Sunday, September 28, 2025

Supreme Court Allows Trump to Withhold roughly $4 Billion in Foreign Funding approved by Congress

The court's three liberal justices dissented.

The Supreme Court on Friday extended President Donald Trump's freeze on roughly $4 billion in foreign aid payments.  

The 6-3 ruling is being considered a significant victory for the White House in its months-long effort to claw back spending approved last year on Capitol Hill because it could effectively give Trump a roadmap toward canceling more congressionally-approved money, according to CNN

The money includes funding for global health and HIV programs that Trump deemed wasteful.

The ruling comes after the high court stayed the order earlier this month – following a lower court determining that Trump lacked the authority to withhold funding that Congress allocated. The court's three liberal justices dissented.

Adelita Grijalva Won as Expected, Discharge Petition at Issue

By Amy West (Sept. 26, 2025) 

Samuel asked us “1) First, what happens if a majority of a house of Congress wants to pass a bill, but the relevant committee doesn't bring it to a vote? Is there a way to override the committee, and if so, how does this work?”

The answer is that yes, there is at least one way: the “discharge petition.” (There are other ways, and since the House writes its own rules a majority of representatives can do almost anything by changing the rules, and that happens frequently. But for today we’ll stick to the discharge petition procedure.)

First, on Sept. 23, Arizona held its special election for its 7th district to fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Raul Grijalva when he died earlier this year. His daughter [pictured above], Adelita Grijalva, won as expected. 

The younger Grijalva is expected to be signature 218 on Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition which would bring to the floor a bill that would require the Trump Administration release files on Jeffrey Epstein. (It will put representatives on the record on Epstein files, but because the bill will likely die in the Senate it may not result in the release of the files.)

So what is a discharge petitionAs the Congressional Research Service says, 

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Florida Surgeon General says Vaccines Should be a Choice. But What’s his Advice?

Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has said they would remove requirements that schoolkids get vaccinated.  

But Ladapo has refused to say whether kids should be vaccinated at all.

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Florida's Ban on Openly Carrying Guns is Unconstitutional, Appeals Court Rules

A three judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal, pointing to U.S. Supreme Court Rulings on Second Amendment Issues, said the open-carry ban is incompatible with the nation's "historical tradition of firearm regulation."

“No historical tradition supports Florida’s open carry ban,” Judge Stephanie Ray wrote in a 20-page opinion joined by Judges Lori Rowe and M. Kemmerly Thomas. “To the contrary, history confirms that the right to bear arms in public necessarily includes the right to do so openly. That is not to say that open carry is absolute or immune from reasonable regulation. But what the state may not do is extinguish the right altogether for ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens.”