Why do judges wear black robes? It’s a question few judges today seem to be asking themselves.
It certainly appears not to have troubled the mind of Chief Judge Roger Gregory of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals who, it seems, must instead be a student of Jorge Luis Borges. A couple of days ago, Judge Gregory, writing for the majority, upheld a lower court’s decision against President Trump’s revised Executive Order imposing a temporary travel ban from a handful of countries identified as hotbeds of terrorist activity. As Byron York points out, the decision broke 10 to 3 along partisan lines: the 10 judges who decided against the travel ban were appointed by Presidents Clinton or Obama, the 3 judges who supported the ban were appointed by one of the Bushes.
The rank partisanship on display is as disgusting as it is worrisome: a partisan judiciary is not a judicious judiciary. It is, on the contrary, a judiciary that dispenses its decisions based not on what you have done or left undone but on who you are. It is a government of men, not laws.
But the most extraordinary thing about the majority decision is not its partisanship but the personal nature of the opinion it expresses. It applies to Donald Trump and to Donald Trump only. As York notes,
The majority’s decision, as laid out by Gregory, suggests a mind-bending possibility: If the Trump executive order, every single word of it, were issued by another president who had not made such statements on the campaign trail, the court would find it constitutional.
This is where Borges comes in. In “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote,” Borges celebrates the stupendous labor of a man who endeavored to produce a book that would be identical—”word for word and line for line”— to Cervantes’ great novel. Menard never managed more than a fragment. But Borges is surely right that though “the text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical,” the works are in fact very different. For one thing, what was written in the seventeenth century by a Catholic ex-soldier is of necessity very different from what was written in the twentieth century by a cosmopolitan, world-weary intellectual. Their different personal histories infuse their words with very different assumptions. Then there is the matter of style. “The archaic style of Menard . . . suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his precursor, who handles easily the ordinary Spanish of his time.” Borges spins an amusing and thought provoking epistemological tale with this fiction.
Until yesterday, I hadn’t appreciated its application to the workings of the judiciary. Judge Gregory enlightened me about that. In his opinion for the court, Judge Gregory charges that although the travel ban invokes national security, “in context” it “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”
Context, eh? What Judge Gregory means is that Donald Trump, or at least some people associated with Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, said things about Muslims or other prospective immigrants with which Judge Gregory disagrees. Ergo anything that Donald Trump’s administration orders with respect to immigration is, ipso facto, tainted.
What Trump’s travel ban actually said is unexceptionable. Nor can any candid person doubt the President’s authority to intervene dispositively on who may and who may not enter the United States. The law is unambiguous:
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
The majority opinion of the Fourth Circuit makes explicit what was already implicit in the lower court interventions against the administration’s efforts to “improve the screening and vetting protocols” in order to “protect the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States.” At issue is not the Constitutionality of the Executive Order but the person of Donald Trump. The effect of the ruling, as Andrew McCarthy observes, is to empower “both radical Islam and judicial imperialism.” In the immediate aftermath of yet another bloody jihadist attack—this one in Manchester, England—it is natural that we think mostly about the former, about the way the Fourth Circuit’s ruling makes us less safe by empowering radical Islam. Should we suffer another Orlando or San Berardino here, we can lay at least part of the blame at the doorstep of judges like Roger Gregory.
align=”left” The harm such judicial supremacists do goes far beyond their particular rulings. It erodes the one thing that guarantees the place of the judiciary in a free society: widespread trust in the legitimacy, which is to say, the impartiality of its operation.
But although terrorism is certainly a legitimate and a pressing concern, in some ways it is McCarthy’s second item, the empowering of judicial imperialism or judicial supremacy, that is the bigger long-term concern. For what these recent decisions portend—the temporary restraining orders issued by left-leaning, blue-state District Judges as well as the Fourth Circuit’s en banc ruling—is an attack on the Constitutional separation of powers via an assertion of judicial triumphalism. And this brings me to my opening question: Why do judges wear fancy black robes? Former Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, pondering that question, suggested that the attire “shows that all of us judges are engaged in upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. We have a common responsibility.”
I think that’s about right. The somber black robes attest to the impartial majesty of the law.
But what happens if those wearing the robes betray that trust, that “common responsibility” to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law? Alexander Hamilton famously, and perhaps naively, described the judiciary as “the least dangerous branch,” reasoning that since the Court commanded neither money (as did Congress) nor the army (as did the Executive), therefore the Court would have to rely not on coercive power but merely the impressive spectacle of what Hamilton called “judgment.”
We’ve had plenty of experience to show us how drastically Hamilton underestimated the threat of an unfettered judiciary. It is worth reminding ourselves that several of his contemporaries were not so starry eyed about the Court. One of the anti-Federalists, for example, warned that the Constitution did not provide an effective mechanism for reining in judicial arrogance.
There is no power above them, to control any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself.
That, I submit, is pretty much where we are with judges like Roger Gregory. The harm such judicial supremacists do goes far beyond their particular rulings. It erodes the one thing that guarantees the place of the judiciary in a free society: widespread trust in the legitimacy, which is to say, the impartiality of its operation. The black robes are a symbol of that trust and the majesty that imbues it. The Fourth Circuit has just violated that trust in the most brutal and cavalier fashion, threatening to transform those somber black robes from an emblem of high office into costume worn by impersonators.
To this extent, Hamilton was right: in our society the respect of the judiciary depends not on its deployment of coercion but prestige. As Glenn Reynolds observed in commenting on this deeply misguided ruling by the Fourth Circuit, “The judiciary’s prestige-well is going to dry up pretty fast at this rate.” And then?
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Time to start impeaching lawless judges, or the citizenry will deal with their anarchy themselves by force.
Bingo! Judges who violate the Constitution and usurp authority – often on the basis of their self-indulgent “wisdom” – should be prosecuted.
It is presumed that the SCOTUS has long been the “final arbiter” of things Constitutional. This comes from the decision Marbury v Madison in 1803 where, in effect Chief Justice John Marshall, and the other judges STOLE this power for the courts. No less an eminence than Thomas Jefferson objected strenuously:
…….”You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so……….The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots”…….
And 214 years later these “leftist monkeys” have proven that Jefferson was 100% correct in that assessment!
We have been told for many years that Americans must RESPECT the judiciary, and not criticize them has Trump has done. How do we deal with this farce? How do we deal with it if the SCOTUS upholds this “mockery of justice”?
Would you want to bet on what Jefferson and the rest of the Founders would have done to Judge Gregory and company?
In the end, the real “final arbiter” of what is Constitutional, and what isn’t…..rests with “We the People”. We just haven’t gotten mad enough to do anything about it yet, but these fools are getting us to that point faster and faster now!
An executive order or statute can only be judged by the language of the order or law, giving the words the meaning they hold in the English language. Using campaign statements made months prior is nothing more than reading tea leaves. It is certainly not used in normal construction by courts. Furthermore foreigners who are not in the US have no claim to the constitutional protections of our Constitution. That is why captured terrorists were taken to Guantanamo instead of being brought to the US.
The 4th Circuit just appropriated legitimate Executive authority. They have no access to classified information, yet they are substituting their judgment for the duly elected President. If the Supreme Court fails to reverse the decision Trump should ignore them. The Constitutional crisis will be the fault of the out of control courts.
Exactly, and the only place left to go to restore balance is SCOTUS. If they fail us in this matter, we are toast. Justice Kennedy is the one to watch; Lord, please grant us another vacancy and replacement in time to fix this.
As I said, in my post below, I do NOT subscribe to the idea that a SCOTUS decision cannot be questioned. The Founders, as Jefferson said, NEVER set up such a tribunal, knowing full well that it might become corrupted some day. An excellent piece of “foresight” by the way!
In the case “Worcester v Georgia” The SCOTUS ruled against the State’s statute re non-native people on native lands. President Andrew Jackson is reputed to have said this: …….”John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”…….
The SCOTUS really has NO enforcement authority. So if the SCOTUS agrees with the 4th circuit, we have a conundrum. Either the POTUS tells the court what Andy Jackson did, “we the people” step forward and tell them that, in some fashion or………we live under the tyranny of a black-robed tribunal that has no such standing under the terms of the Constitution. Should be an interesting next few months!
The problem with your observation is that so many swamp critters want Trump gone (including RINOs like John McCain) that should he invoke executive privilege, he would almost certainly be impeached. And I’m afraid that the Senate would vote to confirm the impeachment, bringing an end to the Trump administration. The coup would be complete.
Let them try.
The coup might be complete, but the resulting civil war would only be starting.
100% correct!
No they would not.
Yeah, let Congress try to enforce an impeachment. They are all feckless fools with no power. You think the DC capitol police are credible? How about when 100,000 bikers show up, and start heating the tar. Hell, they couldn’t even compel Lerner, Holder, Clinton and a host of other folks to give them the documents or testify truthfully.
Well it could start another civil war the plotters would most likely come to regret that.
To paraphrase Stalin, “How many divisions does the SCOTUS have?”.
The judges may find to their dismay that once the release themselves from the bonds of the law that they have also freed themselves of it’s protections, especially if there is another mass casualty attack that could have been prevented by these orders.
It is telling that there is a single swing vote. Tragedy.
The above article is based on limiting partisan judges and yet you openly state that a partisan SCOTUS is needed. Well done
One of the most fundamental legal principles when interpreting statutes, contracts, or other written words is that if the wording is unambiguous on its face you don’t go beyond the four corners of that documents. So what the 4th Circuit did is facially improper.
And even if it weren’t, it still rests on a pathetically weak premise – that the order was driven by religious prejudice and that such religious prejudice is unconstitutional when applied to a foreigner – neither of which is true.
First, if it was truly religion based then the ban would have encompassed all the countries of the middle east, not just the ones designated by the Obama administration as terrorist hot spots, as well as South East Asia which has a huge (or Yuge if you prefer) muslim population. It didn’t, so there is no foundation for this argument and the 4th Circuit should lose if reviewed impartially.
Second, it attempts to apply the Bill of Rights to foreigners not in the country. Foreigners not on US soil and with no right to reside here do not have constitutional rights. We can exclude them for any reason we choose. So even if the farcical conclusions of the Court regarding bias were true, and they are not, it still wouldn’t matter because the Constitution has not been violated.
