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Ann Coulter Op-ed: How To Bribe The Supreme Court

May 3, 2023 by Ann Coulter

Having failed to destroy Clarence Thomas 32 years ago with preposterous sexual harassment charges (disbelieved at the time by 60% of Americans), now the left is resorting to attacking the ethics of a man vastly more honorable than the collection of degenerates reviling him.

The sole purpose of the media’s sudden fixation on the Supreme Court’s “ethics” is to morally intimidate conservative justices by reminding them that the left controls the culture. Since they lost abortion, liberals have been in a panic that the court will junk other liberal sacraments, like gay marriage and affirmative action, too. That’s the reason for the stream of calumnies directed at the justices.

As usual, the main target of the left’s rage is Thomas. We’re supposed to be appalled that Thomas’ billionaire friend Harlan Crow took the justice and his wife on a vacation that (the media claim) would have cost Thomas more than $500,000!!!

Well, yeah, but Thomas and his wife, Ginny, weren’t going alone. They hadn’t just won a cruise sweepstakes. They were joining Crow on a vacation he was taking anyway. Cost to donor: a few extra chicken cutlets and string beans.

Crow sounds like a great guy, but when you’re going on vacation with a benefactor, it isn’t like he’s handing you an expensive bauble. You are the expensive bauble.

We went on a cruise on my private yacht in Indonesia and served Jeroboam of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1945.[Meh.]

We went on a cruise on my private yacht in Indonesia and Justice Clarence Thomas was our guest. WINNER!!!!

Cui bono? Everybody!

The media want us to believe that generosity from personal friends is an ethical issue, but that’s because that’s not how liberals bribe government officials. They bombard their targets with the sort of public adoration that money can’t buy — or the sort of public hate that money can’t block. Your choice: Be beloved from every corner of society or be subjected to nonstop ridicule.

Adored: Anthony Fauci, BLM, Michelle Obama, Trevor Noah, transgenders, Ukraine, black people, pot, Elon Musk (pre-Twitter), Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Hated: Ron DeSantis, the Proud Boys, Melania Trump, Dave Chappelle, Christians, Russia, white people, cigarettes, Elon Musk (post-Twitter), Clarence Thomas.

Thus, during her quarter-century on the court, Ginsburg was showered with alms from the media, Hollywood, universities, television, publishing, the music industry, museums, clothing manufacturers, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Post Office and an array of nonprofits.

It’s a miracle she ever had time to write opinions with the constant procession of awards, retrospectives, portraits and honors — the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture; the LBJ Foundation’s Liberty & Justice for All Award; the World Peace & Liberty Award; a lifetime achievement award from Diane von Furstenberg’s foundation; the 2020 Liberty Medal by the National Constitution Center; and the World Peace & Liberty Award from the World Jurist Association and the World Law Foundation.

I would wager that most people would prefer ceaseless public praise to a cruise, no matter how nice the yacht.

The U.S. Postal Service produced an RBG “Forever” stamp; the U.S. Navy named an oiler the “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”; Los Angeles’ Skirball Cultural Center put on a large-scale exhibition on her life; the Cleveland Museum of Natural History named a species of praying mantis after her; she was slobberingly interviewed by Stephen Colbert; a Sam Adams beer was named in her honor; and she received honorary degrees from literally dozens upon dozens of universities.

Say, did any of these outfits have an interest in cases that might come before the court? Perhaps MSNBC could look into that.

It’s curious that the very cultural institutions bestowing all these goodies on liberals don’t see them as “gifts” at all. There are no somber invocations of “ethics” when the Sundance Film Festival features a North Korean-style documentary about Ginsburg. Nor when The New York Times gushes that Ginsburg was “a trailblazing feminist … [continuing] to point the way toward greater equality … she never wavered in her commitment to the court as a vehicle for a more just and more equal America. She was a dogged, tireless fighter … [gag, gag, gag].”

Try to imagine that string of accolades being given to Thomas, much less the Tiger Beat worship — the coloring books, documentaries, bobbleheads, and so on.

It’s inconceivable. In fact, the “honors and recognition” section on Thomas’ Wikipedia page contains a single item: “In 2012, Thomas received an honorary degree from the College of the Holy Cross, his alma mater.”

The only reward a conservative titan like Thomas will receive in this lifetime will be his friends spending their own money to enjoy his company. So the media have decided that’s a conflict of interest. Fawning media coverage worth millions of dollars: not a conflict of interest.

Let’s compare!

Value of private supporters’ gifts to Justice Thomas over the years: Maybe a few million dollars — and that’s according to liberals, although the donor was going on these vacations with or without Thomas, so the cost to him was minimal.

Value of liberal institutions’ gifts to Justice Ginsburg over the years: approximately $3 trillion.

It’s been a long time coming, but we finally have a Supreme Court that isn’t dying to impose faddish liberal ideas on the country by claiming to discover never-before-seen constitutional rights. If anything, the Dobbs opinion should have calmed lefties. Abortion is no longer a “constitutional right,” so now it’s up to the states. And guess what, liberals? Americans are voting to allow abortion!

But Democrats are mostly neurotic women, so “calm” is not their middle name.

Contrary to the left’s self-advertisements as huge fans of democracy — Democracy Dies in Darkness! — the last thing they want is people voting on their crazy ideas. That’s why they’ve got to discredit the current court.

If all goes according to plan, Trump will lose another election for the GOP next year, handing Democrats super-majorities in Congress, whereupon they will pack the court. Finally, liberals will have their magical Supreme Court back! How much is that penumbra worth to you, New York Times?

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Op-ed: The Post Office fired me for honoring the Lord’s Day. Supreme Court must make this right

By Gerald Groff | Fox News | Published April 13, 2023 2:00am EDT

My roots in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania run deep. Growing up here it was rare to see businesses open on Sundays. It was the Lord’s Day. We spent the morning in church, the afternoon with family, and honored God by resting from our regular labor—something God commanded we do in the fourth of the Ten Commandments.

I never thought I would lose my job for honoring the Lord’s Day.

As I matured, I looked for jobs that would respect the Lord’s Day. The United States Postal Service seemed a perfect fit. Not only could I drive the rural routes of my boyhood, it famously did not deliver on Sundays. I could have a good career and respect the Lord’s Day.

It was an ideal job until the Postal Service contracted with Amazon to provide Sunday delivery. At first, we managed to find a workable solution: I would work every holiday that did not fall on the Lord’s Day and take extra route work on weekdays and Saturdays to make up for not working Sundays.

SUPREME COURT TAKES UP RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CASE INVOLVING POSTAL WORKER WHO REFUSED TO WORK ON SUNDAY

As much as I was able to accommodate the Post Office, stepping in to help other employees when they needed it most, the Postal Service would not accommodate me. If I were a full-time rural carrier, it would be no problem. Full-time carriers have enough seniority to be contractually exempt from work on Sundays. If I had been willing to compromise what I believed and worked just a few Sundays, I would have reached seniority to get a full-time route and gone on to have a long career with the U.S. Postal Service.

Authorities say a mail dropbox outside of a Pennsylvania post office has been struck dozens of times by thieves searching for money and checks. (FOX 29 Philadelphia)

It was either I violate God’s command to me and honor the Lord’s Day by keeping it holy or honor Him and trust Him with the outcome. On the verge of my ideal career, I surrendered all my seniority, unwilling to sacrifice my hope of becoming a full-time carrier at the prospect of refusing God’s decree—even if it meant working just one Lord’s Day.

The response by the Postal Service was brutal. I felt targeted for almost two years. Rather than respect my religious beliefs, the Postal Service chose to make an example out of me. Postal management sent me for eight different “pre-disciplinary interviews” at the main post office. Each one took about two hours out of my work day, and I still had to finish all of my routes—and without overtime pay.

My employer purposefully assigned me more work than the same carriers I had been supporting every Saturday and holiday by working so they could have time off with family. Without explanation or justification, USPS docked my pay. If I had just compromised what I believed about the Lord’s Day—even just a handful of times—all of it would have gone away. Compromising what we believe is never the right choice.

Surely an employer the size of the Postal Service could have found a way to accommodate a single employee’s religious beliefs. Instead, it disciplined me so severely, it was quit or be fired.

Gerald Groff lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a former postal employee. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear his case on April 18, 2023. (First Liberty Institute)

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether religious employees like me who work extra shifts, holidays, and cover for his colleagues deserve a religious accommodation in the workplace. Only God knows the final outcome; I still trust Him even if my decision to honor the Lord’s Day cost me my career.

Our nation has a long history of protecting employees from being treated differently just because of their faith. That is something woven into the fabric of our nation, including Lancaster County. The heritage of respect and tolerance our nation has shown to the Old Order Amish and Mennonites who are my neighbors in Lancaster County is a lovely thing. Yet the U.S. Postal Service refused to extend that religious tolerance to me.

I hope the Supreme Court reaffirms our nation’s commitment to providing equal opportunity and fair treatment in the workplace. No employee should be forced to make the same decision the Postal Service forced upon me: faith or job.

Gerald Groff lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a former postal employee.

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As Moral Relativism Replaces Christian Values, Americans Will Suffer More Mass Shootings

BY: KATHLEEN BUSTAMANTE | APRIL 03, 2023

angry protesters march with signs — The devolution of American society began when moral relativism supplanted biblical truth in education, government, and eventually the family.

Author Kathleen Bustamante profile

KATHLEEN BUSTAMANTE

The devolution of American society began when moral relativism supplanted biblical truth in education, government, and the family. Beginning in the late 1940s with the Supreme Court’s Everson v. Board of Education ruling and onward, our government and educational system have turned their backs on absolute truth to embrace Marxism, which aims to remove Christianity from all spheres of society.

The moral erosion proves obvious in a recent Barna poll that found, “Millennials are significantly less likely to believe in the existence of absolute moral truth or that God is the basis of all truth.”

The study also noted that “Millennials have less respect for life, in general,” and that “they are less than half as likely as other adults to say that life is sacred. They are twice as likely to diminish the value of human life by describing human beings as either ‘material substance only’ or their very existence as ‘an illusion.’”

Millennials’ disregard for life or morality should not come as a surprise. The decreasing number of young Americans who attend church regularly hear from pastors who may not preach biblical truth. A study by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found that only 51 percent of America’s evangelical church pastors hold a biblical worldview.

Armed with this data, I am thankful that recent shootings like those at The Covenant School in Nashville and the school shooting in Uvalde do not occur more frequently.

Gun-control advocates, the media, politicians, and my friends on social media urge increased gun restrictions as the solution to the problem, pointing to Europe and Australia as the golden standard for gun control. Yet, a 2018 New Zealand Herald article showed that despite tighter gun restrictions in these countries, shootings have occurred more frequently than Americans realize.

In 2022, for example, a gunman killed two and wounded seven people in Denmark, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in Europe, before authorities apprehended him and held him for psychological testing. The article, along with anti-firearm advocates, suggests increased psychological testing as the next solution now that radical gun-control policies have failed.

Not many in Western society honestly address the origin behind increased psychological problems. Western countries increasingly lean on modern mental health mantras rather than dealing with the heart of the matter.

For centuries, firearms have been a standard tool for hunting and home defense in America and Europe. So why the escalation of gun-related massacres throughout the United States and the West over recent decades? Again, I pose the heart of the issue: Moral relativism has replaced the truth of God’s Word.

As a college writing professor, I read and hear the anti-American and anti-Christian propaganda to which my students have been exposed their entire lives. Basic biblical truths such as “treat others how you wish to be treated” and “love your neighbor” have been replaced with mantras like “treat others with kindness unless they offend you” and “love yourself.”

How can a society that raises children devoid of the Christ-centered teachings of Christianity expect anything besides massacres at the hands of miserable, self-centered, and horribly confused individuals like the Uvalde and Highland Park shooters?

Gun Control to Mask Moral Decline

Seven years ago, I attended an active-shooter training hosted by the campus safety department at the community college where I taught in Portland, Oregon. I will never forget the cautionary advice shared by one of the presenters.

“In the event of an active shooter situation, don’t bother calling campus police. Instead, call 911,” he advised. “Campus police at this college are unarmed, so we won’t be able to ensure your safety. Although it will take the local police department much longer to respond to a campus shooting, they will eventually be able to take down a shooter if the need arises.”

Baffled, I asked why campus police are expected to perform their duties unarmed. He explained that several years prior, a college board member felt distressed about campus police carrying firearms. After a swift vote by the board, my safety as well as the safety of my students and colleagues would be jeopardized henceforth.

After the training, I stayed behind to ask the officer his opinion regarding faculty arming themselves on campus. He encouraged me — off the record, of course — to carry concealed for my own safety and for the safety of my students. That college, like most academic institutions across the country, proclaims itself to be a gun-free zone.

A 2019 CNN article documented 10 years of school shootings, and the majority occurred in gun-free zones. A 2019 study conducted by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that in schools across the U.S. that reportedly allow teachers to carry guns on campus, no deaths occurred as a result of shootings between 2000 and 2018.

Neither the problem nor the solution to school shootings has any correlation with guns or mental health problems that can be treated with medication and therapy, as many scholars and pundits contend. Rather, the problem stems from our nation’s replacement of biblical truth with moral relativism.

A Symptom, Not the Cause

As a writing instructor for 16 years, I examined thousands of essays, gaining an unusual window into the lives and experiences of my Millennial and Gen Z students. Like an airline passenger who shares intimate details with a stranger, knowing he will never see that passenger again, many of my students confide personal musings and revelations in their writing.

A surprising number of essays I read unwrap students’ deep suffering related to childhood sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Some of my students suffer the scars of drug- or alcohol-addicted, neglectful parents. Some students are only a few months clean and sober themselves. Several are homeless. And over the past decade, they write increasingly about gender confusion.

I have detected a common theme throughout their stories. Each of these unique souls is in search of something specific, a need inherent in every human. The agonizing part is that an ancient moral and religious tradition understands their needs, but they do not.

Instead of the moral relativism they have been fed from kindergarten through college, they need to hear truth. Not the “find your own truth” nonsense propagated by educators, Hollywood, and hosts on “The View,” but rather the age-old truth found solely in the Word of God.

The solution is clear: Churches must put away social justice-centered and seeker-friendly sermons and return to expository teaching. Parents must roll up their sleeves and remove the responsibility of parenting from educators and the media by doing the hard work themselves. And voters must stop expecting the government to fix a problem created by sinful humanity.

Instead, we must repent and ask God to point our nation to truth.

Kathleen Bustamante is a freelance writer and former college writing instructor. Her writing has appeared in the American Spectator, the American Conservative, the American Thinker, Real Clear Religion, and James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

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Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Race Is the Left’s Opening to Reverse Years of Conservative Victories

BY: DAVE CRAIG AND JAKE CURTIS | APRIL 03, 2023

split screen of two candidates — Wisconsin’s growing leftist base sees an opportunity to overturn all of the hard-fought reforms by flipping the state’s high court.

DAVE CRAIG AND JAKE CURTIS

On Tuesday, Wisconsinites will once again head to the polls in a race that has garnered national attention and set national spending records for a judicial race. According to the most recent Wispolitics.com tally, the two Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates and outside groups have combined for over $45 million in spending. What’s at stake? All of the reforms of the Gov. Scott Walker era, and more.

Home to Walker, former Speaker Paul Ryan, former RNC Chairman and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and conservative star Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin has enjoyed an outsized role in national politics since 2010. Instead of cautiously governing like so many administrations in purple states, Walker and his allies advanced some of the boldest reforms in the nation. Starting with the historic Act 10 that resulted in a siege of the Capitol (and over $15 billion in taxpayer savings), conservatives advanced bold reforms like Right to Work, voter ID, concealed carry, castle doctrine, and a dramatic expansion of school choice.

Now, Wisconsin’s growing leftist base sees an opportunity to overturn all of the hard-fought reforms by flipping the state’s high court. Politico recently proclaimed the race “could be the beginning of the end for GOP dominance.” This would obviously be bad news for conservatives nationally since Wisconsin will undoubtedly play a huge role in who is president in 2025.

The two candidates running to replace the former conservative Chief Justice on the current 4-3 conservative court could not be any more different, and whoever wins will determine the ideological control of the court for years. Running as the progressive is Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz. Instead of articulating a coherent judicial philosophy, she has consistently emphasized her “values” and how they will influence her decisions. She has also troublingly declared that Wisconsin’s legislative maps are rigged – announcing her thoughts on an issue that is likely to come before the court if liberals gain the majority. She has stated that she disagrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that returned abortion law to the states. She is also the candidate that the left apparently sees as showing they “are done pretending that judges are merely legal umpires.”

Contrast Protasiewicz’s activism with the originalist approach of former Justice Dan Kelly, appointed to the court by Gov. Scott Walker, who authored historic decisions during his four years on the court and consistently quotes from the Federalist Papers on the campaign trail. His lead opinion in Tetra Tech upended decades of deference to administrative agencies.

While Kelly has been supported by the Republicans and Protasiewicz by the Democrats, it is clear that Protasiewicz views the job of a judge as a super partisan legislator, supplanting the legislature’s authority with that of her own. Forecasting what a liberal majority would do Wisconsin’s duly-enacted reform regime, liberal Justice Jill Karofsky herself has declared specifically that “everything that Wisconsinites care about is on the line in this election, from abortion rights to fair maps to the 2024 election to democracy itself, all of those things are going to be on the ballot on April 4th…” These are all issues that have been settled by the democratically elected legislature but are apparently all on the table for a liberal majority of the court.

While abortion, crime, and redistricting have been the main focus of the media and outside groups during the campaign, several other cases could be brought which would fundamentally transform the landscape in Wisconsin. Even cases that have already been addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court are at risk of novel interpretations under the Wisconsin constitution by a new progressive majority.

An issue impacting tens of thousands of Wisconsin families that could be dramatically affected by the balance of the state Supreme Court is school choice. In 1998, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the choice program for religious schools in Jackson v. Benson. There, the court reversed the lower court, holding that the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was valid under both the Establishment Clause and Article I, Section 18 of the Wisconsin Constitution, which prohibits the use of money from the public treasury to be used for the benefit of religious societies, religious schools, or seminaries. The holding was based in large part on the fact that students in the program were not compelled to attend sectarian schools nor forced to participate in religious activities. The Court further held that public funds may be given to third parties as long as the program on its face is neutral between sectarian and nonsectarian alternatives and that the transmission of funds is guided by the decisions of independent third parties.

While the decision in Jackson has been in place for a generation, a court viewing itself as a super-legislature could undo the decision in part, or in whole, based on a narrowed view of the constitutional provisions reviewed in that case, particularly relative to monies “drawn from the treasury” that are used in the choice program. A court decision holding a strict view of the provision could decimate a program that provides alternatives to families desperately looking for an alternative to failing public schools.

Another issue likely to surface in the event the ideological makeup of the court shifts, as it has recently in other states, is the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s voter ID law. In League of Women Voters v. Walker and Milwaukee Branch of NAACP v. Walker, leftist groups challenged Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law, claiming the legislature lacked authority to enact a voting qualification under the Wisconsin constitution and that the law was an undue burden on the right to vote. Upholding the law, the Court noted that requiring an ID was within the legislature’s authority to provide for laws relating to elector registration under Article III, Section 2, that the law was a reasonable regulation that “could improve and modernize election procedures, safeguard voter confidence in the outcome of elections and deter voter fraud,” and that the burdens of gathering the required documents, traveling, and obtaining a photograph ID were not a substantial burden.

In a challenge to the voter ID law under the state constitution’s right to vote, an activist court could hold that a record demonstrating that numerous individuals claiming to have been deterred from voting because of the burden of obtaining an ID is evidence of a “substantial burden” that outweighs the threat of voter fraud and could strike down the law. The left will undoubtedly come after this important law ahead of the 2024 election as it has recently in other states. In a state with razor-thin margins of victory for conservative super-stars like Sen. Ron Johnson, opening the gate to fraudulent votes in the absence of a voter ID law could have major consequences in 2024 and beyond.

Finally, and least covered by the media, are the ramifications the court race might have on the shift of power back to the deep state. In the 2018 case Tetra Tech EC, Inc. v. Wis. Dep’t of Revenue, the court departed from its practice of “deferring to administrative agencies’ conclusions of law.” In a case where a citizen may be challenging an agency’s interpretation of law or administrative rule, the court would no longer review the agency’s action with a “bias” toward the agency’s own interpretation. Agency interpretation is an issue that arises in courts every day across the country, measuring the amount of authority an agency wields on virtually any issue, ranging from taxation to education to election administration – many times involving an agency seizing authority the legislature never gave it. A restoration of agency deference by an activist court could result in an immediate shift of authority from the legislative branch to the unelected officials in the executive branch.

During the final days of the race, former Justice Dan Kelly is sprinting across to the state with a final closing message: saving the court. But the race is about more than just the court. It could impact policies duly enacted by the legislature that conservatives have worked for a generation to obtain. It will make a difference in securing elections and electing strong conservatives like Ron Johnson, who has demanded Covid transparency and has taken on the deep state, or electing central planners like Tammy Baldwin who want to strip us of our freedoms. The election on Tuesday presents a fundamental choice to voters.

Do they want Wisconsin to lurch backward with a progressive court that will undo so many of the reforms the legislature and Gov. Walker worked to implement over the last decade, or are they going to vote to save the court by elevating a former justice that will ensure a conservative majority that respects the law as written by the legislature? The choice is obvious. Save the court and save the state.

Dave Craig is a Waukesha attorney and served in the Wisconsin Legislature from 2011 to 2021. Prior to his election, he worked as an aide to Congressman Paul Ryan. Jake Curtis is an Ozaukee attorney who previously served as an agency Chief Legal Counsel in the Walker Administration.

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No One Should Be Forced to Choose Between His Faith and His Paycheck

BY: RACHEL N. MORRISON | MARCH 06, 2023

USPS man sitting in the back of his mail truck — Without action by the Supreme Court, employers will continue to feel safe denying religious accommodation requests.

Author Rachel N. Morrison profile

RACHEL N. MORRISON

Should American employees be forced to choose between making a living and freely exercising their religious beliefs? That is the question the Supreme Court is considering in Groff v. DeJoy.

On Tuesday, a diverse group submitted amicus briefs urging the court to answer that question with a resounding “no.” More than 30 briefs were filed on behalf of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mormons, Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, Sikhs, Zionists, religious liberty and employment law scholars, medical professionals, nonprofit organizations, states, and members of Congress, among others.

Groff involves United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier Gerald Groff, a Christian, who holds uncontested sincere religious beliefs about resting, worshiping, and not working on his Sunday Sabbath. After he joined USPS in 2012, USPS contracted with Amazon in 2013 to provide mail deliveries on Sundays. Initially, USPS accommodated Groff’s Sunday Sabbath observance but later required him to work Sundays.

In accordance with his religious beliefs, Groff refused to work when he was scheduled on his Sunday Sabbath, resulting in progressive disciplinary actions by USPS. Realizing his termination was imminent, Groff resigned in 2019, leading to this religious discrimination lawsuit.

This case places the future of workplace religious accommodation rights in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Religious Accommodations in the Workplace

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Recognizing that we live in a pluralistic and religiously diverse society and that it is important for employees not to have to hide or give up their religious identities in the workplace, Congress amended Title VII in 1972 to affirmatively require employers to “reasonably accommodate” an employee’s religious observances and practices unless doing so would pose an “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”

The necessity for a religious accommodation in the workplace arises when a job duty, rule, or policy violates an employee’s sincerely held religious belief — such as working on one’s Sabbath. In practice, Title VII’s religious accommodation right has the biggest benefit for employees of minority religions and those who have less common religious practices — from a Muslim’s hijab and daily prayers, to a Jew’s yarmulke or Friday Sabbath observance, to a Seventh-day Adventist’s Saturday Sabbath observance, and a Sikh’s kirpan (small sword), metal bracelet, unshorn hair, and beard.

In 2015, the Supreme Court held that under Title VII the clothing store Abercrombie & Fitch could not refuse to hire a female Muslim applicant because she wore a hijab in violation of the store’s “no cap” policy. As the Supreme Court explained: “Title VII does not demand mere neutrality with regard to religious practices — that they be treated no worse than other practices. Rather, it gives them favored treatment,” creating an affirmative obligation on employers.

What Does ‘Undue Hardship’ Mean?

The central issue in Groff is what the phrase “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business” entails. In a 1977 case called Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, the Supreme Court, interpreting similar language from an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guideline in effect during the events at issue, summarily stated that “undue hardship” meant merely “more than a de minimis cost.” This formulation has been adopted as the standard for Title VII by lower court judges across the country, effectively gutting the workplace religious accommodation right Congress provided employees.

Justices, judges, legal scholars, and religious leaders, among others, have criticized the Hardison court’s undue hardship formulation. As Justice Thurgood Marshall explained in his dissent in Hardison, the decision “effectively nullifie[s]” employees’ religious accommodation rights and “makes a mockery” of Title VII.

To put it simply: Hardison’s more than de minimis standard is absurd. De minimis means “very small or trifling,” and more than de minimis means merely a smidge more than “very small or trifling.” “Undue,” in contrast, means “exceeding what is appropriate or normal” or “excessive,” which is significantly more than “very small or trifling.”

Since Hardison, and to avoid application of Hardison’s non-textual standard, Congress has explicitly defined “undue hardship” in multiple statutes as “an action requiring significant difficulty or expense.” This is true for laws requiring other types of workplace accommodations, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), which provides employees accommodations for disability, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (2022), which provides employees accommodations for the known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

A secondary issue in Hardison is whether undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business can be met by merely showing a burden on the employee’s coworkers rather than on the business itself. In Groff, the court of appeals held that USPS satisfied its burden to demonstrate undue hardship because accommodating Groff would burden the employee’s coworkers. This standard would minimize Title VII’s religious accommodation protections, subjecting them to a “heckler’s veto by disgruntled employees,” as Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote in his dissent.

Poised to Protect Religious Accommodations

The Supreme Court has had several chances in recent years to revisit Hardison, but the court finally decided it should do so in Groff. This has led many to speculate that the court will reject Hardison’s more than de minimis formulation and clarify that undue means, well, just that — undue.

Indeed, this case should be a no-brainer. It is a simple exercise in statutory interpretation and textual definitions.

