More directly, since we cannot count on even an unusually strong Gulf Coast hurricane season (now arriving) to undo the rest of his lunacy, we need. . . the courts. Recently, the Ninth Circuit ruled Trump cannot invade DoD funds unilaterally, without Congressional authority, to build his vain-glorious wall. But the Supremes had earlier removed a temporary hold on it all, during the appeals. Now the Sierra Club, among others, has pointed out to the Supremes that if they don't act, Trump will spend the money, lose the election -- and vanish like Professor Harold Hill into the night. Here's the bit -- do go read it all:
. . . .After Congress “repeatedly declined to provide the amount of funding requested by the President,” the “President announced that he would not sign any legislation that did not allocate substantial funds to border wall construction. . . .”
The President’s public challenge triggered “the longest partial government shutdown in United States history.” App. 10a. During the shutdown, the White House “requested $5.7 billion to fund the construction of approximately 234 miles of new physical barrier.” App. 10a. “After 35 days, the government shutdown ended without an agreement to provide increased border wall funding in the amount requested by the President.” App. 10a. Congress denied the President’s request on February 14, 2019, instead passing the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2019 (“CAA”), Pub. L. No. 116-6, div. A, 133 Stat. 13 (2019). The CAA made available only $1.375 billion for wall construction, and restricted construction to eastern Texas, in the United States Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector. On February 15, the President signed the CAA into law.
On the same day that Congress’s funding decision became law, the White House announced that the administration would act unilaterally to spend billions of dollars above and beyond Congress’s appropriation. This sum included “$2.5 billion of Department of Defense (‘DoD’) funds that could be transferred to provide support for counterdrug activities of other federal government agencies under 10 U.S.C. § 284. . . .
Poetic indeed.
नमस्ते
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Over four strong dissenting voices, tonight the conservative wing of the Supremes agreed to allow Trump to run out the clock, and spend DoD money on a wall, that the Ninth Circuit said was unlawful use of Defense funds.
The Supremes never disagreed with that -- they just stayed the Ninth Circuit decision.
But read the four dissenters, to understand just how dishonest this non-decision really was:
". . .JUSTICE BREYER, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG, JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting from denial of motion to lift stay.
Just over a year ago, I suggested “a straightforward way” to avoid irreparable harm to the parties in this litigation: stay the District Court’s injunction “only to the extent” that it “prevents the Government from finalizing [relevant] contracts or taking other preparatory administrative action, but leave [the injunction] in place insofar as it precludes the Government from disbursing those funds or beginning construction.” Trump v. Sierra Club, 588 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2019) (slip op., at 2–3) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part from grant of stay).
Now, the Government has apparently finalized its contracts, avoiding the irreparable harm it claimed in first seeking a stay. The Court’s decision to let construction continue nevertheless, I fear, may “operat[e], in effect, as a final judgment.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2).
I would therefore lift the Court’s stay of the District Court’s injunction. . . ."
OUT.
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