This is a classic left-wing results oriented decision. Never, ever, ever believe a Democrat when they tell you they are for the rule of law.
Another legal principle that the court’s decision touched on is unconstitutional animus which you can read about here: http://fordhamlawreview.org//uploads/assets/pdfs/Vol_81/Pollvogt_November.pdf, which there is clear evidence for and so there is no need to consider the text of the law. Even so the same law that gives the president broad authority on immigration specifically stipulated that no one can be denied admission based on country of origin. The court probably used the animus argument because it poses more academic interest to legal scholars. Bottom line, liberalism or not, Trump seriously dropped the ball on this one and he undermined his own agenda because he’s a fool.
You know our judicial system is in trouble when argument is: “there is no need to consider the text of the law.” No, the evidence of animus is not clear, and that 900+ page legal OPINION that you cite defending such dubious judicial acts as striking down CA Prop Perry v Brown does not make it any more clear.
Moritoria on immigration from specific countries of origin have been temporarily implemented by other executives for reasons of national security–without the same judicial pushback. You are conflating an argument that “no one can be denied admission based on country or origin” with the argument no one can be denied admission based SOLELY on country or origin. Quite different. Our immigration law–the current 7%– rule already annual caps numbers of admissions from particular countries–those that have already reached the cap. With such overbroad terms as you use, this too would be denying admission “based on country or origin.”
A treasonous blivet like you would have to stand on your boyfriend’s shoulders to kiss President Trump’s *ss.
Animus is too open to interpretation which is why the USSC has struck it down prior.
“First, if it was truly religion based then the ban would have encompassed all the countries of the middle east.” This is a very weak point that attempts to shift the focus away from the biggest factor of the executive order- that the countries included were all majority Muslim. This argument didn’t work in court (multiple times) and it doesn’t work now
You’re ridiculous. If the purpose was to prevent Muslim entry into the US you’d limit all Muslims. If you are only limiting entry from certain Muslim countries but not others, there is another principle at work, i.e. terrorism.
Trump specifically said he would ban all Muslims during the campaign and then attempted, twice, to do so in a poorly attempted issuance of executive orders. Everyone saw through it, including the courts. Get another narrative, this one has been proven false time and again
Really? Show me in both orders where he bans people on the basis of their religion (not nationality). Show me how a Muslim from Malaysia or Thailand would be denied entry because of the ban. I’ll wait…
Try some stronger reading comprehension skippy. I said he made that statement during the campaign. The EO’s were merely thinly veiled attempts at pushing that statement into the legal realm
Lol. You said “…he said he would ban all Muslims during the campaign and then attempted, twice, to do so …”
That’s as unambiguous as it is wrong. What’s both humorous and sad is that your attempt to deflect makes the same ridiculous argument all over again, i.e. he’s pushing a ban on all Muslims into the legal realm. I say again, show me where either of the orders does that.
If you come back with any kind of sniping other than quotes from the EOs which demonstrate a ban on Muslims outside the terrorist harboring states (ID’d by the Obama admin, no less) you’ve further beclowned yourself and publicly conceded that you are wrong and don’t have the faintest clue what you’re talking about. (Which is ok, because that’s clear already.) Enjoy your Trump derangement syndrome.
I understand it’s probably pretty embarrassing that you weren’t able to fully understand what I said originally, I get that. I also fully expected you to lash out angrily and fail to acknowledge your mistake. People like you are easy to predict. Just try and slow down and understand what the reader is telling you. It will help you in the long run. Cheers!
We all get it. You can’t defend your point so you’re aiming for distraction. Your concession is noted and appreciated.
“Reply to my post with the rules that I demand so that makes it easier for me to win an argument.” I wonder if you fully comprehend how immature your responses are or if you merely are resorting to these tactics like a cornered animal. Either way, pretty sad
I’m pretty confident I didn’t come up with the concepts of facts and logical argument or even asking someone setting forth a proposition to defend it. Take up your b.s. complaint with Socrates.
I agree, I’m pretty sure you didn’t come up with facts or logic either
You know what else those countries had in common? They have very little intelligence sharing with the US. They have no means of centralized authority to vet immigrants from those countries. That is what makes them different from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two countries that are actually Muslim. So instead of focusing on what the 6 countries on the list share, focus on how those 6 countries differ from other countries not on the list. That is what intelligent people do. You are not intelligent it seems.
Incapable of having a grown up discussion without resorting to childish insults I see.
That is silly. If it were religious, there would be a lot more countries covered. No, it is based on support for terrorism in those countries. All of the countries in the EO were on the Obama list oc counties which supported terrorism. Your claim of religious bias is complete nonsense as were the court rulings.
Ya, all these courts continue to wrong, over and over and over….
Exactly. T hey are not following the law as set out by the Supreme Court, but are admitting that if any other President issued this order it would be OK, but Trump cannot do so. So, what law are they following, pray tell?
The Supreme Court doesn’t make laws, that is up to the legislative branch. The judicial interprets the laws. It’s one of the checks on power. Go ahead and start there and then we can discuss further
Boy, I guess their is your 3rd grade understanding of the American government and the adult understanding of the American Government. I will explain it to you, slowly. The US Supreme Court does interpret the law. What they do is provide “precedent” for what the law means. The lower courts are expected to follow those precedents. That, however, may to complicated for a third grader to follow.
You said “they are following the law as set out by the supreme Court.” Keep trying to defend your ignorant statement, it only gets worse. Tell me, which law did the supreme Court “set out” as followed by this court?
From the dissent:
“The three dissenting judges in this case, let by Judge Paul Niemeyer, point out the mistakes and deliberate errors made by the majority. As to the original district court that issued the injunction, Niemeyer outlines how that court “refused to apply Kleindienst v. Mandel…which held that courts are precluded from ‘look[ing] behind’ ‘facially legitimate and bona fide’ exercises of executive discretion in the immigration context to discern other possible motives.”
In other words, the majority decided politics was more important the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Kleindienst v Mandel. The 4th circuit ignored Supreme Court precedent.
This is all well documented. I could say I am surprised you missed this, but the fact is that it is clear you do no research and understand nothing. You are a waste of time. I am done with you.
I asked what law the decision was based on, not a comment in the dissent. I would think you would know the difference, but I guess I am not surprised. Perhaps you don’t understand the difference.
And I answered your question. When I said it was a lawless decision, I cited the actual case law.
I know that is too deep for your little brain, but try to wrap your head around the fact that the Supreme Court tells lower courts what the law is and how it is to be interpreted. The 4th Circuit court of appeals ignored that.
I am tired of trying to educate someone who is not capable of being educated.
Kliendeist v. Mandel was incorrectly cited by the government in their defense of this order, and the court properly interpreted that the decision in Mandel was more specific to individual visa applications rather the the president’s authority on the matter. The case was specifically referenced and determined to be not properly presented by the government. You got anything else professor?
Funny, first you say I didn’t offer a cite, but I did. Now, you claim it said something different and did not address an EO. But, it did address the issue and EO. We will see, but I fully expect SCOTUS to slap down the 4th and 9th Circuits because they cannot have Circuit Courts of Appeals ignoring precedents
Funny. You claim to know the law until I explain it for you. Kliendeist was from 1972. If it represented a clear bright line in this issue it would have been followed by the lower courts. As it was not properly interpreted by the government it was rejected. If a case doesn’t apply to the instant case the court is under no obligation to follow it and is not precedent. There’s your lesson for the day professor
It does not matter what year it was. It said and EO needs to be evaluated on its own merits and the rational presented, not the past statements of the President issuing the EO. Kleindeist was clear and your “explanation” is nonsense (as usual from an anonymous source like you). Precedent is precedent whether you and the Appeals court likes it or not. Both the 9th and the 4th dismissed the EO because of what Trump said during the campaign. Kleindeist was quite clear that reason is out of bound. So, not only does it apply, it is the only precedent that applies. Nice try, but you need to find someone who actually understands the law before coming up with your nonsense.
You clearly don’t understand precedent. Where did you get your law degree?
Do you have a later precedent? Or, are you just making noise.
It’s not precedent you legal void. Miranda is precedent. Giglio is precedent. Terry is precedent. I see you completely dodged my question regarding the law. Do you have any experience at all with the law or just an armchair quarterback like I assume
Your claim that there is no precedent from Kleindiest vs Mandel, but that is absurd. Of course it is a precedent. Here is the holding:
“Held: In the exercise of Congress’ plenary power to exclude aliens or prescribe the conditions for their entry into this country, Congress in § 212(a)(28) of the Act has delegated conditional exercise of this power to the Executive Branch. When, as in this case, the Attorney General decides for a legitimate and bona fide reason not to waive the statutory exclusion of an alien, Held: In the exercise of Congress’ plenary power to exclude aliens or prescribe the conditions for their entry into this country, Congress in § 212(a)(28) of the Act has delegated conditional exercise of this power to the Executive Branch. When, as in this case, the Attorney General decides for a legitimate and bona fide reason not to waive the statutory exclusion of an alien, courts will not look behind his decision or weigh it against the First Amendment interests of those who would personally communicate with the alien. Pp. 408 U. S. 761-770.
Note the part at the end that says:
“… courts will not look behind his decision or weigh it against the First Amendment interests of those who would personally communicate with the alien. Pp. 408 U. S. 761-770.”
Not only is it clear, it is specific. The 9th attempted to claim that this did not disallow a Constitutional challenge, but that is silly since the Supreme Court specifically barred a 1st amendment challenge.
Further, both the plaintiffs and the courts agree that if a different President had issued the EO, it would be OK. That means the courts are now going on, not what the law and precedent say, but on the person issuing the EO. That implies chaos and the elimination of a rule of law. The Supreme Court has to overrule the 4th and the 9th or admit that we are no longer under the rule of law, but under the rule of men which would make us a banana republic.
That’s a lot of time and energy wasted to show you don’t understand the issue. I’ll ask one final time: what, if any, justification do you have to claim authority on this issue? Law school? Any work in law? If you can’t answer then don’t bother, not interested in an any further uneducated attempts at interpretting the law
Well, you have not established any credentials. But, even then, the ability to read trumps your fake credentials.
