foregoneconclusion

All four are Republicans. All four voted against an investigation of the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. That gives you an idea of how deep their support of "democratic principles" actually goes. 

More proof that the President levying tariffs under the IEEPA is illegal. Not only is there no mention of tariffs or taxes in the language of the IEEPA, but there is also no mention of targeting domestic companies. The IEEPA was intended to be used for sanctioning foreign governments only. 

Pascalxx said:

As I understand it, Facebook basically wants to allow small businesses to receive donations through the platform, without taking a cut and wants Apple to do the same. It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable suggestion to me. Are there no App Store fee waivers for donations?

According to the article, it's paid online events that Facebook was adding. They're trying to characterize it as charitable, but it's hard to see how it would meet the standard of a charitable donation. These are for-profit businesses and influencers. 

10 years ago, it made sense to buy a Mac Pro for use with software like Adobe Photoshop. These days, that's not really a high-end software use anymore. Photoshop can easily be handled by a standard iMac. I think people who complain about what the 2019 version of the Mac Pro represents don't really understand just how much more powerful hardware is today vs. 10 years ago. The 'Pro' end for desktop is MUCH more specialized than it used to be. Only the heaviest of heavy lifting through software requires 'Pro' models anymore.

jeffharris said:

Tariffs will just trigger tariffs on US goods.

the man who managed to bankrupt multiple gambling casinos is hardly an economic genius.

Yep. Trump's tariffs on soybeans from China resulted in retaliatory tariffs by China that hurt U.S. soybean farmers so badly that they needed a taxpayer funded bailout.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/01/21/trump-tariff-aid-to-farmers-cost-more-than-us-nuclear-forces/

The key point, which is made in this article, is that the 1st Trump administration withdrew from NAFTA/TPP trade agreements and did new deals which were publicly promoted by Donald Trump as being significantly better than what they replaced. So it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense that Trump's 2nd administration is claiming trade with China, Mexico and Canada constitutes an "emergency". On top of that, use of the IEEPA to levy tariffs is blatantly unconstitutional going by the standard that the Supreme Court already set with the Biden administration's attempt at using the HEROES Act to forgive student loan debt. 

jfabula1 said:

mikethemartian said:

The previous owners of Twitter must be laughing their asses off.

That’s what this legacy car makers are doing when Mask started Tesla, who’s laughing now??

The legacy car makers. For example: Geely and Maruti Suzuki still sell more vehicles than Tesla. 

Cool_Bananas said: We want that debt to go down, so this is the way to do it.

No, the way to make the debt "go down" would have been to continue the tax surplus that existed in Bill Clinton's final term in office. There was a bipartisan agreement to use the surplus to pay down the debt and it was definitely declining before George W. Bush took office.

But then George W. Bush started up deficit spending again. He did a huge tax cut that was not offset and created large amounts of debt. He invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. And the lack of financial regulations ushered in the Great Recession and a gigantic drop in tax revenue due to the equally gigantic decline in economic activity. Barack Obama managed to get the economy back on track in the next eight years but the huge costs of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and the Bush tax cuts remained while Republicans in Congress demanded austerity. But then Donald Trump was elected and the GOP immediately abandoned austerity and did a $2 trillion tax cut. That added another colossal amount of debt to the balance sheet and was followed by Trump's bungling of the Covid pandemic. 

Jim_MAY said:

The Trump Administration will advance an appeal to the Supreme Court. Congress gave tariff powers to the Presidents long ago.

The Trump administration declared an emergency under the IEEPA statute to levy tariffs. But the IEEPA statute doesn't mention tariffs or taxes as a power that was granted under the IEEPA by Congress. In fact, the IEEPA has never been used by the executive to levy tariffs. It's only been used to apply sanctions to foreign countries. Per the Supreme Court, any statute used by the executive branch that has significant economic/political impact MUST contain specific language that supports the way the executive is using it. The SC has called this the Major Questions Doctrine. Since the IEEPA doesn't contain any language that specifies tariffs as a power granted by Congress, the Trump administration's use of the statute fails the Major Questions Doctrine and is unconstitutional as a result.

An example of this would be the Biden administration's first attempt at forgiving student loan debt under the HEROES Act. A lawsuit was filed that challenged the use of the statute for that purpose. The SC ultimately ruled that the HEROES Act didn't contain language specific enough to support the actions being taken by the executive and ruled the use to be unconstitutional. So if student loan forgiveness is considered a big enough economic/political issue for the SC to apply the Major Questions Doctrine, then the tariff actions by the Trump administration will obviously qualify as well. 

Trump doesn’t have legal authority to levy tariffs. The emergency power statute that he’s citing is for sanctions only. No mention of of tariff or taxation power in the language so it fails the Supreme Court’s Major Questions Doctrine.