The Inferior Courts Have Crowned Obama President Forever. Will We Let Them?

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If nothing else, the Trump administration will at least countermand the policies of the Obama administration that were enacted without Congress, right?

Well, not if we, as a body politic, agree to the Democrat judicial game of “heads we win, tails you lose.”

How would you describe this political dynamic? Even in the best-case scenario, with Republicans winning control of all branches of government, they won’t pass a single good piece of legislation that will have a meaningful effect on a single important issue. They will not fight on the must-pass budget bills because that would risk a government shutdown, which “Democrats always win.” Thus, a Republican president, Donald Trump in this case, is left with the items he can accomplish executively. But then any lower court at any time can shut that down and even force the president to continue the lawless policies of his Democrat predecessor, even when the Supreme Court recently ruled differently. And that is the outcome when Republicans are in charge.

I call that political checkmate. Excuse of 60-vote threshold + RINO leaders in Congress + unlimited royal powers accorded to any one of the 673 district judges = the Left winning all the important policy outcomes in the long run.

As conservatives continue to celebrate the Mueller victory, which clears an obstacle in the path of President Trump, it’s important to begin questioning what is it we ultimately hope and expect to accomplish during the next two to six years. The dream scenario for 2020 would be Republicans retaking the House and President Trump winning re-election. But unless conservatives change tactics, nothing will be different from the first two years of the Trump administration. Republicans will still be nowhere near 60 votes in the Senate, and at least half the GOP senators don’t support meaningful conservative ideas, Trump’s campaign promises, or both.

So that leaves us with executive actions taken pursuant to Trump’s inherent constitutional authority or delegated authority under statute. Well, the courts have “struck down” 63 administrative policies for anything meaningful Trump has tried to do … except for banning bump stocks, of course.

OK, so Trump can’t use his lawful authority to plow new ground, but he can at least countermand executive policies of his predecessors?

No, not if we continue to agree there is legitimacy in lower court universal injunctions. The courts have been allowed to indefinitely nullify numerous actions where Trump was merely rescinding Obama’s power grabs, from immigration and environment to labor and education. Just last week, the D.C. district court blocked the administration from issuing oil and gas leases for drilling on 300,000 acres of land because in the view of an Obama judge, the administration didn’t take into account “climate change.” So now the courts are codifying Obama’s drilling moratorium into law.

What this also demonstrates is that, even when Republicans are in charge, it’s not just that we are failing to make progress on the issues. We are sliding backwards. If we continue to agree to even lower court judicial supremacism, the courts will codify the Green New Deal, Medicare for all, and open borders into law long before Democrats have the political clout to implement them legislatively. And that way, Democrats won’t even face electoral reprisal for them, like what we saw following passage of Obamacare or what would likely happen if they pass amnesty. We now have almost all of Obama’s energy, environmental, education, and immigration policies codified into our case law, which will only grow in the courts over time.

On immigration, we have more of an open border than even under Obama, thanks to the courts. Illegal aliens will soon have more rights than Americans, and we will be stripped of any and every tool to preserve our border unless we reject lower court supremacism.

Nor is “appointing better judges” going to help. So long as the Left can go to any district court and shut down national policy, no matter the issues of standing, no matter the precedent, no matter the consequences, we are done as a nation. The Roberts Supreme Court has already shown its reluctance to rein them in, and even when they do, the Left comes back with new injunctions with slight nuances, or, in the case of a judge ordering Trump to accept transgender people in the military, downright defying the Supreme Court.

This creates a legal, policy, and political velocity for the Left to win 50-year cultural, fiscal, and social battles overnight in the courts.

What’s more, the most important circuit – the federal circuit in D.C. – is in Democrat hands for the next generation. Democrats have an 11-3 majority at the district level and a 7-4 majority at the appellate level. Most of the younger judges on the active bench are Obama appointees. Almost every single regulatory case dealing with Trump’s discontinuation of past administrative power grabs is routed to this circuit.

Just take the Department of Education, for example. Not only have Republicans, with full control, increased the Department’s funding levels to record levels, the courts are continuing all of Obama’s power grabs. As Politico reported last week:

Judges have rebuffed DeVos’ attempts to change Obama policies dealing with everything from student loan forgiveness to mandatory arbitration agreements to racial disparities in special education programs.