Lol. Another failed attempt to deflect from your lack of credentials. Sad. I won’t fall for you ignorance of the law old man. Talk to me again if you bother to educate yourself
You’re assuming, of course, that the Supreme Court is made up of perfect judges. I’d suggest that some of the current crop are anything but. Their ruling on Citizens United is a great example.
I see you do not understand free speech and why Citizen’s United was decided as it was. I suggest you read the decision.
Whoa. Sounds like you’d make a fine president (of the current crop anyway) … that is, one who’s mind is made up, has all the answers and can’t be bothered by outside ideas. Other people are stupid, you are smart. Thanks for straightening us out on that, we might have missed it.
Well, at least I do agree that you are stupid.
Saudi Arabia supports terrorism. Why weren’t they on the list?
The argument is whether the government supports terrorism, not whether individuals do. Pay attention.
Time to realize the us is not an autocracy and that there are three branches of government. Not getting what u want? Tough, little snow flake.
Hmmm. He probably wants what all patriots want: liberal courts to stop inventing interpretations of laws and the Constitution that literally bear no basis in law. (And yes, I’m saying anyone who supports the Fourth Circuit’s ruling is not a patriot.)
The ten justices who voted against the travel restrictions need to be impeached, frog marched to gallows, and hanged at dawn for treason.
That would be a beginning of justice.
Um. No. Rather than thinking everyone is against u, these judges are just doing their job. Sorry they hurt your feelings snow flake. The courts are not your safe space.
You missed the point. They are not doing their job which is to interpret the law impartially in accordance with the Constitution. They are ruling against President Trump instead of for the Constitution. I have long said that if you want to predict the outcome of a dispute in court just look up who appointed the judge. Our judiciary should not be partisan, but it is and that is not how it is designed to work. There is no right to a free trial. And the judiciary has usurped the power of We The People: it continues to overrule decisions we have made for ourselves and impose from above things like gay marriage and abortion which are NOT found in the Constitution. When Justice Roberts found that the mandate was a tax-even though the text of Obamacare and the legal argument made by the government was that it was NOT a tax-then we knew that he decided the matter on the basis of politics, not the law. This is a dangerous path to continue down. If you don’t like Trump just consider that a lot of us voted for him so he could put conservatives on the SCOTUS.
How much is Soros paying you?
Yea. And u are firmly footed in reality.
The intellectual vacuity of the Left on full display here with a pathetic attempt at trolling that has no relevance to what I stated.
Sure it is delusional, undereducated, fascist-prone nut job.
Exactly, which is why President Trump would be justified in ignoring this order. See how that works.
This is how you get a civil war.
Time for King Con to decree his anointment by divine intervention, Putin.
Want to try for an intelligent thought???
But my bad. I’m sure that you put all your enlightenment into that snarky little post.
Приятно встретиться с другим членом ГРУ Glad you liked it.
How many members do you associate with?
Now we’re getting brain-damaged trolls. They really should moderate this site better.
Hear hear!
Absolutely.
The Obergefell case is a classic example of law cast by an impartial juris.
Take a nip Sammy, you’re losing it.
Repeating the comment to Mark Pulliam’s article:
Why are we shocked or surprised at this late stage in the perversion of OUR legal system into what is now a means to ends; economic, social and political.
The “Operators” of this system so widely desired and accepted by our society are those “learned in the law” through our system of legal education (Law Schools) of the past 70 years (at least); from which are now drawn those individuals to act as “jurists” at the various levels of litigated and administrative matters. Having evolved their motivations through participations in a system used as a means to ends, how natural as “jurists” they too use the system as means for ends of their choosing.
It was a quite deliberate strategy on Obama’s part from the end of the filibuster on lower court appointments to offering the bench to those with well credentialed partisan inclinations – all part of the grand plan. I am only surprised an earlier POTUS didn’t try it on sooner. There is a kind of mad scientist genius to it as with all the usual Alinsky-like strategems from the left. Obama was determined to impose his malignant view on the populace but there was the little problem of the Senate, and the SCOTUS etc). How to neutralize those speed bumps to the masterplan?
Elections have a nasty habit of upending the best laid plans of wannabe totalitarians. Obama had a light bulb moment. Why bother with elections at all? Why not just get the Senate to nix the filibuster, appoint as many of the most unprincipled and unethical bunch of Dems with law degrees you can find (no shortage of candidates then), add lots of public money and stir until done. Result? – Courts the length and breadth of the land intent on side-lining the elected administration and setting themselves up as the unchallenged apex of Government. What a fantastically diabolical plan (cue mad scientist laughter).
The scary part is that it almost came off – had anyone but DJT been elected you can guarantee that Scalia;s replacement and the 2 or 3 to follow would have been solid gold supporters of this new doctrine – the infallibility of any Court stacked with dems in robes who phone in to the DNC each morning to get their riding orders. Fortunately these clowns will be overturned. And there should be some consequences beyond merely being criticized by a superior Court.
The Administration needs to seriously look into impeachment proceedings against the worst cases of Judges breaching their oath and engaging in bad faith. Not to lord it over the Dems but because it makes sense as the best means of sending a message to the rest of the Judiciary next time they think substituting their view for the POTUS is not only great for their Dem street cred but will have no consequences even if overturned on appeal. It would only take one or two show trials of the worst ones with their subsequent removal from office to have the effect of rendering the rest far more observant of their responsibilities and the actual wording of the Constitution (kind of like the Syria air strike or the bunker buster against ISIL – those exercises will be more memorable for what we never hear about – shutting down future bad behavior before it actually starts – and so we need to shut down that future judicial bad behaviour as well),
Until we have 67 Senators, we should not be going down the partisan road of impeaching judges for their decisions.
But we may get 34 states to alter the constitution. The first to be addressed should be to eliminate lifetime appointment for judges. Judgeships are the easiest way to subvert the will of the people.
How about a vote of no confidence from the states which can remove judges. Also repeal the 17th amendment and make Senators directly appointed at will employees of their respective state governors.
That seems like a lot of time and effort for something that won’t likely pass. Trump needs to ignore the bad judicial decisions and enforce the ban if he believes there’s a national security threat.
If Dems won’t let us vet refugees and immigrants, then shut down all incoming of both categories immediately. We don’t need any and can’t afford even the ones who don’t want to enslave or kill us.
Well, for starters, Congress can dissolve the 9th Circus, replacing it with two or three courts overseeing far smaller regions – which would put that bunch out to pasture for good. Not sure what to do about the other courts that Obama packed with his handpicked underlings, like the 4th.
leglislate a reduction in the # of judges in I circuit. After getting rid of excess judges then legislate and in crease in the # of judges. Seems like a democratic strategy that could be adopted by Trump. Screw the law as the left does.
They need to humiliate them too. Send them to Samoa to adjudicate bankruptcies of less than $5000 and misdemeanors.
Yep. Obama was a genius in a evil sort of way. Not unlike Stalin and Mao.
Soros! Alinsky! ACORN!!!!!!!!! Run, droolers, run!
That’s why I’m glad McConnell held his ground against anti-second amendment Garland.
And why I’m glad he also ended the filibuster for Gorsuch. The next Dem Senate would end the filibuster for the next Dem president anyway, and we might as well benefit from the end of it to name a judge who respects the Constitution and the nation.
We need a Con Con to make removal of such judges (ones that legislate from the bench, contradicting specific powers that Congress has conferred on the President to keep us safe) far easier. And perhaps the greatest tool of the Con Con would be term limitations on members of Congress and the judiciary. That would get rid of a lot of the people in Congress who are life-long professional do-nothing bought-and-paid-for politicians (of both parties). It would get rid of a lot of people on the SCOTUS that should have left long ago (I will not name names, but we all know who they are). The Con Con should also enact public financing of campaigns so we can allow the average citizen to serve in Congress. Public funding would also get rid of “bought politicians” (of both parties) who say one thing during the campaign and do another after elected (which pretty much described the current GOP Congressional leadership).
Enough with conservatives whining about bad judicial decisions. If the judges aren’t going to follow the Constitution, then the executive and legislative branches should stop following the judges’ decisions. It’s that easy.
Time to raise the S.C. to 21 and stuff 12 conservatives on the S.C. – then we can get 18-3 ruling for the next 20 years.
It was already attempted by FDR on 5 February 1937 with the “Judicial Reform Bill of 1937”. That would have allowed the president to appoint one additional justice to the supreme court for each existing justice over 70 years, 5 months of age and up to a total of six justices. Fortunately, the bill was held up in the Senate Judiciary Committee for 135 days by the Democratic committee chair, Henry F. Ashurst. The bill was later defeated 70-30.
Yes, but if I recall, the mere attempt by FDR was enough to cow the SCOTUS from issuing any more rulings against his “New Deal” legislation. Sometimes, a shot across the bow send the message!
Actually, it was FDR being president for 12 years that gave him victory in the end, not the mere attempt. He was able to appoint eight of the nine justices. He got his court the proper way, by appointing replacement justices when they died or retired.
Do you not understand the risks to our Constitution entailed by such actions? It’s the way a dictator rises to power.
Yep. I also understand that if the judges aren’t following the Constitution, then we don’t have a Constitution. The best way to rein in the judiciary is to disregard some of their outlandish decisions.
Uh – read my posts, dummy – I haven’t fallen for any such myth.
My point is that answering unConstitutional acts with more unConstitutional acts is an abandonment of Constitutional rule and will lead to chaos, lawlessness, civil war, and tyranny. Only a halfwit or thug endorses criminality as a response to criminality.
The proper course would be to publicly arrest (with probable cause), indict, and try judges who violate their Constitutional constraints.
Abe Lincoln would disagree with you. Here is an interpretation of the Merryman Power when Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled against Lincoln’s ability to declare habeas corpus. Lincoln then went around Taney. According to legal scholar Michael Paulsen, “Implicit in Lincoln’s action was his belief that he was not bound as President to obey a judicial order he believed incorrect as a matter of constitutional law — the boldest challenge ever made to judicial supremacy in constitutional interpretation.”
