Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Who Is Ketanji Brown Jackson?

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President Biden has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. Recently The Daily Wire posted an article about some of the items Judge Jackson has supported in the past.

The article reports Judge Jackson’s stand on various issues:

Abortion: Ketanji Brown Jackson represented NARAL Pro-Choice America, the League of Women Voters, and the Abortion Access Project of Massachusetts during her time in Boston’s Goodwin Procter law firm. In 2001, she helped write an amicus brief supporting a Massachusetts law that barred pro-life advocates from setting foot within six feet of any individual or vehicle that is within 18 feet of an abortion facility. Jackson’s record has earned her the fierce opposition of female leaders in the pro-life movement.

…Crime: Ketanji Brown Jackson served as vice chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission during the Obama administration. In April 2014, the commission propounded the “Drugs Minus Two” rule, which lowered the punishment for all drug-related crimes by two offense levels. The rule, which applied to an estimated 46,000 convicts, allowed judges to reduce convicts’ drug sentences by an average of two years and one month. “The result of the Sentencing Commission’s proposal will be to reward drug traffickers and distributors who possessed a firearm, committed a crime of violence, or had prior convictions,” wrote Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and then-Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) at the time.

Immigration: In September 2019, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a 120-page ruling (Make the Road New York v. McAleenan) that the Trump administration could not expand its use of “expedited removal”: that it could not fast-track the deportation of illegal aliens who had been in the country less than two years.

…Funding teen sex programs: When the Trump administration cut off $200 million in federal funding to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, which teaches children as young as 10 to use condoms and other contraceptives without emphasizing abstinence, Judge Jackson ruled that the funding must continue.

…Government bureaucracy and labor unions: In 2018, President Donald Trump issued three executive orders that would reduce the power of public sector unions and make it easier to fire employees for poor performance. They also ordered employees to spend at least 75% of their time on “agency business.” Trump limited the use of “official time,” which allows government bureaucrats to use government resources to conduct union business during working hours, at taxpayers’ expense.

He also said the government would not negotiate with labor unions on issues where it was not legally required to do so. In August 2018, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a 119-page decision eviscerating those orders, denying most of Trump’s actions (American Federation of Government Employees v. Trump). She admitted that, while Trump’s action did not “specifically and directly conflict with individual statutory prescriptions” (i.e., he did not violate the law), it so “diminishes the scope of bargaining” that, it seemed to Jackson, Trump’s orders are no longer “a good-faith effort.” The D.C. Court of Appeals once again overturned Jackson’s decision, ruling that Jackson lacked jurisdiction to rule on the case.

Please follow the link to the article to read all of the notes on Judge Jackson’s previous decisions. She is not someone who is going to put the U.S. Constitution above her own political agenda. I suspect she will be confirmed, but that is not good news for America.

The Deep State Crosses Party Lines

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In June I posted an article based on a post in The Conservative Treehouse about the appointment of Merrick Garland to the post of Attorney General.

The article in The Conservative Treehouse included the following:

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 53-44 to approve Jackson’s (Ketanji Brown Jackson) nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. All those in opposition were Republicans, with three voting with Democrats to approve the nomination.

Biden nominated Jackson, a Washington-based U.S. district judge, to the D.C. Circuit to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland on the bench. That appellate court has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court in the past, including for current Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. (read more)

On Friday, President Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Breyer.

On Friday, Just the News reported:

Jackson, 51, sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and if confirmed by the Senate would become the first black female justice appointed to the nine-member high court. During earlier parts of her career, Jackson served as a clerk for Justice Breyer as well as a public defender, which made her resume appealing to Biden, who has voiced a desire to put more public defenders on the federal bench.

According to CNN, Jackson, received and accepted the offer from President Biden on Thursday night.

A decision Friday by the president would mark exactly two years since then-presidential candidate Biden promised to appoint the first black female justice to the court.

Biden said he would share his choice by late February. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said there would absolutely be a public announcement before March 1.

On Friday, The Washington Examiner reported:

The connection between Jackson and Ryan (former House Speaker Paul Ryan) is complex, as Jackson’s husband has a twin brother who is married to Ryan’s sister-in-law.

Ryan has also supported Jackson through previous nomination processes. When former President Barack Obama nominated her to a spot on the U.S. District Court for the D.C. Circuit in 2012, Ryan testified on her behalf at the confirmation hearing and spoke highly of her qualifications, urging his fellow GOP colleagues to confirm her.

Jackson, 51, was known to be on a short list of contenders the White House considered for the role and exhibits a unique background, having been a federal trial court judge for eight years without experience as a prosecutor or major corporate lawyer. She also sat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals bench, where notably Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh served as judges before their promotions.

It will be interesting to see exactly what her impact on the Supreme Court will be if she is confirmed.

Retirements Have Consequences

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Elections have consequences, and retirements have consequences. It has been no secret that President Biden appoints people based on race, gender or sexual orientation. He has specified numerous times that his choice to fill the vacant Supreme Court position will be a woman of color. That limits the field considerably.

On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

President Joe Biden touted his appointment of Clinton confidant and Kamal Harris-bestie Minyon Moore to help him choose the first black female Supreme Court justice, but he never mentioned that she’s a Black Lives Matter board member, CRT promoter and supports the Defund the Police movement.

Moore’s deep blue political credentials go all the way back to Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.

But when the president announced that he would be setting up a board of advisors to help him with his SCOTUS pick and confirmation strategy he soft-peddled Moore’s history.

The article also notes:

He never mentioned her affiliation with BLM Global Network Foundation, which has consistently advocated for the dismantling and defunding of police departments across the country because they consider them racist institutions.

The foundation has found itself on the defensive after co-founder Patrisse Cullors resigned amid questions about the whereabouts of millions of dollars in donations.

The California Department of Justice demanded an accounting of the money. AmazonSmile, a charity network affiliated with the online commerce site, suspended donations to the organization.

BLM told Fox News that Moore ‘has been required to cease all involvement in matters pertaining to her work with Black Lives Matter while she is part of the White House confirmation team.’ 

The White House also failed to mention that Moore is tight with Columbia Law School professor and crucial Critical Race Theory advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw.

In a Facebook video Moore asks Crenshaw how to further spread the word on CRT to counter resistance, like Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive orders banning the teaching of the theory in public schools.

The Supreme Court was never apolitical. However, it would be nice if it at least gave the appearance of objectivity. Asking Minyon Moore to help with the choice of the new Supreme Court almost guarantees the the Supreme Court will be less objective–not more,

Gerrymandering In America

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Gerrymandering is an American tradition (I didn’t say it was a good tradition–I just said it was a tradition).

