The Left’s Plan to Commandeer the Supreme Court

And control all three branches of the federal government.

Frontpage mag

Joseph Klein

The fate of America’s constitutional republic hangs in the balance as the leftwing progressive base of the Democratic Party tries to parlay Democrat control of the White House and Congress to obliterate the independence of the Supreme Court.

President Joe Biden has kicked things off by naming a 36-member commission to examine possible changes to the size and jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as well as proposals to set term limits for Supreme Court justices. The commission has 180 days to report back on its study of the issues, although it has not been given a mandate to make any formal recommendations.

While advertised as being bipartisan, the commission’s co-chairs, Bob Bauer and Cristina Rodriguez, both worked for the Obama administration. Even so, establishing a commission to analyze a hot button issue is often regarded as a convenient way to bury the issue. Not this time, however. The left won’t allow Biden or the Democrat-controlled Congress off the hook so easily. Even on the rare occasions when Biden’s old centrist instincts seem about to kick in, he quickly backtracks in the face of blowback from his left flank. What then-Senator Biden called a “bonehead” idea in 1983 and an “institutional power grab” in 2005 is now very much in play during Biden’s presidency.

The left sees immediate radical change to the structure and composition of the Supreme Court as necessary to cement its permanent control over the third branch of the federal government. That can only happen, however, after first nuking the Senate filibuster to pass their misnamed “For the People Act.” Also referred to simply as S.1, this bill would federalize slipshod election procedures across the country, eliminating state protections against potential election fraud, voter intimidation, illegal votes, and inaccurate vote counts. Passage of the bill will help Democrats guarantee their enduring control of Congress and the White House. With the filibuster already cast aside, Democrats will then be able to push through major changes to the Supreme Court this term with their slender majority. The result will be the left’s tight grip on the Supreme Court, while ensuring that the other two elected branches remain firmly in their pockets in future elections.

On April 15^th, four Democrats in Congress decided not to even wait for Biden’s commission to complete its work. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Hank Johnson, Rep. Mondaire Jones, and Senator Edward J. Markey introduced the Judiciary Act of 2021 to expand the Supreme Court by adding four seats, creating a 13-justice Supreme Court. This would represent the first change in the size of the Supreme Court since 1869.

“Some people will accuse us of packing the court. We’re not packing the court, we’re unpacking it,” Nadler sneered. Markey claimed that the “legislation will restore the Court’s balance and public standing and begin to repair the damage done to our judiciary and democracy, and we should abolish the filibuster to ensure we can pass it.”

Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not willing to oblige these demagogues just yet. Pelosi said that she “has no plans” to bring their bill to the House floor at this time. She wants to wait for Biden’s commission to finish its work before taking any further steps. But Pelosi has not ruled out supporting such a change down the road. “It’s not out of the question,” Pelosi said. “It has been done before.”

Yes, Congress has the constitutional authority to alter the size of the Supreme Court. However, it has chosen not to do so during a span of 152 years for good reason. When FDR tried to push forward his court packing scheme in 1937, the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee issued a report at the time declaring that “we would rather have an independent Court, a fearless Court…than a Court that, out of fear or sense of obligation to the appointing power, or factional passion, approves any measure we may enact.” FDR’s plan was shot down by his own party.

Democrats in Congress today no longer show such respect for the independence of a co-equal branch of the federal government. They are willing to increase the size of the Supreme Court solely for the purpose of turning it into a rubber stamp for their radical agenda. So long as Democrats succeed with their strategy to lock in continuing Democrat control of Congress and the White House by doing away with state law safeguards against election shenanigans, they have nothing to worry about. There will be no future Republican Congress and president elected who will be able to add more conservative justices.

However, there have been a few liberals with a conscience who have spoken out in recent times against court packing, as Joe Biden did when he was his own man in the Senate.

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – the liberals’ heroine replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett – told NPR in July 2019 that “Nine seems to be a good number. It’s been that way for a long time. I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court.” Justice Ginsburg worried that court packing “would make the court look partisan,” adding that “it would be that — one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.’ “

At Harvard Law School’s annual Scalia lecture on April 6^th, Justice Stephen G. Breyer warned about how court packing would “reflect and affect the rule of law itself.” Justice Breyer added, “If the public sees judges as ‘politicians in robes,’ its confidence in the courts, and in the rule of law itself, can only diminish, diminishing the Court’s power, including its power to act as a ‘check’ on the other branches.”

