Think about that for a moment. A federal judge presiding over an ACLU lawsuit has ordered the Attorney General of the State of Florida to cease enforcement of the Florida law that is the source of the suit. The AG, citing his opinion that the judge has no jurisdiction, is defying the order, refusing to order Florida law enforcement to stand down.

And here's the interesting bit: It seems that if the Florida AG is to be brought in to face contempt charges, the person likely to be tasked with bringing him in would be U.S. Marshal Greg Leljedal of the Northern District of Florida. Now, look at this:
...
They seem to be on remarkably good terms.

Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations are supposed to be about safeguarding children from harm. In every state, the standard CPS protocol for an investigation is, among other things, to conduct a home visit and to interview each child by themselves. However, these tactics can themselves inflict significant trauma upon the very children they aim to protect.¹ These harms are increasingly recognized by legal analysts,² child welfare caseworkers and supervisors, tribal workers and supervisors, police officers and detectives, foster parents, birthparents, teachers and school counselors, medical examiners, mental health providers, juvenile court staff, child welfare trainers, and foster youth.³

While in situations of real abuse the cost of the harm created should be offset by the benefit of the harm prevented, this is not at all the case when the investigation is based on false or overblown allegations. In such situations, the effect of the standard CPS investigation means that the child, not to mention their family, ends up more harmed, not less.

Investigations cause immediate shock, confusion, and fear.

The very nature of a CPS investigation, especially in the home, can surprise, shock, and traumatize children.⁴ Investigations are unexpected and can be quite sudden.⁵ According to research from Portland State University's Center for Improvement of Child and Family Services, children frequently report feelings of “surprise, shock, and chaos” during investigations.⁶ Many develop a sense of “powerlessness, helplessness,” and even “guilt or failure.”⁷ This is increased when the investigations commence in the middle of the night.⁸

Many parents recount their children crying and sobbing after interviews, demonstrating the immediate emotional impact of these investigations.⁹ Children do not understand what is going on or what is going to happen.¹⁰ This leads to fear that their parents will be arrested¹¹ or even that the children will be taken away.¹²

Children are afraid of being intruded upon by strangers. //

The standard CPS investigatory approach causes significant harm to the children involved. When investigations stem from false or overblown allegations, this harm is completely unjustifiable and adverse to the aim of protecting children.

Instead, CPS workers who seek to protect children should not rush to enter a home or conduct child interviews without first weighing the harms to determine whether interviews are really necessary. Very often, there are other methods available of determining children are safe without employing these more harmful tactics. When trauma to children can be avoided, it should be.

If you want to talk about due process, what about the state's attorney and the victims in the courtroom waiting for the case to be heard, who were left high and dry because of what Dugan did? They didn't find out until later that the case had been adjourned after the state's attorney wondered why the case hadn't been called.

Now, Chief Judge Carl Ashley is blowing up the notion that you can't arrest someone in the public hallway where the agents were waiting, and that the warrant the federal agents had was sufficient.

Milwaukee County Chief Judge Carl Ashley said federal agents have leeway to operate in the hallways of the Milwaukee County Courthouse, even if they only have what's known as an administrative warrant.

Asked to comment on the April 25 arrest of Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, Ashley said a formal policy for access to the courthouse is still being drafted but the county faces "limitations on what we can do."

"The reality is, for my colleagues, we don't have control in the public hallways," Ashley said.

He said that an administrative warrant, despite lacking a judge's signature, can be used to make arrests in a public hallway.

Dieter Schultz
4 hours ago edited

Milwaukee County Chief Judge Carl Ashley said federal agents have leeway to operate in the hallways of the Milwaukee County Courthouse, even if they only have what's known as an administrative warrant.

I recently read a comment on another site that noted a Catch 22 situation with these 'administrative warrants'.

But what I want to make note of is that the "sanctuary" entities always say they will not accept anything but a "judicial warrant". However, there is no mechanism under the law to issue a "judicial warrant" for violations of 8 USC 1182 or 8 USC 1227 (which all administrative violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act fall under).

They know this, that is why the make a requirement for something that does not exist.

I did a little checking and that seems about right.

The constant repeating of the term 'due process' plays to the public's discomfort with thinking deeply on subjects like the law and what it means to this country.

It's a cute trick if INS can only issue 'administrative' warrants and the left keeps insisting on 'judicial' warrants and the left knows that few people will call them on it and, if someone does call them on it, all the left has to do is ignore the event and wait a few hours until the people move on and forget the previous reveal.

