Over the course of the week, the House has been going through the often symbolic process of having various Committees approve different components of what will eventually become a massive budget reconciliation bill, so that the Budget Committee can approve the omnibus bill and send it to the full House. The intent was for Budget Committee approval to occur today, thus teeing things up for the full House to pass a bill and send it on to the Senate prior to the Memorial Day weekend.

However things took an unexpected turn today, as the vote in the Budget Committee failed, with four conservative Republicans voting against it. The bill, officially known for now as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), combines the tax bill coming out of Ways & Means with various other bills directing spending cuts, most prominently with respect to Medicaid. The conservatives’ objection is that OBBBA doesn’t do enough to trim spending. As an example, while they support OBBBA’s addition of an 80-hour-per-month “community engagement” (i.e., work or community service) requirement for otherwise eligible childless adults to get Medicaid coverage, the dissenters criticize the fact that (for political reasons, presumably) OBBBA doesn’t implement that change until 2029.

As such there is now talk of another Budget Committee vote on Sunday night, in order to try and get things back on track. But keep in mind that once OBBBA makes it to the full House, there is still the potential that moderate Republicans will revolt over the approach taken to the SALT deduction; and once the bill makes it to the Senate, there is the potential that Senator Hawley and other Republicans will object to the magnitude of Medicaid cuts. On the other hand, with the TCJA’s tax cuts expiring after 2025, there is great pressure on the Republicans to do something they deem constructive, given their unified control in Washington.

Moving back to the legal world, SCOTUS issued an opinion today in a case that came up through the shadow docket and that relates to a controversial Trump executive order–but it wasn’t the case we discussed yesterday about birthright citizenship. Instead, today’s decision is the second one issued by SCOTUS in a case with the confusing caption of A.A.R.P. v. Trump, where here “A.A.R.P.” refers not to the advocacy association for retirees but rather the initials of a Venezuelan individual currently being detained by ICE.

The underlying issue in A.A.R.P. v. Trump relates to a March 2025 proclamation by Trump declaring that a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States [and] is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.” By characterizing TdA’s activities in the U.S. as an “invasion” taking place “at the direction” of the Venezuelan government, Trump is asserting that TdA members present in the U.S. are “alien enemies” as defined by the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA). This is relevant because the AEA authorizes the apprehension and removal of “alien enemies” (assuming they are at least 14).

As a result of the proclamation, the administration has been rounding up and detaining suspected TdA members, and has already managed to deport some of the detainees to El Salvador, where they are imprisoned pursuant to a deal that Trump struck with the El Salvadoran government. Reportedly, they have been using a scoring checklist, which includes various types of tattoos that purportedly signal connections to TdA, and concluding that an individual is putatively a TdA member if they score high enough on the checklist. This has led to accusations that some of the detainees identified as TdA members actually have no ties to TdA.

This situation raises a host of issues. First and foremost is the question of whether Trump’s proclamation has any basis in fact: Should TdA members in the U.S. be treated as “alien enemies”–or, put differently, does TdA’s activity in the U.S. constitute an “invasion or predatory incursion” in the sense of the AEA? This appears to be extremely questionable, although the administration is adamant that the judiciary should have no role in second-guessing the executive’s foreign policy judgment to declare what does or does constitute an “invasion” for AEA purposes. But there is also the question of due process: To the extent an individual has been identified by the government as an alien enemy and the government wishes to remove that individual from the U.S., what notice does the alien need to receive and what ability does the alien have to challenge the government’s determination prior to removal?

The A.A.R.P. v. Trump case has its origins about a month ago, when the ACLU became aware that preparations were being made to deport a set of Venezuelan detainees from Texas to El Salvador. In a procedurally extraordinary state of events, the case went from district court to the 5th Circuit to SCOTUS within 24 hours, resulting ultimately in a 7-2 SCOTUS order issued shortly before 1am on a Saturday morning. That order, which we’ll call A.A.R.P. I, directed the government to not deport any of the potentially impacted individuals until further notice. Reportedly, there were Venezuelan detainees in a bus on its way to an airport at the time SCOTUS issued its order, underscoring the need for extreme speed here. (In an earlier similar ACLU case, J.G.G. v. Trump, the government got planes to El Salvador into the air before a federal judge was able to enjoin the government from deporting the plaintiffs.)

