when it comes to Roe v. Wade, for example, what did the court decide? Decided that we the people should answer that question, not nine people sitting in Washington, D.C. //

GARRETT: How about affirmative action?

GORSUCH: Much the same thing. What did we decide? We decided that all people are created equal, that it’s not acceptable in this country to discriminate on the basis of race. //

GARRETT: And, for those who would say but I feel something’s been ripped away from me, you would say?

GORSUCH: I would say that we’re taking it back to you. In a democracy, you’re in the driver’s seat. You’re the sovereign. Those famous three first words of the Constitution empower you. Do you really want me deciding everything for you?

GARRETT: And for a woman in a state where she no longer has the rights she once relied on, is that cold comfort?

GORSUCH: Major, all I can say is I don’t know better than you do on these questions. And that most major western democracies have decided these questions through the ballot box. //

part of me just wants to call Vladimir Duthiers an imbecile and leave it at that. His reasoning is so ridiculous as to be worthy of nothing but mockery. Would he say the same about the precedent that once allowed segregation of schools? What about the precedent that once restricted personhood for black Americans? The idea that a precedent is untouchable simply because it exists is moronic. What matters is proper legal interpretation of the law. Nothing more, nothing less.

In the end, what this Gorsuch interview shows is that Democrats have no actual argument. They are simply emoting at any given point, wrapping themselves in contradictions to garner the political outcome they want in the moment. The Supreme Court stands in the way of that, and that's why they are trying to destroy it.

. How does the court feel about potential changes — term limits, ethics codes that are enforced by someone in ways that it isn't now?

GORSUCH: Shannon, you're not going to be surprised that I'm not going to get into what is now a political issue during a presidential election year. I don't think that would be helpful.

I have one thought to add: It is that the independent judiciary means — what does it mean to you as an American? It means that when you're unpopular, you can get a fair hearing under the law and under the Constitution. If you're in the majority, you don't need judges and juries to hear you and protect your rights — you're popular.

It's there for the moments when the spotlight's on you, when the government's coming after you. And don't you want a ferociously independent judge and a jury of your peers to make those decisions? Isn't that your right as an American? And so, I just say, "Be careful."

Joe Biden's Defense Department approved a plea deal Wednesday for three of the conspirators behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi will enter pleas before the military commission at Guantanamo Bay next week. //

The Pentagon announcement Wednesday didn’t include details, but a person familiar with the deal said that it involved a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty, but the torture of the defendants while in Central Intelligence Agency custody had clouded proceedings for years. //

President Biden learned of the plea bargain Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesman said.

“The president and the White House played no role in this process. The president has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter,” the spokesman said. //

The only reason we are going through this is because of a direct usurpation of congressional power by a crazed Anthony Kennedy and four fellow travelers. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 specifically placed review of the act outside the purview of the Supreme Court as allowed by Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution: "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The actions of the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush should have resulted in Bush telling Kennedy to take a long walk on a short pier, and impeachment proceedings should have been brought against every federal judge who agreed to touch the case. But, alas, that would have required courage.

So, the final curtain is coming down on 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. Thanks to the Defense Department's total lack of transparency, it looks like that curtain will go down with as much controversy as when it came up.

J.P. Cooney cultivated a politically toxic environment, disseminated baseless conspiracy theories, and engaged in unprofessional conduct, a report says. //

Cooney is mentioned (as the “Fraud and Public Corruption Section Chief”) a whopping 394 times in the 85-page report released from the Justice Department’s inspector general on July 24.

The entire proceeding is a farce. South Africa, through a highly distorted set of accusations, doesn’t seek to prevent genocide, it seeks to enable genocide against Jews by preventing Israel from defending itself. //

Here is Israel’s entire presentation today:

https://youtu.be/imn9daDE2dQ

Of the major cases the US Supreme Court has heard this term, one that might not have gotten as much attention as it should have, is SEC versus Jarkesy. The court heard oral arguments at the end of November, 2023. The case goes to the question of whether or not administrative agencies have the ability to use administrative courts with administrative law judges rather than those that are under the Third Article of the constitution to enforce their regulations and rulings.