This family, targeted solely over what should have been a civil dispute over grazing rights over 25 acres of government land, was prosecuted, credibly threatened with jail sentences, so extreme that they were told to find alternatives to raise their young children. Charles and Maude live on a 5th-generation family farm in Pennington County, South Dakota, close to Mount Rushmore. There, they farm 400 acres. They raise about 250 head of cattle, and about 40 sows. //

The Biden administration criminally charged the Maude family for theft of government property. And for too long, for years now, they have endured a torturous legal process and suffered as victims of the Biden regime's reckless lawfare. Just imagine, a government that would be willing to de facto orphan American children over a mere dispute over 25 acres of land. The men of Lexington and Concord knew what (this) sort of government was like, and they knew what to do about it. The Maude family too, faced with destruction at the hand of the state, made their appeal to heaven, and providence answered. Thanks to the leadership and the unequivocal, bold leadership of President Trump and his directive to put Americans first, we now have the pleasure to announce that the criminal prosecution of the Maudes is now over. They will not be driven from their home. They will not be jailed. They will not be fined. And their children will grow up with a mother and a father who they love and who love them. //

This dispute - and there was, legitimately, some confusion over the status of the 25 acres and the exact boundaries between that acreage and the Maude family land - should never have come to this in the first place. In a sane world, this would have been resolved by having one or two Department of Agriculture officials come out, sit down with the Maudes, make sure everybody understood and agreed to a solution to the dispute, and arrive at a mutually agreed-upon survey of the property boundaries.

Instead, the Biden administration threatened the Maudes with jail time. The Biden administration threatened to break up the Maude family, to effectively orphan the Maude children. And all of this is over a dispute over 25 acres of grazing land. This is the same administration, mind you, that allowed millions of unscreened, unvetted, illegal immigrants to flood into the United States. //

DarthCY
an hour ago
You should go deeper into the story. The Government was even more heavy handed than you present. They were cooperating and were waiting for a survey to come back to discuss when they raided their house, arrested them and tried them separately. They also barred them from communicating with each other on their defense. This is pure evil. //

anon-259e
an hour ago
Every Federal employee involved with this abomination needs to be fired and the Maude family must be reimbursed for all legal expenses + an extra 100% as damages.

According to the government, Dugan directed federal agents away from the hallway outside of her courtroom to see the chief judge, then hustled illegal alien defendant Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, whose case she was supposed to hear, out another door. The affidavit also noted that, on top of all that, the case against Flores-Ruiz wasn't called. When the state's attorney asked, the attorney found out the case had been adjourned even though the state's attorney and the victims were there for it.

So much for that "due process" that the victims had come for, and that Democrats are now screaming about. Reminder: the illegal alien was facing multiple charges of domestic violence, and he had already been deported once, so he was a re-entry. //

So if you don't know the details, why are you commenting? How can it be "obvious" intimidation when you don't even know the facts of the case? You say you don't want to comment, yet you are commenting. This tells you all you need to know about why media today is in trouble.

Then Brooks made it worse.

And to me, if she- - let’s say she did escort this guy out the door. If federal enforcement agencies come to your courtroom and you help a guy escape, that is two things. One, it strikes me as maybe something illegal, but it also strikes me as something heroic.

And in times of trouble, then people are sometimes called to do civil disobedience. And in my view, when people do civil disobedience they have to pay the price. That’s part of the heroism of it, frankly. And so you can both think that she shouldn’t have legally done this, and that, morally, protecting somebody against, maybe not even in this case, but in other cases, frankly, a predatory enforcement agency... //

Unbelievable. Forget about the enforcement of the law or any of the victims. We've now moved from "no one is above the law" to "sometimes civil disobedience is necessary," and breaking the law is "heroic." He wants to be able to offer an opinion, without getting held to any of the bad details in this particular case, so what is what he says worth? Absolutely nothing. //

Dieter Schultz RedDog_FLA
8 minutes ago

Civil Disobedience by a Judge responsible for the rule of law?
Label me puzzled. Brooks has really left leaned his views.

When you consider the way that progressives reason, namely, that they start with the conclusion that they want to draw and then work backwards to find a line of rationalization that gets them there... when you consider that... well, it's hard to be surprised by what emanates from the mind of a progressive.

It seems to me that Judge Dugan and Brooks both approach the world, including the legal world, from that paradigm... well... it's not all that surprising to hear their views on civil disobedience.

That worldview and reasoning runs counter to the way axiomatic systems like the law, and math, works but nobody ever said they were rational.

President Trump has struck a devastating blow at the legal theory that drives most of the race-centric litigation in the country. In his executive order entitled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” which aims to “eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible,” Trump orders the full weight of the federal government directed toward eradicating and what is essentially the racist contention that Black men and women are at a disadvantage when a race-neutral standard is used.

"Disparate impact" is a great example of how legislative authority devolved into an unelected bureaucracy making up rules to please interest groups with no reasonable basis in law.

The Civil Rights Act banned discrimination “because of” race, sex, and other prohibited characteristics. That language was written, intended, and understood at the time to outlaw intentional discrimination. Practices that had a dramatically unequal outcome on different groups might be supporting evidence of intentional discrimination, but nothing in the statute made it a substitute for proving discrimination. Other statutes written in that era, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (FHA), contained similar language.