Progressives dismiss such arguments, of course, and indeed are pressing for Justice Breyer to retire so that a much younger and more left leaning justice can replace him. However, a few moderate Democrats in the House may be wary of supporting a bill to pack the Supreme Court, fearing the issue would be hung around their necks in Republican ads during the next election cycle. Democrat Senator Joe Manchin has declared his opposition to court packing legislation, which means it would be dead in the Senate even if the filibuster were eliminated or severely weakened.

Court packing also does not have widespread public support. In a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted last October during the height of the presidential campaign, a question was asked: ”If Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court and Joe Biden is elected president, do you think that Democrats should or should not increase the size of the Supreme Court to include more than nine justices?” 58 percent said no. 31 percent said yes. 11 percent said they didn’t know or refused to answer.

Thus, Democrats may decide to rally around a seemingly less drastic alternative to immediately expanding the Supreme Court to 13 members – term limits for future Supreme Court justices. There is more public support for term limits than for court packing. But the proponents of this idea are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Term limits for Supreme Court justices are arguably unconstitutional since Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution states that “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour…” Except in the case of impeachment or early retirement, this provision has been interpreted to mean a lifetime term.

The term limit advocates try to get around the constitutional issue by arguing that their reform would only apply to future justices. Moreover, they propose that, after a future justice’s Supreme Court term has expired, the justice would be free to remain in the judiciary as a senior appellate judge. They believe this demotion would satisfy the Constitution’s good behavior term language since the justices would still be judges. However, the Constitution’s text appears to tie the “good behavior” term for Supreme Court justices to their specific “Office” of Supreme Court justice, not to any post in the judicial branch. In her interview with NPR, Justice Ginsburg said that the term limits idea was unrealistic because of this constitutional provision and because, as she pointed out, “Our Constitution is powerfully hard to amend.”

In any case, on a policy level, Democrats proposing term limits for future Supreme Court justices are selling snake oil.

Take, for example, legislation proposed by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) that would apply only to future justices and would limit their service on the Supreme Court to 18 years. New justices would be appointed in the first and third years of each presidential term. Since, under this plan, none of the current justices would be forced off the Supreme Court, there will be a period during which more than nine justices will be serving at the same time. It is just a slower way of achieving the same objective as court packing.

If something like the Khanna-Beyer bill is passed in 2021, for example, President Biden would get to appoint one justice this year. This would expand the Court to ten until one of the current justices retires or dies. By a simple majority in the Senate (with Vice President Harris casting a tie-breaking vote), a progressive will be added to the Supreme Court. Biden’s next appointment would occur in 2023, even if there is then no vacancy on the bench. That could mean eleven justices until one of the current justices retires or dies. Assuming the Senate remains in Democrat hands, with the help of vote cheating enabled by the falsely entitled “For the People Act,” another progressive will be added to the Supreme Court. A Democrat White House and Senate in 2025 will ensure yet another progressive added to the Supreme Court, tilting the Supreme Court in a leftward direction. And so on. If a vacancy occurs during one of the off years, it would be filled temporarily by a lower court judge, until the following year when the president nominates, and the Senate confirms, the next term-limited justice.

The combined effect of the Democrats’ federalizing of elections to slant the outcomes in their direction and the passage of court packing or term limit legislation for the Supreme Court will be to institute permanent one party rule in Washington D.C. for all three branches of government. Separation of powers and checks and balances will be dead.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” Ronald Reagan once said. We are at that crossroads right now. We must fight the leftwing progressives’ attempt to turn this country into their tyrannical domain lest, as Reagan warned, we “spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

Judicial Watch: Supreme Court Moves to Overturn Conviction of Veteran Fined and Jailed for Digging Ponds on his Rural Montana Property

SCOTUS overturned decision upholding Robertson’s conviction and remanded the case so that the indictment could be dismissed and the lien cancelled

 

Judicial Watch

 

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Supreme Court of the United States has overturned a lower court decision affirming the conviction of Joseph Robertson, a 78-year-old veteran now deceased who was sentenced to prison for digging ditches on his rural Montana property to protect the area surrounding his home from wildfires. Judicial Watch had filed an amicus curiae brief jointly with the Allied Educational Foundation supporting Robertson and urging Supreme Court review and reversal of the lower court decision. Robertson served 18 months in prison and died while serving probation. He was also fined $130,000, a liability inherited by his estate.

