Why Trump’s funding freeze is deepening fears that he seeks unlimited power

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/29/politics/donald-trump-funding-freeze-analysis/index.html

US District Judge Loren L. AliKhan summed up a surreal and baffling day after pressing a Justice Department attorney, saying: “The government doesn’t know the full scope of the programs that are going to be subject to the pause.”

In seeking to freeze loans and grants and align them with his priorities laid out in a blizzard of executive actions, Trump was seeking to redirect or halt funding already appropriated by Congress.

“It is a direct challenge against Congress and its ability to be able to approve and authorize its expenditure of money,” Kettl said.

But presidents and their advisers are not kings and don’t get to decide what is constitutional. If they did, the system of US democratic governance would collapse.

“What democracy requires isn’t that as soon as the president comes into power, they could wipe away everything that came before,” said Corey Brettschneider, author of “The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens who Fought to Defend it.”

“The idea of a democracy is that when laws are passed, take the 1964 Civil Rights Act or environmental protection, that those laws bind not just citizens, but bind even the president,” said Brettschneider, a constitutional law and politics professor at Brown University.

Abuse - Beating children

Igros Moshe(E.H. 4:68): You and your wife have such great stress from raising your children that you beat them. However it is obvious to everyone that there is absolutely no beneficial purpose in beating them – in fact it makes raising them much more difficult. Therefore it is an irrational behavior caused by nerves and because of this you cannot handle the stress and you do this crazy behavior of viciously beating your small children without any rationale. You are fully aware that you are transgressing a Torah prohibition every time you hit them because it is clearly not justified educationally. Furthermore these beating from rage are without any limit and are just an attempt to dominate them. It is also possibly dangerous because you don’t avoid hitting them on places of the body which are very dangerous to the child. Consequently I give you have permission to use birth control …for two years…This permission also is granted because of the danger to the mother. It is obvious that she is sick with nerves and all this is very stressful to her. Therefore the difficulty of raising children is possibly dangerous not only to the children but also to her life.

What is a serious defect to annul marriage without a get?

 There are ignorant people who claim they are relying on Rav Moshe Feinstein to annul a marriage because the husband has an incurable psychological issue. It is clear that not every personality order justifies such an approach. This can be seen clearly in one of the classic tshuvos where he annuls a marriage when it was discovered that the husband was a homosexual and he states that this applies only if the husband were exclusively homosexual. 

 

Igros Moshe (E.H. 04:113): Concerning the present matter where the wife has discovered that her husband has had homosexual relations since we find that this is considered a major defect the marriage is a mistake also for the wife as I have explained in Igros Moshe (E.H. 1:79 and 1:180).. It is also reasonable that the fact that the husband is involved in homosexual relations - which are the worst possible abomination and most disgusting thing - it is a disgrace to the whole family. And surely it is extremely degrading to his wife that her husband prefers this disgusting intercourse rather than intercourse with his wife. Thus it is definitely a mistaken marriage. It is clear to us that no woman would be willing to marry such a disgusting, repulsive and debased man as this. Consequently if immediately after she was informed about this she left him - that if it is impossible for her to receive a divorce from him - that she should be permitted to remarry because of having a mistaken marriage. However if it is possible to obtain a divorce, it is necessary to try with all that is possible in order to obtain a kosher get. On the other hand, if he is not fully immersed in homosexuality - but only occasionally because of the influence of his lust - perhaps this should not be considered to be a mistaken marriage. So even though he is a complete rasha (wicked) - even for the sake of a single incident – there are those who mistakenly imagine that this is called a mistaken marriage. However if he is fully immersed in homosexuality - in that he gets more pleasure from homosexual intercourse than from relations with women – it is definitely a mistaken marriage. All of this is if she left him immediately when she found out. But if she remains with him even after being notified, then it is difficult to nullify the marriage. If his behavior is the result of foolishness, since this is something which is unnatural it is definitely a defect. Since it is from foolishness it is likely that there are other manifestations of foolishness. However in essence it is from wickedness and is repulsive - which also makes it a mistaken marriage.

