The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to greenlight its efforts to end a Biden-era immigration program shielding hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals from deportation. 
Solicitor General John Sauer filed a 38-page <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25925690/24a1059.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emergency appeal</a> to SCOTUS asking it to block a federal judge’s ruling that said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem could not end Temporary Protected Status for 348,202 Venezuelans. Sauer argued that Noem’s decision to end one of the TPS designations for Venezuela was unreviewable and up to her discretion. 
“The Secretary’s decision whether to designate, extend, or terminate TPS implicates sensitive judgments as to foreign policy and, in this case, the ‘national interest’—a discretionary determination that Congress expressly committed to her judgment,” Sauer wrote in his filing. 
Noem <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/noem-ends-biden-program-shielding-thousands-of-venezuelans-from-deportation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> in February that she would end the program, which was started during the Biden administration in October 2023, because she had determined it was not in America’s best interest to continue with it, adding that conditions in Venezuela had improved. Just weeks before leaving office, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended the designation until October 2026. 
“TPS has allowed a significant population of inadmissible or illegal aliens without a path to lawful immigration status to settle in the interior of the United States, and the sheer numbers have resulted in associated difficulties in local communities where local resources have been inadequate to meet the demands caused by increased numbers,&#8221; the Department of Homeland Security said.
In April, U.S. Senior District Judge Edward Chen <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-says-trump-admin-must-keep-biden-era-program-shielding-venezuelans-from-deportation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sided</a> with the National TPS Alliance and blocked Noem from ending the program, saying that the revocation would cause “irreparable harm” and hurt the economy. The Obama-appointed judge also claimed that TPS recipients were more educated, involved in the workforce, and less likely to commit crimes than American citizens. 
Sauer argued that Chen’s ruling “undermines the Executive Branch’s inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs.”
“The court contravened an express bar on judicial review, sidestepped black-letter law authorizing agencies to reverse as-yet-inoperative actions, and embraced a baseless equal-protection theory on the road to issuing impermissible universal relief that intrudes on central Executive Branch operations,” he wrote. “Its order upsets the judgments of the political branches, prohibiting the Executive Branch from enforcing a time-sensitive immigration policy and indefinitely extending an immigration status that Congress intended to be ‘temporary.’”
Last month, the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan illegals suspected of being members of Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

US-IMMIGRATION-politics-court

Trump Admin Asks Supreme Court To Revoke Legal Protections For 350K Venezuelans

Courts

Department of Homeland Security

Joe Biden

Kristi Noem

Politics

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

Trump Administration

Venezuela

If you talk to any experienced and honest teacher these days, from elementary school on up, one of the first things they will tell you is how quickly gender ideology has taken hold. Virtually overnight, students began adopting fake pronouns and made-up genders.
To call this phenomenon &#8220;unnatural&#8221; would be a vast understatement. It&#8217;s obviously engineered. Teachers and school boards are pushing this nonsense on children who are far too young to know any better. The public school system has committed itself to indoctrinating children, in many cases without their parents&#8217; knowledge or consent. But after what happened yesterday at the Supreme Court, it&#8217;s very clear that accountability is finally coming for these ghouls.
After many years of spewing LGBT propaganda with total impunity, school districts will soon face major new restrictions on their ability to pollute the minds of elementary-school-age children. Based on how the justices acted during oral arguments yesterday, “Mahmoud v. Taylor” could easily turn out to be one of the most significant Supreme Court rulings of this generation.
Before we review the oral arguments, here is some background. The case began after Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest school district in Maryland — introduced a new &#8220;gender and sexuality curriculum.&#8221; Initially, students (or their parents) could opt out of this curriculum for any reason. But after a short period of time, the school district claimed that it wasn&#8217;t feasible to continue allowing opt outs. So it&#8217;s mandatory now. To give you an idea of what exactly this curriculum entails, here&#8217;s an image from one book that children are introduced to.
<div id="attachment_911559" style="width: 690px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-911559" class="wp-image-911559 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GpJWV7kX0AE7j3U.jpeg" alt="Screenshot: What Are Your Words?" width="680" height="446" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GpJWV7kX0AE7j3U.jpeg 680w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GpJWV7kX0AE7j3U-300x197.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px" />Screenshot: What Are Your Words?</div>
This is what&#8217;s apparently known as an &#8220;LGBT storybook.&#8221; This one&#8217;s called, “What Are Your Words?” As you can see, one line of dialogue reads, “My pronouns are like the weather. They change depending on how I feel.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is a nonprofit, reported on some other books that were included in this <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/will-scotus-back-parents-when-it-comes-to-lgbtq-storybooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new curriculum</a>:
<blockquote>[O]ne book tasks three and four-year-olds to search for images from a word list that includes &#8216;intersex flag,&#8217; &#8216;drag queen,&#8217; &#8216;underwear,&#8217; &#8216;leather,&#8217; and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker. Another book advocates a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to &#8216;make sense.&#8217; Teachers are instructed to say doctors only &#8216;guess&#8217; when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway.</blockquote>
When parents of varying religious faiths — including Muslims and Christians — objected to the idea that their 5-year-olds needed to be taught about &#8220;sex work&#8221; and &#8220;gender transitioning&#8221; by Left-wing activists posing as teachers, the school district told them they had no recourse. In fact, the district slandered the parents as bigots. All these parents were seeking was the ability to opt out of this indoctrination. They didn&#8217;t even demand that the classes be removed from the curriculum. But the school district denied their request. So the parents sued.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1581-member-exclusive?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
Which brings us to yesterday&#8217;s oral arguments. I want to begin with this question from Justice Alito, because it gets to the core of the issue. Alito wants to know why the school district is so hell-bent on forcing children to read books about homosexuality, transgenderism and so on. (To be clear, that&#8217;s what the school district is doing. They&#8217;re not merely providing these books in the school library. Teachers are actively telling students to read the books as part of class.) The truthful answer to Justice Alito&#8217;s question is simple: The Left understands that, if the LGBT movement is going to survive, it needs to indoctrinate new members at a very young age.
But the school district can&#8217;t say that out loud, of course. So instead, the lawyer representing the Montgomery school district&#8217;s superintendent, a man named Alan Schoenfeld, starts talking in circles about how impossible it would be, at a practical level, for the school district to allow students to opt out of this curriculum. But nothing he says actually makes sense. It gets so bad that, at the end of his rambling non-answer, Justice Kavanaugh chimes in to confirm that indeed, no one has any idea what the hell this guy is talking about. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 alito, whats the big deal" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q118nmS1g2s?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
As best I can tell, the lawyer for the school district is claiming that, because students might talk among themselves about certain LGBT books that are discussed in this curriculum, it&#8217;s therefore impossible to allow students to opt out of this kind of curriculum. In other words, whether or not students opt out, there&#8217;s a chance that they&#8217;ll hear about the materials that are discussed in these gay adventure books.
But this ignores a couple of obvious points.The big one is that, when a teacher is communicating a lesson to a class, it has a very different effect, as compared to one student talking to another student about a book during recess or whatever. The teacher is in a position of authority. It&#8217;s much easier for a 5-year-old to discount something another 5-year-old says, than it is to discount the wisdom of a 40-year-old teacher he&#8217;s told to trust. If this is an argument for anything, it&#8217;s an argument for not having these materials in the school to begin with. Which of course is the correct answer. But either way, it is not an argument against allowing parents to opt out.
The lawyer for the school district knows this but he can&#8217;t admit it. So he ends up confusing everyone in the room with a bunch of doublespeak. This kept happening throughout the oral arguments. Listen to this moment where Justice Gorsuch points out that, in Montgomery County, teachers are told to actively correct students who dare to suggest that men can&#8217;t become women. Gorsuch then asks the lawyer for Montgomery County whether this could constitute &#8220;coercion.&#8221; The obvious answer is yes. But instead of saying that, here&#8217;s the gibberish that the attorney comes back with:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 gorsuch, coercion, correcting himself" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x3sWOLDR4Q0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Justice Gorsuch gives an example where a student says, &#8220;a boy can&#8217;t be a girl.&#8221; And then the lawyer states that it&#8217;s not &#8220;coercive,&#8221; in any way, for the teacher to correct the student&#8217;s comment, in front of the entire class. He then changes his mind and says the opposite.
Even when he&#8217;s not contradicting himself, the school district&#8217;s lawyer managed to make a mockery of the entire case. 
Here&#8217;s his opening statement, for example:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="007 beginning with mr shonfeld" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xkw27dw9T5g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Yes, according to this attorney for the school district, there&#8217;s no difference between teaching elementary-school students about wars, and teaching them that boys can become girls. Telling students about the War of 1812 is just like telling them that it&#8217;s totally reasonable to chemically castrate minors.
One of the ways we know this isn&#8217;t true, aside from using basic common sense, is that there&#8217;s no army of parents demanding that schools stop teaching students about wars. That&#8217;s because it&#8217;s understood that teaching students about wars is not a general endorsement of violence. Additionally, everyone agrees that history is important and useful because it&#8217;s grounded in reality. On the other hand, gender ideology is just that — ideological.
This lawyer was not the only person to embarrass himself yesterday. That&#8217;s a given. After all, Ketanji Brown Jackson was also in attendance at the hearing. And as you&#8217;d expect, she did not disappoint. Single-handedly, she dropped the collective IQ in the room by about 10 points, just by opening her mouth. And of course, she opened her mouth on the side of indoctrinating children, because she takes the Left&#8217;s position on every issue. Behold, Ketanji Brown Jackson&#8217;s argument in favor of mandatory indoctrination in public schools:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 can just go to private school" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y-FJrhGbwrw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
Yes, you can homeschool, says Ketanji Brown Jackson. You can pay for an expensive private school. Therefore, there&#8217;s no &#8220;burden&#8221; on these parents, apparently. It&#8217;s not a &#8220;burden&#8221; to have to pay more money, and change your child&#8217;s school, because Montgomery County decided to teach LGBT propaganda. And then the lawyer representing the parents responds, and points out that she&#8217;s completely wrong, and many other cases demonstrate why she&#8217;s wrong. And then she goes quiet and they move on.
Here’s one more clip from these arguments, involving Justice Alito questioning the school board&#8217;s lawyer. He follows up on this logic, about how the parents can supposedly just go to a private school. He begins by talking from the perspective of one of these parents:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="009 alito, too bad" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hgRo17KtvU8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
This is what it looks like in the Supreme Court when &#8220;sparks fly,&#8221; so to speak. Alito is making his disdain for the school district&#8217;s argument extremely clear, which is exactly what he should do. They&#8217;re trying to force-feed gender ideology to children, and instead of owning it, they&#8217;re lying and telling the parents to pay more money to find a private school that won&#8217;t interfere with their religious liberties. But the Constitution doesn&#8217;t work that way. And it appears the Montgomery County school district, and school districts all over the country, are about to discover that.
This is not a close case. That&#8217;s why even the far-Left outlet Vox <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250422191725/https://www.vox.com/scotus/409921/supreme-court-dont-say-gay-mahmoud-taylor">reported</a>: 
<blockquote>The Supreme Court’s &#8216;Don’t Say Gay&#8217; argument went disastrously for public schools.</blockquote>
At the moment, the most likely outcome is that, when very young children are involved, parents will retain the right to opt out of curriculums involving gender ideology, or any other extreme ideology that conflicts with their established religion. Everyone can see this coming.
And just to underscore that, yesterday Randi Weingarten, the head of one of the largest teachers&#8217; unions in the country, went on Fox News. And she admitted, right away, that she wouldn&#8217;t read these books in the classroom. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="010 Randi" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/luc0jWbW_HA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
We all know that Randi Weingarten isn&#8217;t saying this because she believes it. She&#8217;s maybe the most calculating political operative in the country, after Nancy Pelosi. But Weingarten understands when the Left is overplaying its hand. She knows that they&#8217;re on the cusp of yet another crushing defeat in their efforts to indoctrinate children, and she&#8217;s trying to soften that blow when it inevitably comes.
Unfortunately for Weingarten, the truth is, there&#8217;s no way to accomplish that. Gender ideology and LGBT activists, as we&#8217;ve discussed many times, are now extremely unpopular. They have alienated the entire country, to the point that they may have cost Democrats the last election. The only way an ideology like this can survive is by targeting children before they&#8217;re able to develop their cognitive abilities. That&#8217;s their only viable play. And in a few short months, after this case is inevitably decided against the public school system of Montgomery County, it&#8217;ll be much, much harder for these people to accomplish that.

Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Parental Rights Regarding LGBTQ Books In Schools

The Lawyers Promoting Child Indoctrination To SCOTUS Were Absolutely Humiliated

Books

Brett Kavanaugh

Children's Books

Education

Elementary Schools

gender ideology

Ketanji Brown Jackson

LGBTQ

Matt Walsh

Neil Gorsuch

Opinion

Parents rights

Samuel Alito

Virginia

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court indicated that it would side with parents who want the option of keeping their children away from LGBTQ-themed books in schools.
The justices offered their comments during <a href="https://www.c-span.org/event/public-affairs-event/supreme-court-hears-case-on-lgbtq-books-in-public-schools/432473" target="_blank" rel="noopener">oral arguments</a> in the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor, which revolves around parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. In 2022, the county’s school board approved LGBTQ-themed books for its language arts curriculum. In 2023, the board refused parents the option of having their children excused from such instruction.
“One book describes the story of a girl attending her uncle’s same-sex wedding, for example, while another book, Pride Puppy, tells the story of a puppy that gets lost during a Pride parade,” <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/04/supreme-court-likely-to-rule-for-parental-opt-out-on-lgbtq-books-in-schools/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SCOTUSblog</a> noted.
A lower court ruled that the school board did not have to notify parents when the storybooks would be used, as such notification would have allowed parents to opt their children out of the curriculum. “A federal appeals court reasoned that on the ‘threadbare’ facts before it, the parents had not demonstrated that exposing their children to the storybooks compelled the parents to violate their religion,” SCOTUSBlog reported.
Eric Baxter, an attorney for the parents, told Justice Clarence Thomas that teachers were required to use the books and the school board suggested they do so five times in the school year. Justice Samuel Alito bluntly stated the county’s policy permitted schools to teach children moral principles that were “highly objectionable to parents and they can’t opt out,” and asked simply, “What is the big deal about allowing them to opt out of this?” while pointing out that students could opt out of health classes.
Meanwhile, the defendants’ attorney argued there was a difference between “exposure” and “coercion.” Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch contended that the presentation of the curriculum was more than just exposing children to the ideas, making coercion a possibility. Gorsuch asked the attorney for the school board, “The exposure versus coercion line that you ask us to draw, how does that play out in the case of the Mohammed image for the Muslim student?”
“In those circumstances, the school is coercing the individual to act contrary to a religious belief,” the attorney replied.
“Just being exposed to the image? The exposure there is coercion, in your view?” Gorsuch asked.
“I think it’s the difference between exposure to ideas and activity that coerces you to engage in conduct that is in violation of your belief,” the attorney answered.
“So the idea is the image of the prophet?” Gorsuch asked. “So it’s the image that makes the difference, rather than an idea?”
“I think it’s conduct that makes the difference. &#8230; So if there were a book that described someone making an image of the prophet Mohammed, I don’t think the parent would have the ability to object, even given the religious prohibition at issue, on simply being exposed to the idea that people might depict the image of Mohammed. Being required to view the image of the prophet Mohammed in contravention of a religious objection, is being required to engage in conduct,” the attorney replied.
“The child is sitting passively and the teacher’s just reading a storybook,” Gorsuch pointed out, prompting the attorney to admit, “I think if the storybook features the depiction of the prophet Mohammed, that is a compulsion to engage in conduct that violates your religious belief.”
Gorsuch pointed out, “You say this is only about exposure, but we also have in the records some guidance materials for teachers, one of which is if a students says that a boy says a boy can’t be a girl because if he was born a boy, a teacher is to respond, ‘That comment is hurtful, and we shouldn’t use negative words to talk about people’s identities.’ Is that exposure, or is that something else for a 3 to 5-year-old?”
Chief Justice John Roberts declared that even if the school did not require students “to affirm what is being taught in books or lessons,” that may not be “a realistic concept for a five-year-old.”
Meanwhile, leftist Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “asked how far the parents’ rule would extend. For example, she inquired, could a parent ask to have her child not placed in a classroom with a gay teacher who has pictures of her same-sex wedding in the classroom?” SCOTUSblog reported.

