Tag Archives: freedom

The Dangers of a Biden Judiciary

Posted on by
Reply

It’s well enough known that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden disdains the conservative nature—which is to say that of adhering to the actual text of our Constitution and any statute in a case—of the judiciary as populated by President Donald Trump (courtesy of Biden’s BFF, ex-President Barack Obama (D), who left so many judicial seats empty).

Now, it’s become especially crystalline. Here’s Cynthia Hogan, who was then-Vice President Biden’s counsel and earlier, then-Senate Judiciary Committee member Biden’s counsel:

Joe Biden thinks the law should be interested in protecting the little person. Not to determine an outcome, but to say people should not be at a disadvantage because they’re working class, they’re poor, they’re Black, they’re women, they’re immigrants.

Laudable as those goals are, they’re fundamentally political and not judicial goals. Demanding potential judges and Justices to push for those ends from the bench can only accomplish two things. One is to force those judges to violate their oaths of office to support and defend our Constitution rather than to alter it from the bench. Related to that is forcing those judges to agree similarly to alter the text of any statute before them, and thereby arrogate to their bench legislative authority that is the sole province of our Congress.

The protection of the little person, the person who is working class, poor, black, a woman, an immigrant is best done through strict adherence to our Constitution, which is changeable, legitimately, solely by We the People, us citizens. That protection is best implemented by us citizens through our choices for representation in our Congress and our White House—a representation that has the responsibility for legislating the means by which those goals will be implemented and that protects all Americans. Its also a representation that is directly answerable to us.

Those two tightly related things aggregate to the second, even more dangerous, thing: it makes our judiciary a political branch rather than the legal, judicial one that it is designed to be. That would reduce our nation from a nation of laws to a nation ruled by a few robed individuals who would make law according to their views. Law would no longer be a political matter determined by We the People through our elected political representatives.

Those few men, unelected and so unanswerable directly to us, will not protect all Americans, not even the little person. Instead, law—our very Constitution—will be whatever those few say it is. Beyond that, what those few will say will change over time and vary widely from man to man as each acts according to his own imperatives.

In very short order, those few will be protecting those imperatives, not Americans, not even the little American.

Mark Gitenstein, a former Judiciary Committee chief counsel under Biden:

We want to have as many vacancies as possible and get as many modern progressives in those slots as we can.

Indeed.

And Ted Kaufman, a Biden confidante:

We want to make sure that the courts, and not just the Supreme Court, really are a mirror of America[.]

Here is the danger emphasized, as these worthies don’t care that the courts are designed to be mirrors of our Constitution and of our statutes. It’s the elected political branches of our government who are the true and sole mirror of America.

Too Much Deference

Posted on by
Reply

On Wednesday last, the Supreme Court enjoined Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D) New York State administration from enforcing its gathering rule that had the effect of targeting, particularly, religious institutions and gatherings.

Much has been made of the ruling, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurring opinion, and Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissenting opinion.

Here’s the pertinent part of the ruling’s opening paragraph:

Respondent is enjoined from enforcing Executive Order 202.68’s 10- and 25-person occupancy limits on applicant pending disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought.

Thus, the Court granted, it turns out, only temporary injunctive relief pending rulings in the case itself as that case wends its way through the appellate process.

The temporary nature of the ruling, in turn, drove (I suspect) Gorsuch’s separate concurrence. Here’s the opening sentence of his opinion:

Government is not free to disregard the First Amendment in times of crisis.

He bookended that opening with this conclusion:

It is time—past time—to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques.

That’s a clear foot stomp to the lower courts, and especially to the Second Circuit in the present case, about the sanctity and the supremacy of our Constitution.

On the other hand, here’s the key part of Roberts’ dissent:

[I]t is a significant matter to override determinations made by public health officials concerning what is necessary for public safety in the midst of a deadly pandemic.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor went further:

Justices of this Court play a deadly game in second guessing the expert judgment of health officials about the environments in which a contagious virus, now infecting a million Americans each week, spreads most easily.

No, the deadly game is subordinating our courts to other parts of our government so easily and routinely. It’s a far more significant matter—a matter of national political health—to defer to public health officials on the basis of their public health official-ness at the expense of foundational (or any other) individual liberties that are the core and basis of our nation’s existence.

It’s a far more significant matter—a matter of national health writ large—for a coequal branch of our Federal government to blithely subordinate itself to another branch of our Federal government, and it’s even worse for that coequal branch meekly to subordinate itself to an inferior division of that other branch.

It is time—past time—to make plain that Article III courts, from the Supreme Court on down, can no longer consider themselves subordinate formations in our tripartite form of federal governance.

The Court’s ruling can be read here.

Just Like….

Posted on by
Reply

Be snitches, sez the Governor.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown during an interview on Friday supported the idea that citizens should alert authorities when neighbors fail to comply with coronavirus restrictions.
“Look, this is no different than what happens if there’s a party down the street and it’s keeping everyone awake,” the Democrat Brown said. “What do neighbors do? They call law enforcement because it’s too noisy. This is just like that. It’s like a violation of a noise ordinance.”

It’s not at all like neighbors calling the authorities over a too-loud party. That’s neighbors acting on their own initiative.

The other is a head of (State) government actively pushing neighbors to rat out their fellows.

Even the Progressive-Democrat governor Kate Brown knows that. She’s acting just like heads of the governments of other types of nations.

A Thought on Brann’s Decision

Posted on by
Reply

Recall that Federal District Judge Matthew Brann dismissed the Trump campaign lawsuit that sought to reject hundreds of thousands of votes in Progressive-Democratic-run Pennsylvania counties because, the suit alleged, changes to State voting rules violated our Constitution’s equal protection requirement.

Brann ruled in part that he

has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens.

What Brann chose not to consider is that he also has no authority to see the vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens (more accurately, hundreds of thousands; “millions” is his cynical exaggeration), be diluted to the point of meaninglessness by illegally cast or illegally counted ballots.

The Third Circuit has agreed to hear, promptly, the campaign’s appeal. Hopefully, the appellate court will consider both sides of the matter rather than just the convenient side.

Some Thoughts on Europe’s Defense

Posted on by
Reply

French President Emmanuel Macron has one and so does German Chancellor Angela Merkel (through her Defense Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer). And so do I.

Macron strongly favors a Europe that is strategically autonomous in its defense. After all, he notes (OANN‘s paraphrasing),

the United States would only respect a Europe that was more self-reliant in defence.

AKK, on the other hand, says that (again, OANN‘s paraphrasing)

Europe [will] remain dependent on Washington for its defence for a long time to come.

They’re both right, although Merkel/AKK is a bit pessimistic. It will take some time for the member nations of the European Union and for the EU as a whole to make the necessary adjustments for a Macron-esque defense autonomy, but it shouldn’t take as long as Merkel envisions. That simply requires more commitment to Europe’s own responsibilities than currently exists.

The US can, and should, do everything we can to support European defense (and that includes a newly freed from the EU Great Britain), but we should not—we cannot—take on Europe’s responsibility in their stead; they must act on their own responsibility. All we can do is stand with them.