Capital punishment

Igros Moshe (C.M. 2:68): … The Torah reserves capital punishment for those sins which are very serious such as murder, kidnapping, sexually prohibited relations and idolatry. The perpetrator in these cases is unrestrained and is capable of doing whatever disgusting and cruel acts in the world that are in his heart that he thinks are for his benefit. However the death penalty is not administered out of hatred to evildoers or fear for the welfare of society because Bava Metzia (83b) tells us that G‑d will punish transgressors. That in fact is the halacha as poskened by the Rambam (Hilchos Chovel u’Mazik 8:9) as well as all other poskim. So on the one hand the purpose of capital punishment is to let people know the severity of these prohibitions so that they will not transgress them. On the other hand the laws of capital punishment emphasize the importance of each soul and other concerns. Therefore we are commanded that only the Sanhedrin with proper semicha can judge these cases. Only the greatest people in Torah scholarship and other knowledge receives this semicha. In addition to their knowledge they also need to have perfected their character and be very humble as well as G‑d fearing people. They also need to hate money and love the truth as well as wonderful people who are beloved by all…They don’t have any imperfections or bad reputations and they are very merciful. That is why very old people are not appointed judges because they have forgotten the stress of raising children. Also people without children are not appointed because they lack mercy to some degree and they will be too angry at those who have committed sins.

Even these great and good people cannot judge unless they constitute a Sanhedrin of 23 people.However it is not enough there are 23 such people to make a Sanhedrin. They also need to have before them 3 rows of very great Torah scholars who are not yet great enough to be part of the Sanhedrin – but are almost great enough. This is to protect the Sanhedrin from making a mistake in judgment. That is because when these three rows of scholars think that the Sanhedrin is mistaken in their ruling of innocence they will protest and will not listen at all to their words. Another safeguard against making a mistake is that they do not convict based on circumstantial evidence – no matter how convincing. They only convict a person based on two valid witnesses who have not the slightest bias in the matter... Furthermore the witnesses are warned concerning the severity of the sin of false testimony as well as the seriousness of the sin of murder so that they are very afraid of mistakenly convicting or mistakenly declaring the suspected murderer innocent. Even with all of this the witnesses also have to warn the person against murder and the suspected murderer has to acknowledge the warning by saying that even though he is aware of the seriousness off the crime he is still doing it. As a consequence of all these safeguards, only once in many years would someone be convicted of murder. In addition it was impossible to judge capital cases unless the Temple existed and that the Sanhedrin of 71 of the greatest scholars was in session on the Temple Mount. In fact capital cases were not judged even in those countries where the king gave the Jews permission to judge their own people according to the law of the Torah.

As a consequence of these two factors there were almost no Jewish murderers because of the awareness of the severity of the prohibition of murder and because they were educated by means of the Torah and the punishments of the Torah to understand the seriousness of the crime. They were not simply afraid of punishment in the sense of getting caught but were afraid of the crime itself.

However this use of the Torah system to run society was only when the crime of murder was not common but was simply the result of someone’s great lust or some quarrel concerning money or honor. But when people killed simply because it was viewed as an insignificant thing and the murderer was simply a callous and cruel person or similarly if there was a great deal of murders and wickedness – then a different system of law was utilized that was concerned with the pragmatic question of stopping killing and the goal became saving the society.

Hegseth readies actions against Trump foe Mark Milley - Baby Trump's revenge

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/28/mark-milley-hegseth-trump/

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has decided to remove retired Gen. Mark A. Milley’s security detail, suspend his security clearance, and order an inspector general inquiry into his behavior as the Pentagon’s top officer, senior defense officials said Tuesday, taking extraordinary action against a frequent target of President Donald Trump.

Shortly after Trump was sworn in as president this month, administration officials sent a message by having a portrait of Milley memorializing his time as Joint Chiefs chairman removed from a wall in the Pentagon. Fox News reported Tuesday that another portrait of Milley recognizing him for his previous role as chief of staff of the Army was to be removed soon. The senior defense official confirmed that is the case, too.

US Senate blocks bill to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court to protest Netanyahu arrest warrant

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sylymr8u1e

It passed the House earlier this month 243-140, as 45 Democrats joined Republicans in voting "yes."

In the Senate, Democrats said they agreed with much of the bill, but said it was too broad and risked alienating important U.S. allies and imposing sanctions on lower level workers at the court in the Netherlands.