Preschool children playing with colorful shapes

SCOTUS Hints It Will Side With Parents Who Want Opt-Out For Kids Exposed To LGBT Materials

U.S.

In 2007, when Hillary Clinton was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/us/politics/26DEBATE-TRANSCRIPT.html">asked</a> in a Democratic primary debate whether she would be comfortable having “King and King” — a children’s picture book about a prince who marries another man — read to her second-grade child as part of the school curriculum, she responded that it was a “matter of parental discretion.”
It’s remarkable how far off the deep end the Left has gone in just a few short years.
This week, the Supreme Court will <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_calendars/MonthlyArgumentCalApril2025.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hear a case</a> brought by a group of parents claiming what Clinton argued years ago: Parents should be able to decide whether or not their children read LGBTQ storybooks at school.
Oral arguments will be heard for the parental rights case Mahmoud v. Taylor, which <a href="https://becketfund.org/media/religious-parents-ask-supreme-court-to-restore-opt-outs-for-pride-storybooks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">originated</a> when the Montgomery County Board of Education introduced LGBTQ storybooks to the elementary school curriculum and revoked its existing parental notice and opt-out policies. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian parents challenged the school district’s ban on elementary school opt-outs on the grounds that the policy burdened their constitutional right to free exercise of religion.
The diverse coalition of parents isn’t asking the school district to remove the LGBTQ storybooks from classrooms. They simply want the option to remove their children from the classroom when content is taught that conflicts with their religious beliefs. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and that vocation doesn’t stop when kids begin to attend school.
The board of education added storybooks that introduce gender ideology and sexuality to children as young as three or four years old. These storybooks are transparently part of an activist push to introduce children to same-sex relationships, transgender ideology, and LGBTQ vocabulary at a startlingly young age.
“Born Ready” features a female main character who repeatedly claims, “Inside, I’m a boy,” and whose parents immediately start treating her like a boy. “Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love,” Penelope’s mom tells her confused older brother. The book’s author, Jodie Patterson, serves on the board of the Human Rights Campaign, a radical LGBTQ advocacy group.
Another book in the Montgomery County curriculum, <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">titled</a> “My Rainbow,” is about a transgender-identifying boy’s desire to have long hair to fit in with “cisgender girls.” Trinity Neal, a transgender-identifying boy, and his mother, DeShanna, a nonbinary activist, wrote the story based on their experiences. DeShanna <a href="https://history.delaware.gov/lgbtq/my-rainbow-and-trinity-neals-rainbow-wig/">advocated</a> for Medicaid coverage of Trinity’s puberty blockers, resulting in the first Medicaid coverage of transgender medical procedures in their home state of Delaware. Subsequently, Trinity <a href="https://history.delaware.gov/lgbtq/my-rainbow-and-trinity-neals-rainbow-wig/">became</a> the first minor in the state to change his birth certificate’s gender marker from male to female.
“Jacob’s Room to Choose,” about a cross-dressing boy whose school accommodates him by abolishing gendered bathrooms, was <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">published</a> through the American Psychological Association’s children’s book imprint. APA has prominently <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2024/02/policy-supporting-transgender-nonbinary#:~:text=%E2%80%9CAPA%20also%20affirms%20the%20essential,appropriate%20youth%20self%2Dadvocacy.%E2%80%9D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> transgender medical procedures for minors and advocated for so-called “gender-affirming care.”
The other books at the heart of Mahmoud v. Taylor are similarly written at an elementary school reading level but focus on complex adult topics of sexuality and gender identity. “Love, Violet” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">focuses</a> on a same-sex relationship between elementary school classmates. “Pride Puppy” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">instructs</a> readers to identify leather, underwear, a lip ring, an intersex flag, and a drag king in its illustrations.
“What Are Your Words?” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">encourages</a> kids to change their pronouns, promoting confusing pairs like “ey/em,” “ze/zir,” and “xe/xir,” and using they/them pronouns to refer to individuals in the story. And “Intersection Allies,” another book <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">featured</a> in the case, includes a foreword by critical race theorist and activist Kimberle Crenshaw.
These storybooks are examples of radical propaganda written by progressive activists to shape the hearts and minds of the next generation. Kids may not know better than to believe what they’re taught, but American adults aren’t so convinced by these woke storybooks. Only 3% of Americans <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20250115160612/Religious-Freedom-Index-2024-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believe</a> that instruction on human sexuality and gender identity is appropriate for pre-K or kindergarten-aged children. And 77% of Americans <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20250115160612/Religious-Freedom-Index-2024-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believe</a> that parents should be able to opt their children out of gender and sexuality instruction.
Just a few years ago, I pulled my children out of Fairfax County Schools because of the progressive garbage they were being exposed to in their classrooms on a daily basis. My family is not alone. There is a large movement of parents who have made the same decision we have, but not every family is in a position to do so. Parents should undoubtedly have the right to opt their children out of reading these radical activist storybooks: Children are not wards of the state.
When public schools add storybooks that teach gender ideology as truth, the state has violated the right of parents to raise their children in their religious tradition, along with teaching them the corresponding religious beliefs about gender, human sexuality, and the meaning of marriage.
The government has no business mandating that elementary students learn radical gender ideology. Fortunately, parents will do whatever it takes to protect their children and exercise their parental rights — even if it means taking the case to the Supreme Court.
* * *
Terry Schilling is a parental rights advocate and president of the American Principles Project.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Mixed race teacher reading to class

Will SCOTUS Back Parents When It Comes To LGBTQ Storybooks?