As Justice Clarence Thomas has observed, “The author of disparate-impact liability under Title VII was not Congress, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).” The EEOC’s leaders felt that Congress had passed a “compromise” statute and that, through “creative interpretation,” it could be expanded to reach any practice that produced unequal outcomes. Deference to the EEOC’s position led the Supreme Court to adopt the disparate impact theory under Title VII in 1971, and later to engraft it upon the ADEA and the FHA, the latter in a 5–4 decision in 2015 from which Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts all dissented. Trump’s executive order quotes the chief justice’s own words in another case: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

It is really hard to explain how evil the "disparate impact" theory is. This is from Heather MacDonald writing in City Journal:

"Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the use of SATs in college admissions, the use of grades for medical licensing exams, credit-based mortgage lending, the ability to discipline insubordinate students, and criminal background checks for employees and renters. It has been used to eliminate prosecution for a large range of crimes, including shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and resisting arrest; to end police tactics such as proactive stops (otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk); and to purge safety technologies like ShotSpotter and speeding cameras from police departments.". //

Ricardo Dale
3 minutes ago
This is the actual institutional racism the community organizers have been screaming about...

What Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor, is doing is essentially conceding the facts of the case (that Dugan did what she's alleged to have done) while trying to argue that it was improper for the Trump administration to arrest her because of the "spectacle."

Did Rossi ever make that case about any of the people around President Donald Trump who were frogmarched out of their homes by the Biden administration? Or what about Trump himself? If you're going to argue that judges deserve deference, didn't a then-former president deserve deference? Only now are these CNN flacks acting as if using measure exists, and that's a patently political complaint. //

JENNINGS: Let me tell you my view. The spectacle is important because the message has to be sent to everybody else, "We are not going to put up...you have been elected by people to uphold the law, and some of the laws that have been most flagrantly violated in his country are immigraiton laws. You've got to get on board with upholding all the laws. //

Yes, if the facts of this case are proven true, this judge committed a crime, but sending her to jail is only part of the equation. The other part is using her as an example and showing other judges and officials around the country that they will be treated just like every other alleged criminal if they break the law. There will be no special treatment. There will be no summons orders to avoid the cameras. //

Fishin'withFredo
2 hours ago
"Spectacle"? Let's not forget that this same network was CALLED and positioned by the feds to broadcast Roger Stone and his wife marched out of their home in cuffs at 0400.

Retired Professor tcgeol
3 days ago
I hope this isn't misunderstood, but sometimes Catholics who are otherwise socially conservative have what most of us would consider quite liberal views on things like immigration and welfare, arising out of a misguided notion that the government is supposed to play the same kind of role as the Church in helping those less fortunate. Of course, the only way the government can do that is by forced wealth transfers, which the Constitution never contemplated.

State attorney generals just have no particularized interest. They’re like anybody else in the United States. Tariffs are very complicated. Judges don’t have any basis for deciding whether they’re good or bad for the economy. That can be decided by legislatures if they decide to take over the issue or by elected executives, but not by appointed judges.

Host Greta Van Susteren asked Dershowitz if a state could successfully sue on behalf of its "devastated agriculture sector," to which he answered, "I don't think so," adding:

I think you’d have to have the farmers bringing the lawsuit, not the attorney general of the state. But even farmers would have a difficult time demonstrating that they were directly impacted in a way that was illegal by the tariffs.

When you have tariffs, some people are helped, some people are hurt. That’s the nature of the economy. There are winners, and there are losers. Trump ran for office promising that he would use tariffs, and he was elected. So I just don’t think there is standing to challenge this by virtually anybody.

But if anybody would have standing, it would be a particular person who may have been subject to the tariff who would otherwise be able to sell his product cheaper than he could sell it now. But this is such a stretch that I think they’re going to be laughed at. //

Finally, yes — tariffs used as a bargaining chip can be effective. Also, yes: The longer tariff (trade) wars continue, the worse they become. Why? Because long-term trade wars lead to inflation, without exception.

The Catholic Charities Bureau was created by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin to serve the poor and needy. In furtherance of this mission, Catholic Charities provides a number of important social services. These services are open to any Wisconsinite in need, regardless of his religious background. One might think Wisconsin would want to incentivize such open-ended acts of charity by granting Catholic Charities the same benefits made available to other religious organizations. Alas, that is not the case.

Instead, the Wisconsin Supreme Court disregarded the undeniably religious purpose behind the creation of Catholic Charities and ruled that serving the poor and needy is not “typical” religious activity. Setting aside the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s blissful ignorance of both the role religion plays in charitable activity and the dictates of Catholic Social Teaching, such a ruling creates a narrow set of state-approved religious activities that limits religious activity to the likes of “observance of liturgical rituals,” “evangelical outreach,” “pastoral counseling,” “performance … of church ceremonies,” and “education in … doctrine.”

The court’s ruling unilaterally declares that any activity that is unorthodox or resembles secular activities cannot be motivated by a religious purpose. This means that church-run food pantries or community projects cannot be religious activities under Wisconsin’s limited understanding of religion.