Two points, one is that judges should be partial to the law as written, not impartial. The second is that we should not presume the motives of judges as long as their decision respects the law, so based on this decision we don’t know if the three judges appointed by either Bush are partisan.
What about when a judge says openly that she rules according to her “empathy” for one or another of the litigants?
What about a judge who says he imposes his view of “community standards” or the “will of the people” on the case issue?
What about a judge who just coincidentally sides with one or the other political policy position 100% of the time?
Can we infer anything from those judges?
What about a Supreme Court majority when they decided that Bush won the election over Gore, that that decision could not be used as precedent in any future SCOTUS decisions? They actually admitted that they issued a ‘political’ ruling in this case. How’s that for strictly adhering to the constitution as written?
They didn’t decide that Bush won the election. They decided 7-2 that Florida could not just recount select counties as the Gore team requested and the Florida Supreme court erroneously granted. A recount had to include all counties. Then they decided 5-4 that there was not enough time to recount all ballots.
Exactly. But they also concluded that that ruling could not be used as precedent in future rulings. Id on’t believe that any other ruling in our history contained that ‘disclaimer’. That made it ‘political’, right?
There are differing opinions as to why that disclaimer was used.
The Wiki link for what it’s worth:
Limitation to present circumstances
Some critics of the decision argue that the majority seemed to seek refuge from their own logic[47][48] in the following sentence in the majority opinion: “Our consideration
is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”[49] The Court’s defenders argued that this was a reasonable precaution against the possibility that the decision might be read over-broadly,[50]
arguing that in the short time available it would not be appropriate to attempt to craft language spelling out in greater detail how to apply the holding to other cases. Critics, however, interpreted the sentence as stating that the case did not set precedent in any way and could not
be used to justify any future court decision, and some suggested that this was evidence the majority realized its holding was untenable.[51] Regardless of whether the majority intended the decision to be precedential, it has been cited by several federal courts in election
cases.[52][53][54][55][56]”
Apparently it has been used as precedent in spite of the limit sought.
Still a far cry from saying the Supreme’s decided that Bush won.
Bush won the first election and won the first recount. Gore’s request to only recount counties favorable to him was shot down 7-2 when it reached the Supreme Court.
The 5-4 ruling was simply about the time needed to do a state wide recount and Florida law required that the vote be certified 7 days after the election.
Regardless of political bias on the part of the many judges from district courts to Florida Supreme court to the federal Supreme court it is inaccurate to say that the US Supreme court decided that Bush won the election.
How about the bias of the Florida Supreme court in ruling that Gore could have manual recounts only in districts that would yield him the best chance at overcoming his deficit? How would that have been fair to not recount the entire state? The US Supreme’s ruled 7-2 against the Florida Supremes. Does that mean the Flordia Supreme court was trying to steal the election for Gore?
Bush was ahead after the initial vote and the first recount therefore the only one that could steal it was Gore as he was behind in both tallies.
Lies.
All these judges are partial to factors outside the law, they are trying to impose their ideas on us (mis)using the force we have given them to uphold the law, the law only and the law as written.
What could we do to protect ourselves? I get the case against elected judges and I get the need to protect judges from the effects of lawful unpopular decisions, but I would like to see the Supreme Court forced to argue removal of any lower court judge who has been overturned above a certain percentage or whenever their decision are plainly against all settled law, as is this “travel ban” judicial hysteria.
Just for completeness, I am also aware that the Supreme Court is too busy as it is, but removing bad judges has unfortunately become as urgent as overturning bad decisions.
Our judicial system seems to be ruling according to political ideology instead of the law or the Constitution.
“When a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean.” Dred Scott v. Sandford , 60 U.S 393 (1857) (Justice Curtis dissenting).
5 years and 560,000 dead later, society corrected the judicial error.
The interpretation of the Bible, like the judicial interpretation of a constitution, is merely a process by which, as a contemporary of Bishop Butler said, anything may be made to mean anything; and in the absence of a coercive authority, papal, conciliar or judicial, any given interpretation finds only such acceptance as may, for whatever reason, be accorded it.
Albert Jay Kock/Our Enemy the State
Most historians agree that the Dred Scott Decision was one of two or three precipitating events which caused the Civil War.
And it was nothing more than the application of a living, breathing interpretation of the Constitution in order to get what Taney wanted out of the law.
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the laws”.
Read the book “arguing about Slavery” . It gives a better account than the first paragraph.
Dirty Harry and 0bama used the nuke decision to pack the lower courts. We are now seeing the reality of what they did.
It’s judicial tyranny, and they should be removed from the bench.
Immediately.
Judiciaries are always tyrannical. Judges view themselves as “sages” – they think they’re able to read minds and glean “popular will” and seek to make everyone conform to their view of “community standards” and “ideologically correct worldview.” And, they’re enraptured by the finality of their power over the common man.
Thank heavens Donald has none of those tendencies. OOPS!
Irrelevant. He’s not a judge – he’s an elected president. Try to think logically.
It is always about feelings. The Left and Rinos think with their feelings. They were never taught how to think.
Elections have consequences, and the people have spoken. If any of these stooge judges or congress critters moves on impeachment they will be gone one way or another. Public records are available. Wki-leaks still exists. I think Trump is liked way better than some people think.
No, they’re not. Leftist deviants always are.
Time for President Trump to emulate Andrew Jackson and ignore the courts. President Trump is trying to keep Americans safe whiler liberals want to put more Americans in danger.
Oh he’s trying to do that. He is also trying to ignore & denigrate his own intel agencies and the free press. How is that working out for him? These very foundations of our democracy, no matter how imperfect they are, will overcome any
& every attempt to reduce their ability to keep American a constitutional democracy. In the end Americans will not be conned by a selfserving child in adults clothing who is doing whatever he can to enhance himself, his brand and his bottom line.
1. We know our Intelligence officials have Leaked information to the Media… dangerous and illegal;
2. Recent Harvard research confirms that The Media is extremely biased toward our President and conservatives…
Those are major structural problems, and that’s why we Need Trump.
And we know that the press has willingly passed on classified information leaked to them in spite of the harm it may cause the US because of their animus to Trump.
First of all, if you know that “Intelligence officials have Leaked information to the Media”, you have no proof that that is true, & if it is true, which inttel officials did it, Obama holdovers or officials installed by Donald. Also donald was complaining about the intelligence community, comparing them to Nazis, way befor he became president. In the1940s & 1950s, 80% of all print media was conservative and we on the left dealt with it & moved on. Admittedly the the editorial content of the media slants left, but the reporting is basically factual & definitely not ‘fake news’.
When Flynn’s identity was illegally unmasked and the then leaked to the press the only people that had that information were the people in the intelligence community.
That leak had to come from a very small group in the intelligence community. Clapper said before congress in open hearings that only a handful of people would have been privy to that information.
How was the unmasking of Flynn’s identity illegal. National security officers have the right to request and get US persons identity if the context of the intercept indicates a national security concern. In Flynn’s case he was the US person caught discussing US sanctions with the Russian ambassador. Certainly seems that the national security officers had the right and responsibility to determine who that US person was.
No one has the right to give his name or the content of the call to the press.
That wasn’t what I said. You said unmasking Flynn was illegal. I said no it wasn’t. Now you’re saying giving his name and content of the call to the press was illegal (essentially changing your previous post). That was something that I never commented on. By the way, I think it was too, or maybe it falls under the whistleblower laws and therefore isn’t illegal.
Unmasking, except for national security is illegal inside the intel community but the unmasking of his name to the press is not legal anytime.
The giving of his name to the press was illegal no matter who did it or why. The unmasking inside the government may have been legal if proper channels were used but to date we have not been told if they were or not. The unmasking of his identity to the press was indeed illegal.
This is why the only crime we know of do date is the unmasking of Flynn and the release of his transcripts to the press as was my statement.
Guy you still are trying to justify your conflation of masking and leaking. One (unmasking) is legal the other (leaking) is not. They are not the same. By the way whether a person is unmasked or not is the decision of the organization that “owns” the intel not the person requesting it.
There is never an occasion when the Washington Post, which ran the story, can legally request an unmasking and have that request granted by anyone in government.
You are still trying to deny that the unmasking of General Flynn to the Washington post is illegal.
If you have proof otherwise then provide a link. If not then admit you were wrong.
Guy you seem to have a real comprehension problem. Nowhere did I say that WaPo can legally request unmasking. I said that national security officers can request unmasking when there is a national security concern. I said that unmasking and leaking are two different things. You seem to want to equate the two terms unmasking and leaking in order to justify the unmasking of Flynn as some sort of crime which it wasn’t. The leaking of the Flynn information to WaPo is the crime as I said above.
The comprehension problem is yours. This is my first way in on the thread:
“When Flynn’s identity was illegally unmasked and the then leaked to the
press the only people that had that information were the people in the
intelligence community.”
Flynn’s identity was indeed illegally unmasked and then leaked to the press.
The unmasking and leaking that information to the press is a felony and had to be done by one of a handful of people privy to that information.
All of that is undeniably true. Of course unmasking and leaking are two different things but when those two different things converge in unmasking and leaking to the press they become one. A crime. If just the information that Flynn had a conversation was leaked but the details of the conversation were not it would still be a crime.
Unmasking persons caught in incidental conversations to the press is illegal. Even if the content is not.
Got it now?
The only way unmasking becomes illegal is if it is done with unreasonable or no justification. This certainly doesn’t seem to be the case with Flynn since you essentially have a US person discussing US government sanctions with a Russian official. As I said the leaking was probably illegal (although the whistleblower protections may come into play). Trying to conflate the two or say one action is illegal based on another potentially illegal second action is BS.
The fact that you even know that Flynn had the phone call shows that the masking was illegal. +
There is no legal basis for Flynn’s identity having been made public.
The fact that Flynn’s identity was unmasked to the press means the unmasking was illegal.
As I have said numerous times. There is never a case when unmasking persons identity to the press is legal. As was the leaking of the transcript.
Both are illegal and both are felonies.
