Legal issues

[Crafty_Dog]

Ah.

Fair enough 

[ccp]

As a coin collector when I was 8 I read this with interest.   I am ambivalent about the decision and note it reverses a jury decision.  Off the top of my head I am not aware of clearly stolen items being allowed to stay with the descendants of the thief.    On the other hand one could argue he did the world a favor by preserving 10 examples of what are now considered treasures and works of art:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/67853550/Rare-Double-Eagle-gold-coins-worth-104m-returned-to-family

[ccp]

Back in the late 70s I learned that hair could be used as corroborative evidence but not proof.  One could say a hair was consistent with a defendent's or suspect's hair but could not unequivocally say it was a unique match.   That was before DNA analysis.   Since one could get DNA from a hair follicle and maybe even the shaft one would think that hair analysis can make more "unique" matches.   So I don't understand what happened here.   But I am glad this article points out that flawed DNA testing doesn't necessarily mean the suspect is innocent.  One would think after hearing some speak in the media that every time there is no match of DMA therefore the suspect must have been innocent.   

That said if people are convicted and jailed for poor or wrong science that is shocking unto itself.   

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html

[Crafty_Dog]

Accidental Talmudist

A Jewish merchant in 19th century Ukraine had reached an understanding with a wealthy, non-Jewish landowner to buy a section of his forest for lumbering.

No contract was written, and when the price of lumber fell, the merchant wished to renegotiate the deal, claiming that he was not legally bound by the verbal agreement.

The landowner knew that according to civil law, the merchant was right, so he suggested instead that they take their dispute to the famous Rebbe of Tolna for a decision according to Jewish Law.

The Rebbe listened to both sides, then ruled that although there was no legal contract, the Talmud pronounces a severe curse upon one who breaks a verbal agreement, and that certainly the merchant would not wish to subject himself to this.

The Rebbe therefore found in favor of the landowner.

The landowner was pleased with the decision, but he had a question. ''In our courts there is a much longer process, and if a litigant is displeased with the court's decision, he can appeal to a higher court. And there are several levels of appeals beyond that. Suppose the merchant wished to appeal your decision. What recourse does he have?''

The Rebbe smiled and said, ''One time a wolf attacked a flock of sheep, and the animals dispersed. The wolf pursued one of them, but before he had a chance to seize it, a lion emerged and pounced on the sheep. The wolf protested that the prey was his, because he had caused the sheep to leave the flock, but the lion said that he had as much right to the sheep as the wolf, since neither had paid for it. They agreed to take their dispute before the fox, who was the wisest of all the animals.

"The fox ruled that the sheep should be divided equally between the two, and proceeded to cut the sheep in half. He noted, however, that one portion was larger than the other, so he nibbled away a bit. Then, seeing that the new portion was smaller, he nibbled away a bit of the other. This 'equalization' process continued until the fox had left nothing but the bones for the wolf and lion.

''In your courts,'' the Rebbe continued, ''there are indeed many appeals, with the result that the lawyers on each side nibble on the disputed assets. By the time a final decision is reached, all that is left for the litigants are the bones. We may not have an appeals process, but both litigants are likely to benefit from our judgment.''

Adapted from the wonderful book, Not Just Stories: The Chassidic Spirit Through Its Classic Stories by Rabbi Abraham Twerski M.D. (see http://amzn.to/1KQUKoj)

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostLive/videos/781606261959040/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://dailysignal.com/2016/02/03/judge-makes-government-pay-legal-fees-to-store-owner-whose-107700-was-seized-by-the-irs/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRovs6%2FBZKXonjHpfsX87%2B8sW6eygYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcZqPLnYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3NLtQN191pRhLiDA%3D%3D

[G M]

http://dailysignal.com/2016/02/03/judge-makes-government-pay-legal-fees-to-store-owner-whose-107700-was-seized-by-the-irs/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRovs6%2FBZKXonjHpfsX87%2B8sW6eygYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcZqPLnYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3NLtQN191pRhLiDA%3D%3D

Good.

[Crafty_Dog]

A Soldier’s Challenge to the President

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
MAY 10, 2016

Capt. Nathan Michael Smith, who is 28, is helping wage war on the Islamic State as an Army intelligence officer deployed in Kuwait. He is no conscientious objector. Yet he sued President Obama last week, making a persuasive case that the military campaign is illegal unless Congress explicitly authorizes it.

“When President Obama ordered airstrikes in Iraq in August 2014 and in Syria in September 2014, I was ready for action,” he wrote in a statement attached to the lawsuit. “In my opinion, the operation is justified both militarily and morally.” But as his suit makes clear, that does not make it legal.

Constitutional experts and some members of Congress have also challenged the Obama administration’s thin legal rationale for using military force in Iraq and Syria. The Federal District Court for the District of Columbia should allow the suit to move forward to force the White House and Congress to confront an important question both have irresponsibly skirted.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution requires that the president obtain “specific statutory authorization” soon after sending troops to war. Mr. Obama’s war against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, was billed as a short-term humanitarian intervention when it began in August 2014. The president and senior administration officials repeatedly asserted that the United States would not be dragged back into a Middle East quagmire. The mission, they vowed, would not involve “troops on the ground.” Yet the Pentagon now has more than 4,000 troops in Iraq and 300 in Syria. Last week’s combat death of a member of the Navy SEALs, Special Warfare Operator First Class Charles Keating IV, underscored that the conflict has escalated, drawing American troops to the front lines.

“We keep saying it’s supposed to be advising that we’re doing, and yet we’re losing one kid at a time,” Phyllis Holmes, Petty Officer Keating’s grandmother, told The Times.

Asked on Thursday about the lawsuit, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said it raised “legitimate questions for every American to be asking.” The administration has repeatedly urged Congress to pass a war authorization for the war against the Islamic State. It currently relies on the authorization for the use of military force passed in 2001 for the explicit purpose of targeting the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, which paved the way for the invasion of Afghanistan.

“One thing is abundantly clear: Our men and women in uniform and our coalition partners are on the front lines of our war against ISIL, while Congress has remained on the sidelines,” the White House spokesman Ned Price said in an email.

Yet, the White House has enabled Congress to shirk its responsibility by arguing that a new war authorization would be ideal but not necessary. Administration officials could have forced Congress to act by declaring that it could not rely indefinitely on the Afghanistan war authorization and giving lawmakers a deadline to pass a new law.

By failing to pass a new one, Congress and the administration are setting a dangerous precedent that the next president may be tempted to abuse. That is particularly worrisome given the bellicose temperament of Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee.

It is not too late to act before the presidential election in November. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and House Speaker Paul Ryan have shown little interest in passing an authorization. They should feel compelled to heed the call of a young deployed soldier who is asking them to do their job.

[ccp]

As far as I know it was Anderson Cooper's constant war against bullying (gays) that made the word ubiquitous.

I wasn't going to post this as it is just about a lawsuit till I saw this phrase, "food allergy bullying".  Another form of micro aggression.  Should "micro aggression " be grounds for assault?