According to Wikipedia (which I don’t generally recommend as a source):

The term gerrymandering is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry,[a][6] Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander (/ˈdʒɛriˌmændər, ˈɡɛri-/). The word is also a verb for the process.

Our voting district in Massachusetts looked like a shadow drawing of a sea horse. It was drawn like that to minimize the Republican votes in the area of Massachusetts that bordered northeast Rhode Island. Districts are drawn by state legislators and are usually drawn to give the advantage to whichever party is in power. There are less noble reasons for drawing districts, but the fact remains that the state legislators have the responsibility to draw those districts. Recently a case involving districts drawn by the Alabama legislature was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Monday, The Epoch Times reported:

The Supreme Court on Monday halted an order requiring Alabama to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2022 elections.

A lower court had determined in late January that the new Alabama congressional electoral map disadvantages black voters and likely violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The lower court’s three-judge panel said the state should have two majority-black districts, instead of one. The congressional map, approved by Alabama’s Legislature last year, has one majority-black district.

Alabama’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives consists of six Republicans and one Democrat.

Alabama was given until Feb. 11 to create a new map, but it appealed the district court’s decision instead.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling (pdf) grants a stay of the lower court’s order to have the districts redrawn.

“The stay order is not a ruling on the merits, but instead simply stays the District Court’s injunction pending a ruling on the merits,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, wrote.

The legislature has the right to draw voting districts. The courts do not have the right to undo those districts and require new maps. The districts may not be drawn fairly in Alabama, but it is up to the voters in Alabama to vote for people in the legislature that will create districts that better reflect the population. There are other states where the courts are trying to control the redistricting process. This is an example of the courts attempting to usurp the job of the legislature. The courts do not have that right.

Wow! An Incredible Coincidence!

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There have been a lot of incredible coincidences regarding the Biden family and those chosen for positions in the government under the Biden administration. The latest involves choosing someone to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created when Justice Breyer retires.

On Saturday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about one possible choice to serve on the Supreme Court.

The article reports:

The Biden administration confirmed a U.S. South Carolina District Court judge backed by U.S. Rep. James Clyburn is among those considered to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. 

Michelle Childs, 55, was tapped for a promotion last month by President Joe Biden to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but the nomination has been postponed as she is now in consideration for the highest court in America after Biden vowed to nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court in February. 

It came as part of a deal Biden struck with Clyburn, who previously chaired the Congressional Black Caucus and offered his endorsement for Biden in 2020 with a caveat – that the then-candidate publicly pledge to place a black woman on the Supreme Court should he get the chance in his tenure. 

…Childs had earned criticism after her September 2020 decision to kill a measure in South Carolina’s new elections bill that would have tightened security on mail-in ballots, which was believed to tip the favor for Democrats. 

Before the 2020 election, the South Carolina legislature passed a bill allowing all voters to vote absentee regardless of their reason in a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but an amendment to remove a provision requiring a witness signature failed.

Childs upheld the law but struck down the signature requirement in a decisive victory for state and national Democrats who voted by mail at a higher rate than Republicans. 

It was swiftly overturned by the Supreme Court in early October.

Childs had also demonstrated a significant deference to Congress during her 2010 confirmation hearing the the South Carolina US District Court – indicating she may give federal lawmakers the benefit of the doubt on some occasions.

When asked by Senator Dianne Feinstein about her understanding of Congressional authority as given by the Constitution, the Childs had said: ‘With respect to any laws respecting your Congressional powers, I would presume that anything that you all are doing is constitutional and would approach it with that mindset, knowing that you would only enact laws that you have had due deliberance over and consider deliberation over.’ 

It sounds as if the judge has not read the Tenth Amendment. If you remember, the South Carolina primary was the turning point in winning the Democrat presidential nomination for Joe Biden. U.S. Rep. James Clyburn played a major role in that victory. Now it’s payback time.

 

Ending Racial Discrimination In College Admissions

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On Wednesday, The New York Sun posted an article about a case the Supreme Court has recently decided to hear. The case involves Harvard University and its discrimination against Asian students based on their race.

The article reports:

The future of how America’s oldest university chooses its students will be decided not in faculty lounges in Cambridge, but in judicial chambers in Washington, D.C. As the Sun has reported, the high court looks set to decide the future of college and university admissions after elevating cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

Mr. Bacow (Lawrence Bacow, President of Harvard University) struck a defiant note in response to the dramatic legal development, maintaining: “Our admissions process, in which race is considered as one factor among many, makes us stronger.” He promised to “defend with vigor” that approach against “narrowly drawn measures of academic distinction.”

Harvard’s admissions process is one of the nation’s most selective. Last spring, it extended offers to just more than 3 percent of applicants, making it a bellwether for how thick and thin envelopes (or their email equivalents) are sent out nationwide.

Mr. Bacow wrote that Harvard is “more than our numbers, more than our grades, more than our rankings or scores.” The question is whether just such a “holistic” approach runs afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws and the promises of the Constitution.

The article concludes:

To argue this, Students for Fair Admissions, the group mounting the legal challenges, points to Harvard admissions practices that penalized Asian-American students by giving them low marks on such metrics as “likability,” “courage,” and “self-confidence.”

While Mr. Bacow argues that Harvard’s admissions process reflects the reality that “race matters in the United States,” Students for Fair Admissions maintains: “The cornerstone of our nation’s civil rights laws is the principle that an individual’s race should not be used to help or harm them in their life’s endeavors.”

The University of North Carolina, which shares a Supreme Court docket with Harvard, fired back that the “true agenda” for Students for Fair Admissions is to “deny opportunity to qualified students.”

While both North Carolina and Harvard are undaunted, all eyes will now be on affirmative action’s suddenly very uncertain future.

As Martin Luther King, Jr., once stated, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” If you truly want the students you admit to your college to graduate, you should admit them according to their academic record and their achievements–not on the basis of their race. Diversity is a nice idea, but how many of the students that colleges accept in the name of diversity have the academic skills to graduate in four years?

Stopping The End Run Around The Second Amendment

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It is no secret that there are number of blue states that do not support the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many of those states have at various times passed laws to try to limit the Second Amendment rights of Americans or to find a way to take guns away from law-abiding Americans. In March 2021, I posted an article about one such incident. An article posted in May 2021 was about the Supreme Court decision regarding the incident.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported the following:

The Ninth Circuit federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the coronavirus lockdowns of gun stores in Ventura County, California, violated constitutional rights.