An interesting wrinkle in this case, however, is that since the USPS is an arm of the federal government, it is represented in court by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

In December 2019, the DOJ, joined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the federal agency tasked with enforcing Title VII), told the court that Hardison’s formulation is “incorrect.” Indeed, in USPS’s brief urging the court not to hear Groff, DOJ merely argued the case was a “poor vehicle” to revisit Hardison and that the issue of a religious accommodation’s burden on coworkers “does not merit review.” The court clearly disagreed.

It would go against DOJ custom for the United States to change its position on Hardison. But it is unclear if the Biden administration will willingly support religious liberty, especially when it involves a Christian employee. We’ll find out when USPS files its response brief.

As evidenced by the number of amicus briefs filed by different faith traditions in support of Groff, religious accommodation rights in the workplace is an issue that all Americans, regardless of religion, can and should support. No one should be forced to choose between his religion and earning a paycheck.

Without action by the Supreme Court, employers will continue to feel safe denying religious accommodation requests because they can easily demonstrate a cost that is slightly more than de minimis. It is high time the Supreme Court remedies Hardison’s error.

Oral argument in Groff is scheduled for April 18, and a decision is expected by the end of June.

Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works on EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project.

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Leftists Regurgitate ‘Uncle Tom’ Smear to Dim Clarence Thomas’ Legacy, But It Won’t Work

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | FEBRUARY 16, 2023

Justice Clarence Thomas doing an interview at the Library of Congress — **No matter what the left throws at him, Clarence Thomas will be remembered as one of the greatest Supreme Court justices in U.S. history.**

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SHAWN FLEETWOOD

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is routinely the target of deranged smears from American leftists, and sadly, this week has been no exception with the return of the “Uncle Tom” attack.

On Tuesday, the Georgia Senate successfully passed SB 69, which, if approved by the state House and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, would allow for the placement of a monument of Thomas on the grounds of the state capitol. In remarks to his colleagues, bill sponsor and GOP Sen. Ben Watson spoke to Thomas’ character and praised the justice for living a life “marked by tremendous achievement,” saying:

This native son of Georgia deserves a place of honor and recognition on our Capitol grounds, a place where future generations of Georgians can learn valuable lessons from his legacy and gain inspiration and belief that their lofty dreams are obtainable too in America, regardless of the circumstances into which they are born.

Meanwhile, the upper chamber’s Democrat members couldn’t have been less enthused. Not only did every single Democrat senator vote against the bill, but several of them used the opportunity to slander the Supreme Court’s most senior justice.

While some Democrats such as Sen. Nan Orrock went after Thomas’ judicial career by calling his service on the nation’s highest court “problematic,” the comments from leftist hacks like Sen. Emanuel Jones were much more vitriolic. During his unhinged diatribe, Jones referred to Thomas, the second black American to serve on the Supreme Court, as an “Uncle Tom,” and said he betrayed “his own community.”

“I’m just trying to tell you what we have in the African American community when we talk about a person of color that goes back historically to the days of slavery and that person betraying his own community — we have a term in the black community,” Jones said. “That term that we use is called ‘Uncle Tom.’ An Uncle Tom … talks about a person who back during the days of slavery sold his soul to the slave masters.”

A Pattern of Racist Attacks

Unfortunately, Jones’ Tuesday rant is just the tip of the iceberg. Through the years, so-called “progressive” Democrats have hurled a barrage of racist and degrading attacks at Thomas for the crime of daring to think for himself.

During a 2014 interview, for instance, Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi didn’t just call Thomas an “Uncle Tom”; he also claimed the justice “doesn’t like black people” and “doesn’t like being black.”

But it’s not just Democrat politicians lobbing racist insults at Thomas. Prominent legacy media members such as MSNBC host Joy Reid have also joined in on the smear campaign in recent years. After then-President Donald Trump forecasted plans to take his 2020 election challenges to the Supreme Court shortly after the Nov. 3 contest, Reid openly questioned the legitimacy of the court and invoked the “Uncle Tom” slur by referring to Thomas as “Uncle Clarence.”

“So, I think what scares people is that if [Trump] decides to do something that legally makes no sense … but if they somehow manage to stumble into the Supreme Court, do any of you guys trust Uncle Clarence and Amy Coney Barrett and those guys to actually follow the letter of the law?” Reid asked her colleagues. “No! I mean, it’s a completely politicized Supreme Court that you can’t just trust that they’re going to do the right thing.”

In addition to Reid, actor Samuel L. Jackson is among those who has levied the “Uncle Clarence” slur against Thomas.

[READ: Why The Racist Left Smears Clarence Thomas As An ‘Angry Black Man’]

Thomas Is a National Hero

Unlike many of today’s social justice warriors who love to feign “oppression,” Thomas grew up in an era of real oppression. Born into abject poverty in Pin Point, Georgia, Thomas was raised by his grandparents in Savannah during the height of segregation. With his biological father missing from his life, Thomas’ grandfather assumed the role, providing his grandson with a foundation for hard work and discipline.

Despite the harsh circumstances of his beginnings, Thomas would go on to excel in academics, attending the College of the Holy Cross and Yale Law School. After spending years working in the legal profession, Thomas was nominated by President George H.W. Bush to serve as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1989. Not long after in 1991, he was nominated and confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court (no thanks to Democrat partisans like then-Sen. Joe Biden), where he has faithfully served for the past 31 years.

If we lived in a world where Democrats earnestly stood by their professed belief in championing the success of non-white people, Thomas wouldn’t be getting one statue, but a hundred. His journey to success is something that shouldn’t just be celebrated but shared to inspire others to overcome adversity and chase their dreams with hard work and strong principles. Then again, leftists’ racial pandering isn’t about helping people.

For Democrats, Thomas’ devotion to the Constitution and willingness to do right by the American people stands in the way of their conquest to centralize government power in the hands of a few elites. His originalist jurisprudence is a roadblock to that goal, therefore making it perfectly acceptable in their eyes to use any tactic, no matter how grotesque, to undermine him.

Despite their best efforts, the left’s bid to slander the legacy of this great man will fail. No matter what kind of rhetorical garbage they throw at him, Clarence Thomas will be remembered as one of the greatest Supreme Court justices and public servants in U.S. history. His understanding of what it means to be a judge and adherence to the Constitution have rightly garnered him adoration from millions of Americans. And that is something the left will never be able to change.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Supreme Court grants request from Republican states to delay end of Title 42 ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

By: CARLOS GARCIA | December 19, 2022

**Photo (left): ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images; Photo (right): Drew Angerer/Getty Images**

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The U.S. Supreme Court granted a request from several Republican states asking for the end of the controversial Title 42 “Remain in Mexico” policy to be delayed. Title 42 was implemented during the Trump administration in order to allow immigration officials to expel migrants who were seeking asylum from the country while their applications were processed. The Biden administration has sought to end the policy despite objections from those who say it will result in a further surge of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.

While the policy was scheduled to end on Wednesday, the order from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Monday temporarily extended it until a response can be filed Tuesday. More than a dozen Republican states filed the lawsuit to keep Title 42 in place, including Texas, whose governor responded to the ruling on social media.

“U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts has HALTED the lifting of Title 42 for now. Texas and other states are insisting that the Court leave Title 42 in place,” tweeted Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

“Today’s order is a step in that direction. This helps prevent illegal immigration,” he added.

The policy was struck down in November in a ruling from District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C., who called it an “arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.”

Illegal immigrant advocates excoriated Title 42 and accused former President Donald Trump of being motivated by racism against immigrants. Supporters of the policy have argued that it was needed in order to stem the tide of illegal aliens streaming across the border and seeking asylum.

A poll in May found that 65% of Hispanics supported a temporary closure of the U.S.-Mexico border so that illegal crossings could be prevented. That was 9% greater than the number among all voters who supported the same.

Here’s more about the controversial policy:

US braces for surge in migrants with Title 42 set to expire | ABCNL www.youtube.com

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Supreme Court Clears Way For Congress To Access Trump’s Tax Returns

By: TREVOR SCHAKOHL, LEGAL REPORTER | November 22, 2022

Former U.S. President Donald Trump Makes An Announcement At His Florida Home — **Joe Raedle/Getty Images**

The Supreme Court has denied former President Donald Trump’s request to block the House Ways and Means Committee from reviewing his tax returns.

The committee has long been attempting to review six years of tax returns and files in connection with Trump and eight of his businesses. Trump had appealed to the Supreme Court to stop the committee from reviewing his tax returns, but the court turned down Trump’s request Tuesday.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court REJECTS Trump's bid to prevent the House Ways & Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns. No noted dissents.

The brief order may end years of litigation over the committee's efforts to review the tax records of Trump and his businesses. pic.twitter.com/raETmlco4T
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) November 22, 2022

On Oct. 27, a three-judge panel on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s request to block the tax returns, pushing him to file the emergency appeal in the Supreme Court, CNN reported. Trump asked the court Oct. 31 to temporarily block the committee from viewing his tax returns as the court considered his case, and Chief Justice John Roberts granted that request. (RELATED: Supreme Court Okays Masks On Planes During Public Health Emergencies)

The Tuesday court ruling also vacated Roberts’ order.

Trump’s Oct. 31 application claimed the committee’s tax return review request would, if allowed to stand, “undermine the separation of powers and render the office of the Presidency vulnerable to invasive information demands from political opponents in the legislative branch.”

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Here Is Everything Democrats Claim Is ‘A Threat to Democracy’

BY: THE FEDERALIST STAFF | OCTOBER 27, 2022

President Joe Biden at White House — **Meanwhile, it’s the blue party that’s working overtime to erode and replace actual democratic processes.**

THE FEDERALIST STAFF

Updated on Oct. 27.

It seems like every day Democrats and their cronies in the corrupt corporate media concoct a new, bogus “threat to democracy” that they use to intimidate Americans out of voting for their political opponents.

These “threats” aren’t just overused, they are overexaggerated in an effort to cover up Democrats’ hypocrisy, mask their incompetence, and justify the targeting of their ideological enemies. Meanwhile, it’s the blue party that’s working overtime to erode and replace the actual democratic processes responsible for keeping our nation running.

Here is a list of everything Democrats claim is “a threat to democracy.”

Donald Trump

Americans think corporate media are a bigger “threat to democracy” than former President Donald Trump yet not one day goes by without a Democrat, talking head, or corporate media outlet asserting the Republican is responsible for the downfall of the nation.

The “threat to democracy” accusations began before Trump won the 2016 election, have continued throughout his presidency, and repeatedly make headlines more than a year after the end of his first term.

Republicans

What could possibly be a bigger “threat to democracy” than Democrats’ top Trumpian foe? According to President Joe Biden, it is “MAGA Republicans.”

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden said during a doom-and-gloom speech in Philadelphia earlier this year.

Whether it’s Republican voters, Republican governors, Republican members of Congress, Republican-controlled legislatures, or even Republican grandmas, Democrats and the media say anyone associated with the GOP could destroy our nation and deserves punishment.

Ted Cruz

Brookings, a left-leaning think tank, described Republican Sen. Ted Cruz as one of many “copycat candidates who parrot Trump’s moves and endorse his anti-democratic tactics” in a piece titled, “Trump is not the only threat to democracy.”

Josh Hawley

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley earned the same judgment from Brookings as Cruz. Additionally, when he objected to certifying the 2020 presidential election results, he (along with Cruz and other GOP senators) was smeared by The Washington Post as one of “the Constitution’s most dangerous domestic enemies.”

Ron DeSantis

According to Democrats, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a raging, extreme “threat to democracy” for simply governing as a Republican.

“Ron DeSantis Would Kill Democracy Slowly and Methodically,” one article in New York Magazine warned.

Dr. Oz

“An impaired Fetterman who does not pose a threat to our democracy is better than a polished Oz who does. Remember what’s at stake here,” a senior adviser at The Lincoln Project tweeted shortly after the political opponents’ debate.

Tudor Dixon

Tudor Dixon, the Republican woman brave enough to challenge Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, was classified as “a huge threat to our democracy” by her incumbent opponent for raising questions about election irregularities.

Election deniers pose a huge threat to our democracy — and Tudor Dixon is one of them. She spreads conspiracies and won’t even commit to accepting the results of this election.

I will always accept the will of the people and protect our democracy. pic.twitter.com/Ou2Qq0mJVW
— Gretchen Whitmer (@gretchenwhitmer) October 26, 2022

Ron Johnson

For the crime of being an effective Republican lawmaker, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has also been deemed a “threat to democracy.”

Legitimately Conducted Elections

Speaking of Republicans, did you know that Americans choosing to elect GOP candidates is a threat to Democracy? That’s what several of the nation’s top propaganda publications want you to believe.

“American Democracy Can’t Survive Unless the Far Right Is Marginalized. Here’s How to Do It,” Time Magazine warned in 2021.

The push to classify GOP wins as threats especially expanded ahead of the 2022 midterms.

“Should [Republicans] win, they will certainly attempt to end democracy as we know it in their states,” MSNBC Opinion Columnist Ryan Cooper wrote three weeks before Election Day 2022. “The effort will probably look like an updated version of Jim Crow.”

Questioning Elections

Nevermind that Democrats are known for rejecting election results and objecting to every presidential Republican victory this century — anyone who dares mention that U.S. elections are not perfect is smeared with the ill-fitting term “election denier,” and considered a “threat to democracy.”

This “threat,” according to media, Democrats, and the ever-vague “experts,” is so big that it needs to be taught in schools. Less than two weeks before the 2022 midterms, The New York Times published a “Lesson Plan” titled “Explore How the Election Denial Movement Threatens Democracy.”

“What can happen in a representative democracy when politicians and a significant portion of the electorate question the legitimacy of elections?” the subtitle asks.

The Events of Jan. 6, 2021

Democrats say Americans’ actions on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, proved to be as big a “threat to democracy” as Pearl Harbor or 9/11, both of which resulted in thousands more deaths than the Capitol riot.

Not only was the Capitol riot an existential threat, leftists claim, but New York Magazine says “Americans’ Indifference About January 6 Is the Real Threat to Democracy.”

Election Security Legislation

The New York Times is also one of the many corporate media outlets and others that have expressed concern with Republicans’ voter integrity measures following the chaotic 2020 election.

“Many top Republican Party officials and lawmakers have spent the last two years striking back, and drawn the most attention for their efforts to pass ‘voter integrity’ laws that aim to make voting more onerous under the guise of preventing fraud. … These are pernicious laws, and they undermine Americans’ hard-won rights to vote. But just as important is the matter of who counts the votes, and who decides which votes count and which do not,” The New York Times editorial board wrote last month.

“The real threat to America’s electoral system is not posed by ineligible voters trying to cast ballots. It is coming from inside the system,” the board concluded. “All those who value democracy have a role to play in strengthening and supporting the electoral system that powers it, whatever their party. This involves, first, taking the threat posed by election deniers seriously and talking to friends and neighbors about it. It means paying attention to local elections — not just national ones — and supporting candidates who reject conspiracy theories and unfounded claims of fraud. It means getting involved in elections as canvassers or poll watchers or precinct officers.”

Poll Watchers

It’s ironic that The New York Times wants voters to be poll watchers — especially since corporate media recently deemed those who sign up to monitor ballot boxes as “threats to democracy.”

As documented by The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood, the propaganda press is repeatedly “hitting the panic button over Republican poll watchers legitimately overseeing the conduction of elections, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.”

Elon Musk

When Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced plans to acquire Twitter and welcome free speech back to the Big Tech platform, Twitter’s pampered employees, the corporate media, and pro-censorship politicians threw a fit.

“He seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less,” The Washington Post’s Max Boot tweeted.

Not only is Musk’s purchase considered by the left a “threat to democracy,” Salon writer Matthew Rozsa said Musk’s “attempted takeover of Twitter is a threat to the free world.”

Freedom of Speech

Some of the same media personalities whose livelihoods revolve around rights granted by the First Amendment say that free speech, especially online, is “a threat to democracy.”

‘Misinformation’

The pro-censorship party and its allies say “misinformation” and “disinformation,” which means any information about hot topics like Covid, elections, and biology that they deem inconvenient or contra the narrative they are trying to sell, is a threat to democracy.

Parents at School Board Meetings

If it wasn’t already clear that the National School Boards Association and Attorney General Merrick Garland think concerned parents are “domestic terrorists” who threaten our nation and deserve to be prosecuted, it was certainly made clear by members of the media.

“Attacks on school boards are a threat to democracy,” an opinion editorial in the Mercury News said.

Pro-Lifers

Garland also considers peaceful pro-life protesters to be a threat to the nation. That’s why his Department of Justice has publicly indicted 22 people who oppose killing babies in the womb instead of prosecuting the people responsible for the destruction, vandalism, and arson of dozens of pregnancy centers.

The U.S. Supreme Court

Democrats have long insisted that the Supreme Court’s decisions are the “law of the land” but when the court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year, that philosophy was quickly replaced with the left’s favorite excuse for hypocrisy.

“The US supreme court poses a real threat to Americans’ democracy,” one headline in The Guardian blared.

Even before that, media, upset with the prospect of Trump exercising his presidential power to nominate yet another justice to the court, felt the need to explain “Why the Supreme Court is one of the biggest threats to American democracy.”

At one point, New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz threatened that “If the Court’s right-wing majority finds that it can continually push the boundaries of conservative judicial activism without undermining its own popular legitimacy, then the consequences for progressivism and popular democracy could be dire.”

Clarence and Ginni Thomas

The left believes that not only is the Supreme Court a “threat to democracy,” but so are Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife.

“Ginni and Clarence Thomas are the duo we wish we didn’t have to constantly talk about, but here we are. Their actions surrounding the insurrection are a threat to our democracy and the public’s trust in our courts,” Citizens for Ethics, a leftist watchdog group, tweeted.

The Electoral College

Our nation’s Electoral College was designed to best represent Americans no matter where they lived but the left says that constitutional design is a “threat to democracy.”

The left-leaning Aspen Institute blared that “The Electoral College Is a Threat to 21st Century Democracy,” adding that while “our founders felt we needed a brake against ‘mob rule,’ it is incompatible with our current national credo that every vote counts.”

Our Bicameral Legislature

According to Vox, though, the Electoral College “poses a smaller long-term threat to American democracy than the Senate,” because “the Senate undermines principles of equal democratic representation.”

“The Senate will continue to give small states, which tend to be rural and conservative, far more clout than their size deserves. That’s not just a problem for democracy in the abstract,” the Brennan Center’s Zachary Roth agrees.

Democracy Itself

As documented by The Federalist’s Elle Purnell, Democrats and the media also consider an elected majority in the U.S. Senate a threat to democracy.

This became very apparent when West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, “determined not to pass President Joe Biden’s Build Back Bankrupt plan.”

“Manchin is killing the Biden legislative agenda, and perhaps the future of American democracy too,” tweeted MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan.

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Liberal Supreme Court Justice Blocks Jan. 6 Committee

By Jack Davis October 27, 2022

Efforts by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion to examine phone records of the Arizona Republican Party chairwoman have been stymied by a member of the U.S. Supreme Court’s liberal wing.

Justice Elena Kagan on Wednesday temporarily blocked the panel from accessing the phone records of Dr. Kelli Ward and her husband, Mark Ward, according to The Hill.

Kagan’s order was terse, saying, “Upon consideration of the application of counsel for the applicants, it is ordered that the October 22, 2022 order of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, case No. 22-16473, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court.

“Likewise, respondent T-Mobile USA, Inc. is temporarily enjoined from releasing the records requested by the House Select Committee pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court.

“It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Friday, October 28, 2022, by 5 p.m. (EDT).”

Kagan was involved because she is the justice assigned to handle emergency requests from Arizona.

The Wards had sued to block access to their phone records. After losing their case at the district court level, they appealed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit voted 2-1 to deny their bid to protect their records, according to CNN.

That prompted the emergency appeal to Kagan. “This is an unprecedented case with profound precedential implications for future congressional investigations and political associational rights under the First Amendment,” the Wards said in the appeal.

“In a first-of-its-kind situation, a select committee of the United States Congress, dominated by one political party, has subpoenaed the personal telephone and text message records of a state chair of the rival political party relating to one of the most contentious political events in American history—the 2020 election and the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021.”

The appeal painted the case as potentially setting a dire precedent.

“If Dr. Ward’s telephone and text message records are disclosed, congressional investigators are going to contact every person who communicated with her during and immediately after the tumult of the 2020 election. That is not speculation, it is a certainty. There is no other reason for the Committee to seek this information,” the Wards’ filing said.

“There can be no greater chill on public participation in partisan politics than a call, visit, or subpoena, from federal investigators,” they wrote.

The appellate panel ruled against the Wards, saying the federal subpoena “is substantially related to the important government interest in investigating the causes of the January 6 attack and protecting future elections from similar threats.”

“The investigation, after all, is not about Ward’s politics; it is about her involvement in the events leading up to the January 6 attack, and it seeks to uncover those with whom she communicated in connection with those events,” Judges Barry Silverman and Eric Miller wrote in the majority opinion. “That some of the people with whom Ward communicated may be members of a political party does not establish that the subpoena is likely to reveal ‘sensitive information about [the party’s] members and supporters.’”

The two judges who formed the majority castigated the activities of the Wards, who were electors pledged to former President Donald Trump.

“Ward participated in a scheme to send spurious electoral votes to Congress, a scheme that the committee describes as ‘a key part’ of the ‘effort to overturn the election’ that culminated on Jan. 6,” the opinion said.

In her dissent, Judge Sandra Ikuta said the Wards have valid constitutional rights that were insufficiently considered.

“The communications at issue here between members of a political party about an election implicate a core associational right protected by the First Amendment,” Ikuta wrote.

“Regardless of Ward’s position regarding the 2020 election, her right to engage in discussions with her political associates remains entitled to First Amendment protection against the government’s compelled disclosure of her political affiliations,” the judge said. “We must be vigilant to protect First Amendment rights — even when raised by an individual alleged to have engaged in a nefarious ‘scheme.’”

Jack Davis

Contributor

Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.

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Clarence Thomas’s Duty is to the Constitution, Not a Constituency of Black Men

BY: MARK PAOLETTA | OCTOBER 27, 2022

Rerad more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/27/clarence-thomass-duty-is-to-the-constitution-not-a-constituency-of-black-men/

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — **If you listen to corporate media, you’d think Clarence Thomas is a dark-skinned white supremacist. This couldn’t be further from the truth**.

MARK PAOLETTA

VISIT ON TWITTER@MARKPAOLETTA

MSNBC host Tiffany Cross recently went on a rant about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in which she referred to him as “Tom” (short for the derogatory term “Uncle Tom”) and invoked a series of other ugly and disrespectful names. But while Cross and her fellow leftwing TV hosts have been spewing hatred, Thomas has been laying out a jurisprudence of faithfulness to the text of the Constitution that now represents a view held by the majority of justices on the Supreme Court. This view does away with the nonexistent constitutional “right” to abortion while reigning in out-of-control federal agencies and giving the Bill of Rights the respect it deserves.

Cross criticized Thomas for not representing black men in his jurisprudence, but where did she get the idea that a supreme court justice is supposed to represent a constituency? In our system of government, a judge’s job is to decide cases according to the Constitution and the law, without regard to any person. Take, for instance, Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s views on affirmative action. It is certainly not her job to represent the median views of Hispanics, 68 percent of whom oppose race being a factor in college admissions, yet she continues to support racially preferential admissions systems that categorize people by their heritage and not their merits.

Contrary to Cross’s claim, working-class black Americans historically have been in agreement with Thomas’ views on virtually every contentious issue. Thomas has long been opposed to affirmative action and racial preference programs, and so are most black Americans. According to a 2022 poll from Pew Research Center, 59 percent of black Americans are against race factoring into college admissions. It is unlikely Cross is a part of this 59 percent.

Justice Thomas has opined for thirty years that there is no constitutional right to abortion. According to a 2020 Gallup article, from 2001-2007, only 24 percent of black Americans believed abortion should be legal in all circumstances. From 2017-2020, only 32 percent did. In a May 2022 YouGov poll, 81 percent percent of black respondents said that abortion should be banned after the 25th week. Cross likely is unwilling to tolerate any limit on abortions up to the moment of birth, which would put her far outside the mainstream of black Americans.

Thomas has ruled that there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage. While that is wholly different than whether one supports or supports same-sex marriage, it is notable that a large percentage of black Americans have, until very recently, been opposed to the practice. According to Pew Research, only 21 percent of black Americans supported same-sex marriage in 2004, only 30 percent in 2010, and 51 percent in 2019, and now it is 59 percent.

On topics where Thomas has not ruled from the bench, it is noteworthy that 81 percent of black parents support school choice, but the NAACP opposes school choice. Sixty-nine percent of black Americans support Voter ID laws. Only 28 percent of black Americans support leftist calls to defund the nation’s police.

Why do Cross and black leadership groups, like the NAACP, continue to be so out of touch with the black Americans they claim to represent? Why do they prioritize the goals set by rich white socialists? Perhaps it is because the NAACP receives significant funding from a majority of white leftwing organizations and labor unions and, therefore, may feel obligated to parrot the views of their funders. Certainly, that’s what happened in 1991 when the NAACP opposed Justice Thomas’ nomination at the insistence of the white labor unions, despite his support in the black community. Cross works for, in her own words, “a white-run media” company, and she pushes far-left views, whereas Thomas has a lifetime appointment and answers only to the Constitution and his conscience.

Elites have worked to destroy Thomas for years because, among other things, he exposes how out of step they are with the concerns of everyday black Americans. Thomas has argued for affirmative action programs that help students of all races from disadvantaged backgrounds, but the major beneficiaries of racial set-aside programs are wealthy blacks and Hispanics. A recent analysis showed that 71 percent of blacks and Hispanics at Harvard were from wealthy families. These wealthy individuals prevent the truly disadvantaged members of their communities from getting ahead.

During her tirade, Cross also attempted to smear Thomas by mentioning the ridiculous “pubic hair on a Coke can” comment that Anita Hill bizarrely claimed Thomas made to her many years ago. But the majority of the American people – men and women – did not believe Anita Hill’s testimony at Thomas’ confirmation hearings in 1991. A New York Times/CBS News poll showed people believed Thomas by 58-24 percent. Only 26 percent percent of women believed Anita Hill.

In 1998, Anita Hill was interviewed by Tim Russert on “Meet the Press,” where she trashed two women who claimed to have been sexually harassed or assaulted by then-President Bill Clinton, one of whom Clinton later settled with out of court for $850,000. After Hill had zealously defended Clinton, Russert asked if there were a double standard on harassment allegations for liberals and conservatives. Hill said there is a double standard, saying, “We live in a political world, and the reality is that … there are … larger issues other than just individual behavior.” Hill meant that if you are pro-abortion, women’s groups will give you a pass if you sexually assault or harass women. Despite Hill being a blatant fraud, Cross still used her antics to smear Thomas.

