election day, and that prospect is blatantly contrary to what the election-day statutes demand. [Emphasis added]

Election day is a specified date, not a span of multiple days. The election-day statutes require that federal elections occur on that date. Under the challenged Mississippi law, however, the collection of ballots continues for five more days, and therefore the “election” is not held until the end of that period. Because federal law requires that the election occur on election day, it preempts Mississippi’s statute. [Emphasis added]

But, unless the Court wants to rule to kill vote by mail and early voting, the laws, federal Constitution, and state Constitutions allow mail in. This will allow for challenges over postmarkes.

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Climate Wacko Files Suit Against New Zealand Government

The cultists always want to force their Beliefs on Everyone Else

Climate change activist files High Court proceedings over government ruling

A climate change activist has filed a court case against the government’s plans to prevent companies being sued over their greenhouse gas emissions.

Mike Smith’s case against six major emitters, including Fonterra and Z Energy, prompted the government’s decision to block tort-based litigation over climate change.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the change would apply to current and future cases – stopping Smith’s landmark case from going ahead next April.

Now Smith has filed proceedings with the High Court over the government’s plans, asking for a declaration that both the decision and the process behind it were unlawful.

RNZ reported in May that a previously undisclosed briefing document had been provided to the prime minister’s office by Fonterra and Z Energy regarding Smith’s case.

RNZ also reported officials had told the government not to intervene in the court case.

In fairness, the cases prior to the law should be allowed to proceed, but, then they just need to stop. This climalawfare costs time and money, and raises the cost of living for Everyone Else. And Smith has already asked the UN to intervene about 10 days ago. Last time I checked New Zealand is a sovereign nation not run by the United Nations. Also, the citizens of NZ voted out the previous climate cult wackos because they were tired of this cult crap.

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Tennessee To Review Immigration Status Of All On Government Programs

Really, illegals, (fake) asylum seekers, refugees, and lawful aliens should not be on any sort of government program

Tennessee law requires immigration review for public benefits starting this week

A Tennessee law set to take effect Wednesday will require local government agencies such as health departments to verify and report the immigration status of people applying for certain public benefits. Vivian Lozano Sterchi, chief operating officer of the Chattanooga immigrant advocacy group La Paz, said it’s unclear what the ramifications of the new law will be.

The law is broad and applies to any local government entity, including counties, cities, towns and local health departments. It applies to people 18 years or older who are applying for federal, state or local public benefits.

The law requires local governments to report to the state’s immigration agency the status of applicants so it can be shared with federal immigration enforcement officials. The new law makes an employee’s failure to report an individual’s unauthorized status a misdemeanor.

“I think what makes it so hard is the lack of clarity, which at the end of the day doesn’t matter, because this is a terrible bill that’s going to negatively impact hundreds of families in our state, and so families are afraid to receive medical care,” Lozano Sterchi said. “What does that mean for the overall health of our community, for our schools?”

It means anyone on public benefits who is not lawfully in the U.S. will have their names sent to ICE so they can be rounded up and deported. It means that illegals will be scared to apply, and legal aliens will also not apply (they are pretty much restricted in most cases for most visas from getting govt aid), leaving more money and services for actual citizens.

The law gives the Tennessee attorney general the authority to investigate allegations and complaints that a local government or employee is violating the law by not reporting someone who is an unauthorized immigrant or continuing services.

The law does not define public benefit or specify which public benefits or local government entities the law applies to.

That’s because it is all for people 18 and over. Why is this difficult to understand for the liberals?

Meanwhile

A new law could create a list of immigrants illegally living in Mississippi. Advocates are alarmed

A new Mississippi law will authorize the state’s top law enforcement agency to compile a list of all immigrants illegally living in the state.

What’s to be done with that information is a bit open-ended. But the law set to take effect Wednesday is sparking alarm among immigrant advocates, who fear it could become a new tactic to target immigrants in conjunction with President Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of people lacking legal approval to live in the U.S.

Why fear? That’s exactly the purpose. My goodness, the Credentialed Media seems rather dense, eh?

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Huh: “California” Is Getting To Raise Health Insurance Tax

Democrats: “How dare Republicans allow a subsidy lapse for the Ocare market! Health insurance is too much!”

Also Democrats:

California is getting ready to increase a health insurance tax. Will it affect your premium?

Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, told reporters earlier this week that there was no perfect plan for redesigning the tax and that the Senate still has concerns, but the proposal they voted through is one that would bring in money quickly.

