timelets

Costco Wholesale Corp. joined a fast-growing list of businesses suing the Trump administration to ensure eligibility for refunds if the US Supreme Court strikes down the president’s signature global tariffs policy.

The nation’s biggest warehouse club chain is among dozens of companies to file lawsuits in a US trade court since late October challenging President Donald Trump’s use of an economic emergency powers law to impose the levies, according to court records. It’s one of the biggest corporate players to jump into a fight largely driven this year by small businesses and Democratic state officials.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement that, “The economic consequences of the failure to uphold President Trump’s lawful tariffs are enormous and this suit highlights that fact. The White House looks forward to the Supreme Court’s speedy and proper resolution of this matter.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-01/costco-joins-companies-suing-for-refunds-if-trump-s-tariffs-fall

Though Trump has been in office for more than three weeks, he has yet to send a substantive bill to Congress. Some observers have compared Trump’s flurry of action to Franklin Roosevelt’s first 100 days, or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda. They are missing the point. FDR and LBJ sent big legislation to Congress. Trump is starting with a pipeline of executive orders. If the courts stymie those, they will be blocking his agenda. His strategy rests on a pliant judiciary.

He believes the US electorate gave him an unchecked mandate. It follows that any interference in his exercise of power — including an Alice-style belief that the US constitution means what he chooses it to mean — amounts to a block on democracy. Could he put 30,000 illegal immigrants beyond legal reach in a refitted Guantánamo Bay? Of course. The American people have spoken. Might he pick which of America’s creditors to repay and which to declare fraudulent? Quite possibly. Trump, not judges, will be the decider.

The Republican-controlled Congress has removed itself from Trump’s path. Unelected judges are the problem. Ultimate among those are the nine justices of the US Supreme Court. It is to their inboxes such dilemmas are heading. At stake is their reason for existing.

Turkeys are allegedly opposed to Thanksgiving. Yet the Supreme Court last July granted the US president sweeping immunity from almost any “official” acts. It takes little imagination to infer that this could be stretched to ignoring the courts. The six justices who put their names to that ruling may now regret their loose phrasing. They could have edited themselves into an advisory body. The problem the court faces is that Trump has a strong wind at his back. Constitutional lawyers warn that he could destroy America’s separation of powers.

https://www.ft.com/content/8e52b5ae-56b4-4571-ba09-103d5799ce9a

Perhaps the biggest test for Congress is Trump’s bid to wrestle power over one of the legislature’s core functions: deciding what programs get funded, and at what cost. In an unprecedented action, the Trump administration offered 2 million federal employees a chance to resign now and receive eight months of pay, implying an expenditure of money not authorized by Congress. Further, Trump and his allies have said they would contest a Nixon-era law that requires him to spend money on programs as appropriated by Congress. Trump allies have said the law is unconstitutional and that the president can impound, or refuse to spend, money for programs he doesn’t like.

The tepid response so far offers the latest measure of how much Congress has ceded its authority since earlier eras in which powerful committee chairmen defended their constitutional turf no matter who was in the White House. Today, Trump dominates his party, and many GOP lawmakers fear that challenging him could cost them their jobs, as the president and his allies could back primary challenges against them.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-kicks-aside-congress-with-sweeping-claims-of-presidential-power-a3daf68b

Основатель и генеральный директор «Телеграма» Павел Дуров более 50 раз въезжал в Россию в период с 2015 по 2021 годы, выяснили «Важные истории».

С этого момента [продажа вк] и до конца 2017 года бизнесмен приезжал в Москву и Петербург как минимум 41 раз. В Россию из Финляндии заезжал и его брат Николай — программист, который фактически и создал популярный мессенджер.

В июле 2017 года в силу вступил одиозный пакет законов депутата Ирины Яровой, по которому операторы обязаны передавать ФСБ ключи расшифровки сообщений пользователей.В этот момент Кремль начал репрессивную кампанию против «Телеграма». Несмотря на риски, миллиардер провел почти весь остаток 2017 года главным образом в России, на несколько дней выезжая в Финляндию, Латвию и Францию, свидетельствуют данные базы «Кордон».

...Дуров впервые с декабря 2017-го приезжает в Россию. Точная дата пересечения границы не отображена в базах ФСБ, однако можно с уверенностью сказать, что Дуров был в Петербурге 18 июня 2020 года — вечером этого дня он сел на самолет из Пулково в Белград.

Днем 18 июня Роскомнадзор внезапно выпустил заявление о прекращении блокировки мессенджера в России по согласованию с Генпрокуратурой: «Позитивно оцениваем высказанную основателем Telegram готовность противодействовать терроризму и экстремизму». При этом суд не отменял решения о блокировке, а Госдума не принимала законопроектов, которые позволили бы инициировать разблокировку мессенджера.

21 октября 2021 года Дуров улетел из питерского Пулково на Ибицу и больше не приезжал в Россию. Зато туда регулярно ездит его личный ассистент, который ранее готовил визиты Дурова в страну, следует из базы ФСБ. Этот же ассистент сопровождал его в поездке в Азербайджан перед задержанием во Франции, следует из анализа соцсетей этого сотрудника «Телеграм».

https://storage.googleapis.com/istories/news/2024/08/27/pavel-durov-priezzhal-v-rossiyu-bolee-50-raz-s-momenta-izgnaniya-v-2014-m/index.html

Donald Trump's real estate empire could be saved by his wife, former first lady Melania Trump, after the former president was barred from conducting business in the state of New York for three years.

https://www.newsweek.com/melania-ivanka-could-save-donald-trumps-businesses-1870853

В Нижнем Новгороде 24-летнюю девушку отправили под административный арест за ношение сережек в цветах радуги. Об этом сообщает правозащитный проект «Эгида». 29 января к ней подошли двое неизвестных. Записывая происходящее на камеру, они потребовали, чтобы она и ее друг немедленно сняли с себя «экстремистскую символику». Впоследствии видео опубликовали в соцсетях, и героиню ролика вызвали на допрос. Сотрудники центра «Э» составили на нее протокол о демонстрации экстремистской символики. Силовики решили, что радужные серьги связаны с ЛГБТ («Международное общественное движение ЛГБТ» признано экстремистским и запрещено на территории РФ), и задержали девушку. После чего суд отправил ее под арест на пять суток.

https://t.me/rusbrief/196395

He[Ricoeur] derives this initial ethical understanding of institution from Arendt’s concept of “power in common” that is contrasted with domination (“power over”) and that is realised by a plurality of people acting in concert. ...

Because acting in concert with unknown third parties needs time to unfold, institutions are needed. Institutions thereby provide the neces- sary temporal dimension for the power in common to endure, which lies at the basis of any political community. ( Read more... )

--- Reijers, Coeckelbergh. Narrative and Technology Ethics.

Those bills are being subsidized in part by many small-dollar contributors. A major fundraising stream for Save America, called the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, received more than 40% of its donations this year from donors who gave $200 or less.