Many of us have been saying this all along: Trump's tariffs are illegal. It took a while for a group injured by the tariffs to challenge this executive overreach in court. The questions now are:
Will Trump continue to blatantly violate the Constitution if the Supreme Court rules against him?
Will the US court system deploy the US Marshall Service to enforce the law if Trump refuses?
Will the Secret Service allow the president to be arrested?
Did anyone ever dream a US president would drag the dignify of our nation down to this?
I saw a comment Tuesday evening that was typical. When I looked at it again a few minutes later, it was this brain fog garbage. It was also flagged as "edited." I think someone's managed to figure out a way to edit other people's comments.
It was obviusly illegal months ago. What took so fucking long? The courts should have put an injunction against this on day one when congress went along with the bullshit. We have to fix our political system so badly.
And the plaintiff must have been injured by the act. So, the tariffs must go into effect long enough to cause damage to some person or persons powerful enough to initiate a suit.
That's already happened. Just look at the stock market gyrations in response to the tariffs, not to mention all the insider trading - including by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greenbacks
Leo can't control Trump, but he doesn't need to. The longer Trump keeps the spotlight on him the easier it is for Leo to continue gutting the federal government from the inside. Musk and Trump are distractions, he is the real man to be worried about.
How can trump slime 'blatantly violate' a document (the Constitution) he has never read or could understand if he had it read to him. Face the facts: president in name only, donald duck trump slime, is a very spoiled three year old residing in the overweight body of a demented old man
SCOTUS "enforces" laws by ensuring their constitutionality and by providing the definitive interpretation of their meaning. The actual physical enforcement of those laws, as interpreted by the Court, falls to the executive branch.
Are you certain a president can legally be arrested while still in office?
While The Constitution absolutely does not offer Presidents immunity after they leave office for acts committed during office, despite what the Republican justices say, I think it does confer immunity while still in office.
Not in 5 months. The enabling by the elected Republicans is astounding. If a Democratic president tried any of this , he would have been impeached by now. None of the know -absolutely-nothing members of the Cabinet would not be approved. None of this would have happened and we and they know it.
This is all Heritage Foundation Vought and Miller who should be sent to concentration camps in El Salvador.
I used to be a proud U.S. citizen and now I'm not. Although we faced difficulties, I believed the nation was advancing. Then, unexpectedly, Trump's supporters appeared, as if from another planet.
Seriously, yes! Which is better? I guess it depends on what you're trying to say.
"Sancta merda" is arguably closer to the intended meaning of the expression "holy shit", while "sanctum excrementum" might be what they called the literal holy shit that was once preserved in the monastery of Gräfrath in Germany: excrement that was purportedly produced by the donkey that carried Jesus on palm sunday.
This court of trade is highly respected as the final experts on the subject. That they declared everything null and void in a decision written for SCOTUS leads me to think this will be pretty solid when it gets there. More solid than any of the Trumpscum BS will be.
Funny thing, I never heard of this court—I did go to law school 30 years ago but never practiced, still, thought we covered all the federal courts in class. Anyway, an appeals court has already put this on hold….the roller coaster ride goes on.
O stercus felicem! (1) Noun before adjective in Latin, as with Italian, Spanish, French, and the other Romance languages derived from Latin. (2) Accusative case is exclamatory (like "Me miserum!", "Poor me!") but stercus is a neuter like corpus so the same form as nominative. (3) "Excrementum sanctum" more likely in Church Latin, unlikely in Classical Latin. Excrementum is polite, like for Pliny or Cicero; more like English feces. Catullus would be the one to give us the goods, but he's more likely to speak of number one than number two. Merda is very infrequent in Classical writers. Stercus (manure, including human waste) is common to derogate something filthy or crappy. (4) The Romans would be unlikely to use sanctus in this usage; it had a more technical religious meaning. Felix is "blessed, happy" as brought about by the gods, especially regarding manure. Romans would like the humor of something filthy being a gift from the gods and making the crops grow. They even had a minor god Stercutus, the manurer. Sign me, unapologetic geek.