I know about Flynn and his phone calls because the information was leaked, not because it was unmasked. You keep trying to conflate the two, but they are not the same. Unmasking is not a crime. Leaking is. But apparently you need to have unmasking be a crime so you can justify Trump’s unjustifiable accusation that Obama wiretapped him.
When the transcript was illegally leaked to the post was it masked as in ‘American citizen one’ or was it leaked unmasked as General Flynn? Since the story written said it was about General Flynn then it was clear that the transcript illegally leaked also illegally unmasked his identity. As I have been saying repeatedly it is illegal to unmask and American citizen caught up in incidental contact and it is illegal to leak that information to the press. When you say you knew about Flynn and his phone calls because the information was leaked you are conceding the point I am trying to make. The fact you knew it was Flynn in the story means that his name was unmasked illegally to the Post. Then the fact you knew what he said in the phone call means the transcript was illegally leaked as well. Two separate acts. Unmasking and leaking of the transcript.
Ergo. Both the unmasking of his name and the leak of the transcript to the Washington Post was illegal.
The leak to the post could have been with his name still masked as it would have been originally transcribed and the story could have run as an un-named person in the Trump administration and then only the leak of the transcript with his name still masked would have been the felony. Instead the leaker decided to release the transcript with his name unmasked which is a separate crime.
The unmasking and leaking of the Flynn transcript to the press was illegal. No matter how you try to spin it.
Manapp, you just said “Two separate acts. Unmasking and leaking of the transcript.”, and you’re right. They are two separate acts, probably done by two different people. Unmasking is not illegal (unless the request is justified with some sort of lie). Unmasking is meant to provide further clarity (if needed and justified) for an intelligence intercept. Also unmasked documents are restricted to the intelligence services. Leaking is disseminating information to unauthorized people. It is a crime. You keep trying to equate the two when they are not the same. I am trying to agree with you that leaking the information about Flynn was a crime, but you don’t seem able to accept that. You have to have unmasking as a crime as well. Again I’ll say that the only reason I can see for your insistence is that you need unmasking to be a crime to justify Trump’s statement about Obama wire tapping him. Good bye.
Say for instance, a person inside the government called the WAPO and told them that a high ranking member of the Trump cabinet had a call caught up in an incidental contact with the Russian Ambassador. Then they told them that person was General Flynn. That is all the tell them. Not what the call was about just that Flynn was caught in incidental capture.
That is illegal. The leaking of Flynn’s identity, his unmasking, to the Washington Post is illegal.
When that person went a step further an told the WAPO the contents of the conversation that was the second illegal act. Both are a release of classified information. Flynn’s identity is classified and the content is classified.
The unmasking of Flynn’s identity to the Washington post was an illegal act.
Here is an article from the same entity, the WAPO, with this line in it:
“That actually raises another question. Because the identity of U.S. citizens’ conversations are kept secret from all but a handful of top intelligence officials, including someone in Yates’s position, who unmasked Flynn’s identity to the media?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/08/heres-why-sally-yates-is-such-a-key-part-of-the-trump-russia-investigation/?utm_term=.6fc39cbbcf3a
Who unmasked Flynn’s identity to the media? Why is that important? Because the unmasking of Flynn’s identity to the press is an illegal act.
Unmasking is indeed a crime. It is a felony. Every time a person is unmasked to anyone unauthorized to know that information for national security purposes it is a crime. No one in the press has that authorization.
On top of that if a government official who has a right to know but not the need to know has a person unmasked that too is illegal. You have to have a national security reason for it and not a political one. That part is to be determined but what is absolutely known and a fact is that the unmasking of General Flynn’s name to the press was a crime.
Manapp, last time, Flynn’s identity was unmasked to someone in the intelligence agencies. Flynn’s identity was leaked to the press. Unmasking is replacing the “US person” with an actual name by the agency that owns the information at the approved request of a an authorized person in another agency. Leaking is releasing classified information to an unauthorized person. I know you are trying to equate the two so that you can say whoever requested unmasking was guilty of a crime, but that action is not a crime. The leak is the crime. So to correct your statement “but what is absolutely known and a fact is that the leaking of General Flynn’s name to the press was a crime”.
One last time indeed Tom. Flynn’s identity was unmasked to the press illegally. He may have been unmasked inside the intel community legally but that is not known at this time. We don’t know that anyone legally requested his unmasking or if the did who did, None of that is known. What we absolutely do know is that his unmasking to the press was an illegal act. Further the leaking of the transcript was yet another illegal act. Two separate but equally illegal act. The unmasking to the press and the leaking of the transcript.
You are stubborn that is for sure but you are wrong on this one. His unmasking to the press was illegal regardless of whether or not legal unmasking was requested and granted inside the administration
I am not saying that whomever may have requested his unmasking inside government did so illegally if it was done at all. I am saying that no matter what happened in the legal chain of how a person is unmasked inside government the unmasking of his identity to the press is illegal. A felony. .
When a masked identity is leaked to the press that is unmasking him. By the very definition of the word unmasking.
Sorry that you are not understanding it. Can’t explain it any clearer.
It HAS TO BE true, you halfwit. Try thinking!
Thank you. Half a wit is better than no wit at all. See, I can think after all.
You guys have to realize that when you complain about the leaking of classified information, you are basically saying that the leaked information is true. Trump has finally caught on to that and his latest batch of tweets now talk about the leaking of “fake news/information” rather than classified information.
No – there’s no such implication in complaining about leaks. You’re illogical.
Sure it’s logical. Rosa started the thread with the statement that intelligence officials leaked information and that it was illegal. It might be against department rules and policy to leak information, but the only way for it to be illegal is if the information is classified. You defended Rosa against reality check, which is saying that the leaking was illegal. Therefore, you’re saying the leaks were illegal which means they were classified.
There’s absolutely nothing factual about any content from the LAMESTREAM MEDIA PERIOD.
You believe that intelligence agencies are “the very foundation(s) of our democracy”?
Oh, you poor dear….
Were their no intel agencies America would probably no longer exist as their info & imput has preempted dozens or even hundreds of terrorist attacks since 9/11, most of which we have never been made aware of. You can’t have much of a democracy if don’t have much of a country.
That’s not the point, dummy. Try thinking logically!
Nonsense read the court records and the case files. The overwhelming majority of these cases were FBI setups, finding some young kid shooting his mouth off on line and having someone engage him in progressively greater activity until they could give him fake explosives and give them actual evidence of “intent”.
Both sides of the media political spectrum agree upon that:
Terrorist Plots, Helped Along by the F.B.I. – The New York Times
The New York Times › opinion › sunday
Apr 28, 2012 – But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary .
Fox News › 2010/09/20 › federal-authori…
Sep 21, 2010 – CHICAGO — A man arrested for allegedly placing a backpack he thought contained a bomb near Chicago’s Wrigley Field got the fake explosive from an FBI undercover agent, authorities say
The overwhelming majority of the plots the Intel agencies foil come very close to being entrapment. They find some loudmouth online idiot and then spend months encouraging him, even supplying plans and fake explosives until they talk him into incriminating himself. How many of these cases would have EVER really resulted in terrorism absent the encouragement of the undercover guys is a very real question.
FBI stings foil terrorists, but sometimes undercover agents create the plots | The Kansas City Star
Kansas City Star › article135871988
Mar 2, 2017 – FBI undercover stings foil terrorist plots — but often plots of the agency’s own making. By Ian … of undercover FBI agents who supplied fake bombs and came up with key elements of the plans.
Terrorist Plots, Helped Along by the F.B.I. – The New York Times
The New York Times › opinion › sunday
Apr 28, 2012 – But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary …
Fox News › 2010/09/20 › federal-authori…
Sep 21, 2010 – CHICAGO — A man arrested for allegedly placing a backpack he thought contained a bomb near Chicago’s Wrigley Field got the fake explosive from an FBI undercover agent, authorities say
FBI Arrests Man in Dallas Skyscraper Bomb Plot | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth – KXAS
http://www.nbcdfw.com › news › local › FBI-…
Sep 25, 2009 – A Jordanian national the FBI accuses of trying to bomb a Dallas skyscraper appears in court … The FBI said Smadi believed the device, which was provided by an undercover agent, was a car .
No, no, no – Lib-Leftists are antiAmreicans – they are NOT to be trusted. They are NOT the “foundations of our democracy” and they loathe the Constitution. They’re statists.
Obama has already left office, the conning of Americans by a self serving child in adults clothing who is doing whatever he can to enhance himself, his brand and his bottom line left with him.
We are being conned by the LAMESTREAM MEDIA, they have given up all pretense of being impartial and the American public needs to see it for what it is…
Liberal judges don’t give a toot about the constitution and haven’t for 50 years. In Roe v. Wade Harry Blackmun called unborn children “potentially human” 13 times. Just where does the constitution say that? Judges are political hacks who impose their worldview on others without respect to the law or anything else. Get use to it. It’s all raw power now.
Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Mao-Tse Tung
Yes, that is true in places where there are not free elections that can transfer power peacefully, and are not influenced by outside sources that seek to subvert the democratic process with covert interference in those free elections. As of today America is not yet one of those places.
America is one of the countries that have sought to influence elections in other countries overtly and covertly. The CIA has engineered or supported coups in countries to get rid of leaders we don’t like and until the 70’s used assassination as one of it’s tools.
As the strongest nation in the world we did that because we could. That doesn’t make it right.
“Right” by whose definition? Learn to think logically.
Doesn’t make it right is right. It was not right. What it makes us is hypocritical getting so worked up over a few email hacks and some fake news stories.
We have done much much worse.
For all the regressives and the MSM going on about Russia influencing our elections, they seem to forget that Obama spend millions in an attempt to defeat Bibi Netanyahu in the last Iraeli election for Prime Minister…
So, it looks like it’s revolution then? Is that what you are saying? And who owns all those guns? Somehow I think that I have more than MY share. If might is going to make right, I would think those states with the most restrictive gun laws will lose a lot of their political clout.
Either you are kidding or you did not read my entire statement. For your review…… ‘As of today America is not yet one of those places.’
