Breaking Constitutional law left and right. Any time someone breaks laws on such massive scale and gets away with it, the door will be opened wide to the same crimes repeated in the future. This is possibly the most serious of the horrible outcomes we could expect. The courts are active, but it will be a while before they act (in most instances). Meantime tremendous damage will be done. One specific example, delivery of perishable food items and pharmaceuticals by USAID is being delayed. USAID buys billions of dollars of U.S. farm output and pharmaceuticals. If the agency's budget and personnel is slashed, it will materially affect American farmers and Pharma, and not in a good way. That is to say nothing of the potential physical losses, waste of grain, etc., and the harm done to many whose survival may depend on USAID assistance. There are other harms as wells. You may not be aware that USAID was not formed by executive order. It was formed by an act of Congress during the Kennedy era. The purpose of USAID and its Head Administrator's duties are delineated by statute. They can not be altered by executive order. To do so would violate the separation of powers, inalienable to our Constitution. Anything the President might do, except possibly under marshal law or an officially declared state of emergency, that would interfere with the Agencies statute-defined mission would be constitutionally illegal unless the President were to go to Congress and get Congress to alter the Statute. President's have a history of making inroads into powers given to Congress. Congress is at fault for allowing President's to do this. It's what happens when the Congress is dysfunctional. The people are responsible for the dysfunction; poor education and internet disinformation is the reason the people make bad choices.
USAID should have not refused to provide information. There were completely rogue employees that were accountable to no one. There was no other choice.
This is nonsense, none of what you maintain is correct. You are a victim of disinformation. Probably from the bimbos on fox news. The USAID is public. Its books, projects, budget are in the public domain. Any information beyond that can be accessed via FOIA. What can't be is Constitutionally protected.
No matter how many times as a child I asked about their flight/relocation to Brazil, why they got rid of their last name or what happened in Germany by the Nazis, there was nothing but silence and dead eyes staring at me. Must have been fun times?
That is partially correct. Good job! The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 provided the legal basis for USAID's establishment. Kennedy issued an executive order to create USAID. You are correct that significant changes to USAID's purpose or the Administrator's duties cannot be made solely by executive order, as these are established by statute. However, Trump isn't breaking any laws. None. The Administrator of USAID is appointed by the President. The USAID Administrator's responsibilities include formulating and executing foreign economic and development assistance policies, subject to foreign policy guidance from the President, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Council. For the President to effectively oversee entities that report to him, it is crucial to have transparency into financial transactions, such as payments, to verify that his instructions are being carried out.
Hey, they want to send the Palestinians from Gaza to the worst part of Somalia. Surely, this will be an offer they jump on. Israel considers sending Gazans to Puntland – and the Somalian state could be open to it Palestinians say they have no intention of going to the bitterly poor Somalian region where IS still operate https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/02/06/israel-considers-sending-gazans-puntland/ Puntland already hosts some 60-70,000 displaced persons.
There's some potential conflict. The establishment of an Agency is Mandated by the Act. The USAID was established by Kennedy by executive order, thus fulfilling the Act's mandate. The president can, I suppose, replace the USAID with something else but he's still bound by the mandate. And setting up a new agency whose purpose was to eliminate the functions of the USAID would certainly violate the Act's mandate. The president could change things even if he doesn't follow the law, if Congress allows it. The things that might save the country from a lawless president, such as the felon occupying the oval office at the moment, would be Congress, the courts, or the people. The Court route requires an entity or person with standing. Congress would have standing I suppose, but Congress is in the hands of the law breakers! We are more less fucked. This is how democracies die.
What I wrote above is not strictly correct. The USAID, or similar agency, was mandated by an Act of Congress, but the USAID itself was established by JFK's executive order in response to Congress's mandate. It is the underlying Act and thus the mandate that can not be changed by an EO. But if another agency replaces USAID it would still have to fulfill the Act's mandate. So what would be the point. I haven't looked at the original statute. The Trump administration has said it wants to move some of USID's responsibilities to the State Department (What's the point, and this too would probably violate the Act). They can do things legally by repealing the old Act and passing a knew one. The Trump administration controls the Congress, so they could do this. The amount of money intended to be saved is minuscule; the potential for harm monumental.