Like I said in an earlier comment, I haven’t used Latin since 8th grade in 1971. And in those days we recited “Latin is a dead language, dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, now it’s killing me!”
I made a mistake there - that should've been sacrum stercus. That said, I think merda works better, and the gender switch should make it sacra merda. Pretty close to close what it would be in français.
Tariffs imposed under Section 232 have not been blocked by the courts. A wide range of products may still be affected, including semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
"Commerce released two Federal Register notices about newly initiated Section 232 investigations into imports of (1) pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical ingredients, and derivative products and (2) semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and derivative products. "
I can see steel, maybe. But do we have the resources to increase production of aluminum? I looked and we certainly don't have much native bauxite; what we have is pretty much mined out.
The limitation with aluminum is the amount of energy required to smelt it. There’s an aluminum smelter in northern BC (Canada). It has its own dam (lots of hydropower here.)
The court held the 1977 law, called IEEPA, gave no authority to the president to levy tariffs. Article I of the constitution gives Congress the taxing authority unless they delegate it. But the court found that IEEPA doesn’t delegate it to the president except in a national emergency and the Trump admin failed to show that there is one. All three judges agreed.
Yep. Trump says the trade deficit is an emergency, but the law says an emergency can be triggered *only* by an "unusual and extraordinary threat." The U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 consecutive years, making it quite usual and ordinary.
In addition, the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act primarily concerns trade embargoes and sanctions and does not even mention tariffs according to the NYT.
Thank you for this... but also thank you for going after the Crypto Currency (isn't it really a Ponzi Scheme?) that Trump, Peter Thiel, et al are trying to get passed by a sickeningly compliant Congress. The US economy being turned into something whose foundation is a BS kind of "money" is as bad an historical event as I can image... other than the Wall Street collapse of 1929.
The late, great Charlie Munger declared that crypto is sh*t. And if you're buying crypto, you're buying a bag of sh*t (or words to that effect). Good advice.
Good morning Ms Baker. Your response to current events is surprising, watch your real estate portfolio crash in the next short few months. You’ll be broke in no time.
Unfortunately, the government made an emergency appeal and the appeals court judge stayed the lower court's order, so now everything waits until the case is heard at the appeals level.
Well, it's not easy peasy, but it would appear to be legal wegal. If the tariffs were illegal from the start, as has just been ruled, then refunds must surely be compulsory if the beneficiaries of the tariffs aren't going to be effectively profiting from crime.
Complete clusterfuck of a captain, as he crashes the ship to collect the insurance we paid for! My god the GOP Congress has allowed him to have screwed the entire world with their stupidity and the media yawns…time to fire the lot!
"During a May 13 hearing, Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer from the conservative Liberty Justice Center representing the plaintiffs, argued that Trump's purported emergency to justify the tariffs is far short of what is required under the law.
"I'm asking this court to be an umpire and call a strike; you're asking me, well, where's the strike zone? Is it at the knees or slightly below the knees?" Schwab argued. "I'm saying it's a wild pitch and it's on the other side of the batter and hits the backstop, so we don't need to debate that.""
Sanctum excrementum!
Also, sancta merda!
Many of us have been saying this all along: Trump's tariffs are illegal. It took a while for a group injured by the tariffs to challenge this executive overreach in court. The questions now are:
Will Trump continue to blatantly violate the Constitution if the Supreme Court rules against him?
Will the US court system deploy the US Marshall Service to enforce the law if Trump refuses?
Will the Secret Service allow the president to be arrested?
Did anyone ever dream a US president would drag the dignify of our nation down to this?
Yes. No. No. Yes.
Maybe
Damn brain fog spam bot just won't die.
Reported: for the millionth time.
I saw a comment Tuesday evening that was typical. When I looked at it again a few minutes later, it was this brain fog garbage. It was also flagged as "edited." I think someone's managed to figure out a way to edit other people's comments.
take that fog ans shove it where the sancta merda comes from.
geez...a warning next time howza bout it?
Ok, I'm back in. Feel a bit chagrined about missing out on the "Taco Trade". Lawrence O'Donnell did call it.