Children

Gender

Parental Rights in Education

Parenting

Public Schools

Schools

Right now, the U.S. Supreme Court faces a crucial test: deciding whether states can criminalize undercover journalism simply because those in power dislike being recorded. At stake is more than just one organization’s right to expose wrongdoing — it’s about safeguarding free speech and transparency in an era increasingly defined by censorship and institutional distrust.
Project Veritas, known for undercover exposés revealing abuses within powerful institutions, recently petitioned the Supreme Court to challenge Oregon’s restrictive recording law. This statute demands that anyone recording in even the most public of places notify everyone else that they are being recorded. But there’s a rub: the state doles about permission slips making it easier to record some subjects, but not others. In short, Oregon law says you can easily record police abuse but not a school administrator admitting to indoctrinating students.
This arbitrary distinction represents precisely the kind of content-based speech restriction the First Amendment prohibits. It gives state authorities unchecked power to silence investigative efforts those in power dislike while permitting other investigations deemed politically acceptable.
Daily Wire readers should understand these implications clearly. The conservative movement has seen firsthand how selective enforcement of “privacy” laws punishes those uncovering inconvenient truths. Consider the notorious prosecution of David Daleiden and his investigation into Planned Parenthood. Instead of pursuing Planned Parenthood, California authorities, led by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris, targeted Daleiden himself.
Matt Walsh <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-california-prosecuting-journalists-doing-matt-walsh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">aptly warned</a> at the time that such prosecutions could “criminalize all forms of undercover journalism.” Walsh was right: when governments can weaponize privacy laws against whistleblowers, corruption thrives unchecked. We’d like to stop that.
Project Veritas’s case underscores this danger. If Oregon’s law stands, it sets a precedent emboldening other states to enact similarly repressive measures. Such laws don’t merely threaten controversial groups like Project Veritas — they imperil every citizen-journalist, whistleblower, and parent aiming to hold those in power accountable.
Imagine parents secretly recording school officials implementing extremist curricula, or a VA hospital employee documenting abuse against veterans. Under Oregon’s model, these citizen-journalists become criminals rather than heroes. Balderdash.
Critics argue undercover journalism invades privacy. Yet, there’s a critical difference between personal privacy and public accountability. Recording private citizens’ truly private conversations — happening, say in someone’s home or a doctor’s office — is rightly protected against. But public officials and newsworthy figures talking about bad deeds or public policy in public must not be shielded from scrutiny.
The hypocrisy here is glaring. Legacy media applauded secret recordings like the Access Hollywood tapes or Greenpeace’s hidden-camera sting of Exxon executives because these aligned politically with their interests. Yet conservative-leaning investigations face condemnation and criminalization. Oregon’s law codifies this double standard into state policy, echoing Orwell’s chilling warning in &#8220;Animal Farm,&#8221; “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The state now decides whose truths may be exposed and whose must remain hidden, a hallmark of dystopian control.
Today, Americans distrust legacy media precisely because traditional reporting methods often fail to reveal the full truth. In our digital age, audiences demand — and deserve — objective evidence. Hidden cameras have become essential tools for accountability journalism, offering unfiltered glimpses into realities otherwise obscured by spin, stonewalling, and hidden agendas.
If the Supreme Court allows Oregon to criminalize this essential method of truth-gathering, it cripples the First Amendment. Citizen-journalism, which Daily Wire audiences rightly value, becomes vulnerable nationwide. The justices must affirm a core constitutional principle: truth doesn’t need permission from those hiding it. Our American guarantee of free speech supports rigorous, bold investigations capable of exposing hidden abuses. In 2025, undercover journalism isn’t a fringe tactic — it’s a fundamental aspect of free inquiry and transparency.
It’s time the Supreme Court rejects Oregon’s unconstitutional censorship. America needs more citizen-journalism, not less. The freedom to expose wrongdoing must remain protected — even if it makes the powerful uncomfortable.
* * *
Benjamin Barr is a partner at Barr &amp; Klein PLLC where his practice engages in a variety of constitutional litigation nationwide. Along with his law partner, Stephen R. Klein, the firm represents Project Veritas in this matter.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

DALLAS, TX – NOVEMBER 29: James OKeefe, founder of Project Veri

Supreme Court Must Protect Citizen-Journalists From Oregon’s Censorship

Supreme Court Must Protect Citizen-Journalists From Oregon's Censorship

Censorship

interview

Journalism

Oregon

Privacy

Project Veritas

Whistleblowers

The United States and China continue their tariff war, the Supreme Court rules on several emergency requests, and El Salvador’s president is set to visit the White House.
It’s Monday, April 14, and this is the news you need to know to start your week. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
&nbsp;
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/china-escalates-trade-war-trump-scotus-victories-4-14-25/id1576594336?i=1000703434916" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
&nbsp;
<h2>Trade Negotiations Continue</h2>
<div id="attachment_902939" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-902939" class="size-large wp-image-902939" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2208185431-864x576.jpg" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 02: U.S. President Donald Trump holds up a chart while speaking during a “Make America Wealthy Again” trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025 in Washington, DC. Touting the event as “Liberation Day”, Trump is expected to announce additional tariffs targeting goods imported to the U.S." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2208185431-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2208185431-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2208185431-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2208185431.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)</div>
Topline:  President Donald Trump will host a number of foreign leaders for trade negotiations this week as Congress prepares to pass a crucial spending package. Meanwhile, China has cut off shipments of rare earth minerals and magnets after Trump paused most tariffs for everyone but them.
Beijing predictably responded by raising its own tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125%. The communist nation went a step further Sunday, halting the export of rare earth minerals and magnets.
For context, China produces upwards of 60% of the world’s rare earth minerals and 90% of all rare earth magnets, which are crucial for high-tech chips, semiconductors, batteries, and car manufacturing. That pause could have significant impacts on the American auto and tech industries. The White House says the fact that America is so reliant on Chinese products shows how crucial it is to increase American manufacturing and form stronger trade alliances elsewhere. 
Stateside, President Trump made big news over the weekend, announcing that electronics like smartphones and laptops will temporarily be exempt from tariffs. That’s a major relief to tech giants like Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft. The White House said those exemptions would be temporary — presumably, they’re sending a message to Beijing that they better make a deal before they become permanent. 
Public Perception: A <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-trump-tariffs-13-04-2025/">CBS</a> poll this weekend showed that just 42% of Americans favor tariffs on imported goods, compared to 58% who oppose them, while Trump&#8217;s approval rating on the economy fell to 44%. Similarly, the University of Michigan’s closely watched <a href="https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/">Consumer Sentiment Index</a> fell 11% to its lowest point since the COVID lockdowns. Americans cited the potential for rising inflation and unemployment as their biggest areas of concern.
In better news for the president, that same CBS poll found that nearly 60% of Americans believe Trump is using tariffs as a negotiating tool — so that message seems to have gotten through. <a href="https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1910714949418045563?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">Quinnipiac</a> found that Republicans and Democrats are now tied on the question of “Which party cares more for the needs of people like you.” For decades, Democrats have had a massive, oftentimes twenty-point lead on that question. It now appears that more and more Americans view Republicans as caring about the needs of average people. That is a generational shift indicative of where Trump is taking the party economically. 
&nbsp;
<h2>Supreme Court Scoreboard</h2>
<div id="attachment_907193" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-907193" class="size-large wp-image-907193" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/SCOTUS-Facade-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />(Al Drago/Getty Images)</div>
Topline: The Supreme Court weighs several of Trump’s executive actions. How is his agenda faring – and what’s next on the docket? 
The Trump administration is at the center of several high-stakes battles before the Supreme Court. The rulings are testing the limits of executive power on issues ranging from deportations to federal regulations. At this point, SCOTUS has ruled on six emergency applications, and thus far, the president is faring well. 
One of the most significant rulings we’ve seen has been on the Alien Enemies Act. It’s a somewhat unique legal case where both sides—the Trump administration and the ACLU—are claiming victory. The administration argued that Venezuelan gangs like Tren de Aragua pose such a national security threat, and under the authority of that 1798 Act, they can remove alleged gang members rapidly, without hearings, because they’re not U.S. citizens. Last week, SCOTUS lifted a lower judge’s block on those deportations, but it did add some guardrails. Detainees must now receive notice and due process. 
In addition, the Supreme Court also overturned a lower court decision ordering Trump to rehire 16,000 probationary federal employees. In a 7-2 ruling, SCOTUS found the organizations suing lacked standing since individual workers weren’t part of the lawsuit.
On the Docket: Next week, the court will hear arguments regarding the president&#8217;s claim of immunity from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. There are also challenges to executive orders on birthright citizenship and federal funding cuts in the pipeline. But so far, the court has been notably restrained. Many analysts are pointing out that Chief Justice Roberts is steering the court toward narrow, technical rulings to avoid blockbuster showdowns with Trump.
&nbsp;
<h2>Bukele Visits the White House</h2>
<div id="attachment_907027" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-907027" class="size-large wp-image-907027" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1171054018-865x576.jpg" alt="US President Donald Trump and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador shake hands as they hold a meeting in New York, on September 25, 2019, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1171054018-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1171054018-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1171054018-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1171054018.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />(SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Topline:  President Trump is set to welcome El Salvador’s president to the White House on Monday – after what Trump’s calling a “model” deal to deport alleged violent gang members.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, arrived in Washington, D.C. on Sunday. The administration has worked closely with the Salvadoran leader on immigration and the detainment of suspected foreign gang members. The United States has sent about 250 illegal immigrants with suspected gang ties to a high-security prison in El Salvador. The two leaders have been on remarkably positive terms; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the relationship has “become a model for others to work with” the Trump administration.
“I think [Bukele]&#8217;s doing a fantastic job and taking care of a lot of problems that we really wouldn’t be able to take care of from a cost standpoint,” Trump <a href="https://x.com/Karla_veron1/status/1911444833874424126">told</a> reporters over the weekend.
In addition to immigration, trade may also be on the agenda. Trump and Bukele haven’t mentioned this publicly, but El Salvador is technically under a blanket 10% tariff that Trump put into place last week. Roughly a third of El Salvador’s exports are sent to the United States, meaning the impact of the tariff on their economy could be significant.
&nbsp;