The case is broadly seen as getting to the heart of separation of powers. increasingly executive agencies have found ways to concentrate power within themselves and not having to deal with the other branches of government.

The appeal filed held the argument that using administrative judges violates the constitution. The filing stated that the executive using its own judges to rule effectively meant that there was no oversight of the executive agencies that were pressuring the charges.

It also noted that the 7th Amendment of the Constitution gives the defendant the right of a trial by jury. For any civil damages that are greater than $20 one can also seek a jury. Executive agencies using their own courts have consistently refused to allow juries to be used.

 What happened on Sunday goes beyond protesting. This, and not moms going to school board meetings to demand that they be included in decisions about their children's education, is domestic terrorism, as defined by the FBI:

"Domestic Terrorism for the FBI’s purposes is referenced in U.S. Code at 18 U.S.C. 2331(5), and is defined as activities: Involving acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; Appearing to be intended to: Intimidate or coerce a civilian population; Influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; or Affect the conduct of a government ... //

What occurred Sunday is also not an isolated incident; since the November 2023 murder of a Jewish man, Paul Kessler, in nearby Thousand Oaks by pro-Hamas agitator Loay Alnaji during a so-called protest there have been violent demonstrations throughout Southern California by a coordinated group of terroristic, antisemitic thugs. Alnaji's Muslim Student Association group at Moorpark College proudly attends some of these intimidation rallies around Los Angeles, and we know that there is coordination going on nationwide. That makes this a federal issue that should be vigorously investigated by the US Department of Justice, but they're instead worrying about prosecuting pro-life grandmas who protest outside abortion clinics and doubling down on political intimidation by continuing to work to identify and indict Americans who were exercising their First Amendment rights on January 6. //

The public must know who has been calling the shots and who's been telling law enforcement officers to stand down and allow domestic terrorism to flourish. If it's been politicians calling the shots, that practice must end. Police chiefs need to know that they have the authority to do their jobs without political interference, and the Jewish community needs the reassurance that they will be protected.

Atrox
3 hours ago
I'm sure there are differing views on this but I always say, EVERYTHING is a win for the left. Vigilantism is a byproduct of their soft on crime policies and it's something they want. The more it happens, they can complain about how "something needs to be done"!!! ....

mopani Atrox
a few minutes ago
This is the desired result. The progressive left response to vigilante justice will be the suspension of civil rights, because violence. Two guesses when civil rights as we know them will be reinstated, and the first guess doesn't count. //

Random US Citizen
4 hours ago
Indeed. This is exactly what happened on the frontier in the early days of America. If there was no sheriff to be found, citizens might take it upon themselves to hang a horse thief. Because they were--like these folks in NYC--a mob, sometimes the wrong person wound up at the end of a rope. The arrival of civilization, in the form of law enforcement, courts, and jails was--for most--a welcome thing.

Here we see the opposite effect. The decline and fall, as it were. The courts are no longer working to decide the guilt of accused, they are now firmly on the side of the criminals. Law enforcement, whether willingly or no, is no longer able to enforce the law. Bereft of the protection of the society that they are a part of, citizens are resorting to vigilantism again.

You can expect this to get significantly worse unless these places reverse direction.

My advice: invest in lead. //

Douglas Proudfoot
4 hours ago
As every Montana 8th grade graduate knows, the absence of law and order gives rise to vigilantes. In Fall, 1863, a gang of Road Agents murdered perhaps 100 people in the gold fields of Montana. In January, 1864, vigilantes hung 25 of them. The outlaw leader, Henry Plummer, was the elected sheriff of Bannack, MT. Vigilantes hung him too.

