XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: super70s@super70s.invalid   
      
   On 2026-02-20 20:48:21 +0000, Promises Promises said:   
      
   > Before you lunatic left break out the bubbly, you might want to read   
   > this.   
   > Assuming you are capable of reading that is.   
   >   
   >    
   >   
   > "NEITHER the statutory text nor the Constitution provide a basis for   
   > ruling against the President." ??   
   >   
   > "Congress authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation.”   
   > Throughout American history, the authority to “regulate importation” has   
   > been understood to include the authority to impose duties on imports."   
   >   
   > "The meaning of that phrase was beyond doubt by the time that Congress   
   > enacted this statute, shortly after President Nixon’s highly publicized   
   > duties on imports were UPHELD based on identical language."   
   >   
   > "The statute that the President relied on therefore authorized him to   
   > impose the duties on imports at issue in these cases."   
   >   
   > "Because the Constitution assigns Congress many powers that do not   
   > implicate the nondelegation doctrine, Congress may delegate the exercise   
   > of many powers to the President."   
   >   
   > "Congress has done so repeatedly since the founding, WITH THIS COURT'S   
   > BLESSING.""   
      
   Uncle Thomas has proven he's almost as corrupt as Trump.   
      
      
   Bamboozled: What made anyone think the Trump tariffs were legal?   
   By Alan Wm. Wolff   
   Piie.com (Peterson Institute For International Economics)   
   January 15, 2026 9:25 AM   
      
   The American people deserve an explanation on how the president of the   
   United States on April 2 last year announced the largest tariff package   
   in modern history with no action by Congress. It is not the province of   
   the president to set tariffs. This is entirely within Congress's power.   
   It is true that the Congress has delegated the power to the president   
   to use tariffs for certain limited purposes, but very selectively, and   
   hedged with strict conditions.   
      
   The US Constitution is quite clear that tariffs are entirely Congress's   
   prerogative. How could what Trump did happen? How could it even be a   
   matter for litigation to prove the point that it was unauthorized?   
   Presidents have proposed tariff legislation, they have signed tariff   
   bills the Congress has passed, and they have administered some tariffs   
   selectively under delegated authority. They have never imposed a single   
   tariff, whether on steel, semiconductors, or peanut butter, without   
   first getting a grant of authority from Congress. Not in any one's wild   
   imagination (saving the current president) could a president impose   
   across-the-board tariffs against all products from all countries, on   
   any authority said to have been granted.   
      
   There are reasons for this debacle. It comes from a complete misreading   
   of the US law and history. In normal times, it would be worth a serious   
   congressional investigation into why this happened. That will have to   
   await the Congress reestablishing itself as a co-equal branch of   
   government.   
      
   What happened? The president declared an emergency last April.   
   Congress, the American people at large, and the countries with which we   
   trade, were caught completely off guard, even though President-elect   
   Trump had repeatedly said that he would impose massive tariffs.   
      
   As president, Trump declared an "emergency." Everyone knew there really   
   wasn't one, the kind for which it would make sense to invoke a sort of   
   martial law for trade. But "emergency" is a very imprecise word. The   
   facts: Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Perhaps US trade   
   deficits had begun to add up. But there had been no single shocking   
   event, no calamitous fall in the dollar's exchange rate. Interest rates   
   were stable. It was just another year. The economy was growing. But   
   there was a law on the books, pretty much the same since World War I,   
   allowing the regulation of trade in an emergency. With the word   
   "emergency" nowhere defined, presidents had gotten used to declaring   
   emergencies all too often, some 77 of them even before Trump returned   
   to office. The statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act   
   (IEEPA), was used to impose economic sanctions, to deal with   
   transactions with the likes of the Palestinian group Hamas and North   
   Korea. IEEPA is not a general trade statute. It does not mention   
   tariffs. Within the purposes for which it had been applied, it made   
   sense to limit trade with bad actors, those who would harm the United   
   States. Who else but the president should Congress have given authority   
   to, to declare emergencies? It would destroy the usefulness of the   
   statute if Congress has to begin deliberating about what an emergency   
   is when a real one comes along.   
      
   The built-in guardrail was that Congress could override the declaration   
   of emergency. But in an unrelated Supreme Court case, a vote in both   
   houses of Congress was found to need the president's signature to have   
   any effect. This was accompanied by a natural reticence of the courts   
   to seek to overturn a presidential emergency. Who told the judges they   
   should intervene in matters of the highest national importance in   
   foreign affairs, it would be argued. Result: Carte blanche was given to   
   the presidency; there would effectively be no guardrails.   
      
   Then there was the matter of precedent. It was said that President   
   Richard Nixon had imposed an import surcharge in 1971 during a real   
   balance of payments emergency using predecessor authority, the Trading   
   with the Enemy Act (TWEA). In 2025, numerous trade experts and three   
   courts set off looking at the "precedent" of the supposed use of the   
   1917 statute. A clue should have been that that Nixon's proclamation   
   did not cite that authority. But the president's proclamation was   
   drafted in tight secrecy. Outside of two Treasury Department lawyers,   
   only the Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist (later Supreme   
   Court chief justice) saw it. In fact, the historical record is now   
   crystal clear that President Nixon had been adamant in discussions with   
   his aides at closed meetings at Camp David, again secret at the time,   
   that he was not going to invoke the wartime emergency authority because   
   it was an insult to call our allies "enemies."   
      
   Why does this matter? Because when President Trump did employ emergency   
   authority, the 1971 tariff use precedent was baked into legal lore,   
   that in an emergency, Nixon had imposed an import surcharge for a very   
   short time (four months). That should not have mattered for events 50   
   years later. And the mistaken belief persists to this day that Trump   
   could do the same with tariffs in an emergency as had been done under   
   the Trading with the Enemy Act, the nearly identical predecessor to   
   IEEPA that Trump invoked. But two generations ago, desiring to stop a   
   repeat of what Nixon did with tariffs (although he in fact had used   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)