Probable political fall-out over Trump’s Supreme Court tariff defeat

As a retired political consultant, I do, occasionally, prognosticate on Trumpian political portraits.

I predicted early on, for example, that Trump would defeat Hillary in 2016 when no one I could find or read agreed with that assessment.

The Supreme Court decision is/will be a major hit on the President. Essentially one of his main platform planks, his reliance on the unlawful application of a Federal law (International Emergency Economic Powers Act, known as IEEPA) will cost, initially, somewhere in the vicinity of $175 billion to, most likely, be required to be returned to the countries/companies which paid the money in question.

Trump, for his part, claims he has work arounds to, effectively, bypass the Supreme Court. Those options, however, seem dramatically more limited than what he had been doing before.

It has to be kept in mind that while this will be a major hit to the revenue tariffs were bringing in (roughly $30 billion monthly), This decision does not eliminate all tariffs, just those implemented citing IEEPA those implemented citing IEEPA.

IEEPA tariffs represent about 55% of all current tariffs collected in FY 2025.




It is essentially impossible for the US to keep these funds as a result of the USSC declaring the collection of this money to have been unconstitutional

It will take some time, of course, to unwind the clock of this portion of tariffs, but the sources of the payments themselves will not be difficult to determine.

Further, there is a probability that the payments themselves will have to be returned with some level of interest added to the costs, along with the legal fees/costs/expenses incurred by the prevailing parties.

Which sets the table for the current snapshot.

But what of the actual political fallout? What impacts will this cause in the midterms?

Recently, the left, which lacks in most political areas of interest, had been hoisted on their own petards of supporting illegal aliens, to include murderers, rapists, robbers and the like; by funding the protests as well as the bail demands for many illegals arrested for criminal acts, particularly in the fringe left cities such as New York, LA and Portland.

ICE detainers are frequently ignored. Murders, rapes, robberies and assaults have resulted. Many illegals are simply let go, back our on the streets to continue their crimes.

So-called “sanctuary cities” urge fellow leftists to riot and engage in various types of violence and obstruction in an effort to end or reduce ICE and related law enforcement agencies from fulfilling their sworn duty to apprehend and deport the illegals infesting us.

Out of control spending and massive, business-crushing tax increases have resulted in more and more businesses closing down and/or leaving these states. Portland’s downtown finds the value of many of their high rises sinking lower than yet another Willamette River sewage spill, with massive vacancy rates and a 70% devaluation in value.

They continue to stay in lockstep with their insane positions on fake females competing against the real thing and free entering women’s rest room and locker room facilities. They find themselves seemingly unable to even define what a woman actually is.

They continue their opposition to a requirement to prove American citizenship to vote in our elections, even though members of Congress are required to use picture voter ID to vote on legislation… and even though CNN polling indicates that 71% of democrats support voter ID.

Their insistence of sticking with the wrong end of these and other 80/20 equations made it increasingly likely that there would be little to no leftist resurgence in the mid-terms.

Until now.

NOW, they have been handled a legitimate issue reinforcing their oft-stated perspective that Trump refuses to obey the laws governing this country.  They will now begin a slightly different approach, wherein they rightfully CAN call his judgment into question, given his overwhelming defeat on the tariff issue.

Also, they can apply that test to anything he does, question his decisions on anything (since, even if Trump cured cancer, they'd complain about the shape and numbers of test tubes he used in the process.) and this time, have some legitimate reasoning for their positions.

In my decades of political work, there’s an axiom that has repeatedly proven true:

"If you’re ‘explaining?’ You’re losing.”

This defeat blew up the news cycle like a small nuclear warhead.

On this issue, it IS difficult to avoid the “how could he do this” question.

How is it possible that none of the legal talent he has didn’t question the legality of using a law that lacks any mention of the word “tariff” in it?

If they didn’t mention it, they should be fired.

If they DID mention it and he ignored them?

This crushing, 6-3 defeat. where even the alleged conservative members of the Court tossed him under a bus, is legitimate fodder for campaign commercials and the blame-game.

ALL politicians count on the notoriously short memories of the voters. Right this moment, most GOP pols are praying for that short memory with the onset of the midterms. Meanwhile, it’s a bet that leftists are not already writing the commercials they run wherein they call into discussion the President's judgment as well as the judgment of those who had supported Mr. Trump’s efforts.

But now, GOP incumbents out in the field are likely to find themselves on the receiving end of questions they do not want to be asked.

And will likely have a very difficult time answering.

Does this make the midterm flip more likely? Maybe. It certainly doesn’t help.

A competent ad campaign makes that more likely.

In my experience, the GOP has been “not bad” in getting power.

But they have a terrible time keeping it. Typically, as a result of their own failures, such as Majority Leader Thune failing to take action on the SAVE Act

And one of their major pitches just took a very solid, very bad hit.

Leftist billionaire and state elected corruption. Caught in the act. UPDATED:UPDATED:UPDATED Billionaire effort to strip the initiatives off the ballot.

UPDATED:UPDATED:UPDATED Billionaire effort to strip the initiatives off the ballot.