As a result, the Education Department is being forced to carry out Obama-era policies that the Trump administration had been fighting to stop — stymying DeVos’ efforts to quickly impose a conservative imprint on federal education policy over the past two years.

What this essentially means is that anything a Democrat president ever does is immutable, and the few things a Republican tries to do are pretty much toast, including those acts that merely reverse the Democrat policies. Checkmate.

There is nowhere for conservatives to run or hide. There are no clever tricks left to avoid the fight we need to have over judicial supremacy. Even if we are reluctant to push back against Supreme Court supremacism, eliminating the supremacism of lower courts, which stand below the political branches, not at all on equal footing with them, would solve most of the problems. Unless we are willing to pick that fight, everything conservatives fear about Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be implemented without a fight. It’s just a question of when. (For more from the author of “The Inferior Courts Have Crowned Obama President Forever. Will We Let Them?” please click HERE)

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The Next Big Challenge to Roe v. Wade Is Brewing

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Now that Donald Trump’s nominees have shifted the makeup of the Supreme Court, we’re starting to see what the next legal challenges to Roe v. Wade might look like.

Last week, federal judges blocked two Kentucky pro-life bills: one banning abortion based on sex, race, or a disability diagnosis (otherwise known as eugenics) and the other a heartbeat law. Also last week, a federal judge blocked an Ohio law banning dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion procedures. Indiana’s eugenics abortion ban was blocked by a federal judge and is still waiting to hear back from the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, other states are passing and considering new pro-life legislation at an impressive pace. Mississippi recently enacted a heartbeat law, banning most abortions after the fetal heartbeat can be detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. Iowa put one in place last May. One is working its way through the Georgia legislature, along with others in Tennessee and Missouri. Utah’s governor recently signed a bill banning abortion based on a Down syndrome diagnosis, while a similar Arkansas measure is working its way up in Little Rock. A dilation and evacuation ban bill is being deliberated in North Dakota.

And, naturally, whenever a new pro-life bill becomes law, the abortion industry mounts a new legal offensive. When you’ve got multiple legal challenges in different circuits, you increase the chance that there’s going to be disagreement among the courts and therefore increase the likelihood that the issue will be taken up by the Supreme Court.

Between the number of heartbeat laws, anti-eugenics abortion bills, and D&E bans, the real question is which issue will get the chance to chip away at Roe v. Wade first.

With Justice Brett Kavanaugh now sitting in the seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the unborn Americans’ odds at the Supreme Court are better than they’ve been in decades, though some serious pro-life concerns about Chief Justice John Roberts are now cropping up.

At National Review, David French makes the argument that now is the time to bombard the judicial branch with legal challenges to Roe v. Wade like these: “it’s time to throw down the gauntlet, declare to the world (and to the Court) that the era of incrementalism is over, and show that the people are ready to embrace life.”

The number of new laws passing may well signal that bombardment is under way. (For more from the author of “The Next Big Challenge to Roe v. Wade Is Brewing” please click HERE)

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Constitution Forced Mueller’s Hand

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The Mueller Report is complete, and Donald Trump has been absolved of collusion with the Russians.

Mueller stopped short of saying that his investigation exonerated the president. However, if I were suspected of something, if my antagonists publicly predicted I would “die in jail,” and if I were investigated for 675 days, and they raided my personal lawyer and read everything on his hard disk, and leaned on my closest associates to incriminate me, and then had to admit the evidence didn’t support a legal accusation, much less a conviction, I would feel exonerated.

If I were one of the people who falsely accused a man on a daily basis, I would feel great shame and contrition now. But this is not in the Democrats’ repertoire. They merely shift their innuendo to Mueller, accusing him of a betrayal.

MSNBC Democrat Chris Matthews was scandalized that Mueller never interrogated the president. But nobody accused of a crime in America, since the ratification of the Bill of Rights, has been obligated to give testimony against himself. After some initial bluster, the president wisely decided not to match wits with head-hunting prosecutors.