The left and the out-of-touch black leadership have attacked Thomas since he joined the Reagan administration forty years ago. Nevertheless, he does not care what they think or say. Cross’s attacks may play well to her leftist audience, but that’s not a lot of people, given she is the second lowest-rated show on the lowest-rated cable news network.

Nevertheless, it’s important to respond to these attacks to demonstrate how out of touch she and her colleagues are. On the other hand, Thomas will continue building a long-lasting legacy by writing well-reasoned opinions and persuading a majority of his colleagues to join him in ruling in a manner that is faithful to the Constitution.

Mark Paoletta served as a lawyer in the George H.W. Bush White House Counsel’s office and worked on the confirmation of Justice Thomas. He is a senior fellow at Center for Renewing America, and partner at Schaerr Jaffe.

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Kamala Harris On NBC: We’re Only A Legitimate Democracy If Democrats Are In Power

BY: EDDIE SCARRY | SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Author Eddie Scarry profile

EDDIE SCARRY

VISIT ON TWITTER@ESCARRY

Democrats and their fangirls in the national media pretend they have this thoughtful, nuanced view about where the country is right now, but it really boils down to: None of America’s institutions or political processes are lawful nor legitimate unless we’re the ones controlling them.

Elections, Supreme Court decisions, legislation signed into law, “norms,” etc. All of it holds meaning so dear to their hearts.*

*Except when Republicans are in power, in which case it’s all fraudulent.

That dynamic was reinforced in virtually everything Vice President Kamala Harris said during an interview that aired Sunday with NBC’s Chuck Todd. She said the Senate filibuster rule should be discarded for Democrat priorities, but believed it should be maintained for everything else. Roll the tape…

Todd: “Are you comfortable that this could end the legislative filibuster for good, probably, even if you only try to do it for two issues?”

Harris: “No, I’m not. No I’m not.”

She said the country needs a president who will “speak up and raise the alarm” about those “who right now are vividly not defending our democracy.” Then she excused Democrats who actively supported and elevated Republican primary congressional candidates who voiced skepticism about the 2020 election.

Back to the tape…

Todd: “When you see the Democratic Party and some parts of the party funding ads to promote some of these election deniers in primaries… Is this something you’d be comfortable with?”

Harris: “I’m not going to tell people how to run their campaigns, Chuck.”

She professed to be deeply dedicated to ensuring the world witnesses America’s dedication to “the importance of democratic principles, rule of law, human rights.” Then she undermined our highest court, accusing the justices of being politically motivated.

To the tape…

Todd: “How much confidence do you have in the Supreme Court?”

Harris: “I think this is an activist court.”

There is no logical end to Harris and every other Democrat leader’s thought process other than: When we run things, it’s right, just, and everyone must accept. When it’s not us, everything is improper, invalid, and unlawful.

To be a Democrat is not to be pro-democracy. It’s to pursue a one-party state.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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A Biden Climate Emergency Would Unleash Unconstitutional Actions

BY: CHUCK DEVORE | JULY 21, 2022

Biden is considering invoking considerable powers, but executive actions taken for a ‘climate emergency’ would be unconstitutional.

Author Chuck DeVore profile

CHUCK DEVORE

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The left is pressuring President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and his consideration of this declaration is a sign of desperation and weakness. Executive actions taken as a result of a “climate emergency” would die in the U.S. Supreme Court (more on that later).

The reason Biden may declare a climate emergency is simple: His green agenda has stalled. Persistent inflation, led by rising energy costs, and a nation likely in recession, has reduced the likelihood that a narrowly divided Congress will approve the application of additional environmental leaches to an anemic economy.

It appears green dreams are the ultimate First World luxury good — it’s all fun and games until the average family shells out $5,000 a year more for gas, food, electricity, and rent. Yet the left demands more. Elected representatives are a roadblock. The people don’t know what’s best for them. The Vanguard of the Proletariat have met and decided that if Congress won’t act, then an array of administrative acronyms led by the dogmatic theoreticians of the White House — none of whom who have run a business — will.

The powers Biden is considering invoking are considerable, though none of them were intended by Congress to do what administration is preparing to do. Even a short summary is terrifyingly breathtaking in ambition and disingenuous creativity.

Burdensome Regulations

In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule to require “climate-related disclosures for investors.” This rule, if finalized, would deal further hammer blows to the domestic oil and gas industry — just after Biden was forced to go hat in hand to Saudi Arabia to beg Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for more oil. It would do that by requiring publicly traded companies to detail their greenhouse gas emissions, including those of their suppliers, whether they are publicly traded or not. In other words, privately held firms, family-owned companies, and individual proprietorships would be burdened with costly reporting requirements, causing more money to be put into paperwork and less money to be put into productive activity.

Next, just because the Supreme Court rolled back regulatory power in June’s West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision doesn’t mean that the EPA won’t still be used to achieve climate goals in ways Congress never authorized. For instance, it’s expected that the EPA will issue new particulate thresholds that would have the practical effect of regulating all combustion for energy and transportation purposes. Particulates are small particles that, in today’s era of clean air, are mostly generated by farming, wildfires, and construction activities — modern combustion is remarkably clean. However, because ambient levels of particulates are very hard to push below a certain level, there will always be an excuse to squeeze for more until every vehicle powered by hydrocarbons is removed from the road or curbed by fees. Put another way, it’s a war on using hydrocarbons to make energy or power vehicles.

Misuse of the Law

The declaration of a climate emergency would also embolden the Biden administration to invoke Section 202 of the Federal Power Act. This law, clearly intended by Congress to be used only in time of war or an emergency due to an increased demand for electricity or a shortage of electricity, will be used to shift electrical power from regions that have responsibly planned for their power needs to states that have gone green and, as a result, have made their grids vulnerable to the vicissitudes of weather. This means that the federal government could literally divert power contracted for by Arizona and shift it to California — a version of this happened a year ago. Essentially, a maximalist use of Section 202 will allow leftwing Biden appointees to turn the power off wherever they choose — all for environmental justice and the planet, of course.

Finally, Biden’s environmental zealots are looking to the Defense Production Act (DPA) to commandeer any part of the economy they feel should be drafted into the fight against climate change. Former President Donald Trump used the DPA to order 3M to produce N95 masks and General Motors to produce ventilators for the federal government. Biden invoked it for Covid-19 purposes as well and then improbably expanded its use to (try to) address the baby formula shortage. With the DPA now unleashed for decidedly non-war applications, the ability to muck with all aspects of the economy for the “climate emergency” are endless.

Administrative State in Retreat

Fortunately, due to the unlikely success of the duo of Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the federal bench was well-provisioned with constitutionally minded jurists. As a result, the unbridled powers of the administrative state have been in retreat.

Former six-term Indiana Republican Congressman John Hostettler, vice president of federal affairs with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, observes that, “Justice Alito’s concurrence in Gundy v. United States was a clear signal that he is willing to put an end to the administrative state if the right case comes before the Supreme Court. And the left knows it.”

Hostettler was referring to Justice Samuel Alito’s 2019 opinion, which was characterized by his colleague, Justice Neil Gorsuch, as “not join[ing] either the [court] plurality’s constitutional or statutory analysis,” In it, Alito stated:

The Constitution confers on Congress certain “legislative [p]owers,” Art. I, §1, and does not permit Congress to delegate them to another branch of the Government…. Nevertheless, since 1935, the Court has uniformly rejected nondelegation arguments and has upheld provisions that authorized agencies to adopt important rules pursuant to extraordinarily capacious standards….

If a majority of this Court were willing to reconsider the approach we have taken for the past 84 years, I would support that effort. But because a majority is not willing to do that, it would be freakish to single out the provision at issue here for special treatment.

Moreover, Hostettler maintains, “Given the addition of the likely votes of Justices [Brett] Kavanaugh and [Amy Coney] Barrett, there’s even more cause for optimism that the High Court is likely to do what Congress seems unable to accomplish. That optimism was bolstered with the outcome in West Virginia v. EPA. Although West Virginia wasn’t the nondelegation case that Alito’s previous pronouncement called for, it’s close enough to stiffen the resolve of Constitutionalists to come up with the right case so that the Court’s majority can further cement its direction on the ‘major question’ doctrine — the concept that if an agency seeks to regulate on a ‘major question’ the statute must clearly grant that express authority.”

For this reason, Hostettler is confident that the Biden administration’s climate emergency overreach would “do to the expansive power of the administrative state what Dobbs did to Roe v. Wade.”

In war there are casualties — and Biden’s climate war threatens to claim the once-mighty power of unelected bureaucrats and left-wing appointees to rule our lives without our votes.

Chuck DeVore is vice president of national initiatives at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a former California legislator, special assistant for foreign affairs in the Reagan-era Pentagon, and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army (retired) Reserve. He’s the author of two books, “The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America,” and “China Attacks,” a novel.

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Richard D. Land Op-ed: The imperial judiciary, 1962-2022: Rest in peace

Commentary By Richard D. Land, Christian Post Executive Editor | July 8, 2022

Anti-abortion campaigners celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022. – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ended the legalization of abortion nationwide in one of the most divisive and bitterly fought issues in American political life. The court overturned the 1973 “Roe v Wade” decision and said individual states can permit or restrict the procedure themselves. | OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

From at least 1962 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled official prayer in schools unconstitutional (Engel v. Vitale), followed the next year by banning official scripture reading (Abingdon School Districtv Schempp), the United States of America has been more often ruled by at least five lawyers in black robes than by the government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” which our forefathers intended.

As a Baptist, I actually agreed with these decisions, but polling was running 80% against the court and these decisions would never have been made law through legislation.

As our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln so wisely said, we have a government that is dedicated to the proposition that “All men are created equal,” and have the inalienable right to “life, liberty” and the “pursuit of happiness.”

Our first president, George Washington, noted that we did not have a king, but a Constitution.

Starting with the Earl Warren Supreme Court in the 1950s, the nation’s highest court began gathering greater and greater power unto itself as Congress and the Executive Branch acquiesced and surrendered more and more authority to the Supreme Court. That dangerous imbalance allowed the progressives to win most of the victories they have won over the last half-century by judicial fiat and edict, not by the people’s elected representatives (the Congress and the President).

Why? Because most of what they wanted to do they could not get passed by Congress.

The classic example of this was the Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage. In 2015, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a blistering dissent to the Obergefell decision sanctioning same-sex marriage. In doing so, for the very first time in his tenure as a justice, which began in 2005, he read his opinion out loud from the bench, which is a justice’s way of putting an exclamation point on his dissent.

Chief Justice Roberts argued that the issue of same-sex marriage should be decided by the people in a public policy political process, not by imperial edict from unelected justices.

“Just who do we think we are?” Roberts asked his fellow justices. He explained that such a momentous decision changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples should be adjudicated by “the people, acting through their elected representatives,” not by “five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes under the law.” Thus, he excoriated his fellow justices for “stealing this issue from the people.”

Now, the Supreme Court has done an about-face and returned the power of governing to the people. Contrary to what the mass mainstream media are saying, the Supreme Court did not “end democracy” by overturning the Roe v. Wade decision. In fact, they struck down an imperial dictate from a Supreme Court that ignored the Constitution and sought to impose its view of abortions on the nation — and 63 million American babies died.

Finally, after half a century, the issue of abortion has been returned to the people of each of the fifty states, and they will decide, by democratic processes when and under what circumstances a baby’s life can be taken in their state.

In 2022, the Supreme Court reclaimed its proper role through several dramatic decisions in the 2021-2022 Supreme Court session. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court said a high school coach did not have his First Amendment rights to free exercise as an American citizen when he steps on public school property. In Carson v. Makin the court ruled that a state does not have to furnish tuition aid to public school students, but if they do so, they cannot discriminate by disallowing students attending religious schools from receiving such aid.

In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the justices said that Congress can no longer surrender its powers to unelected bureaucrats in the federal administrative state. In essence, the court told Congress “to get off its lazy backside and resume the people’s work.”

Congress can still regulate emissions from coal plants, but they must pass specific laws rather than pass them off to faceless bureaucrats.

And of course, supremely in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court said Roe v. Wade was an attempt by the Court to seize the issue of abortion from the American people. Even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg felt that Roe was a badly decided decision and made the abortion issue more divisive than it would otherwise have been.

The mass media and the Democrat chattering classes are hysterically proclaiming from the rooftops and everywhere else that the Supreme Court has “killed democracy.” What utter nonsense. The Supreme Court restored the government “of the people, by the people, for the people” to its rightful place. Now, the people of the United States will decide in each state when, and under what circumstances, a baby can be legally killed in their state.

It was the Supreme Court’s action in 1973 in Roe that violated previous practice, not the Supreme Court in 2022.

What the Supreme Court surfaced was a fundamental difference in philosophy concerning what the Supreme Court’s role should be in the American government.

The first view, the original intent view, believes that there are three federal constitutional branches with each having its assigned duties with the judicial branch to protect the constitutional system as a neutral arbiter.

The second view is that the constitution is an ancient and obsolete document written by dead white men over 200 years ago. The Supreme Court’s role should be to perform legal acrobatics and verbal double talk to ram through the progressive left’s agenda (Cf. Francis Menton, “there are two fundamentally irreconcilable constitutional visions,” Manhattan Contrarian).

The 2022 court has largely returned to the first vision and the progressive left is hysterical at the apparent failure of the second vision.

The American people have been profoundly misled by the American press as to what Roe v. Wade actually did. The Harvard-Harris poll, conducted after Dobbs was released, reveals the extent of that deception.

The polling shared that 55% of Americans opposed overturning Roe while 45% supported it. The poll further revealed that 72% of those polled said they supported abortion up to 15 weeks gestation (the precise limit in Dobbs) and 49% wanted to limit abortions to be abolished at six weeks gestation.

So, it turns out a significant majority didn’t support everything in the radical Roe regime and didn’t know that under Roe, America was one of the 10 most abortive nations in the world.

Americans, thanks to the Supreme Court, our decisions about our nation’s future have been placed back in our own hands. A passage in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians comes to mind, “so be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly but understand what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph. 5:14-17), New Living Translation.

Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.

Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Liberty Wins Again!

A.F. BRANCO | on July 1, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-liberty-wins-again/

The Supreme Court rules against the tyrannical EPA administration inflicting its unconstitutional policies against America.

SCOTUS EPA Ruling — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022.**

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.

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Life wins as Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

Reported by CHRIS PANDOLFO | June 24, 2022

In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned its controversial Roe v. Wade opinion, which established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case concerning a Mississippi law that, with few exceptions, bans abortions after 15 weeks.

The court upheld the Mississippi law, which was challenged as unconstitutional under the Supreme Court precedents established in Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).

Emphasizing that abortion “presents a profound moral question,” Alito’s opinion finds that the Constitution “does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating and prohibiting abortion.”

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” Alito wrote.

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” he added.

His words were unchanged from a draft of this opinion that was leaked to Politico in May. That unprecedented leak sent shock waves through the nation and prompted an investigation ordered by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh filed concurring opinions. Roberts filed an opinion concurring in the judgement. The three liberal justices dissented.

Abortion rights activists rallied against the draft opinion throughout May and June, even protesting outside the homes of Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices in an effort to get them to back down and change their votes.

Acts of violence were also committed against pro-life ministries and organizations in the name of protecting abortion rights. An anarchist group called Jane’s Revenge firebombed at least two pro-life pregnancy centers, claimed responsibility for the vandalism of several more, and made terrorist threats of more violence to come. The FBI has opened an investigation into these threats and others.

It is nearly impossible to overstate the importance of the court’s landmark decision in Dobbs.

Where previously, state regulations on abortion had been ruled unconstitutional under Roe‘s and Casey‘s precedents, now state legislatures are free to enact limits or even outright bans on abortion according to the will of the people.

Thirteen states have so-called trigger laws that will now go into effect and criminalize abortion procedures.

The Louder with Crowder team is live on the ground with updates from the Supreme Court. The livestream of their coverage may be found here.

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Alito Takes a Blow Torch to Liberal Justices’ Dissent

Posted by Katie Pavlich | @KatiePavlich | Posted: Jun 23, 2022

**Source: (Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool)**

On Thursday morning the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down restrictive “may issue” concealed carry laws in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion and explained how the Second Amendment is not a second-class right.

The arguments made by the dissenting justices were wildly irrelevant from the issue of constitutionality and current law, prompting Justice Samuel Alito to file a separate, concurring opinion destroying their claims. He also took issue with their ignorance and arrogance surrounding the facts of lawful gun ownership vs. criminality. (Take a look, bolding is mine)

Much of the dissent seems designed to obscure the specific question that the Court has decided, and therefore it may be helpful to provide a succinct summary of what we have actually held. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570 (2008), the Court concluded that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep a handgun in the home for self-defense. Heller found that the Amendment codified a preexisting right and that this right was regarded at the time of the Amendment’s adoption as rooted in “‘the natural right of resistance and self-preservation.’” Id., at 594. “[T]he inherent right of self-defense,” Heller explained, is “central to the Second Amendment right.” Id., at 628. Although Heller concerned the possession of a handgun in the home, the key point that we decided was that “the people,” not just members of the “militia,” have the right to use a firearm to defend themselves. And because many people face a serious risk of lethal violence when they venture outside their homes, the Second Amendment was understood at the time of adoption to apply under those circumstances.
The Court’s exhaustive historical survey establishes that point very clearly, and today’s decision therefore holds that a State may not enforce a law, like New York’s Sullivan Law, that effectively prevents its law-abiding residents from carrying a gun for this purpose. That is all we decide. Our holding decides nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun. Nor does it decide anything about the kinds of weapons that people may possess. Nor have we disturbed anything that we said in Heller or McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742 (2010), about restrictions that may be imposed on the possession or carrying of guns.
In light of what we have actually held, it is hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served by most of the dissent’s lengthy introductory section. See post, at 1–8 (opinion of BREYER, J.). Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? Post, at 4–5. Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator. What is the relevance of statistics about the use of guns to commit suicide? See post, at 5–6. Does the dissent think that a lot of people who possess guns in their homes will be stopped or deterred from shooting themselves if they cannot lawfully take them outside? The dissent cites statistics about the use of guns in domestic disputes, see post, at 5, but it does not explain why these statistics are relevant to the question presented in this case. How many of the cases involving the use of a gun in a domestic dispute occur outside the home, and how many are prevented by laws like New York’s?
The dissent cites statistics on children and adolescents killed by guns, see post, at 1, 4, but what does this have to do with the question whether an adult who is licensed to possess a handgun may be prohibited from carrying it outside the home? Our decision, as noted, does not expand the categories of people who may lawfully possess a gun, and federal law generally forbids the possession of a handgun by a person who is under the age of 18, 18 U. S. C. §§922(x)(2)–(5), and bars the sale of a handgun to anyone under the age of 21, §§922(b)(1), (c)(1).1 The dissent cites the large number of guns in private hands—nearly 400 million—but it does not explain what this statistic has to do with the question whether a person who already has the right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense is likely to be deterred from acquiring a gun by the knowledge that the gun cannot be carried outside the home.

And while the dissent seemingly thinks that the ubiquity of guns and our country’s high level of gun violence provide reasons for sustaining the New York law, the dissent appears not to understand that it is these very facts that cause law-abiding citizens to feel the need to carry a gun for self-defense.
No one apparently knows how many of the 400 million privately held guns are in the hands of criminals, but there can be little doubt that many muggers and rapists are armed and are undeterred by the Sullivan Law. Each year, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) confiscates thousands of guns,2 and it is fair to assume that the number of guns seized is a fraction of the total number held unlawfully. The police cannot disarm every person who acquires a gun for use in criminal activity; nor can they provide bodyguard protection for the State’s nearly 20 million residents or the 8.8 million people who live in New York City. Some of these people live in high-crime neighborhoods. Some must traverse dark and dangerous streets in order to reach their homes after work or other evening activities. Some are members of groups whose members feel especially vulnerable. And some of these people reasonably believe that unless they can brandish or, if necessary, use a handgun in the case of attack, they may be murdered, raped, or suffer some other serious injury.
Ordinary citizens frequently use firearms to protect themselves from criminal attack. According to survey data, defensive firearm use occurs up to 2.5 million times per year.
I reiterate: All that we decide in this case is that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding people to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense and that the Sullivan Law, which makes that virtually impossible for most New Yorkers, is unconstitutional.

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‘We’re In a Revolutionary Period’: Victor Davis Hanson Issues Dire Prediction for Future of America

REPORTED BY HAROLD HUTCHISON, REPORTER | June 22, 2022

DCNF - VDH Rule of Law - Featured — **Screenshot/Rumble/Fox News**

Historian Victor Davis Hanson told Fox News host Tucker Carlson Tuesday that the United States no longer had the rule of law and was in a “revolutionary period.”

“I hesitate to say this, we’re not in a society ruled by law,” Hanson, a senior fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” referring to attacks on pro-life groups which he argued have largely gone unpunished. “We’re in a revolutionary period like 18th century France or 1920s Russia where the law is fluid and it’s whatever the power to be says it is.” (RELATED: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Subordinate Citizen)

Multiple crisis pregnancy centers, churches and pro-life groups have been attacked since the leak of a Supreme Court opinion indicating the court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. Republicans have criticized the Biden administration over alleged inaction with regards to the attacks and the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh by a man who targeted the justice over potential Supreme Court rulings on abortion and gun rights.

Hanson predicted left-wing violence could increase if non-enforcement of laws continued.

“If we put graffiti on a person’s office or burn it, what’s the next thing?” Hanson asked.

Hanson cited investigations and prosecutions targeting James O’Keefe of Project Veritas and former Trump aides Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, contrasting it to the reaction to Eric Holder defying congressional subpoenas during the Obama administration.

WATCH:

“The message the left wants to send is, you better be careful because the government is on our side and not on your side,” Hanson said.

Hanson claimed that nobody was held accountable after the events of May 31, 2020, when rioters allegedly set St. John’s Church on fire.

“I think the law is very fluid,” Hanson told Carlson Tuesday. “Merrick Garland is much to blame, so is Joe Biden.”

Hanson earlier commented on the actions of the left in a May op-ed, citing the leak of a draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

“It violated all court protocols,” Hanson wrote. “Yet it was met with stunning approval from the American Left.”

Hanson also argued that the Left’s “radical” agenda would never find majority support.

“It sees success only through altering the rules of governance or changing the demography of the electorate – or both,” he wrote.

Hanson and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Protesters Block Roads Leading to Supreme Court Ahead of Possible Abortion Verdict

REPORTED BY DIANA GLEBOVA, ASSOCIATE EDITOR | June 13, 2022

US-JUSTICE-SUPREME COURT-ABORTION — **ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images**

Left-wing protesters blocked intersections Monday leading to the Supreme Court in anticipation of a possible verdict on the abortion decision that could overturn Roe v. Wade. Protest group ShutDownDC said it successfully blocked several intersections Monday morning after previously having posted its plans to do so “to rise up for the transformative change that our communities need” on its website.

“We have successfully split off into different groups to hold multiple intersections #ShutDownSCOTUS,” the group tweeted.

The website lists instructions for what protesters should do if they’re arrested, including filling out a “jail support form.” There is also a form to sign up for an “affinity group,” with an option for “people who have been organizing protests at conservative justice’s homes.”

Monday is one of the Supreme Court’s decision days, and the court has not issued a verdict on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which could overturn Roe v. Wade — for over a month. The draft opinion was leaked May 2 indicating the majority of the court would vote to overturn it. (RELATED: SCOTUS Intends To Overturn Roe V. Wade: REPORT)

Several protesters held posters with conservative Supreme Court justices, calling them “liars.”

A man was arrested and charged with attempted murder Wednesday after claiming he wanted to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Police said they caught him with a weapon and burglary tools outside Kavanaugh’s home. The left-wing protest group Ruth Sent Us gathered at his home the same night.

Pro-abortion protesters with ShutDownDC protested at Kavanaugh’s home in 2021.

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Kamala Harris Goes Off the Deep End and Declares War on Supreme Court and GOP: ‘How Dare They’

Reported By Elizabeth Stauffer May 4, 2022 at 9:59am

Reminiscent of young environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s bratty “How dare you!” denunciation of world leaders, Vice President Kamala Harris railed against Republican leaders who she claimed are trying to “weaponize” the law against women on Tuesday evening. Speaking at an event for EMILY’s List, a political action committee that works to elect pro-abortion female candidates, Harris declared war on the Supreme Court over a draft opinion showing that a majority of justices are prepared to strike down the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

The document apparently was leaked to Politico, which reported on it Monday night. Harris’ speech had been scheduled prior to the report.

In her address, she expanded upon a brief statement she had released earlier in the day framing the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to “the rights of all Americans.”

“Women’s rights in America are under attack,” the vice president began.
“Roe v. Wade, in its power, has protected a woman’s right — her right — to make decisions about her own body for nearly half a century,” she said.

“If the court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a direct assault on freedom — on the fundamental right of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled.”
“Women in almost half the country could see their access to abortion severely limited,” Harris said. “In 13 of those states, women would lose access to abortion immediately and outright.”
“Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women,” she said, her anger rising, “Well we say, how dare they! How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body. How dare they! How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future! How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms.”

READ THE REST OF THIS REPORT AT https://www.westernjournal.com/kamala-harris-goes-off-deep-end-declares-war-supreme-court-gop-dare/

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The Attacks on Clarence and Ginni Thomas Are Merely Latest in a Decades-Long Smear Campaign

REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 30, 2022

Not only are the attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni purely political, they’re deeply hypocritical.

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

While claiming its aggressive collection of confidential information on private citizens is “narrowly tailored” and without a nefarious purpose, Democrats on the Jan. 6 Committee selectively leaked communications of a private citizen to smear political opponents.

Last week, CNN and the Washington Post published text messages between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, who goes by “Ginni,” and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged in the days leading up to and on the day of the Capitol riot.

“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Ginni reportedly urged Meadows days after the 2020 contest when news organizations began to call the race for former Vice President Joe Biden. “You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Out of the 29 of more than 2,300 text messages released from Meadows’ vast trove of data handed to the Select Committee, not one, the Washington Post conceded, included a direct reference to the sitting justice as the weaponized probe sought to dox a private citizen for petitioning her government.