Image via forbes.com

 

The Supreme Court also remanded Robertson’s conviction to the lower court so the indictment can be dismissed and the lien can be cancelled.

Judicial Watch and the AEF had asked the Supreme Court to review the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that upheld Robertson’s conviction, because that decision “affirmed illegal agency actions in prosecuting Joseph Robertson based on a misreading of federal law. The Court should take this opportunity to correct the confusion in overbroad interpretations of the Clear Water Act, which have led to unjust prosecutions and federal intrusions into both state authority and individual liberty.”

The brief was filed in the case of Robertson v. United States, Case No. 18-609, 587 U.S. __ (2019). This was an appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision in United States v. Robertson, 875 F.3d 1281, 1285 (9th Cir. 2017).

Judicial Watch asserted in its filing that the ditches Robertson dug “sat on what a federal agency defines as wetlands and were situated on or near a small downhill water flow of about three garden hoses in volume.  Mr. Robertson was not engaged in manufacturing or any other industrial activity which would release chemicals or waste into the water, but under the federal Clean Water Act even turning the soil with a shovel can be considered to be releasing a ‘pollutant’ into water.”

In their brief, JW and the AEF suggest that the issue is larger than Robertson’s personal plight, that it also involves the separation of powers among Congress, the Executive Branch and the Supreme Court.

Judicial Watch and AEF also note that the Supreme Court itself has introduced confusion into the issue of “adjacent wetlands,” “point source,” and “navigable waters.

Also, matters like those involving Robertson properly belong with the state, not the federal government.

The brief argues that the Congress has been all too willing to forego its Constitutional duty and defer to federal agencies.

[It was not foreseen that] the judiciary could eventually aid and abet the complete sacrificing of power by one of those two branches, effectively leaving a one-branch government where the founders intended three. When the Court goes too far in reading statutes as broadly assigning sweeping interpretative power to agencies, this allows Congress to give up power altogether and to stop the necessary work of revising and repealing statutes. Congress has proven itself either willing to give up those powers or unable to stop itself from doing so, preferring to ask the executive branch to reinterpret or reimagine statutes in ever more creative ways while sparing members of Congress the pain of accountability for national policy. The Court should not countenance this upending of the constitutional order.

“The Supreme Court has granted a victory against an overreaching government bureaucracy,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The government should not be allowed to regulate every drop of water in America, and the Supreme Court was right to brush back the radical bureaucrats. Mr. Robertson, a veteran, died before he was vindicated but his fight has protected the constitutional freedoms of other Americans.”

The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through education.  In furtherance of that goal, the Foundation has engaged in a number of projects, which include, but are not limited to, educational and health conferences domestically and abroad. AEF has partnered frequently with Judicial Watch to fight government and judicial corruption and to promote a return to ethics and morality in the nation’s public life.

Fight To Replace Darth Vader Ginsburg Has Already Begun

Image via thedailybeast.com

Flopping Aces

By Daniel John Sobieski

Absent any allegation that Judge Brett Kavanaugh was the serpent who gave Eve the apple in the Garden of Eden, Associate Justice Kavanaugh will soon haunt Democrats like Justice Clarence Thomas before him for decades to come, with or without an asterisk next to his name. Yet this is no time to celebrate for already the mudslingers of the left are pouring over President Trump’s list of deplorable judicial nominees for things the next nominee can be falsely accused of as the spawn of Satan.

From Dianne Feinstein’s withholding of Dr. Ford’s conveniently leaked letter to Kamala Harrris’ clumsily edited Kavanaugh tape, we have seen the shape of things to come for future Trump nominees. Senate Democrats will lie, manipulate, and just plain make things up for the sake of power over principle and the only way to make sure they do not succeed in the future is to make sure in November there are fewer Senate Democrats.

The timing of President Trump’s October 1 rally for GOP Tennessee Senate candidate Rep. Marsha Blackburn is coincidental but fortuitous, for the seat being vacated by Bob Corker, who has said yes to Kavanaugh, is one the must be held as others are gained to ensure that Kavanaugh’s originalist view of the Constitution is restored as the dominant and permanent philosophy of the Supreme Court.