Perhaps he respected his attorneys’ advice. Or maybe he saw for himself the landscape littered with the bleached skeletons of defendants who were a little too cavalier about about the Fifth Amendment. The fact that you are innocent doesn’t mean you have nothing to fear from testifying under oath, or interrogation by prosecutors.

His first National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, was convicted of lying to the FBI. The interview was so casual that Flynn had no legal counsel present, and the FBI agents didn’t give the usual warning about penalties for lying. He was not under oath. But from the moment he lied about an arcane United Nations matter, the prosecutors owned him.

The sentencing judge, who apparently wasn’t paying very close attention, berated him in court for representing a foreign country’s interests while serving in the White House. But Flynn’s contract with that country ended the previous year, before Trump appointed him National Security Adviser.

The judge stunned onlookers when he used the term “treason,” an embarrassing misstatement for a federal judge who ought to be familiar with the elements of the only crime that is defined in the U.S. Constitution. It can only be surmised that the judge believed Flynn guilty of much greater crimes than the prosecutors accused him of. This is the risk you run when you agree to casual interviews with the FBI.

The granddaddy of all perjury traps may have been in the Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial. Libby was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. He was accused of exposing a clandestine CIA agent’s cover.

A journalist testified that Libby had told her a State Department civilian overseas was in fact a CIA agent. She later wrote in her memoir that it was a misunderstanding, and that she may have helped convict an innocent man. A senior State Department official later admitted it was he who blew the CIA agent’s cover.

But Libby was convicted of making false statements to investigators, perjury in the grand jury, and obstruction of justice in an attempt to impede the investigation. It ruined his life. All he needed to do was to refuse to talk to people who wanted him to rot in jail.

The downside of the Fifth Amendment is that criminals can use it to frustrate investigations and avoid conviction. Government officials in the IRS and EPA have used it to prevent legislative oversight. But it’s a price that the Founders were willing to pay. It’s a firewall against tyrannical prosecution and wanton harassment.

In this case, it has helped force investigators to stick to the subject. Despite winning several confessions to unrelated crimes such as lying on loan applications, the investigation has been forced back onto the central question: did the President, or did he not, collude with the Russians to interfere in our elections?

There would be no cleverly designed perjury traps for Trump, no rabbits pulled from a hat. The investigation was forced back on track. And it was a successful investigation. We have our answer.

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Israel, Palestinian Militants Trade Fire as ‘Truce’ Appears to Unravel

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The Israeli army on Tuesday bombed several targets in the Gaza Strip as Palestinian militants responded with a new barrage of late-night rocket fire, demonstrating that a truce with Hamas rulers showed signs of unraveling.

Tuesday night’s airstrikes came in response to a lone rocket attack. The military said it hit a Hamas military compound and a weapons manufacturing warehouse in southern Gaza. Militants responded by firing another rocket. Israel said both projectiles landed harmlessly in open areas.

The violence, less than two weeks before Israel holds national elections, is likely to become a major theme in the final stretch of a tight reelection campaign for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who indicated the election would not deter him from acting.

Netanyahu cut short a visit to the U.S. and rushed back to Israel on Tuesday to deal with the crisis. After meeting with Netanyahu, Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, ordered an additional troop buildup along the border.

Netanyahu had been scheduled to give a speech in Washington to the AIPAC pro-Israel lobbying group. Instead, he addressed the group by satellite, telling them that over the past 24 hours Israel had pounded militant sites in Gaza on a scale not seen since a 2014 war with Hamas. (Read more from “Israel, Palestinian Militants Trade Fire as ‘Truce’ Appears to Unravel” HERE)

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Alaska Man Can Use Hovercraft While Moose Hunting, Supreme Court Says

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Justice’s on the nation’s highest court reportedly sided unanimously with an Alaskan moose hunter on Tuesday, overturning the rulings of lower courts in his battle with the National Park Service (NPS). . .

The Supreme Court’s ruling stemmed from a 2007 incident when Sturgeon, of Anchorage, Alaska, made use of a hovercraft while hunting moose along the state’s Nation River, which runs in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, The Associated Press reported.

But Sturgeon was reportedly notified by multiple Park Service rangers at the time that using the hovercraft was unlawful. The agency had banned hovercraft in other states.