The case, McDougall v. County of Ventura, was appealed to the Ninth Circuit after the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected a claim that Ventura County’s coronavirus orders closing gun stores, ammo shops, and gun ranges violated Second Amendment rights.

The article concludes:

Vandyke and Kleinfeld also noted, “Not only did Appellees fail to provide any evidence or explanation suggesting that gun shops, ammunition shops, and firing ranges posed a greater risk of spreading COVID19 than other businesses and activities deemed ‘essential,’ but they also failed to provide any evidence that they considered less restrictive alternatives for the general public.”

Judge Ryan Nelson was the panel’s dissenting voice.

The case is McDougall v. County of Ventura, No. 20-56220 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

It should be noted that The Los Angeles Times reported the following in February 2020:

Trump has now named 10 judges to the 9th Circuit — more than one-third of its active judges — compared with seven appointed by President Obama over eight years.

“Trump has effectively flipped the circuit,” said 9th Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., an appointee of President George W. Bush.

…Trump’s rapid transformation of the circuit courts — three others went from a majority of active judges appointed by Democrats to Republican majorities — was accomplished with the support of Senate Republicans.

Nominations of appellate judges may no longer be blocked by filibuster, and Republican Senate leaders have declined under Trump to follow the practice of allowing an appointee’s home-state senators to veto the president’s choice.

“Trump has set all records for the number of appellate appointees,” said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.

The most important legacy of President Trump may be judges in the circuit courts who will protect the rights of Americans that are enshrined in our Constitution.

One Result Of The Supreme Court Ruling On Mandatory Vaccines

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Yesterday The Daily Wire reported that General Electric has suspended its vaccine mandate and testing requirements due to the Supreme Court decision on vaccine mandates. After the Court decision, President Biden requested that companies keep the vaccine mandates in effect anyway. I guess General Electric realized the potential lawsuits and loss of employees keeping the mandates would bring.

The article reports:

“The maker of jet engines, wind turbines and medical scanners confirmed the decision Friday via email,” Bloomberg News reported. “GE is the first major company to announce a halt after the court’s decision Thursday to block the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s push to boost Covid-19 vaccinations.”

The article concludes:

“I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common-sense life-saving requirements for employees at large businesses that were grounded squarely in both science and the law,” Biden said. “This emergency standard allowed employers to require vaccinations or to permit workers to refuse to be vaccinated, so long as they were tested once a week and wore a mask at work: a very modest burden.”

“As a result of the Court’s decision, it is now up to States and individual employers to determine whether to make their workplaces as safe as possible for employees, and whether their businesses will be safe for consumers during this pandemic by requiring employees to take the simple and effective step of getting vaccinated,” Biden continued. “The Court has ruled that my administration cannot use the authority granted to it by Congress to require this measure, but that does not stop me from using my voice as President to advocate for employers to do the right thing to protect Americans’ health and economy. I call on business leaders to immediately join those who have already stepped up – including one third of Fortune 100 companies – and institute vaccination requirements to protect their workers, customers, and communities.”

Adhering to President Biden’s suggestion will only create more chaos in the supply chain and more lawsuits in the workplace. I suspect a lot of companies realize that. It is a shame that the President either doesn’t realize that or doesn’t care.

Controlling The Vocabulary To Control The Narrative

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Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article that illustrates how words can be misused to create a false narrative.

The article reports:

NBC’s Chuck Todd pressed Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R) to accept vaccine mandates as “pro-life” actions, while simultaneously suggesting that access to abortion should be protected as an individual liberty.

Reeves made an appearance Sunday on “Meet the Press,” joining Todd for a discussion on the emergence of a new coronavirus variant and Mississippi’s vaccination rate as well as the 15-week abortion ban that will face the scrutiny of the Supreme Court in the coming weeks.

Governor Reeves pointed out that there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that prevents states from limited abortion.

The article also includes some of the Governor’s comments on vaccine mandates:

Todd then attempted to use Reeves’ own comments about his opposition to vaccine mandates to argue that a vaccine mandate was actually a “pro-life” position.

“This is a power grab by the federal government. We’ve seen this time and time again by the Biden administration, and now we’re seeing their strong desire to trying to make decisions on behalf of individual Americans. We believe in freedom and individual liberty,” Reeves said of the vaccine mandates.

“‘Freedom and individual liberty,’” Todd repeated. “Why should the state of Mississippi tell a woman what they should do with their body? Why shouldn’t they have that individual freedom on their body, particularly in the first 20 weeks?”

“Well, this is a prime example, and the far left loves to scream, ‘My body, my choice.’ What I would submit to you, choice, is they absolutely ignore the fact that in getting an abortion there is an actual killing of an innocent unborn child that is in that womb,” Reeves replied. “Here is what we know about babies that are 15 weeks. We know that they have a heartbeat. We know that those babies at 15 weeks actually can open and close their hands. We know that they have developing lungs, and we know that those babies at 15 weeks can feel pain, and so when you talk – the difference between vaccine mandates and abortions is vaccines allow you to protect yourself. Abortions actually go in and kill other American babies. Let’s just put this in perspective –”

‘My body, my choice’ totally falls apart when you realize that an abortion involves another body with an entirely different DNA. We can expect more of this sort of twisting words in the near future when the Mississippi case comes before the Supreme Court.

Modified Good News

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On Wednesday I reported that the Supreme Court had struck down the CDC’s extension of the eviction moratorium (article here). However, the celebration may have been a bit premature.

Yesterday NewsMax reported the following:

The court’s action late Thursday ends protections for roughly 3.5 million people in the United States who said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to Census Bureau data from early August.

The court said in an unsigned opinion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reimposed the moratorium Aug. 3, lacked the authority to do so under federal law without explicit congressional authorization. The justices rejected the administration’s arguments in support of the CDC’s authority.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the court wrote.

Just for the record, I don’t believe that Congress has the authority to specifically authorize a moratorium on evictions. An eviction is usually the result of someone either not paying their rent or destroying the rental property. Those events are usually detailed in a contract that the renter signs with the Landlord. That contract requires the payment of rent and puts certain requirements on the tenant for the upkeep of the property. For Congress to interfere in a private contract between the renter and the Land goes against the private property rights guaranteed by our Constitution. A Supreme Court that was actually upholding the U.S. Constitution would strike down any law from Congress that interfered with private property rights.