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/06/05/family-allergic-child-sues-panera-for-putting-peanut-butter-grilled-cheese-sandwich/ugk2bWDfWSui6f8wSFimdO/story.html

[ccp]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/oregon-court-cast-just-majorly-200050228.html

[Crafty_Dog]

Uploaded on Feb 27, 2011

Who do you Love? (Bo Diddley) video of live performance by Quicksilver Messenger Service at Winterland in 1973.

Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for 'fair use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

Video excerpt all materials presented under fair use for non-profit, research, and educational purposes, copyright reserved by the original owners including but not limited to Bill Graham Archives, LLC, and Wolfgangs Vault, who I would like to thank in advance for their kindness and patience in not having their lawyers smash me and my little youtube account flatter than hammered shit.

THE USE OF ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IS USED UNDER THE GUIDELINES OF "FAIR USE" IN TITLE 17 & 107 OF THE UNITED STATES CODE. SUCH MATERIAL REMAINS THE COPYRIGHT OF THE ORIGINAL HOLDER AND IS USED HERE FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION, COMPARISON, AND CRITICISM ONLY.

NO INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT IS INTENDED

'I like Dick Dale, I could appreciate him more during the surf period....like I was like.... I was anti-surf, you know? Because they were collegiate. They would like ...like during the folk era, you know...The Kingston Trio........ I was a beatnik..... I was more into jazz....grooving, sharing, umm....that kind of stuff, and like but Link Wray, man. Link Wray affected me so much that first of all, alot of my style, alot of my chords and stuff I got by copying, you know? I saw him on TV man. I'd never played guitar, and he had his guitar that looked so offensive, it was phallic...Rumble, man.....Rumble just blew me away. That's what turned me on to playing guitar. He's the father of the power chord. I still remember it as one of my strongest memories, man. It just burned itself in my mind. I heard Rumble....it was '58. When I heard that, what I heard was, dirty, man. What he was doing was saying, f#ck man, kiss my ass, you know, real rebellious shit, you know, without saying it, you know?' -John Cipollina

Quicksilver Messenger Service initially held back from signing a record deal but eventually signed to Capitol Records in late 1967, becoming the last of the top-ranked San Francisco bands to sign with a major label. Capitol was the only company that had missed out on signing a San Francisco freak band during the first flurry of record company interest and, consequently, QMS was able to negotiate a better deal than many of their peers. Quicksilver Messenger Service had appeared on the movie and soundtrack album Revolution.

Quicksilver Messenger Service released their eponymous debut album in 1968. It was followed by Happy Trails, released in early 1969 and largely recorded live at the Fillmore East and the Fillmore West. According to David Freiberg, at least one of the live tracks was augmented with studio overdubs and the tracks Calvary and Lady of the Cancer Moon were recorded in the studio just before Gary Duncan left Quicksilver Messenger Service.

These albums, which have been hailed as two of the best examples of the San Francisco sound at its purest define the classic period in the group's career and showcase their distinctive sound, emphasizing extended arrangements and fluid twin-guitar improvisation. Cipollina's highly melodic, individualistic lead guitar style, combined with Gary Duncan's driving rhythm guitar, feature a clear jazz sound, a notable contrast to the heavily amplified and overdriven sound of contemporaries like Cream and Jimi Hendrix. In 2003 Happy Trails was rated at #189 in the Rolling Stone Top 500 albums survey, where it was described as the definitive live recording of the mid-Sixties San Francisco psychedelic-ballroom experience. Archetypal Quicksilver Messenger Service songs include the elongated, continually re-titled suite based on Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love?. Additionally QMS had a reputation for joining their fans in the use of LSD during their live shows.

QMS's guitar work shimmered with a brilliance and clarity which made other bands seem murky in comparison. Unlike most members of the other San Francisco acid rock bands, who were often folkies converted to rock, John Cipollina and Gary Duncan were rock musicians before forming their band. Gary Duncan's playing clearly had the broadest scope of any guitarist among the S. F. bands and he had an expert facility to deliver it. Equally expert was John Cipollina, who also had the clearest vision of how he wanted to sound. Cipollina's playing was so completely given over to that vision, and he presented it so well, that the question of scope never arose. John's electric guitar playing was the musical essence of electricity itself, as though he was playing the current directly and the guitar was the valve that allowed him to do that.

    Category
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        "Who Do You Love?" by Quicksilver Messenger Service Listen ad-free with YouTube Red

[ccp]

Clock Boy vs Blaze  

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/clock-boy-and-his-father-sue-glenn-beck-and-the-blaze-for-defamation/

I would rather see them in a mud wrestling match.

[ccp]

Lets see pack the Federal Court system with liberal ideologues and then work to remove the redistricting power from the States via the Courts.

https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/10/obamas-post-presidency-agenda-revealed-attack-state-redistricting-in-the-name-of-fairness

Liberals just refuse to go away.

I suppose he went to Soro for funding .   

[bigdog]

https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawyerly-integrity-trump-administration

[G M]

Was Goldsmith in a coma 2009-2016? Or was there not a smidgen of corruption for him to notice?

https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawyerly-integrity-trump-administration

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-obtains-fast-furious-crime-scene-photos-phoenix-2013-gang-style-assault-rifle-supplied-obama-justice-department/


Judicial Watch Obtains Fast and Furious Crime Scene Photos from Phoenix 2013 Gang-Style Assault with Rifle Supplied by Obama Justice Department

DECEMBER 18, 2014

Photos include close-up shots of Fast and Furious AK-47 rifle, blood-stained apartment, victim with massive head wound

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained graphic crime scene photos taken at the site of a 2013 gang-style assault on a Phoenix, AZ, apartment building, including a close-up photo revealing the serial number of the AK-47 rifle used by the assailants.  As a result of Judicial Watch’s October 2, 2014, public records lawsuit, the weapon has been already traced to the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning program.  The photos were also produced by the Phoenix Police Department in response to this lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. City of Phoenix (No. CV2014- 012018)). Full batch of photos can be viewed here.

According to press reports at the time of the assault, police investigating the shooting that left two wounded found an AK-47 assault rifle in the front passenger area of a vehicle that had crashed into a fence surrounding the apartment complex. Inside sources informed Judicial Watch at the time of the crime scene investigation that the AK-47 used in the assault had been provided to the assailants as part of the Obama-Holder Fast and Furious program. On October 16, 2014, Judicial Watch announced that, based upon information uncovered through its October 2 public records lawsuit, the U.S. Congress had confirmed that the rifle was tied to the Fast and Furious operation.  Attorney General Eric Holder has already admitted that guns from the Fast and Furious scandal are expected to be used in criminal activity on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border for years to come.

In an October 16 letter to Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) to Deputy Attorney General James Cole detail:

Based on the serial number [1977DX1654] from the police report obtained by Judicial Watch and documents obtained during our Fast and Furious investigation, we can confirm that the assault rifle recovered in the vehicle on July 30, 2013, was purchased by Sean Christopher Stewart. Stewart pled guilty to firearms trafficking charges resulting from his involvement with Operation Fast and Furious … Stewart purchased this particular firearm on December 8, 2009, one of 40 that he purchased that day while under ATF surveillance.” [Emphasis in original]

According to the Phoenix Police Department report, ATF traced the firearm on July 31, 2013, the day after Phoenix police officers recovered it. Yet, over a full year has passed, and the Department has failed to notify the Committees … This lack of transparency about the consequences of Fast and Furious undermines public confidence in law enforcement and gives the impression that the Department is seeking to suppress information and limit its exposure to public scrutiny.