Trump-greets-Jordan-King-and-Crown-Prince-at-White-House

Morning Brief: China Escalates Trade War, SCOTUS Scoreboard & Trump Hosts Bukele

China

Communist China

Donald Trump

El Salvador

Media

Morning Wire

Nayib Bukele

Tariffs

In a win for President Donald Trump on Tuesday, the Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision blocked the effort of U.S. Judge William Alsup to force the Trump administration to rehire thousands of fired workers in numerous federal agencies.
On March 13, Alsup, a San Francisco judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton, had ruled on a lawsuit brought by federal employee unions that federal agencies had to rehire more than 16,000 probationary employees fired by the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM). He ordered OPM and the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs to bring back employees immediately.
Calling the fact that the Trump administration attributed the firings to “performance,” Alsup<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/13/fired-federal-probationary-employees-court-ruling-00228721" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> called</a> that a “gimmick,” adding, “It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie. &#8230; The words that I give you today should not be taken that some wild-and-crazy judge in San Francisco said that an administration cannot engage in a reduction in force. It can be done, if it’s done in accordance with the law.”
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court for a stay of Alsup’s order, which was granted. “The district court’s extraordinarily overbroad remedy is now inflicting ongoing, irreparable harm on the Executive Branch that warrants this Court’s urgent intervention,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris told the court.
“The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the Supreme Court <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25888805/24a904-order.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruled</a>.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
“The full implications of the ruling are not clear given that a federal judge in Maryland earlier this month issued a preliminary injunction that reinstated some of the employees not covered in the case before the Supreme Court,” CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/08/politics/probationary-fired-employees-supreme-court-trump/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>.
<p style="font-weight: 400;" data-uri="cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/cm98p7u660006356obqvmvacy@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-article-gutter="true" data-analytics-observe="on">“Although the court put Alsup’s order on hold, a different federal judge in Maryland also has issued an order, which remains in effect for now, that requires the reinstatement of probationary employees at 20 federal agencies who live and work in the 19 states (along with the District of Columbia) that brought the case,” ScotusBlog <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/04/justices-pause-order-to-reinstate-fired-federal-employees/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a>.

President Trump Holds “Make America Wealthy Again Event” In White House Rose Garden

SCOTUS Gives Trump Another Win, Blocks Rehiring Of Fired Federal Employees

Firings

Office of Personnel Management

Top Trump administration officials promised Monday to continue deporting suspected gang members after the Supreme Court ruled against a federal judge blocking the deportations from taking place under the Alien Enemies Act. 
 In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court overturned a block on carrying out the deportations imposed on the Trump administration by D.C. District Court Judge James Boasberg. After the ruling, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has designated as a terrorist organization, should leave the country now or face deportation.
“Following tonight’s landmark Supreme Court ruling, the American people can rest assured that [Noem], [Border czar Tom Homan] and I will direct our assets to scour the country for any remnants of Tren De Aragua and DEPORT THEM,” Bondi posted on X.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Following tonight’s landmark Supreme Court ruling, the American people can rest assured that <a href="https://twitter.com/Sec_Noem?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Sec_Noem</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/RealTomHoman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RealTomHoman</a> and I will direct our assets to scour the country for any remnants of Tren De Aragua and DEPORT THEM.
&mdash; Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) <a href="https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi/status/1909389172680335671?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Those comments were echoed by Noem, who has toured the El Salvadorian prison where the administration sent around 250 suspected members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua last month. 
“President Trump was proven RIGHT once again! SCOTUS confirms our Commander-in-Chief Donald J. Trump has the power to stop the invasion of our country by terrorists using war time powers. LEAVE NOW or we will arrest you, lock you up and deport you,” Noem said. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
President Trump was proven RIGHT once again! SCOTUS confirms our Commander-in-Chief Donald J. Trump has the power to stop the invasion of our country by terrorists using war time powers. LEAVE NOW or we will arrest you, lock you up and deport you. <a href="https://t.co/irLTSEo0GF">pic.twitter.com/irLTSEo0GF</a>
&mdash; Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sec_Noem/status/1909384333263298865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In its <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a931_2c83.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruling</a>, the Supreme Court said that while potential deportees must get due process, the cases should not be litigated in the District of Columbia but in Texas, where the suspected gang members were in custody. 
“The detainees seek equitable relief against the implementation of the Proclamation and against their removal under the AEA. They challenge the Government’s interpretation of the Act and assert that they do not fall within the category of removable alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments,” the majority wrote. “The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices dissented. 
President Donald Trump celebrated the decision, saying it would allow him to protect the border. 
“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” he <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114299368234840539" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on Truth Social. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”

US deports over 250 alleged gang members to El Salvador’s mega-prison

‘LEAVE NOW’: Trump Admin Vows To Keep Deporting Suspected Gang Members After SCOTUS Win

