Who, exactly, is doing maintenance on this boiler?

Comparison:

. . . the legal architecture is one of those cursed American contraptions with twelve brass levers and a smoking boiler. In February, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. That was the big one. The Court basically looked at this whole setup and said, no, sorry, this item is not unlocked. You cannot just rummage around in the statutory attic, find a wrench, and declare it a crown.

Shanley Hurt legally takes readers upstairs to the attic in a FB post to a series of legal judgements--including the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of International Trade--to understand that any U.S. President who wants to use tariffs must follow Congressional laws concerning trade and tariffs. Do tell.

Context:

The factual spine here is simple, even if the legal architecture is one of those cursed American contraptions with twelve brass levers and a smoking boiler. In February, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. That was the big one. The Court basically looked at this whole setup and said, no, sorry, this item is not unlocked. You cannot just rummage around in the statutory attic, find a wrench, and declare it a crown. Then the Court of International Trade clarified that importers are entitled to the benefit of that ruling, which in practical terms meant hundreds of thousands of companies collectively pivoted from quiet suffering to the much more satisfying activity of demanding their money back. Nintendo, being a company with both substantial import exposure and an almost theological relationship to coins, was not going to sit this one out and clap politely from the sidelines.

Citation:

Hurt, Shanley. FB post Oregon’s Bay Area, 07 March 2026. Web

(Graphic image design by Lee Aigue; initial visual image courtesy of ChatGPT, March 2026.)