In addition, despite the fact that the crime scene photos obtained by Judicial Watch clearly revealed a serial number that would show that the AK-47 used in the commission of the crime was a Fast and Furious weapon, the City of Phoenix and Department of Justice failed to turn over the incriminating photos to Congress, despite longstanding requests for such information. According to Judicial Watch sources, investigators knew at the scene and subsequently that the AK-47 was a Fast and Furious weapon.

The graphic crime scene photos include, but are not limited to, the following:

The Fast and Furious AK-47 laying in the front passenger well of the assailant’s vehicle
The Fast and Furious AK-47 in the police department evidence room
A close-up shot of the Fast and Furious AK-47 clearly revealing the ID number
A picture of the blood-stained apartment of the victim shot in the assault
A close-up picture of the victim with a massive gunshot head wound
A close-up shot of the victim’s ID
A handgun found at the scene of the crime
Three weeks following the July 29, 2013, assault, four suspects were apprehended in a raid conducted jointly by Phoenix police detectives and investigators from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). According to press reports at the time “numerous rifles and handguns” were found when, “Detectives from the Phoenix Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations served federal search warrants.”

The presence of DHS investigators immediately raised questions because Phoenix was the central location of the ATF’s deadly Fast and Furious gunrunning operation. Operation Fast and Furious was a Justice Department/ Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) program in which the Obama administration allowed guns to go to Mexican drug cartels in the hopes that the guns would end up at crime scenes, thereby advancing gun-control policies. Fast and Furious weapons have been implicated in the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and hundreds of other innocents in Mexico.

The failure to provide Congress with reports about the Phoenix crime scene is not the first time the Obama Justice Department has been accused of withholding Fast and Furious information. On June 28, 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt by the House of Representatives over his refusal to turn over documents about why the Obama administration may have lied to Congress and refused for months to disclose the truth about the gunrunning operation.  It marked the first time in U.S. history a sitting Attorney General was held in contempt of Congress.

Separate Judicial Watch litigation for these documents, which had been subjected to an extraordinary executive privilege reelection season claim by President Obama, forced their release.  Attorney General Holder announced his surprise retirement two days after the federal court ruling that led to the disclosure of the documents and to President Obama’s abandoning all of his controversial executive privilege claims that had kept the documents secret for nearly three years.

“Another Obama administration Fast and Furious cover-up has been undone by Judicial Watch.  These crime scene photos graphically illustrate the legacy of President Obama and Eric Holder’s deadly Fast and Furious lies,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Even as the evidence and casualties mount, the Obama administration is still secreting information about its reckless program. These photos show the American people firsthand the bloody consequences when an out-of-control administration will not even admit – or correct – its own mistakes.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

https://aclj.org/executive-power/acljs-files-lawsuit-over-ag-lynchs-secret-meeting-with-bill-clinton-will-hold-obamas-justice-department-accountable

I told you about the Obama Justice Department’s incompetence and corruption when, over four months ago, I called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s resignation.

I told you about General Lynch’s decision to hold a secret meeting on her airplane with former President Bill Clinton – just days before the FBI interviewed his wife, the former Secretary of State, as part of a criminal investigation; and just days before General Lynch announced the former Secretary of State would not be indicted.  Here’s what I said in June:

Misconduct. Dishonesty. Impropriety. No matter what word you choose, Attorney General Lynch’s secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton was flat-out wrong.  She’s clearly disqualified from participating in the investigations into former Secretary of State Clinton’s private email server.

And she must resign.

I’m leading our senior litigation team preparing to file legal demands and ethics complaints.  If the DOJ doesn’t respond and she doesn’t resign, we’ll be back in federal court.
As promised, we took action. We sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Obama Justice Department and the FBI, demanding answers on how such a careless and perhaps intentionally underhanded meeting was allowed to happen.

The FBI acknowledged our FOIA requests, and even granted our request for expedited processing by determining that we had shown our requests concerned “[a] matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence.” The Justice Department remained silent.

Then, last week’s earth-shattering news hit that the FBI – a component of the Justice Department – was reopening the underlying criminal investigation.

And early this week, the FBI advised the ACLJ Government Accountability Project that “[n]o records responsive to your request were located.”  Hard to believe. What may be even harder to believe, though, is the fact that the Department of Justice completely ignored our lawful requests for records. Or maybe that’s just par for the course.

So today, we’re forcing their hand. We’re taking the Obama Administration to federal court. Again. We’re filing a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, to ensure true justice. If the corruption and flippant disregard for the law won’t stop, neither will our Government Accountability Project, and neither will our lawsuits.

As we explained in our Complaint, we’re demanding records like this:

Any and all records containing the names of any DOJ official, staff or employee who participated in any discussion regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.
Any and all records, communications or briefings prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch or any other DOJ official, staff or employee, at any time, containing any discussion of or in any way regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.
Any and all records of any communication or briefing received by General Lynch, any DOJ official, staff or employee from Bill Clinton or his staff regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, regardless of whether the communication or briefing was received before, during, or after the meeting. 
Any and all records of any communication or briefing prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch, her staff, or any other DOJ official or employee or any other person from June 13, 2016 to Sunday, June 26, 2016, containing any discussion of or in any way naming, regarding, involving or referencing Bill Clinton.
Any and all records of any communication or briefing prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch, her staff, or any other DOJ official or employee after the meeting on Monday, June 27, 2016, between General Lynch and Bill Clinton at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, containing any discussion of ethics rules or DOJ Standards of Conduct governing attorneys in connection with the meeting or Lynch’s relationship with Bill Clinton.
Any and all records of any communication or briefing prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch, her staff, or any other DOJ official or employee after the meeting on Monday, June 27, 2016, between General Lynch and Bill Clinton at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, containing any discussion of the press, responding to the press, or the content of any press release or public statements in connection with the meeting.
We told the Court: “The Defendant [DOJ] has wholly failed to respond to Plaintiff’s FOIA request.” In fact, the Obama Administration’s failure to respond violated the statute in two ways. So we brought two Counts.  First, in Count I, we explained:

Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A), Defendant was required to determine whether to comply to Plaintiff’s request within twenty (20) days, excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays. Pursuant to this same provision, Defendant also was required to notify Plaintiff immediately of the determination, the reasons therefore, and the right to appeal any adverse determination to the head of the agency.
Then in Count II, we described the additional violation:

Defendant is in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(E)(ii), in that Defendant has failed to make “a determination of whether to provide expedited processing,” which “shall be made, and notice of the determination shall be provided to the person making the request, within 10 days after the date of the request.”
The bottom line of our lawsuit is this: the “Defendant is unlawfully withholding records requested by Plaintiff pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552.” The Justice Department’s answer to our suit will be due in about 30 days. We’ll let you know how they respond and keep you informed as our newest lawsuit progresses.