The prosecution team destroyed exculpatory evidence supporting one of the most basic defenses available to President Trump in response to the politically motivated charges in this case. The Special Counsel’s Office has wrongfully alleged that President Trump was aware of the contents of boxes in August 2022, where those boxes were packed by others in the White House and moved to Florida in January 2021. The fact that the allegedly classified documents were buried in boxes and comingled with President Trump’s personal effects from his first term in office strongly supported the defense argument that he lacked knowledge and culpable criminal intent with respect to the documents at issue. Any proximity between allegedly classified documents and other dated materials from years before the move, such as letters and newspapers, would have further strengthened this argument. The prosecution team’s instructions to agents who executed the raid essentially acknowledged these propositions, and directed the agents to take care to document the location of both seized items and potentially privileged materials.

However, the agents disregarded those instructions. The government was more interested in staging—and leaking—manipulated photographs to the press than preserving key exculpatory evidence that has now been lost forever. Trump, ECF No. 48-1.2 The agents did not maintain the order of the documents, and they did not take photographs that would have served as alternative evidence of the documents’ sequence in each box. In July 2023, the agents disclosed this fact during a meeting with prosecutors from the Special Counsel’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (“USAO-SDFL”). But the Office did not timely disclose the notes from that meeting for almost a full year. Indeed, they persisted in that suppression, notwithstanding that the notes were responsive to an October 2023 discovery request from President Trump, while urging the Court to rush to trial based on false assurances that they were in compliance with their discovery obligations.

In hearings during March and April 2024, the Special Counsel’s Office misrepresented to the Court that the pre-raid sequence of the documents was intact. Only after an evidence inspection by counsel for President Trump’s co-defendants revealed the extent of the problem did the Office disclose in a May 3, 2024 filing that the documents were not intact as had been claimed previously. Vague language in that submission and corresponding additional discovery demands from President Trump caused these due process violations to further unravel.

Something as big, complex, and interactive as a major city, if it is going to be livable, requires predictability and control. The citizens of our cities have to know that every morning they will be able to go to work unimpeded, to do their jobs, to go home again; they have to know that their children are safe walking or riding the bus to school, that they can go to a store without worrying about a flash mob showing up to loot the place. //

And while I am and always will be an advocate of minimal government, this is one of the government's few truly legitimate roles: To protect the liberty and property of the citizens. In that, the government of these cities has failed. //

the blame can only be placed on the elected officials in those cities, the ones who make policy - and, yes, on the voters who elected them.

In 1919, in his poem "The Second Coming," W.B. Yeats wrote:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Coordinated attacks on SCOTUS’s integrity, led by Democrats and their allies in the corporate media, try to deceive Americans into believing partisans hijacked the highest court in the land and ideologically fractured it into near-dysfunction. The prominence of unanimous opinions and even more unanimous judgments not only discredits this notion but suggests a far more concerning narrative about the politicization of lower courts.

Since its inception, the Supreme Court has wielded its authority to deliver decisions rooted in bench agreement. In recent years, especially, justices “defied critics” with “historic unanimity” on cases that circuit, appeals, and state supreme courts decided in defiance of the Constitution. Of the 32 cases already decided in the 2023 term, 21 of the judgments were agreed upon by all of the presiding justices. Many of them signaled justices’ concern that lower courts abused their ruling power to violate the Constitution. //

The Supreme Court’s recent string of unanimous decisions not only serves as a reminder that corporate media are deliberately deceptive, but also suggests that lower courts are abusing their power to achieve partisan and, more importantly, unconstitutional results.

Causing a false entry to be made in a company’s records is a misdemeanor offense in New York, subject to a two-year statute of limitations. The statute says, however, that if the false business entry was made for the purpose of concealing the commission of, or intent to commit, “another crime,” then it is a felony offense, which has a longer statute of limitations. //

Although this was a state prosecution, Bragg brought in Matthew Colangelo, a high-ranking official from the Justice Department, to serve as lead prosecutor in the case. Colangelo previously had served as acting associate attorney general, the third-highest position within DOJ. //

Third, although the indictment alleged that Trump caused a false business record to be entered on the company’s books for the purpose of concealing the commission of, or intent to commit, “another crime,” the indictment didn’t say what that other crime was. And Bragg refused to say what it was when asked about it during a press conference.