Department of Justice

Pam Bondi

Tren De Aragua

On Friday, after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg had issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan nationals and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his decision, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to step in.
In her message to the Supreme Court, U.S. Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris said the “flawed” orders from Boasberg “threaten the government&#8217;s sensitive negotiations with foreign powers” and risk “serious and perhaps irreparable harm if not immediately reviewed&#8221; by the Supreme Court, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-administration-asks-supreme-court-review-el-salvador-deportation-flight-case?intcmp=tw_fnc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Boasberg had blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members, calling for the return of more than 250 illegal aliens deported to El Salvador and ordering the planes to be turned around. The Trump administration immediately appealed the ruling; the administration said its actions were not subject to Boasberg’s order “because the presidential actions they challenge are not subject to judicial review,” adding that their actions were not violative because “the relevant flights left U.S. airspace” before the order and the planes were over international waters when it was issued.
Boasberg ordered the administration to provide additional information on the first two flights to El Salvador, such as the time the planes left U.S. airspace and when they landed. He ordered the government to respond.
The DOJ <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-administration-pushes-back-judges-request-answers-deporation-fli-rcna197050" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responded</a>, contending, “Continuing to beat a dead horse solely for the sake of prying from the Government legally immaterial facts and wholly within a sphere of core functions of the Executive Branch is both purposeless and frustrating to the consideration of the actual legal issues at stake in this case.” The DOJ also argued that complying with Boasberg’s order exposed negotiations with other nations “to serious risk of micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expeditions and potential public disclosure.”
The Trump administration then <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.41845/gov.uscourts.cadc.41845.01208721711.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appealed</a> Boasberg’s ruling, stating, “The district court’s hasty order enjoining — on a nationwide basis — the President’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (&#8216;AEA&#8217;) against a designated foreign terrorist organization linked to the Venezuelan government represents an extraordinary intrusion upon the president’s constitutional and statutory authority to protect the Nation from alien enemies.”
Later that day, Boasberg gave the government one more day to respond while threatening “consequences,” writing:
<blockquote>
To begin, the Court seeks this information, not as a “micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expedition,” but to determine if the Government deliberately flouted its Orders issued on March 15, 2025, and, if so, what the consequences should be &#8230;
</blockquote>
On Wednesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to uphold Boasberg’s decision.

US-VOTE-JUSTICE-TRUMP-IMMUNITY

Trump Admin Asks SCOTUS To Review Judge’s Order Blocking Deportations

Deportations

James Boasberg

Every time a radical, out-of-control federal judge issues an outrageous opinion, you would think things couldn’t get any worse. But then someone like Richard Young comes along.
Young, a Clinton-appointed federal district court judge in Indiana, just ordered the state’s Department of Corrections to provide sex reassignment surgery to a man who wants to masquerade as a woman—a man who is in prison for murdering a baby.
That, shockingly, is what Young did in his <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trans-inmate-prison-killing-baby-must-get-gender-surgery-earliest-opportunity-judge.print">order</a> in Autumn Cordellione v. Indiana. Lest you be fooled by the name “Autumn” or the fact that Young refers to “Autumn” as “Ms.” and “her” throughout his disgraceful opinion, this criminal’s real name is Jonathan Richardson. He is in prison for strangling his 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001.
Richardson, who the judge refers to in his order as the “individual” or the “incarcerated transgender person,” is being represented by the ACLU in this lawsuit, in which Richardson demands that he be provided with “gender-affirming surgery.” Really, how can anyone justify making contributions to the ACLU when it engages in this type of despicable litigation?
Indiana has already provided this male child killer with “panties, makeup, and form-fitting clothing” while in prison—a place that, if justice is served for this vicious crime, Richardson will never, ever leave. But as Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trans-inmate-prison-killing-baby-must-get-gender-surgery-earliest-opportunity-judge.print">says</a>, “Convicted murderers don’t get to demand that taxpayers foot the bill for expensive and controversial sex-change operations. It defies all common sense.”
Au contraire, according to Young. He says that Indiana’s failure to provide Richardson with the surgery necessary to cut off his penis and give him fake breasts violates the Eighth Amendment.
If this wasn’t a real order from a real federal judge, you’d think it was something written for The Babylon Bee or Mad magazine.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.” As the Heritage Guide to the Constitution <a href="https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/amendments/8/essays/161/cruel-and-unusual-punishment">explains</a>, the amendment was included in order to prevent the type of “torturous punishments” often inflicted by the British Crown, like “pillorying, disemboweling, decapitation, and drawing and quartering.”
Yet for decades, opponents have tried to use the ban on “cruel and unusual punishments” to outlaw the death penalty altogether. The Supreme Court ended that in 1976 in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/74-6257">Gregg v. Georgia</a>, when it held that the death penalty is not a per se violation of the Eighth Amendment.
The court has further held in a series of cases that under the Eighth Amendment, punishments cannot be disproportionate to the offense. But it also held just last year in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf">City of Grants Pass v. Johnson</a>, a case illustrating the extremes to which those trying to misuse the Eighth Amendment will go, that public bans on camping in public parks are not “cruel and unusual punishment.” That claim was just as absurd as the ACLU’s claim in the Richardson case.
Young relies on his opinion in the guidelines on “gender dysphoria” issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, as well as some other so-called experts. WPATH’s <a href="https://can-sg.org/2024/06/28/scandalous-suppression-of-research-on-transgender-health/">work</a> and medical opinions have been severely criticized for bias and lack of scientific rigor. It has also been accused of suppressing research that contradicts its opinions.
Young dismissed the opinion of the treating psychologist at Richardson’s prison that Richardson has personality disorders, not “gender dysphoria,” that display “an established pattern of attention-seeking behavior.”
Richardson is certainly getting that attention with Young’s decision that not providing him with gender surgery is “cruel and unusual punishment.” But we shouldn’t be surprised. Young is the same judge who in 2018 struck down an Indiana law that required healthcare providers to report abortion complications to the state health department in <a href="https://www.aclu-in.org/sites/default/files/sea_340_decisoin.pdf">PPINK v. Indiana</a>.
In other words, when the health and lives of real women were endangered by botched abortions performed by incompetent physicians who committed malpractice, Young prevented state health authorities from being able to do anything about it. Young apparently believes in protecting only fake women, not real ones.
As this case demonstrates, it isn’t only the Trump administration that’s dealing with an arrogant, imperial judiciary that ignores the Constitution and the rule of law and acts far outside of its authority. State governments are also on the receiving end of outlandish and bizarre orders like this one.
The Supreme Court recently declined to intervene – at least for now &#8211; in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a831_3135.pdf">Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition</a>, in which the Trump administration is dealing with another rogue judge who has ordered the government to distribute $2 billion of taxpayer money without examining the serious defenses raised by the government. In a dissent from the court’s refusal to hear the case, which was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Samuel Alito wrote:
Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) $2 billion? The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No,” but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.
The taxpayers and residents of Indiana should also be stunned by the actions of Judge Richard Young who used his thus-far-unchecked power to force them to pay for a sex change operation for a child murderer, the worst of the worst.
Stunned indeed.
Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Tyrants Of The Imperious Judiciary: Federal Judge Orders ‘Gender Reassignment’ For Child Killer