General Lynch has disqualified herself from this critical investigation. She has no business having any involvement in an FBI investigation of this magnitude. We will do, and are doing, everything we can to hold her accountable.

Today’s filing is our fourth major federal lawsuit filed against the Obama Administration over its corruption and failure to comply with FOIA – the law.  We’ve filed eight FOIA requests demanding information from: 1) the Obama State Department about the Iran lie, 2) the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components about its “jihad” word purge, 3) the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI over Attorney General Lynch’s secret meeting on a plane with former President Bill Clinton, 4) the FBI and the DOJ regarding its decision to censor the Orlando jihadist’s 911 transcript, 5) the State Department over its funding of an organization that was involved in an attempt to unseat Israel’s Prime Minister, 6) the Obama State Department over its inaction on the ISIS genocide against Christians, 7) DHS and its components over the wrongful granting of citizenship to potential terrorists, and the State Department over apparent pay-to-play collusion with the Clinton Foundation.

We are currently in ongoing litigation against the Obama Administration over the Iran lie, inaction on genocide, collusion with the Clinton Foundation, and now the secret meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton. We are also winning in multiple federal lawsuits against the Obama Administration’s IRS over its unlawful targeting of conservatives groups.

[bigdog]

http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/171351.P.pdf

[G M]

http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/171351.P.pdf

Ah, again black robed mandarins legislate from the bench. Putting the people without protective details at risk, because virtue signaling is more important than the dirt people who don't live among the elites.

[G M]

https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/president-trump-ignore-the-fourth-circuit

Why Trump has a responsibility to ignore the Fourth Circuit

Posted May 25, 2017 05:41 PM by Daniel Horowitz
Immigration  Court  Judges  Republic  Judicial   travel ban lawsuits no wall no ban immigration protest refugees Protesters hold signs during a demonstration against President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, Monday, May 15, 2017, outside a federal courthouse in Seattle. Ted S. Warren | AP



The Fourth Circuit Court has nullified national sovereignty, but nobody in the political chattering class has answered the most important question: Why should Trump listen and what exactly is he supposed to do (or not do) in abiding by this opinion? There is no valid case or controversy to follow.

What distinguishes a court from a legislature

If Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, or Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., were to don black robes tomorrow and issue judicial orders on flagrantly political issues, would we expect the other branches of government to treat them as the final law of the land – binding over the other two branches of government – more so than when they were sitting in their respective legislative chambers? 

Of course not. The other branches, especially if controlled by Democrats, would discard their judicial “opinions” immediately. 

Yet, that is – including lower-court judges created by Congress, and not even the Constitution – now having the final say over national sovereignty, immigration, and national security.

Consider this irrationality: Congress can pass a law along party lines, yet we won’t regard that as the law of the land until a court upholds it. Yet, a court can be split along the same party lines – and is unelected and unaccountable – but somehow that is given MORE legitimacy than a legislature.

That’s exactly Thursday in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals when 10 Democrat appointees “voted” against Trump’s temporary immigration moratorium, while the three GOP appointees voted for it.

Why not just have elected partisan officials decide political matters instead of unelected ones?

And therein lies the nub of this case. What differentiates a court from a legislature, what prevents the judiciary from becoming a de facto veto over the other two branches on broad national policy – and now even international policy – rather than serving as a separate co-equal branch, is that it can only adjudicate an individual case or controversy with legitimate standing and redressable grievances.

But the notion that their opinion in that individual case would be regarded as binding precedent on a national policy without any opposition is absurd; it philosophically undermines the premise of republican government, checks and balances, and co-equal branches.

Even those who believed in more robust judicial power always assumed that issues of national sovereignty and national security dealing with foreign nationals was beyond the reach of the court. In fact, it was considered settled law for over 100 years.

No standing on second Trump immigration order

In the case before the Fourth Circuit, there was no legitimate case or controversy. There is nothing for Pres. Trump to abide by. As Judge Steven Agee noted in his dissent, the three plaintiffs don’t have valid standing.

Even if we cede the absurd premises (see links below for more on this issue) that American relatives can sue to bring in foreign nationals, that the courts have the right to overturn sovereignty — and that the Establishment Clause applies to hypothetical immigrants — there is no redressable grievance. None of the plaintiffs were actually denied entry.; they merely feared the stigma of Trump’s declaration.

Thus, what relief did the courts grant in this case? And to whom? They can’t “strike down” an executive guidance. They don’t have such power — it has to apply to a tangible case.

Judge Agee explained the conditions for valid standing that differentiates the judicial power from legislative or executive powers as follows:

(1) “the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical”; (2) “there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court”; and (3) “it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.”
 

In this case, two of the plaintiffs are Iranian LPRs (lawful permanent residents, i.e. green card holders) who want to bring over their wives from Iran. Both should never have standing (over and beyond the obvious reasons ignored by the courts) because the wife of John Doe No. 1 was never denied yet and her application is still in process, and John Doe No. 3’s wife was actually approved!

Why are they suing? Because they are “being torn apart by this situation and the uncertainty and delay” and the stress and anxiety of feeling like “an outsider.” Thus, there is absolutely no injury-in-fact, even if we agreed foreign nationals somehow have a right to immigrate to America!

Moreover, even if there was a valid case, there is no tangible application of this case that would make the court’s opinion tantamount to “striking down” the policy.

For example, in the first round of litigation on the original order, while the courts were still way out of line, there was a tangible outcome for the Trump administration to follow. They allowed in anyone with a valid visa who was stuck at the airport. But in this case, we are talking about hypothetical future immigrants.

The courts are saying you can’t categorically deny visas from nationals of the listed countries. OK … but what should Trump affirmatively do? Does he now have to bring in everyone? Does he have to bring in the same ratio as any other country?

During every day of every administration, the DHS and State Department deny visas for all sorts of discretionary reasons. There’s no way a court can categorically ban the action of denying visas. So, under which circumstances may the president deny any visa? There is no way to know, which is why he should continue following statute. 

Moreover, as I mentioned Thursday morning, as it relates to refugees the court opinion doesn’t make any sense at all. The refugee moratorium wasn’t applied only to “Muslim” countries; it was applied to everyone. So, the plaintiff in this case who had a relative applying for refugee status (this was the third plaintiff, Muhammed “John” Meteab) doesn’t even have a valid Establishment Clause claim, even under their crazy system.

Plus, in this case, the applications for the relatives of this plaintiff were actually approved! So what’s the beef? Meteab claims he “experienced anti-Muslim sentiment and felt very uncomfortable and insecure in their community, causing them acute mental stress.”

But even if we agree with the court that the president, who has full control to set the refugee cap, suddenly cannot categorically shut down refugee resettlement, what exactly is he supposed to do? Does he bring in 50,000 a year … 70,000 … 100,000? How much is “enough”?

Furthermore, parts of the Fourth Circuit Court’s opinion are null and void on their face. As it relates to non-immigrant visas from four of the six countries, 8 U.S. Code §1735 requires the president to cut off visas to state sponsors of terrorism, which at the time of passage in 2002, included five of the seven countries in Trump’s original order.