In siding with Sturgeon, the Supreme Court said the agency was wrong in prohibiting the use of an amphibious vehicle on a river through a national preserve.

In their decision, Justices cited the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that in 1980 set aside 162,500 square miles of land for preservation purposes, the outlet said. The law reportedly created 10 new national parks, preserves and monuments but said agency rules would not apply on state or private land within the conservation units that are not federally owned. (Read more from “Alaska Man Can Use Hovercraft While Moose Hunting, Supreme Court Says” HERE)

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Pregnant California School Teacher Repeatedly Stabbed, Carjacked

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Five suspected gang members have been accused of attempted murder and other charges after investigators said the group attacked, stabbed and carjacked a pregnant Catholic school teacher in Southern California last week.

Tanya Nguyen, 33, was parking her car in front of her house on March 20 when she was attacked by 20-year-old Christian Reyes, 19-year-old Andrew Bran and 18-year-old Jesus Morales, investigators alleged. In dashcam footage made public Monday, Nguyen could be heard screaming and pleading with her attackers, at one point telling them, “I’m pregnant!”

Despite her pleas, Nguyen was stabbed nearly a dozen times — including in her face — suffering a punctured lung and losing her front teeth in the process, Fox 11 reported. The attackers then took off in Nguyen’s car, striking other vehicles as they tried to leave the scene.

Reyes, Bran, Morales and two other suspected accomplices — Christina Luna, 24, and Monica Gomez, 25 — were arraigned Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. All five were charged with one count each of attempted murder, carjacking, second-degree robbery and misdemeanor hit-and-run driving resulting in property damage. Reyes faced a separate count of aggravated mayhem and an allegation of personal use of a deadly and dangerous weapon.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Reyes’ bail had been recommended at $1.9 million, with $1.4 million for the other four defendants. All five face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

(Read more from “Pregnant California School Teacher Repeatedly Stabbed, Carjacked” HERE)

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Southern Poverty Law Center, Which Frequently Targets Conservatives, Reels From Harassment, Intolerance Claims

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Amid a departure of top executives at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a new report details allegations of sexual misconduct and racial discrimination against those very individuals at the progressive nonprofit which frequently has targeted conservative groups.

A report from the New York Times on Monday detailed several complaints by both current and former employees that indicated a “climate of intolerance” in the workplace — complaints including sexual harassment and a lack of diversity based on race and gender.

In recent years, the center has drawn criticism from Republicans and conservatives who have accused the SPLC of unfairly labeling people and groups with conservative viewpoints as bigots. Republican lawmakers have also questioned the working relationship between the SPLC and the FBI.

On Friday, SPLC President Richard Cohen announced he would be stepping down from the civil rights organization amid the harassment and diversity allegations.

“We’re going through a difficult period right now, and I know that we’ll emerge stronger at the end of the process that we’ve launched with Tina Tchen,” he said speaking of the Chicago-based attorney and onetime chief of staff for former first lady Michelle Obama who is conducting a review of the nonprofit. (Read more from “Southern Poverty Law Center, Which Frequently Targets Conservatives, Reels From Harassment, Intolerance Claims” HERE)

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SHOCK VIDEO: Abortion Advocate Beats 85-Year-Old Man After Stealing His Pro-Life Sign

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An elderly man at a peaceful pro-life prayer vigil outside a San Francisco-based Planned Parenthood abortion clinic was physically assaulted by an abortion advocate this month on two separate occasions, one of which was captured in disturbing video footage.

he man, aged 85, had his pro-life banner in support of the 40 Days for Life campaign stolen by an unidentified male abortion advocate. When the pro-lifer attempted to get his property back from the activist, he was severely beaten and threatened.

The video footage shows the thief, when first approached by the pro-lifer, throwing his bicycle at the 85-year-old, knocking him down to the ground. Then, while he’s on the pavement, the Planned Parenthood supporter continuously kicks him in the legs and back and shouts, “Old man, stay on the ground. Stay on the ground, old man, unless you wanna get hurt.”

Footage of two attacks — both this attack on the elderly man, and one attack on another pro-lifer that occurred just two days prior — was likely captured by surveillance cameras outside the Planned Parenthood facility. But the abortion giant reportedly will not cooperate in this regard with authorities, noted Life News.

