Random News And Notes 23 May

In what can only be called a win for President Trump, SCOTUS issued an order allowing the administration to fire certain staffers at some of the ‘independent’ quasi-executive agencies. The specific agencies in this case, Trump v Wilcox, were the NLRB and the MSPB.

You may know about the NLRB (national labor relations board), as it affects people outside the government. You likely have not heard of the merit systems protection board unless you have worked for the feds. The MSPB was set up to protect federal employees from political discrimination. It has – like much of the permanent state – turned into a leftist hellscape.

Until yesterday, the President was limited to firing members of those agencies for cause.

I have to wonder where stare decisis comes into play here. The current controlling case, Humphrey’s Executor limits the President’s authority to fire members of quasi-independent agencies like the NLRB and MSPB. I will leave that to better legal minds however.

Harvard University continues its dalliance with antisemitism and DEI and it continues to bite them on the collective ass. This time DHS Secretary Noem has issued an order removing Harvard from a program that allows foreign students to attend US universities.

The program removal doesn’t just affect incoming students, it also affects currently enrolled students. There are some 6500 international students attending Harvard this academic year. They will all be forced to transfer or lose their student visas. Effectively, this order reduces Harvard’s student body by some 25%.

All the Harvard leadership had to do was not support Jew hatred and this wouldn’t have happened. <facepalm.gif>

Friend Phantombyte posted about this story in the comments of this morning’s Conversation. It’s not every day that you see a cargo ship run aground in front of someone’s home, so I did some reading and well . . .

A Norwegian man, Johan Helberg, woke to find the NCL Salten, a 134.21m(443ft) long and 22.5m(74ft) wide Cyprus flagged container ship, hard aground on his front lawn on a fjord near Trondheim.

Despite the fact that the bulbous bow was only a few meters from his house, Mr Helberg says he slept through the whole thing. He only awoke when panicked neighbors rang his doorbell. The grounding happened around 0600 local time.

As of this writing, there has been no oil or fuel released from the vessel and she remains hard aground in Mr Helberg’s yard.

Do you remember Hannah Dugan? The Milwaukee county judge that helped an illegal with an active ICE detainer escape her courtroom by the back door? Well video of her courtroom and the courthouse has been released. It does not look good for the judge.

Dugan is facing several federal charges from the incident and is looking at as many as 6 years in the federal slam.

Enviro-loon and California Governor Gavin ‘Hairgel’ Newsom issued an executive order that effectively banned internal combustion engined cars and trucks in that state. The rule was to go into effect by 2035. For a long time, the EPA and the feds have allowed California to set national emissions standards through a series of waivers.

Thanks to the Congressional Review act, that particular EPA waiver has been recinded. The resolution reversing the decision, made in 2024 by the Biden administration, garnered 35 Dem votes in the House and one – Elissa Slotkin of Michigan – in the Senate. It goes to President Trump for his signature next.