We all know that Trump said he was “gonna” do this and “gonna” do that all through the campaign (when he may or may not have had any expectations of winning).  But when it comes to government spending, all he can actually do is ask Congress to pass this or that law, and when it comes to his executive orders, he hasn’t had very much luck with the federal courts letting them stand.

His revised travel ban is being blocked, pending full hearings, and now a federal court in San Francisco has issued a preliminary injunction against his move to punish sanctuary cities by holding back federal funding (Politico article, April 25, 2017).

His tax plan promises to be interesting, because he’s hoping to win over some Democrats to it which of course is likely to come at the expense the support of the right-wing Freedom Caucus–and good luck getting the Democrats on board (Politico article, April 25, 2017).

In any case, though, while you learn about the limits of presidential power academically, from reading the textbook and listening to me yammer on, our president is learning the limits of presidential power experientially.

(While you’re on the OpenLab page, you should also check the news feeds at the right for a lot more information on what’s going on .)