Today’s SCOTUS opinion, which we’ll call A.A.R.P. II, also appears to have been 7-2 (the dissenters in both cases having been, perhaps predictably, Alito and Thomas), and grants the plaintiff’s desired injunction to prevent their deportation pending further legal proceedings. But just to be clear, at this stage the legal issues at hand involve the second issue above–due process around the notice that needs to be given before removal–and not the core issue of whether TdA is really “invading” the U.S. Quoting from today’s unsigned opinion:

“To be clear, we decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given on April 18, and we grant temporary injunctive relief to preserve our jurisdiction while the question of what notice is due is adjudicated. We did not on April 19—and do not now—address the underlying merits of the parties’ claims regarding the legality of removals under the AEA. We recognize the significance of the Government’s national security interests as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution. In light of the foregoing, lower courts should address AEA cases expeditiously.”

To that end, SCOTUS remanded the case to the 5th Circuit with fairly specific instructions as to what legal issues that appellate court ought to address, before the case inevitably returns to SCOTUS. One justice, Kavanaugh, wrote a concurrence suggesting that SCOTUS ought to have taken more direct action:

“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court. At this juncture, I would prefer not to remand to the lower courts and further put off this Court’s final resolution of the critical legal issues. Rather, consistent with the Executive Branch’s request for expedition—and as the detainees themselves urge—I would grant certiorari, order prompt briefing, hold oral argument soon thereafter, and then resolve the legal issues.”

I’ve commented on multiple occasions before that one of the difficulties involved in trying to predict SCOTUS actions is the information asymmetry caused by the fact that the members of the Court know what positions they have taken on cases for which the opinions are not yet final and public. In particular, it will be interesting to see whether pundits’ views of what SCOTUS is likely to do in Trump v. CASA shift somewhat now that we know what SCOTUS has done in A.A.R.P. II.

Today’s news was dominated by the oral arguments at SCOTUS in Trump v. CASA, in which the administration is challenging the universal injunctions that three federal district courts have issued preventing it from implementing a new executive order re-interpreting the scope of birthright citizenship.

I had strong deja vu vibes today, taking me back a little more than a year ago to the SCOTUS oral arguments in the presidential immunity case, Trump v. U.S. For one thing, in both that case and today’s case the plaintiff was represented by the same advocate – John Sauer, who a year ago was acting as Trump’s personal attorney but today is the Solicitor General. For another, in both cases Sauer’s arguments are advancing a structural view of how the law ought to work that is somewhat contrary to the established understanding in effect for decades. And, as in last year’s case, Sauer went with a maximalist argument, opining in this case that so-called “universal injunctions” — the practice whereby a district court can enjoin the administration’s ability to implement a particular policy — are contrary to the role imagined by Article III of the Constitution for the federal judiciary, because of their impact on people who are not parties to the lawsuit.

And to be sure, universal injunctions have become far more common in recent years and, when coupled with forum-shopping, have caused great consternation among both political parties (albeit at different times). It is not unreasonable for SCOTUS to want to step in and provide some clarity on whether, and if so under what conditions, injunctions of this type are appropriate.

However this case is a somewhat odd vehicle for that intellectual debate, given that the executive order itself is in clear conflict with, per Justice Sotomayor’s reckoning today, four different SCOTUS precedents. If there is any merit in the concept of a universal injunction, it is likely in this type of situation, so as to prevent an administration from continuing to do things that are (as one of the judges below put it in this case) “blatantly unconstitutional”. Which is not to say that the administration doesn’t have the right to try and get those adverse precedents overturned; but shouldn’t they be bound by them in the interim?

