• Judicial ping-pong on Trump’s tariffs continues: In April, Donald Trump stunned the world with his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Since then, the question of whether he had the legal authority to impose those tariffs has been working its way through the courts. On Wednesday, a court ruled that the tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) were not legal. Trump’s legal team filed an appeal within minutes, and by Thursday afternoon, a temporary stop was granted on the block of Trump’s IEEPA tariffs. What’s next in this game of judicial ping-pong — a pause on the stay of the block of the tariffs? A separate decision from DC District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras on Thursday put an injunction on the IEEPA tariffs but stayed his order for 14 days to allow a review in the Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, Trump and Co. are assembling an alternative tariff plan.

• SCOTUS green-lights Trump’s CHNV deportations: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s block on the Trump administration’s efforts to deport some 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, dubiously brought into the U.S. by the Biden administration’s “CHNV program.” The Supreme Court overturned Boston-area U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s ruling to halt the removals. Talwani had insisted that these migrants who were brought into the country en masse must receive individual case-by-case reviews prior to any deportation. The Court made its ruling based on the view that the Trump administration would likely win its case against Biden’s controversial “humanitarian parole” program. Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion blasting the majority, warning of “devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”

• SCOTUS quashes micromanaging from ecofascist courts: On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously slapped down one of the favored tactics used by ecofascists to prevent the construction of federally approved infrastructure projects. That tactic involves persuading favorable courts to misapply the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) environmental impact statements to derail and block infrastructure projects, such as pipelines. “NEPA does not allow courts, ‘under the guise of judicial review’ of agency compliance with NEPA, to delay or block agency projects based on the environmental effects of other projects separate from the project at hand,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. “Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness.”

• President Donald DOGE: Elon Musk officially ends his brief stint as a Special Government Employee and head of the Department of Government Efficiency today. According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the new leaders of DOGE are the Cabinet secretaries and President Trump himself. The implication is that DOGE teams will be folded into each secretary’s purview, maintaining the same intent of identifying inefficiencies and corruption. Donald Trump was always the ultimate head of DOGE, even before Musk’s departure. Musk stated on X Thursday that he was thankful for the chance to reduce wasteful spending and expressed his belief that DOGE’s mission will become “a way of life throughout the government.”

• Epstein killed himself, film at 11? Yesterday on Fox News, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino addressed the popular conspiracy theory surrounding the death of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — that he did not kill himself while in custody in New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center. Bongino again stated that the evidence shows that Epstein did kill himself. He noted the existence of a video, which he promised would soon be released, that doesn’t show Epstein killing himself, but it does show “there’s no one there but him [Epstein].” He added, “There’s no DNA. There’s no audio. There’s no fingerprints. There’s no suspects. There’s no accomplices. There’s no tip. There is nothing. … There’s video, clear as day. He’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.”

• Trump’s presidential pardon spree: Donald Trump pardoned 12 people this week. The power of presidential pardons is sweeping and absolute; presidents can pardon whom they want. Joe Biden used this power sweepingly, pardoning his son and hundreds of others, some of whom were guilty of murder, accepting bribes, and more. Biden’s pardons were, in many cases, despicable, but two wrongs don’t make a right. When Trump pardons a former Army lieutenant who was court-martialed for refusing to comply with the COVID policy, that’s one thing. Still, other cases, such as a gang leader or a sheriff convicted of accepting $75,000 in bribes, are a different story. The Washington Times points out that one common thread in these pardons is vocal support of President Trump. Flattery probably should not be rewarded with a presidential pardon.

• DOGE and DOD: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is serious about implementing the DOGE ethos in the Pentagon. Hegseth announced this week that $5 billion in wasteful spending on “consultants and contractors” had been identified and would be cut, in addition to the $5 billion already identified, adding up to $10 billion. If you ask RedState, these cuts are “massive.” If you ask our own Mark Alexander, $100 billion in Defense Department savings would be “a drop in the bucket.” Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg has been working with DOGE to identify these savings, but Hegseth isn’t stopping there. He issued three memos aimed at reducing the number of contractors and consultants, reforming the use of executive assistants, and making weapons testing more efficient. The savings found so far are encouraging, but they’re just a start.

• Job Corps pause: Concern over reports of fraud and corruption has resulted in the Department of Labor announcing it would “begin a phased pause” of the nearly $2 billion Job Corps. Established in 1964, the federal job training program targeted runaway teens in an effort to house, educate, and train them for gainful employment. However, for decades, evidence has shown that contractors have been gaming the program to keep the money flowing. As Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer explained, “A startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.” Shocking, we know. Effectively, Job Corps has become a massive grift for federal contractors as the program spends $764,000 per graduate, who end up earning an average of $17,000 annually. Furthermore, two-thirds of students in the program never graduate.

• White House cuts out ABA: The American Bar Association (ABA) will no longer receive “special access to judicial nominees,” Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Thursday. The reason, Bondi explained, was that the ABA has become so politically biased that it “has lost its way, and we do not believe it serves as a fair arbiter of judicial nominees.” It is true that the ABA has a long history of supporting progressive judicial nominees while giving unfavorable ratings to conservative nominees. “In some administrations,” Bondi noted, “the ABA received notice of nominees before a nomination was announced to the public. Some administrations would even decide whether to nominate an individual based on a rating assigned by the ABA.” It was the ABA that infamously gave Judge Robert Bork a “Not Qualified” rating.

Headlines

• Judge blocks Trump from stopping Harvard international admissions (Just the News)

• Government employee arrested after sharing classified info with FBI agent (Fox News)

• U.S. presents Israel-approved ceasefire deal to Hamas that could end Gaza war (NY Post)

• “Sleazebag”: Trump attacks former Federalist Society chair (Forbes)

• Illegal alien arrested over handwritten letter threatening Trump assassination may have been set up (NY Post)

• The sanctuary cities, counties, and states the Trump admin just put on notice (Newsweek)

• Humor: Elon Musk leaves job of making government more efficient for much easier job of sending humans to Mars (Babylon Bee)

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