“The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results,” the Post reported with the paper adopting Pelosi committee’s framing to indict private political views as a blockbuster scandal.

While the committee has made an open point to prosecute those who publicly sought to cast doubt on the fairness of the 2020 election results, the committee’s targeting of Ginni Thomas for privately petitioning government officials on her own marks further escalation of the probe’s assault on civil liberties, and makes Thomas case all the more unique.

CNN reported Monday the committee will now seek an interview with Ginni, who has become the latest to be dragged before lawmakers for exercising dissident views, even in private. But the probe’s latest request is just as much targeted at Ginni, a long-time conservative activist who has never concealed her activism, as it is her husband.

The left’s racist disdain for Justice Thomas has never been a well-kept secret by a virulent left frustrated by the mere existence of a black conservative, let alone one on the high bench. Attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record on lenient sentencing for child sex crimes are cruel and racist. Baseless criticism of Justice Thomas is warranted, however, for his political heresy, starting with his own confirmation process three decades ago.

Publication of the text messages provoked immediate calls for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any cases related to the Jan. 6 investigation for the crime of his wife’s public political views raising concerns over an election with record mail-in voting and last-minute rule changes. New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even demanded Justice Thomas resign or face impeachment.

As outlined Tuesday in The Federalist by former Thomas Law Clerk Wendy Long, however, judges are never asked to recuse themselves over political views, whether their own or their spouse’s.

“Leftists in Congress and the media hyperventilate over every tidbit showing that Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni, is involved in national conservative politics – most recently, that she pushed for integrity in the 2020 election,” Long wrote. “This isn’t news, and it has nothing to do with Justice Thomas’s ability to be a fair and impartial jurist.”

Instead, Long explained judicial recusal is about “mainly financial, legal, personal, or professional interests of the Justice or a family member.” Not personal politics. The strategy of the modern left, however, has been to intimidate the courts into submission to extremist and anti-Constitution politics. Consider the last three nomination battles: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was slandered as a serial gang rapist, Amy Coney Barrett was depicted as a character in The Handmaid’s Tale, and Stephen Breyer was pressured to retire while Democrats were in power to replace him.

Not only are the attacks on Thomas purely political, they’re hypocritical. Will Democrats calling on Justice Thomas to refrain from his official duties as a jurist similarly demand a probe into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leveraging her position in Congress to rake in millions? Will journalists married to people in power recuse themselves from coverage on any issues their spouses conduct even minor work on? Probably not. It’s all theater.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Nobody ‘Implied’ Ketanji Brown Jackson Was Nominated Because Of Her Race. Biden Stated It Proudly

REPORTED BY: KYLEE ZEMPEL | MARCH 22, 2022

During opening statements of the Senate confirmation hearings for Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, which began on Monday, Democrats (one in particular) went into spin mode by testing out a talking point that went a little something like this: Republicans are saying you were nominated because of your race.

It was Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, who said it most plainly:

“My Republican colleagues and public figures have attempted to undermine your qualifications through their pejorative use of the term ‘affirmative action,’ and they have implied you were solely nominated due to your race. … Let me be clear: Your nomination is not about filling a quota.”

"They have implied you were solely nominated due to your race…Your nomination is not about filling a quota… It is about time that we have a highly qualified, highly accomplished Black woman serving on the Supreme Court," Sen. Hirono says of Judge Jackson in opening remarks. pic.twitter.com/5CsFDDheXY
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 21, 2022

Al Sharpton employed a similar deflection on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I salute President Biden in this case. He made a commitment, and I don’t think it was based on some tokenism. I think it was based on him saying that the court ought to reflect the country, and a black woman has never been on the court, and you couldn’t get one more qualified,” Sharpton said, before implying that it was racist for GOP lawmakers to inquire about the nominee’s law school admission test score.

The SCOTUS hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson begin today, I underlined the importance of this nomination and this time in history on #MorningJoe. pic.twitter.com/smhrK23KmP
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) March 21, 2022

It’s an odd basket of claims: that it’s Republicans who made Jackson’s nomination all about race, that anything was “implied,” that describing the race-based selection as “affirmative action” is out of bounds, and that this has nothing to do with tokenism. They’re strange claims because most Americans are old enough to remember just two months ago when President Joe Biden himself stated clearly and plainly that his pick would be “the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” after making a similar promise on the campaign trail. It was the Democrat president, not Republican cynics, who announced that race and sex were deciding factors in the selection. “Y” chromosomes and fair skin were disqualifying attributes before any merits could be considered.

Other Democrats couldn’t help themselves, playing into the identity politics game and marveling at the “historic” nature of nominating a black woman to the high court — and all the while undermining Hirono’s claim that it’s Republicans who have centralized race in Jackson’s nomination.

“The appointment of a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court — let’s be very blunt — should have happened years ago. This day is a giant leap into the present for our country and for the court,” gushed Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

“The Senate is poised right now to break another barrier. We are on the precipice of shattering another ceiling,” said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Cory Booker, who is known for breaking Senate rules during the confirmation hearings for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh with his cringe “Spartacus” moment. “I just feel this sense of overwhelming joy as I see you sitting there.”

Despite Hirono’s attempted deflection to her GOP colleagues and empty media assurances that tokenism is nonexistent here, it was Democrats who fixated on Jackson’s race and sex.

Now when Republicans inquire about her academic achievements and judicial record, it’s branded as veiled racism and sexism. Jackson proponents treat it like unjust scrutiny, as if a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is supposed to be for grandstanding about “historic” moments and not for judicial vetting.

Try as they might to turn Jackson criticism on Republicans, this one is on Biden. He’s the one who announced in other terms that Jackson is an affirmative action pick, just as he did with his vice president (and we’ve seen how that’s turned out). He’s the one who invited intensified scrutiny of Jackson’s merits and ideology. He reduced Jackson’s qualifications to the color of her skin and the pairing of her chromosomes.

Nobody “implied” that Jackson was nominated because of her race. The president announced it proudly.

Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religious liberty, and criminal justice. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.

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3 Reasons Parents Are Absolutely Right To Demand Informed Consent To What Schools Do To Their Kids

REPORTED BY: EMILIE KAO | MARCH 10, 2022

A parent can look at the label on a juice box to decide what ingredients to allow into her child’s body. He should also be able to decide what ingredients a teacher puts into his child’s mind, but that isn’t the case in a growing number of public schools.

When Covid-19 brought the classroom into the kitchen, parents’ eyes were opened to some unsettling revelations, including that their children are being indoctrinated into critical race theory, and that some schools are secretly treating girls as boys and vice-versa.

Food labeling helps parents make informed decisions about what their children eat. In the same way, transparency helps parents make informed decisions about what their children learn. Yet some schools are resisting calls for transparency. Corporate media and teachers’ unions have inaccurately disparaged parents, but these critics are wrong. Here are three reasons why.

1. Children belong to their parents, not to the ‘community’ or the state.

Former MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry infamously called on her viewers to “break through our kind of private idea that ‘kids belong to their parents,’. . . and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.” Her pitch was strikingly similar to that of Terry McAuliffe, former Virginia governor and chair of the Democratic National Committee, who said parents shouldn’t be telling schools what to teach.

This view of parental rights is at odds with parents’ fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their children. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized this in 1925 in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, stating, “The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

As Professor Melissa Moschella writes, parental rights stem from the uniquely intimate relationship between parents and children. Children belong to their families, which are headed by their parents. Therefore, parents have the most direct obligation and authority to care for children until they are mature enough to direct their own lives. Until then, parents mediate a child’s relationship to the larger political community.

The failure to recognize that the family is distinct and relatively independent from the political community, and that parental rights are pre-political and natural rights, is not just wrong, but dangerous. Moschella notes Hannah Arendt’s observation that eliminating the intermediary structures between the individual and the state — namely the family and the church — is the essence of totalitarianism.

2. More schools are crossing the boundary line between education and indoctrination.

If schools just taught the “three Rs” (reading, writing, and arithmetic), parents would not suspect schools were undermining their values, beliefs, and authority. But, as parents in Albemarle County, Virginia, recently learned, some schools are indoctrinating students with so-called “anti-racism” ideology.

Instead of condemning all racism, “anti-racism” replaces one form of racism with another. Following “anti-racist” logic, Albemarle County schools used race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity to label students as “dominate” or “subordinate.”

Parents from five families of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds challenged the policy. The school undermined what these parents believe and teach their children — that all people are created equal and should be treated as such. The school even threatened to punish students for not supporting the policy.

Yet, as Judge James C. Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit wrote in Oliver v. Arnold, “Schools should educate—not indoctrinate. Teachers can teach. And teachers can test. But teachers cannot require students to endorse a particular political viewpoint.”

Parental rights don’t end at the schoolhouse gate. Parents must be able to protect their children from policies that place burdens and privileges on them according to their immutable characteristics.

3. Backed by the Biden administration, schools are even engaging in unauthorized treatment of students’ mental health.

The U.S. Department of Education has promoted “gender support plans.” An official fact sheet instructs schools to maintain “confidentiality” for students who identify as transgender at school by not using the student’s birth name or “sex assigned at birth if the student wishes to keep this information private.” But there is no mention of notifying, much less involving, parents in such a consequential decision to adopt a new name and pronouns that correspond to the opposite sex.

The agency tells schools to support a student’s gender transition by using “a checklist of issues to discuss with the student or their family” (emphasis added). Without an explicit requirement that schools inform and obtain parental consent to treat the child as a member of the opposite sex, it is reasonable to assume that notification to parents is optional. The schools may also perceive parental notification as a matter that depends on whether the child views their parents as “affirming” of gender transition.

Schools’ use of “gender support plans,” like those recommended by the Biden administration, have shocked parents around the country. After learning that schools sought to hide their children’s emotional distress from them, they challenged these policies in Wisconsin, Florida, and California courts.

Alliance Defending Freedom recently informed Virginia’s Harrisonburg City School District that its policy of using different names and pronouns amounts to “a psychosocial treatment that will increase the odds of long-term persistence,” according to Dr. Kenneth Zucker, an expert in treating gender dysphoria in children. Up to 90 percent of children with gender dysphoria eventually become comfortable with their bodies if they aren’t encouraged to live as the opposite sex. Schools should not endanger students by hiding information from parents about their mental health or engage in unauthorized treatment of gender dysphoria.

Lockdowns allowed many parents to see the ingredients inside their children’s education. That prompted them to support laws that provide more transparency into curriculum and policies. Parents should be able to decide on the education that best suits their child and their family’s beliefs.

Too many schools are hiding crucial information. They must be held accountable through policies that require transparency, so parents won’t receive more nasty surprises.

Emilie Kao is senior counsel and vice president of advocacy strategy with Alliance Defending Freedom.

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Pelosi Says She Won’t Block Stock Trading Ban, Trashes Supreme Court Ethics Rules

REPORTED BY MICHAEL GINSBERG, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER | February 09, 2022

pelosi stocks — **Screenshot via YouTube/Yahoo Finance**

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi signaled Wednesday that she would not block a bipartisan attempt to ban members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks, a position that she herself has opposed.

“I do believe in the integrity of people in public service. I want the public to have that understanding. We have to do something to deter something that we see as a problem, but it is a confidence issue, and if that’s what the members want to do, then that’s what we’ll do,” Pelosi said during a press conference.

The comments were similar to ones she made in January, when she said that she didn’t believe new rules were necessary but that the House Administration Committee could review the issue. Pelosi is on record as personally opposing a ban, claiming in December that trading stocks allows members to “participate” in the U.S.’s “free market economy.”

WATCH:

Pelosi added in the press conference that she would prefer to “tighten the fines on those who violate the STOCK Act. It’s not sufficient to deter behavior.”

The STOCK Act requires members of Congress to file stock transactions with their chamber clerk within 45 days of conducting the trade. Members frequently flout the reporting requirement, but enforcement is uneven.

“The enforcement of the financial-disclosure requirements is virtually nonexistent,” a former investigative counsel in the House’s Office of Congressional Ethics reportedly told Business Insider. “The committee does not look for late filings. There is no notification or follow-up.”

Democrats and Republicans have introduced legislation that would prohibit Congress members and their direct family members from trading individual stocks. A bill proposed by Democratic Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy would require members, spouses and dependent children to place their investments in blind trusts, while legislation introduced by Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley would require members to surrender individual stocks to the Treasury Department if they are caught holding them.

Pelosi did not endorse any current legislation.

“I’m a big believer in our committees, and we tasked the House Administration Committee to review the options that members are putting forth, and they have different views on the subject,” she said.

The House speaker went on to criticize the Supreme Court’s ethics requirements, claiming that any financial reform would have to be “government-wide.” Although lower federal courts are bound by ethics rules legislated by Congress, the Supreme Court sets its own ethics and disclosure rules. Prominent liberals, most notably Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, have claimed that the Court’s lack of disclosure rules allow it to be controlled by right-wing dark money.

“We make a disclosure every year, our financial disclosure, that is what it is. And then in addition to

that, on regular basis, when there is a stock transaction, to report that. The court system, the third branch of government, the judiciary, has no reporting. The Supreme Court has no disclosure, it has no reporting of stock transactions, and it makes important decisions every day,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi conducted up to $30.4 million worth of stock trades in 2021, according to her ethics disclosures. According to the financial analysis blog Unusual Whales, Pelosi’s trades had the sixth-best performance of all members of Congress, and the best among Democrats. Notably, Pelosi exercised call options on Microsoft stock in March, less than two weeks before the U.S. Army announced a nearly $22 billion contract with the tech giant.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy revealed in January that he would consider a limit or ban on individual stock trades should Republicans take back the House of Representatives in the midterms. More than three-quarters of general election voters support banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, a poll conducted in December by the Trafalgar Group found.Tags :

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Vermont Plans to Enshrine Legal Abortions Right Up to Birth

REPORTED BY: JOHN KLAR | FEBRUARY 07, 2022

A three-year battle in Vermont is coming to a head over Proposal 5, an amendment to the state constitution that would enshrine existing Vermont abortion “liberties” to terminate pregnancies up until birth.

Roe v. Wade established “viability” as the determinant of when state governments hold a “compelling” interest to protect children. The current challenge to Roe in the Supreme Court concerns a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks. Vermont’s Proposal 5 essentially defines fetal viability at 40 weeks (birth), ignoring both Roe and the science of human development.

The Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade sought to balance not just competing moral and political views, but the two lives at issue:

The pregnant woman cannot be isolated in her privacy. She carries an embryo and, later, a fetus, if one accepts the medical definitions of the developing young in the human uterus… Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes ‘compelling.’ With respect to the state’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability.

Modern medicine has revealed the miracle of human development, increasing public awareness of that second person even acknowledged by Roe. This reality drives increased public opposition to late-term abortions: recent polls show 80 percent of Americans oppose them. Medical science is also clear about what the Supreme Court described as viability:

Periviability, also referred to as borderline viability, is defined as the earliest stage of fetal maturity (i.e., between 22 and 26 weeks gestation) when there is a reasonable chance, although not a high likelihood, of extrauterine survival.

The current Mississippi dispute, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, seeks to protect unborn children from abortion prior to current scientific consensus on viability, at 15 weeks. Abortion proponents portray that as restrictive, and indeed treat any objection to late-term abortions as moralizing religiosity, yet secular France is currently embroiled in a parliamentary dispute over whether to expand long-standing restrictions on abortions there from 12 weeks to 14.

Vermont’s Abortion Law

Vermont established “abortion protections” through delivery in 2019, in its “no-limits” H.57, overcoming Republican efforts to impose a 24-week limitation, or to exempt minor girls. Proposal 5 now seeks to cement those same horrors into the Vermont constitution, and compel conservative elected representatives to swear an oath to its abhorrent provisions.

Women and young girls around the nation and world (Vermont provides free abortions to unlawful entrants) who make last-minute decisions to terminate their pregnancies may have no place to turn for “rescue” except the ghoulish Green Mountain State.

Vermont has long embraced this barbaric extremism with regard to the unborn. Its leftist legislature has steadfastly avoided acknowledging fetal personhood at any age, which leaves pregnant women gravely unprotected from domestic abusers who murder their unborn children — there is no Vermont recognition of these as homicides, even if the child is viable.

In one heartbreaking case, a young mother lost her twins at six months’ gestation when she was struck by an impaired driver. The Vermont legislature has repeatedly refused to honor her loss, or protect other mothers whose children are similarly murdered. Instead of acknowledging Roe’s “compelling” interest to protect the constitutional rights of viable children, Vermont uses its laws to deny the acknowledgment such children ever lived.

Proposal 5 Is Even Worse

Proposal 5 tightens that noose: unborn children in Vermont are not safe from murder by abortion when viable, only when they pass their mother’s cervix and breath air on their own. Vermont’s Proposal 5 will legally deny the recognition of the existence of that person Roe federally acknowledged in its “viability” rule. Thus Vermont has scorned even Roe’s political, moral, and scientific balancing efforts.

The Vermont progressive minority that has belched forth this abominable legislation is hell-bent on “preserving” its obscene accomplishments in constitutional cement. Planned Parenthood has even improperly cooperated with the Vermont attorney general’s office. Progressives invoke the eugenics horrors and the 15-week Mississippi attack on Roe as justification for Proposal 5. Vermont also offers sterilizing transgender hormone therapies to minor children without parental consent, in the same hospital that performs the majority of the late-term “procedures” in the state.

Supreme Court Must Address this Inequity

Vermont progressives are inviting the fall of Roe they fear. If states refuse to protect that second life acknowledged by Roe, and public sentiment continues to escalate in revulsion to abortion because of growing scientific awareness of the miraculousness of fetal development, is it not appropriate for the U.S. Supreme Court to take the required next step? Certainly there is no state constitutional recourse in Vermont on behalf of tortured viable children if its Constitution is amended to preempt that very possibility.

Roe v. Wade concerned the constitutional right to privacy of women while acknowledging a constitutional right to human personhood in the unborn at viability. It established federal preemptive boundaries to protect the first class, but left it to states to protect the second — and Vermont isn’t.

It is illogical for the U.S. Supreme Court not to address this glaring jurisprudential inequity. Does the U.S. Constitution contain a “right” for women to privately murder viable children? Roe specifically held they do not. But Roe did not articulate federal boundaries of constitutional protection for that child. As Justice Potter Stewart noted in his concurrence:

….the protection of a person’s general right to privacy – his right to be let alone by other people – is like the protection of his property and of his very life, left largely to the law of the individual States.

Many speculate that Mississippi’s law may be affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The New York Times proclaims “If the justices were to approve the law, Roe’s viability standard would no longer be the law of the land.” That does not bode well for Vermont’s extremist left minority.

The Supreme Court must declare that there is a gestation date beyond which women cannot constitutionally exterminate their young in the womb, and acknowledge what science proves: there is a separate human at issue, who must not be marginalized. Even if at a post-viable stage of 30 weeks, once federal fetal personhood is rightly acknowledged (much like when women and racial minorities were included in the Constitution’s protections), unconscionable laws like Proposal 5 will collapse under federal preemption.

Extremism such as Vermont’s demands federal rescue.

John Klar is an attorney, writer, pastor, and farmer who lives off-grid in Vermont. John blogs for Mother Earth News on agriculture issues, and maintains a weekly commentary in The Newport Daily Express.

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MARGOT CLEVELAND Op-ed: Why the Right Should Root for Biden to Pick the Most Insane Supreme Court Nominee

COMMENTARY BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | FEBRUARY 01, 2022

With Thursday’s official announcement by Justice Stephen Breyer of his impending retirement, conservatives are strategizing on the best approach to prevent confirmation of a leftist activist justice. Instead, Republicans should be praying that President Biden nominates the looniest, most far-left lawyer possible for a slot on the high court. Why? Because history has proven that a far-left justice will be no worse than a moderately liberal justice in the casting of Supreme Court votes, meaning there is no downside to a far-left pick, while the upside potential is huge, given that it is Biden appointing the new justice and not a Republican president: Thank you very much, Never Trumpers.

While over the last four decades justices appointed by Republican presidents have demonstrated a penchant to “grow” in office or have proven more moderate or pragmatic than proclaimed during confirmation, the same is not true for Democrat-appointed justices, who vote in near-perfect lockstep over their careers.

Then there are the Republican-appointed justices who do not abandon their judicial philosophy, but conclude that a faithful application of originalism requires them to vote with the leftist wing of the court. Justice Neil Gorsuch provides a perfect example of this phenomenon, providing the fifth vote in several cases in the criminal context, and before him the now-late Justice Anton Scalia.

Conversely, in close or contentious cases, Democrat-appointed justices “represent a block geared toward progressive policy outcomes.” It matters whether these justices are perceived as center-left or hard-left: The desired liberal outcome dictates the decision. So, fighting for a less leftist justice serves no purpose. On the other hand, there are many positives to the conservative cause if Biden nominates a far-left candidate to the Supreme Court. With midterm elections later this year, Biden naming an extremist to the high court positions Republicans perfectly to talk about the importance of elections—and specifically control of the Senate. The nomination of a far-left candidate will also provide an opportunity during the confirmation process for Republicans to highlight the recent public revelations of the Democratic Party’s true far-left goals. President Biden has already showcased the party’s obsession with identity politics by promising the country his nominee would be a black woman, so men and whites need not apply.

Further, if Republicans maintain decorum and respect during the process, and focus on the nominee’s judicial philosophy and policy, they can score points with a public disgusted by the left’s disgraceful treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his family. And the more leftist Biden’s candidate, the more restrained Republicans will appear by comparison. Moreover, the further left the candidate, the more justified a “no” vote will be for swing-state Republicans, allowing them to vote against the nomination based on principle, and thereby avoid the obstructionist label. Likewise, moderate Republicans or Republican senators in purple or blue states could justify a “yes” vote based on their view that a president is entitled to his nomination.

The more extreme Biden’s candidate, the more this position will inure to Republicans’ benefit when a supposedly far-right candidate finds himself or herself nominated to the Supreme Court by a future Republican president. The same moderate Republicans can point to their vote for Biden’s extremist justice as proof of the consistency of their position that a president is entitled to his nominee, or if they are kicked out of office over their vote for Biden’s nominee, a stronger senator could be in that office. And should Democrat senators en mass vote against a future Republican nominee, the hypocrisy charge will strike more squarely the more extreme Biden’s leftist nominee is.

It is also not just the fight that will benefit the conservative cause: Elevation of a far-left justice to the Supreme Court will advance originalism more than if Biden were to replace Breyer with a milquetoast moderate. That premise may seem counterintuitive because we think of “moderates” in the context of politics and not precedent.

For a Supreme Court decision to be “precedential,” five justices must agree with both the outcome and the analysis. Were Biden to appoint a so-called “moderate,” her vote would tally with the far-left wing of the high court and her reasoning would likely be mainstream enough to, at times, shift Justice John Roberts or Justice Brett Kavanaugh to join with the other two leftist justices to create a majority opinion that binds lower courts.

Conversely, a far-left justice will also vote with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan but may drag her sister justices too far to the left to entice any so-called moderate justices to join in the decision. Then, either the leftist side will lose, or the outcome will favor the leftist position, but the Supreme Court’s decision will be fractured, with several of the justices writing separately, resulting in no binding precedent and only dicta.

Of course, originalism would benefit more from the appointment of an originalist justice, but that is not an option now, as President Biden is our president and Breyer submitted his resignation effective upon confirmation of his successor. So the choice is between Justice Breyer and another liberal justice or a far-left one. Stalling in the hope of obtaining a more palatable liberal will leave us with Justice Breyer and the need to delay an appointment for three years.

Conservatism would be better served by using Biden’s appointment to remind the public that elections have consequences. The loonier left his nominee is, the better that point can be made.

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Pennsylvania Court Strikes Down Mail-In Voting Law As Unconstitutional

REPORTED BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 31, 2022

On Friday, a Pennsylvania court declared the state’s statute authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting was unconstitutional. Within hours, Pennsylvania officials filed a notice of appeal with the state Supreme Court, putting on hold the lower court decision and thereby leaving in place the vote-by-mail option until the state’s high court rules.

With Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices elected on a partisan ticket and Democrats currently holding a 5-2 majority on the state’s high court, Democrats are predicting the no-excuse mail-in voting law will be upheld. That forecast seems accurate given the hyper-partisan approach to legal analysis seen since the 2020 election. It’s unfortunate because yesterday’s opinion in McLinko v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania reached the proper conclusion as a matter of constitutional analysis and controlling precedent.

The McLinko case consisted of two lawsuits consolidated by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. Both cases challenged the constitutionality of no-excuse mail-in voting. Doug McLinko, a member of the Bradford County Board of Elections, was the plaintiff in one case, and Timothy Bonner and 13 additional members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives were the plaintiffs in the second case.

At issue in the consolidated case was Act 77, which, as the court explained in Friday’s opinion, “created the opportunity for all Pennsylvania electors to vote by mail without having to demonstrate a valid reason for absence from their polling place on Election Day.” The plaintiffs argued that provision violates Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides (emphasis added):

Every citizen 21 years of age, possessing the following qualifications, shall be entitled to vote at all elections subject, however, to such laws requiring and regulating the registration of electors as the General Assembly may enact.
1. He or she shall have been a citizen of the United States at least one month.
2. He or she shall have resided in the State 90 days immediately preceding the election.
3. He or she shall have resided in the election district where he or she shall offer to vote at least 60 days immediately preceding the election, 10 except that if qualified to vote in an election district prior to removal of residence, he or she may, if a resident of Pennsylvania, vote in the election district from which he or she removed his or her residence within 60 days preceding the election.

The key language in Section 1, the plaintiffs argued, and the court held, was “shall offer to vote,” which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had previously interpreted in Chase v. Miller, a case from 1862. At issue in Chase was whether 420 votes received from Pennsylvania soldiers fighting in the Civil War, who had cast their ballots by mail, were valid. While Pennsylvania’s legislature had authorized absentee ballots for military members, the state Supreme Court held the Military Absentee Act of 1839 violated the state’s constitution because “offer his vote” required in-person voting, explaining:

To ‘offer to vote’ by ballot, is to present oneself, with proper qualifications, at the time and place appointed, and to make manual delivery of the ballot to the officers appointed by law to receive it. The ballot cannot be sent by mail or express, nor can it be cast outside of all Pennsylvania election districts and certified into the county where the voter has his domicile.
We cannot be persuaded that the constitution ever contemplated any such mode of voting, and we have abundant reason for thinking that to permit it would break down all the safeguards of honest suffrage. The constitution meant, rather, that the voter, in propria persona, should offer his vote in an appropriate election district, in order that his neighbours might be at hand to establish his right to vote if it were challenged, or to challenge if it were doubtful.