Urging colleagues to vote "no," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, accused the ICC of having "an anti-Israel bias that cannot be ignored." However, he said the bill was poorly crafted and also could target U.S. companies, such as those whose products help protect the court from foreign hackers.

Tulsi Gabbard, Edward Snowden and Intelligence

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/tulsi-gabbard-senate-hearing-director-of-national-intelligence-edward-snowden-julian-assange-3e7b2476?mod=hp_opin_pos_0

Voters want disruption in Washington, but it’d be something else entirely for the Senate to confirm a director of national intelligence who has a record of defending those who subvert U.S. interests. When former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard testifies Thursday, will Republicans pose questions that serve the public interest, or go along to get along with President Trump?

Trump pledged to bring down food prices on Day One. Instead, eggs are getting more expensive

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/28/economy/trump-inflation-price-promises/index.html

 In August 2024, then-candidate former President Donald Trump delivered a press conference surrounded by packaged foods, meats, produce, condiments, milk and eggs.

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he said at the time.

It was a pledge he repeated on the campaign trail, often followed by the phrase, “drill, baby, drill.” And to many voters, inflation was a justifiable target: Years of sharply rising prices had taken a toll on their hard-earned pay and their livelihoods.

But Day One has turned into Day Seven, and those eggs are getting even more expensive.

Despite a flurry of executive actions, Trump’s price-related promises have gone unfulfilled, Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter addressed to the president.

“You have instead focused on mass deportations and pardoning January 6 attackers, including those who assaulted Capitol police officers,” according to the letter signed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 20 congressional Democrats. “Your sole action on costs was an executive order that contained only the barest mention of food prices, and not a single specific policy to reduce them.”

In fact, the lawmakers added, Trump appears to be “backtracking” on those promises, conceding in recent weeks that it’s “hard to bring things down.

Donald Trump's Freeze on Federal Grants and Loans Halted by Judge

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-grants-loans-halted-federal-judge-2022493

A federal judge temporarily blocked a Trump administration order freezing federal grants and loans.

The judge issued a "brief administrative stay" while the matter is litigated

Trump pauses federal loans and grants, putting trillions at risk: ‘Waste of taxpayer dollars’

 https://nypost.com/2025/01/28/us-news/trump-admin-pausing-federal-loans-grants-amid-spending-overhaul-waste-of-taxpayer-dollars/

Back in 1974, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act, which imposes limits on a president’s ability to refrain from spending on items that the legislative branch has appropriated.

“The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional,” Vought told senators during his confirmation hearing earlier this month. “I agree with that.”

Democrats erupted in fury and outrage over the move.

“Donald Trump’s Administration is jeopardizing billions upon billions of community grants and financial support that help millions of people across the country,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fumed in a statement.

“It will mean missed payrolls and rent payments and everything in between: chaos for everything from universities to nonprofit charities.”

Officials Scramble to Interpret White House Pause on Federal Financial-Assistance Programs

 https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/white-house-orders-pause-of-federal-financial-assistance-programs-8362a8e0?mod=hp_lead_pos4

Agencies parse through two-page order—down to the footnotes—to try to understand which programs would be halted

Federal, state and local government officials scrambled Tuesday to assess the impact of a broad and far-reaching order by the White House to pause hundreds of billions in federal grants, loans and other financial assistance-programs pending a review by the Trump administration.

Trump spending freeze upends Washington, triggering legal threats and delays

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/28/trump-spending-freeze-upends-washington-triggering-legal-threats-delays/

Hours after the Trump administration announced a sweeping freeze on federal spending, the U.S. government fell into chaos Tuesday, as officials braced for potential interruptions to programs that promote food safety, combat crime, provide college aid, produce medical research and respond to natural disasters.

Few in Washington appeared to understand the scope and intention of a White House memo that had directed them to “temporarily pause” the disbursement of key funds, leaving thousands of government services — totaling billions of dollars and dedicated primarily to Americans’ health, safety and well-being — at risk of shutting down, at least temporarily.

Trump administration announces freeze on all federal grants - to demand loyalty

Murphy on Trump Freezing All Federal Grants: This is What a King Does