Mad King Ludwig is in a foul mood this Easter Monday because the Supreme Court ruined his weekend deportation plans

 Trump ramps up attacks on Powell, demands ‘loser’ Fed chair lower rates ‘NOW’

 

Looks like Trump & Co. blinked on Friday night after discovering the Supremes were getting involved in their latest Venezuelan deportation operation

 

As legal fight raged, ICE buses filled with Venezuelans heading toward airport turned around, video shows

 

Video from Friday night shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses full of Venezuelan migrants headed toward an airport in North Texas before abruptly turning around before the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must, for now, refrain from deporting Venezuelan men based in the state under the Alien Enemies Act. ...

As the motorcade was headed for the airport, a last-minute federal hearing on the matter was taking place in Washington.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who has been hearing a case related to the flights to El Salvador, scheduled an emergency hearing for Friday evening — just hours after a bus rolled up to Bluebonnet.

Shortly before that hearing kicked off, ACLU attorneys also asked the Supreme Court to step in.

“We hear they are on buses on the way to the airport,” said Lee Gelernt, the lawyer for the ACLU arguing on behalf of detainees on the verge of being deported under the Alien Enemies Act. ...

 

Supremes vote 7-2 to pause deportations of Venezuelans

The Trump administration has been bragging that the Supremes let them deport Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which of course is a half-truth. The April 7 decision 5-4 stipulates that due process be followed, which is why they ordered 9-0 the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who didn't get it, and the Supremes this morning aren't sure that's the case either with the latest group set to be deported.

 

 U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halts deportations of Venezuelan migrants under wartime law

The U.S. Supreme Court early on Saturday paused President Donald Trump’s administration from deporting Venezuelan men in immigration custody after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices. ...

At issue is whether the Trump administration has met the Supreme Court’s standard for providing the detainees due process before sending them to another country - possibly to the notorious prison in El Salvador where others are jailed. ...

Their deportation would be the first since the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that allowed removals under the 1798 law while specifying that “the notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.” ...

On March 15, the Trump administration deported more than 130 alleged Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador. Many of the migrants’ lawyers and family members say they were not gang members and had no chance to dispute the government’s assertion that they were. 

 

 

Either everyone has due process, or nobody does

 

At around noon on 14 April, 2025, America ceased to have a law-abiding government

 On Monday Trump chose to ignore a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling to repatriate an illegally deported man.

More.

Trump lets the president of El Salvador do his defying of the Supreme Court for him, won't return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States

 El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says he won’t return Abrego Garcia to U.S.

... [Trump] also said he wants Bukele to accept as many criminals as possible. ...

Supremes order Trump administration to work to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador to the United States

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.

The court acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday. 

 “The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents. ...

More.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia will have to wait in an El Salvador prison for the US Supreme Court to decide what to do with him

 

... Roberts issued a terse administrative order indefinitely lifting the deadline of 11:59 EDT to return Abrego Garcia set by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. The Trump administration had said that deadline was “impossible” to meet. ...

More.

Liberals are upset with Trump's EO on elections because it threatens to withhold federal money from jurisdictions which don't crack down on voting by non-citizens

Whether liberals will address this head on, however, remains to be seen. They may simply challenge the meddling of the executive in a matter the constitution reserves to the states.

The Supreme Court has consistently deferred on this to the states, even during all the election controversy of 2020, rebuffing Trump over and over again, and is likely to do so again, which would be yet another defeat for Trump.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

-- Article I, Section 4, clause 1

Trump promises more EOs on elections in the future.

He's already issued 100 of them. And the next guy can issue 100 overturning them. 

This is all theatre. Republicans' narrow majorities in the House and Senate make any of these becoming permanent law extremely unlikely.

 Trump signs order seeking to overhaul US elections, including requiring proof of citizenship

The constitutional crisis that many feared from a vengeful, re-empowered Trump is here

 Congress is cowed; that’s one supposedly coequal branch of government down. But federal courts are proving more resistant to Donald Trump’s trampling of laws and the Constitution. Now, just two months in office, the president has all but crossed the red line — defying a judge’s order — that for more than two centuries has separated the rule of law in this country from its undoing. ... 

The chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr., schooled both the congressman and the president, issuing a rare statement of what should be obvious: “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

But Trump won’t be educated. ...

In effect, and denials aside, Trump and his lieutenants defied the law ...

Jackie Calmes for The Los Angeles Times, here.

Supreme Court rules 5-4 against Trump that USAID payments ordered by Judge Amir Ali must be made

 

A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to let President Donald Trump’s administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government as the Republican president moves to pull the plug on American humanitarian projects around the world.

Handing a setback to Trump, the court in a 5-4 decision upheld Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision.

The order by Ali, who is presiding over an ongoing legal challenge to Trump’s policy, had originally given the administration until February 26 to disburse the funding, which it has said totaled nearly $2 billion that could take weeks to pay in full.

Chief Justice John Roberts paused that order hours before the midnight deadline to give the Supreme Court additional time to consider the administration’s more formal request to block Ali’s ruling. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices Trump appointed during his first presidential term. ...

The Trump administration had kept the disputed payments largely frozen despite a temporary restraining order from Ali that they be released, and multiple subsequent orders that the administration comply. Ali’s February 25 enforcement order at issue before the Supreme Court applied to payment for work done by foreign aid groups before February 13, when the judge issued his temporary restraining order. ...

More.

Chief Justice John Roberts intervenes in dispute between USAID and USAID recipients and Judge Amir Ali, pausing Ali's order to disperse USAID funds by midnight yesterday

 

. . . Roberts issued an interim order placing on hold Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s action that had imposed a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday night.

Roberts provided no rationale for the order, known as an administrative stay, which will give the court additional time to consider the administration’s more formal request to block Ali’s ruling.

Roberts asked for a response from the plaintiffs - organizations that contract with or receive grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department - by noon on Friday.

More here. 

The story posted at 10:14pm last night.

Mitch McConnell, hated by ungrateful MAGA, won't run in 2026 after 40 years in the US Senate

 

Mitch McConnell announces he will retire, ending his decades-long Senate career

 

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the longest-serving Senate leader in history, announced Thursday on his 83rd birthday that he won’t seek re-election next year, bringing an end to his four-decade career in the chamber.

McConnell, first elected in 1984, climbed his way up to the Senate Republican leader position in 2007 and remained there until early 2025, serving during four administrations in the majority and the minority. ...

McConnell supported Trump’s presidential bids in 2016 and 2020. He made a crucial decision in early 2021 to vote to acquit Trump on impeachment charges of inciting an insurrection, even as he blasted Trump as “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” calling his actions a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Despite his misgivings, he went on to endorse Trump for president again 2024 after he clinched the Republican nomination for a third successive election. ...

McConnell oversaw Trump’s three Supreme Court confirmations during his first term, as part of a sweeping set of 234 judges inked over those four years — most of them young conservatives who will serve for generations — which he has regarded as his proudest achievement. ...

 

Senators Gary Peters of Michigan and Tina Smith of Minnesota have also announced that they will not run in 2026.