It would seem that a leftist group of billionaires, including Nick Hanauer, Bill Gates and Steve Balmer, funded 2 separate lawsuits against the Washington Secretary of State to have the Lets Go Washington initiatives taken off the ballot this November.

The case made it all the way to the State Supreme Court and neither Secretary of State Steve Hobbs nor Sideshow Bobby Ferguson, the Attorney General and governor wannabe, never told anyone.

it would seem that the suits blasted through from a superior court to the court of appeals and then to the Supreme Court without public notice and without notifying Let's Go Washington, the organization behind the initiatives.

If a reporter researching another case and stumbling across THIS case hadn't found out, and then called Brian Heywood, who organized and funded the LGW effort to ask for comment, they NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN until it was over.

The claims were, apparently, that the process used to determine signature validity was "flawed."

The Court, for their part, and stunningly enough, voted unanimously to throw out both lawsuits, and the measures will remain on the ballot.

It is unknown how this could have been kept so quiet beyond the likelihood that @letsgowa was not a party to the suit, or why neither Hobbs or Sideshow never said anything... even though we all know the most dangerous place on earth is the space between Sideshow and social media.

But we can guess.

The measures are I-2066, stopping the natural gas ban, I-2109 repealing the capitol gains tax, I-2117, ending the hidden gas tax AND I-2124, opting out of the state's mandatory state-run long term health care coverage act.

This is an absolute example of leftist corruption.

This apparently just broke at 7:00 pm tonite (Friday).

The 11 minute video of the case being discussed live on KVI is at the link:

Additional discussion videos are from Washington Gun Law here:

And a more in-depth analysis by Brandi Kruse, podcaster on Washington State politics:

The bigotry of Sotomayer: Defense of the Indefensible: Update - dems reduced to lying about this issue.

FACT CHECK: Don't quote Sotomayor on that, Senator

WASHINGTON (AP) - In endorsing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy did some creative rewriting of history. And he put quote marks around it.

Trying to head off criticism of a controversial comment, Leahy misquoted Sotomayor's own words in kicking off the second day of her confirmation hearings.

Sotomayor's public comments are as much a part of the hearings as her lengthy judicial record. Here's a look at some of the claims made Tuesday about those comments, and the facts.

___

LEAHY SAID: "You said that, quote, you 'would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would reach wise decisions.'"

THE FACTS: If that's all Sotomayor said, the quote would barely have mattered to opponents of her nomination. The actual quote, delivered in a 2001 speech to law students at the University of California at Berkeley, was: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Leahy's revision dropped the controversial part of the phrase, the part that has attracted charges of reverse racism.

Sotomayor said her words have been misunderstood. She said she intended to tell students that their experiences would enrich the legal system. But she softened her language Tuesday, say that no ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in judging.

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So... does any reader here believe this revisionst history wasn't planned?

Leahy is a scumbag. Always has been. That he's reduced to lying to attempt, no matter how badly, to cover up Sotomayer's bigotry speaks for itself.

That said, with the recent set up and scamming of the not-terribly-important hispanic vote by Tim Leavitt, racism of all kinds has reared it's ugly head.

For many, they're convinced that only those of us light-complected (that is, "white") can be racist. The absurdity of such a claim is made clear by the racist occupying the White House.

A bigot has been described as a pejorative term to describe a person who is obstinately devoted to prejudices, especially when these views are either challenged, or proven to be false or not universally applicable or acceptable.

This, of course, leads us to yet another in the series of disastrous, racist and incompetent personnel choices our president has made for his Administration.

There are certain aspects of this moronic appointment that are universally accepted. One is, perhaps, the most infamous phrase ever uttered by any sitting judge, anywhere.

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Were I questioning her, I would ask this:

"So, Judge Sotomayer, tell us... about that "wise Latina woman" (Is there some other kind of Latina?) speech... is the reverse also true?

Are there situations where a white male with the richness of HIS experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life?"

"And what might those situations be?"

That question will never be asked of this woman, because the leftists running the show believe they're making political points by appointing such a racist to the highest court in the land.

"Racist?"

Yes, racist. As racist as Bull Connor and his German Sheppards. I don't even need to explore what would not be happening to a white male nominee had he said such a thing... and the double standard is despicable.

Racism is racism. The purveyors of racism are not determined by any particular characteristic. There are black, brown, white, male and female racists. Sotomayer, whether she acknowledges it or not... whether she even knows it or not, is one of them.

She is a self-admitted product of the "affirmative action" state. She has reached her various levels of incompetence not because of any judicial stardom, but because she was the token hispanic.

And THIS is who we want sitting on the highest court in the land? THIS is the best the empty suit in the White House could do?

Seriously?

Suddenly, Harriet Miers looks like a brilliant choice in comparison. And the people of this country will be made to suffer for it.
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Early take on the Cowlitz headshot: What does it all mean, and does it undo all of the land that WAS taken into trust?

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As the ramifications continue to make themselves known, I pause to wonder: What impacts will now be felt by all of the many tribes, recently recognized, who then opened up casinos?