The Becket Fund, which represents Catholic Charities at the Supreme Court, has rightfully argued that the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision “violates the principle of church autonomy,” “entangles church and state,” and “discriminates among religions.” While a ruling in favor of Catholic Charities on these grounds would be a win for religious liberty, it would only be a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.

Without a definition of religion, courts are forced to guess at what activities mandate protection from government interference. //

However, the definition the court should adopt is that which best reflects the original meaning and is adaptable to a changing religious landscape: namely, religion means a system of beliefs and practices derived from duties to a sacred authority, which is prior to and beyond human relations and receives allegiance and worship.

This definition recognizes that religion is not merely the product of internal contemplation but also features externally compelled duties. Such an understanding was commonplace among the founders and reflects the original meaning of religion as used in the Religion Clauses. However, this definition also provides flexibility by recognizing protections for religions with external governing authorities — such as the Great Spirit common to American Indian religions — that operate similarly to God in the Abrahamic faiths but may not be covered by an exclusively theistic definition.

Moreover, supporting a single definition respects the painfully obvious truth that the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment are complementary provisions working together to defend a preexisting sphere of authority against government capture. Similarly, this definition recognizes something that courts have so desperately tried to deny for decades: The Religion Clauses are not antagonistic to religion or even indifferent; they exist for the benefit of religion.

Citizens’ natural right to religious liberty is one of the foundational principles of American law, so much so that, according to the Supreme Court, a “religious people” enshrined in the First Amendment a guaranteed freedom to worship as one wills. A “religious people” are not a people indifferent or antagonistic to religion. Rather, they are a people who believe the dictates of religion impose superior obligations to those imposed by the state.

Now it's interesting, and maybe Orrick is hoping nobody will learn this, but Title 23 U.S.C. § 158 established that the federal government could lawfully withhold highway funds from states that did not comply with a uniform minimum age for alcohol consumption that was set by the feds at age 21. This came about in an effort to combat drunk driving and was enacted by Congress in 1984 as a way of ensuring compliance. It is a federal statute. Title 23, Section 158 says:

The Secretary shall withhold 10 per centum of the amount required to be apportioned to any State under each of sections 104(b)(1), 104(b)(3), and 104(b)(4) [1] of this title on the first day of each fiscal year after the second fiscal year beginning after September 30, 1985, in which the purchase or public possession in such State of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than twenty-one years of age is lawful.

At least one state did not comply and took the matter to the Supreme Court in 1987 with South Dakota v. Dole. South Dakota lost ... //

Held: Even if Congress, in view of the Twenty-first Amendment, might lack the power to impose directly a national minimum drinking age (a question not decided here), § 158's indirect encouragement of state action to obtain uniformity in the States' drinking ages is a valid use of the spending power.

(a) Incident to the spending power, Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal funds. However, exercise of the power is subject to certain restrictions, including that it must be in pursuit of "the general welfare." Section 158 is consistent with such restriction //

Watt
33 minutes ago
Background documents:

The EO:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/29/2025-02006/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion

The court order: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.444175/gov.uscourts.cand.444175.111.0_1.pdf

To the point: Sorry, this post is messed up in several respects, including as follows:

• The federal courts, including the Supreme Court, review cases and controversies (Art. III), not "general trends".

• South Dakota v Dole is presented superficially here. First, the case addressed a federal statute that itself placed a condition on further federal finding to the states. The present situation involves an EO that threatens to cut off federal funding. That's different enough such that South Dakota wouldn't apply.

• Second, South Dakota presumed that the statute would define the conditions. Here, the EO threatens to cut off funding after the fact.

• Third, South Dakota set forth factors for when a statute can constitutionally place conditions on federal funding. One of these is that the conditions not be coercive. Arguably, the EO is "coercive."

Although I'm not sure whether case law after South Dakota has has covered this permutation, it would seem that the condition placed on funding should relate to the goal of the funding. In South Dakota, the funding was for interstate highway construction. The condition for full funding was that the state statutes had to set their drinking are at 21 (to help reduce drunk driving). So, could Congress constitutionally enact a statute that withheld all federal funding from a jurisdiction not compliant with immigration law? Or perhaps just all federal law enforcement-related funding?

In any event, South Dakota doesn't support the EO at issue.

mopani Watt
3 minutes ago
Excellent summary review; I agree.

However, the present state of affairs is intolerable. Since Congress did not specify enforcement mechanism to cover this eventuality, I think this is the right way to start down the path. If Congress decides the solution decided by the Courts and precedent is satisfactory, then it was a useful exercise. If Congress (and by extension, their constituents) does not like the precedent, then they have reason to amend the law, and data on which to base the change.

This is the sort of discussion that I wish Trump would engage in, explaining the theory, method, and desired end result. It would win loyalty from supporters, might convert detractors, and would help defuse some animosity (maybe?).