Heritage Foundation

Indiana

Judges

Prison

Transgender

There are few weapons in politics that are more effective than mass disorientation. If you can confuse people about obvious truths, then they become much easier to control. This is a familiar tactic to most living Americans at this point. We are, after all, the first generation in the history of the world to have to grapple with the absurdity that men can change their gender at will. But there&#8217;s really a whole art form to mass disorientation. It&#8217;s not just about spreading big lies. It also involves confusing people at every possible opportunity.
We&#8217;re confronted with deception like this all of the time. Media outlets and purported experts will repeatedly tell us to assume something is true, or to accept some new framework, even when it&#8217;s clearly false. This can continue for decades, without interruption or pushback from anyone.
Consider, for example, the topic of so-called &#8220;conversion therapy,&#8221; which the Supreme Court has just announced it will address in a few months. This could very well end up being the single most important free-speech case of our generation.
Before we get into the specifics of the case, it&#8217;s important to recognize that &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; is a term that&#8217;s been widely adopted by every mainstream institution in this country. Look through newspapers going back decades, and you&#8217;ll find tens of thousands of articles using the term as if it means something. And in particular, we&#8217;ve been told, it means something very bad — like using some sort of coercive tactic to force a homosexual patient to become straight, or convincing a trans-identifying individual that, in fact, he&#8217;s not really transgender.
Without exception, you&#8217;re commanded to think of these alleged &#8220;conversions&#8221; as acts of unspeakable evil. As of today, for instance, YouTube places a disclaimer written by the far-Left group &#8220;The Trevor Project&#8221; underneath every video discussing the topic of conversion therapy. They&#8217;ll probably append this disclaimer to this episode, too. The disclaimer reads: &#8220;Conversion therapy refers to a range of dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.&#8221;
Well, that sounds ominous. Conversion therapy, according to The Trevor Project and Silicon Valley, isn&#8217;t simply a bad idea. In fact, it&#8217;s &#8220;dangerous.&#8221; It&#8217;s like playing with downed power lines. You could lose your life because of conversion therapy. And indeed, the name &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; is intended to bring images like that to mind. You&#8217;re supposed to picture horrifying scenes of people strapped to gurneys and given electric shocks or lobotomies.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1554-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
Amid all this discussion about how horrible &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; is, the one thing you&#8217;re not supposed to do is pause for a second and realize that &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; — at least as it’s described by the Left — isn’t a real thing. The leftist conception of so-called “conversion therapy” is a fantasy. It&#8217;s like Big Foot, or the bogeyman. It is a myth intended to scare people and disorient them. By endlessly warning of the dangers of &#8220;conversion therapy,&#8221; the Left has successfully reframed the debate, so that most people go along with the general concept. But there&#8217;s no reason to do that.
For one thing, &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; when applied to &#8220;gender identity&#8221; is an entirely incoherent concept. To be very clear, they call it &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; when a counselor or therapist doesn&#8217;t assist or affirm the attempted conversion of a boy to a girl, or vice versa. Counseling that helps a boy accept himself for who he is, or a girl for who she is, is considered &#8220;conversion therapy,&#8221; even though it&#8217;s precisely the opposite of conversion therapy. In fact, what they call &#8220;gender affirmation&#8221; is actually conversion therapy, and what they call conversion therapy is actually gender affirmation. They have completely inverted the meaning of the word “conversion,” so that trying to change someone is affirmation and trying to help them accept themselves for who they are is conversion.
There&#8217;s arguably a better case for calling Christian counseling around same-sex attraction &#8220;conversion therapy,&#8221; in a sense. The counselor would be trying to help a person overcome their same-sex attraction, thereby helping them &#8220;convert&#8221; from gay to straight (if that&#8217;s how you want to put it). But if that&#8217;s the framing, then all therapy is a form of &#8220;conversion therapy.&#8221; All therapy aims to convert patients from one state to another — ideally, from a less-functional state to a more functional one. A depressed person might go to the therapist in order to be &#8220;converted&#8221; into a happy person. A schizophrenic might go to the therapist in order to be &#8220;converted&#8221; to a patient who doesn&#8217;t hear voices. And so on.
So at worst, we have an incoherent term. At best, it&#8217;s redundant. And that&#8217;s precisely the reason &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; has become a rallying cry for the Left. They know they can&#8217;t come out and admit that they want to ban speech, under the First Amendment. But when they cloak their speech bans by claiming they&#8217;re really banning &#8220;conversion therapy,&#8221; a lot of people will fall for it. In fact, I’m guessing if you did a poll of the average Republican voter and asked them how they feel about conversion therapy, a large number of them would insist that it’s an evil thing and they don’t support it.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/what-is-a-woman">WATCH: Matt Walsh&#8217;s groundbreaking documentary &#8216;What Is A Woman?&#8221;</a></h3>
The goal here, of course, is to force mental-health professionals to baptize as many young people as possible into the LGBT religion. And the easiest way of doing that is to ban these mental-health professionals from saying anything that might steer young people away from that path. That&#8217;s why nearly two-dozen states have outlawed so-called &#8220;conversion therapy,&#8221; and several other states ban the use of government funding for the practice. If a young boy comes into a psychologist&#8217;s office and says he&#8217;s really a girl, then in many cases, it would be against the law for the psychologist to disagree. The psychologist is legally barred from telling the boy that he is in fact actually a boy.
This is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment — both because it restricts the freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. The government is telling counselors — who are Christian in many cases — that they can&#8217;t say certain words or communicate certain ideas to their patients. And the counselors&#8217; clients, who are also often Christian, are being told that they can&#8217;t seek this type of care. A grown adult with same-sex attraction is, under these laws, prohibited from seeking care to overcome that attraction. The law is saying that the same sex attracted person who wants to be straight is not allowed to want that. This is a position that the Left has staked out, even though it obviously contradicts their supposed commitment to &#8220;keeping the government out of the doctor&#8217;s office.&#8221; (How quickly that principle goes out the window, when there&#8217;s free speech to ban.) These are the people who also say that if a parent wants to get sex change treatments for their child, it’s none of our business. Remember that was the case Chris Hayes made to Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago. Well, what if a parent wants to get treatment for a child to help them overcome same sex attraction? Suddenly all of that “it’s none of our business” stuff disappears. Suddenly it is very much Chris Hayes’s business. Funny how that works.
After many years, as I mentioned, bans on so-called &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; are finally heading to the Supreme Court. On Monday, the Court agreed to hear the case of Kaley Chiles, a Christian who&#8217;s also a licensed therapist. She&#8217;s banned under Colorado law from telling patients that there&#8217;s no way to change their gender. She&#8217;s also banned from counseling them against a homosexual lifestyle. If Chiles wins the case, then dozens of state-level bans on so-called &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; could be struck down immediately. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Colorado conversion therapy ban" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7ibTqz78zmo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The core legal issue, as you heard, is whether or not bans on &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; constitute bans on speech, or whether they constitute bans on &#8220;conduct&#8221;. The various federal appeals courts are split on this issue, somehow. And now the Supreme Court is set to resolve this split among the lower courts.
Just to dissect that a little bit more, because it really is incredible — Democrats are arguing in court that it doesn&#8217;t violate the First Amendment for the government to punish therapists who say certain things to their patients. They&#8217;re arguing that therapy sessions are really a form of &#8220;conduct&#8221; — like a surgical procedure, for example — and therefore, they can be regulated extensively by the government.
As lawyers for the state of Colorado put it, &#8220;a professional’s treatment of her patients and clients is fundamentally different, for First Amendment purposes, from laypersons’ interactions with each other.&#8221; Therefore, they want the Supreme Court to uphold Colorado&#8217;s law, which defines conversion therapy as, quote “any practice or treatment by a licensed physician specializing in the practice of psychiatry that attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” The ban includes, &#8220;efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.&#8221; 
What&#8217;s left unexplained here is how, exactly, speech can become &#8220;conduct&#8221; simply because of the job of the person saying it. That doesn&#8217;t seem clear. Nor is it clear how the law permits the treatment of &#8220;de-transitioners.&#8221; These are people who often want a therapist&#8217;s assistance as they reject their own assumed &#8220;gender identity,&#8221; which under the terms of this law, would seem to be illegal. These are the kinds of problems you run into when you start regulating speech and pretending it&#8217;s &#8220;conduct.&#8221;
Fortunately, there are signs that this particular challenge will be successful. The Supreme Court recently turned away a similar challenge to a ban on &#8220;conversion therapy,&#8221; but they&#8217;re taking this case. And the plaintiff is represented in this case by the group Alliance Defending Freedom, which famously defended the Colorado baker who didn&#8217;t want to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. They also defended a web designer who didn&#8217;t want to make a website celebrating gay marriages. And Alliance Defending Freedom won both of those cases. They have a very long and successful track record of affirming the right of free expression.
But the clearest sign that Alliance Defending Freedom is going to win this case is that the Left&#8217;s fundamental position, when you follow it to its logical conclusion, simply does not make any sense. They say that sexual orientation is immutable and unchangeable, which is why they claim conversion therapy can&#8217;t possibly work. But at the same time, they also say that sex is very mutable and changeable. Put it mildly, this doesn&#8217;t compute. How can it be that a man might become a woman, but a gay person can&#8217;t possibly become a straight person? How the hell is one a matter of self-identity and the other isn&#8217;t?
<h3><a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a></h3>
And on top of that, to change your sex is to change your sexual orientation. This is the logical problem that they can&#8217;t escape. If a straight man becomes a woman — and if he really is a woman, as they say — then he has not only gone from man to woman but from straight to lesbian. If sexual orientation is immutable, and if a sex is mutable, it would mean that every heterosexual man who transitions must transition into a heterosexual woman, which is to say he must now be attracted to men. But that&#8217;s not how it works most of the time. Usually by his own claim he goes from a straight man attracted to women to a lesbian woman attracted to women. That is what quote-unquote “trans women” say about themselves. They themselves are claiming that their sexual orientation changed.
Explaining all of this shouldn&#8217;t be necessary. It&#8217;s obvious to everyone when you spell it out. And of course, that&#8217;s why they came up with the term &#8220;conversion therapy&#8221; in the first place. The entire purpose of inventing the term is to obfuscate as much as possible, so that the issue is so muddled that no one can follow the logic anymore. It is yet another tool of mass disorientation, created by activists for their own political ends.
But in just a few months, these activists will have to take their case to the Supreme Court. They will have to convince the justices that a ban on speech isn&#8217;t really a ban on speech. It&#8217;s the kind of self-defeating argument that gender activists have successfully relied on for years, because no one&#8217;s ever challenged it. But that&#8217;s changing now. There&#8217;s a very real chance that the LGBT club is about to lose one of its most important tools for indoctrinating the youth, if this decision goes the way we think it will. For the benefit of millions of children seeking mental-health services, as well as anyone who values the First Amendment in this country, that decision can&#8217;t come soon enough.