If anyone wonders what SCOTUS will do-
1. Federal Judiciary knows it's under threat. It has to decisively curb Trump to protect itself. What better issue than this?
2. One of these lawsuits is backed by none other than Leonard Leo. Donald thinks the Justices are his, but they're Leo's.
I don't welcome the cred SCOTUS will gain out of this.
It was obviusly illegal months ago. What took so fucking long? The courts should have put an injunction against this on day one when congress went along with the bullshit. We have to fix our political system so badly.
The courts are dependent on a case being brought before them.
And the plaintiff must have been injured by the act. So, the tariffs must go into effect long enough to cause damage to some person or persons powerful enough to initiate a suit.
That's already happened. Just look at the stock market gyrations in response to the tariffs, not to mention all the insider trading - including by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greenbacks
I believe that this decision can be appealed to SCOTUS so the fun will continue…..suspect they will find a way to let the tariffs stand
I don't. One of these lawsuits is backed by Charles Koch and, wait for it, Leonard Leo.
The Federal Judiciary knows it has to decisively curb Trump, or he will destroy it. What better issue than this?
Leonard Leo wants Trump to be his instrument, not the other way round. And it's his court, not Trump's.
Lordy, did the dog catch the car….
👆🎯
Leo can't control Trump, but he doesn't need to. The longer Trump keeps the spotlight on him the easier it is for Leo to continue gutting the federal government from the inside. Musk and Trump are distractions, he is the real man to be worried about.
Nooooooooo
Said Mr. Bill.
How can trump slime 'blatantly violate' a document (the Constitution) he has never read or could understand if he had it read to him. Face the facts: president in name only, donald duck trump slime, is a very spoiled three year old residing in the overweight body of a demented old man
He's spent his whole life violating the law - by simply ignoring it - and getting away with it.
SCOTUS "enforces" laws by ensuring their constitutionality and by providing the definitive interpretation of their meaning. The actual physical enforcement of those laws, as interpreted by the Court, falls to the executive branch.
Are you certain a president can legally be arrested while still in office?
While The Constitution absolutely does not offer Presidents immunity after they leave office for acts committed during office, despite what the Republican justices say, I think it does confer immunity while still in office.
https://constitution.findlaw.com/article2/article-ii--presidential-immunity-to-criminal-and-civil-suits.html
Not in 5 months. The enabling by the elected Republicans is astounding. If a Democratic president tried any of this , he would have been impeached by now. None of the know -absolutely-nothing members of the Cabinet would not be approved. None of this would have happened and we and they know it.
This is all Heritage Foundation Vought and Miller who should be sent to concentration camps in El Salvador.
Who in the GOP supports the stupid tariffs? We publish that list and pursue them to help the Blue team win big at midterms.
Words are still legal. So far.
I used to be a proud U.S. citizen and now I'm not. Although we faced difficulties, I believed the nation was advancing. Then, unexpectedly, Trump's supporters appeared, as if from another planet.
JosephZeigler.substack.com
Sancta kaka?
Seriously, yes! Which is better? I guess it depends on what you're trying to say.
"Sancta merda" is arguably closer to the intended meaning of the expression "holy shit", while "sanctum excrementum" might be what they called the literal holy shit that was once preserved in the monastery of Gräfrath in Germany: excrement that was purportedly produced by the donkey that carried Jesus on palm sunday.
or sanctus faeces
Imposter! Do you think you can actually troll and not be caught?!
yeah who says SCROTUS won’t let him get away with everything? They already made him King.
we can hope...and enjoy in the meantime (the ketchup must be flying)
salsa de tomate voladora
This court of trade is highly respected as the final experts on the subject. That they declared everything null and void in a decision written for SCOTUS leads me to think this will be pretty solid when it gets there. More solid than any of the Trumpscum BS will be.
That's assuming an uncorrupted SCOTUS.
Funny thing, I never heard of this court—I did go to law school 30 years ago but never practiced, still, thought we covered all the federal courts in class. Anyway, an appeals court has already put this on hold….the roller coaster ride goes on.
No balls in that scrotum…the first wife had them removed…and you have to explain the parentage some other way.
I've heard of this thing called a cuckold...
That is Roger Stone's fetish.
My thoughts exactly.
Thank you, Professor Krugman, can’t wait to hear more from you after your morning coffee!
not -ta, surely, with a neuter noun like excrementum...
Fixed it! I haven't used Latin since 8th grade--over 50 years ago.
Sanctus cacas.
Romanes eunt Domus
O stercus felicem! (1) Noun before adjective in Latin, as with Italian, Spanish, French, and the other Romance languages derived from Latin. (2) Accusative case is exclamatory (like "Me miserum!", "Poor me!") but stercus is a neuter like corpus so the same form as nominative. (3) "Excrementum sanctum" more likely in Church Latin, unlikely in Classical Latin. Excrementum is polite, like for Pliny or Cicero; more like English feces. Catullus would be the one to give us the goods, but he's more likely to speak of number one than number two. Merda is very infrequent in Classical writers. Stercus (manure, including human waste) is common to derogate something filthy or crappy. (4) The Romans would be unlikely to use sanctus in this usage; it had a more technical religious meaning. Felix is "blessed, happy" as brought about by the gods, especially regarding manure. Romans would like the humor of something filthy being a gift from the gods and making the crops grow. They even had a minor god Stercutus, the manurer. Sign me, unapologetic geek.
Like I said in an earlier comment, I haven’t used Latin since 8th grade in 1971. And in those days we recited “Latin is a dead language, dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, now it’s killing me!”
Now that’s what I call vulgar Latin!
According to Google Translate it's: Sanctus Cacas
I think they actually would've said "Mehercule!"
Stercus sanctus! applies as well.
I’m adding the 4 other languages I speak just for fun:
ES: ¡Mierda santa!
FR: Putain de merde!
DE: Heilige Scheiße!
HU: Szent ég!
I think I’m partial to the French for obvious reasons.
Translated loosely: “We have a poop!”
Habemus poopam!
Execrementitiously in the English adverb, nonexistent in the Latin…
I would go with sacrus stercus! Which translates exactly, and it's shorter.
elm
doing my latin review currently
Since stercus rhymes with circus...just begging for a limerick.
Any good writers here?
I made a mistake there - that should've been sacrum stercus. That said, I think merda works better, and the gender switch should make it sacra merda. Pretty close to close what it would be in français.
elm
and only ten letters!
Brilliant! I might use that in one of my cartoons if it's OK with you.
(Sample: https://meatlocker.substack.com/p/the-lockemup-shrike)
Yeah that’s fine.
That's wonderful! I'll make sure to remember this one. A total keeper.
This is really good.
Best headline of the day, Mr. Krugman! Sleep well.
Tariffs imposed under Section 232 have not been blocked by the courts. A wide range of products may still be affected, including semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
https://www.tradecomplianceresourcehub.com/2025/05/27/trump-2-0-tariff-tracker/
"Commerce released two Federal Register notices about newly initiated Section 232 investigations into imports of (1) pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical ingredients, and derivative products and (2) semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and derivative products. "
Additional Information:
The court order can be accessed here:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cit.17080/gov.uscourts.cit.17080.56.0.pdf
The court announced that “within 10 calendar days necessary administrative orders to effectuate the permanent injunction shall issue.”
This means that Trump has 10 days to seek intervention from a higher court.
I can see steel, maybe. But do we have the resources to increase production of aluminum? I looked and we certainly don't have much native bauxite; what we have is pretty much mined out.
Besides, all our "excess" electricity is headed for bit coin mining and AI farms.
The limitation with aluminum is the amount of energy required to smelt it. There’s an aluminum smelter in northern BC (Canada). It has its own dam (lots of hydropower here.)
I refer to him as Herr Pumpkinfuhrer!!
Agent Orange - burning down the whole f-g country.
Cheeto Jesus captures the cultlike veneration.
Great yahoo!
Trump will assume the Elvis position soon in front of the crapper in the Mar-a-Lago document room. MAGA dies with him. Rizz-free JD cannot lead.
4 more? Surely 8 (at least).
Prof Krugman said about trade rules "But I guess I just assumed that things like that didn’t matter anymore."