CheeseState
27 minutes ago
The precedence is in regards to a Law passed by Congress and not an EO by a single person (POTUS). So the principle may be the same but there is a difference between Congress tying the two together and POTUS tying Congressionally approved funds to an EO he created. //

mopani CheeseState
16 minutes ago edited
I think you are right in part, but the nuance is that Trump's EO is about enforcing existing law.

Even if Congress didn't write this enforcement action into explicit law, do we want to agree that the precedent is set that any law without explicit enforcement penalties are unenforceable? I'm of two minds about that; generally, I would say, yes, let the elected officials debate and write penalties into the laws they write.

On the other hand, do all the existing laws suddenly become unenforceable because they didn't have explicit penalties written in? What about all the creative resistance mechanisms that opponents of laws always find?

I think we have to give the Executive flexibility to enforce laws passed by Congress to deal with ingenious disobedience, and we need the courts to debate the methods to come to a consensus and create precedent. It takes time, and that's good even if it gets frustrating.

The whole process is analogous to the Scientific Method:

• Thesis
• Anti-thesis
• Synthesis
• Consensus

Sometimes it takes decades to get all four steps hammered out because it takes decades to build a Large Hadron Collider to test the first two.

The legal process is similar, but usually takes less than a decade. It should be slow. We don't want government running at warp 9.

Political-Paige
3 hours ago edited
Roberts and the majority of the Court have ignored their first obligation: to adhere to the Constitution, in favor of an obligation they created out of whole cloth: to protect at all costs inferior court judges by abrogating any semblance of judicial restraint.

Every time they duck the elephant in the room by pretending these ruling are well-intentioned misinterpretations of the Constitution, rather than the blunt usurpation of Article II power by a rogue and adversarial branch, they further degrade what's left of our checks & balances. They are a constitutional wrecking ball.

Their intentional misinterpretation of the unlawful actions of lower courts has upended 250 years of constitutional stability. The other two branches either rein them in by reminding that that enforcement is the prerogative of the Executive alone, or the Republic is nothing more than a dictatorship of unelected thugs.

The Constitutional crisis is already here. //

COUltraMAGA
3 hours ago
The only court co-equal with the executive branch is US Supreme Court.

That’s it.

All other courts have been created by the legislative powers of congress and can be curtailed, thinned, or eliminate by congress.

It’s time for Johnson and Thune to get heads cracking and draft reconciliation bills that require simple majorities to chain up or whittle down these idiots.

It’s Russia-gate and Impeachment-gate part 2.0 this time around. And I’m sick of it.

Trump issued the order on March 25, 2025, and Ward Clark gave us an overview of what's in it:

The EO discusses the integrity of voter registration:

Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Election Assistance Commission shall take appropriate action to require, in its national mail voter registration form issued under 52 U.S.C. 20508:

(A) documentary proof of United States citizenship, consistent with 52 U.S.C. 20508(b)(3); and

(B) a State or local official to record on the form the type of document that the applicant presented as documentary proof of United States citizenship, including the date of the document’s issuance, the date of the document’s expiration (if any), the office that issued the document, and any unique identification number associated with the document as required by the criteria in 52 U.S.C. 21083(a)(5)(A), while taking appropriate measures to ensure information security.

And, there is a section strong-arming the states into strictly abiding by federal election laws:

The Election Assistance Commission shall, pursuant to 52 U.S.C. 21003(b)(3)and 21142(c) and consistent with applicable law, take all appropriate action to cease providing Federal funds to States that do not comply with the Federal laws set forth in 52 U.S.C. 21145, including the requirement in 52 U.S.C. 20505(a)(1) that States accept and use the national mail voter registration form issued pursuant to 52 U.S.C. 20508(a)(1), including any requirement for documentary proof of United States citizenship adopted pursuant to section 2(a)(ii) of this order. //

On Thursday, Kollar-Kotelly issued a 120-page memorandum opinion in support of her order granting the plaintiffs in the LULAC and League cases a preliminary injunction, prohibiting the administration from giving effect to section 2(a) of the order (requiring proof of citizenship in the national mail voter registration form). //

anon-15qo
15 minutes ago
Article II, Sec. 3, ...he [president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,...
Article I, Sec. 4, of the Constitution gives states the responsibility of overseeing federal elections.
Amdt. 15, Sec.1, The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude–
Amdt. 19, The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Amdt. 24, sec. 1, The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Amdt. 26, sec. 1, The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

So let me get this straight. If parents don't want their child enrolled in a curriculum that teaches them about sexuality and transgenderism, the burden should be on them to homeschool? All those taxes they pay to fund the public school system should just be voided? They get no say whatsoever?

Returning to the core issue, why is it this important for public schools to talk about topics that violate the religious principles of some parents? Does LGBTQ ideology really trump religious liberty? It doesn't, but Jackson thinks it does, and that's a scary proposition. Imagine a court with a few more justices in her mold, and where that would leave the country.

