Monthly Archives: January 2026

An Activist Judge Gets It Wrong

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DC District Senior Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ruled that

the Trump administration is legally required to secure funding for the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and that failing to do so would violate a prior court order barring the government from dismantling or shutting down the agency[.]

However.

Leave aside the fact that the question of the Trump administration funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the question of the Trump administration dismantling or shutting down the agency are distinctly separate questions.

The fact of interest here is Jackson’s mistaken ruling that Trump must fund the CFPB. He cannot. By the statute that created the CFPB, that agency is funded solely by the penalties it exacts via its enforcement actions (pay no attention to the conflict of interest behind the curtain) and from the Federal Reserve Bank, the latter which the CFPB draws from according to CFPB-determined needs (pay no attention to the doings behind this curtain, either).

The Trump administration has no control over and no capacity to produce CFPB funding. This is the sort of shenanigan in which activist judges engage, causing increased cost and delay in cleaning up prior messes.

A Useful Test

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In their Wall Street Journal Tuesday op-ed, Michael O’Hanlon and Marta Wosinska, Brookings Institution Senior Fellows, pointed out that shotgunning moves (vis., universal tariffs on everything a target nation or group of nations exports to us and broadly barring exports to those same targets) as a means of altering the several links to the supply chains our economy needs to make the goods we need along with altering those links our economy wants to make the things we want. They then offered a three part test to better target those supply chain links that are most important and most time critical to us and our security.

  • First, a supply chain warrants special focus when its disruption would quickly threaten lives, core defense missions, or essential economic functions.
  • Second, when substitutes or workarounds can’t be instituted in time to mitigate the disruption.
  • Third, when surge capacity can’t be built on a reasonable timeline.

This approach, as they emphasize, acknowledges that developing resilience is costly and helps ensure that scarce capital goes to the most vital choke points. In fine, it targets links for better allocation of our non-tree-sprouting spending money

This is a good test, and it’s applicable in another way than purely domestically. It needs to be applied in reverse, also. What are the analogous critical choke points in our enemies’ supply chains? Applying the test to those would let us better target our enemies’ ability to wage and sustain war against us, our friends, and our allies.

In the “Go Figure” Category

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New Jersey is one of several States that do not require a photo ID to vote. It’s also one of a number of States that offer reduced fare to some groups—senior citizens, military personnel, the infirm, for instance—on their mass transit systems.

Go figure:

Per Rutherford’s Shore News Network, as quoted by Fox News,

Starting January 1 [last Thursday], photo ID required for NJ Transit reduced fares but not for voting[.]

Hmm….

Activist Investor Lawsuits

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Comerica, a regional commercial bank, has agreed to be acquired by Fifth Third Bank, a bank holding company, and HoldCo Asset Management, a serial “agitator” and a minority shareholder of Comerica, doesn’t like that decision and has gone into court to stop it.

It turns out HoldCo Asset Management didn’t like that particular deal [Comerica being acquired by Fifth Third Bancorp], arguing it undervalued Comerica. Its battle with the bank has since turned into an all-out war. The firm urged shareholders to vote against Fifth Third Bancorp’s acquisition of Comerica and sued the banks, saying it wasn’t the best option for shareholders.

The lawsuit strikes me as being entirely frivolous and motivated even more by HoldCo’s arrogance than by its greed. The value of any good or service, here the value of Comerica, is not for any third party to dictate to the participants of any exchange, here the acquisition of Comerica by Fifth Third Bank. The value of the exchange is solely what the participants, the shareholders of each of the two banks, say it is.

The two banks’ boards have agreed the deal and are recommending it to their respective shareholders (read: owners and bosses); although, the haven’t yet voted on it. It’s true enough that HoldCo is one of those shareholders, but the shareholders in their aggregate will assign with their votes the value they deem appropriate.

Minority shareholders should not be allowed to impose their minority position on the majority of a company’s shareholders. If they lose the debate over a company’s acquisition or over any other move made or proposed by the company—if the majority of shareholders at each of the two banks vote for the deal—then HoldCo’s only two legitimate recourses are to accept the outcome or sell their shares.

It’s a matter of property rights, here the rights of shareholders in their property of the shares they own of a company.

Lawsuits centered on a minority’s dislike of a company decision or proposed decision should be dismissed for lack of standing or lack of concrete harm.

Full stop.

Tension?

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The Supreme Court has taken up the question of whether Louisiana’s redistricting effort for its Federal Congressional representation is legitimate, or not. The Just the News‘ news writer, the unusually (for JtN) anonymous “Just the News Contributor,” posed the central question before the Supreme Court:

In Louisiana v Callais, the Supreme Court is confronted with a direct tension between two legal commands: the VRA’s mandate to protect minority voting rights and the Constitution’s limits on race-based decision-making by the state.

There is—or should be—no tension here. Our Constitution says this in Art VI:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land….

In Marbury v Madison, the Supreme Court made clear that conflicts between statute and Constitution must be resolved strictly and solely in favor of what our Constitution says, and every Supreme Court decision since has hewed to the ultimate supremacy of our Constitution. Any tension can exist only in the minds of activists and activist judges and Justices.

Nor can there be any half-measure wherein some level of race-based discrimination is OK. Any race-based discrimination or “preference” in political gerrymandering is too much and a violation of our Constitution. Here’s the 14th Amendment on the matter:

No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The clause does not say No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, except when it’s convenient to do otherwise.

Full stop.