“We have as a Senate been very clear that we needed revenue … it was a matter of making a decision which we could troubleshoot given what is happening at the federal level,” Limón said.

As part of the tax and spending law Congress passed last summer, the federal government imposed new restrictions on provider taxes, including the one imposed on health plans. Under existing rules, California received almost $8 billion annually from this tax; the new limits mean the state will receive billions less. The Legislature’s plan tries to fill at least some of that gap.

The plan does not directly raise health insurance premiums. Instead it imposes a higher tax on private plans, which have said they’d pass the cost down to consumers.

By “California” the LA Times means “Democrats”, who run the People’s Republic Of California general assembly with an iron fist. They can pretty much do whatever they want. And what they want is to tax the hell out of people who have health insurance.

The proposal would require all health plans, both public and private, to pay a monthly rate of $8.85 per enrollee — a total cost of about $1.5 billion a year for private plans. If health plans pass the entire tax to their members, Californians could see about a 1.5% increase in their monthly premiums, according to the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office. That’s on top of the yearly premium rate increases that people see year to year.

Doesn’t seem like a lot, but, health insurance costs are sky high in the PRC, along with everything else. And don’t forget they high cost of deductibles and how the availability of actual care is limited because of all the illegals in California

The California Assn. of Health Plans, the health insurance lobby, estimates this would translate to consumers paying about $100 more in premiums each year. That means a family of four could be looking at $400 more a year in health premiums.

Democrats will say “it’s just $400, no biggie”, because all these people making the laws are rich and/or get lots of graft money. Hey, maybe if California wasn’t spending $9.5 billion a year on healthcare for illegals it wouldn’t be an issue.

Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, a San Diego Democrat, said she found the tax plan “extremely problematic” as she questioned the administration during a hearing Wednesday. “I am very uncomfortable with this proposal and the economic burden it will have on the families I serve as a senator but also a physician.” She voted for the measure on Thursday.

So, of course she voted against….wait, what? She voted for it? Kinda the way it goes with Democrats. They express concern, then vote to screw the peasants.

I wonder if California will throw even more subsidies to illegals?

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Your Fault: European Heat Wave Impossible Without ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

This piece of cult propaganda is all over the Credentialed Cult Media, many using this AP article, some writing their own like the NY Times and UK Guardian. They’re all apoplectic and doomy

Europe’s extreme heat would be impossible without climate change, scientists say

The record-breaking heat that’s scorching Europe day and night this month would not have been possible without climate change, according to a new study.

The World Weather Attribution rapid study released Friday found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago.

Millions in France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe are experiencing extreme temperatures and humidity this week associated with a heat dome. Daytime temperatures have topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in many places, while high nighttime temperatures have also made it harder to cool down and recover.

The scientists estimated that a heat wave with similar characteristics occurring in the climate of June 1976 would have been about 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 Fahrenheit) cooler during the day and about 2 degrees Celsius cooler (3.6 Fahrenheit) in 2003. The nighttime temperatures would have been about 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 Fahrenheit) cooler in June 1976 and about 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 Fahrenheit) cooler in 2003.

Back in 1976, when the media was worried about a coming ice age? Say, can they compare this to things that happened during previous Holocene warm periods? Without that knowledge and direct observation this is all just cultist claptrap.

Oh, and, of course, because they are running this it means that the weather in Europe will soon be cool, like when they yap about permanent drought and the weather soon turns wet (and then they also blame ‘climate change’).

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Washington Post Super Upset Over Loss Of Employees For Nursing Homes, Factories

The two AWFLs writing this screed, Maria Sacchetti and Lauren Kaori Gurley, miss the obvious conclusion that if a business depends on labor from illegals, fake asylum seekers, and TPSers who can be booted at any time they’re bad at it

Nursing homes, factory owners and immigrants brace for fallout from Supreme Court ruling

Immigrants began making plans to sell or rent their homes, secure bank accounts and figure out thorny issues like child custody arrangements. Business owners started calculating how many days they can continue to employ workers whose legal status is set to expire. And nursing home leaders warned they would have fewer beds to offer if health aides are forced to leave the country.

Panic rippled through communities from Florida to Ohio and beyond in the hours after the Supreme Court cleared the Trump administration Thursday to strip humanitarian protections from Haitians and Syrians — and potentially all 1.3 million immigrants from over a dozen countries who had been previously shielded from deportation.