In other words, “to offer his vote,” required a qualified elector to “present oneself. . . at the time and place appointed” and to make “manual delivery of the ballot.” The fuller discussion in Chase, however, provides a helpful reminder of the long-understood danger of absentee voting: “a break down” of “the safeguards of honest suffrage.”

Pennsylvania’s constitution was later amended to permit electors in military service to vote by absentee ballot. Then in 1923, the state legislature again attempted to expand absentee voting to allow non-military citizens, “who by reason of his duties, business, or occupation [are] unavoidably absent from his lawfully designated election district, and outside of the county of which he is an elector,” to cast an absentee ballot in the presence of an election official.

Another election dispute, however, resulted in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1924 In re Contested Election of Fifth Ward of Lancaster City, declaring the 1923 Absentee Voting Act unconstitutional. The Lancaster decision again concluded that the “offer to vote” language of the Pennsylvania state constitution requires in-person voting. Because at that time the constitution only authorized absentee voting for individuals absent by reason of active military service, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held the 1923 Absentee Voting Act unconstitutional.

“However laudable the purpose of the [1923 Absentee Voting Act], it cannot be sustained,” the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explained, adding: “If it is deemed necessary that such legislation be placed upon our statute books, then an amendment to the Constitution must be adopted permitting this to be done.”

In Friday’s decision in McLinko v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the three-judge majority opinion found Chase and Lancaster City controlling and struck down Act 77’s authorization of no-cause mail-in voting. In holding Act 77 unconstitutional, the McLinko court rejected the acting secretary of state’s argument that Article VII, Section 4 of the Pennsylvania Constitution granted the state legislature authority to allow mail-in voting for any reason. That constitutional provision provides: “All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law: Provided, That secrecy in voting be preserved.”

The court rejected Pennsylvania’s argument, noting that when Lancaster City was decided, the Pennsylvania high court had quoted the entire text of Article VII, Section 4, and yet held that the “offer to vote” language required in-person voting unless the constitution expressly authorized absentee voting. Friday’s decision explained that Section 4 merely authorized the state to allow mechanical voting, as opposed to voting by ballot. (Two judges dissented from the McLinko decision, reasoning that mail-in voting is not a subset of absentee voting but a new method of voting the legislature may be approved under Section 4.)

Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state’s argument that Section 4 of the state constitution authorizes the legislature to permit no-fault mail-in voting defies logic. As the McLinko court explained, if Section 4 gave the legislature that power, then there was no need for the state’s constitution to be amended in 1997, to add as a permissible basis for absentee voting, “observance of a religious holiday or Election Day duties.”

While concluding it was bound by Chase and Lancaster City, the majority in Friday’s decision in McLinko added that “no-excuse mail-in voting makes the exercise of the franchise more convenient” and that, “if presented to the people, a constitutional amendment to end the Article VII, Section 1 requirement of in-person voting is likely to be adopted.” “But a constitutional amendment must be presented to the people and adopted into our fundamental law,” the court in McLinko concluded, “before legislation authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting can ‘be placed upon our statute books.’”

The majority’s detailed analysis in McLinko was correct, both as a matter of constitutional interpretation and precedent. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, will not be bound by its decisions in Chase and Lancaster City, even though the principal of stare decisis should caution the justices against overturning that precedent.

That prudential principle is especially relevant here, where the “offer to vote” language “has been part of the Pennsylvania Constitution since 1838 and has been consistently understood, since at least 1862, to require the elector to appear in person, at a ‘proper polling place’ and on Election Day to cast his vote.”

A decision by the Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court abiding by that precedent and reminding its citizens that the constitution controls notwithstanding the passions of the day would also go a long way toward healing a divided populace.

Further, striking Act 77 now, when no votes have been cast and no citizens would be disenfranchised, would do no harm to Pennsylvanians. That was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s justification in Kelly v. Commonwealth, for refusing to consider the constitutionality of Act 77 as part of a challenge to the results of the November of 2020 based on the equitable doctrine of “laches.”

“At the time this action was filed on November 21, 2020, millions of Pennsylvania voters had already expressed their will in both the June 2020 Primary Election and the November 2020 General Election,” the state Supreme Court explained in Kelly v. Commonwealth and striking the state statute at that point, “would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voter.”

There is no such danger, now, however. So, will the constitution control or will the partisan interests of the Democratic-majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court supplant the rule of law? Sadly, that latter danger is everpresent.

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Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Is Outrageously Unconstitutional. Why Couldn’t Lawyers Make That Argument To The Supreme Court?

Posted BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 10, 2022

All the petitioners needed was for the Supreme Court to enter a stay to prevent the Occupational Safety and Health Administration vaccination rule from taking effect, but, truly, was it too much to ask for a defense of limited government, separation of powers, and federalism?

Apparently so, because on Friday, over more than two hours of argument in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, lawyers pushing the Supreme Court to delay the regulation circled and sidled rather than state clearly that the rule, OSHA, the Biden administration, and the entire federal government represented a mockery of our constitutional order.

On November 5, 2021, OSHA issued the rule under review, framing it as an “Emergency Temporary Standard” or ETS. The ETS required all employers of 100 or more employees to “develop, implement, and enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy,” which required employees to either be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing and to wear face coverings at work.

Congress authorized OSHA to issue “an emergency temporary standard to take immediate effect,” and without the traditional notice-and-comment process, if it “determines (A) that employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards, and (B) that such emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger.”

Massive Overreach Immediately Challenged in Court

The ETS was immediately challenged by individual Americans, religious groups, covered employers, states, and trade organizations, with the cases filed directly in federal courts of appeals throughout the country, bypassing the federal trial courts pursuant to the statute that authorized emergency rules.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals acted first, issuing a stay on November 6, 2021, preventing enforcement of the rule pending briefing. Less than a week later, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit—consisting of Ronald Reagan appointee Judge Edith Jones and two Donald Trump appointees, Judges Kyle Duncan and Kurt Engelhardt—issued an opinion holding that the ETS remain stayed “pending adequate judicial review” of the lawsuit challenging the OSHA rule.

The 21-page opinion, authored by Judge Engelhardt, analyzed the request for a stay and concluded that, for numerous reasons, the petitioners had a strong likelihood to succeed on the merits of their challenge and that without a stay the businesses and other petitioners would suffer irreparable injury.

Shortly after the Fifth Circuit issued its decision, pursuant to the procedures controlling when multiple lawsuits are filed challenging an ETS, all of the cases throughout the various federal circuits were consolidated and assigned by lottery to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Then, on December 17, 2021, the Sixth Circuit vacated the stay entered by the Fifth Circuit.

Sixth Circuit Deadlocks

Judge Jane Stranch, a Barack Obama appointee, authored the decision for the three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit, which Judge Julia Gibbons, a G.W. Bush appointee, joined. Trump-appointee Judge Joan Larsen dissented from the decision, concisely capturing her concern with this opening line: “As the Supreme Court has very recently reminded us, ‘our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends.’”

Two days before the Sixth Circuit removed the stay, thereby setting the ETS to go into effect this month, the federal appellate court denied a request by the challengers of the OSHA rule for the court to hear the case initially en banc, or as a full court. To obtain en banc review, a majority of the active judges on the Sixth Circuit needed to vote for the full court to decide the case together, but the 16-member court deadlocked 8-8, leaving the three-judge panel in charge.

In voting to hear the request for a stay of the ETS en banc in the Sixth Circuit, Judge John Bush, a Trump appointee, opened with the closer: “Whether it uses a clear statement or not, Congress likely has no authority under the Commerce Clause to impose, much less to delegate the imposition of, a de facto national vaccine mandate upon the American public. Such claimed authority runs contrary to the text and structure of the Constitution and historical practice. The regulation of health and safety through compulsory vaccination is a traditional prerogative of the states—not the domain of Congress and certainly not fodder for the diktat of a federal administrative agency.”

Sidelining the Constitution

With all of the ammunition provided by the dissenting judges in the Sixth Circuit, as well as the Fifth Circuit’s original opinion entering the stay, one would think that when the Supreme Court fast-tracked the case for oral argument, the attorneys seeking the stay would stress the grave attack the ETS represents to our constitutional republic. But they didn’t.

Instead, Scott Keller, counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, argued “OSHA’s economy-wide one-size-fits-all mandate covering 84 million Americans is not a necessary, indispensable use of OSHA’s extraordinary emergency power which this Court has recognized is narrowly circumscribed.”

Likewise, Benjamin Flowers, the solicitor general of Ohio, arguing on behalf of the slew of states that joined in challenging the ETS, stressed “so sweeping a rule [as the vaccine mandate] is not necessary to protect employees from a grave danger as the emergency provision requires.”

Throughout the argument, Keller and Flowers also focused on the so-called “major questions” doctrine, which stems from a series of Supreme Court cases that stressed that if an agency’s regulatory action “brings about an enormous and transformative expansion in regulatory authority,” Congress must speak clearly that “it wishes to assign to an agency decisions [such issues] of vast ‘economic and political significance.”

The petitioners weren’t wrong. The OSHA rule, which is, in essence, a vaccine mandate given the shortage of tests and the federal government’s decision to force employees to pay for the cost of testing, is not “necessary” to protect employees from a “grave danger” for many reasons.

This Is Obviously Unconstitutional

First, COVID is only a grave danger to a small segment of society, while the ETS adopts the de facto vaccine mandate for all employers of 100 or more employees. The ETS also makes no distinction between employers where working conditions create a higher risk of COVID infection from those facilities where employees have limited risk. Nor, after two years of COVID, with OSHA waiting that time period to issue the ETS and the latest mutation less severe than the former ones, does the ETS fit within the concept of an “emergency” standard.

Also, far from providing the OSHA clear authority to mandate vaccinations (or a weekly medical test) in response to a virus such as COVID, the statute authorizing OSHA to issue an ETS speaks of grave dangers “from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards.” Thus, the major question doctrine supports the petitioners’ challenge to the ETS and their request for a stay.

Yes, advocates must be pragmatists, and the petitioners’ attorneys didn’t need a home run; they just needed a rain delay. But so much more could have been said, and indeed needed to be said—and forcefully so—about limited powers, federalism, and separation of powers. Yet in their desire to win the stay, there was barely any mention of these important constitutional principles.

Major Opportunity Lost

Consider this notable exchange between Ohio’s top attorney and Justice Sotomayor.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “So, if it’s within the police power to protect the health and welfare of workers, you seem to be saying the states can do it, but you’re saying the federal government can’t even though it’s facing the same crisis in interstate commerce that states are facing within their own borders. I — I’m not sure I understand the distinction why the states would have the power but the federal government wouldn’t.”

MR. FLOWERS: “The federal government has no police power, if we’re asking about that.”

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “Oh, it does have power with respect to protecting the health and safety of workers. We have — we have — accept the constitutionality of OSHA.”

MR. FLOWERS: “Yes. I took you to be asking if they had a police power to protect public health. They — they absolutely have the –”

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “No, they have a police power to protect workers.”

MR. FLOWERS: “I would not call it a police power. I think the Commerce Clause power allows them to address health.”

“I would not call it a police power” is as much as the Ohio solicitor general could muster for a pushback. But Congress has no “police power” no matter what it is called, and the federal government cannot “pretextually relabel” a federal de facto vaccination mandate “commerce” to gain what is, in effect, a novel police power of the national government.

The breadth of the OSHA rule and its effects on two-thirds of private businesses also threatens the “system of government ordered by the Constitution,” that gave all legislative powers to Congress. The resulting “nondelegation doctrine constrains Congress’s ability to delegate its legislative authority to executive agencies.”

Yet when provided an opportunity to hammer these points, Flowers served up the vanilla point “that although our non-delegation doctrine is not especially robust today, there are limits on the amount of authority that Congress can give away.”

The justices—and Americans—needed to hear these points because COVID has become both the excuse and the case study for authoritarianism. And from OSHA’s most recent rule, we might divine the civil corollary to the “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime,” motto, and it seems to be, “Provide me a public interest, and I’ll find the power.”

Or, elsewise said, “Cut me a mouse hole, and I’ll squeeze in an elephant.”

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer Weighs In On His Potential Retirement

Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY, POLITICAL REPORTER | July 15, 2021

Justice Stephen Breyer participates in a panel at Georgetown University Law Center on April 21, 2014 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) — Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said that he was undecided on his retirement in a new interview. Speaking with CNN in an interview published Thursday, the 83-year-old Breyer answered “no” when asked if he knew when he would retire. He gave two reasons that would contribute to an eventual decision: “Primarily, of course, health,” Breyer said. “Second, the court.”

Liberals have urged Breyer to step down at the end of the court’s current term so that President Joe Biden can name a younger, liberal justice to the bench while Democrats hold a Senate majority. But Breyer told CNN that he was happy as the court’s highest-ranking liberal, saying that it had “made a difference” to him.

The nine Supreme Court justices in April, 2021. Breyer sits in the front row, second from the right. (ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Breyer has played a central role in several recent high-profile cases, from rejecting a third attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act to safeguarding student speech rights.

He has also warned against packing the Supreme Court, warning in April that doing so could further erode Americans’ trust in it. He defended the court’s refusal to hear former President Donald Trump’s challenges to the 2020 election, noting that the “court is guided by legal principle, not politics.”

Breyer has been on the court since 1994, longer than any justice except for Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed in 1991.

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History Repeats Itself: Democrats Are Using Tactics of the Marxists of 1917 in Russia to Steal 2020 Election

Reported By Jim Hoft | Published December 22, 2020 at 7:19am

Once again we are republishing this analysis by John L Kachelman, Jr. We first published this piece back in October before the election.

2020 the “Perfect Storm” facing our Republic— All three branches of our Government are in peril

Historical Discovery…An election in 1917 forecast the election in 2020! Here are the elements from 103 years ago!

Years of preparatory work were spent in misleading and mis-directional propaganda
Contested voting results marred the election’s finality and ultimately its dismissal
Claims that the poor were going to be disenfranchised of their votes
The scheduled voting was extended by two months
Division, violence, slander and libel were widespread
A delusional/cunning/conniving campaign made unrealistic promises to win the population
Anger and mob violence were deliberately stirred against “privilege,” possessions, and status
Deceptive claims persuaded the “majority” they were robbed of their electoral victory
Inevitable civil war was sparked at the election’s end because Lenin’s group failed to win the majority
The dissolution of the old State and a “transformation” of the new system was promised to lead to true socialism but it brought history’s worst and longest ruling tyrant

And here is how it happened…

Here is a basic reminder of your 9^th Grade American Civics materials…The Founding Fathers of our Republic designed a system of governing to prevent the evils inherent in the onerous governing systems of Europe. The Republic was to be governed in a way that the majority would have a say BUT safeguarded against a rogue majority controlling the nation. A deliberate system of “checks and balances” was wisely incorporated against evil efforts to seize national control.

The ultimate safeguard was the separation of the State’s governing into three distinct bodies. While each would have an impact upon the others, that impact was deliberately limited. The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the Republic were designed to be independent but function with unity to guide the nation, preserve freedoms, and guard the human rights that are often disenfranchised by evil systems and philosophies. One of the greatest feats of our Republic is the exercise of individualism when these three branches of governing are properly functioning.

However, at this point in our nation’s historical narrative the “perfect storm” threatens ALL THREE of these safeguards of our Republic. And my disconcerting observation is that many prance and dance around with a Pollyannish attitude denying the reality of our current situation. The prevailing cultural concern is as absurd as the attitude of one busily rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic!

The assault on the EXECUTIVE BRANCH

The resistance has been hard at work even prior to President Trump’s inauguration. Attempts to nullify the electoral process have been constant. The evil agenda was visible. Our President has suffered evil resistance of historic proportions. The basic cause is his commitment to the U.S. Constitution. It is the unchanging Constitution that provides the legal governing making the USA an exceptional nation of individuals. This fixed and knowable Constitution gives our nation the strength and energy envied by the world and loathed by tyranny. )The Resistance/DEMS/BLM/ANTIFA demand an activist Court that will change our Republic’s basic foundational principles.)

The stated position of the resistance has been loud and long—they have robbed President Trump of his first four years as President. They have dared to present the most ridiculous reasons for his disqualification and removal. They have manipulated, deceived and extorted support for their evil agenda. They have ignited violence that has divided and destroyed the civility of the USA. Their evil purpose was to achieve the political purge of a duly elected President of the United States of America. Our President has been nominated for multiple Nobel Peace Prizes for his exceptional ability to broker true peace between Middle Eastern nations. But the resistance shrugs forgetting they excitedly embraced the Peace Prize awarded to Obama which is admitted now as an award for nothing! The resistance’s political maneuvering and evil mission is well documented.

Those of the resistance are described by inspiration. Their conniving and cunning evil is a constant action seeking to destroy legitimate order. Psalm 36:4, “He plans wickedness upon his bed; He sets himself on a path that is not good; He does not despise evil.” (See also Ecclesiastes 10:20)

Even the classics describe the reality of this evil. From Stevenson’s pen we remember the confession that describes those seeking to nullify the legality of President Trump’s election. Like the pained soul of Henry Jekyll the resistance can confess, “I lost my identity beyond redemption…had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend…At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion.” Perhaps the most troubling reference that Stevenson’s pen gives to the resistance character states, “O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.”

Inspiration and the Classics unite in describing today’s controlling evil that occupies every thought of the Progressive/Liberal/BLM/ANTIFA “resistance” as “Satan’s signature upon a face.”

This is the first element of today’s “Perfect Storm.” There are two more elements…

The assault upon the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH

It is the Legislative Branch of our Republic’s government that involves the citizenry in the governing process. The population’s vote is a significant and treasured freedom. That vote expresses the desires of each State of the Union and is recorded by the Electoral College so that a free election is not controlled by a militant mob. The Founding Fathers wisely saw the potential of a militant group manipulating and coercing control. The establishment of the Electoral College was a masterful move safeguarding the Republic’s freedoms. By this method the most populous States are equal with the least populous—true equality.

The 2020 General Election is recognized as a critical point in our nation’s history. It can be said that every election is critical and previous elections have suffered the militancy of Progressives/Liberals attempting to undermine the Constitutional foundation of our nation. These past challenges failed because the general population was aware of the evil being campaigned and were educated regarding the safeguards of our Constitution. But the context has dramatically changed for the 2020 General Election. In this current election the Constitutional safeguards are condemned and the population is ignorant of just how fragile individual freedom is. It appears that many have been groomed and are eager to believe the Progressive/Liberal/Democratic lies and embrace anarchy. This is not a new situation. History is amazing as it details how the past continues to explain the present.

Consider the Russian Revolution. I offer just a scant discussion on Lenin’s role in this aspect of Russian politics. Hopefully I will have opportunity to offer a more complete discussion. Consider the first “free election” that Russia experienced. It was held in October or November 1917 (the month depends upon which calendar you consult). Lenin promised a “free” election where all votes would be equal and each citizen would be heard. The election was scheduled and a number of political parties provided the voters a choice. Among the many parties were two dominating parties: the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Lenin’s Bolsheviks).

The propaganda fueling this election is intriguing. Lenin had confidence that his party would be an overwhelming victor. He was convinced that his pamphleteering during his exile was persuasive. He was convinced that only he knew best what the poor citizens needed for happiness in life. Lenin had devised a governing system by which the State would help the poor citizen to have free health care, free food, personal land ownership, and the erasure of all class “privileges” by redistributing wealth/financial resources/personal property. Under Lenin’s control there would be no more denial of personal rights, no more prejudice of persons, and no more unjust financial levels. All would be totally “equal” IF Lenin’s perfect Revolutionary State was allowed to transform into the Marxist utopia.

Here is where history becomes instructive regarding the Legislative Body of the State.

When the Tsar abdicated, the Russian Provisional Government was formed. Its purpose was to organize the free elections for the Russian Constituent Assembly. The provisional government lasted only eight months and was replaced by the Bolsheviks. A significant footnote to this period is that the Provisional Government was unable to make decisive policy decisions due to political factionalism and a breakdown of state structures. The anarchy fomented by Lenin and the Bolsheviks rendered a civil governing impossible. Whatever legislative bills were presented were instantly killed by opposition. Revolutionary unrest fueled violence. This was a deliberate design of non-cooperation and pure resistance! The deliberate campaign for divisiveness and refusal to perform governing duties is a sobering similarity to the resistance in modern day American politics. Lenin’s free election was conducted but here are some troubling facts from its history:

1) The election was designed to be held on specific dates BUT some argued that the peasants in the outlying territory needed more time to get their votes counted. So, the ballot counting was extended in some places by TWO MONTHS!

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2) Throughout the 1917 campaign Lenin argued that the citizens deserved a government that represented “the proletariat’s interests” because, in his estimation, all other governments represented the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” Lenin argued that the rich would never give up their “privileges” and so the soviets would need to seize power by violence. Lenin’s propaganda fueled the division that would destroy the Russian nation. He urged violence nurtured by envy and jealousy arguing that some had “privileged status” that others did not and this great “inequity” could only be removed with a violent overthrow.

3) Even though the first free election included a number of different political parties, Lenin was confident that his Bolsheviks would win. That did not happen. The final tabulation exposed Lenin as suffering defeat and his Bolsheviks only garnered 23.26% of the vote. The Socialist-Revolutionaries emerged with 37.61% of the vote. Lenin was unhappy and contested the results! Lenin refused to concede protesting the legitimacy of the election.

4) The objective of the resistance was a one-party government and an absolute silencing of opposition. “It is the duty of the revolution to put an end to compromise, and to put an end to compromise means taking the path of socialist revolution” Lenin, Speech On The Agrarian Question November 14 (1917).

Carefully consider how Lenin embraced the freedom of voting while masterfully disguising his evil objective of silencing the opposition and developing a one-party ruling government.

After the election results were announced, Lenin stood and revealed the coup. The results were called flawed. Those in opposition were eventually murdered. Lenin instituted his famous “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Lenin said this was the best course for the average citizen and this dictatorship would dissolve when all privileged distinctions were erased, all wealth inequities removed, and all land ownership seized. And the Russian population permitted this dictatorship to exist!

When applied to the 2020 General Election in the USA, this historical anecdote should sound national alarms! The very concepts that Lenin used to nullify the free election of Russia in 1917 are being used in today’s election. In fact, some of the very words and phrases that were used by Lenin are parroted by the Democratic Progressives today and characterize the membership of Democratic Party in the USA!

When the election process of our governing Constitution is compromised and dismissed as archaic and inapplicable THEN our nation has lost the compass for safely navigating the treacherous existence in this world.

The assault upon the JUDICIAL BRANCH

History reminds its students that the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justices were forever changed in 1987 with Joe Biden’s Judiciary’s malevolent confirmation hearing of Judge Robert Bork. Biden was campaigning to be the nomination of the Democratic Presidential candidate (which he would lose to Dukakis because of Biden’s plagiarism). In 1987 the custom was for such hearings to last two days or less. Under Biden’s chairmanship Bork’s hearing was weaponized and lasted TWELVE days. Such a reprehensible action has earned its own idiom in American language—“so and so was ‘Borked’.”

The 1987 Democratic Party’s politicizing and weaponizing the confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court appointments opened the floodgates for the most contentious events in the governing of the United States of America. One only needs to go back to the recent hearings to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. The personal slander, insidious innuendos, manufactured complaints and a host of other evil actions have become accepted political weapons (Or as Speaker Pelosi remarked, “arrows in our quiver”). In past times it was customary that the sitting President was respected and his nominations were accorded with approval, even if the conservatives knew they were approving a Progressive/Liberal who despised the literalist view of the U.S. Constitution they voted for the confirmation. But now there is a horrid specter of divisiveness and vindictiveness enveloping the process.

The General Election of 2020 spotlights the tragic devolving of the status of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is suggested by some, with validity, that the Supreme Court is no longer focused upon apolitical justice but has assumed an active role in establishing law that the U.S. Constitution reserves only for the Legislative Branch.

The Democrats/Progressives/Liberals have announced their intent to “pack” the Supreme Court with Justices who disrespect the U.S. Constitution. They want a left-leaning Court that will sanction the total dismemberment of the constitutional statutes that made America a great nation. The far-left Daily Kos cautioned Republicans that a “future government controlled by Democrats is likely to pursue — court-packing — as the best way to rebuff a conservative Court majority viewed as illegitimate.” Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told voters during an October 2018 campaign event that Democrats should “pack the Supreme Court of the United States of America” after taking the House, Senate, and Presidency. Leading Democrats also warned that if the justices issue a pro-Second Amendment ruling, and if Democrats win the White House and the Senate in 2020, then they will fundamentally remake the High Court.

Former President Franklin Roosevelt issued this same threat in the 1930s after facing legal obstacles with his New Deal and subsequently “threatened to expand the Court by six seats for a new total of 15 justices so that he could get the rulings he wanted.” The American people, however, rejected his threat, leading to massive Republican victories in the 1938 midterm elections.

Former Democrat presidential candidates Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and now vice-presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) announced that they were open to reshaping the court. “We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court,” Harris said, according to Politico. “We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.”

During the summer of 2020 several major progressive groups, including Take Back The Court, Demand Justice, Progressive Change Institute, and the Sunrise Movement, signed a letter declaring their support for increasing the number of justices by “at least” two seats. The resistance wrote in part: “The fastest, most effective way to make the court representative of all Americans is to enact legislation increasing the size of the Court by at least two seats, and to quickly fill those seats with justices who will safeguard our democracy.” Note: In the context of this reference it is best to remember Lenin’s manipulative ploy that his “free” election would best represent “all Russians”?

In March 2019, President Trump astutely dismissed mounting calls from his Democratic opponents to pack the Supreme Court. “The only reason they’re doing that is they want to try and catch up, so if they can’t catch up through the ballot box by winning an election, they want to try doing it in a different way,” he added.

The late Justice Ginsburg balked at the proposition of packing the Supreme Court. “It would make the Court look partisan,” the late justice told National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg last year.

The Judicial Branch of the government is to interpret laws respecting the United States Constitution’s limits. Once this unbiased governing is compromised, there is no lawful regulations for civility in our nation.