The problem as many people (myself included) see it is that a world without universal injunctions appears to be a world in which an administration can choose to act in violation of the law for far longer than makes sense in a system dedicated to the rule of law. Justice Kagan today:

“Let’s just assume you’re dead wrong [on the merits]. How do we get to that result? Does every single person that iis affected by this EO have to bring their own suit? Are there alternatives? How long does it take? How do we get to the result that there is a single rule of citizenship that is…the rule that we’ve historically applied rather than the rule that the EO would have us do?”

Indeed, Kagan later pointed out that in this particular situation, there was no guarantee that the usual adversarial system would ever generate a ruling on the merits from SCOTUS that would impose a uniform rule:

“[L]et’s assume that you lose in the lower courts pretty uniformly, as you have been losing on this issue, and that you never take this question to us. … [W]hy would you take the substantive question to us? You’re losing a bunch of cases. This guy over here, this woman over here, you know, they’ll have to be treated as citizens, but nobody else will. … [I]n a case in which the government is losing constantly, there’s nobody else who’s going to appeal; they’re winning, it’s up to you to decide whether to take this case to us. If I were in your shoes, there is no way I’d approach the Supreme Court with this case. So you just keep on losing in the lower courts, and what’s supposed to happen to prevent that? … [T]he ones who can’t afford to go to court, they’re the ones who are going to lose. … in a case like this, the government has no incentive to bring this case to the Supreme Court because it’s not really losing anything. It’s losing a lot of individual cases, which still allow it to enforce its EO against the vast majority of people to whom it applies.”

Sauer’s main retort is that, in many situations, it would be possible for a class of plaintiffs to be certified and for a class action lawsuit to be filed, with the outcome of the lawsuit binding both the administration and the members of the class.

Justice Jackson later picked up on this theme:

“[T]he real concern, I think, is that your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view at least, into a “catch me if you can” kind of regime from the standpoint of the executive, where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights. Justice Kagan says let’s assume for the purpose of this that you’re wrong about the merits, that the government is not allowed to do this under the Constitution. And yet it seems to me that your argument says we get to keep on doing it until everyone who is potentially harmed by it figures out how to file a lawsuit, hire a lawyer, et cetera. And I don’t understand how that is remotely consistent with the rule of law… [T]he court has the power to say what the law is. And so one would think that the court could say this conduct is unlawful and you have to stop doing it.”

And later, some more from Justice Jackson:

“I would think we’d want the system to move as quickly as possible to reach the merits of the issue, and maybe have this Court decide whether or not the government is entitled to do this under the law. Wouldn’t having universal injunctions actually facilitate that? It seems to me that, when the government is completely enjoined from doing the thing it wants to do, it moves quickly to appeal that to get it to the Supreme Court, and that’s actually what we would want. What I worry about is similar to what Justice Kagan points out, is that, if the government is saying no lower court can completely enjoin it, it actually means that the government just keeps on doing the purportedly unlawful thing, and it delays the ability for this Court to reach the underlying issue.”

The attorney for the one of the respondents floated a compromise solution under which SCOTUS could rule that “universal injunctions are appropriate only in facial challenges involving fundamental constitutional rights where there are real concerns about…the legal and practical availability of relief to similarly situated parties who are also going to experience irreparable harm.” It is unclear if a majority might be convinced to take that bait.

Another alternative is that SCOTUS could grant certiorari before judgment on the merits of the underlying cases, swiftly call for supplemental briefing and a second oral argument, and thereby rule on the case in an expedited fashion, not unlike how it handled TikTok v. Garland back in January. We are already two weeks after the usual end of oral arguments for the October Term, and about six weeks away from when SCOTUS usually closes up shop entirely for the summer; would the Justices have an appetite to extend its schedule, in the interests of avoiding having to resolve the universal injunctions question?

Or, of course, SCOTUS could grant the administration the relief it seeks, allowing the executive order to take effect while the lower courts continue to assess its constitutionality. However that would seemingly endorse the notion that future administrations can behave in patently unconstitutional ways while waiting for a potentially lengthy judicial process to play out: A hypothetical advanced today involved a future administration that started confiscating firearms despite SCOTUS’ 2nd Amendment jurisprudence.