We could all learn that the bad guys want us to despair instead of remaining in uncertainty when we don't know the answer yet.
The court held the 1977 law, called IEEPA, gave no authority to the president to levy tariffs. Article I of the constitution gives Congress the taxing authority unless they delegate it. But the court found that IEEPA doesn’t delegate it to the president except in a national emergency and the Trump admin failed to show that there is one. All three judges agreed.
Yep. Trump says the trade deficit is an emergency, but the law says an emergency can be triggered *only* by an "unusual and extraordinary threat." The U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 consecutive years, making it quite usual and ordinary.
Lots of MAGA think a trade deficit is a massive problem. Someone is ripping us off!
Members of cults don't think. They believe whatever the leader wants them to believe.
Right.
If MAGAts don't like the trade deficit, they should stop shopping.
We are spending alla that money because we HAVE alla that money!
Sheesh.
Sounds basic law 101.
In addition, the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act primarily concerns trade embargoes and sanctions and does not even mention tariffs according to the NYT.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/business/trump-tariffs-blocked-federal-court.html
So, not only no emergency, but Trump is using a rather novel interpretation, as well.
Trump’s team is working on that..
Thank you for this... but also thank you for going after the Crypto Currency (isn't it really a Ponzi Scheme?) that Trump, Peter Thiel, et al are trying to get passed by a sickeningly compliant Congress. The US economy being turned into something whose foundation is a BS kind of "money" is as bad an historical event as I can image... other than the Wall Street collapse of 1929.
The late, great Charlie Munger declared that crypto is sh*t. And if you're buying crypto, you're buying a bag of sh*t (or words to that effect). Good advice.
Tariffs recede, now all worry can focus on crypto.
Trump Got Clipto!
Next: The Crypto!!
Gold is going UP, of course!
The Orange Idiot is such a disaster!!!
Russian bot alert. Get a life Vlad
It's nice of them to self identify so we can break out the troll-be-gone!
Good morning Ms Baker. Your response to current events is surprising, watch your real estate portfolio crash in the next short few months. You’ll be broke in no time.
Open your eyes dear!
You mean that “liberation day” WASNT a reaction to a threat to our national security?
It would be nice if the tariffs paid by people and small businesses gets refunded.. is that possible?
I believe that the money must be refunded. A lot of small business owners must be relieved tonight.
I don't see why not. If they have the paperwork and the government has the cash.
Unfortunately, the government made an emergency appeal and the appeals court judge stayed the lower court's order, so now everything waits until the case is heard at the appeals level.
Sure! Whatever you like! The fed can just print all the money we need for tariff refunds! Easy peasy!
Well, it's not easy peasy, but it would appear to be legal wegal. If the tariffs were illegal from the start, as has just been ruled, then refunds must surely be compulsory if the beneficiaries of the tariffs aren't going to be effectively profiting from crime.
Maybe they'll have to scrap that tax cut for the wealthy.
Dream on.
Complete clusterfuck of a captain, as he crashes the ship to collect the insurance we paid for! My god the GOP Congress has allowed him to have screwed the entire world with their stupidity and the media yawns…time to fire the lot!
Willis Allen real estate in La Jolla, CA supports Trump? Asking for a friend.
Ha Ha
Sanctus defecatum? 🤔
Sancti defectata?
"During a May 13 hearing, Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer from the conservative Liberty Justice Center representing the plaintiffs, argued that Trump's purported emergency to justify the tariffs is far short of what is required under the law.
"I'm asking this court to be an umpire and call a strike; you're asking me, well, where's the strike zone? Is it at the knees or slightly below the knees?" Schwab argued. "I'm saying it's a wild pitch and it's on the other side of the batter and hits the backstop, so we don't need to debate that.""
Amazing.
Sanctus crappus
Forgive my lack of Latin as well, but . . . Stuff (shall we say) is maybe about to get a whole other level of real here, no?
Merda ventilatorem percussit!
Sanctus cacas
Sacre Merde?
😂
After he made millions or billions of dollars rigging the stock market.
Sanctus Merda !
Sancta stercore. But merda would do as well.