Concluding Thoughts…

This is where the United States of America is positioned as the General Election of November 2020 nears. A discord and division prevail that has never existed. This violence has been stoked with bitterness. The Progressives/Democratic Party/BLM/ANTIFA assure us that regardless of the election there will be violence. We are being conditioned to think that electoral results will take weeks or months to be validated and even then, they will be challenged. The vitriol marking the battleground is undeniable. Following Lenin’s example in 1917 the Democrats have been told never to concede. The results are already announced, “Furious Democrats are considering total war — profound changes to two branches of government, and even adding stars to the flag (i.e. adding the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as States thus insuring Democrats have two solid additions to their column) — if Republicans jam through a Supreme Court nominee then lose control of the Senate.”

As the National Election of 2020 approaches we read of violence, destruction and carnage in the public sphere…Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent death sparked a political firestorm, as Republicans prepare for a contentious, pre-election confirmation showdown and some Democrats threaten to, quite literally, burn the country down.

The ”Perfect Storm” facing the Republic of the United States of America has formed and threatens the three pillars of our civility.

After Lenin’s Bolsheviks permitted a “free election” they moved quickly to strangle freedoms. Lenin’s opinion of the poor proletariat having the right to vote for individual choices morphed into a ruling class identified as the “Politburo.” The first Politburo consisted of: Lenin, Trotsky, Krestinsky, Kamenev, and Stalin. Lenin died. Trotsky was exiled to Mexico and was murdered. Krestinsky and Kamenev were assassinated. That left Stalin. Stalin manipulated the bureaucratic apparatus and seized power. By the 1930s, Stalin had transformed the Politburo into the supreme executive and legislative body of the Communist party and the Soviet government. Stalin was in command of its membership, decisions, and debates. The party congress now not only did not elect the politburo, but its own membership was fully controlled by the politburo. Not only had Lenin’s vision of a one-party political government been achieved but now it became a one-man political government! Individualism had been erased. The individual had ceased to exist and all had become “the State.”

The ”Perfect Storm” in Russia’s history resulted in the totalitarian reign of Stalin’s terror. Such is the conclusion of Russia’s first free election.

What will YOU do regarding the “Perfect Storm” in which our Republic is now struggling?

Please read the historical documentation available and you will realize
this is not a conspiracy theory but a historical constant!

Jim Hoft

Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.

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Multiple States Throw Support Behind Texas’ Election Lawsuit Against GA, WI, MI, PA

Reported By Ryan Saavedra | Dec 9, 2020 | DailyWire.com

Eric Schmitt, Missouri attorney general, speaks during a news conference outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Sept. 9, 2019. A group of 50 attorneys general opened a broad investigation into whether advertising practices of Alphabet Inc.'s Google violate antitrust laws. — Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Multiple states have thrown their support behind a Texas election lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the United States Supreme Court which alleges that those four states exploited “the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit late on Monday night, arguing that “Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election.”

“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution,” Paxton continued. “By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections. Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election. We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced late on Monday that his state would back Texas’ lawsuit at the Supreme Court.

“Election integrity is central to our republic,” Schmitt wrote on Twitter. “And I will defend it at every turn. As I have in other cases — I will help lead the effort in support of Texas’ #SCOTUS filing today. Missouri is in the fight.”

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry released a statement calling for the Supreme Court to consider the case brought by Texas.

“Only the U.S. Supreme Court can ultimately decide cases of real controversy among the states under our Constitution. That is why the Justices should hear and decide the case which we have joined representing the citizens of Louisiana,” Landry said. “Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court should consider the most recent Texas motion, which contains some of the same arguments. Louisiana citizens are damaged if elections in other states were conducted outside the confines of the Constitution while we obeyed the rules.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement that he expects the Supreme Court to “act quickly in deciding whether to grant the State of Texas’s request.”

“That decision will instruct me as to how the State of Alabama will proceed in our fight to ensure election integrity,” the statement continued. “The unconstitutional actions and fraudulent votes in other states not only affect the citizens of those states, they affect the citizens of all states — of the entire United States. Every unlawful vote counted, or lawful vote uncounted, debases and dilutes citizens’ free exercise of the franchise. The State of Alabama will continue to pursue any legal remedy available to protect her people from such disenfranchisement. Both our rights and our republic demand it.”

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said that after reviewing Texas’ lawsuit: “I have determined that I will support the motion by the State of Texas in all legally appropriate manners.”

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A Short History Of Democrats’ Vicious Tactics For Controlling The Judiciary

As the courts have become hyper-politicized over the past few decades, the judicial nomination process has deteriorated. With this presidential term drawing to a close, we should note the new depths of obstruction that have become a part of the Senate Democrats’ playbook these past four years.

Origins of Obstruction

Matters were already bad when a Democratic Senate rejected Robert Bork for the Supreme Court in 1987 with such notorious vilification that “bork” was added to the dictionary as a verb denoting such unfair and harsh tactics. Four years later came personal vilification for Clarence Thomas before he squeaked by the Senate on a 52–48 vote.

Thomas nonetheless made it through a Democratic Senate that had not entirely shaken a long tradition of bipartisanship on judicial nominations. In fact, from the government’s establishment in 1789 through 2000, 97 percent of Senate-approved judges faced no recorded opposition, and 96 percent were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent as opposed to roll-call votes.

Recorded votes tended to be lopsided. When President Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court, instead of Republicans retaliating for past treatment, the nominees were confirmed respectively by margins of 96–3 and 87–9. This was despite a number of known controversial positions Ginsburg had taken during her career that Republicans chose not to highlight.

During George W. Bush’s administration, Democrats engaged in wholesale filibusters of circuit court nominees, a tactic that resulted in the defeat of several. Previously, only one judicial nomination fell apart after coming up short on a vote on cloture — the procedure by which senators, with a supermajority vote, could end debate and force a confirmation vote. That was the fate of Justice Abe Fortas, whom Lyndon B. Johnson tried to elevate to chief justice in 1968.

Whether Fortas could garner the simple majority of senators required for confirmation was unclear. His unusual case included bipartisan opposition and ethical questions — he actually resigned from the Supreme Court the following year — and did not leave even the most strident opponents of Bork and Thomas with a sense that they had the filibuster in their procedural toolbox.

In 2005, early in Bush’s second term, Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist proposed to change the supermajority requirement for cloture on nominations (then at 60 votes) to a simple majority, an idea known as the “nuclear option,” which would have effectively ended judicial filibusters. Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid threatened to retaliate with an unprecedented level of obstructionism that would freeze most Senate business. This scenario did not play out after a compromise, engineered by the “Gang of 14,” derailed any change to cloture.

Eight years later, however, Reid was majority leader, and with the shoe on the other foot, he orchestrated by parliamentary maneuver the very rule change that had once evoked his threats of senatorial Armageddon, essentially ending the filibuster for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court in 2013.

Unprecedented Partisanship During the Trump Era

Gorsuch Filibuster

That exception for filibusters on Supreme Court nominations was quickly put to the test after Donald Trump became president in 2017 and Democrats launched a filibuster of the new president’s first judicial nominee to reach the floor, Neil Gorsuch. Thanks to Reid’s handiwork in 2013, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell garnered support for adding Supreme Court nominations to the others that were subject to simple majorities to invoke cloture.

Abuse of Cloture Motions

Although Democrats were in the minority in the Senate throughout Trump’s term, they used the tools in their arsenal more than any Senate minority before them. While the simple majority threshold made it easier than before to invoke cloture, even when a cloture motion succeeded, a confirmation vote was not immediate but subject to a limit of 30 hours of further consideration.

That time notoriously went by with little-to-no actual debate on the nomination at issue, but of course, actual deliberation was not the goal. By forcing votes on cloture, Democrats could take up more of the Senate’s time and make it that much more difficult to process nominations, not to mention other business.

This the Democratic minority did indiscriminately. All three of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees — Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — were subjected to cloture votes. Adding Samuel Alito (a George W. Bush appointee) to those three, four of the six sitting Republican-appointed justices have faced cloture votes, in contrast to all four of the justices nominated by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Senate Democrats have also regularly forced cloture votes for even noncontroversial nominees to circuit courts, district courts, and even the non-life-tenured courts of federal claims. Eight district court nominees who had previously been nominated by Obama before Trump renominated them were subjected to cloture votes despite a lack of meaningful opposition; five of them received between 95 and 100 votes for confirmation and zero against, and another was confirmed by a voice vote.

It was only after the cloture rule was broadened in 1949, during Harry Truman’s presidency, to cover any pending matter that nominations could be subject to a cloture motion. Since then, there were a total of 136 cloture votes on judicial nominees through the end of the Obama administration. Trump’s nominees have considerably more than that entire total, at 192 and counting.

The Disintegration of Bipartisanship

The bipartisanship that used to attend most judicial nominations is also falling apart. According to the Heritage Foundation, more confirmed judges received more than 30 percent opposition votes during the Trump administration than during all previous administrations combined, from George Washington to Obama. Moreover, the majority of negative votes cast against judicial nominees in American history were against Trump nominees.

The three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices were confirmed with almost total Democratic opposition. Only three Democrats voted to confirm Gorsuch, one to confirm Kavanaugh, and none to confirm Barrett, making her the first Supreme Court nominee to be confirmed without any votes from a major minority party since 1869.

In Kavanaugh’s case, Democrats employed kitchen-sink tactics of obstruction that included repeated interruptions during his hearings and deluging him with more written questions for the record than the combined number of such questions to prior Supreme Court nominees in American history. All other tactics were eclipsed by the disgraceful last-minute attempt to destroy Kavanaugh, when Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual-assault allegation, after being buried for six weeks by ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was sprung on the committee after the initial hearings, a desperate tactic that flouted the process for handling sensitive matters.

Weaponization of the Blue Slip

On top of everything else, Democrats tried, in the words of long-serving Senate Judiciary Committee member (and former chairman) Orrin Hatch, to “weaponize the blue slip” tradition for circuit and district courts. That was the courtesy established in approximately 1917 in which a nominee’s home-state senators receive blue pieces of paper on which they could express their views about the nomination to the committee. It was a tradition (as opposed to a rule) intended to encourage pre-nomination consultation, but Democrats during this administration routinely withheld positive blue slips, especially for circuit nominees, as a workaround in the absence of a true filibuster.

“Today, Democrats are trying to turn the blue-slip process into a de facto filibuster,” Hatch charged in 2017. “They want a single senator to be able to do in the Judiciary Committee what it once took 41 senators to do on the Senate floor.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chaired the committee during the first two years of the Trump administration, noted that only two of 19 Judiciary Committee chairmen who served over the span of a century treated the blue slip as a strict veto that would preclude a hearing in the absence of two positive blue slips, and he was not going to allow Democratic obstructionism to prevent him from proceeding with hearings for circuit nominees. Still, the blue slip has impeded the advancement of district court nominations through committee, and many trial court judgeships in states with Democratic senators remain vacant due to the withholding of blue slips or the threat of doing so.

It is thanks to current Republican leadership in the Senate and specifically the Judiciary Committee that so many nominees have been processed and made their way to confirmation. As the repeated operation of the 30-hour rule took its toll on nominations, McConnell garnered a majority to reduce the post-cloture clock to two hours for district court nominations.

To date, the Senate has confirmed 229 Article III (life-tenured) judges nominated by Trump. That total includes 53 circuit court judges, which ranks second among all four-year presidential terms to that of Jimmy Carter, who, boosted by the creation of 35 new seats on the courts of appeals in 1978, holds the record at 56. For several months this year, there was no room for Trump to increase his appointments to the courts of appeals because every vacancy had been filled.

Historical Support for Lame-Duck Confirmations

There are now two more appellate nominees, Thomas L. Kirsch II for Barrett’s former seat on the Seventh Circuit and Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach to fill the First Circuit vacancy created by the death of Juan Torruella on Oct. 26. There is no reason they cannot be confirmed before Inauguration Day. Kirsch already had his hearing before the Judiciary Committee, as have 11 pending nominees to district or federal claims courts.

While any nomination that is not processed by Jan. 3, the end of the current congressional term and beginning of the next, is automatically returned to the president, it can be resubmitted and processed without the need for a new hearing. There is ample precedent for lame-duck judicial confirmations, from John Adams’ appointment of John Marshall as chief justice after his re-election defeat, to Carter’s appointment of Breyer to the First Circuit after his loss to Ronald Reagan.

There is an unmistakable dissonance between Joe Biden’s calls for national unity and his party’s judicial obstructionism over the past four years. As a Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden helped to lay much of the groundwork for this sorry state of affairs. For his Democratic successors in the Senate, obstructionism is an ongoing project that seems to find no limit.

Consider the exception that proved the rule: When leftist interest groups criticized Feinstein after she praised Graham’s handling of Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination hearings and gave the chairman a hug — never mind that every Democrat voted against the nominee — Feinstein’s party compelled her to step down as the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat. Is there any level of malevolence toward judicial nominations that would satisfy today’s Democratic leadership?

Frank Scaturro served as counsel for the Constitution on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee between 2005 and 2009, in which capacity he worked on the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court and Neil Gorsuch to the Tenth Circuit. He is the author of, among other titles, “The Supreme Court’s Retreat from Reconstruction” (Greenwood Press, 2000). Follow him on Twitter at @FrankScaturro.

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Church Leaders Who Cancel Christmas Services Are Clinging To Government Lies, Not Christ

The Supreme Court’s ruling last Wednesday against discriminatory targeting of religious groups with COVID-19 restrictions marked a significant victory in the ongoing battle to preserve religious liberty. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, hostile stakeholders in public office have assaulted the first freedom through superciliously labeling religious services “nonessential.” Christians in much of the country now find themselves in the demeaning and intolerable position of being allowed to worship only in the manner and on terms dictated by politically motivated governors.

Respecting authorities’ claims about an unknown disease made sense early in the outbreak, but now after better scientific information shows many initial fears are false. Yet politicians refuse to come clean while ignoring their own rules forbidding us from fulfilling our Christian duties. So it is time for us once again to assert that church is the most essential activity, period. Instead of valiantly fighting in the vanguard, however, many religious leaders have quickly retreated.

It is one thing for a church leader to prayerfully consider the individual needs of his church, striving to maintain unity among members in disagreements, protecting the health of the vulnerable, and offering stability amid uncertainty. It is quite another for shepherds to forsake the assembling of their flocks and enable the propaganda that congregating freely to worship God is selfish and “could kill grandma.” This unbiblical stance also overlooks the hypocrites in public office and the media who don’t even play by their own silly rules and ignore the data, for much lesser purposes than the health of our souls.

Many such religious leaders are neglecting the soul-saving mission of the church. The notion that being a good Christian requires indefinite cessation of communal worship — and for Catholics, the suspension of the sacraments — to prevent the spread of illness is a falsehood that has confused the faithful and undermined religious freedom.

Supreme Court Upholds Religious Liberty

In the case brought by the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, against Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the Supreme Court held that “the restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.” In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch posed a pertinent rhetorical question: “Who knew that public health would so perfectly align with secular convenience?”

Gorsuch held that “the only explanation for treating religious places differently seems to be a judgment that what happens there just isn’t as ‘essential’ as what happens in secular spaces.” He warned that “in too many places, for far too long, our first freedom has fallen on deaf ears.”

For several months now, elected officials and many church leaders around the country have flagrantly ignored religious liberty. States such as California, Oregon, and Washington have witnessed a new wave of post-election crackdowns on religious services. In San Diego County, churches are currently prohibited from holding indoor services. Meanwhile, a San Diego court just issued a temporary order exempting coronavirus restrictions from applying to a strip club, ruling that such entertainment constitutes “constitutionally protected speech.”

In Oregon, new restrictions limit faith-based gatherings to a maximum of 25 people regardless of church size but allow businesses to continue operating at a reduced percentage of their total capacity. Archbishop of Portland Alexander Sample rightly argued that allowing a measly 25 worshipers in a cathedral that can seat 1,000 isn’t data-driven and doesn’t make sense.

The Church Is Essential

I expressed concern back in May about politicians labeling religious services “nonessential” and allowing the state to determine on what terms churches can hold services. At that time, Washington bishops effectively thumbed their noses at President Trump for declaring that state governments should allow houses of worship to reopen.

The bishops instead hitched their wagon to Gov. Jay Inslee’s rogue horse. Hence six months down the road, Inslee again targeted Washington churches as part of his latest round of arbitrary fiats. Church capacity is reduced to 25 percent, and congregational and choral singing is prohibited.

Meanwhile, the very authorities who tut-tut and wag fingers clearly don’t adhere to or believe in the merits of their own nonsense rules. Sanctimonious public officeholders have lectured us about keeping business closed, taking unemployment on the chin, staying home, and wearing masks while they visit salons, attend private dinners, and jet off out of state for holidays with family. The duplicity of notorious mask shamers such as CNN’s Chris Cuomo and White House correspondents Kaitlan Collins and Jonathan Karl has similarly been on display.

The hypocrisy is not limited to the secular sphere. Pope Francis condemned peaceful lockdown protests despite the World Health Organization’s warning against using lockdowns as the primary means of controlling the virus. Francis believes that closing churches, businesses, and schools, and forcing people out of work are all “necessary for people’s protection.” He has even canceled public celebration of Christmas liturgies at the Vatican.

Yet Francis didn’t appear particularly worried about Wuhan virus transmission when, free from any semblance of social distancing and masks, he enjoyed a cozy chat about poverty and social justice with a group of handsomely paid NBA players and fellow pals of the Chinese Communist Party. Evidently, on protecting the freedom to assemble, to provide for one’s family, and even to freely worship, government-imposed restrictions are non-negotiable, but when it’s about racial and economic politics, the holy grail of neo-Marxists, lockdowns are a suggestion only.

Against this backdrop, Christians should be prepared for the usual suspects in public office and the press, facilitated by an array of religious leaders, to crack down on Christmas celebrations. We will no doubt hear more of the “we do this not out of fear but out of love” mantra. Given, however, that the survival rate is 94.6 percent for those 70 years and older and between 99.5-99.997 percent for those 69 and younger, rapid breakthroughs in therapeutics have been announced, three reportedly effective vaccines are on the way, and government authorities are flouting their own restrictions, the “love thy neighbor” lecture is becoming as tedious as it is false.

Christians Need Church to Obey God’s Commands

The Gospels tell us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. We cannot fulfill the second greatest commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves if that love is not solidly founded in an encounter with God. This means gathering with the faithful in sung praise and thanksgiving, as we read in Psalms and was the custom from the earliest church, as well as explicitly commanded in scripture.

The Greek word for church, “ekklesia,” comes from the Old Testament and originally referred to the assembly of the people of Israel. When St. Paul first used the term, he intended it as the new community of believers in Christ. This “ekklesia” is not a human association borne of common interests and beliefs but a summoning by God himself.

For Catholics, the encounter with God is achieved even more profoundly through the sacrament of the Eucharist. Jesus is literally and wholly present — body and blood, soul and divinity — under the appearances of consecrated bread and wine. Whatever way you look at it, religious services are essential, and church leaders should say so.

Religious leaders must get their priorities straight. No doubt, pastors are genuinely concerned for the health of the most vulnerable in their communities and trying to accommodate the confusion and fears of their congregants. Some must feel their hands are tied by unsupportive leadership. Still others, I suspect, find themselves effectively cornered by congregants whose political indoctrination runs deeper than their catechesis.

Nevertheless, the role of preachers is to win souls for Christ, not to protect us or themselves from physical infirmity. St. Paul urges a return to God through Christ and cautions against domination by earthly pleasures and preoccupations. In other words, if, as St. Ambrose of Milan taught, we have a wound to heal, Christ is the doctor; if we are parched by fever, he is the spring; if we fear death, he is life; and if we are in darkness, he is light.

After a dismal year, and in sober anticipation of Joe Biden’s threatened “dark winter,” it is more important than ever for Christians to unite in praise of the Light that shines in the darkness and which the darkness has never put out. We should demand that our religious leaders mark the Nativity with fitting pomp and ceremony and refuse to support churches whose pastors spread or cower behind the lie that the celebration of Christmas is nonessential.

ABOUT TYHE AUTHOR:

Carina Benton is a native Australian living in Washington state. She is a practicing Catholic and has taught for many years in Catholic and Christian schools. She is a mother of two young children.

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Alan Dershowitz: ‘I Do Think that Trump Will Win the Pennsylvania Lawsuit’ if Enough Votes at Stake

Reported by ROBERT KRAYCHIK | 13 Nov 2020

Election workers sort absentee ballot envelopes at the Lansing City Clerk’s office on November 02, 2020 in Lansing, Michigan. For the first time, Michigan law is allowing clerks in Michigan cities to expedite the vote-counting process by removing secrecy envelopes from outer mailing envelopes one day ahead of the election. …John Moore/Getty Images

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, host of The Dershow, told Breitbart News on Thursday that President Donald Trump is likely to win a lawsuit his campaign filed in Pennsylvania challenging the legitimacy of mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

Dershowitz predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would take up the Trump campaign’s lawsuit if the number of votes being challenged are enough to change the outcome of the presidential election in Pennsylvania.

“I do think that Trump will win the Pennsylvania lawsuit,” said Dershowitz on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Joel Pollak, “namely, the lawsuit that challenges ballots that were filed before the end of Election Day but not received until after Election Day.”

Dershowitz continued, “The [Pennsylvania] legislature had basically said no to that and the [Pennsylvania] Supreme Court said yes because of the pandemic. That may have been the right decision in some theoretical sense, but the Constitution doesn’t permit anybody in the state but the legislature to make decisions about elections.”

LISTEN:

“That was decided correctly in Bush versus Gore, and I think that four-to-four vote would become a five-to-four vote if the issue came before the Supreme Court and there were not disputed ballots to make a difference in the outcome of the election. That remains to be seen.”

Dershowitz remarked, “As I understand the facts of the case — although I think what the judiciary did may have been the right thing morally: if you get your ballot in on time, you shouldn’t be denied the vote just because the post office screwed up — I don’t think you can really make that argument under Article Two. I do think that the Republican argument is the stronger one.’

“The Supreme Court will take the case only if it would make a difference, only if the plaintiffs — the Republicans — can show that the number of disputed ballots that were subject to sequestration by Justice Alito’s decision exceeds the difference between the winning margin and the losing margin.”

Dershowitz concluded, “The Pennsylvania constitutional argument is a wholesale argument that clearly belongs in federal courts..”

The Supreme Court ordered Pennsylvania election boards on November 6 to separate the count of mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day in the event that the Supreme Court revisits election lawsuits related to such votes.

Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).

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Partisans Cheating By Ignoring Election Law Is A Problem As Big As Vote Fraud

Fraud represents only one aspect of concern over the results from last week’s election. Of equal import when judging the legitimacy of the next president of the United States is whether states complied with the election rules established by their legislatures. These are not questions of mere “technical errors,” but raise significant constitutional concerns.

On Wednesday, Jim Geraghty of National Review tweeted his “Morning Jolt” summary of post-election lawsuits. “The Trump campaign,” Geraghty stressed, “conceded in oral arguments they were not contending fraud or improper influence, merely technical errors,” he wrote of a recent election case. Geraghty’s article, linked in his tweet, continued: “It is one thing to fume on Twitter that there is a sinister effort to steal an election; it is another thing to assert that sweeping claim in a court of law, before a judge, under penalty of perjury and/or disbarment.”

Not to pick on Geraghty, whom I respect immensely, but he is conflating two separate issues: fraud and violations of the election code. Those are two distinct problems, yet there has been little analysis of the latter, which over the next several weeks might prove more significant.

There are multiple allegations of fraud, such as the middle-of-the-night arrival of unsecured ballots in Detroit or the dead man voting in Nevada. Then there’s the even more devastating suggestion that votes for Donald Trump were swapped to Joe Biden via vulnerable computer systems. Frankly, this idea strikes me as unbelievable, but then again, so did the idea that the FBI would obtain illegal secret court warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, and we know how that turned out.

Election Code Violations Might as Well Be ‘Fraud’

Violations of the election code, however, are a different matter, and unfortunately, sometimes the public views election officials’ bending of the rules as a harmless ignoring of technicalities. As the attorney in the Montgomery County Board of Elections case noted after “conceding” he was not alleging fraud: “The election code is technical.”

That makes technical violations constitutionally significant because Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 grants state legislatures the ultimate authority to appoint the electors who choose the president: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.”

In Bush v. Gore, former Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist stressed the significance of this constitutional provision in a concurrence joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and former Justice Antonin Scalia. As Rehnquist wrote, that clause “convey[s] the broadest power of determination” and “leaves it to the legislature exclusively to define the method” of appointment of electors. Furthermore, “a significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question.”

The three concurring justices in Bush v. Gore concluded that the Florida Supreme Court’s order directing election officials to count improperly marked ballots was a “significant departure from the legislative scheme,” and “in a Presidential election the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must prevail.” Accordingly, those justices would have declared the Florida recount unconstitutional under Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2.

While the concurrence in Bush v. Gore failed to garner support by a majority of the justices, the Supreme Court’s composition has changed dramatically since then, and the reasoning of this concurrence provides a strong basis to view deviations from the technicalities of the election code as unconstitutional. As Rehnquist stressed, “[I]n a Presidential election the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must prevail.”

So, if the legislative branch mandates voter signatures, or verification of signatures, or internal secrecy sleeves, or counting only in the presences of poll-watchers from each party, it is no answer to say it is a technicality and not fraud at issue. The state legislatures, through the election code, define the validity of votes, and allowing state officials or courts to read those provisions out of the law raises serious questions under Article 2 of the Constitution.

Ignoring the Election Code Denies Equal Protection

Allowing state officials to fudge on the mandates of the election code raises a second significant constitutional issue, this one under the Equal Protection Clause, which served as the basis for the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore. The majority in Bush v. Gore held that the varying standards violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, reasoning: “The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.”

When state officials ignore the technicalities of the election code, however, it virtually guarantees voters will be denied equal treatment. The proof is in Pennsylvania. There, for instance, even though the election code prohibited inspecting ballots before Election Day, some county officials — those in larger counties with access to mail-sorting machines that could weigh ballots — weighed the ballots to determine if the voter failed to include the required inner secrecy sleeve.

Then those officials, again contrary to the election code, provided information to representatives of the Democratic Party so they could identify the voters whose ballots would be canceled. Voters whose election officials abided by the technicalities of the election code, however, did not receive that notice nor the opportunity to “cure” their ballot.