Thus, there is no excuse for Trump’s secretary of state or DHS secretary not to continue passively denying visas or refugee status to their heart’s content. This is not the same as advocating “not listening to the courts.” (Although that is something that needs to happen anyway, because the courts don’t listen to statutes and the Constitution.) It’s to say that there is no affirmative action to take in accordance with a court order because there is no order and a court can’t issue such an order.

The Trump administration should at least wait for the ACLU to launch another challenge and try to prove that the White House is in some way violating the order. But, in order to do so, they would have to challenge an actual denial of a visa. The problem is that 8 U.S. Code §1201(h)(i) gives customs officers the plenary authority to not only deny issuance of a visa but to revoke one already issued.

What’s more, this provision of law, which passed the Senate 96-2 in 2004, explicitly stripped the courts of any jurisdiction to adjudicate the revocation of visas for anyone seeking entry into the country (as opposed to someone living here who is being deported). The jurisdiction-stripping provision includes even a basic habeas corpus petition. How in the world can the courts be allowed to get involved in this matter?

Perforce, the “executive order” is not a tangible law because the law already gives the executive branch such authority. If the courts are merely saying that Trump can’t make a public declaration that makes American Muslims feel stigmatized (which is essentially the only way they granted standing in this case), then Trump should just rip up the order but proceed to quietly adhere to more or less the same policies.

Any complaints about such a move would, by definition, make the courts a legislature, not a judicial body. And if we can’t , we are no longer a republic worth defending.

[Crafty_Dog]

These deeply unsound opinions are pushing the envelope to the point where people are going to ask "How many guns does the court have?" (an effort here to echo Stalin's response to a statement by the Pope "How many divisions does he have?")

"In looking behind the face of the government’s action for facts to show the alleged bad faith, rather than looking for bad faith on the face of the executive action itself, the majority grants itself the power to conduct an extratextual search for evidence suggesting bad faith, which is exactly what three Supreme Court opinions have prohibited.  Mandel, Fiallo,  and Din have  for  decades  been  entirely  clear  that  courts  are  not  free  to  look  behind  these  sorts  of  exercises  of  executive  discretion  in  search  of  circumstantial evidence of alleged bad faith.  The majority, now for the first time, rejects these holdings in favor of its politically desired outcome."

"Considering the Order on its face, as we are required to do by Mandel, Fiallo , and  Din ,  it  is  entirely  without  constitutional  fault.    The  Order  was  a  valid  exercise  of  the  President’s authority under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(f) and 1185(a) to suspend the entry of “any aliens”  or  “any  class  of  aliens”  and  to  prescribe  “reasonable  rules,  regulations,  and  orders” regarding entry, so long as the President finds that the aliens’ admission would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

This dissent has it exactly right.

[G M]

These deeply unsound opinions are pushing the envelope to the point where people are going to ask "How many guns does the court have?" (an effort here to echo Stalin's response to a statement by the Pope "How many divisions does he have?")

The rule of law is dead in this country.

[G M]

http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/05/4th-circuit-upholds-injunction-against-trump-revised-travel-executive-order/

4th Circuit upholds injunction against Trump revised travel Executive Order

 
 
 
Posted by William A. Jacobson      Thursday, May 25, 2017 at 2:24pm
Executive Order “in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npvd-VVqh9Q
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the case en banc, has upheld substantially all of the Maryland District Court injunction against Trump’s revised travel Executive Order in an opinion (pdf.) dripping with politics. (Full embed at bottom of post).

The opinions (including concurring and dissenting) are 200 pages, so it will take some time to digest, but you’ll get the message from the opening paragraph:


“The question for this Court, distilled to its essential form, is whether the Constitution, as the Supreme Court declared in Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 2, 120 (1866), remains “a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace.” And if so, whether it protects Plaintiffs’ right to challenge an Executive Order that in text speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination. Surely the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment yet stands as an untiring sentinel for the protection of one of our most cherished founding principles—that government shall not establish any religious orthodoxy, or favor or disfavor one religion over another. Congress granted the President broad power to deny entry to aliens, but that power is not absolute. It cannot go unchecked when, as here, the President wields it through an executive edict that stands to cause irreparable harm to individuals across this nation. Therefore, for the reasons that follow, we affirm in substantial part the district court’s issuance of a nationwide preliminary injunction as to Section 2(c) of the challenged Executive Order.”

The opinion is so bad, it’s hard to know where to start. Perhaps the best place is this completely foolish statement on page 17:

The Second Executive Order does not include any examples of individuals from Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen committing terrorism-related offenses in the United States.

Sorry, respected and honored Judges, that’s not your call. That’s the President’s call, and the President doesn’t need to recite examples in an order or wait for people from these countries to engage in terrorism in the U.S.  (We know that people from these countries have in fact committed terrorist acts in the U.S., but that’s actually beside the point for the legal analysis. It is not up to the judges.)

The most egregious focus of the majority opinion was relying on Trump’s campaign statements (starting at page 18):

The First and Second Executive Orders were issued against a backdrop of public statements by the President and his advisors and representatives at different points in time, both before and after the election and President Trump’s assumption of office. We now recount certain of those statements….

The Court then goes on for several pages recounting news clippings and campaign statements. This is a task, the dissent correctly pointed out, that will have both a chilling effect on political speech and is legally irrelevant as to a specific Executive Order after taking office. The Court concluded that the national security justifications were a sham (page 52-60):

Based on this evidence, we find that Plaintiffs have more than plausibly alleged that EO-2’s stated national security interest was provided in bad faith, as a pretext for its religious purpose. And having concluded that the “facially legitimate” reason proffered by the government is not “bona fide,” we no longer defer to that reason and instead may “look behind” EO-2….

The evidence in the record, viewed from the standpoint of the reasonable observer, creates a compelling case that EO-2’s primary purpose is religious. Then-candidate Trump’s campaign statements reveal that on numerous occasions, he expressed anti-Muslim sentiment, as well as his intent, if elected, to ban Muslims from the United States….

As a candidate, Trump also suggested that he would attempt to circumvent scrutiny of the Muslim ban by formulating it in terms of nationality, rather than religion….

These statements, taken together, provide direct, specific evidence of what motivated both EO-1 and EO-2: President Trump’s desire to exclude Muslims from the United States. The statements also reveal President Trump’s intended means of effectuating the ban: by targeting majority-Muslim nations instead of Muslims explicitly….

EO-2 cannot be read in isolation from the statements of planning and purpose that accompanied it, particularly in light of the sheer number of statements, their nearly singular source, and the close connection they draw between the proposed Muslim ban and EO-2 itself.

The court concluded (page 69):

EO-2 cannot be divorced from the cohesive narrative linking it to the animus that inspired it. In light of this, we find that the reasonable observer would likely conclude that EO-2’s primary purpose is to exclude persons from the United States on the basis of their religious beliefs. We therefore find that EO-2 likely fails Lemon’s purpose prong in violation of the Establishment Clause.22 Accordingly, we hold that the district court did not err in concluding that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their Establishment Clause claim.