The immediate path forward on Trump v. CASA remains unclear after oral argument, although it seems highly improbable that the executive order will stand in the fullness of time. How long it takes to get to that result, however, will depend on what SCOTUS decides to do.

Trump is currently touring the Middle East, focusing on Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The story that came out earlier this week about the potential Qatari donation of a luxury jumbo jet to the U.S. government for Trump’s use remains in the headlines; Trump is, of course, adamant that everyone should see this as a good idea. Also attracting controversy is Trump’s meeting with Syria’s new interim president, who six months ago was still on the U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorist list and as such had a $10 million bounty on his head.

Tomorrow there will be an oral argument at SCOTUS, which is extremely unusual for mid-May. The procedural posture of this oral argument is also extremely unusual. The argument is coming from three different federal court cases that were filed earlier this year in the wake of Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship; for simplicity I’ll refer to the consolidated SCOTUS cases as Trump v. CASA.

The crux of Trump’s order is to prospectively deny citizenship to babies born in the U.S. after February 19, 2025 where the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of birth, and the mother’s presence in the U.S. at the time of birth was either unlawful, or lawful but temporary (e.g., a tourist or student visa). However, this conflicts with how the 14th Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” has historically been interpreted, including in SCOTUS precedent from an 1898 case called U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

In light of this, three different federal court judges – located in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Washington – have each issued rulings preventing the administration from implementing the executive order, with one of the judges calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” Each of those judges issued what legal scholars have recently taken to calling a universal injunction, the intent of which is to bar the federal government from implementing the executive order with respect to anyone, not just with respect to the plaintiffs in the case.

This gets into an area of law that has been increasingly controversial in the last several years, namely the question of whether and, if so, under what conditions a federal judge should have the ability to issue a universal injunction. The theoretical concern here is that, given how the Constitution’s “cases or controversies” language has historically been interpreted, a universal injunction arguably feels like an “advisory opinion” lying outside of the power of the judiciary. SCOTUS has tiptoed around this issue several times in recent years, but to date has avoided taking it head on.

In the CASA v. Trump case down below (and the two other consolidated cases that the government also lost), the federal government filed an application to SCOTUS asking that the injunctions issued by those judges be limited in scope to the plaintiffs broadly construed (i.e., including residents of the plaintiff states). Rather than granting or rejecting that request, a month ago SCOTUS scheduled an oral argument.

But to discuss what, and to what end? This is an oral argument for which there is no “question presented”, as there normally would be in a SCOTUS case. As such it is unusually hard to know, prior to oral argument, what exactly SCOTUS is seeking to accomplish. Many observers seem to believe that SCOTUS is looking to finally take the question of universal injunctions head on. However at least one prominent observer instead thinks that SCOTUS is seeking to avoid the universal injunctions question and instead move directly to the merits of Trump’s position on birthright citizenship, notwithstanding that there hasn’t really been briefing on the merits. We’ll find out tomorrow.

In other legal news, yesterday the little-known U.S. Court for International Trade heard oral arguments in the first of several legal challenges brought against Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 as justification for his imposition of tariffs sans Congressional approval. While appeals to contemporaneous expressions of Congressional intent have gone out of fashion as a means of statutory interpretation this century, I do find it compelling that while IEEPA was being debated a House report said that “emergencies are by their nature rare and brief, and are not to be equated with normal ongoing problems,” which would appear to preclude a view that the existence of persistent bilateral trade deficits can be fit into the “emergency” hole. More to come on this front.

Mother’s Day today.

The big news of the day is reporting, originally from ABC, that the Qatari government is about to gift a luxury 747 to the U.S. Air Force, to be used in the near term as Trump’s Air Force One, but with ownership to pass to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation at the end of Trump’s turn (so that, presumably, he can continue to make use of it). Apparently the administration has prepared a legal opinion indicating that this would not violate the Emoluments Clause, or any other laws. Hopefully that will be made public as it should make, umm, interesting reading.