Good News From The Supreme Court

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported that the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the Biden administration is required to reinstate the “remain in Mexico” policy put in place by the Trump administration. The policy requires people seeking asylum in America to remain in Mexico while they await hearings in the United States. Theoretically this prevents the problem of asylum seekers simply not showing up for their hearings, disappearing into the country, and working illegally. This policy also provides a small degree of protection against the continued spread of the coronavirus.

What has been happening is that people coming across the border illegally have been flown to various parts of the country and released. Because there is very little, if any, corona virus testing of illegals, we were essentially seeding the coronavirus throughout the country. Requiring people to remain in Mexico will limit some of this.

There is, however, the matter of whether or not the Biden administration will abide by this decision. The Biden administration does have a history of ignoring the law when the law is in conflict with their desired policy. The moratorium on evictions was illegal–it was government interference in a contract–and the Biden administration still declared it law. There are a lot of reasons to impeach this President, but unfortunately impeachment (even if it were possible) would install a President even less able to do the job.

 

The Question Of The Day

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The American Thinker posted an article today asking a really good question about the 2020 election. The questions is very simple – “What if the 2020 Election Audits Show Trump Really Won?” There is no quick and obvious answer.

The article notes a few historical precedents and a few observations about our Constitution:

I. This we do know…

* With a strict constructionist view of the wording in the Constitution, the words are not there to “road map” how to fix possible presidential election fraud.

* The Constitution mentions nothing about the Electoral College re-convening. Historically, the Electoral College has never re-convened for a second time for a presidential certification.

…*  We do know that of the 4 key contested battleground “purple states” that were crucial, all had election irregularities election day, election night, and the following election morning.

…II.  So, what would happen if it became clear there was no election integrity in the four most important contested state cases?  What would happen?

*  Would the Supreme Court do absolutely nothing?  Would the Supreme Court say the Constitution is mute, and therefore they themselves have nothing they can do?  Would they say no federal law exists to right the wrong?  Would the Supreme Court remain impotent?

*  Would the Supreme Court place President Trump back in office and back into the White House?

*  Would Biden remain the president, nothing changes, and Biden serves out the remaining four years?  With Trump supporters seething but doing nothing?

*  Would Biden and his Attorney General Merrick Garland, after the Arizona audit proves fraud, stop “by any means necessary” any audits being conducted in any other states?  A complete stoppage of all future state audits.

*  Would Garland/Biden cite federal supremacy, federal civil rights laws, or federalize the state National Guards to make sure any remaining audits are stopped?

*  Is it possible that Biden and Kamala Harris would both be impeached out of office and Nancy Pelosi become President of the United States?   President Nancy Pelosi!  Pelosi is the Speaker of the House and is therefore third in line to the presidency.  The Constitution and federal law are clear on who is third in line: Speaker of the House.  President Pelosi!

*  Would President Trump admit that there is really nothing MAGA Nation can do, short of violence, and therefore simply just concentrate his efforts on the Republicans taking back the House and the Senate with Trump as their leader in 2022?  This is constitutional and legal but only works if there is not election theft again in 2022. 

III.  Four separate entities and groups are crucial to what might happen next if there is obvious election fraud and a stolen presidential election and the Constitution, federal courts, and federal law are mute on what happens next.

  *  The Supreme Court.  Even though it is obvious that the Supreme Court does not want to deal with the 2020 election, the Court might actually make tough decisions concerning the outcome.  Probably the big fear of the Court is that if they rule constitutionally against Biden, the progressives within the Deep State would just ignore the Court.  And the Court would be spectacularly neutered for all to see. A big fear.

  *  The military. What would the military do?  Especially what if the top brass goes one way, but the rank-in-file soldiers go the other way?  The generals appear to have already sold their soul to Biden.  So, it would surprise no one if the military generals stayed with Biden/Harris.  But what if the real soldiers themselves go the other way?

* The progressives. Considering what the progressives did, and allowed, and cheered for in the violent deadly riots last summer; we have a pretty good idea of how they would react. We saw the violence the progressives are willing to bring. We know how far the progressives would go if Biden were being removed by the Court.

* Trump supporters. Would they gear up for the 2022 off-year elections so that the Republicans under Trump’s leadership take both the House and Senate with filibuster-proof majorities? Would they wait passionately until the 2024 presidential election and support Trump? Or would they become more like the progressives and take matters into their own hands? Would they say enough is enough, and it “gets real,” really fast? Especially if the Supreme Court rules constitutionally for Trump, but the progressives say NO.

Conclusion. We just don’t know. We do not know what comes next. This is the situation America finds itself in when roughly half of the American people believe at the very least the election results to be very, very questionable; and then roughly half of the American people would not allow Biden/Harris to be removed from office no matter what the forensic audits might clearly show. The Constitution is mute. Federal law is silent. State laws are inconsistent. Emotions are very high. Compromise is unlikely at this point.

Frankly, I think the most rational solution is to make sure the mid-term election is an honest election, to make sure any election fraud in 2020 is widely reported, and to let the people vote the crooks who were involved out of office. Then a secure 2024 election would be able to undo some of the damage the Biden administration has done to America. However, I am extremely concerned that the American voters will never be made aware of the fraud that occurred.

 

Doing Something To Keep America America

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Yesterday The New York Sun posted an editorial about the efforts of law professor Philip Hamburger of Columbia University to rein in the runaway administrative state. Professor Hamburger has formed the group the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a non-profit, non-partisan organization that states its cause as fighting to “protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State.”The article notes that the NCLA has filed amicus briefs in six cases before the Supreme Court this term and helped win all six of them.

The editorial lists the cases:

In Americans For Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, NCLA says, the Alliance filed three separate amicus briefs at various stages against a California law that would have forced not-for-profits to disclose their key donors. The Supreme Court stopped California colder than a mackerel, vindicating not only NCLA’s points but also the NAACP, which six decades ago won at the Supreme Court an early donor protection case against Alabama.

In U.S. v. Arthrex, NCLA helped win a decision suggesting that something like 200 Administrative Patent Judges were improperly appointed and subjecting them to more supervision by the executive branch. In Carr v. Saul, NCLA helped six persons win the right to have their appeals for disabilities benefits heard by a properly benched federal judge rather than an administrative law judge.

In Collins v. Yellen, NCLA helped restore the President’s power to fire — meaning make accountable — the head of the Federal Housing Financial Agency. In AMG Capital Management v. FTC it helped hold the Federal Trade Commission to due process. In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Justice Alito cited Mr. Hamburger’s work eight times in his concurrence in protecting the religious free exercise rights of a Catholic foster care agency.