The only part of the lower court injunction that was vacated was that part naming Trump personally:

“In light of the Supreme Court’s clear warning that such relief should be ordered only in the rarest of circumstances we find that the district court erred in issuing an injunction against the President himself. We therefore lift the injunction as to the President only. The court’s preliminary injunction shall otherwise remain fully intact.”

Three Judges (Niemeyer, Shedd, Agee) dissented:

While the [District] court acknowledged the President’s authority under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(f) and 1185(a) to enter the Order and also acknowledged that the national security reasons given on the face of the Order were legitimate, the court refused to apply Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972), which held that courts are precluded from “look[ing] behind” “facially legitimate and bona fide” exercises of executive discretion in the immigration context to discern other possible purposes, id. at 770. Relying on statements made by candidate Trump during the presidential campaign, the district court construed the Executive Order to be directed against Muslims because of their religion and held therefore that it likely violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

I conclude that the district court seriously erred (1) by refusing to apply the Supreme Court’s decision in Mandel; (2) by fabricating a new proposition of law — indeed, a new rule — that provides for the consideration of campaign statements to recast a later-issued executive order; and (3) by radically extending Supreme Court Establishment Clause precedents…..

The majority reworks the district court’s analysis by applying Mandel, albeit contrary to its holding, to defer only to the facial legitimacy of the Order but not to its facial bona fides, despite the Mandel Court’s holding that “when the Executive exercises
this power negatively on the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason, the courts will neither look behind the exercise of that discretion, nor test it by balancing its justification against the First Amendment interests” of the plaintiffs. Mandel, 408 U.S. at 770 (emphasis added). In addition, the majority, after violating Mandel, then adopts the same new rule of law adopted by the district court to consider candidate Trump’s campaign statements to find the Executive Order’s stated reasons “pretext[ual],” ante at 51, and then to rewrite the Order to find it in violation of the Establishment Clause. This too is unprecedented and unworkable.

The dissent took particular issue with the reliance by the majority on Trump’s campaign statements:

In affirming the district court’s ruling based on the Establishment Clause, the majority looks past the face of the Order’s statements on national security and immigration, which it concedes are neutral in terms of religion, and considers campaign statements made by candidate Trump to conclude that the Order denigrates Islam, in violation of the Establishment Clause. This approach (1) plainly violates the Supreme Court’s directive in Mandel; (2) adopts a new rule of law that uses campaign statements to recast the plain, unambiguous, and religiously neutral text of an executive order; and (3) radically extends the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause holdings…..

The Supreme Court surely will shudder at the majority’s adoption of this new rule that has no limits or bounds — one that transforms the majority’s criticisms of a candidate’s various campaign statements into a constitutional violation.

More to follow.

[Crafty_Dog]

The mind boggles at how wide spread this partisan gibbersish posing as judicial interpretation of law is , , ,

[bigdog]

The mind boggles at how wide spread this partisan gibbersish posing as judicial interpretation of law is , , ,

I couldn't agree more with this statement.

[G M]

Lack of Judicial Impartiality Threatens Rule of Law

By Roger Kimball| May 28th, 2017


Why do judges wear black robes? It’s a question few judges today seem to be asking themselves.

It certainly appears not to have troubled the mind of Chief Judge Roger Gregory of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals who, it seems, must instead be a student of Jorge Luis Borges. A couple of days ago, Judge Gregory, writing for the majority, upheld a lower court’s decision against President Trump’s revised Executive Order imposing a temporary travel ban from a handful of countries identified as hotbeds of terrorist activity. As Byron York points out, the decision broke 10 to 3 along partisan lines: the 10 judges who decided against the travel ban were appointed by Presidents Clinton or Obama, the 3 judges who supported the ban were appointed by one of the Bushes.


The rank partisanship on display is as disgusting as it is worrisome: a partisan judiciary is not a judicious judiciary. It is, on the contrary, a judiciary that dispenses its decisions based not on what you have done or left undone but on who you are. It is a government of men, not laws.

But the most extraordinary thing about the majority decision is not its partisanship but the personal nature of the opinion it expresses. It applies to Donald Trump and to Donald Trump only. As York notes,

The majority’s decision, as laid out by Gregory, suggests a mind-bending possibility: If the Trump executive order, every single word of it, were issued by another president who had not made such statements on the campaign trail, the court would find it constitutional.
This is where Borges comes in. In “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote,” Borges celebrates the stupendous labor of a man who endeavored to produce a book that would be identical—”word for word and line for line”— to Cervantes’ great novel. Menard never managed more than a fragment. But Borges is surely right that though “the text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical,” the works are in fact very different. For one thing, what was written in the seventeenth century by a Catholic ex-soldier is of necessity very different from what was written in the twentieth century by a cosmopolitan, world-weary intellectual. Their different personal histories infuse their words with very different assumptions. Then there is the matter of style. “The archaic style of Menard . . . suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his precursor, who handles easily the ordinary Spanish of his time.” Borges spins an amusing and thought provoking epistemological tale with this fiction.


Until yesterday, I hadn’t appreciated its application to the workings of the judiciary. Judge Gregory enlightened me about that. In his opinion for the court, Judge Gregory charges that although the travel ban invokes national security, “in context” it “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”

Context, eh? What Judge Gregory means is that Donald Trump, or at least some people associated with Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, said things about Muslims or other prospective immigrants with which Judge Gregory disagrees. Ergo anything that Donald Trump’s administration orders with respect to immigration is, ipso facto, tainted.

What Trump’s travel ban actually said is unexceptionable. Nor can any candid person doubt the President’s authority to intervene dispositively on who may and who may not enter the United States. The law is unambiguous:


Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
The majority opinion of the Fourth Circuit makes explicit what was already implicit in the lower court interventions against the administration’s efforts to “improve the screening and vetting protocols” in order to “protect the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States.” At issue is not the Constitutionality of the Executive Order but the person of Donald Trump. The effect of the ruling, as Andrew McCarthy observes, is to empower “both radical Islam and judicial imperialism.” In the immediate aftermath of yet another bloody jihadist attack—this one in Manchester, England—it is natural that we think mostly about the former, about the way the Fourth Circuit’s ruling makes us less safe by empowering radical Islam. Should we suffer another Orlando or San Berardino here, we can lay at least part of the blame at the doorstep of judges like Roger Gregory.

The harm such judicial supremacists do goes far beyond their particular rulings. It erodes the one thing that guarantees the place of the judiciary in a free society: widespread trust in the legitimacy, which is to say, the impartiality of its operation.
But although terrorism is certainly a legitimate and a pressing concern, in some ways it is McCarthy’s second item, the empowering of judicial imperialism or judicial supremacy, that is the bigger long-term concern. For what these recent decisions portend—the temporary restraining orders issued by left-leaning, blue-state District Judges as well as the Fourth Circuit’s en banc ruling—is an attack on the Constitutional separation of powers via an assertion of judicial triumphalism. And this brings me to my opening question: Why do judges wear fancy black robes? Former Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, pondering that question, suggested that the attire “shows that all of us judges are engaged in upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. We have a common responsibility.”

I think that’s about right. The somber black robes attest to the impartial majesty of the law.

