Apr
28
2025

A Picture is Worth … Twenty-three Words?

Yup, I counted. Inspiration comes from a title of a 2017 Cato Daily Podcast from Scott Lincicome.

In the WSJ this morn, Joshua Claybourn explains (with more words) Why We’re Joining the Legal Fight Over Trump’s Tariffs. (Joshua's "we" is a group without a punchy name, apparently.)

I joined a broad coalition of leaders—including former U.S. senators, retired federal judges, a former U.S. attorney general and pre-eminent constitutional scholars—in filing a friend-of-the-court brief last week in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump. Our brief urges the U.S. Court of International Trade to strike down President Trump’s 2025 tariffs as an unlawful and unprecedented seizure of legislative power. It challenges Mr. Trump’s sweeping proclamations not because of what they do but how they were done: unilaterally, without congressional authorization, and in defiance of the Constitution’s structure.

In April, Mr. Trump imposed a 10% baseline tax on all imports and sharply higher duties on goods from many countries. Then, in a series of whiplash tweaks, he shifted the numbers. These measures weren’t authorized by Congress. They weren’t part of a debated trade bill. They were declared unilaterally by presidential proclamation.

Tariffs are taxes, and under the Constitution, they must be enacted by Congress. Mr. Trump claims authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. But that law allows the president to freeze certain foreign assets in times of national emergency, not to impose new taxes on Americans. It was a post-Watergate reform crafted to limit executive power, not expand it.

Given the state of the nation, this group's efforts may seem quixotic at best. Would Trump even pay attention to a ruling from something called "the U.S. Court of International Trade"?

You can read the group's friend-of-the-court brief here. It, like Joshua's column, is a powerful indictment of both Congressional cowardice and Executive overreach.

Also of note:

  • Cover-up worse than the crime? Well, in this case they're both pretty bad. Damien Fisher tells the story: Manchester (NH) School Official Urges Staff to Hide Training Materials Due to DEI Scrutiny.

    Emails and handouts from Manchester School District staff make two things clear.

    The school district is still embracing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion content and policies. And they don’t want parents or the public to know about it.

    The district is scrambling after a student handout using DEI teacher training materials in a class on the Holocaust was posted on the internet.

    When it did, Amadou Hamady Sy, the Manchester School District’s executive director of Student Engagement, Outcomes and Success, sent staffers an email reminding them to keep the DEI lessons to themselves. Hamady Sy expressed concern that the materials had leaked to “individuals outside the school community and even the local press.”

    One of the leaked materials is an exercise in self-flagellation, the "Wheel of Power and Privilege". There's a monochrome picture in Damien's article. For some reason, perhaps involving copyright, there are many many, versions. For example, here's one from a website offering it as one of their "recipes for wellbeing":

    You can click over for a big version and instruction on "Mapping marginalisation in an intersectional way." Or you can go to the Google and shop around.

    But in the meantime: Really, Manchester. Fire them all.

  • If you set the bar low enough… Christian Britschgi argues DOGE Has Been a Smashing Success.

    Compared to an ideal effort to shrink the size and scope of the federal government, DOGE has indeed disappointed. However, when one considers the most realistic alternatives to DOGE, its record actually looks pretty good.

    The most obvious point of comparison to DOGE is the Kamala Harris administration that didn't happen.

    Harris would most certainly not have launched anything approximating DOGE. If she governed remotely similarly to her predecessor, we could have expected another four years of rapidly expanding government.

    To quote Herb Stein's maxim: “If Something Cannot Go on Forever, It Will Stop“. When it comes to fiscal insanity, are just quibbling about the stop date.

Recently on the book blog: