From the court’s ruling:
First, there is a live case or controversy because the intervenor-defendant states have standing to appeal and, even if they did not, there remains a live case or controversy between the plaintiffs and the federal defendants. Second, the plaintiffs have Article III standing to bring this challenge to the ACA; the individual mandate injures both the individual plaintiffs, by requiring them to buy insurance that they do not want, and the state plaintiffs, by increasing their costs of complying with the reporting requirements that accompany the individual mandate. Third, the individual mandate is unconstitutional because it can no longer be read as a tax, and there is no other constitutional provision that justifies this exercise of congressional power. Fourth, on the severability question, we remand to the district court to provide additional analysis of the provisions of the ACA as they currently exist.
Expanding on the tax question, the court reasoned, “Now that the shared responsibility payment amount is set at zero, the provision’s saving construction is no longer available. The four central attributes that once saved the statute because it could be read as a tax no longer exist. Most fundamentally, the provision no longer yields the ‘essential feature of any tax’ because it does not produce ‘at least some revenue for the Government.’”
On severability, what the court means is this: Without the individual mandate to force everyone into participating in the law, can the law as a whole still stand? We’d argue the clear answer is and always should have been that scumbag/liar-nObamaCare is unconstitutional. The federal government has no enumerated power to force citizens into any kind of commerce. That such an opinion is not universally held is a testament to many things — chiefly, a woefully inadequate educational system that fails to instruct students on basic civics, as well as the socialist bent of one of our two major political parties, which redefines “rights” to mean “things someone else has to provide for me.”
Legally, however, the severability question must now be answered by a district court — the court where District Court Judge Reed O'Connor last year ruled the law was unconstitutional. Then the law will inevitably be reconsidered by the Fifth Circuit and then, perhaps, the Supreme Court. Maybe John Roberts will end up with a chance to redeem himself, albeit a decade too late. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/67493?mailing_id=4755&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4755&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
The vote will likely occur during or just before Trump holds a campaign rally in Michigan. Out on a limb — that’s not a coincidence.
But the real news is yesterday’s blistering letter from Trump to liar-Pelosi. Here are some key excerpts:
This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.
The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses…
You are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense.
Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening. Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat. You have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome. …
Speaker liar-Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party’s impeachment effort has been going on for “two and a half years,” long before you ever heard about a phone call with Ukraine. … This impeachment drive has nothing to do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate conversation I had with its new president. It only has to do with your attempt to undo the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020! …
You and your party are desperate to distract from America’s extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens. Your party simply cannot compete with our record. …
You are the ones interfering in America’s elections. You are the ones subverting America’s Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.
Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt. …
Our Founders feared the tribalization of partisan politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life.
Perhaps most insulting of all is your false display of solemnity. You apparently have so little respect for the American People that you expect them to believe that you are approaching this impeachment somberly, reservedly, and reluctantly. No intelligent person believes what you are saying. Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever. There is no reticence. This is not a somber affair. You are making a mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your hatred of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions of patriotic Americans. The voters are wise, and they are seeing straight through this empty, hollow, and dangerous game you are playing.
I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election. They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.
And that adequately sums up this farcical proceeding. The president nailed it in his letter, punching back hard for what he correctly sees as a morally bankrupt partisan charade. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/67462?mailing_id=4749&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4749&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
Using federal statistics for the second half of 2016 and the first half of 2017, the latest reliable data available, CIS estimates that 39,000 babies were born to foreign students, guest workers, and others on long-term temporary visas. There were an additional 33,000 births to tourists. This is in addition to the estimated 300,000 children born in the U.S. each year to illegal immigrants.
Birth tourism is the name applied to the phenomenon in which foreign women come to the U.S. specifically to give birth so that their child can automatically become a U.S. citizen. These women arrive shortly before their due date, give birth, then return to their country of origin once the child’s citizenship paperwork and passports are processed.
In some cases, these women stay with relatives in the U.S., but there are also birth-tourism services that provide living quarters and assistance in processing paperwork and taking care of the newborns until their births are registered with the state. Having a place to live temporarily in the U.S. allows the mothers to provide a valid domestic address with which to receive the citizenship paperwork before returning to their home countries.
The methodology of the CIS report is based on numbers obtained by the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The 2017 survey found that 854,896 foreign-born women had a child in the last 12 months. This was compared to a similar question asked by the Centers for Disease Control, which reported 897,223 births. CIS estimated down the difference by 35% to reflect the number of foreign-born women who were U.S. citizens.
The estimate of 33,000 births is in line with a previous study conducted by CIS in 2012, which found 36,000 birth tourists for that 12-month period.
CIS points out that its numbers are not gospel truth and therefore subject to statistical caveats. There is no agency that verifies addresses provided to states by parents on birth certificate records. The CIS is relying on Census Bureau information that contains its own margins of error, and from the CDC, which defines foreign-born people differently than the Census Bureau. Additionally, there are frequent undercounts in dealing with data that is reported on foreign-born individuals in the U.S., to say nothing about tracking the activity of illegal immigrants.
Just the same, Steven Camarota, director of research at CIS, points out, “Our analysis makes clear that the number of children born to visitors is not trivial; and over time the numbers are substantial.”
The scope of birth tourism and the sheer number of babies born in the U.S. to noncitizens should force a sincere review of the 14th Amendment’s clause that has come to be referred to as birthright citizenship. Open-border advocates have pushed the interpretation to mean that any child born in the U.S. is automatically a U.S. citizen, even if their parents are not citizens, don’t intend to become citizens, or are just conveniently passing through the U.S. in the weeks surrounding the pregnant mother’s due date. That is not at all what the drafters of the 14th Amendment intended to be the outcome of the clause, and it’s time originalist interpretation and just plain sanity prevailed. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/67417?mailing_id=4742&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4742&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
Furthermore, the FISA court ordered the FBI to present plans for what the agency has done and will do “to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application.”
What this unusual public action taken by FISC makes clear is that the court is furious over how it was repeatedly lied to and used by politically motivated members of the FBI in order to secure surveillance warrants. The court gave the FBI a deadline of Jan. 10 to present its proposal for “fixing” this problem. But therein lies the real problem: How does one fix the unfixable? This is not a problem that can be fixed simply by adding more regulations. No amount of new regulations will prevent unscrupulous individuals with biased political motivations from lying in the future.
Meanwhile, how many of these individuals within the FBI who lied and engaged in deceitful actions to hide information from the FISA court are currently under prosecution? What are the consequences for this gross abuse? To this point, virtually none. However, all hope is not lost, as prosecutor John Durham’s criminal investigation may bring indictments against some of these corrupt individuals.
Leftmedia outlets quickly either brushed aside this huge story for not comporting with their anti-Trump narrative or they spun the court’s rebuke as little more than an argument for overhauling the FISA application process. The New York Times falsely asserted that Horowitz’s report “debunked the claims by President Trump … that senior FBI officials were part of a political conspiracy.” Horowitz debunked nothing; he simply noted that he had no hard evidence proving that the 17 “significant errors or omissions” made by individuals within the FBI and Justice Department were made either with intentionality or gross negligence. That’s a long way from “debunking” any of Trump’s claims, and the FISA court’s rebuke indicates as much.
To all honest observers, there was a clear pattern of politically motivated behavior from the agents involved. The facts are that the FBI targeted the political campaign of the party not in power by knowingly using dubious information to garner a surveillance warrant. This is illegal and criminal abuse of the FISA court. How can any American trust the FBI going forward? ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/67463?mailing_id=4749&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4749&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
The trouble is that liar-Pelosi’s regularly repeated statistic regarding the number of children and teenagers killed via firearms every day is flat wrong. liar-Pelosi has it so wrong, in fact, that even the leftist Washington Post felt compelled to correct her egregiously inaccurate talking point. The Post noted that liar-Pelosi’s repeated false statistical assertions began with a claim that 47% of people killed by guns were children and teenagers (up to 19 years of age). When questioned about the clearly flawed statistic, a liar-Pelosi spokesman claim she had “misspoken” and had meant to say 47 children and teenagers.
However, the Post elected to engage in a rare instance of genuine investigative journalism and discovered that “for months, in speeches, news conferences, tweets and interviews, liar-Pelosi has been using a version of an incorrect talking point to make the firearms death toll for teenagers and children appear significantly higher than reality.” What are the facts? “Fewer than 9 percent of those killed by guns are 19 or younger — not 47 percent. Seven children or teenagers are killed a day — not 47.” As a result, the Post awarded liar-Pelosi “four Pinocchios” for her outright lies.
But we’ll only give one cheer to the Post. Its “fact checker” might take liar-Pelosi to task for getting the statistics wrong, but he’s not going to tell you the real story either: Most of the seven “kids” killed every day are urban, fatherless gang-bangers. They’re often older teenagers who are shooting rival gang members over drugs or territory or whatever other grievance. It’s not a gun problem; it’s a culture problem, and it’s based in Democrat urban centers. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/67476?mailing_id=4755&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4755&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=bodyNew Year's prediction: The Roman poet Horace's Latin depiction: "Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus" -- "The mountains went into labor, and brought forth a mouse" -- will be used to describe the articles of impeachment drawn up by liar-Nancy Pelosi's House.