The editorial concludes:

“Most Americans do not realize,” the New Civil Liberties Alliance notes on its Web site, “that Congress today enacts fewer than one hundred statutes per year, handing over the task of legislating to federal administrative agencies.” It reckons that the Administrative State “now creates, enforces and adjudicates hundreds of thousands of regulations governing daily activities in our lives.” It’s nice to see that the long march back to the Constitution has begun.

It’s nice to know that someone in the legal profession is fighting hard for America.

 

Making Up The Rules As You Go Along

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On June 7th, CBN News reported the following:

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that thousands of immigrants living in the U.S. due to humanitarian reasons are ineligible to apply to become permanent residents if they entered the country illegally. 

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently.  

The designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster. It protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally. There are 400,000 people from 12 countries with TPS status.

Meanwhile, The Washington Times reported the following yesterday:

The Department of Homeland Security will speed up work permits for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who claim they are victims of crime, the department announced Monday, saying the current wait, which can last up to five years, is too long to make people remain in economic limbo.

More than 160,000 people were waiting for the victim visa, officially known as the U visa, as of December.

Under the new rules, U visa applicants can be awarded work permits and deferred action, which is an official amnesty for deportation, once they have filed their petition, had their fingerprints taken and are deemed to have made a good-faith claim. The process is known as a Bona Fide Determination. Until now, they had to wait until their cases were further along in the process.

And we wonder why our borders are being flooded? All you have to do as an illegal immigrant is say that you are a victim of a crime and you will get a visa that allows you to work and live here indefinitely. I suspect that when their cases come up, many illegals will simply vanish into the general population, work legally or illegally, and go on with their lives. Meanwhile, American taxpayer will be paying to educate their children and provide for their medical needs. A nation cannot survive this sort of invasion. It will collapse the safety net. Please research Cloward-Piven if you have not already done so.

Looking Behind The Curtain

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When Merrick Garland was appointed Attorney General, it seemed a bit odd. It was an obvious slap in the face to the Republicans who had not brought his nomination to the Supreme Court to the floor of the Senate, but evidently there is more to the story. As you read this, remember that a lot of what have been called conspiracy theories have turned out to be true.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the reason behind the appointment of Judge Garland. The article provides some insight into what is happening behind the scenes in the Biden administration.

The article quotes a Reuters report:

Democrats overcame Republican opposition on Monday as the U.S. Senate voted to confirm federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, seen as a possible future Supreme Court nominee for President Joe Biden, to an influential appellate court.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 53-44 to approve Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. All those in opposition were Republicans, with three voting with Democrats to approve the nomination.

Biden nominated Jackson, a Washington-based U.S. district judge, to the D.C. Circuit to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland on the bench. That appellate court has served as a springboard to the Supreme Court in the past, including for current Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. (read more)

What we have here is the deep state in action.

The article at the Conservative Treehouse explains:

The vote was 53-47 [link here] Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Lindsey Graham voted with Democrats to support KBJ to the circuit court. This Deep State manuever was transparently predictable. {Go Deep}  This was the real reason why Biden elevated Merrick Garland to AG, to get him out of the way for Ketanji Brown Jackson to work her way to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Obama would then have another tool for total control.

Remember the names of the Republicans who voted for this. They need to lose in primary elections as soon as possible.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse concludes:

We all know that Biden is an avatar for Obama’s third-term. Hence the plan by Team Obama (BLM) and James Clyburn (AME) to use a cognitively impaired tool to secure the 2020 club nomination. They then inserted Kamala Harris as the useful radical to manipulate for actual policy objectives.

Once you see the strings on the marionettes you can never return to that time before when you did not see them. It’s all a conspiracy theory until it’s proven accurate, then it’s racist…

The Democrats don’t have to pack the Supreme Court–all they need to do is replace a few traditional liberals with some radicals.

 

 

Can You Be Punished In School For What You Said Outside Of School?

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Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line Blog posted an article about a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court today. The case is particularly interesting to me because it illustrates how social media has impacted the lives of our children. Essentially a student threw a temper tantrum on social media after she failed to make the varsity cheer-leading team. Back in the days of dinosaurs when I was in school, she would have done this in the privacy of her own home, calmed down, and that would have been the end of it. Unfortunately when you post something on social media, people see it and sometimes react. That’s what happened.

The article reports:

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. Brandi Levy (B.L.) is a high school student who, after failing to make the varsity cheerleading team, went on social media to post a picture of herself raising her middle finger under the caption “F*** school f*** softball f*** cheer f*** everything.”

The school suspended B.L. from junior varsity cheerleading. It found that she had damaged its image and had violated its policies, to which she had assented, requiring respect for coaches and prohibiting “foul language and inappropriate gestures.”

The suspension produced the lawsuit now before the Supreme Court. B.L. prevailed in district court and at the appellate level. The district court concluded that her mini-rant did not disrupt the school’s operation and therefore was protected under the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. In Tinker, the Supreme Court upheld a student’s right to wear an armband at school in protest of the Vietnam war because the protest was non-disruptive.

The Third Circuit affirmed. It held, however, that the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker does not apply to off-campus activity. Even disruptive speech by students is protected if it takes place outside of school, the panel majority said. A third judge on the panel, in a concurring opinion, applied Tinker to off-campus speech, and agreed with the district court that B.L’s speech was not disruptive.

I am not condoning her behavior or saying that she was smart to put the rant on social media, but I do agree that she does have the right to free speech.

The article concludes:

As to what should replace the “disruption” standard, Will points to a brief filed by three law professors, one of whom is Eugene Volokh. Their brief argues that while schools may control virtual as well as physical classrooms, they may not control online or other speech outside the “school context.”

Under this approach, schools could punish online, school-related cruelties, but only when they are about “the characteristics of individual people, not about broader policy matters.” Thus, schools would not be powerless to punish online bullying. However, as Will describes the brief, the professors argue that only truly threatening speech can be punished, not speech that threatens only the serenity or the sense of “safety” of the hypersensitive.

The approach of the three law professors, as described by Will, seems preferable to a “disruption” standard, at least in cases of off campus speech. The distinction they draw between speech about individual characteristics and speech about broader policy matters seems both easier for courts to adjudge and more attentive to free speech concerns. Off campus speech about policy matters may be disruptive, but unless it poses a true threat to safety, it should be permitted.

Or so it seems to me.

Never put anything in writing (or on social media) that you wouldn’t want your mother to see on the front page of The New York Times. Following that advice would solve a lot of problems.

Something To Watch Closely

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Yesterday Politico posted an article about President Biden’s executive order forming a commission to look into reforming the federal court system.