But what happens if those wearing the robes betray that trust, that “common responsibility” to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law? Alexander Hamilton famously, and perhaps naively, described the judiciary as “the least dangerous branch,” reasoning that since the Court commanded neither money (as did Congress) nor the army (as did the Executive), therefore the Court would have to rely not on coercive power but merely the impressive spectacle of what Hamilton called “judgment.”

We’ve had plenty of experience to show us how drastically Hamilton underestimated the threat of an unfettered judiciary. It is worth reminding ourselves that several of his contemporaries were not so starry eyed about the Court. One of the anti-Federalists, for example, warned that the Constitution did not provide an effective mechanism for reining in judicial arrogance.

There is no power above them, to control any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself.
That, I submit, is pretty much where we are with judges like Roger Gregory. The harm such judicial supremacists do goes far beyond their particular rulings. It erodes the one thing that guarantees the place of the judiciary in a free society: widespread trust in the legitimacy, which is to say, the impartiality of its operation. The black robes are a symbol of that trust and the majesty that imbues it. The Fourth Circuit has just violated that trust in the most brutal and cavalier fashion, threatening to transform those somber black robes from an emblem of high office into costume worn by impersonators.

To this extent, Hamilton was right: in our society the respect of the judiciary depends not on its deployment of coercion but prestige. As Glenn Reynolds observed in commenting on this deeply misguided ruling by the Fourth Circuit, “The judiciary’s prestige-well is going to dry up pretty fast at this rate.” And then?

About the Author: Roger Kimball
Roger Kimball
Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. Mr. Kimball lectures widely and has appeared on national radio and television programs as well as the BBC. He is represented by Writers' Representatives, who can provide details about booking him. Mr. Kimball's latest book is The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press, 2012). He is also the author of The Rape of the Masters (Encounter), Lives of the Mind: The Use and Abuse of Intelligence from Hegel to Wodehouse (Ivan R. Dee), and Art's Prospect: The Challenge of Tradition in an Age of Celebrity (Ivan R. Dee). Other titles by Mr. Kimball include The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America (Encounter) and Experiments Against Reality: The Fate of Culture in the Postmodern Age (Ivan R. Dee). Mr. Kimball is also the author ofTenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education (HarperCollins). A new edition of Tenured Radicals, revised and expanded, was published by Ivan R. Dee in 2008. Mr. Kimball is a frequent contributor to many publications here and in England, including The New Criterion, The Times Literary Supplement, Modern Painters, Literary Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Public Interest, Commentary, The Spectator, The New York Times Book Review, The Sunday Telegraph, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and The National Interest.

[Crafty_Dog]

Exactly so!

[ccp]

I certainly would not wish her ill health in order to vacate her seat but her health has been and is an issue:

Ginsburg was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999 and underwent surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation therapy. During the process, she did not miss a day on the bench.[97] Physically weakened after the cancer treatment, Ginsburg began working with a personal trainer. Since 1999, Bryant Johnson, a former Army reservist attached to the Special Forces, has trained Ginsburg twice weekly in the justices-only gym at the Supreme Court.[98][99] In spite of her small stature, Ginsburg saw her physical fitness improve since her first bout with cancer, being able to complete twenty full push-ups in a session before her 80th birthday.[98][100]
On February 5, 2009, she again underwent surgery related to pancreatic cancer.[101] Ginsburg's tumor was discovered at an early stage.[101] She was released from a New York City hospital on February 13 and returned to the bench when the Supreme Court went back into session on February 23, 2009.[102][103][104] On September 24, 2009, Ginsburg was hospitalized in Washington DC for lightheadedness following an outpatient treatment for iron deficiency and was released the following day.[105]
On November 26, 2014, she had a stent placed in her right coronary artery after experiencing discomfort while exercising in the Supreme Court gym with her personal trainer.[106][107]

[ccp]

https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/why-do-you-have-to-show-photo-id-for-everything-except-voting

[Crafty_Dog]

The ABA Jumps the Shark
Why did the group ask where a judicial nominee’s children went to school?
Leonard Steven Grasz testifies during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill, Nov. 1.
Leonard Steven Grasz testifies during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill, Nov. 1. Photo: Tom Williams/Zuma Press
By William McGurn
Nov. 13, 2017 6:21 p.m. ET
241 COMMENTS

Looks as if the American Bar Association picked the wrong judicial nominee to play politics with. If Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are smart, they will use the ABA’s appearance at a hearing Wednesday to call the group out.

The object of the ABA’s attention is Leonard Steven Grasz, a former Nebraska chief deputy attorney general who’s been nominated for the a seat on the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ABA has slapped Mr. Grasz with a “not qualified” rating, saying he’s too biased and too rude to be a judge. Given that much of this rating is based on accusations that are not detailed and from accusers who remain anonymous, it reveals more about the organization that issued it than it does about Mr. Grasz.

“The ABA is running a smear campaign based on the idea that Steve is a kale-hating, puppy-kicking monster,” says a fellow Nebraskan, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse. “But no one in Nebraska on either side of the aisle recognizes that man.”

–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
Opinion Journal Video
Opinion Journal: The ABA’s Faux Outrage
Main Street Columnist Bill McGurn on the real reason the legal association objects to a Trump judicial nominee. Photo Credit: AmericanBar.org.

The ABA says its ratings are based on neutral and professional criteria, much the way a medical board might evaluate a doctor. Since President Eisenhower “first invited the ABA into the process,” the group says, it’s been standard practice for presidents to submit their judicial candidates to the ABA for vetting before announcing a nomination.

Well, yes and no. In just one indication of how politicized the ABA ratings have become, Democrats and Republicans long ago diverged on the ABA’s role in the nominations process. In 2001, George W. Bush halted the practice of giving the ABA first crack at vetting potential nominees; in 2009 Barack Obama revived it; and this year President Trump halted it again.

Yet even without an official role, the ABA ratings still exert undue influence on nominations. For the real signal sent by a “not qualified” rating is: This guy is a Neanderthal. That in turn allows the press to portray a nominee as out of the mainstream, and it can siphon off confirmation votes from Republican senators nervous about the rating.

That’s plainly what the ABA hopes for Mr. Grasz. The ABA’s statement makes clear his “not qualified” rating is based on two broad worries: his “passionately held social agenda” and complaints that he’s been “gratuitously rude.”

By “passionately held social agenda,” the ABA means abortion; in his prior life Mr. Grasz defended—as a state deputy attorney general is obliged to do—a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortion. What it means by “rude” no one knows, because the ABA has thrown this out there while providing almost no specifics. For good measure, the ABA has twisted a two-decade-old law review article to suggest Mr. Grasz rejects a point he explicitly states, to wit, that judges are bound by clear legal precedent—even when “it may seem unwise or even morally repugnant.”

So Wednesday’s hearings offer Republicans an excellent opening to press ABA officials on how they came to their “not qualified” rating. Here’s a few suggestions:

• Why did the ABA ask where Mr. Grasz’s children went to school? Does the ABA believe their Lutheran education affects his fitness as a judge?