“The residents will be losing caregivers that they really have become attached to,” said Colin O’Leary, executive director at Laurel Ridge Rehabilitation & Skilled Care Center in Boston. Managers at the facility were racing to figure out how much longer staff members from Haiti with temporary protected status could continue taking care of patients. “That’s a lot for our residents to handle.”

Attorneys said Haitians and Syrians could lose work permits in little more than a month, but the deadline remained unclear because lower court judges must issue orders to implement the decision. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters Thursday that Haitians and others with temporary protected status should be detained and deported once they lose the benefit.

It’s always some sort sob story with these people, always forgetting that the law is, in fact, the law. It should mostly be devoid of emotion. But, um, hey, what’s this claptrap about “lower court judges”? The Mullin v. Doe ruling pretty much said the lower courts need to stay the hell out of it: Congress gave the Executive the power to grant TPS and cancel it, and courts have nothing to do with it.

Some of those immigrants have lived in the United States for decades and said they feared being sent back to conflict-ridden homelands that they barely know and whose languages some do not speak.

And that is a problem, because the T stands for temporary.

Harlaine, 38, a registered nurse in Florida, said she hasn’t been to Haiti since she left for the U.S. at age 7 and had never visited because everyone told her it was too dangerous. She spoke on condition that only her first name be used because she fears being targeted by immigration authorities.

She’s been here 31 years and hasn’t attempted to get citizenship? Or even Permanent Resident status?

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, characterized the decision as “a mistake” and said it is too dangerous to deport people to Haiti, including the more than 10,000 Haitians living and working legally in his state. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) vowed to fight the ruling, even as the path to challenging it is unclear.

Yes, let’s bring in all these people who are dangerous.

“I’m telling you it’s going to cripple our health care system,” Hochul told reporters. “Who’s going to show up tomorrow to take care of grandma? Who’s doing that? Who’s stepping up?”

And here’s the thing, Democrats have been telling the kiddies that they should get highfalutin degrees, ones which sound great but have little value in the real world, that jobs like caretakers and nurses and such are beneath them (even though they can earn some good damned money). They tell even those Dem voter kiddies of lower status that jobs working with your hands are for chumps, so, they rack of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt for garbage degrees that let them feel Entitled. Because all the imports will do them.

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Credentialed Media Wonders Why Trump Is Missing From World Cup

The same media who tells Trump to stay away from events, such as the NBA finals, wonders where Trump is

How much longer can Donald Trump go missing from the World Cup?
The person who shaped the tournament in his image has been invisible since it started.

Some of soccer’s biggest names have come to play at the World Cup: Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, Vinícius Júnior and now even Cristiano Ronaldo have left their mark on the score sheet.

But one key player who loomed over just about every step of pre-tournament preparations has been notably invisible: Donald Trump.

Pre-tournament fears that the American president would trample on the soccer jamboree have, so far, proved largely unfounded after the first two weeks of competition. Trump has yet to attend a match, and even as the U.S. team mounts its best World Cup performance in decades he has done little to claim the success as his own.

So he’s not super involved and the media complains.

Aside from persistent complications surrounding the Iran squad’s entry and exit to the U.S. for games, and the ban on a Somali referee from entering the country before the tournament started, political incidents involving the Trump administration and soccer — or leaders of other World Cup countries, including the neighboring co-hosts with whom he often spars — have been few and far between.

Because Trump specifically picked out that 1 ref and said “not him”

No ICE arrests around matches. No heavy-handed policing like soccer fans sometimes suffer in Western Europe. No beef between Trump and Democratic leaders of cities and states where some of the tournament’s highest-profile matches have been played.

So, ICE is not rounding up illegals? They are there to stop human trafficking, drugs, and other issues, as are members of foreign agencies. Policing is a light touch unlike in Europe? No beefs with wacko Dems? It’s almost like Politico’s writers are whining that they have nothing to complain about with Orange Man Bad so they will be mad that there is nothing to complain about with Orange Man Bad

In an interview last week with POLITICO, Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey said her administration had worked with the U.S. government “around transportation funding, security funding. That’s the way it should be. There should be that kind of work and coordination.”

Trump allies are on the same page as the tournament progresses serenely through the group stage, beyond continued griping about high ticket prices and transport to and from some stadiums.

“Why won’t Trump do or say something Mean! There are no Mean Tweets! Arrglebargle!”