In other news, Trump has signaled that in the morning he will be signing an executive order intended to significantly reduce drug prices, under some form of “most favored nation” rule. As this is getting reasonably close to my professional interests, I’m eager to see exactly what it says and what reaction it garners.

Fell asleep on the couch last night watching playoff hockey, and after I woke up I didn’t have the energy to blog.

The main thing I wanted to write about yesterday was the situation involving Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish scholar pursuing her PhD at Tufts University. Ozturk is one of a handful of ICE detainees who have become household names in recent weeks, serving as archetypes of the ways in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has started behaving more aggressively during the second Trump administration.

In late March, Ozturk was apprehended on the street in Massachusetts by several masked ICE agents. Unbeknownst to her, her student visa had been revoked by order of the Secretary of State, taking advantage of a statutory provision that allows the Secretary of State to bar from entry a person whose presence would have “potential significant adverse foreign policy consequences.” After first transporting her to a facility in Vermont, ICE then moved her swiftly to a facility in Louisiana, which is conveniently located in the 5th Circuit, the part of the country having the most Trump-friendly judiciary.

The only evidence cited by the government to justify her removal is that, a year earlier, she was one of four Tufts graduate students who co-authored an editorial in the student newspaper, criticizing the university administration’s response to resolutions passed by the undergraduate student senate in regards to the Israel-Hamas war. I’ve read the editorial and I am flummoxed at the idea that anybody would read it and think that the authors’ presence in the U.S. would potentially jeopardize our foreign policy objectives. As such, Ozturk’s detention has become a cause celebre among advocates of free speech, as well as a warning sign regarding ICE’s current modus operandi. Yesterday a federal judge ordered her release from detention after more than six weeks, although her deportation proceedings will continue.

In other ICE-related news yesterday, the mayor of Newark was arrested outside of an ICE facility in his city that was in the process of being inspected by three Democratic U.S. House members, and now today there is talk that the Representatives may also be charged. The top federal prosecutor in New Jersey is Alina Habba, who was Trump’s lead attorney in the Carroll I trial in early 2024.

Also of interest yesterday was some personnel changes in the administration. Trump fired the Librarian of Congress, a Black woman named Dr. Carla Hayden, a year before the expiration of her 10-year term; this appears to be yet another manifestation of Trump’s anti-DEI crusade. In addition, the acting Administrator of FEMA was fired the day after he had testified to Congress that he did not believe FEMA should be disbanded, which was contrary to the testimony that his boss, DHS Secretary Noem, had given the previous day.

We also had some political news late last night, with controversial Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene deciding to take a pass on the 2026 Senate race in Georgia. This is probably a net win for the Republicans, since MTG probably would have won the Republican primary and then gotten blown out by Sen. Ossoff in the general. The only declared challenger is much more low profile, Rep. Buddy Carter from southeastern Georgia, who entered the race this week.

In other late Friday news, a federal judge in California issued an order in a case called AFGE v. Trump in which the plaintiffs “contend that the executive branch cannot lawfully implement large-scale reductions in the federal workforce without the participation of Congress.” This is in connection with DOGE activity, as manifested through Executive Order 14210. Judge Susan Illston, a 76-year-old Clinton appointee who has been serving in senior status for over a decade, issued a two-week temporary restraining order, with a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for the day before the TRO is due to expire. Judge Illston’s order ends with “the Court finds that the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime.” More to come, of course.

I must admit, I’d heard absolutely nothing about Trump having designated Janette Nesheiwat as his nominee for Surgeon General until the news broke today that he was withdrawing her nomination, the day before her confirmation hearing before the Senate HELP Committee. Seems that Nesheiwat, a 48-year-old who has appeared on Fox News, had repeatedly claimed her medical degree came from the University of Arkansas when it actually came from a medical school on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten. The new nominee is Casey Mears, a 37-year-old graduate of Stanford Medical School who is described as a “wellness influencer” with close ties to HHS Secretary Kennedy.