Tissues and glass of water preparing for psychotherapy

‘Conversion Therapy’ Bans Are An Outrageous Attack On Free Speech

'Conversion Therapy' Bans Are An Outrageous Attack On Free Speech

Colorado

Psychology

A very serious constitutional issue is currently being fought over, and the Supreme Court came down on the wrong side.
President Trump had a plan to cut into USAID spending. DOGE basically wiped out about $50 billion in USAID spending, reporting that money as not comporting with American standards of foreign policy. Thus, a temporary federal freeze, an impoundment, was essentially put on those funds. Then, a district court judge put a freeze on the freeze to allow that money to continue to go out the door.
The constitutional issue involved here is whether a district court judge has the capacity to simply shut down a presidential nationwide action.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 5-4 vote, essentially remanded the case back to the district court, saying they need clarification as to why and how this is actually being done.
The five judges who voted in favor of doing so included three leftist judges — Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor — and two conservatives — John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The SCOTUS order <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a831_3135.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>:
<blockquote>The United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered a temporary restraining order enjoining the Government from enforcing directives pausing disbursements of foreign development assistance funds. The present application does not challenge the Government’s obligation to follow that order. On February 25, the District Court ordered the Government to issue payments for a portion of the paused disbursements—those owed for work already completed before the issuance of the District Court’s temporary restraining order—by 11:59 p.m. on February 26.</blockquote>
There was an invoice because the work was already done. Does the federal government have to pay the bill?
The SCOTUS order continued:
<blockquote>The Chief Justice entered an administrative stay shortly before the 11:59 p.m. deadline and subsequently referred the application to the Court. The application is denied. Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary injunction proceedings, the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.</blockquote>
It is unclear what the scope of this judgment is. SCOTUS is remanding the case back to the district court to figure out exactly what must be paused — and what doesn&#8217;t have to be. Are they saying the portion that has to go out is because the work has been completed? Or, are they saying pausing federal spending at all is not allowable? We will need clarification on that.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2152-member-exclusive">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
The decision elicited a harsh dissent from Justice Samuel Alito, who is awesome, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh.
In the same way some people rank their favorite baseball players, I rank my favorite Supreme Court justices: Thomas is at the top, followed closely by Alito.
Alito was terrific. He <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a831_3135.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>:
<blockquote>Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) two billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No,” but a majority of this court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.</blockquote>
Alito did not pull any punches. He continued:
<blockquote>In capsule form, this is what happened. Respondents are a group of American businesses and nonprofits that receive foreign-assistance funds from the State Department and the U. S. Agency for International Development. They brought suit and claimed that the current administration’s temporary pause of foreign-assistance payments is unlawful. On February 13, 2025, the District Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring the Government to halt its funding pause. It based that decision on a finding that respondents are likely to succeed in showing that the Government violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
After issuing the TRO, the District Judge grew frustrated with the pace at which funds were being disbursed, and on February 25, he issued a second order requiring the Government to pay out approximately $2 billion. The judge brushed aside the Government’s argument that sovereign immunity barred this enforcement order, and he took two steps that, unless corrected, would prevent any higher court from reviewing and possibly stopping the payments. First, he labeled the order as a non-appealable TRO, and second, he demanded that the money be paid within 36 hours.
This left the Government little time to try to obtain some review of what it regarded as a lawless order. The Government moved for a stay pending appeal in the District Court. But the judge shrugged off the Government’s sovereign immunity argument and ignored the Government’s representation that most of the money in question, once disbursed, could probably not be recovered.</blockquote>
 Alito further explained:
<blockquote>To start, it is clear that the District Court’s enforcement order should be construed as an appealable preliminary injunction, not a mere TRO. A TRO, as its name suggests, is “temporary,” and its proper role is to “restrain” challenged conduct for a short time while the court considers whether more lasting relief is warranted.</blockquote>
A ”temporary restraining order” does not apply in this instance because it is not temporary; once the money is gone, it&#8217;s gone. A typical temporary restraining order could instruct not to engage in a particular action for a certain period of time. But a temporary restraining order cannot instruct one to pay a certain amount of money to a particular person, as that is not a temporary restraining order. Once the money has been paid, there is no clawing it back. This is Alito&#8217;s point.
Alito declared, “Nor did the order merely ‘restrain’ the Government’s challenged action in order to ‘preserve the status quo.’ Rather, it ‘act[s] as a mandatory injunction requiring affirmative action’ by the Government.”
“Even if the majority is unwilling to vacate the District Court’s order, it should at least stay the District Court’s enforcement order until the Government is able to petition for a writ of certiorari,” he wrote, meaning that the Supreme Court would take up the full case. 
He is right about all of this. He concluded:
<blockquote>Today, the Court makes a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers. The District Court has made plain its frustration with the Government, and respondents raise serious concerns about nonpayment for completed work. But the relief ordered is, quite simply, too extreme a response. A federal court has many tools to address a party’s supposed nonfeasance. Self-aggrandizement of its jurisdiction is not one of them. </blockquote>
All of this raises questions as to why Justices Roberts and Coney Barrett did what they did. It&#8217;s not as extreme an order as it originally seems from the Supreme Court when it basically says any district court judge anywhere can put a nationwide temporary restraining order on the federal government for any reason whatsoever.
But, as Justice Alito says, if the effect of the order is to force the federal government to disperse funds it can&#8217;t get back before the adjudication at the Supreme Court level, then that is a massive problem.
Alito is absolutely right about all of that.
We were expecting these types of issues to happen.
The reality is that because President Trump is moving fast and breaking things, there&#8217;s going to be a lot of legal action. Most of that legal action is going to redound to the benefit of the Trump administration.
Some will not.

Menu