This week, FIFA chief Gianni Infantino confirmed what many have expected: Trump plans to attend the final on July 19 and help present the winner’s trophy. Can a president who loves the spotlight stay away till then?

Can these Credentialed Media folks not write in TDS? Really, I don’t think Trump, like most Americans, cares about soccer.

As for transportation, how’s things going?

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Your Fault: Reflecting Pool Algae From Climate Doom

I’m actually surprised we didn’t get this sooner (via Green Jihad)

Using a link you can read if you want

In his battle to clean the murky waters of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, President Donald Trump has tried draining, painting, hydrogen peroxide and what the Interior Department describes as “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology.” But he has seemingly overlooked two of the most important factors that experts say are driving unsightly — and sometimes dangerous — profusions of algae: pollution and climate change.

Algae thrive in warm, still waters, causing populations to explode as global temperatures rise, said environmental engineer Steve Chapra, an emeritus professor at Tufts University.

Short-term measures like those Trump has pursued may temporarily reduce algae populations in some water bodies, Chapra said. But unless they grapple with warming and nutrient pollution, any efforts to address these blooms in the Reflecting Pool and elsewhere are doomed to fail in the long run.

The consequences could be profound, because the problems presented by blooms go far beyond aesthetics, he added. They can disrupt aquatic food chains, deplete oxygen in water bodies and even produce deadly toxins.

“It’s probably the biggest water quality problem in the world,” Chapra said. “The Reflecting Pool is the canary in the coal mine.”

Wow, that sure ramped up to Category 5 Doom, eh?

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Sniffles: Supreme Court Ruling Allows Ending Of TPS For Haitians And Syrians

The Credentialed Media is not taking this well, as you could expect

Supreme Court undermines TPS program, putting 147,000 immigrants in Texas at risk of deportation

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can revoke Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Haiti and Syria. The 6-to-3 ruling puts more than 1.3 million immigrants under TPS across the United States, including roughly 147,000 in Texas, at imminent risk of arrest and deportation.

Writing the conservative majority’s opinion in Mullin v. Doe, Associate Justice Samuel Alito said TPS functions entirely at the discretion of the president and is not subject to review by the courts.

“Congress created TPS in 1990 to provide short-term humanitarian relief for aliens who cannot safely return to their home countries,” Alito wrote. “Although designed to afford temporary relief, TPS designations in practice have often lasted for decades,”

Alito added that Haitian immigrants had received a TPS designation after the 2010 earthquake in the Caribbean country.

“The Supreme Court is signaling that lower courts should not interfere with the executive’s authority, that when Congress grants a broad discretionary power to grant temporary status, the president should also have the same power to revoke the temporary status,” said Josh Blackman, a professor of constitutional law at South Texas College of Law Houston. “I think this is a very important case of presidential power.”

First off, they are not immigrants: they are foreign aliens who were allowed into the U.S. temporarily. That’s the whole of their legal status. Second, how quickly till a wackjob federal judge comes out with a ruling which blocks ending TPS for some group in total avoidance of the SCOTUS ruling?

Seth Chandler, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Houston Law Center, said the ruling has dramatic consequences for Texas, which hosts one of the largest concentrations of TPS holders in the U.S.

“It basically streamlines the ability of the Trump administration to revoke TPS status, not just for the Haitians and Syrians who were litigating in the case the Supreme Court decided today, but with respect to Hondurans, Nepalis, Afghans, and perhaps critically for Houston, potentially Venezuelans as well,” Chandler said.

There does come a point when TPS ends, Democrats. It is not permanent.

The decision came down immediately after another immigration-related decision, which allows the Trump administration to enforce its “wait in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers.

As to that

(AIC) U.S. law provides that any person who is physically present in the United States or who “arrives in” the United States may apply for asylum. Congress further directed that immigration officers must “inspect” any noncitizen who “arrives in” the United States to determine if they should be admitted to the country — a function U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers carry out thousands of times per day at ports of entry. (snip)

Today, the Supreme Court blessed the practice of metering, overturning a 9th Circuit decision which had found that CBP had an affirmative obligation to process people who arrive at ports of entry but who have not yet stepped on U.S. soil after CBP officers have blocked their passage. The Court found that there was a difference between “arrives in” and “arrives at” the border, and declared that only those individuals who have physically set foot in the United States have a right to be inspected and apply for asylum.

In other words, we do not have to let them in no matter how loud they yet “asylum”.