Consider what else her ridiculous argument could apply to. A hospital denying care based on race? That would be fine, according to Jackson, because the patient could just provide themselves with care. Of course, we all know she would never agree with that because this isn't about logical consistency. It's about partisanship and propping up a specific worldview. Remember, this is the same woman who made her "Broadway debut" in an LGBTQ play. //

Matt Whitlock @mattdizwhitlock
·
Justice Kavanaugh with the most important point of the day:

“They’re not asking you to change what’s taught in the classroom. They’re only seeking to be able to walk-out so their children aren't exposed to things that are contrary to their own beliefs.”

2:13 PM · Apr 22, 2025 //

As I said before, I'd argue this stuff shouldn't be in schools in the first place, but that's not even the issue here. Yet, Jackson still wants to trample on the rights of parents and spit on religious liberty. So is her motivation stupidity or worse? I'll let you be the judge of that.

If the average American were asked to point to the section of the U.S. Constitution granting the Supreme Court authority to execute immigration laws, chances are he would have a tough time finding it. Why? Because such a power doesn’t exist.

That pertinent fact didn’t seem to matter to seven justices on America’s highest court, however.

This past weekend, these justices took it upon themselves to usurp President Trump’s Article II powers over immigration enforcement by temporarily halting the planned deportations of dangerous Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. Released in the early hours of Saturday morning, the court’s one-page order arbitrarily directed the administration “not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

The order provided no rationale for the decision, prompting Associate Justice Samuel Alito to pen a blistering dissent, in which Associate Justice Clarence Thomas joined. In addition to chastising the majority for “hastily and prematurely” granting emergency relief in a case still working its way through the lower courts, Alito laid out a bulleted list of everything wrong with the high court’s “unprecedented and legally questionable” actions. He notably wrote, “It is not clear that the Court had jurisdiction” over the matter, and, “Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law” (emphasis added). //

While hordes of illegals came across the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration facilitated the placement of foreign nationals throughout the country in places like Springfield, Ohio, upending countless American lives in the process.

Some American families suffered great losses as a result of Biden’s open border policies. Illegal aliens who never should have been allowed to set foot in the U.S. to begin with took the lives of young girls like Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray.

And yet, when Trump attempts to reverse this anarchy by lawfully utilizing his Article II powers and existing statutes to remove foreign nationals infringing upon America’s sovereignty, the courts interfere and tell him he can’t. That is patently absurd and illogical.

For one, the Constitution gives the authority to execute the nation’s laws to the president — not to the Supreme Court or any other lower court judge.

Secondly, the notion that the judiciary is “supreme” to the other branches directly contradicts the views of the Founding Fathers. As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson recently explained, the founders “didn’t think the judiciary was the sole arbiter of what is and is not constitutional.” “While the courts, headed by the Supreme Court, indeed have an independent power to interpret and apply the Constitution,” Davidson wrote, “that doesn’t mean they are supreme over the other two branches, or the states for that matter.”

Alexander Hamilton even suggested in The Federalist No. 78 that the judiciary is to be considered the weakest of the three branches, as it “has no influence over either the sword or the purse, no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever.”

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, revolved around Muslim, Christian, and Jewish parents from Montgomery County, Maryland. The county school board would not allow these parents to remove their elementary school children from portions of class actively advocating for things like gay marriage, trans-identifying children, pride parades, and the idea that a child can change his “gender identity” at any given moment.

Attorneys for the county board are claiming the purpose of the instruction was to simply engender “inclusivity,” and that the children who were being exposed to the material, ranging from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade, were only being shown that gay “marriages” exist. But that narrative was swiftly cut down by questioning from Justice Samuel Alito to parents’ attorney Eric Baxter, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. //

The books and instruction materials themselves are incredibly controversial, particularly for the exclusively young and captive audience they are meant for in Montgomery County, and Justices Alito and Brett Kavanaugh were both perplexed as to how it became unfeasible for the schools to allow an opt-out choice for parents.

The county offers opt-outs for “virtually everything else under the sun,” said Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris, who is representing the Trump administration on the side of the parents. But when it comes to force-feeding children gay and trans propaganda, the opt-out is “not administrable,” according to Schoenfeld. //

Justice Amy Coney Barrett took a different route, noting how Montgomery County’s policy is not one that simply exposes children to a concept, but rather relays a point of view as an unquestionable fact.

“It’s saying: ‘This is the right view of the world,’” Barrett said. “This is how we think about things. This is how you should think about things. This is like, 2+2 is 4.”

The school board also claims that there is no religious hostility in the requirement, but Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed to instances where board members said students were repeating their parents’ religious “dogma,” and expressing anger that the issue has some Muslim parents joining forces with others who they described as white supremacists and xenophobes.

Back in 2020, James massively stretched consumer protection law to gin up a case surrounding the Trump Organization’s dealing years earlier with Deutsche Bank, alleging that optimistic valuations of Trump properties somehow deceived the bankers into giving Trump overly generous loan terms.

The ensuing investigation and trial made it plain that nobody was harmed — indeed, everyone on the non-Trump side of the table made money.

