The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
The President and the Courts
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
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Vetting Richard Blumenthal's Background
Judge Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, faces the usual hurdles for a Republican nominee and then some. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said of Gorsuch, "It is important that every aspect of his background be critically and closely scrutinized." Fair enough, though we know what that usually means for Democrats — nasty personal destruction, complete with charges of racism, sexism, etc.
But it's Blumenthal whose background deserves the scrutiny. He lied about his military service in Vietnam, and when his lies were exposed, he brazenly lied about the lies. "My intention has always been to be completely clear and accurate and straightforward," he insisted in 2010, "out of respect to the veterans who served in Vietnam." No such thing. Blumenthal repeatedly claimed to have "served in Vietnam" when in fact he received five deferments and never went further west than Washington state — to organize a Toys for Tots drive. But by all means, let's trust him to vet Gorsuch's background.
On a final note, Blumenthal met with Gorsuch and reported that the SCOTUS nominee objected to Donald Trump's words about "so-called judges," calling that characterization "demoralizing" and "disheartening." Trump responded via Twitter, "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" By all accounts, Gorsuch did use those words (and rightly so), leaving an apparent contradiction between Trump's tweet and reality. So once again, Trump has stepped in it with his Twitter account. He's directly contradicted his nominee, which will come up again in confirmation hearings. Media-generated perception will be that Trump demands fealty from the judicial branch. Instead, the focus should be what Democrats do to destroy nominees. ~The Patriot Post
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Trump could shut off refugee
spigot without executive order
by Leo Hohmann
{wnd.com} ~ If President Donald Trump wants to curtail migration into the U.S. from some of the world’s most dangerous hotspots of jihadism, he has options that would effectively navigate an end-run around the courts... Trump hinted in his news conference Friday that the nation should expect something quickly, possibly a whole new executive order that would bypass the legal challenges. “We will keep our country safe. That’s what I’m here for… I will give it the best security, so it will happen very rapidly,” Trump said Friday... http://www.wnd.com/2017/02/trump-could-shut-off-refugee-spigot-without-executive-order/
.Senator Webb Admits Left And Media
Conspiracy To Destroy Trump...
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb was a candidate for the Democrat nomination for President in 2016, dropping out due to a funding disparity between himself and the criminal, crooked liar-Hillary... as well as his being too normal to represent the Democrat Party. Senator Webb still has his connections in DC although he is now officially out of politics. His sources have confirmed what we’ve all witnessed and suspected in the aftermath of the presidential campaign, the leftist are out to get Trump by whatever means possible. Senator Webb reveals to Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd the nature of the coordinated attacks. In true Alinsky “the end justifies the means” manner, the attacks have gotten personal. Webb describes the conspiracy by the leftists, saying, “There is a campaign going on, on the Hill, in the media, in the academia, to personally discredit not only Donald Trump but the people who are around him... http://rickwells.us/senator-webb-admits-left-media-conspiracy-destroy-trump-country-damned/
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ICE Fights Back Against Fake News
on Criminal Alien Arrests
by Bob Price
{breitbart.com} ~ U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are fighting back against false reports of checkpoints and sweeps during the ongoing operation targeting criminal (ICE) aliens... “Reports of ICE checkpoints and sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible,” ICE officials wrote in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “These reports create mass panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger. Any groups falsely reporting such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support.” Media outlets have been reporting statements by community activists that appear to be aimed at instilling fear and false information about the ICE’s Operation Crosscheck, a program targeting criminal aliens and those with immigration court removal orders... http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/02/11/ice-fights-back-fake-news-criminal-alien-arrests/
.EPA Faces Restrictions – Bill To Put
Them Out Of Citizen Torture Business
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ There’s a new attitude among some members of Congress under the Trump administration that embodies a new respect for our rights as formerly free citizens of this nation... There’s also appears to be a new attention to fiscal responsibility and an emergence of common sense in the spending of taxpayer’s dollars that didn’t previously exist under the liar-nObama regime or to a significant degree his predecessors as well. As if to highlight the new, previously unheard of method of governance, a “treat the citizens like they’re grownups and as if you actually want their country to survive” way of non-abusive thinking, one House Republican is sponsoring legislation to tame one of the two most hated and abusive agencies within the federal government, the EPA. On Thursday Rep Sam Johnson (R-TX) introduced the Wasteful EPA Programs Elimination Act, estimating that it would save $7.5 billion annually. The bill eliminates most of the wasteful and abusive spending by what has been operated as a rogue, belligerent, anti-American totalitarian arm of executive branch abuse for decades... http://rickwells.us/epa-faces-restrictions-bill-citizen-torture-business/