The Fed met today for the first time since Trump’s tariff-focused “liberation day” five weeks ago, and declined for the third straight meeting to cut the Fed Funds rate further. In recent weeks Trump has been increasingly critical of Fed Reserve Chair Powell, whose term is set to expire in 2026, for not cutting interest rates more aggressively. On the other hand, Trump’s tariff policy has stoked inflation expectations, creating the possibility that the Fed’s next move might need to be a rate hike rather than a cut. Time will tell.

One of the many ways in which Trump has expanded his business interests into the crypto world since the election is through the launching of a memecoin, $TRUMP, approximately 80% of which is held by two Trump-owned entities. Recently Trump announced a promotion under which the top 220 holders of $TRUMP (as measured in a particular manner over a defined time period, rather than via a snapshot at a point of time) would be invited to a special event later this month with the President at one of his clubs, with the top 25 holders receiving further VIP access. Today crypto-critic Molly White published an analysis in which she estimates that almost three-quarters of the 220, and 23 of the top 25, are foreign entities or persons. She also estimates that “62% of those on the invite list had never purchased a $TRUMP token prior to the announcement, suggesting they were primarily drawn in by the promise of access to Trump rather than any longer term interest in the token itself.” Senator Ossoff recently commented at a town hall that, by “selling access for what is effectively payments to him,” Trump’s promotion in and of itself constitutes grounds for impeachment.

There is reporting today that the Trump administration intends to imminently start deportation flights of various Asian nationals to Libya. (I’m old enough to remember when Libya was a hostile power, labelled “beyond the axis of evil” in 2002 by John Bolton.) The federal district court judge in Massachusetts handling an existing case known as D.V.D. v. DHS issued an order today clarifying that previously issued injunctions would forbid such actions, inasmuch as those injunctions require “all third-country removals to be preceded, inter alia, by written notice to both the non-citizen and the non-citizen’s counsel in a language the non-citizen can understand as well as a meaningful opportunity for the non-citizen to raise a fear-based claim for” protection under the Convention Against Torture.

So there are a whole host of things going on in recent times that fall into the following general pattern:

1. The Trump administration does a thing, which represents a radical departure from the status quo.
2. Affected parties who think the thing is illegal, in substance and/or at least with respect to process, bring a suit in federal court.
3. A federal judge rules in favor of the affected parties and issues an injunction preventing the thing from going forward, possibly on a nationwide basis (as opposed to just with respect to the parties who brought suit).
4. In addition to pursuing the normal appellate process, the Trump administration goes directly to SCOTUS via the so-called shadow docket in order to try and get the injunction lifted.
5. SCOTUS needs to do something, which could mean leaving the injunction in place while the appellate process plays out (in which case the thing is delayed), or overturning the injunction while the appellate process plays out (in which the thing can, in effect, go ahead), or perhaps narrowing the scope of the injunction, or perhaps jumping the normal queue and getting into the merits of the legal issues.

I think I will be writing a lot of posts in this blog series about legal disputes that follow this type of pattern. That starts today, when SCOTUS released an order relating to a shadow docket case called U.S. v. Shilling.

This case has come out of a theme that I didn’t adequately address in my opening summary of the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, namely the administration’s “war on woke”. Consistent with views expressed in the campaign and that likely helped Trump win the election, the new administration has taken a number of aggressive positions against DEI in general and, in particular, against transgender rights.

As part of that, about a week after taking office Trump issued Executive Order 14183, the main thrust of which is the view that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.” DOD policy towards transgender soldiers has been seesawing back and forth over the past decade, but in his first week of office President Biden had issued an executive order that reinstated a 2016 policy, which had been watered down by the Trump administration via a 2019 policy. The new 2025 policy would be harsher than the 2019 policy, in that it would lead to discharging all active duty trans soliders as well as prevent trans individuals from joining the military going forward.