Now thanks to the unprecedented push toward mail-in voting over the last year, we are seeing this same pattern repeat itself throughout the country. Some election officials bent (or broke) the rules the legislative branch had set, while others followed the letter of the law. As a result, voters in different counties in the same state were treated disparately and on an arbitrary basis. Unlike the situation in Bush v. Gore, however, it is not the state courts altering the plain language of the election code, but secretaries of state or local election officials.

The majority in Bush v. Gore recognized the rightful place of election officials to interpret and apply the rules established by the legislative branch. This difference provides some leeway to states, which through interpretative guidance tweak the technicalities of the election code. But as in other areas of the law, such interpretations must be reasonable and must not violate the clearly expressed intent of the legislature.

The Supreme Court will likely decide where that line will be drawn in the coming days.

Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Why President Trump Has A Strong Supreme Court Case To Contest Pennsylvania

As arguments about voter fraud have escalated across the country, it’s time to recognize that despite what an unmitigated disaster widespread expansion of absentee balloting has been, concerns about its abuse aren’t the most important argument in the ongoing fight over the legitimacy of this election. Sure, the media and Big Tech’s widespread white-washing and censoring of very real voter fraud concerns are damaging to the social fabric in existential ways, just as ignoring norms (and in some cases laws) requiring transparency destroys public trust and confidence in the outcome.

The Pennsylvania lawsuit isn’t yet proof that election-altering fraud occurred, although it does present compelling evidence that if proved shatters the media narrative on election security. A closer look at the allegations of direct fraud weighed against the likelihood of proving that enough occurred to alter the outcome — on a shortened timeline — reveals a daunting task for the president’s legal team.

President Trump’s lawyers, however, aren’t making the same argument as your uncle on Facebook; they’re playing for keeps. Some Republicans have been content to publicly call for the “process to play out” while privately predicting losses or maybe a few favorable rulings on some esoteric technicalities. But the president is not tired of winning yet.

Shortly after the filing, Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign, put it succinctly: “Pennsylvania is irredeemably compromised.”

The thrust of their legal argument doesn’t hinge on the numbers of fraudulent ballots cast, but on the inconsistent and illegal application of Pennsylvania election law, which dilutes legally cast votes — so-called disparate treatment, from which the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect us.

The other key legal argument is that those changes in the election law, which were implemented by an unelected appointee of Pennsylvania’s executive branch, namely Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, were an impermissible usurpation of the legislature’s prerogative even if Pennsylvania’s judicial branch approved them.

Bush v. Gore Already Wrestled with These Concerns

Underlying the president’s legal argument is the recognition that the Pennsylvania legislature implemented an imperfect regime that rationally valued security of the election as more important than avoiding disenfranchising any voters. Even amid a pandemic, the Pennsylvania legislature understood that their expansion of ballot-by-mail increased risks to election security, and thus sought to mitigate that as best they could. It was partisan state courts that unilaterally overrode those determinations in the middle of a presidential campaign in an unconstitutional way.

The discussion about what types of fraud, and how much, is important because it goes to the very heart of election integrity, and our system cannot stand without trust in the outcome. That argument, however, won’t decide the Pennsylvania case from a legal standpoint. It will come down to whether a ministerial appointee of Pennsylvania’s executive branch can work with Pennsylvania’s judicial branch to subvert the expressed will of the legislature, and hastily put in place an election process wherein citizens who chose to vote differently had their votes disparately treated.

Recall that in 2000, the legal argument that eventually carried the day was equal-protection grounds; by implementing different methods for recounts and different scrutiny for different counties, voters were receiving unequal treatment. The Supreme Court held 7-2 that “Upon due consideration of the difficulties identified to this point, it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work.”

In most cases, comity and respect for federalism compel us to defer to the decisions of state courts on issues of state law. That practice reflects our understanding that the decisions of state courts are definitive pronouncements of the will of the States as sovereigns. Of course, in ordinary cases, the distribution of powers among the branches of a State’s government raises no questions of federal constitutional law, subject to the requirement that the government be republican in character. But there are a few exceptional cases in which the Constitution imposes a duty or confers a power on a particular branch of a State’s government. This is one of them. … Thus, the text of the election law itself, and not just its interpretation by the courts of the States, takes on independent significance.

A significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question.

If we are to respect the legislature’s Article II powers, therefore, we must ensure that postelection state-court actions do not frustrate the legislative desire to attain the ‘safe harbor’ provided by §5. (Rehnquist concurring, but writing separately; Citations and dicta omitted)

Admittedly, this “Article II view” was a more expansive view on why the ongoing Florida recount was suspect than the Supreme Court ultimately held, but clearly, at least three justices believed that the courts — even state courts, which usually receive great deference to interpreting state law — don’t have a right to tweak the express will of the state legislature about presidential electors.

To be sure, the equal-protection claims also present differently, so they aren’t a slam-dunk here, and the Rehnquist concurrence isn’t controlling precedent (two of the three justices who signed on to the opinion are no longer on the court), so it might not carry the day.

Three of the young lawyers on the Bush team advocating this view of the law in 2000 have received pretty notable promotions since that time, however, and three other guys likely to have a say have signaled their belief in exactly this interpretation, stating recently, “The provisions of the Federal Constitution conferring on state legislatures, not state courts, the authority to make rules governing federal elections would be meaningless if a state court could override the rules adopted by the legislature simply by claiming that a state constitutional provision gave the courts the authority to make whatever rules it thought appropriate for the conduct of a fair election.”

It’s anyone’s guess how the Supreme Court would rule if it gets to that point, but when three current justices (Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch) have signaled they’re sympathetic to the basic legal argument, and three other justices (John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett) were part of the team that advanced very similar legal arguments in Bush v. Gore, the president and his team must like their chances.

The Changes Disproportionately Helped Biden

Pundits and some Trump supporters have engaged in navel-gazing and resigned themselves to the line of reasoning that “maybe Trump shouldn’t have down-talked absentee voting.” We know in addition to increased risk of fraud, however, voters who cast absentee ballots have historically had a significantly greater likelihood of being disenfranchised than in-person voters.

For Trump to push his supporters to vote in ways that were more likely to count isn’t irrational. It instead raises the question of why former Vice President Joe Biden wasn’t concerned with his voters being disenfranchised if they voted absentee, given the historical risks.

Both the potential for fraud and increased probability of disenfranchising voters sound intuitively like things we should fix, but the Pennsylvania legislature didn’t. They saw fit to keep the bar high to offset the risk of fraud and associated effects to public confidence in the election that unrestricted mail balloting would cause.

There’s a rational basis for that, and the entire saga has played out nationally. With the non-legislative changes, absentee voters were significantly less likely to be disenfranchised than before — indeed, Boockvar’s unilateral changes in Pennsylvania removed nearly every barrier the duly elected state legislature had put in place.

This created an environment where the constitutional guarantee of one person, one vote was tilted significantly in the direction of a voting modality (mail balloting versus in-person balloting). Not only was this ripe for greater abuse, but that tilting of the playing field disproportionately benefited the voters of one presidential candidate. Making this even more obvious are new revelations that show how the larger Democratic strongholds were equipped to quickly pre-sort potentially invalid ballots, and Democratic operatives were gearing up to capitalize on the eventual changes to the statutory pre-canvass period before Boockvar’s office even announced them.

What if the Supreme Court Invalidates a State’s Election

For conservatives, an intellectual challenge now presents itself: If you were OK with the Supreme Court stopping the Florida recount in 2000, you need to prepare yourself to be comfortable with the same court invalidating the Pennsylvania electors. Indeed, you should want them to, whether or not there was underlying direct fraud sufficient enough to affect the outcome. Alternatively, you should start working on your tortuous rationale for why, on constitutional grounds, what was legitimate in 2000 is not legitimate in 2020.

Whether you’re persuaded by the equal protection reasoning in the Bush v. Gore holding or in the minority’s separate concurrence emphasizing the plenary powers of the Pennsylvania legislature under Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, if the case makes it to the Supreme Court it won’t hinge on some threshold level of fraud that tipped the scales against Trump, nor will it be about the raw power of a conservative court to hand the election to Trump (which will certainly be the media narrative if it gets to that point). It will be, and always has been, about the rule of law.

Where the actual fraud becomes important — an actual measure of it, and whether it delivered an illegitimate win to Biden — is in how the Pennsylvania legislature, and potentially Congress, should react to the Court prohibiting the certification of the November election with respect to presidential electors. There is nothing wrong or abhorrent to our constitutional system if the elected representatives of the citizens of Pennsylvania are required to weigh in and clean this up on behalf of their voters. They need to be prepared to make their case to their voters if the predominant media narrative remains that the fraud wasn’t significant enough to affect the election outcome in Pennsylvania.

Regardless of how the Pennsylvania case gets resolved, it won’t change the overall outcome on its own. The 20 electoral votes wouldn’t be enough to swing the election to Trump if existing media projections for Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan stay in Biden’s column. If any of those changes, whether through ongoing canvassing efforts or other simultaneous legal challenges — such as the president’s filing Wednesday in Michigan making similar constitutional claims — well, Katy, bar the door.

Our way of government is strong enough to endure this. The only way through is through.

For nearly twenty years, Matt Beebe served as a countermeasures engineer in the Air Force and a contractor in the intelligence community before launching an IT and computer security firm in San Antonio, Texas. He is active in Texas politics and can be found on Twitter @theMattBeebe.

Photo Mark Thomas/Pixabay

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Schumer Promises That ‘Generations Yet Unborn Will Suffer’ From Amy Coney Barrett’s Confirmation

Reported by MARY MARGARET OLOHAN | SOCIAL ISSUES REPORTER | October 26, 202010:34 PM ET

Activists Call On The Republican Senate To Delay The Confirmation Of Amy Coney Barrett / Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Care In Action

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer predicted Monday night that “generations yet unborn will suffer” from confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Schumer spoke Monday night on the Senate floor where he condemned Barrett’s confirmation, saying that his colleagues “may regret this for a lot longer than they think.”

“Here at this late hour, at the end of this sordid chapter in the history of the Senate, the history of the Supreme Court, my deepest and greatest sadness is for the American people,” Schumer said.

“Generations yet unborn will suffer the consequences of this nomination,” he continued, “as the globe gets warmer, as workers continue to fall behind, as unlimited dark money floods our politics, as reactionary state legislatures curtail a woman’s right to choose, gerrymandered districts and limit the rights of minorities to vote, my deepest, greatest, and most abiding sadness tonight is for the American people and what this nomination will mean for their lives, their freedoms, their fundamental rights.”

The senator concluded by predicting that this day would go down “as one of the darkest days in the 231-year history of the United States Senate.”

His comments on the unborn come amidst Democratic anxieties that Barrett’s confirmation will result in overturning Roe v. Wade. Liberal groups, Democrats and abortion advocates also predicted that appointing Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court would result in dangerous limits on abortion access and other prominent political issues.

But those warnings didn’t come to fruition after the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that would have significantly restrict abortion access. In the case of June Medical Services v. Russo, an abortion provider challenged a law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion facility.

The Senate voted to confirm Barrett to the Supreme Court 52 – 48 Monday night.

WATCH:

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American Bar Association gives Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett its highest rating

Reported by SARAH TAYLOR | October 12, 2020

The American Bar Association on Sunday announced that it has given Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett its highest rating. Monday is the start of Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings.

In a Sunday letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the American Bar Association advised that Barrett is “well qualified” for a position on the Supreme Court.

On Sunday, DC Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy shared the letter on Twitter, writing, “The American Bar Association released its determination that Judge Amy Coney Barrett is ‘Well Qualified’ on the eve of the start of her Supreme Court confirmation hearings.”

A portion of the letter reads, “The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the federal judiciary has completed its evaluation of the professional qualifications of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who has been nominated by the President to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

“As you know, the Standing Committee confines its evaluation to the qualities of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament,” the letter continues. “A substantial majority of the standing committee determined that Judge Barrett is ‘Well Qualified,’ and a minority is of the opinion that she is ‘Qualified’ to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.”

The letter concludes, “The majority rating represents the Standing Committee’s official rating.”

As noted by the Daily Wire, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in 2001 referred to the American Bar Association’s judicial ratings as the “gold standard by which judicial candidates are judged.”

On Sunday night, Barrett released the opening statement she plans to issue on Monday morning.

A portion of her remarks read:

Courts have a vital responsibility to enforce the rule of law, which is critical to a free society. But courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life. The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the People. The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try.

That is the approach I have strived to follow as a judge on the Seventh Circuit. In every case, I have carefully considered the arguments presented by the parties, discussed the issues with my colleagues on the court, and done my utmost to reach the result required by the law, whatever my own preferences might be. I try to remain mindful that, while my court decides thousands of cases a year, each case is the most important one to the parties involved. After all, cases are not like statutes, which are often named for their authors. Cases are named for the parties who stand to gain or lose in the real world, often through their liberty or livelihood.

You can read the remarks in their entirety here and below.

Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearing greeted by rival protests outside Supreme Court

by Mike Brest, Breaking News Reporter | October 12, 2020 11:00 AM

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the Senate Judiciary Committee was set to begin the confirmation process for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, rival protests took place outside the White House and the Hart Senate Office Building on Monday morning. One group, Refuse Fascism, an anti-Trump group who doesn’t want Barrett to be confirmed, started their day at the steps of the Supreme Court. Many were dressed in full hazmat suits and chanting, “No COVID test, no hearing!” which was a nod to Chairman Lindsey Graham’s refusal to make it mandatory for senators to be tested for COVID-19 before the hearing.

They held up signs supporting the Affordable Care Act, which Democrats believe is in jeopardy if she is on the highest bench, and one protester held up a sign of a clothes hanger with the phrase “Never Again,” a nod to Roe v. Wade, the prevailing law on abortion. Democrats are fearful that Barrett, who is pro-life, could swing the court the other direction if the case comes in front of the court again.

They left the Supreme Court and began marching toward the Hart Senate Office Building when they briefly encountered a larger group of pro-life protesters who want Amy to “fill the seat.”

“No confirmation until inauguration!” the anti-Trump group chanted as they passed by the pro-life organizers. Most protesters in both groups were wearing masks, but neither was actively trying to keep six feet between themselves and others.

The group in favor of Barrett’s confirmation, which included many young adults, walked around the Hart Senate Office, and they congregated outside one of the entrances to the building. With protesters holding up Barrett versions of Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster of Barack Obama, and others waving signs reading, “I am the pro-life generation,” they chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go!”

Barrett’s hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee will go on until Thursday. The senators on the committee and Barrett herself are set to testify on Monday, while lawmakers will then question her on Tuesday and Wednesday with outside witnesses both in her favor and against her speaking on Thursday.

Senate Republican leadership plan to get Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court before Election Day.

‘In a category of excellence’: Graham praises Barrett and warns Democrats against Kavanaugh repeat

by Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent | October 12, 2020 09:27 AM

Sen. Lindsey Graham opened the historic confirmation hearing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett by praising her as academically gifted and admired for integrity and by warning Democrats against repeating the process that dragged out the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Monday outlined the Senate schedule to usher Barrett through the confirmation process and advance her to the Supreme Court, likely before the Nov. 3 election.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican, described Barrett as “in a category of excellence” that should make the nation proud but warned that the confirmation will take place in an election year.

“My Democratic colleagues will say, ‘This has never been done,’” he said, countering, “The Senate is doing its duty, constitutionally,” even though no justice has been confirmed so close to an election.

Graham said there have been 19 justices confirmed in an election year, 17 of them when the White House and Senate parties were aligned.

Monday’s hearing will be composed of opening statements by senators and Barrett, who is now a court of appeals judge for the 7th Circuit, having been confirmed to that bench by the Senate in 2017. Senators will question Barrett on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Graham said the hearing is not about “persuading each other, unless something really dramatic happens,” but said it would give Democrats a chance to “dig deep into her philosophy” and serve the same purpose for the GOP.

“Most importantly, it gives you, the American people, the chance to find out about Judge Barrett,” Graham said. “Find out for yourself.”

Graham warned Democrats that Barrett “doesn’t deserve” the treatment of Kavanaugh, who was scrutinized in an additional hearing to air accusations by a former high school acquaintance who said he sexually assaulted her.

“Let’s remember — the world is watching,” Graham said.

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Potential Swing Vote Mitt Romney Announces Support for Vote on SCOTUS Nominee

Reported By Erin Coates | Published September 22, 2020 at 9:05am

URL of the originating web site: https://www.westernjournal.com/potential-swing-vote-mitt-romney-announces-support-vote-scotus-nominee/

Sen. Mitt Romney announced Tuesday that he would support a floor vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, which might give Senate Republicans the votes they need to confirm a new Supreme Court justice before the November election.

“I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the president’s nominee,” the Utah Republican said in a statement.

“If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications.”

Romney added that his decision was not based on a “subjective test of ‘fairness,’” but on the “immutable fairness of following the law.”

READ THE REST OF THE REPORT AT: https://www.westernjournal.com/potential-swing-vote-mitt-romney-announces-support-vote-scotus-nominee/

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Short List

A.F. BRANCO | on September 22, 2020 at 7:45 am | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-short-list/

There is probably a good reason Biden hasn’t made public his list of Supreme Court justice nominees this close to the election.

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.

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Supreme Court gives Trump win by allowing ‘remain in Mexico’ policy to continue

Reported By Ronn Blitzer | Fox News | March 11, 2020

URL of the original posting site: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-gives-trump-temporary-win-on-remain-in-mexico-policy

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a win to President Trump on Wednesday by allowing his administration to enforce the “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy as litigation surrounding it continues.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had said a week earlier that it would block the policy in Arizona and California, the two border states where its authority extends. The Trump administration then turned to the Supreme Court for relief.

“The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted, and the district court’s April 8, 2019 order granting a preliminary injunction is stayed pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari,” the Supreme Court said in an order, which noted that Justice Sonia Sotomayor opposed the Trump administration’s stay application.

The high court action came a day before the lower court order was to have taken effect. Instead, the “Remain in Mexico” policy will remain in force while a lawsuit challenging it plays out in the courts.

The Justice Department responded Wednesday by saying the high court’s order restores “the government’s ability to manage the Southwest border and to work cooperatively with the Mexican government to address illegal immigration.”

“We are gratified that the Supreme Court granted a stay, which prevents a district court injunction from impairing the security of our borders and the integrity of our immigration system,” a DOJ spokesman said.

Trump creates 'remain in Mexico' plan for asylum seekers

Video

The policy, officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) requires individuals seeking asylum at the southern border to stay in Mexico while the U.S. considers their cases. Several organizations sued the administration, claiming that MPP is in violation of federal law that sets standards for how asylum applicants are treated.

“The Court of Appeals unequivocally declared this policy to be illegal. The Supreme Court should as well,” said Judy Rabinovitz, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents asylum-seekers and immigrant advocacy groups in the case. “Asylum-seekers face grave danger and irreversible harm every day this depraved policy remains in effect.”

The administration had argued that thousands of immigrants would rush the border if the high court didn’t step in.

The Supreme Court’s order noted that the stay only applies while the administration files a petition for the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision. Should the court decline, the stay will be lifted and the policy will go back to being blocked. Should the court decide to hear the case, the stay will remain in effect until the court hands down a decision.

About 60,000 asylum-seekers have been returned to Mexico to wait for their cases to wind through clogged U.S. immigration courts since the policy was introduced in January 2019 in San Diego and later expanded across the border.

Fox News’ Shannon Bream and Morgan Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Abortion case before Supreme Court could deal serious blow to Roe v. Wade and give pro-lifers a huge win

Reported by Aaron Colen | March 3, 2020

URL of the original posting site: https://www.theblaze.com/news/abortion-case-before-supreme-court-could-deal-serious-blow-to-roe-v-wade-and-give-pro-lifers-a-huge-win?utm_source=theblaze-breaking

The United States Supreme Court will hear a case out of Louisiana on Tuesday that could significantly increase states’ ability to enact laws restricting abortion and make it harder for doctors or clinics to challenge them in court, CBS News reported.

What’s the case?

June Medical Services v. Russo is a case that challenges a 2014 Louisiana law known as the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act. That law requires doctors and abortion clinics to have admitting privileges to a nearby hospital in order to operate. Pro-abortion advocates view the law as a backdoor way to severely restrict abortion access, while the stated intent of the law is to ensure the safety of patients at abortion clinics.

A federal judge struck down the law based on a 2016 Supreme Court ruling that blocked an allegedly similar law in Texas. But an appeals court reversed that decision, saying the Louisiana law was different enough from the Texas law that it could stand, with one of the reasons being that driving distances in Louisiana were not as great in Texas, so the impact of potentially fewer abortion clinics in the state was less significant.

A question at the heart of this case is whether doctors or clinics have legal standing to challenge state regulations. If it is determined that they don’t, it could become more difficult for abortion advocates to oppose pro-life laws.

What could the impact be?

Opponents of the admitting privileges law say that hospitals often only extend admitting privileges to clinics that will regularly send patients. Since abortions are generally safe, they argue, it is difficult for them to get admitting privileges. Additionally, some medical institutions in a place like Louisiana don’t want to be associated with abortion. So an admitting privileges requirement would effectively eliminate most abortion clinics in the state.

While bans on abortion procedures are often struck down due to Roe v. Wade, bans on abortion access are another way states could limit abortion. Louisiana is certainly a state that would seek to eliminate abortion to any extent possible under the law, and a win in this case would be a huge step toward that.

“If the court allows the Louisiana law to stand, we will probably look back on this case as the acceleration of the total demise of the right to abortion in this country,”said Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Without overruling Roe, the court could gut what is left of the constitutional right to abortion.”

Where do the justices stand?

This case takes on additional interest due to the current makeup of the Supreme Court, including the most recent additions of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices to put the Louisiana law on hold until a full appeal, but the conservative lean of the court presents a real chance of a legal win for pro-life advocates after arguments have been heard.

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Supreme Court Rules Illegal Aliens CAN Be Prosecuted For Identity Theft

Posted by Eric A. Blair | March 4, 2020

URL of the original posting site: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/supreme-court-rules-illegal-aliens-can-be-prosecuted-for-identity-theft/

In a 5-4 decision, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that foreigners who are in America illegally can be prosecuted for the crime of identity theft. While the ruling seems like a no brainer, the court was divided because the case involved the Immigration Control and Reform Act, which says any information provided on an I-9 work form can’t be used by law enforcement in any way — and that includes as evidence in a criminal case.

“The Immigration Control and Reform Act (IRCA) makes it a federal crime to lie on the I-9 work authorization form, while limiting how the false information can be used,” Fox News reported. “Federal law also says information “contained in” the I-9 cannot be used for law enforcement other than specified exceptions — but the Supreme Court ruled that if workers use the same information in tax documents, they can face charges.”

“Although IRCA expressly regulates the use of I–9’s and documents appended to that form, no provision of IRCA directly addresses the use of other documents, such as federal and state tax-withholding forms, that an employee may complete upon beginning a new job,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s majority opinion. He was joined by fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh.

The IRCA also forbids state charges or civil cases against “those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens,” but Alito noted that this “makes no mention of state or local laws that impose criminal or civil sanctions on employees or applicants for employment.”

The Kansas Supreme Court had ruled in a case that charges were improper because “[t]he fact that this information was included in the W–4 and K–4 did not alter the fact that it was also part of the I–9.”

Alito said that was a incorrect ruling.

“Taken at face value, this theory would mean that no information placed on an I–9 — including an employee’s name, residence address, date of birth, telephone number, and e-mail address — could ever be used by any entity or person for any reason,” he wrote.

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Here’s What The Lead Roger Stone Juror Wrote In Her Jury Questionnaire

Reported by Chuck Ross | Investigative Reporter | February 24, 2020 11:05 AM

URL of the original posting site: https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/24/tomeka-hart-roger-stone-juror-questionnaire/

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 15: Former advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, Roger Stone, departs the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse with his wife Nydia (R) after being found guilty of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election on November 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. Stone faced seven felony charges and was found guilty on all counts. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The lead juror at Roger Stone’s trial said in a written questionnaire for prospective jurors that she was “not sure” whether she posted online about the Russia investigation or Stone, and that she “may have shared an article” on social media on the topics, according to a portion of the document reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

But Tomeka Hart’s Twitter feed shows that she indeed posted multiple times about the Russia probe and at least once about Stone, who was sentenced on Thursday to 40 months in prison in a case that stemmed from the special counsel’s investigation. Stone’s lawyers filed a motion on Feb. 14 alleging that Hart’s social media activity shows that she was biased against President Donald Trump and Stone. Trump also criticized Hart during a press conference after Stone was sentenced.

Trump called Hart an “anti-Trump activist,” and suggested that she “tainted” Stone’s jury.

Hart, who ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2012, commented negatively about Trump on Twitter and circulated news stories about the Russia probe. In one Aug. 2, 2019 post, she called all of Trump’s supporters racist.

Stone, 67, has been one of Trump’s most longstanding supporters, and is sometimes credited with convincing the real estate mogul to run for president.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who presided over Stone’s case, said last Tuesday that she would decide after Stone’s sentencing whether to grant a retrial. Jackson did not comment directly on reports about Hart during Stone’s sentencing on Thursday, but did say that the jury in Stone’s case acted with “integrity.” Jackson on Sunday rejected Stone’s request, filed Friday, that she recuse herself from the retrial decision because of her praise of the jury. Stone is arguing that Hart gave misleading answers during the jury selection process. Jackson’s rulings suggest that Stone faces an uphill battle in getting a retrial granted. And judges are generally reluctant to toss out a jury’s verdict without strong evidence of jury or prosecutorial misconduct. In order for a retrial to be granted, Stone will have to convince Jackson that he has met two requirements for a retrial set by the Supreme Court, according to Leslie McAdoo Gordon, a criminal defense and security clearance attorney who practices in Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court requires defendants to show that a juror provided materially false information, and that the information, had it been known, would have been a valid basis for a request to strike the juror from the jury pool. McAdoo Gordon said that Hart’s responses on her written jury questionnaire paired with her answers verbal interview during a process known as voir dire are enough to warrant a retrial.

“I think he could satisfy the Supreme Court’s test for requesting a new trial,” McAdoo Gordon told The DCNF.

She said that it appeared that Hart downplayed her awareness of the Russia probe in her written questionnaire. That alone would not be enough to merit a retrial, McAdoo Gordon said. But Hart’s comments about Trump supporters and her failure to disclose those views during voir dire are enough to satisfy the Supreme Court’s requirement, according to the lawyer.