• Is it ever appropriate for an ABA interviewer to refer to “you people,” as Mr. Grasz’s did? When Mr. Grasz asked for clarification, the interviewer said he meant “Republicans and conservatives.” Has the ABA ever referred to “you people” when interviewing a Democratic nominee?

• The ABA has taken positions on many of the most contentious issues before the courts these days, from abortion to guns to same-sex marriage. How can a Republican judicial nominee have confidence these ABA positions will not adversely affect the ABA’s rating?

The questions are particularly compelling given that the Mr. Grasz who testified at his confirmation hearing earlier this month bears no resemblance to the knuckle-dragger the ABA is making him out to be. So it’s crucial Republicans keep the focus on the ABA and not let the hearing become yet another stage for anonymous accusations against Mr. Grasz—especially because he won’t be there to defend himself.

The best revenge, of course, is getting this man confirmed notwithstanding his ABA rating. But the day after the attacks on Mr. Grasz at his hearing, Mr. Sasse delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, raising an even larger question: Since when did the Senate accept the idea that its members should outsource to a third party their constitutional responsibility to evaluate the fitness of the president’s nominees to the federal bench?

“There’s nothing wrong with a liberal organization such as the ABA using its First Amendment rights to push its political agenda,” says Mr. Sasse. “What’s wrong is to allow it to masquerade as fair and impartial arbiter—and give it a special role in the process.”

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.dickmorris.com/holder-the-hypocrite-got-marc-rich-pardoned-but-hits-trumps-pardon-of-dsouza-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports

[ccp]

Like a good lib she will hang on till the next Democrat President. 
she will be like Stephen Hawking sitting on the bench in a wheelchair speaking through some electronic mouthpiece on a ventilator
with doctors on each side ready to defibrillate at a seconds notice courtesy of the DNC

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/30/ruth-bader-ginsburg-wants-to-serve-at-least-five-more-years-on-supreme-court/

[DougMacG]

Like a good lib she will hang on till the next Democrat President. 
she will be like Stephen Hawking sitting on the bench in a wheelchair speaking through some electronic mouthpiece on a ventilator
with doctors on each side ready to defibrillate at a seconds notice courtesy of the DNC

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/30/ruth-bader-ginsburg-wants-to-serve-at-least-five-more-years-on-supreme-court/

Leftist outcome-based judicial activism, her life's work would be lost in vain if she were to be replaced by a constitutionalist.

5 years? Why would she rather be replaced in Donald Trump's second term?

Unfortunately for all of us, mortality is not negotiable.

[G M]

Like a good lib she will hang on till the next Democrat President. 
she will be like Stephen Hawking sitting on the bench in a wheelchair speaking through some electronic mouthpiece on a ventilator
with doctors on each side ready to defibrillate at a seconds notice courtesy of the DNC

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/30/ruth-bader-ginsburg-wants-to-serve-at-least-five-more-years-on-supreme-court/

Leftist outcome-based judicial activism, her life's work would be lost in vain if she were to be replaced by a constitutionalist.

5 years? Why would she rather be replaced in Donald Trump's second term?

Unfortunately for all of us, mortality is not negotiable.

Only the good die young, so she has that going for her.

[ccp]

Obama mandates are blocked from being reversed by Trump through lawyers using the court system to stop his policies
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/according-to-judges-trump-is-bound-by-obama-not-the-law-and-the-constitution/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/civil-forfeiture-laws-mississippi-needs-transparency/

[ccp]

on how to limit the Supreme Court now that we have 2 more conservative Justices:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kavanaugh-gorsuch-confirmations-force-progressives-160757502.html

no stopping these liberals .

[Crafty_Dog]

http://click1.email.thehill.com/ViewMessage.do

[ccp]

Sounds good:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/03/senate-republicans-trigger-nuclear-option-to-speed-up-approval-of-trump-nominees/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://bigleaguepolitics.com/senate-democrats-kavanaugh-poll-blows-up-in-their-faces/

[ccp]

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/20/judge-upholds-dem-subpoena-for-trump-financial-records-1335370

surprise surprise surprise

I would like to hear from some truly objective legal mind on this .
 

[Crafty_Dog]

Well, I'm not objective but FWIW my take is that I get the President's frustration and anger with all of this, but suspect the Congress has the better argument here.

My guess is that being the seasoned participant in lawfare that he is, Trump knows this and hopes to litigate this past 2020.  From the sounds of this decision he may not get there.

[DougMacG]

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/20/judge-upholds-dem-subpoena-for-trump-financial-records-1335370

surprise surprise surprise

I would like to hear from some truly objective legal mind on this .

I can't give you the legal-eeze but you can't just target innocent people and we are all presumed innocent.  The special counsel breaks that principle.  In the case of the latest special counsel, someone, Rosenstein, was (falsely) saying their was cause.  Ask GM but a search warrant requires probable cause.  What level cause does a subpoena require? Fishing expeditions are outside of the law.

Dems argument is that all Presidential candidates lately have been releasing their tax returns.  So what?  Romney released his.  They were squeaky clean and he was ripped for everything in them anyway.  Trump did not release his.  The constitution, Article II, says President must be 35 and natural born citizen.  You can add release of tax returns to that by passing an amendment to the constitution, not by saying everyone else is doing it.

[ccp]

victim white
alleged killer black

southern state

must be victim of racism so death penalty overturned:

https://www.conservativereview.com/news/thomas-dissent-rips-kavanaugh-scotus-opinion-racial-politics/

[ccp]

and by doing so can't think straight

and is thus partisan :

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/supreme-court-decisions-gerrymandering-right-census-wrong/

We on the Right have a BIG PROBLEM
with this justice

[G M]

and by doing so can't think straight

and is thus partisan :

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/supreme-court-decisions-gerrymandering-right-census-wrong/

We on the Right have a BIG PROBLEM
with this justice

Deep state has hooks in him.

[ccp]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/08/gov-cuomo-signs-bill-release-trump-state-tax-returns/#

this is clearly a law to get one person

the excuse is of course it could be used against any politician in with NY tax returns
but in a Democrat controlled mob state who thinks they would use this for Democrat pols and not as a political weapon

Would love the SCOTUS to rule on this one.

[ccp]

very often shake downs of trivial cases that provide plaintiffs with nothing :

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/conservative-case-for-class-action-suits-not-convincing-not-conservative/

[ccp]

https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/947594/1

Thou shall not defend ANY REPUBLICAN

my response

screw martha's vineyard

[Crafty_Dog]

I get the logic, but witness intimidation seems a possibility here , , ,

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/26/new-york-to-allow-accused-criminals-to-inspect-own-crime-scenes-quickly-obtain-witness-names/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=best_of_the_week&utm_campaign=20191228

[G M]

I get the logic, but witness intimidation seems a possibility here , , ,

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/26/new-york-to-allow-accused-criminals-to-inspect-own-crime-scenes-quickly-obtain-witness-names/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=best_of_the_week&utm_campaign=20191228

The public needs to understand that they cannot expect that the system to protect them at all.

[ccp]

"For example, if an individual is charged with home burglary, the suspect will be allowed to return to the victim’s home and inspect their property as part of their defense."

Get out of here !!!!  (