The plaintiffs in this case, filing suit in federal court in Washington State, received a nationwide injunction preventing the administration from discharging trans soldiers. The 9th Circuit declined to stay that injunction. However today, over the objection of the 3 liberal justices, SCOTUS stayed the injunction while the government pursues appeals of the District Court finding to the 9th Circuit and, potentially, SCOTUS. As a practical matter, it appears this will enable the government to go ahead and start discharging trans soldiers (with, I suppose, the potential that they be reinstated down the line, were the government to ultimately lose the case).

It is hard to know what ought to be read within the tea leaves of today’s SCOTUS action. For one, like most shadow docket orders, the majority did not provide any explanation behind its ruling, nor did any of the dissenters choose to write anything. For another, the members of SCOTUS have some important information that none of the rest of us have: They presumably know the outcome and reasoning of U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case involving transgender rights and the 14th Amendment which was argued before SCOTUS in December but where the opinions have not yet been made public.

In other news, the administration’s war on Harvard continues. Today Secretary of Education Linda McMahon (yes, that’s the wrestling executive, and someone whose only prior background in education was serving one year on the Connecticut State Board of Education, from which she resigned as it was about to be reported that she had falsely claimed holding a bachelor’s degree in education) sent a truly unhinged letter to Harvard, in which she announced that the federal government will no longer provide any new research grants to the university. This is in addition to the administration’s action last month to freeze $2.2 billion in previously issued research grants, over which Harvard has filed a lawsuit.

Finally, Prime Minister Carney traveled to the White House today to meet with President Trump for the first time. Strangely, the two leaders met with reporters in the Oval Office before, rather than after, their private meeting.

On Friday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released a report on the impact that DOGE has had on IRS staffing, between the firing of probationary workers and the deferred resignation program (in which workers could resign while receiving pay through September 30th). The report shows that while 11% of total IRS staffers have departed, the proportion is much higher among revenue agents (i.e., tax auditors): 31%.

There is also new reporting today from Bloomberg that the Trump Administration has decided to shut down the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), a Reagan-era creation whose annual budget is $550 million and whose investigations netted more than $2 billion in forfeitures from criminals over the past two years, as of September 30th. Notwithstanding its name, OCEDTF’s mission focuses not just on drug trafficking, but more broadly on “illicit finance, human smuggling and trafficking, organized retail crime, sophisticated financial fraud, cyber-enabled crime, firearms trafficking, export violations, government benefits theft, business e-mail compromise, other federal criminal offenses, and U.S. sanctions evasion”.

Both of these actions appear broadly consistent with Trump’s apparent de-emphasis on combatting white-collar crime (including tax evasion).

In other news, the Department of Homeland Security today announced a new program under which individuals who voluntarily self-deport can receive free airfare and a $1,000 stipend. By comparison, it is apparently costing the federal government in excess of $17,000 on average to carry out each deportation. I remember when the word “self-deportation” got some attention in the 2012 Republican primary, but back then it was more in the context of creating conditions that would encourage those without legal documents to leave voluntarily, rather than paying them to do it at a time of their own choosing so as to avoid the risk of being rounded up and deported involuntarily.

Trump’s latest tariff salvo, announced last night via social media, is a proposed 100% tariff on foreign-made films, claiming (as he probably has to, in order to assert the authority to take this action) that foreign-made films are a “national security threat”. Nobody appears to really understand what this would actually mean or how it would help the domestic film industry, and today the White House is saying that “no final decisions have been made” on foreign film tariffs.

When I lived in Evanston, Illinois a quarter-century ago, our congresswoman was Jan Schakowsky, who was first elected to represent the Illinois 9th in 1998 and has long been one of the most progressive Democrats in Congress. Now 80, she announced today that she will not be running for a 15th term in 2026. This makes at least two very interesting Democratic primaries in Illinois for the upcoming cycle, in the wake of 80-year-old Senator Durbin’s recent announcement that he will not run for a 6th term in 2026. I see both announcements as a positive step in combatting our nation’s slide into gerontocracy.

In other election decision news, Republican Georgia Governor Kemp has just announced he will not challenge first-term Democratic Senator Ossoff in 2026, which is considered very good news for a Democratic party that is facing a tough Senate map in 2026.