“If that information had been presented to the judge that she thought all supporters of the president were racist, the judge would have excluded her,” McAdoo Gordon said.

“She minimized her answers to the voir dire and she was not honest in answering that question about whether she could be impartial.”

Hart came under scrutiny earlier this month after she revealed herself to have been the foreperson on Stone’s jury in a social media post in which she defended four prosecutors who withdrew from the case in protest over a sentencing recommendation.

Right-wing blogger Michael Cernovich tracked down some of Hart’s social media posts which showed that she was highly critical of President Trump and his supporters.

Trump weighed in on Stone’s sentence on Thursday, and said that he will decide on whether to pardon Stone after Jackson rules on whether to have another trial.

“I want the process to play out,” Trump said at a press conference in Las Vegas. “I think that’s the best thing to do, because I’d love to see Roger exonerated, and I’d love to see it happen because I personally think he was treated very unfairly.”

In one Aug. 19, 2017 post, Hart referred to Trump as the “#KlanPresident,” an apparent reference to the Ku Klux Klan.

Ginsberg also notes a 2017 post calling Trump '#klanpresident.' Judge says she wants to keep moving 'We have jurors (plural) cooling their heels.'

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) February 25, 2020

Tomeka Hart used hashtag #klanpresident referred to Pres Trump in social media

— 🌹Kayla🇺🇸TRUMP2020🇺🇸KAG (@khunyarose) February 25, 2020

The juror is a racist, too. She tweeted Trump is the "#KlanPresident" and called all his supporters, racists.

— David (@TotalRecall9) February 25, 2020

In one Aug. 19, 2017 post, Hart referred to Trump as the “#KlanPresident,” an apparent reference to the Ku Klux Klan.

“Co-signing and defending a racist and his racist rhetoric makes you racist. Point blank,” she wrote on Aug. 2, 2019.#MAGA #JusticeFail https://t.co/BcksPDMqGy

— Rebecca Cook (@Nabonnand) February 25, 2020

#RogerStone lead juror #TomekaHart was ex-Dem candidate & called ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ ‘#KlanPresident’.

Good job seating that jury #JudgeAmyBermanJackson!

Way to go with the impartiality in a criminal trial in your courtroom!! https://t.co/WIW0SEJb05

— shootist2018 (@shootist2018) February 21, 2020

Why should she call Trump #KlanPresident when even David Duke, PhD former Grand Wizard of KKK has said himself the Klan thing was when he was much younger.

— James Betker (@BetkerJames) February 18, 2020

“Co-signing and defending a racist and his racist rhetoric makes you racist. Point blank,” she wrote on Aug. 2, 2019.

The DCNF obtained one page of Hart’s written jury questionnaire on the condition that the document not be published in full.

WATCH:

Hart’s responses on the questionnaire and during the voir dire process on Nov. 5 show that she acknowledged having Democratic leanings. But she also appears to have downplayed her awareness of developments in the Trump-Russia investigation.

During her voie dire interview, Hart said that her political views would “absolutely not” influence her opinion about Stone at trial, and that she “didn’t pay that close” attention the Russia investigation.

Hart and other prospective jurors filled out a 20-page, 56-question form in September 2019 during the jury selection process. The questionnaire asked prospective jurors about their awareness of the Stone investigation, the Russia investigation, and their opinions about various people involved in the case. The page viewed by The DCNF includes questions 21, 22, and 23 about Hart’s social media activity and awareness of news coverage about the Russia investigation.

In response to a question about whether she watches the news, Hart said “not regularly” but said that she followed CNN’s Anderson Cooper and MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes.

Hart offered a vague response regarding her awareness of the multiple investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

One question asked Hart whether she had written or posted anything regarding Stone, or the special counsel and House Intelligence Committee’s investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“I can’t remember if I did,” wrote Hart, who was identified as Juror 1261, “but I may have shared an article on Facebook.”

“Honestly not sure.”

Hart’s Twitter feed shows that she made far more than the single social media post that she indicated making in her jury questionnaire.

On Jan. 30, 2019, she retweeted a comment from CNN contributor Bakari Sellers criticizing conservatives who decried the circumstances of Stone’s arrest days earlier. Sellers admonished conservatives for complaining about Stone’s arrest by pointing to several high-profile cases of African-Americans who were killed by police.

Hart referred to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe in several posts, and appeared to support the notion that Trump associates colluded with Russia.

“Fox News keeps pushing excuses for Trump Jr.’s collusion with Russia that are just really, really bad,” reads a tweet she reposted on July 14, 2017.

In a May 29, 2019 tweet of an article at The Hill, Hart emphasized remarks that Mueller made at a press conference he held that same day.

“After that investigation, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that,” Hart quoted Mueller saying.

She also commented about the special counsel’s investigation on Facebook, though the post has now been deleted. She linked to the post in a March 24, 2019 tweet.

“Ignoring the numerous indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions of people in 45’s inner-circle, some Republicans are asserting that the Mueller investigation was a waste of time because he hasn’t found evidence of…,”the tweet begins.

In a Feb. 28, 2019 tweet linking to a now-deleted Facebook post, Hart wrote: “In his press conference 45 said M Cohen lied a lot during his testimony, but told the truth when he said he had no knowledge/evidence that 45 colluded with Russia. Then 45 said since Cohen lied about everything…”

It is still unclear if Stone’s legal team was aware of Hart’s social media activity before selecting a jury.

Grant Smith, Stone’s lead attorney, declined to talk about the case. Stone and his lawyers remain under a gag order issued by Judge Jackson.

Hart did not respond to an email seeking comment.

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Supreme Court to hear Louisiana abortion case in 2020

Written By Alex Swoyer | The Washington Times | Thursday, December 26, 2019

URL of the original posting site: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/26/supreme-court-to-hear-louisiana-abortion-case-in-2/

A case testing abortion access in Louisiana will come before the Supreme Court early next year, giving President Trump’s two appointees their first chance to leave a mark on the topic.

Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh were not on the court in 2016 when its justices last grappled with hospital admitting privileges and requirements for medical professionals administering abortions in Texas.

This time, the pair of Trump appointees help create a conservative majority on the high court for its second go at those types of restrictions imposed by a Louisiana law.

Penny Nance, president of the pro-life Concerned Women for America, said her side welcomes the opportunity for the Supreme Court to weigh in again.

“It’s definitely the biggest abortion case that has been in front of Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh, and this will be very telling on their judicial philosophy on these kinds of cases,”Ms. Nance said.

The legal battle scheduled for oral arguments on March 4 will give the full bench a chance to take a look at a Louisiana law requiring doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital no farther than 30 miles from the women’s clinic.

The high court, in a 5-4 decision, halted the law from taking effect this year. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. sided with the four Democrat-appointed justices on the court in that case.

Abortion providers have challenged the legislation, saying it resembles a Texas law that the high court struck down in a 5-3 ruling three years ago. That time, it was Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who has since retired, siding with the more liberal wing. The late Justice Antonin Scalia had died, leaving an eight-member court.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, said only Justice Clarence Thomas openly disagreed with Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion nationwide, in a 2016 ruling striking down the Texas requirements.

It is unknown at this point how Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will decide — noting Justice Kennedy’s fifth vote is now gone since his retirement last year, he said.

“I think there is a chance the court changes the standing doctrine, such that only pregnant women can bring suits, not abortion clinics. This shift would radically alter the way abortion cases are litigated,”Mr. Blackman said.

Ed Goldman, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said that unless Chief Justice Roberts opts to uphold precedent since he was originally a vote in support of the Texas law back in 2016, the court likely will reverse course with the Louisiana requirements, potentially upholding the law.

“This would, of course, be a significant loss for abortion providers,” Mr. Goldman said. “This plus the current administration conscience law that has defunded Planned Parenthood would be a very significant blow leaving Roe as a right without a remedy. And it may be a way to overturn Roe.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also filed a brief in the case that was signed on by more than 170 lawmakers. They argued the Louisiana law runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s precedent on a pregnant person’s right to privacy.

“Such defiance undermines our nation’s confidence in the legislative process and violates the rule of law,” they said in court papers.

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Butt-hurt Dems Watch Trump Get ANOTHER Big Win

Written By Kevin Jackson | July 29, 2019

URL of the original posting site: https://theblacksphere.net/2019/07/trump-get-another-big-win/

Democrats get another loss. How many is that so far? Who cares, as it’s too many to count at this point.

Democrats learn a painful lesson these days: Trump wins in the end. So whatever victories Democrats believe they have are only short-lived.

And Trump got another victory, this one related to his first campaign promise: build that wall!

As Yahoo News reported:

The Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico.

The court’s five conservative justices gave the administration the greenlight to begin work on four contracts it has awarded using Defense Department money. Funding for the projects had been frozen by lower courts while a lawsuit over the money proceeded. The court’s four liberal justices wouldn’t have allowed construction to start.

The justices’ decision to lift the freeze on the money allows President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term. Trump tweeted after the announcement: “Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!”

I’ve written many times on the importance of a president with the courts. Trump exemplifies that more than any.

Understand that almost every Obama-era judge has ruled against President Trump. But he persists, and ultimately gets his victory. This time is no different.

The Supreme Court’s action reverses the decision of a trial court, which initially froze the funds in May, and an appeals court, which kept that freeze in place earlier this month. The freeze had prevented the government from tapping approximately $2.5 billion in Defense Department money to replace existing sections of barrier in Arizona, California and New Mexico with more robust fencing.

Though getting what almost all politicians on both sides of the aisles have wanted for decades, Chuck Schumer and other Democrats immediately complained.

Democrats blasted the move Friday night, with Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-Calif.) calling it “a deeply regrettable and nonsensical decision.”

Schumer argued the ruling “flies in the face of the will of Congress and the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our founders established in the Constitution.”

“It’s a sad day when the president is cheering a decision that may allow him to steal funds from our military to pay for an ineffective and expensive wall for which he promised Mexico would foot the bill,” Schumer added in a statement.

Yet, here is Chuck Schumer in 2008 discussing protecting the border:

Next, here are Schumer and other Democrats discussing protecting America’s border and building the wall.

Fun to watch Democrats learn lessons the hard way.

When you bet against the country, you lose every time.

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After Schools, Leftists Try To Remove God, Atheism Becomes Largest Religion in US

Reported By Joe Saunders | Published April 7, 2019 at 3:50pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/schools-leftists-try-remove-god-atheism-becomes-largest-religion-us/

More than 50 years after the Supreme Court ruled prayer in public schools was unconstitutional, the percentage of Americans who claim no religion is slightly higher than the two largest religious faiths. (Anna Nahabed / Shutterstock)

The Freedom from Religion Foundation and the ACLU must be high-fiving each other.

In a development that can’t be heartening to the millions of America’s faithful, new survey data shows the percentage of Americans who profess no religious belief is actually higher those who are part of the country’s largest faith traditions. The trends might not be looking good right now, but there’s a reason to hope.

According to the General Social Survey, which has been tracking American social trends since 1972, Americans who claim no religion — or “nones” — now outnumber Roman Catholics and evangelicals.

“’Nones’ have been on the march for a long time now,” Ryan P. Burge, a professor at Eastern Illinois University, told the National Catholic Reporter.

“It’s been a constant, steady increase for 20 years now. If the trend line kept up, we knew this was going to happen.”

According to the NCR, the percentage of American “nones” is now 23.1, up from 21.6 percent in 2016. That’s only slightly ahead of Catholics, at 23 percent, and evangelicals, which were 22.5, down from 23.9 percent in 2016. The percentage is so small, considering the millions of individuals involved, it’s probably statistically insignificant. The NCR calls the results “statistically tied.”

But there’s no denying it represents a change in American life — and the kind that could have a direct result on the country’s politics.

NCR cited exit polls from the 2016 elections that white evangelicals made up 26 percent of the voters even if their share of the voting population wasn’t that large.

“Evangelicals punch way above their weight,” Burge said told NCR. “They turn out a bunch at the ballot box. That’s largely a function of the fact that they’re white and they’re old.”

That’s one way to put it. One could also look at it like they’re patriotic, committed, intelligent and aware that — as Americans — they’re part of the rich history of a nation that’s truly exceptional in world history. In other words, they’re pretty much the opposite of the millennial America that is embodied by progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow Democrat freshmen representatives.

So let’s just stipulate that a future where the American electorate is made up of a lot fewer people like the voters who pushed Donald Trump over the top early on Nov. 9, 2016, and a lot more fans of AOC is likely to be a trying one for the country overall. But this has been coming for a long time. The General Social Survey numbers are almost to be expected if several factors are taken into account.

First and foremost, public schools have for decades been in the hands of an education establishment and leftist teachers unions that scorn traditional morality.

Secondly, our nation is saturated with an entertainment culture that celebrates individual narcissism and immorality while mocking virtually every expression of religious belief.

Finally, America’s political culture is such that one of its two major political parties has been virtually a religion-free zone.

Combine these factors with the lawfare practiced by the likes of the ACLU and the cranky atheists of the Freedom from Religion Foundation — which target even the most innocent endearing expressions of religious faith in public life – and it’s a wonder that numbers like this didn’t show up ages ago.

And as Michael Knowles pointed out at The Daily Wire, it’s probably no coincidence that the country is experiencing a level of social ills that it hasn’t seen before.

“As religiosity has declined, social ills have abounded. Nearly one in five American adults suffers from anxiety disorders, which now constitute the most common mental illness in the country,” Knowles wrote.

“One in six Americans takes antidepressant drugs, a 65% surge over just 15 years. The problem is particularly acute among younger Americans. While depression diagnoses have increased 33% since 2013, that number is up 47% among Millennials and 63% among teenagers. Coincidentally, suicide rates among American teenagers have increased by 70% since 2006. American life expectancy declined again last year, as Americans continue to drug and kill themselves at record rates.”

Does anyone think it’s just a coincidence that that happens when religious faith is failing? (And does anyone think it’s a coincidence that all of this happening less than 60 years after the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools was unconstitutional. Three generations of Americans have grown up in the world that helped create.) Now, no one can believe the members of the American Civil Liberties Union wake up in the morning wondering how they can contribute to more American suicides than they did yesterday. And no one thinks the Freedom from Religion wackos in Wisconsin are consciously setting out to increase the mental and spiritual health of their fellow citizens. (Though at Christmas time, it can be hard to tell.) And one might even be able to give the benefit of the doubt to the American education establishment (though Hollywood and the teachers unions will never deserve it).

But even the most willfully obtuse, deliberately blind individual member of the cultural elite has to see the wreckage that’s being strewn across society by the large-scale abandonment of faith. And that might be a reason for hope.

The numbers might not be looking good at the moment, but it’s the job of conservatives to try to turn that trend around. The election of President Donald Trump was a start in that process — and the developments it made possible, like the gradual return of sanity to the United States court system, will help.

But this is the long fight — the longest fight there is — and conservatives have to be willing to get into it. If they are in the fight — heart and soul — a setback or two in the numbers of the faithful are largely irrelevant in the long run. Conservatives have taken on long odds before and won — the news out of the White House every day proves it. They can do it again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Joe Saunders

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America Needs To Hear Judge’s Words in Pro-High Capacity Magazine Decision

Reported By Ben Marquis | Published April 4, 2019 at 3:51pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/america-needs-hear-judges-words-pro-high-capacity-magazine-decision/

A federal district judge in California recently knocked down that state’s ban on firearm magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition as being an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment. The liberal media hasn’t really said too much about the ramifications of this ruling, and for good reason, as it undermines a major argument put forward by the anti-gun crowd in support of their confiscatory gun control schemes.

NBC News reported U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez struck down the ban on possession of “large capacity magazines” that hold more than 10 rounds, in large part due to the commonality of such ammunition feeding devices. Benitez also slammed the lawmakers who think they know what citizens need to defend themselves and their families or protect their homes and property from common armed criminals.

The judge’s 86-page ruling began by declaring “Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts,” and compared three stories of home invasions in which a woman used a firearm to defend against her assailants. In two of those cases, the victim ran out of ammunition prior to the end of the criminal assault against them, while in the third case, a woman dressed in only pajamas with a large capacity magazine managed to fend off three attackers because she had the extra ammunition in the large capacity magazine.

Benitez wrote that the woman “held a phone in one hand and took up her pistol in the other and began shooting. She fired numerous shots. She had no place to carry an extra magazine and no way to reload because her left hand held the phone with which she was still trying to call 911. After the shooting was over and two of the armed suspects got away and one lay dead, she did get through to the police.”

California first instituted a ban on so-called large capacity magazines in 2000 but allowed those who already possessed such magazines to keep them. However, the law was changed in 2016 to no longer grandfather those previously possessed magazines. Benitez had issued an injunction in 2017 to block the implementation of that law, which would have required all such magazines be turned in or else risk a felony charge for unlawful possession. The reasoning behind the added confiscation and penalties for possession was to reduce death counts in mass shootings. However, Benitez noted that while incredibly tragic, mass shootings were also “extremely rare,” and the law-abiding citizenry shouldn’t be infringed upon with a “solution” to a relatively small problem.

Citing the prevalence of common crimes versus mass shootings — and the fact that it wholly depends on each individual incident to know how many rounds will be needed to defend oneself — the judge decried the limit of 10 rounds to be a significant burden on the Second Amendment-protected right of all law-abiding Americans to possess “arms” necessary for self-defense. The ruling cited the Supreme Court’s monumental District of Columbia v. Heller decision in 2008, as well as other cases similarly couched on that precedent, which guaranteed the right of Americans to possess “common” arms. Benitez ruled that standard magazines that hold more than 10 rounds fell into the category of being arms in common use. He also gave a nod to the “militia” clause in the Second Amendment later in the ruling by noting that, in the unlikely but still possible event a citizen militia would need to defend the country in the future, they would likely have to do so with firearms and magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

“Constitutional rights stand through time holding fast through the ebb and flow of current controversy. Needing a solution to a current law enforcement difficulty cannot be justification for ignoring the Bill of Rights as bad policy. Bad political ideas cannot be stopped by criminalizing bad political speech,” Benitez wrote.

“Crime waves cannot be broken with warrantless searches and unreasonable seizures. Neither can the government response to a few mad men with guns and ammunition be a law that turns millions of responsible, law-abiding people trying to protect themselves into criminals. Yet, this is the effect of California’s large-capacity magazine law,”he added.

The judge also took on the leftist trope that firearms holding more than 10 rounds were “too lethal” for the average citizen to possess. After noting that all firearms of any capacity are “dangerous” and “lethal,” he followed the faulty logic to conclude that, if the 10-round limit were allowed to stand, it could eventually be reduced by the state to as few as one allowable round — a ridiculous notion that would completely undermine the entire premise of armed self-defense.

Judge Benitez concluded that California’s ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds could not survive any level of legal scrutiny, nor was it historically acceptable prohibition, and thus was unconstitutional as it placed an unfair and severe burden on law-abiding citizens.

This judge is exactly right. Nobody knows how many rounds will be necessary to defend against an unknown number of assailants, and arbitrary limits imposed by the state — with criminal liability for non-compliance — only serve to burden law-abiding citizens while having no effect on criminals who are already violating existing laws.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ben Marquis

Contributor, Commentary

Summary

Breaking: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Trump on Illegal Immigrant Detention

Reported By Randy DeSoto | Published March 19, 2019 at 10:47am | Modified March 19, 2019 at 10:52am

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/breaking-supreme-court-rules-favor-trump-illegal-immigrant-detention/

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration, ruling that immigrants with criminal records can be detained and held indefinitely while they await deportation proceedings.

In the 5-4 decision, the high court overruled the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which decided in 2016 that immigrants with criminal records can only be detained by federal authorities if the detention occurs soon after he or she is released from jail, The Hill reported.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in the ruling.

“In these cases, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that this mandatory-detention requirement applies only if a covered alien is arrested by immigration officials as soon as he is released from jail,” Alito wrote.

“If the alien evades arrest for some short period of time — according to respondents, even 24 hours is too long — the mandatory-detention requirement is inapplicable, and the alien must have an opportunity to apply for release on bond or parole,” he continued. “Four other circuits have rejected this interpretation of the statute, and we agree that the 9th Circuit’s interpretation is wrong.”

The case centers around the interpretation of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

“The law states the government can detain convicted immigrants ‘when the alien is released’ from criminal detention,” according to Reuters.

“Civil rights lawyers argued that the language of the law shows that it applies only immediately after immigrants are released. The Trump administration said the government should have the power to detain such immigrants anytime,” the news outlet added.

Mony Preap, one of the lead plaintiffs in the class action suit against the government, is a lawful permanent resident who had two drug convictions, which were deportable offenses. He completed his jail time for these crimes in 2006 but was detained by federal authorities in 2013 after being released from jail for non-deportable offenses.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in the dissent — in which he was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — that the Constitution did not intend for people who have already served their sentence for crimes committed to be deprived of their liberty indefinitely.

“I would have thought that Congress meant to adhere to these values and did not intend to allow the Government to apprehend persons years after their release from prison and hold them indefinitely without a bail hearing,” he said reading his dissent from the bench, the Washington Examiner reported.

Breyer warned the “greater importance in the case lies in the power that the majority’s interpretation grants to the government.”

“It is a power to detain persons who committed a minor crime many years before. And it is a power to hold those persons, perhaps for many months, without any opportunity to obtain bail,” he said.

Cecilia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, who argued the case for the immigrants, said, “the Supreme Court has endorsed the most extreme interpretation of immigration detention statutes, allowing mass incarceration of people without any hearing, simply because they are defending themselves against a deportation charge.”

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton applauded the decision, saying the Supreme Court upheld the rule of law.

He tweeted, “U.S. Supreme Court gives @RealDonaldTrump victory on immigration detention. Actually, court upholds rule of law on immigration in case dating back to Obama administration.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Randy DeSoto

Senior Staff Writer

Summary

Mike Huckabee: SCOTUS Just Made Landmark Ruling That Reins in the Power of Government

Authored By Mike Huckabee | Published February 22, 2019 at 3:16pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/mike-huckabee-scotus-made-landmark-ruling-reins-power-government/

Supreme Court justices (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

It got little attention on such a busy news day, but the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on Wednesday for property rights. The court unanimously ruled that the Eighth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure applies to states as well as the federal government, which hopefully will reign in abuse of asset forfeiture laws.

The particular case involved someone who was convicted for dealing drugs. Indiana authorities seized and auctioned off his Land Rover, even though it was not purchased with drug money, on grounds that he used it to commit crimes by driving it while dealing drugs (with that kind of tenuous connection, they could have seized his sneakers, too.)

He challenged the seizure, but the state Supreme Court ruled against him on grounds that the U.S. Supreme Court never explicitly said that the Eighth Amendment applies to states, too. Well, now they have. Talk about things that should have gone without saying!

Asset forfeiture laws were originally well-intentioned and meant to ensure that criminals didn’t profit from their crimes. But over the years, some places started abusing them as a method of raising revenue by seizing and auctioning private property that had little or no connection with criminal behavior, leaving citizens with scant recourse or financial resources to fight it.

As this story notes, the lack of Eighth Amendment protections on the state level also led to abuses such as heavy fines for tiny infractions, such as using the wrong house paint colors or Halloween decorations.

During oral arguments of the case, Justice Breyer got Indiana’s solicitor general to admit that the state could conceivably seize someone’s car for driving five miles over the speed limit, which sparked laughter in the court.

This is a welcome and long overdue ruling. Too many young people (some of them recently elected to Congress) have no concept of the foundational importance of property rights. They seem fine with the idea of government being able to take as much of the fruits of other people’s labors as it wants, as long as it promises to “redistribute” other people’s money in the form of free stuff.

They need to learn the wise old saying that a government that’s big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mike Huckabee

Summary

Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions

Posts tagged ‘Supreme Court’

May 3, 2023 by Ann Coulter

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By Gerald Groff | Fox News | Published April 13, 2023 2:00am EDT

Gerald Groff lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a former postal employee.

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BY: KATHLEEN BUSTAMANTE | APRIL 03, 2023

Gun Control to Mask Moral Decline

A Symptom, Not the Cause

Instead, we must repent and ask God to point our nation to truth.

Kathleen Bustamante is a freelance writer and former college writing instructor. Her writing has appeared in the American Spectator, the American Conservative, the American Thinker, Real Clear Religion, and James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

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BY: DAVE CRAIG AND JAKE CURTIS | APRIL 03, 2023

Dave Craig is a Waukesha attorney and served in the Wisconsin Legislature from 2011 to 2021. Prior to his election, he worked as an aide to Congressman Paul Ryan. Jake Curtis is an Ozaukee attorney who previously served as an agency Chief Legal Counsel in the Walker Administration.

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BY: RACHEL N. MORRISON | MARCH 06, 2023

Religious Accommodations in the Workplace

What Does ‘Undue Hardship’ Mean?

Poised to Protect Religious Accommodations

Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works on EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project.

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BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | FEBRUARY 16, 2023

A Pattern of Racist Attacks

Thomas Is a National Hero

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By: CARLOS GARCIA | December 19, 2022

Here’s more about the controversial policy:

US braces for surge in migrants with Title 42 set to expire | ABCNL www.youtube.com

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By: TREVOR SCHAKOHL, LEGAL REPORTER | November 22, 2022

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BY: THE FEDERALIST STAFF | OCTOBER 27, 2022

Donald Trump

Republicans

Ted Cruz

Josh Hawley

Ron DeSantis

Dr. Oz

Tudor Dixon

Ron Johnson

Legitimately Conducted Elections

Questioning Elections

The Events of Jan. 6, 2021

Election Security Legislation

Poll Watchers

Elon Musk

Freedom of Speech

‘Misinformation’

Parents at School Board Meetings

Pro-Lifers

The U.S. Supreme Court

Clarence and Ginni Thomas

The Electoral College

Our Bicameral Legislature

Democracy Itself

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By Jack Davis October 27, 2022

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BY: MARK PAOLETTA | OCTOBER 27, 2022

Mark Paoletta served as a lawyer in the George H.W. Bush White House Counsel’s office and worked on the confirmation of Justice Thomas. He is a senior fellow at Center for Renewing America, and partner at Schaerr Jaffe.

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BY: EDDIE SCARRY | SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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BY: CHUCK DEVORE | JULY 21, 2022

Burdensome Regulations

Misuse of the Law