Trump’s legal team filed a motion for a bill of particulars, asking Merchan to compel the state to disclose what the other crime was so that Trump’s lawyers could prepare his defense adequately. Merchan refused.

Indeed, it was not until the charge conference shortly before closing arguments that the prosecution team disclosed its speculations about what that other crime might be. And it was not until the prosecutor gave his closing argument—after Trump’s lawyer already had made his and sat down—that he finally said anything to the jury about what the other crime was. //

Fifth, Merchan’s pretrial ruling severely limited what Brad Smith—a former member of the Federal Election Commission and one of the nation’s leading authorities on federal campaign finance laws—could say from the witness stand. Smith was prepared to testify that Trump’s $130,000 payment to Cohen to reimburse the lawyer for the payment to Daniels was a personal expense, not a campaign expense, which didn’t violate campaign finance laws.

Indeed, Smith would have testified that if Trump had paid this money out of his campaign coffers rather than out of his own pocket, that would have been a federal campaign finance violation. Merchan wouldn’t allow Smith to say any of this from the witness stand. His testimony was going to be so limited that the Trump legal team decided it was worthless to call him as a witness, and so they didn’t. //

Eighth, there is a strong argument that neither Bragg as the DA nor Merchan as the judge had jurisdiction to put anyone on trial—much less a former president—for alleged violations of federal campaign finance laws. Nothing in the Federal Election Campaign Act gives state court prosecutors and judges jurisdiction over such matters.

And, according to a 2023 memorandum of understanding between the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department, the FEC “has exclusive jurisdiction over civil enforcement of the federal campaign finance laws” and the Justice Department “has exclusive jurisdiction of criminal enforcement of the federal campaign finance laws, including related criminal offenses.”

Here, both the FEC and DOJ investigated the matter and declined to pursue it.

Due to the sheer volume of the complaints, Pryor deemed the situation exceptional and ordered the clerk to post the order to the website rather than attempting to send a copy to each complainant.

Pryor also notes that four of the complaints received since May 16th have been considered and dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence of any misconduct. //

Leslie McAdoo Gordon 🇺🇸 @McAdooGordon
·
Nothing Judge Cannon has done is judicial misconduct.

Falsely accusing a judge of misconduct & encouraging others to do so IS misconduct by a lawyer, however, in most jurisdictions.

Glenn Kirschner @glennkirschner2
Judge Aileen Cannon's Pro-Trump Bias Is Showing: Here's a step-by-step guide to filing a Judicial Misconduct Complaint with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Because #JusticeMatters https://youtu.be/0MXVfiTa3KM?si=if3qYyfWIHZhUA2q
4:46 PM · May 12, 2024. //

Donner’s Party
8 hours ago
When Merchan disregards Due Process, the Rights of the Defendant to Call Witnesses, on his behalf, doesn’t even insist that the prosecution name the crime, and prods the jury to find the defendant guilty for any reason out of four,(without any chance they won’t find him guilty), he’s a hero!
Cannon insists that the prosecution abide by the laws, that THEY are sworn to enforce, and SHE’s the Villain!
Yeah, we are ripe, bring on the Rapture. //

Fishin'withFredo
5 hours ago
Over 1000 complaints since May 16? Orchestrated is an understatement. Cannon has been the only objective judge in this entire fiasco.

I wish I could say that these political prosecutions won’t increase. But they likely will. Authoritarians on the left are becoming even more brazen in their efforts to use the criminal justice system against political opponents.

The objective is clear: They seek to cow the public into abiding by their political views. With the threat of government force, they want to compel people to either embrace their political philosophy, or at least shut up about it. Dissent will increasingly become less tolerated if these officials are allowed to continue weaponizing the government.