Hopefully voters, independent voters in particular, will have been sufficiently turned off by McCarthyite Democrats embracing tabloid accusations with no dates, times, places or corroborating witnesses to defame a judicial superstar with an unblemished record and life to ensure the GOP keeps and expands its Senate majority. Hopefully they will realize that next time it could be their son, father, brother, uncle or cousin that is targeted for slander and slime. Women should be heard, but they should not automatically believed. Just ask the Duke lacrosse team.

Trump White House Preparing To Replace Liberal Supreme Court Justice?

 

DCWhispers

Whispers are rampant throughout D.C. that a vacancy is imminent on the U.S. Supreme Court – one that is currently taken by one of the most liberal members of the Court.

It has the Trump White House giddy over the prospect of potentially and forcefully shifting the balance of power on the Court while Democrats in Congress are said to be warning White House staff of a prolonged and brutal fight should President Trump attempt to replace a liberal Justice with a hardline-conservative nominee.

The reason for the Justice’s alleged departure is said to be “ongoing illness/physical limitations.”

Image via thefederalistpapers

 

 

The first on the Court that comes to mind given those clues is 84-year old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Justice Ginsberg has visibly slowed down a great deal in recent years, and has been prone to falling asleep in public, even when on the bench. Ginsberg’s office has taken to pushing back on rumors of her health issues via a series of left-leaning media publications, but Court watchers have noted Ginsberg’s increasingly limited public schedule of late.

Despite his 79-years, Justice Stephen Bryer’s place on the Court apparently remains secure, but not so with two others – swing-vote Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81, and liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 63.

Justice Kennedy, a moderate liberal (or moderate conservative depending on who you talk to) has already hinted at possible retirement, so he is not the likely source of the current Supreme Court rumors. Justice Sotomayor, though, despite being among the Court’s younger members, is said to be struggling greatly with her workload as she deals with a worsening diabetes condition. Court watchers have noted a visible decline in just the last year where she appears to have aged ten years. Rumors are also swirling regarding staff having to take up an increasing workload for the ailing Sotomayor who is said to have difficulty maintaining her train of thought for more than short periods of time. And like Ginsberg, Sotomayor’s staff is working hard to orchestrate a media-driven narrative to counter rumors of her decline.

Here is the thought that is now keeping the far-left elites up at night. Justice Kennedy might very well be preparing for retirement. That would be one Supreme Court vacancy. And if the rumors of ill health regarding Ginsberg and Sotomayor are in fact true, that could be two or even THREE vacancies on the Court for Trump to fill within the next year or two.

Who’s in Charge of Immigration?

Photo via US Daily Review

 

Family Security Matters

by RONALD R. CHERRY, MD

Who’s in charge of immigration in the United States of America? The question really boils down to who’s in charge of law in the United States of America. Our highest secular law is the US Constitution, so that is where we will start. What does the US Constitution say about immigration? It says nothing about immigration specifically, but our Constitution grants Congress the power to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States” and to “repel invasions” and to “establish a uniform rule of naturalization” through the power of Federal Law. This is what Congress did in 1952 with the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA), later amended in 1965. The Constitution grants the President powers related to foreign relations, such as the making of treaties with consent of the Senate, and for our common defense as Commander in Chief of the American armed forces during war and other foreign dangers to our general welfare. The Constitution gives the Supreme Court power to resolve disputes arising under the Constitution and Federal Law, but it does not give the Supreme Court, or the lesser Federal Courts, power thereby to override or veto Federal Law which is in pursuance of the Constitution, or power to override or veto Presidential execution thereof.

Here is the law: 

“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.” Immigration and Nationality Act, 1952.

Here’s How “President Hillary” Will Destroy Your Gun Rights Without Repealing The Second Amendment

 

Bearing Arms

by Bob Owens

 

Hillary Clinton is running the first presidential campaign in the history of the United States based explicitly on the gutting of a core Constitutional and human right.

Clinton has made attacking the human right of self-defense a key part of her 2016 campaign, and if she’s elected—and down-ballot Democrats manage to take control of the Senate and/or House—she’s poised to be able to destroy the gun rights of American citizens in three distinct ways.