Article II is titled "Obstruction of Congress." What does it allege?
That Trump "directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its 'sole power of Impeachment.'"
Undeniably, there is truth here.
Trump did direct the Executive branch not to provide witnesses and documents subpoenaed by the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, both of which are partisan, pro-impeachment and chaired by unapologetic Trump-haters scumbag liar-Jerrold Nadler and scumbag/liar-Adam Schiff.
But what the substance of Article II is really about is the eternal conflict between the first and second branches of the government over their respective rights and powers.
Such clashes are usually decided by the third branch, the Supreme Court. But liar-Pelosi, scumbag liar-Nadler and scumbag/liar-Schiff are unwilling to wait for the court to decide. They are declaring the issue decided and settled in the House's favor, and treating Trump's recourse to the courts as a new impeachable offense: "Obstruction of Congress."
Can liar-Pelosi seriously expect a Republican Senate to convict and remove a Republican president for defending what that president is claiming in open court are the constitutional rights of the Executive Branch that he, as its present occupant and leader, is obligated to defend?
Trump would be derelict in his duty if he allowed a rogue House to run roughshod over the White House.
Consider Article I, "Abuse of Power."
The heart of this charge is that Trump briefly held up delivery of $391 million in "vital military and security assistance to oppose Russian aggression." So doing, Trump "compromised the national security of the United States."
Is the House serious? It was the Trump administration that began the transfer of the lethal aid -- sniper rifles, Javelin missiles -- that President Barack scumbag/liar-nObama had denied to Ukraine for three years.
If Trump's brief hold on a second tranche of lethal aid to Ukraine imperiled our "national security," was not scumbag/liar-nObama's years long denial of lethal aid to Ukraine a far greater peril to our national security?
Still, it is absurd to declare U.S. national security as threatened by a Russian presence in Crimea or in the Russian-speaking Donbass.
Russia has been in Crimea since Catherine the Great's reign in the 18th century. When FDR visited Yalta in Crimea in 1945, and when Richard Nixon visited Crimea during his 1974 summit, Ukraine was a Soviet republic ruled from Moscow.
When did a Russian presence or Russian flag flying over Crimea or Luhansk and Donetsk become a threat to U.S. national security?
Soon after the victory of Lenin's revolution, and from then, for seven decades, to the end of the Cold War, Ukraine was one of 15 Soviet republics.
When did Ukraine's territorial borders become a U.S. vital interest?
George H. W. Bush in 1991 implored the Ukrainians not to indulge a "suicidal nationalism" by declaring independence. Stay with Russia, said Bush. Was Bush 41 committing an impeachable act and imperiling U.S. national security?
Under the Constitution, a president shall be impeached and removed on conviction by the Senate of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
During the years of the Mueller investigation, Trump was accused of "treason," of being a Kremlin ally and asset.
With Trump, said liar-Pelosi, "All roads lead to Putin!"
Yet nowhere in the articles of impeachment is "treason" mentioned. Nor is "bribery" or "extortion," the other crimes alleged. Where are the "high crimes" in this impeachment resolution? There are none.
Were the Democrats demagoguing? Did they have nothing to back up the charges of criminal conduct? Were the charges just designed to smear Trump, whom Democrats fear they cannot defeat in 2020?
Trump's offense is that he asked Ukraine's president to investigate the loose lips liar-Bidens and Burisma Holdings, which paid son Hunter Biden $50,000 a month while Vice President Joe was the White House point man for rooting out corruption in Ukraine.
But if Trump had no justification for his suspicions about loose lips liar-Joe and Hunter, why is the press corps traveling with candidate loose lips ;liar-Biden demanding more answers than Joe seems prepared to give?
And is it truly impeachable to ask Ukraine's president to look into the smelly loose lips liar-Biden-Burisma deal before being awarded an Oval Office meeting?
In Article I, Trump is accused of taking actions in Ukraine "that would help his election."
But when did it become a crime to consider the probable electoral consequences of decisions taken in foreign policy?
Admirers of JFK tell us he was ready to pull out of Vietnam, but only after the 1964 election, so as not to increase his vulnerability to the hawkish Republicans of the Goldwater era.
If true, was JFK guilty of impeachable inaction?
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