It appears the you are one of those fellows who thinks that having an abundance of guns will stop others, either a tyrannical govt or an opposing ideological group, who will obliterate you with planes, drones, tanks, and overwhelming force in general. The only thing your guns are good for is target practice, hunting or accidentially shooting yourself or members of your family or friends. Plus it gives you a very false sense of security.
Between the decades I spent as a military brat, and the decades I spent as a military officer, I believe I have a fairly accurate assessment of both the military capabilities and the political inclinations of the US military.
As for the former, you are delusional. We have spent a decade and a half – far longer than we spent in any war we ever won – in Afghanistan, a country of 35 million not terribly well armed population, and we are no better off than the day we started, DESPITE ALL THOSE “drones, tanks, and overwhelming force in general. Unless the US government were prepared to use rules of engagement against US citizens that were far more liberal than those applied in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and everywhere else we have recently fought, defeating a large insurgency in the US simply wouldn’t be possible, and that’s just the military side. The political is even worse. Take a look at Military Times polls of the politics of active duty military and military retirees. The assumption that they would even be fighting FOR a repressive government is almost certainly wrong.
Study American history. The command structure follows protocol. Several times, the US Army has been used avidly and overwhelmingly against American insurgents including WWI veterans. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I am as familiar as you most likely about the domestic use of the US military, not merely Pershings efforts, but all the way back to the Whiskey Rebellion. It doesn’t matter. Again, that was then and this is now. We don’t have the forces needed to subdue Afghanistan. The US has the worst tooth to tail ratio of any military in the world. The actual number of trigger pullers is not that big, and is overwhelmingly drawn from very conservative states.
In any serious standoff, the manpower isn’t there. Moreover, even a serious attempt makes things worse politically, which is why the DOJ tactics were changed after Ruby Ridge and Waco
Looking just at “manpower” is as ignorant as can be.
The gov has at its disposal the surveillance systems, com systems, logistical systems, and weapons systems, and tactical superiority to negate any number of “trigger-pullers.”
As someone formerly cleared TS and SCI indoctrinate, among others, I can state categorically, that you don’t know what you are talking about. The ability for those resources to track a few targets is actually pretty fair NORMALLY although there are simple. Countermeasures that can give them difficulties. But their bandwidth is not great. Their ability to track multiple targets simultaneously is quite a bit more limited. Like everyone else, their resources are not unlimited.
You’re cherry-picking and you’re full of shiite.
Nope.
That’s the ultimate question. Will the military stay out of a civil conflict or not? Will the solders kill their own family and friends? What about the military leaders?
That’s NOT the question at all. There is no question that the GOV will use military power if the need arises. Soldiers never kill their own family and friends – they kill the enemy they are ordered to kill. The military leaders follow the command structure just as do the troops. You live in a fantasy world – too much Hollywood.
Like the US mainstream media, liberal judges have undermined their own credibility and the rule of law itself by putting their private political philosophy over merely doing their job objectively. Both are so blatant about it, they clearly don’t even recognize that to do so is wrong. When society breaks down into tribalism and lawlessness, both groups will share the blame, and in a society with 350 million firearms in private hands, tribalism can get really ugly really quickly.
Our judicial system is infested with virtue signaling Leftists.
We need to protect Americans— we don’t need moral relativism!
Mr. Gregory has made his decision, now let him enforce it…
If justice via the Second Amendment is what they really want, keep it up. The whole idea of courts was to give people a peaceful and fair alternative to that, but the Left has weaponized the courts just like every other institution.
The rule of law is the law of the land.
Congress need to begin investigation then impeachment proceedings against judiciary who violate their oath.
Take them down, at a great rate.
It is time to impeach some of these judges for incompetence. Depending on how SCOTUS rules, a viable society must move on these judges. You just cannot have a judiciary like that in a country such as ours.
Given the ability to scan social media and blogs such as this one, if I were appealing a case, I would be handicapped by comments I made even in an unrelated context years ago.
Get them the heII out of our judicial system and let them run for office if they want.
Why is it that whenever I hear a Federal Judge’s decision — the word “traitor” pops into my mind.
If the Judiciary is not careful they will invite Dictatorship. They are just lucky that DJT values the rule of law because by all rights he should have just ignored these orders, because by law they are not allowed as defined by the Supreme Court.
You can lay all this at the feet of the activist judges that the Dims love to appoint. It is never about constitutional law with them but how to twist and turn the legal logic to make their agenda achievable! They have proven this time and again to be the easier route then the voting booth.
As Mr. Kimball states clearly, Alexander Hamilton was absolutely wrong about the judiciary. But Thomas Jefferson was correct. Around 1820, he wrote: “It
has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression
. . . that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the
constitution of the federal Judiciary; working like gravity by night and by
day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless
step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped.”
Judge Gregory is the would-be usurper, and should be impeached. It won’t happen, of course, but it should.
Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, she would have appointed a fifth leftist to the Supreme Court. Had that happened, anything she wanted to do would have been affirmed. That is the very definition of tyranny. With the nomination and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, America dodged a bullet, and not just a bullet, but a fatal one. That was what the 2016 election was about. The Democrats, in opposing Gorsuch, also opposed the Constitution. That is what is at stake now, and God help America is the Dems ever regain power.
Exactly because they will never again trust the electorate and if they regain power we will see what they are ultimately capable of
It could also be said that the three bush appointed judges are being partisan in their dissent to the opinion. It all depends therefore on the arguments. The dissenting argument was merely that the court did not consider the opinions of current intelligence and national security officials in the decision and that the president was criticized for not presenting an effective case for the travel ban. Instead the opinions of former officials were relied upon. But it’s the administrations job to mount an effective defense, and they didn’t bring it. It was absolutely underwhelming. They said, dont listen to what the president said before, look only at the text of the law. But the decision upholding the ban features a lengthy explanation of why case background can be used to interpret intent of the law outside of its own text, identifies several precedents when it has been done so, and discusses specifically how the president has undermined his own premise of the the legal basis for the ban. Partisan or not, they present a better argument.
This is what we get when liberal progressive judges are appointed and confirmed. The Constitution means nothing to these political animals. They actually believe that the plain meaning of the words should be, must be, reinterpreted each day based on the emotional, ever changing dogma of their fellow liberal progressives. It is the rule of the liberal progressive crowd, and never the rule of law, that guides these muddle headed perverts. Unless the GOP controlled Congress undertakes impeachment against the worst of these little tin gods, they will continue to drive the United States down the road to ruin rather than the path to greatness.
Thank heavens those judges appointed by Republicans never,ever let political partisanship get in the way of their decision making. Oops!
Yes, there are the occasional mistakes – such as Souter – but on the whole, conservative judges fundamentally believe and make decisions based on the Constitution as written and understood by the founding fathers. They understand that the process for changing the Constitution is the amendment process established by the Constitution, and not by judicial fiat.
The judiciary’s prestige has already largely dried up in this humble attorney’s opinion. Far too often I see result oriented decisions written by judges who apparently haven’t even taken the time to read the other side’s briefing, and which make no effort to address the other side’s arguments.
god damn the 4th circuit on THIS day meant to honor those that died defendinding our constitution
America usually betrays its warriors.
Absolutely true – as witnessed by the VA Hospitals fiasco and the many dead veterans denied essential medical treatment by the corrupt political hacks running it. And by all of my dead cousins and high school teammates thrown into the meat grinder of Vietnam by President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara, while these two corrupt politicians lied to the American people about what was happening over there. And by all of my friends who returned from Vietnam to be spit upon and vilified for decades by the MSM and Hollywood elites, as well as a lot of law enforcement officers who should have known better. Yes, America’s record of abuse against our returning warriors is abysmal.
I think we all know that we’re headed to another civil war. Our government is lawless and the country is split at least in half on social matters. The question is only a matter of when, not if.
Hope you are wrong, but watching the MSM and the liberal progressive elites going all in to promote the phony transgender agenda, it’s hard to be optimistic.
The people are the final arbiter and the Founders left us a solution.
https://www.amazon.com/Next-American-Revolution-Demand-Congressional/dp/0984387684/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1496071972&sr=8-2&keywords=the+next+american+revolution
A partisan judiciary is a very scary thing!
True justice would be if Judge Gregory, or the others in that majority, or the jokers on the 9th Circus, suffer directly through the next practical consequence of their partisan rulings. Not advocating it, but people, especially those placed in the position of doing God’s will through the equal administration of justice, often learn the hard way what happens when their own hubris becomes more important than their appointed task.
The fact that they admit that the order, issued by any other president, would be completely constitutional, should be sufficient to any thinking jurist of their own violation of the Equal Justice clause, to say nothing of their own nullification of duly enacted and constitutional delegation of immigration authority by Congress.
I am totally disgusted with the judiciary.
Liberal fascists have turned our schools of humanities into truly repulsive intellectual sewers….and the majority of our judges are appoint after having soaked in the fetid mess every year of their “education”. Laws mean nothing to repulsive liberal fascists….theur brain are completely scrambled.
The shocking thing about that decision was that it was not unanimous. The fact that three Republican-appointed judges voted against upholding a clearly correct decision is the real story here. They let their right-wing blinders get in the way of our Constitution and the rule of law.
Precisely what—besides the law—stops Trump from overriding these judges and doing what he wants?
Theoretically, can’t he just say “No. I’m doing what is right to secure the American people”, and FORCE enforcement of his orders, even using federal agents and the military and National Guard to do it?
The writer makes an excellent point in that if this EO was issued by anyone other than Trump, it would have been approved. It’s a sad day when words no longer mean things….especially to the judiciary.
The judges are lawless, and now they forfeit their right to their jobs and freedom. Me, I’d have no problem if Trump sent federal agents to these judge’s courtrooms and removed them from their jobs. And if they return, they will be arrested and charged with sedition.
The Democraps have transferred their belief to the Rule of Lawyers, rather than the Rule of Law.
Settle these good folks in the judge’s neighborhood. All of them.
Judge Gregory is a leftist shill appointed by Obama; he raised money for his campaign. What do you expect? He is an ignorant Negro with a hatred for America. I hope his relatives are never a victim of a terrorist attack.