But that didn’t stop Engoron from issuing a host of dubious rulings, culminating in a finding of guilt and a preposterous $454 million penalty (including interest) in February 2024, a number that continues to grow each day it goes unpaid. //

And when a five-judge panel of the First Department heard the case in September, Justice Peter Moulton put it bluntly: “The immense penalty in this case is troubling,” because “the parties left these transactions happy.”

Justice David Friedman pointed out, “No one lost any money,” and consumer protection statutes don’t normally apply to “really sophisticated players” like one of the world’s largest banks.

It seems pretty obvious that Engoron’s penalties and verdict, indeed the entire case, should be tossed.

We have no independent sources to prove or disprove White House aides’ claims that Hochul told Trump, “I control the judges” in some veiled hint that he needed to back off on upending her “congestion” tolls, but something odd is going on here. //

The court can make some excuse for its delays so far, citing the presidential election, transition and so on, but this stall is now starting to reek.

The Appellate Division needs to do its job and rule; on the merits, it should be a reversal.

Shut down the left-leaning lawfare, and make it plain that in this country, we fight political battles at the ballot box, not in the courts.

Thousands of complicated legal cases go on every day, and many are resolved in ways that are deeply unsatisfying because complicated legal cases are rarely as cut and dried as they appear on TV. When you get into high-stakes, politically charged cases, they never are perfect.

This one, in an immigration case, should be a slam dunk.

To me, the interesting thing about this case is not how it is resolved--after all, if Garcia somehow is sprung from prison in El Salvador he is still deportable and will just wind up somewhere else. He will never return home as a "Maryland man" because he is an illegal alien who is set to be deported by court order. //

Still, in a world where Nigerian Christians are being massacred by the thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans are overdosing on fentanyl, children are being raped and murdered by illegal immigrants, and politicians are forcing women and girls to undress in front of men, the entire liberal establishment is in a tizzy over this one ever so barely ambiguous case. //

Why are they fighting so hard on this likely losing issue? Whatever they say, it isn't about what they claim. There are between 20-30 million illegal immigrants in the United States--Joe Biden let in over 10 million through illegal means--and Americans want them gone. Democrats do not. //

Winning Garcia's case is so important because they want to establish that every single deportation case should go to a trial, basically, where the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt." He appears to be an MS 13 gang member? Prove it in court! He is accused of beating his wife? Well, she never pressed charges!

As if these are the standards for deporting an illegal alien with a deportation order. //

Not only is that not the legal standard, but as a practical matter, they are demanding that once an illegal alien sets foot in the United States, they get what amounts to a trial before they get deported. That is, logistically, impossible. 30 million trials? Not going to happen. It is logistically impossible for it to happen. Nobody wants it to happen, not even Democrats.

What they want is as few deportations as humanly possible, so demanding an impossible standard is about stopping deportations. //

The passion isn't about justice. This case is just another tool to use to get ignorant people riled up against deportations. //

This is about thwarting Trump's policies, not due process or anything else.

We have recently heard much about the Fourteenth Amendment with regard to “birthright citizenship.”. //

This language actually further limits and restricts what the federal government can do to us in the writing of its laws. This is where the “Equal Protection” really kicks in: “(N)or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Proper application of the 14th Amendment? Means a whole lot of laws are unconstitutional.

Progressive tax law? Or any tax law other than a true flat tax? Is unconstitutional. To pass one law with multiple tax rates? Or tax law that has crony tax breaks to which only some citizens have access? Is denial of many millions of Americans’ “equal protection of the laws.”

Nigh everything the Feds do is predicated upon punishing enemies and rewarding friends. Laws for thee — but not for me. Or vice versa. None of this is constitutional — per the 14th.

Think of the massive disempowerment of the federal government the correct application of the 14th would provide.

Think of the massive equalization of opportunities the end of anti-14th cronyism would deliver. //

The Big Cronies’ government advantages mean greater success. Which means they can better afford even more cronyism. Which means even greater success. Which means…. Lather, rinse, repeat.…. //

Cronyism isn’t picking winners and losers. It’s picking losers at the expense of winners.

The losers end up looking like winners because they are being propped up and propelled forward by the cronyism. It’s government force-feeding us bad ideas. Which deprives us of better ideas. Because they are overrun by the lesser, cronyism-fueled bad ideas.

See: Fake energy. Solar and wind are terrible. But they look “viable” because of the hundreds of billions of dollars of Big Gov cronyism shoving them down our throats. //

See also: The bank sector. Which is as rife with cronyism as any sector in the US.

You know what happened to your disappeared neighborhood bank? That had been in your community for decades? Big Gov cronyism killed it.

The Big Banks dominate. They received tens of trillions of dollars in government money after they helped destroy the global economy in 2008. Not letting that serious crisis go to waste? Big Gov let the Big Banks write the Dodd-Frank law that further institutionalized their cronyism.

Thousands of neighborhood banks have been murdered as a result. Which the Big Banks then buy on the cheap. Which further solidifies their Bigness. Which….

