The Trump administration has not fully complied with a court order pausing the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Bring specific people into court, and hold them in contempt.

    If they refuse to appear, assume judgement, and seize assets.

    You don’t need a fucking army if you can force all their assets to be frozen. Worked for Russia, worked in the Red Scare, and it’ll work now.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        This is the point. Anyone not complying with the actual court orders should get contempt. Trump can’t pardon them out of shit.

        • MsPenguinette@lemmy.world
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          24 hours ago

          President does have the power to pardon someone for a federal contempt charge. So we’ll get into a wierd situation of perpetual pardons and contempts at some point. We can only pray that that level of recursion breaks the simulation and we can all leave this hell cape.

    • ryrybang@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      Contempt needs to happen, like tomorrow. The longer these folks feel above any law the worse our chances of recovery from this get.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      If this were civil, that would maybe be a thing.

      This is… well its fundamentally different. We’ve undergone a coup. This kind of circle-jerking “But He’s Not Following The Law” by NBC, is well, masturbatory, and intentionally obscures what has happened.

      NBC is part of the problem, not the solution. Being in contempt of courts when courts and law have no… why pretend like they do?

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Not about civility. Doomers are saying there isn’t anything the other equal branches of government can do, but there is. This is one of those things.

          • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            I do. This is not a civil matter. This is 1/3 of the government apparatus fucking with the other two, and the judicial has all the power in this country to compel every citizen to comply.

            Is Chase holding Elon’s money? Guess what happens if they don’t comply with a federal court order.

            What state does he hold property in?

            Does he have stocks? Of course he does. All of these can be seized on paper alone without the Executive branch being involved at all.

            • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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              24 hours ago

              I’m even more convinced than before you have not a fucking clue what the fuck you are talking about or what civil means in this context.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Banks and private asset organizations are not the federal government.

        If you’re trolling, fuck off.

        If you’re just stupid, educate yourself.

        • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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          Correct me if I’m stupid, I thought asset seizures need to go through the Department of Treasury, no? Like they can refuse to honor the FDIC, other things if banks don’t unfreeze?

          This also all seems to go through the whole “if they comply”. Usually the DOJ enforces things, no?

          • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Nope. They can apply at any banking institutions which are governed by state as well. Is that bank incorporated in any of the 23 states currently suing the Trump admin?

            Is Danny Smith the head of said bank?

            Any and all of the individuals involved in not complying with a court order can be held in contempt and have assets frozen for defying a lawful order of the court.

            • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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              21 hours ago

              Your comment about state authority make me just a little more hopeful…

              • stickly@lemmy.world
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                19 hours ago

                On the other hand, Trump is already flaunting his ability to choke state resistance by withholding federal funding.

                Outrageously unconstitutional but he already isn’t following the courts anyway. I wonder if there’s any way for states to work around that, since most blue states are net negative on federal funds.

                Just stop paying up because he won’t comply with the freeze? Then use those funds to paper over the deficit?

                • grue@lemmy.world
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                  17 hours ago

                  Just stop paying up because he won’t comply with the freeze?

                  In order to “just stop paying up” the states would have to convince their citizens and businesses to stop paying their Federal income taxes and payroll taxes, because that money goes directly to the Federal government without passing through the states’ control first.

                  As far as I can tell, the only part of the Federal budget revenue that flows through the states and therefore might be able to be blocked is small enough to fit in the “misc/other” slice on a pie chart.

                  • stickly@lemmy.world
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                    15 hours ago

                    Good point. But at the same time the states control a lot of bureaucracy around day-to-day civilian operations and vital records.

                    If the state doesn’t send birth and death certificates to the IRS, taxing gets a lot harder. They control the registration of corporate entities, and while I’m not an expert on corporate law, I assume they could cause problems restricting access to those.

                    There’s probably some creative, outside the box economic resistance as well that I don’t know enough to guess at. For example, taxes/tolls/fines targeting government vehicles? Cutting or up-charging state power/utilities to customs offices?