And Trump’s mental impairment threatens us all. I dare you to go to STAT and read the entire article, find the video of an old interview and watch it; then tell me this guy has not deteriorated, and not in the way we see “normal aging.” I happened to catch by chance, a few months ago, the Rose interview and immediately noticed how far he had declined. As an English teacher of almost thirty years, I saw the evident problems. Once he can’t read what others have written the GOP will have a real problem. That is why he never is put out there to answer questions (He did pretty poorly the few times it was tried.) or discuss in any detail, policy or programs. He, like his father, has Alzheimer’s, probably now in the early stages. That explains the delusions, angry outbursts, childlike vocabulary, short attention span and so forth.
“Research has shown that changes in speaking style can result from cognitive decline. STAT therefore asked experts in neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, to compare Trump’s speech from decades ago to that in 2017; they all agreed there had been a deterioration, and some said it could reflect changes in the health of Trump’s brain.”
“In interviews Trump gave in the 1980s and 1990s (with Tom Brokaw, David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Rose, and others), he spoke articulately, used sophisticated vocabulary, inserted dependent clauses into his sentences without losing his train of thought, and strung together sentences into a polished paragraph, which — and this is no mean feat — would have scanned just fine in print. This was so even when reporters asked tough questions.”
Another liberal progressive fantasy offered up for our entertainment and amusement.
Can we get some muscle over here….to usher this precious snowflake back to his safe space? He appears to be jonesing for some Play-Doh and coloring books.
you’re a sad butthurt little moron.
americans are beginning to hate the soialist judicial system as much as they hate the press, the media, Hollywood and the dem traitors in congress. And that is what will finish us off in the end. Say thank you to clinton and obama et al.
This judge gegory should be shipped to Venezuela. He’d fit right in. This also reminds me of the judge in Mexico who was murdered at his house because of his verdict on Gutsman the Narco. Are we becoming a banana republic?
Yes.
These liberals have to be driven completely out of power, even if it takes a revolution to do it.
After the first order was stopped by a judge, Trump should have upped the ante and stopped all incoming entry into the US and sent the military to secure all points of entry.
Because with the law being fully on his side, he would then be able to blame the judges for it because they are unlawfully limiting his discretion and he wasn’t going to allow potential terrorists to enter the country because some judges want to tie his hands.
This judge is black, and blacks feel that they have been green-lit to advocate their racism at every opportunity. What we’re seeing here is the equivalent of KKK Grand Wizard sitting on the bench, only this guy hates whitey.
The judge is safe. It is politically impossible to impeach any black man. We saw that in the Obama administration and its repeated violations of Constitutional limits on Presidential authority. How many cases did the Obama administration lose in the Supreme Court? How many of those cases produced unanimous rulings? I’ll check.
The rule of law in America is being subordinated to the rule of men and women.
The general presumption that trial judges know the law and apply it properly,
however, is much more than a mere combination of the above maxims. Such a simplistic
view would tend to minimize and trivialize the foundational role of trial judges in our legal
system, our government, and in our society as a whole. The social and moral character of
that role as one of the cornerstones of our system of law and governance was well observed
over one hundred and fifty years ago, in the case of Moody v. Davis, 10 Ga. 403, 411-13
(1851), in words which are as elemental today as they were when written:
The people are the depository of judicial power with us. Judges are their authenticated representatives, charged with the duty of dispensing justice, according to the constitution and laws of the State, and according to the constitution of the United States. . . . It is the duty of the Judge to enforce the laws of the State, made in accordance with State and Federal Constitution–the whole law, as it applies, in his judgment, to the cases which come before him. He has no right and no power to withhold the application of one single principle of law, to a single case over which he has jurisdiction; he has no dispensation, justifying or excusing an omission to apply the law. Neither conscientious scruples about the morality of the law, nor convictions of its inexpediency–nor what are called the tendencies of the age–nor political biases or party associations–nor fear, nor favor, nor reward, nor the hope of reward, nor all of these combined, should be sufficiently potent to induce him, in his judgments, to transcend the law, or to fall short of its strict enforcement. If such are his duties, it is wholly immaterial whether a principle of law be brought to his notice by counsel, or is suggested by his own knowledge and observation. If the principle grow out of the case, and he believes it to be law, he is bound by the responsibilities of his position–by his official oath–by the very nature of his office–by all the expediencies of judicature, to give it full effect. To that he is called–for that he is clothed with the people’s (if I may so speak) judicial sovereignty; and if conscience or aught else suggests a higher law, and conscience cannot yield, let him retire and give place to those who are willing to execute the laws.
State v. Chaney, 825 A.2d 452, 460 (Md. 2003)
When a Supreme Court justice is voted in for her wise Latina opinions it was yet another sign that what we have is a legislature with lifetime tenure. As is the knowledge of where the court will fall on various opinions leaving a single “swing” vote.
The ruling fails to cite any violation of LAW, and instead again relies on interpretations of a campaign speech. THAT is why these 10 judges should be impeached. They are NOT withing thei legal duty to fabricate a law, because they feel if violates a non-existant statute.
Impeachment is only an indictment. The office holder, after an impeachment by the House of Representatives, has the right to a trial by the United States Senate to determine guilty or not guilty. I’m objecting to the careless use of the word “impeachment” as if it is equivalent to removing someone from office. It’s not that simple. The distinction is important because it would take 67 votes in the Senate to convict an office holder. I bet you a buck that such a super-majority is unobtainable. Politics, you know.
Oh, bullfeathers. Right-wingers began this wailing and moaning about the judiciary in 1954 when the Supreme Court had the timerity to rule that the 14th Amendment was actually part of the Constitution and meant what it said. It followed up with decisions that gave life and meaning to the 5th and 4th Amendments to the horror of the Right. Then it found the obvious, that the sum total of several parts of the Constitution added up to a right to privacy — to be free of government interference in the most intimate aspects of life — and the Right went bonkers. So stuff the baloney about courts overreaching and destroying the rule of law. Since 1954, our courts have corrected executive and legislative excesses and restored the rule of law — just as the Founders intended.
Right wingers have been wailing about the court being illegitimate ever since the court began making stuff up that wasn’t in the Constitution.
Yeah, right, like the 14th Amendment. We get it. We understand that the Right’s “constitution” is as it was in force before the Civil War.
Was thinking more about how FDR tried to pack the courts. Progressivism has always relied on subverting democracy. Woodrow Will openly referred to the Constitution as an obstacle.
This article needed an illustration with maybe 8 judges in blue robes, 2 or 3 in red ones, and 1 in black
The solution to the judges ruling that states and federal “law enforcement agencies” cannot enforce the travel ban, is to deem the threat a military one and deploy our armed forces to the ports to enforce the ban as a military “national border” function. As the Commander In Chief it is within the role and scope of the President to deploy the military to preserve national security. This removes the L.E.A. aspect of his E.O. and places it squarely in the realm of a military operation.
yeah, the trouble is, trump did say those things. reality. such a hard nut.
What President Trump said during the campaign is not relevant to determining whether the EO is constitutionally within the President’s authority. The Fourth Circuit blew it again, and put their incompetence on full display in their written decision.
This case is a little harder to resolve than most (given conflicting legislative pronouncements) but ultimately the correct result is absolutely clear: the POTUS has authority to make this executive order, whether it’s Trump or anyone else.
Yes. What the court did was strip the federal government of a power granted to the federal government under the Constitution, holding that Donald Trump can’t exercise a power given to him by Congress, acting under Congressional authority made explicit in the Constitution. Since the power in question wasn’t reserved for the states or the people, it means we have no government that can protect us by keeping enemy aliens from coming here to kill us.
That is an unacceptable situation, and the Declaration of Independence said the people can, in such situations, erect a new government that would better guard their security.
If SCOTUS gets it right, there may still be hope for us.
Do you realize most recent terror attacks were perpetrated by homegrown malcontents, not foreign visitors? The Muslim ban isn’t about anything practical– it’s pure discrimination.
Fallacious reasoning. What you are really saying is: Because something is not known by the general public to have happened before, therefore it can never happen in the future. Not exactly something that I would care to bet the lives of innocent Americans on.
No, I stated what I meant. Further “interpretation” is all yours.
So it turns out that you really have no idea what the words in your comment mean? Already figured out that you don’t know what you are talking about. But nice of you to admit it.
Nonsense. “Homegrown malcontents” being “recent” perpetrators of terrorist attacks – and I note that you chose not to say ‘since Sept 10, 2001’ and I can guess why- doesn’t preclude that foreigners aren’t thirsting to do the same if given the opportunity to get here. Discrimination is a necessary act for all human beings for survival. To discriminate – to ‘sift’, to ‘separate’ so as to form a judgment, as the root of the word means- between ideologies is a good and right and just thing to do. What you would have is suicide. Period
That is not a good argument for denying entry to those known to be from places with a religion and ideology dedicated to our harm; indeed – a religion that defines itself in hostility to our culture. But ignore that for a moment; our homegrown malcontents are second generation Muslims. Their parents or grandparents (in each case, if you examine it) were grateful to America for the privilege of becoming its citizens. Their children or grandchildren, not so much. There is a problem there.
What can you say!? Un-Fing believable!
What would you expect from an Affirmative action President, Affirmative Action Judges. They have no concept of the Constitution and in fact disdain for any rule of law.
This article is incomplete without an analysis of the decision that put George Bush in the Presidency, how partisan that decision was, and how the decision expressly said was not to be used as a precedent for any another case. In other words, it was heavily weighted by the identity of the person who stood to benefit from the ruling. Once Washington (both Republicans and Democrats) found out the American people would stand still even for the theft of the Presidency, all the rest followed in quick order … endless war with blank checks to military contractors, voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering, torture as a policy of state, the surveillance state, Citizens United, Wall St stealing the middle class blind … the circle is still widening, too.
It is pathetic enough that liberal progressives can’t get over losing the 2016 presidential election. But now we learn that you also haven’t gotten over the Bush-Gore election? Wow! Just so sad to watch grown-ups still crying after all these years.
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Brilliant article, even on the literary side. Borges was quite a clever critic.
The Left is at war with America. Impartial reasoning no longer exists where Leftists have power.