• Place progressive, anti-gun justices on the Supreme Court
• Pass bans on a wide range of common firearms
• repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA)

Stacking the Supreme Court With Anti-Gun Justices

There is already one opening on the U.S. Supreme Court following the death of textualist Justice Antonin Scalia, and there are likely to be more justices who either retire, or simply pass on due their advanced ages in the next four years.

Progressive Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83. Moderate Anthony Kennedy is 80. Liberal-moderate Stephen Breyer is 78.

The next President will appoint a replacement for Scalia, and there has been some terrifying speculation on who that may be.

If the next President is Clinton, and Democrats manage to win control of the Senate in a “wave” election, there’s a good chance that she’s not only be able to appoint a left-leaning justice, but one with radical progressive ideology. Two of the other three elderly justices (Ginsburg, Breyer)  may also retire if Clinton were to take office, to be replaced by much younger and more radicalized justices. I don’t think Justice Kennedy would chose to retire under Clinton, but at 80 years old, health issues forcing retirement, or simply death, are always a possibility.

Obama Claims Power to Make Illegal Immigrants Eligible for Social Security, Disability

CNS News

Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status?

Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now.

The solicitor general calls what Obama is doing “prosecutorial discretion.”

He argues that under this particular type of “prosecutorial discretion,” the executive can make millions of people in this country illegally eligible for Social Security, disability and Medicare.

Dear Republican Establishment…

Independent Sentinel

Dear Republican Establishment:
I’m going to give you the Readers Digest version of why Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are leading in the Republican Primary.

In 2008, John McCain, a sitting Senator and a war hero, was running against the first African-American presidential candidate. Perhaps, the Republican party should have considered their own non-white candidate to appease a nation who thought skin color was more important than the proven character and experience of an “old white guy”.

Although I still believe McCain could have won, if not for the collapse of the Lehman Brothers and the fallout that followed, nonetheless, the Republicans failed to win this election.

In 2012, the Republicans nominated Mitt Romney. With millions of people protesting the Obama Healthcare Tax being shoved down our throats, the Republican Establishment picks the one guy who had already implemented this law in his own state. Would Romney fight the forced healthcare act that was the hot button issue in 2012, after all, he was the Daddy of it? Instead of fighting Obama and Obamacare, Romney became an apologist. He would attack Obama on his policy, get criticized in the papers and the next day he would be a blubbering idiot apologizing for offending Obama. All he did was offend the American people.

The Republican supporters refused to elect weak-kneed Romney, giving Obama the easy win. What the voters did do, however, was give the Republican the majority in the House and Senate. The People felt that in this position, the Republicans could stop Obama and his socialist agenda. Brilliant strategy that did not happen because the Republicans had the power, but they refuse to use it.

Obama Made a Call to McConnell and Grassley With a Chilling Suggestion

Independent Sentinel

Barack Obama called Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley to let them know he was going to nominate a Supreme Court Justice and his SPOX hinted at a possible nominee – an unsurprisingly horrible choice. No one in the world listens to Obama and he can’t negotiate a deal without giving away the Crown Jewels but every member of Congress caves at the first opportunity to his demands.

If Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley give in and allow Barack Obama’s nominee for Justice Scalia’s seat to come to the floor, it’s only a short matter of time before the person will be appointed.

We all know what that will mean. A leftist will tilt the scales in favor of the far left and every one of their agenda items will be pushed through, leaving no recourse for the right. At that point, we need a new party though it will likely be too late.

Earnest described the calls as “entirely professional” and said Obama made clear “he is going to nominate someone.”

The Obama SPOX said some nice things about Loretta Lynch, who has been mentioned as a potential nominee. She received bipartisan support, he said.

That sounds like a strong suggestion.

Will Five Justices Give One Man Control of US Immigration Law?

Family Security Matters

President Barack Obama told the truth – perhaps by accident – when he spoke last November at a Chicago community center.

Hecklers shouted at him for not doing enough, in their view, to stop deportations. He responded by defending his new policy.

“I understand you may disagree. But we’ve got to be able to talk honestly about these issues. All right?” said Obama, according to the White House transcript.

“Now, you’re absolutely right that there have been significant numbers of deportations. That’s true,” he said. “But what you’re not paying attention to is the fact that I just took action to change the law.”

Yes, Obama put it in the first-person singular: ‘I just took action to change the law.”

What law did Obama change?