Constitutional law expert Hans von Spakovsky says the conviction isn’t likely to stick, for an array of reasons. Chief among them: Merchan’s convoluted jury instructions, in which the Biden campaign-donor judge framed the jury’s deliberations in a way that, according to legal expert Jonathan Turley, “seemed less like a jury deliberation than a canned hunt.” Merchan told the jurors they didn’t have to agree on the three possible “unlawful means” prosecutors vaguely alleged Trump had employed to “influence” the 2016 election.

“The jurors were told that they could split on what occurred, with four jurors accepting each of the three possible crimes in a 4-4-4 split. The court would still consider that a unanimous verdict so long as they agree that it was in furtherance of some crime,” Turley wrote in the Hill before the verdict was handed down. //

Von Spakovsky said Merchan’s instructions point to reversible error — “an error in trial proceedings that affects a party’s rights so significantly that it is grounds for reversal if the affected party properly objected at trial,” according to the Legal Information Institute. //

“That is one of the craziest things I have ever heard and it is a complete violation of President Trump’s substantive due process rights.”

Von Spakovsky said the standard in like cases is that jurors come to a unanimous agreement on each of the charges they are deliberating. He said Merchan added an absurd twist to the proceedings after handicapping Trump’s defense throughout the trial. //

As for Merchan, von Spakovsky said the judge is either one of the most incompetent judges he has ever seen or his curious instructions to the jury was “a sign of intentional misfeasance.”

“In fact, I think it’s the latter because throughout this entire case he has acted as if he is an alternate member of the prosecution team,” the legal expert said.

It is an unprecedented perversion of justice by a baldly partisan alliance of people figure-headed by an immoral president corrupted by fear of losing the power to abuse power and weaken the country he vowed to protect.

“Lawfare” is an insufficiently evil word to describe this strategy.

Back when he was funny, Woody Allen once said, “Mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” //

As the astute Ben Domenech points out:

It’s been branded a hush-money trial, but it isn’t — it’s a business expense categorization trial, claimed as a campaign finance matter. This just doesn’t fly. It sounds like a rinky-dink case to the average voter. //

The judge’s rulings and jury instructions, and the prosecution’s opportunity to deliver a non-rebuttable closing argument, basically stacked the deck for Manhattan jurors to obey. //

He was on criminal trial for falsifying corporate documents to disguise hush payments to a porn star. That is a misdemeanor charge, which the feds declined to prosecute.

However, Bragg compounded the charges into 34 state counts and elevated them to felonies, which enabled him to exceed the statute of limitations and potentially involve prison time.

But wait! What about this?

After Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat, she and her campaign got caught falsifying financial reports to disguise payments to others to create the Steele Dossier and Russiagate hoax.

The Federal Elections Commission fined her campaign $113,000. No charges. No felony. No trial.

So, for an offense similar to Trump’s, she got off nothing.

Just as that same Democrat did in 2016 when FBI Director James Comey declined to recommend prosecution of her for illegally using a private email server to hide (and sometimes destroy) thousands of national security emails from Freedom of Information requests.

should Trump be reelected (Alvin Bragg may well have just sealed the deal on that), he would be a head of state, and would therefore have diplomatic immunity under the UN Convention on Special Missions of 1969. //

anon-x8p1
4 hours ago
I stand with George Washington, a felon if ever one existed.

anon-x8p1
4 hours ago
Which Founder of our entire country could not be branded as a treasonous felon against the Crown.

Happens from time to time. Go Team Trump.

GBenton anon-x8p1
4 hours ago
When the government is corrupt and the rule of law is persecution, conviction becomes a badge of honor.

Romney issued a statement on Saturday morning in which he said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg committed "political malpractice" in his pursuance of former President Donald Trump:

Bragg should have settled the case against Trump, as would have been the normal procedure. But he made a political decision. Bragg may have won the battle, for now, but he may have lost the political war. //

You may disagree with this, but had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought on indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him.

I'd have pardoned President Trump. Why? Well, because it makes me, 'President Biden,' the big guy and the person I pardoned a little guy. //

GBenton
4 hours ago
Totally agree on the significance but I think Romney is "right" for the wrong reasons, which is not surprising.