The court’s decision drips with prejudice, partisanship and political gamesmanship. It is the same as saying: “This law is unconstitutional — not because of the way it is written, but because of the way the bill was originally proposed.” We need no further proof today’s courts are nothing more than another legislative body. If their decisions are unconstitutional (because of judicial abuse of power), the executive should ignore them. Then it is up to the legislature to do the people’s will as to whether the executive should be impeached or not. If the court acted unconstitutionally — in the view of the people — there should be no impeachment for ignoring its decision. THAT is the ONLY check on the judicial branch. Jackson and Lincoln ignored the judiciary; so should Trump, in this case, should the Supreme Court rule against him.
“There is no power above them (the judiciary), to control any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature.”
I believe Congress created the judiciary and also has the power to impeach judges. We can control them, we the people must just demand stridently that Congress do it. And, seems to me, the executive could use some executive actions to alter funding for certain districts and their staffs? I am sure there would be an uproar, but hey, what would a judge do if he had no court room, (the doors are locked for house keeping), or he had no recorder, baliff, etc?
There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that gives the third,unelected,coequal branch of the federal government the last word on any and all issues.
The president should have announced that he was instructing all departments in the executive branch to enforce his second executive order,as written, when issued ,regardless.
Perhaps the victims should start suing the judiciary members for their unwillingness to follow the letter of the law. Judges are not law makers but you couldn’t tell in the past several years. Time to overhaul the judiciary. Term limits should be mandatory. No one should have a position for life.
Charge these judges with rebellion under the 14th amendment and game over!!
I learned in school the black robes were worn to mourn the death of a Queen–Anne I think, and the judges never changed back. It might a good idea to switch to red or blue depending on who nominated them so the attorney could see who was whom. But kudos to the author for the clearest statement yet—if anyone else had written the order, it would sail through.
And all President Trump has to do is to get Congress to pass the order as a law.
they will be on vacation..again
That’s the whole problem, congress already did.
8 USC 1182(f)
Crass partisanship. Another sign that American democracy is doomed to extinction. Not soon, perhaps, but soon enough.
We need some serious, serious judicial reform.
Hamilton actually underestimated the weakness & fecklessness of American citizens in 2017. We should be ignoring these out of touch judges. As Hamilton rightly observed, they don’t have the money or the arms to defend their actions.
If this rationale held any water, then Obamacare would have failed at the Supreme Court. Over and over the Dems and Obama insisted it was not a tax; if Chief Justice Roberts would have looked at the statements of the promulgators of the ACA, he would have had to find it unconstitutional.
hating trump is now a sport
Many of our law schools do not teach the American rule of law. They teach judicial amendment which is the abandonment of the rule of law and the most basic principles of our democratic republic. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the Senate will continue to shirk its duty and wou
The problem is that the cowards who infest the USSC will not stand up to this racist PIECE OF SHIT.
The Chief Justice either does not value the law but wallows in the pool of contemporary culture. Fads of culture fade. The Justice does not appear to be too bright or learned in the law either.
Whatever Donald Trump’s personal views about Islam and the way to deal with terrorism, these are restricted by the terms of his executive orders. His administration has no legal authority to go beyond those. The role of the courts would have been to intervene only if the administration overstepped the terms of the legal authority conferred by the EOs. It is the judges who have gone beyond the limits of their role by not examining the EOs on their merits but by speculating about whatever motives may underlie them which takes them into the realm of politics which should have no place in the courts. It is absurd and undemocratic to have a judiciary that arrogtes the power to reject the orders of a president simply because judges dislike him.
“Once again, people who consider Donald Trump too impulsive, emotional, and vindictive to be President are instead revealing those qualities in themselves…” – Roger Kimball
You mean like the Roger Kimball of just a few months ago? One would think you’d have a little more sympathy for them considering you were (and still are) one of them:
“But of course the true master of childish petulance on the GOP side is Donald Trump.” – Roger Kimball
“A parent may indulge a tantrum-prone toddler in certain circumstances, but be quick to upbraid him when the occasion demands it. Just so, Donald Trump has many fans. They thrill to his semi-articulate rudeness.” – Roger Kimball
“I suspect that the best historical parallel for the Trump phenomenon is encapsulated in the title of Charles Mackay’s classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” – Roger Kimball
“were Donald Trump elected, the deals would proceed as before, they would just be consummated with more bluster. Trump would change nothing about the essential metabolism of Washington. The same corrupt show would go on, but it would proceed with more gilt, rhinestones, and plunging necklines.” – Roger Kimball
“He calls it “the art of the deal.” It is really the art of exploiting the credulous, from the gullible bankers who fund his bankruptcy-prone casinos, to the students who have put down tens of thousands of dollars for the “massive scam” that was“Trump University,” to the poor tourists who are suckered out of a few dollars for the chintzy ersatz glamour of his bars and hotels. (Those ties! Those steaks! The “Billionaire Martini!”)” – Roger Kimball
“Like many bullies, Trump is fond of talking about “punching people in the face.” As a candidate he has advocated torturing captured terrorists and said he would instruct the U.S. military to kill their families. In Iowa a few weeks ago, Trump said to the crowd: “If you see somebody with a bag of tomatoes, just knock the crap out of them, would you?” “I promise you,” he continued, “ I will pay for the legal fees.”” – Roger Kimball
“As a businessman, he is thoroughly disreputable: a liar and a cheat. Then there is the matter of Trump University, a “massive scam,” as Ian Tuttle put it in a masterly piece, a scam that has earned Trump three class-action law suits, two in California, one in New York.” – Roger Kimball
“Here is a man who didn’t know what the nuclear triad was, who has lied repeatedly about the size and sources of his wealth, who first promised to release his “beautiful” tax returns and then reneged because he had been audited for 12 years running (why would an audit prevent the release of a tax return? It wouldn’t).” – Roger Kimball
“Take a look at the comments to any negative piece about Donald Trump. Hysteria and anger are the hallmarks of his fans.
The second thing to bear in mind is perhaps the most difficult to take on board intellectually. It is the utter irrelevance of substance to their enthusiasm and, consequently, their imperviousness to argument.” – Roger Kimball
“There were many palpable hits, especially on Trump’s dangerously incoherent views on national security.” – Roger Kimball
And my favorite:
“No thoughtful person, at the end of the day, can take him seriously.” – Roger Kimball
So what changed your mind about him, Roger? Has it been the gross incompetence and unending corruption, or is it the sub-childish behavior and serial psychotic episodes? And more to the point, what does it reveal about yourself?
The fearlessly naked partisanship shown by these judges is deeply troubling. There not ONE of the 10 liberals who recognized the evil, dangerous nature of this ruling. Unelected, arrogant judges have done more to reshape American life than any other branch since the 1950s. In state after state, judges seem to take pride in overruling people’e initiatives, letting dangerous criminals go free, and generally acting like dictators. It’s time their arrogance was called out and their power reigned in.
The end result of lawlessness is chaos in which the people usually rise up and attack the institutions that fomented the lawlessness. That includes Courts of Law and the Judges that ruled from the bench. It would be wise that Judge Gregory remembers that.
The primary lesson lost on today’s public school students is that the Federal government did not come into existence of its own accord. It was created by the states, for the benefit of the states, and granted LIMITED authority to regulate and resolve disputes between the states. The 2nd Amendment was put in place BY THE STATES to prohibit the federal government from stripping the citizens of their states from owning the means by which they could repel a federal government that became totalitarian. The entire BILL OF RIGHTS was put in place BY THE STATES as a restraint against the federal government. The purpose of which was to stop the federal government from appointing itself as all powerful and subsequently running roughshod over the citizens. That is a fundamental reason there was no federal income tax allowed. The federal government was restricted to funding itself through international trade tariffs and levies upon each state.
To attempt to point out partisan judges and then intentionally omit the fact that that first executive order was blocked by a Bush appointee causes the point to be lost entirely.
So very true. Excellent article.
Why is the Judicial branch rife with lousy judges? The same for the other two branches of government?
Could it have something to do with Article 6’s Christian test ban by which mandatory biblical qualifications for civil leaders were likewise eliminated? Once adopted, it became inevitable that America would be ruled by nothing but nincompoops, scoundrels, and outright criminals.
Take nincompoops for example: The qualifications in Exodus 18:21 begins with the fear of Yahweh. David and Solomon inform us that wisdom, knowledge, and understanding all begin with the fear of Yahweh. Thus, without the fear of Yahweh, you end up with, at best, nincompoops.
For more regarding Article 6’s Christian test ban, see online Chapter 9 “Article 6: The Supreme Law of the Land” of “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective” at http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/BlvcOnline/biblelaw-constitutionalism-pt9.html.
Then find out how much you REALLY know about the Constitution as compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey at http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/ConstitutionSurvey.html and receive a complimentary copy of a book that EXAMINES the Constitution by the Bible.
I think everybody can see the wrong here. Even those on the other side. The ACLU admitted that had it been written by anybody else it would be constitutional. Now how can that be unless you don’t respect President Trump or his authority, which is exactly what these judges are doing. Respect him or not he was elected by the American people, so the fact is they are thumbing their noses at all of us that voted for him. The swamp has grown over the last seven years and now includes our judiciary. The hate between the liberals and the conservatives has only gotten worse since Obama was President and his lack of enforcing laws equally has emboldened our courts to become activists and not the fair judges that we have depended upon in the past.
It’s bad faith and faulty logic arguments like this article that erodes the faith in our judiciary. What about the Republicans that make decisions along party lines? Furthermore, elections have consequences, so quit complaining and take your licks, snowflake.
I am wondering how the author KNOWS how the judges would rule if it was anyone but Trump. I agree with the author that a judiciary that seems partisan is going to lose legitimacy. But I question travel bans that target people who have not committed terrorist attacks on American soil, and then sells 100 BILLION dollars worth of arms to a nation whose nationals WERE party to terrorist attacks. Another part of the problem is a citizenry who refuses to see anything as non-partisan, so if a ruling is not in agreement with their views, ipso facto it is partisan (for the other guy).
Hand in there JUDGES. You counterbalance the Trump Insanity. Do everything possible to side rail him and his maniacal agenda.