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Manila Predicts Beijing Will Build Base
On Scarborough Shoal
by Sam LaGrone
by Sam LaGrone
Scarborough Shoal
{news.usni.org} ~ This week the Philippine defense secretary predicted China would start building an artificial island on the bones of Scarborough Shoal... If unopposed, China would likely attempt to build an installation like the several bases Beijing has constructed in the Spratly Island chain to the south of Scarborough, Delfin Lorenzana said in a Tuesday interview with AFP. “If we allow them, they will build,” he told the wire. “That’s very, very disturbing. Very much more disturbing than Fiery Cross because this is so close to us.”... https://news.usni.org/2017/02/10/manila-predicts-beijing-will-build-base-on-scarborough-shoal?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=80663826d9-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-80663826d9-231491269&mc_cid=80663826d9&mc_eid=3999f18767
Chinese Artificial Islands - https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1H8Djvpz3-htzfmtepFBUgu8Nh30&usp=sharing
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The President and the Courts
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
{townhall.com} ~ Last week, in a public courtroom in the federal courthouse in Seattle, the states of Washington and Minnesota -- after suing President Donald Trump, alleging injury caused by his executive order that suspended the immigration of all people from seven foreign countries -- asked a federal judge to compel the president and all those who work for him to cease enforcing the order immediately. After a brief emergency oral argument, the judge signed a temporary restraining order, which barred the enforcement of the president's order everywhere in the United States.
The president reacted with anger, referring to the judge as a "so-called judge," and immigrant rights groups praised the judicial intervention as a victory for the oppressed. The president meant, I think, that Judge James L. Robart had not acted properly as a judge by second-guessing him -- that he had acted more like a politician; and the immigrant rights groups felt, I think, that the United States was once again a beacon of hope for refugees.
Here is the back story.
A 1952 federal statute permits the president to suspend the immigration status of any person or group whose entry into the United States might impair public health or safety or national security. Trump exercised that authority in accordance with the 1952 law when he signed his Jan. 27 order banning all immigration from the seven named countries.
When the president exercises powers granted to him by the Constitution or federal statues or when Congress passes bills, one cannot simply sue the government in federal court because one does not like what has been done. That is so because the Constitution has preconditions for a lawsuit in federal court. One of those preconditions is what lawyers and judges call "standing." Standing means that the plaintiff has alleged and can most likely show that the defendant has caused the plaintiff an injury in fact, distinct from all others not in the case.
Hence, it is curious that the plaintiffs in the Seattle case were not people whose entry had been barred by Trump's order but rather the governments of two states, each claiming to sue in behalf of people and entities resident or about to be resident in them. The court should have dismissed the case as soon as it was filed because of long-standing Supreme Court policy that bars federal litigation alleging harm to another and permits it only for the actual injury or immediate likelihood of injury to the litigant.
Nevertheless, the Seattle federal judge heard oral argument on the two states' emergency application for a temporary restraining order against the president. During that oral argument, the judge asked a lawyer for the Department of Justice how many arrests of foreign nationals from the seven countries singled out by the president for immigration suspension there have been in the United States since 9/11. When the DOJ lawyer said she did not know, the judge answered his own question by saying, "None."
He was wrong.
There have been dozens of people arrested and convicted in the United States for terrorism-related crimes since 9/11 who were born in the seven countries. Yet even if the judge had been correct, his question was irrelevant -- and hence the answer meaningless -- because it does not matter to a court what evidence the president relied on in this type of order. This is the kind of judicial second-guessing -- substituting the judicial mind for the presidential mind -- that is impermissible in our system. It is impermissible because the Constitution assigns to the president alone nearly all decision-making authority on foreign policy and because Congress has assigned to the president the power of immigration suspension as a tool with which to implement foreign policy.
These rules and policies -- the requirement of standing before suing and the primacy of the president in making foreign policy -- stem directly from the Constitution. Were they not in place, then anyone could sue the government for anything and induce a federal judge to second-guess the president. That would convert the courts into a super-legislature -- albeit an unelected, unaccountable, opaque one.
I am not suggesting for a moment that the courts have no place here. Rather, they have a vital place. It is to say what the Constitution means, say what the statutes mean and determine whether the government has exercised its powers constitutionally and legally. It is not the job of judges to decide whether the government has been smart or prudent, though.
One of the arguments made by the state of Washington to explain why it had standing was laughable. Washington argued that corporations located in Washington would suffer the irreparable loss of available high-tech-qualified foreign employees if the ban were upheld. Even if this were likely and even if it were provable, it would not establish injury in fact to the government of Washington. When pressed to reveal what entity Washington was trying to protect, it enumerated a few familiar names, among which was Microsoft.
