Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court

Post by bickfordb » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #286

Ajedi32 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the opinions. Both are pretty reasonable. I think the dissent has a good point that a plain language interpretation of the term "regulate imports" would seem to include tariffs. The bigger issue I think is that that statute exists in the first place. "Emergency powers" that a president can grant himself just by "declaring an emergency" on any pretense with no checks or balances is a stupid idea.

Kavanaugh's opinion seems to say "well, this would be too hard to undo, so we should just leave it alone and let Trump continue". That hardly seems 'reasonable'. Just lazy and/or partisan.

Post by lhopki01 » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:05 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #295

lhopki01 wrote: post #222

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I'm not sure why Americans are so certain that their system of separation of powers is the right one. Most countries don't separate the executive and legislative like that. The executive is whoever can command the support of the legislative. If you think about the US system it makes no sense. An executive can just ignore the rules created by the legislative by just not enforcing it and the only means to stop that is…

The difference is in cases where the parliament chooses the executive is it leads to it's own collusion and corruption in terms of excessively growing govt... not that it's barely held the US from doing so. The point is to be in an adversarial context in order to resist overreach of govt. For better or worse, our system today isn't quite what it was originally designed as... The Senate was originally selected by the…

Post by dmix » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:06 PM UTC

linuxhansl wrote: post #301

Finally some sanity. The administration has use laws about "national security" and other so call "emergencies" to impose tariffs. If everything is an emergency then nothing is, and that was clearly not congress' intention with those laws. The power to impose tariffs rests with the legislator, not the executive. Of course our congress is effectively useless - we can thank decades of Mitch McConnell's (and others) "not…

Post by keernan » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #274

blackcatsec wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding at least a little bit here. The Constitution created separation of powers, but what it did not do is explicitly block a particular branch from either abdicating their duty or simply delegating their power back to the executive. It's certainly an interesting situation that wasn't explicitly spelled out in the law. But as far as everything that's working, it's realistically all within th…

Worth mentioning, that goes the other way too... plenty of what should be executive power was delegated to congressional authority over the years as well. And it doesn't even begin to cover activist judicial practices. The lines have definitely blurred a lot, especially since the early 1900's. And that's just between the branches, let alone the growth of govt in general.

Post by k33n » Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

fuzzfactor wrote: post #179

coldpie wrote: post #153

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If whoever runs in 2028 does not have a concrete plan for investigating & prosecuting every single person who worked under this admin from top to bottom, they are wasting everyone's time. We need to see hundreds of life-in-prison sentences by the end of 2029.

The first thing on the agenda is to impeach & convict, if there were enough patriotic Americans in Congress it should be possible this afternoon. Then they can take their time to reverse all immunity granted by this President so all snakes can be rooted out.