Please read the following excerpt from the article carefully and note the wording:

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday empaneling a commission to examine possible reforms to the Supreme Court and federal judiciary, making good on a campaign trail promise sparked by his predecessor’s tilting of the federal bench.

Biden first floated the idea of such a commission last fall on the campaign trail following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — whose seat on the high court was quickly filled by Amy Coney Barrett, installing a 6-3 majority of justices nominated by Republican presidents.

Note the expression ’tilting of the federal branch.’ That statement is an example of media bias. Note that President Obama was never accused of tilting the federal bench despite the fact that his appointed justices were well outside the mainstream of the views of most Americans.

The article concludes:

The commission is likely to raise hackles among conservatives as a veiled attempt to reshape the court after Trump and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell prioritized installing federal judges over the past four years.

Its formation comes as Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court’s eldest justice, faces pressure from liberal legal activists to step down during Biden’s term so that his successor would be appointed and confirmed while Democrats hold the White House and Senate.

Earlier this week, Breyer issued a warning to advocates of overhauling the Supreme Court that doing so risks eroding the trust in the institution and that they should think “long and hard” about the ramifications in a speech given virtually to Harvard Law School students.

The White House said the commission will complete its work within 180 days of its first public meeting, which it is required to do under federal law.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Most Americans do not want to see more justices added to the Supreme Court–particularly to make it politically biased. Franklin Roosevelt attempted to do this during his term as President and was rebuffed by his own party. However, the current Democrat party does not necessarily have the scruples that the Democrat party of Roosevelt had.

Becoming A Police State

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On Tuesday Forbes posted an article about an upcoming case in the Supreme Court.

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral argument in Caniglia v. Strom, a case that could have sweeping consequences for policing, due process, and mental health, with the Biden Administration and attorneys general from nine states urging the High Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation. But what would ultimately become a major Fourth Amendment case began with an elderly couple’s spat over a coffee mug. 

In August 2015, 68-year-old Edward Caniglia joked to Kim, his wife of 22 years, that he didn’t use a certain coffee mug after his brother-in-law had used it because he “might catch a case of dishonesty.” That quip quickly spiraled into an hour-long argument. Growing exhausted from the bickering, Edward stormed into his bedroom, grabbed an unloaded handgun, and put it on the kitchen table in front of his wife. With a flair for the dramatic, he then asked: “Why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery?”

The argument escalated and eventually Kim decided to spend the night in a motel. When she called home the next day, there was no answer. She called the local police and asked them to do a ‘wellness check’ on her husband. The police did the check and reported that all was well.

The article continues:

Still, police were convinced that Edward could hurt himself and insisted he head to a local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. After refusing and insisting that his mental health wasn’t their business, Edward agreed only after police (falsely) promised they wouldn’t seize his guns while he was gone.

Compounding the dishonesty, police then told Kim that Edward had consented to the confiscation. Believing the seizures were approved by her husband, Kim led the officers to the two handguns the couple owned, which were promptly seized. Even though Edward was immediately discharged from the hospital, police only returned the firearms after he filed a civil rights lawsuit against them.

Critically, when police seized the guns, they didn’t claim it was an emergency or to prevent imminent danger. Instead, the officers argued their actions were a form of “community caretaking,” a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It includes the arguments against warrantless gun confiscation and arguments for. The Biden administration

The article notes the two arguments:

In jurisdictions that have extended the community caretaking exception to homes, “everything from loud music to leaky pipes have been used to justify warrantless invasion of the home,” a joint amicus brief by the ACLU, the Cato Institute, and the American Conservative Union revealed.

…But in its first amicus brief before the High Court, the Biden Administration glossed over these concerns and called on the justices to uphold the First Circuit’s ruling. Noting that “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’” the Justice Department argued that warrants should not be “presumptively required when a government official’s action is objectively grounded in a non-investigatory public interest, such as health or safety.”

We are in danger of becoming a police state.

What Has Happened To Our Supreme Court?

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As I am sure you remember, the Democrats have threatened to pack the Supreme Court if it rules against their agenda items (many of which are unconstitutional). That may explain why Chief Justice Roberts has made some very questionable rulings lately.

On March 8, The Federalist posted an article about a recent dissent by Chief Justice Roberts.

The article reports:

Chief Justice John Roberts was the only dissenter in the U.S Supreme Court’s most recent ruling favoring a couple of Christian students who challenged their university for restricting when, where, and how they could speak about their faith and disseminate materials on campus.

The article includes the following Tweet:

When have eight of the Supreme Court Justices agreed on anything?

The article at The Federalist summarizes the case:

Uzuegbunam et al. v. Preczewski et al. first materialized after Chike Uzuegbunam, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College, was stopped by campus police for handing out religious materials on campus, a reported violation of the school’s “Freedom of Expression Policy,” which limited distributions and other expressions to free speech zones only with permission from the administration. Even after Uzuegbunam moved to the designated areas with permission, however, campus police attempted to stop him from speaking and handing out religious literature, prompting him and another student, Joseph Bradford, to take legal action against the university for violating their First and 14th Amendment rights and seek nominal damages.

The students’ attempts to sue the school, however, were shot down by both a district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit after Georgia Gwinnett College changed its “Freedom of Expression” policy to remove barriers on when and where students could speak on campus and filed a motion to dismiss the case as moot. The Supreme Court took up the case after Uzuegbunam and Bradford noted that their rights were still violated no matter what the university modified its policy to reflect and still required a ruling on nominal damages.

Justice Clarence Thomas authored the opinion of the court, agreeing with the students’ case.

The student’s First Amendment rights were violated. What other recourse did he have but to sue the school?

The Biden Administration And The Supreme Court

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Part of President Trump’s effort to fight illegal immigration was to withhold funds from “Sanctuary Cities.” Needless to say, some of those Sanctuary Cites sued to government. On March 5th, The Epoch Times posted an article detailing what has happened to those lawsuits in the Biden administration.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court has dismissed three pending requests to hear challenges to the Trump administration’s order to withhold millions of dollars in law enforcement funds from so-called sanctuary jurisdictions—states and cities that refuse to cooperate with Department of Homeland Security efforts to deport people residing in the United States illegally.

“After a request from the Biden administration yesterday, the Supreme Court just dismissed three pending cert petitions (requests to hear a case) about the Trump administration’s effort to withhold money from so-called sanctuary cities,” the SCOTUSblog Twitter account noted.

…After taking office, Biden rescinded Trump’s 2017 executive order, in another course reversal by the new administration on various Trump policies that had been challenged in court and were heading to the Supreme Court for consideration.