Microsoft? The government of the state of Washington is suing to protect Microsoft?! Microsoft could buy the state of Washington if Starbucks were willing to sell it.
I jest to make a point. The rule of law needs to be upheld. Carefully paying attention to constitutional procedure protects personal freedom. In similar environments, the late Justice Antonin Scalia often remarked that much of what the government does is stupid but constitutional and that the courts' only concern is with the latter.
The DOJ is now challenging the Seattle restraining order in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and this case may make its way to the Supreme Court. Will federal judges be faithful to the rule of law? We shall soon find out.
The president reacted with anger, referring to the judge as a "so-called judge," and immigrant rights groups praised the judicial intervention as a victory for the oppressed. The president meant, I think, that Judge James L. Robart had not acted properly as a judge by second-guessing him -- that he had acted more like a politician; and the immigrant rights groups felt, I think, that the United States was once again a beacon of hope for refugees.
Here is the back story.
A 1952 federal statute permits the president to suspend the immigration status of any person or group whose entry into the United States might impair public health or safety or national security. Trump exercised that authority in accordance with the 1952 law when he signed his Jan. 27 order banning all immigration from the seven named countries.
When the president exercises powers granted to him by the Constitution or federal statues or when Congress passes bills, one cannot simply sue the government in federal court because one does not like what has been done. That is so because the Constitution has preconditions for a lawsuit in federal court. One of those preconditions is what lawyers and judges call "standing." Standing means that the plaintiff has alleged and can most likely show that the defendant has caused the plaintiff an injury in fact, distinct from all others not in the case.
Hence, it is curious that the plaintiffs in the Seattle case were not people whose entry had been barred by Trump's order but rather the governments of two states, each claiming to sue in behalf of people and entities resident or about to be resident in them. The court should have dismissed the case as soon as it was filed because of long-standing Supreme Court policy that bars federal litigation alleging harm to another and permits it only for the actual injury or immediate likelihood of injury to the litigant.
Nevertheless, the Seattle federal judge heard oral argument on the two states' emergency application for a temporary restraining order against the president. During that oral argument, the judge asked a lawyer for the Department of Justice how many arrests of foreign nationals from the seven countries singled out by the president for immigration suspension there have been in the United States since 9/11. When the DOJ lawyer said she did not know, the judge answered his own question by saying, "None."
He was wrong.
There have been dozens of people arrested and convicted in the United States for terrorism-related crimes since 9/11 who were born in the seven countries. Yet even if the judge had been correct, his question was irrelevant -- and hence the answer meaningless -- because it does not matter to a court what evidence the president relied on in this type of order. This is the kind of judicial second-guessing -- substituting the judicial mind for the presidential mind -- that is impermissible in our system. It is impermissible because the Constitution assigns to the president alone nearly all decision-making authority on foreign policy and because Congress has assigned to the president the power of immigration suspension as a tool with which to implement foreign policy.
These rules and policies -- the requirement of standing before suing and the primacy of the president in making foreign policy -- stem directly from the Constitution. Were they not in place, then anyone could sue the government for anything and induce a federal judge to second-guess the president. That would convert the courts into a super-legislature -- albeit an unelected, unaccountable, opaque one.
I am not suggesting for a moment that the courts have no place here. Rather, they have a vital place. It is to say what the Constitution means, say what the statutes mean and determine whether the government has exercised its powers constitutionally and legally. It is not the job of judges to decide whether the government has been smart or prudent, though.
One of the arguments made by the state of Washington to explain why it had standing was laughable. Washington argued that corporations located in Washington would suffer the irreparable loss of available high-tech-qualified foreign employees if the ban were upheld. Even if this were likely and even if it were provable, it would not establish injury in fact to the government of Washington. When pressed to reveal what entity Washington was trying to protect, it enumerated a few familiar names, among which was Microsoft.
Microsoft? The government of the state of Washington is suing to protect Microsoft?! Microsoft could buy the state of Washington if Starbucks were willing to sell it.
I jest to make a point. The rule of law needs to be upheld. Carefully paying attention to constitutional procedure protects personal freedom. In similar environments, the late Justice Antonin Scalia often remarked that much of what the government does is stupid but constitutional and that the courts' only concern is with the latter.
The DOJ is now challenging the Seattle restraining order in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and this case may make its way to the Supreme Court. Will federal judges be faithful to the rule of law? We shall soon find out.
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