Amidst all the horrendous destruction of the government, there is a small but growing pushback. Republicans in Congress, naturally, are all licking the Tangerine Palpatine's puckered diarrhea exhaust hole, but you'd hope that at least the Judicial branch would hold up it's part of the 3-legged stool. The SCOTUS has been hot and cold, but it's the lower courts that are turning up the heat.
Among those cases is the lawsuit against DOGE,
which just passed another judicial hurdle:
A U.S. judge on Tuesday allowed a group of 14 states to move ahead with a lawsuit challenging Elon Musk's efforts to slash federal spending as the head of President Donald Trump's new government efficiency agency, rejecting the Trump administration's effort to dismiss the case.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, however, dismissed the states' claims against Trump himself, saying her court would not try to interfere with "the performance of his official duties" as president.
The states' lawsuit could proceed against Musk and DOGE because it made a plausible claim that Musk's cost-cutting activities were "unauthorized by any law," according to Chutkan's ruling in Washington, D.C., federal court.
I fail to understand how destroying our government from within figures into his "official duties", but perhaps I skipped class that day in Civics 101.
It's enough to even give (former) conservative judges pause, wondering
"where does this all end?":
Conservative former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, this weekend, tore into President Donald Trump and his administration for “waging war” on the federal judiciary and the rule of law.
The assault began on Trump’s very first day back in office, Luttig told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi.
And the legal icon worryingly admitted: “I don’t know where this ends.”
Luttig, a staunch and vocal critic of Trump’s attacks on democracy, took particular issue with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s accusation that judges who have ruled against the president’s policies and executive orders are “deranged.”
“No, the judges are not deranged, Pam Bondi,” said Luttig.
“They are simply enforcing their oath to the Constitution of the United States. The same oath that you, Madam Attorney General, took yourself,” he pointed out.
Then Luttig confessed:
“I don’t know where this ends...
This toxic atmosphere has resulted in judges fearing for their lives. Not from criminals they convict getting out of jail, but by Mango Mussolini's brownshirts. This has led NJ Senator Corey Booker to introduce a bill that would
move the Marshall's Service from the DOJ to the Judicial Branch. Naturally, it's unlikely to go anywhere, especially since Speaker McCarthy seems
perfectly fine with his Savior's corruption, since it's all out in the open:
House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared blasé over concerns that Donald Trump is using his presidential power to help line his pockets, arguing that, unlike Joe Biden, the president does “everything out in the open.”
[...]
“The difference, of course, is that President Trump does everything out in the open. He’s not trying to hide anything,” Johnson said. “There's no shell companies or fake LLCs or fake family businesses. He’s putting it out there, so everybody can evaluate for themselves.”
Sure, we can "judge" for ourselves, but when real actual judges are targeted for enforcing the law, "evaluating it for [our]selves" is meaningless.