As we peel this political onion, a series of new questions arise: if taking land into trust for tribes recognized after enactment of the 1934 Act is not allowed.... then what about all of those areas where land WAS taken into trust in violation of that law? Will all of those efforts be declared null and void? Will the "sovereignty" of those lands suddenly be questioned? Will the commercial enterprises, including casinos, now all come under state and local regulation and law, since they are arguably no longer "sovereign?"

Tribes are talking about taking this to Congress. What can Congress do, Constitutionally, to "fix" this?

Article One, Section 9 prohibits "ex post facto law."

An ex post facto law or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law.

Does that mean that even if Tribes do buy the needed changes in Congress, that such changes will require Tribes to undergo approval AGAIN?

In a case like this, it seems not altogether likely that Congress might wave a magic wand and just reverse all of this.

Can states act on their own to preserve at least a version of "commercial sovereignty?"

It's fairly clear that Tribes own our governor. Will she view this as an opportunity? Are the tribal compacts now void?

In Washington State, race-based commericial enterprise advantages are prohibited by the enactment of I-200, the initiative that eliminated race-based preferences in government.

How can, for example, this state extend the ability of tribes to engage in casino gambling without extending the same privlege to everyone else?

These are just a few of the many questions that either no doubt have, or no doubt will be discussed in the near future.

Interesting times, these.


Excerpts from around the country:

It remains unclear how many tribes could be affected by Tuesday's ruling, but Richard Guest, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, said it could be dozens. Lawyers for Rhode Island believe several hundred tribes recognized after 1934 might now be unable to place new land into a federal trust without specific permission from Congress.

In neighboring Massachusetts, the Supreme Court ruling effectively blocks an effort by the newly recognized Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to open a casino in Middleborough under a federal law that permits tribes to enter the gaming business, said attorney Dennis Whittlesey, who helped town officials negotiate a deal with the tribe on gambling.

Whittlesey said Congress could still amend the disputed statute for the benefit of tribes like the Mashpee Wampanoag and Narragansett.

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U.S. Supreme Court ruling deals blow to Massachusetts tribes’ casino plans

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, February 25, 2009

By Paul Grimaldi

Journal Staff Writer

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling yesterday dealt a blow to the tribe seeking to build a casino in Southeastern Massachusetts, forcing it to seek congressional help with plans for a gambling venue near the Rhode Island line.

“It’s really absurd that the policy of the U.S. government would be to recognize the sovereignty of native tribes but not allow those native tribes to take land into trust,” said Cedric Cromwell, Mashpee Wampanoag tribal chairman. “It’s all a part of sovereignty.”

Cromwell said he will write to members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation asking them to intervene on the tribe’s behalf.

“We look for the Congress to correct what the court could not,” he said.

The Wampanoags won federal recognition in 2007, seemingly giving them the right to operate a casino. Their intent was to open an entertainment destination of slot machines, table games, a hotel, golf courses and other attractions by next year in Middleboro, about 30 miles from Providence.

The casino would be similar to the complexes in Connecticut run by the Mashantucket Pequot and the Mohegan tribes and be a direct threat to the two slot parlors that provide Rhode Island with millions in gambling revenues.

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Independent News For Mohegans and By Mohegans

Responding to today's landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal said that no more land will be taken into trust as reservation land for the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot Tribes.

Blumenthal called the decision "historic" and will bring to an end the ability of the state's two federally recognized Indian tribes to have land "taken off the tax rolls."

Once the United States takes land into trust for Indian tribes, the land cannot be taxed.

The Mashantucket Pequot Nation, however, said the Supreme Court decision doesn't affect them.

The Mohegan Tribe has not yet reached the 700-acre limit (not including the Fort Shantok property) the Tribe was guaranteed upon its settlement agreement.

Currently, the Tribe's Reservation includes the 158-acre Fort Shantok property and about 350 acres of other property. The Tribe submitted an application last September requesting the federal government to add 49.75 acres to the Reservation.

Included in the 49.75 acre application are: 1) the Tantaquidgeon Museum and adjacent property upon which is the imprint of Harold Tantaquidgeon's longhouse, 2) six parcels that include or are near the former Trading Cove Pizza property, which is largely now a parking lot, and 3) five properties on Broadview Avenue. All but one of the 16 parcels are currently owned by the Tribe.

Including Fort Shantok, the Mohegan Tribe's Reservation is 508 acres. This does not include the 49.75 acres in the application or other land owned by the Tribe but not held in trust, such as the Cochegan Rock property and the Shantok Apartment complex on Sunny Hill Drive in Uncasville.

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These represent some of the early responses to this landmark, common sense decision. In one fell swoop, The Supreme Court accomplished more to return sanity to the utterly nonsensical idea that an individual possessed of tribal membership by the accident of 1/32nd blood, or tribal membership by administrative fiat and NO tribal blood, can somehow find ways to usurp state and local authority.

Make no mistake: this is a huge stick in the spokes of those who would do their best to turn this county into an economic black hole.