Given Biden’s decision to revoke Trump’s sanctuary city order, which effectively moots the associated policies, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed letters with the Supreme Court in all three related cases, seeking their dismissal and noting an agreement had been made with the parties that were challenging Trump’s action.

The article concludes:

Last month, the Supreme Court canceled oral arguments in two other cases after Biden changed course from Trump. Both were appeals by the Trump administration—one defending funding of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and the other defending the “remain in Mexico” asylum policy.

The administration also has asked the court to cancel an upcoming argument on a policy introduced under Trump backing work requirements for people who receive healthcare under the Medicaid program for the poor.

The administration last month told the justices the Obamacare healthcare law should be upheld, reversing the position taken under Trump.

Why is the Biden administration telling the Supreme Court what to do?

Unfortunately Sometimes Bullying Is Effective

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Yesterday the Supreme Court refused to hear the case dealing with the Pennsylvania election challenge. The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the decision and the possible reason for it. This is not good news for America.

The article reports:

In a 6-3 ruling today the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to grant writ to hear the Pennsylvania election challenge cases [pdf here – begin page 25].  While the majority of media will likely celebrate this decision; and while the court has refused to hear the case(s) based on their position the issues are “moot”; there appears to be an underlying motive  not being discussed.

It only takes four justices to agree to hear a case and grant a writ of certiorari.  In October 2020 the issues with the Pennsylvania court overruling the Pennsylvania legislature was of such importance four justices agreed to block the lower court order. However, four months later the majority claim the arguments within the case are “moot”;  & the election is over.

In essence the Roberts Court is saying they will allow any/all methods and manipulations of election law within states, and only look to the state outcome.  This is very troublesome.

The article continues:

Why would Justice Kavanaugh reverse his position?  In October the state action to supersede the Pennsylvania legislature was a hazard.  In February it is moot.

While it is never a good idea to look into the background of the court for motives, one cannot easily dismiss that Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett may have voted against the writ because they were concerned such a decision would cause the senate to start a process of “packing the court.”   Retaining the current number of justices within the court is more likely if the justices avoid triggering the consequences from the previous threat.

Justices’ Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch remained consistent with their earlier decisions to hear the cases and settle the disputes.  Barrett never weighed in on the October injunction, but Kavanaugh has completely reversed his position with his denial of the writ.

The article includes Justice Thomas’ statement:

Isn’t it interesting that when laws were broken and voting was questionable, no court in America has actually been willing to examine the evidence. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is only one of many bad decisions to come.

The Following Letter Was Written To President Trump By Howie Carr

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Posted at the Howie Carr Show website:

Thank you, Mr. President, for everything you’ve done.

It shouldn’t be ending this way, but I and 74 million other Americans just want to thank you for all your efforts on our behalf over the past four years, actually since you came down the escalator at Trump Tower back in the summer of 2015.

In no particular order:

Thank you for restoring the US as the world’s leading producer of energy – after your predecessor sternly lectured us that we “couldn’t drill our way” out of our dependence on unstable Middle Eastern oil providers.

Thank you for the tax cuts for the middle class.

Thank you for destroying genocidal ISIS, which your predecessor called “the junior varsity.”

Thanks for shutting off the endless flow of illegal aliens at the southern border, and the unending supply of MS-13 gangbangers, among other criminals, as well as the welfare-dependent illiterate indigents who were so destabilizing American society before you became president.

Thank you for calling out the endless hypocrisy of the media — what you so aptly described as “Very Fake News.”

Thank you for promoting economic policies that led to the lowest unemployment rates ever for blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native-Americans and women, among others.

Thank you for doing more to promote peace in the Middle East than all of your predecessors combined.

Thank you for calling out and exposing the feckless RINO’s of your own party like Willard Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte et al.

Thanks for finally standing up to Red China and its predatory trade practices.

Thanks for calling out Fox News Channel for its duplicitous descent into terminal wokeness.

Thank you for Operation Warp Speed, an amazing achievement for which you will never receive the appropriate credit.

Thanks for pardoning all the persecuted victims of the Russian collusion hoax, among them Gen. Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.

Thank you for eliminating Obamacare’s “individual mandate,” which fined individuals for not buying health insurance they didn’t want or couldn’t afford.

Thank you for taking more questions from (almost always hostile) reporters than all of the last three or four presidents combined.

Thanks for getting the US out of such foreign-policy disasters as the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris Climate Accords and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well as ending the fiasco for American workers that was NAFTA.

Thanks for such a booming economy that seven million people got off the food-stamp rolls.

Thanks for all those tweets that drove the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) crazy.

Also, a personal note on Twitter: thanks for the three tweets promoting my book, “What Really Happened: How Donald J. Trump Saved America from Hillary Clinton.”

As Donald Trump Jr. told me: “That’s two tweets more than he gave my book!”

Thank you for not turning the IRS into an instrument of persecution against your political foes, the way your predecessor did.

Thanks for not surveilling reporters a la the Obama administration.

Thanks for ending state oppression against people of faith like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Thank you for trying to defund “sanctuary cities” where illegal aliens run amok.

Thanks for the three new justices on the Supreme Court – think how much worse Hillary’s picks would have been, and maybe someday they’ll grow the spines they so obviously lacked last month in Texas v. Pennsylvania.

Thank you for defanging North Korea and Little Rocket Man.

Thanks for opening up more of our North Atlantic waters for New England commercial fishermen and lobstermen.

Thanks for defending both the First and Second Amendments, and for railing against Section 230, which the billionaire fascists of Silicon Valley are abusing to shut down free speech.

Thank you for appointing US attorneys who actually wanted to put real criminals in prison, without fear or favor.

Thanks for using the death penalty, when necessary, against the worst of the worst serial killers.

Thank you for the travel ban, which has largely halted the flow of terrorists like the Tsarnaevs, who had been welcomed into the US and put on welfare by previous administrations, Democrat and Republican alike.

Thanks for the balance in my 401(k).

Thanks for the lowest gasoline prices in decades.

Thanks for the largest number of Americans with gainful employment since the government started keeping records.

Thank you for ordering the elimination of two of the most bloodthirsty terrorists on earth, al-Baghdadi and Gen. Soleimani.

To borrow a line from “The Last Hurrah,” “How do you thank a guy for a million laughs?”

Thanks for all the great nicknames – Crooked Hillary, Li’l Marco, Low Energy Jeb etc.

Thanks for all the amazingly entertaining rallies, if not for bringing back the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” song.