He didn't say the conviction was wrong or unjust, which is the correct answer.

He said it was malpractice and he bemoans winning the battle and losing the war.

He said how Biden could be the Big Guy (lol) and Trump the little guy with a pardon.

All Romney is mad about here is that the Dems have made Trump stronger in November, IMO.

He has no moral qualms with the demonizing of Trump, just the means that achieve that end.

So pigs aren't flying, Romney didn't suddenly get a clue. He's just mad that his nemesis Trump is getting an advantage from this "political malpractice". //

anon-x8p1
5 hours ago
The Biden crime family committed no crimes, regardless of evidence.
The Clinton crime network committed no crimes, regardless of evidence.

Trump now faces 139 years in prison because the court claims they knew what Trump was thinking so he is guilty as charged.

This is what's so stupid about Democrats running around on Thursday shouting how "no one is above the law." People are clearly above the law, which seems largely dictated by one's political beliefs. If you're a Republican, you can bet the full force of the state will come down on your head if you so much as jaywalk.

If you're a Democrat, you can set things on fire, break down doors, discriminate, and "occupy" public spaces, and you're good to go. Be sure to collect your free meal on the way out of processing if you do happen to get temporarily detained.

That's not "law and order." It's not the justice system being blind. It's one of America's most important institutions being made a mockery of, and the left is happy to do its part. //

Fishin'withFredo
8 hours ago
Bring enough of there here, and here becomes there. NYC deserves every bit of it.

First, any civil or criminal defendant in a federal case who plausibly asserts that political or ideological factors may taint a jury pool can veto the Washington DC circuit and receive a hearing in his or her choice of another randomly chosen circuit or the circuit of his or her home dwelling.

Second, regardless of what circuit a federal case is filed in, any civil or criminal defendant who plausibly asserts that political or ideological factors may taint a jury pool shall be entitled to a jury pool that is proportionally selected from a region that did not vote more than 70 percent in favor of one party’s candidate in the most recent presidential, senatorial, or congressional election.

Third, plaintiffs or prosecutors in a federal case may elect to have the case decided in a randomly assigned circuit other than the District of Columbia. This would ensure that corrupt and criminal Democrats do not get a free pass on anything they do simply because they know a DC jury pool would never convict them of anything, no matter how egregious the offense.

Fourth, Congress should mandate that any states receiving federal funds for any legal or law enforcement purposes must abide by the same rules guaranteeing a defendant a politically fair jury pool.

Fifth, state legislators should enact similar laws ensuring political fairness for trials in their state.

In summary, all Americans are entitled to a jury of our peers, or at least a jury that is not politically biased. Unfortunately, conservative Americans are being increasingly subjected to politically weaponized lawfare. //

Indylawyer
10 hours ago
This is a badly needed reform. Excellent point. We also need to eliminate most federal criminal statutes, and make sure the ones that are left are clearly and narrowly defined. They wouldn't be able to wage most of this lawfare without these vague and overweening criminal statutes. //

anon-8gsr
12 hours ago
All this articles says to me is conservatives have been woefully neglectful in preparing to fight the opposition, and still are. We all knew that though.

GBenton anon-8gsr
12 hours ago
If Trump wins in November we have to view this as the last opportunity to right the ship. After what Biden has done, including the lawfare and threats to pack the Supreme Court and end the filibuster, the mission is to destroy the corruption and neutralize the threat should a Democrat win in 2028.

That said, I think if the American people knew the full truth about the left there might not be much of a Democrat party for a while. Trump should declassify anything and everything on the Dems and their corruption going back to JFK (and before, as relevant), since I believe they had JFK killed, they set up Nixon, and they have their fingerprints on a whole lotta bad stuff including Waco, etc, not to mention what Hillary and Obama did.

Expose all the dirt. make it public.

GBenton Arik
12 hours ago
Stealing elections needs to carry a price similar to treason since it interferes with the peaceful tranfer of power and threatens the stability and survival of the republic and invites tyranny. //