According to the pro-life outlet, the same perpetrator “threw a sign, table and pro-life literature into the street” during a pro-life vigil with the San Francisco 40 Days for Life campaign two days before the attack. “He knocked two men to the ground during that incident as well, including the same elderly pro-lifer he attacked again on Thursday.”

(Read more from “SHOCK VIDEO: Abortion Advocate Beats 85-Year-Old Man After Stealing His Pro-Life Sign” HERE)

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NARRATIVE FAIL: One of Largest Glaciers on Earth That Shrank Is Growing Again

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In a blow delivered to global warming purveyors, a new study discovered that a massive Greenland glacier that had been shrinking rapidly is expanding again.

NBC News reports that a new study published in Nature Geoscience examined the Jakobshavn glacier, in central west Greenland, the ice sheet’s fastest glacier and largest by volume discharge, and found that as opposed to the situation in 2012, when the glacier was shrinking 1.8 miles every year while thinning roughly 130 feet, over the last two years the process has been reversed.

The abstract for the study notes that the glacier “has been the single largest source of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet over the last 20 years. During that time, it has been retreating, accelerating and thinning.” It links the growth and thickening of the glacier over the last two years to “to concurrent cooling of ocean waters in Disko Bay that spill over into Ilulissat Icefjord,” adding, “Ocean temperatures in the bay’s upper 250 m have cooled to levels not seen since the mid 1980s.”

The scientists note that their information was gleaned from two NASA data sets: the radar altimetry of the Oceans Melting Greenland mission and the laser altimetry of Operation Icebridge. The study states, “Between 2016 and 2017, we observe ice thickening of 20 to 30 m in the vicinity of the front … Repeat Glacier and Ice Surface Topography Interferometer (GLISTIN) measurements in 2018 show that the thickening continued at a similar rate near the front, but has now extended as far as 80km upstream and has spread laterally.”

The study acknowledges, “Over the past several years, ocean temperatures have cooled on the continental shelf in the vicinity of Jakobshavn Isbrae. We find that ocean temperatures in Disko Bay below about 150 m cooled by nearly 2 degrees centigrade between 2014 and 2016.” (Read more from “NARRATIVE FAIL: One of Largest Glaciers on Earth That Shrank Is Growing Again” HERE)

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Dem Has a Secret Weapon for Obtaining the Full Mueller Report

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By Townhall. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Sunday reiterated one important fact: Democrats in the House of Representatives are prepared to subpoena Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr in order to obtain a full copy of the Mueller report. Nadler and his colleagues from five other committees sent a letter on Friday saying they expected “full transparency.”

But Nadler took the sentiment a step further, saying he’s prepared to go to the Supreme Court of the United States, if he must, in order for the Muller report to be made public.

“We’ll try to negotiate. We’ll try everything else first, but if we have to, yes, we will certainly issue subpoenas to get that information,” Nadler told CNN’s Dana Bash.

“And you’re going to be willing to take that all the way to the Supreme Court if you have to?” Bash asked.

“Absolutely,” Nadler replied without hesitation. (Read more from “Dem Has a Secret Weapon for Obtaining the Full Mueller Report” HERE)

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Nadler Vows to Subpoena, Take Fight to Supreme Court to Get Full Mueller Report

By The Washington Examiner. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., vowed to take the fight over getting special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report released to the public all the way to the Supreme Court.

In an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Nadler said House Democrats are poised to issue subpoenas and would “absolutely” take the matter to the high court if necessary.

“We’ll try to negotiate. We’ll try everything else first, but if we have to, yes, we will certainly issue subpoenas to get that information,” Nadler said.

When asked how long he would give the Justice Department to turn over the full report, Nadler said “it won’t be months.”

Nadler said he is inclined to accept at face value Attorney General William Barr’s characterization of the report, which is expected to be given to Congress in the form of a summary as early as Sunday. However, Nadler said the summary isn’t nearly as important as getting the full report out because different people can interpret findings and data differently. (Read more from “Nadler Vows to Subpoena, Take Fight to Supreme Court to Get Full Mueller Report” HERE)

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