Let's review the bidding. Biden creates a facially illegal and purely discretionary program. He brings in a half-million Third World illegals who are, according to the definition of the program, "inadmissible or otherwise ineligible for admission." President Trump, supported by the secretary of homeland security, orders an end to the program and jumps through the administrative hoops of using a Federal Register announcement to reverse Biden's purely discretionary program and a Deep State, or Deep State-adjacent federal judge says he can't and requires an individual interview to end the paroles, which is not required by law, when they never received the legally require individual parole.

This is not new. Barack Obama created the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program (DACA or Dreamers) out of whole cloth. It is simply a scheme whereby the federal government covers its eyes and pretends these people don't exist. This program was not created by executive order, law, or administrative rulemaking. Nope. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano issued a freakin memo directing that "prosecutorial discretion" be exercised. However, when Jeff Sessions got around to pulling the plug on DACA, lawfare ensued, and the administration was told it could not rescind the Napolitano memo.

Just stop for a moment and consider this. Federal courts literally told the Trump administration that they could not rescind a memo written five years and three Homeland Security secretaries earlier. Logically, this means a cabinet secretary’s memo is more powerful than an actual law because it takes no consensus to issue it, and it can’t be withdrawn when management changes. To make matters worse, the Roberts Court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld the logically ridiculous notion that the whim of a Democrat president has the same standing, in terms of permanence, as the Constitution.

We clearly have a two-tiered justice system. Not only do BLM rioters get a pass while pro-life grannies go to jail for demonstrating peacefully outside an abortion center, the president himself has his decision treated with derision by the federal courts while all manner of Democrat humbug receives the adulation of our black-robed overseers. //

houdini1984
3 hours ago
The Supreme Court has become the problem. By refusing to keep the judicial branch in its own lane, the Roberts Court has greenlit a nationwide judicial coup against our elected representatives, including the President. The Founders never intended to create a nation that was subject to judicial tyranny of this kind.

The only solution is for the elected branches to push back decisively, soundly rejecting all judicial decisions that interfere with or run contrary to constitutionally-established congressional and presidential powers. Unfortunately, Democrats will block and congressional attempts to rein in these rogue judges, which means that it's up to executive to restore our constitutional order.

The President has taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. If that requires him to defend it against one of the other branches, so be it.

Dieter Schultz houdini1984
3 hours ago
The Supreme Court has become the problem. By refusing to keep the judicial branch in its own lane, the Roberts Court has greenlit a nationwide judicial coup against our elected representatives, including the President.
Oh, if it were only that simple.

IMHO, it is not just the SC that is the problem, all of the branches of the federal government are confused and conflicted. Congress sets up independent departments and functions in the executive branch and puts language in the law prohibiting the President from removing them. Then, the executive branch makes rules, and binding rulings, that look, and are, a lot like lawmaking and the judiciary, respectively.

Today the most pressing problem is the judiciary and it being out of control but the problem is bigger than that and requires something more than just the SC doing its job.

Although, right now I'd settle for the SCOTUS actually doing its job.

houdini1984 Dieter Schultz
2 hours ago
Admittedly, our entire constitutional order is out of whack, but we have to start somewhere if we want to get things back on track. The problem is that too many on the right are sitting around waiting and hoping for SCOTUS to do the right thing. That's not going to happen with Roberts at the helm, since he's more concerned with protecting the Court than safeguarding the country.

Meanwhile, Congress is completely broken. They can't even do their job and complete a budget. Every year, they wait until the last minute and push some stupid continuing resolution at us while threatening a shutdown. The Dems have been waging war against normalcy for decades, and the Republicans are too disunited to mount any effective opposition.

Sadly, it's up to the Executive to stand against this nonsense and try to restore sense and order to the nation. The only good news here is that this administration seems to understand that the administrative state needs to be rolled back, so maybe that will mute some of your concerns about executive rulings, rules, and pseudo-lawmaking.

Hope is a terrible strategy, but it appears to be all we have at this point. //

houdini1984 Scholar
30 minutes ago
Just so. If I were Trump, I would assemble some of my most plain-spoken cabinet members and organize an instructional speech to the nation. We would explain, in simple words, exactly how our government has become so off-track, and the steps needed to put things back in order. Explain how this current dysfunction directly affects their lives, and the benefits they'll enjoy from a restoration of constitutional governance.

Oh, and make a point to talk about the people who support the current misrule, and the corrupt benefits they enjoy from corrupting our constitutional system. Then challenge Democrats to join us in fixing these problems -- while making it clear that we won't allow their anti-American revolution to do any further damage to the American people. //

mopani houdini1984
9 minutes ago edited
What it is going to take is years of push back and work by the executive branch, including making regular updates to the people.

There is no easy solution, and any quick fix will be quickly broken.

Buckle up, any victory worth having is worth fighting for.

I thank God we have a chief executive who understands this and is willing to wage the war. But he has got to take it to the people when frequent special addresses and pressure Congress to make his executive orders into law.