Mr. President, I could go on and on and on, but all of us Deplorables and bitter clingers and credulous Boomer rubes just want you to know how much we appreciate the four years you gave us to prepare and fortify ourselves for the impending disaster ahead.

We’ll be back, Mr. President, and so will you.

Sincerely,

Howard L. Carr

Who Is Our Government Supposed To Represent?

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A lot of us have questions about who our government is actually representing, but what about the question of who they are supposed to represent? Theoretically, the census determines how many representatives each state has and also impacts the electors in the Electoral College. So who should be included in the census? Various courts have been dealing with that question for a while.

Just the News reported today that a recent Supreme Court ruling states that illegal aliens will not be counted in the 2020 census. That makes perfect sense to me–if they are here illegally, why should they be represented in Congress?

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated two lower court decisions that blocked the government from excluding illegal aliens during the process of allotting congressional seats.

The decision to remand the two cases to lower courts “with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction” follows a ruling by the high court earlier this month that allows the Trump administration to pursue plans to exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented from the high court’s ruling yesterday, just as they had in Trump v. New York earlier this month.

So what is the possible impact of this decision? California had been relying on its illegal alien population to counter the fact that many residents of that state are leaving the state to settle in other states. This is the result of continued poor fiscal policies in California and a refusal to deal with many quality of life problems. Homelessness in California is out of control while taxes on ordinary people are increasing and the cost of living in the state is increasing. Because of this ruling, California may lose a Congressional Representative and an elector in the Electoral College. Other states with large populations of illegal aliens may also lose representatives or electors.

Regardless of how you feel about illegal aliens, amnesty, a path to citizenship, etc., Congress is supposed to represent American citizens. They don’t, but they are supposed to.

Not Sure This Will Hold

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Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about the Supreme Court decision regarding counting non-citizens in the 2020 census. The decision is somewhat confusing, but here are the highlights.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government may remove illegal aliens from the 2020 Census count, which eliminates that population from the process of allocating congressional seats and Electoral College votes that officially determine the presidency.

The 6-3 decision in Trump v. New York issued Dec. 18 is a victory for the Trump administration.

So far, that is good news.

The article continues:

States and local governments, including so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials, sued to prevent the administration’s plan from moving forward. They argued that President Donald Trump, a Republican, was attempting to interfere with the count and prevent Democratic-leaning areas with large illegal-alien populations from gaining congressional seats.

But the high court found that their challenge was premature because they could not demonstrate any so-called concrete injury they might suffer. The ruling apparently leaves open the possibility of further challenges in the future and acknowledges the Trump administration may have difficulty implementing its policy.

“At present, this case is riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review,” the court stated in the unsigned opinion.

“The President, to be sure, has made clear his desire to exclude aliens without lawful status from the apportionment base. But the President qualified his directive by providing that” information should be gathered “to the extent practicable” and that aliens should be excluded “to the extent feasible,” quoting federal regulations.

“Any prediction how the Executive Branch might eventually implement this general statement of policy is “no more than conjecture” at this time,” the court stated citing Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983).

“To begin with, the policy may not prove feasible to implement in any manner whatsoever, let alone in a manner substantially likely to harm any of the plaintiffs here. Pre-apportionment litigation always ‘presents a moving target’ because” the administration “may make (and the President may direct) changes to the census up until the President transmits his statement to the House.”

The Supreme Court opinion allows the Trump administration to try to implement its counting policy for now even though processing of 2020 Census data is expected to wrap up in coming weeks. Existing law requires the president to file a mandatory reapportionment report with Congress next month, which could lead to reduced federal funding in states with large illegal-alien populations.

As expected, the ACLU is already planning to sue.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This case is a convoluted mess. What is at stake is whether states like California, with large numbers of illegal aliens, will receive representation in Congress and the Electoral College because of their illegal residents.

Some Suggested Solutions To Election Fraud

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On Monday Townhall posted an article containing suggestions on how to prevent election fraud. Admittedly, the horse has already left the stable, but we need to figure out what to do to avoid future election fiascos.

The article notes:

The truth is that country-wide popular elections are a modern advent. Our country started out with mostly legislative selection of electors. In our nation’s first presidential election, six of the 10 states appointed electors by direct legislative appointment, without holding popular elections. In the second presidential election, nine of the 15 states did the same. In the third, nine of the 16 states did not hold popular elections.

Today, Americans don’t trust their state legislatures with that responsibility. We practice popular vote elections for electors. But with 150 million or so people voting, problems are bound to occur.

States were entrusted with administration of federal elections, but Congress was entrusted with oversight of the same.

The article reminds us of the responsibilities of the state and federal government as outlined in the Constitution:

The Elections Clause of the Constitution provides Congress with broad authority to regulate congressional elections: “The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” Article II, Section 1, Clause 4, adds: “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

In 1879, the Supreme Court determined that Congress may make election law regulations and may alter them; and, that federal law supersede state law if there is a conflict, “for the power of Congress over the subject is paramount. It may be exercised as and when Congress sees fit to exercise it.” 

Exercising their powers, Congress has passed legislation to regulate the timing of federal elections, voter registration requirements, absentee voting requirements, accessibility provisions for the elderly and handicapped, and prohibitions against discriminatory voting practices.

But federal election laws, compared to Congressional legislation in other areas, are lacking.

The article proposes several solutions to the problem of voter fraud:

Congress must act. Half of the country believes the 2020 election was determined by impure votes. That’s a problem and one to which Congress holds the key to prevent from recurring. Congress must exercise its right, and its responsibility, to “pass laws for the free, pure and safe exercise” of the right to vote.

New laws must limit the time for casting a vote in the elections. New laws must regulate the types of equipment/voting machines that can be used and what kind of safeguards they must have to preserve the integrity of the votes. New laws must regulate “improper use of money” or dark money interjected to influence our elections — this is a power Congress “undoubtedly” possesses according to the Supreme Court. These are but some of the concerns that plagued the 2020 election. The list is extensive and Congress must address voter concerns accordingly.

As far as the four states at the heart of the 2020 election tumult, we can address our national grievances with them by demanding that Congress attach conditions to federal funds sent to, or even deny funding to, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia, until they implement acceptable changes to their election administration. Congressional spending power is a potent tool of persuasion.

Congress is responsible to every eligible American voter, certainly to the 150 million who voted in the 2020 election, to enact laws to preserve the purity of federal elections. This is their job. Their job is not to tweet about free college for all, it’s to protect federal elections. It is our job to make sure our elected representatives do their job.

Congress, do your job!