Posts Tagged ‘supreme court’

Democrats absolutely love the Supreme Court when that august body issues opinions that conform to progressive orthodoxy.  When the Supreme Court issues opinions that actually reflect the original meaning of the Constitution and founding principles of the United States, Democrats behave like small children. This is exactly what took place this past Monday when the Biden Regime issued the following proposal: FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Bold Plan to Reform the Supreme Court and Ensure No President Is Above the Law | The White House

From his first day in office—and every day since then—President Biden has taken action to strengthen American democracy and protect the rule of law.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has overturned long-established legal precedents protecting fundamental rights. This Court has gutted civil rights protections, taken away a woman’s right to choose, and now granted Presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office.

At the same time, recent ethics scandals involving some Justices have caused the public to question the fairness and independence that are essential for the Court to faithfully carry out its mission to deliver justice for all Americans.

The opening paragraphs of this fact sheet prove that the political left lives in an alternate universe, with a vastly different reality.

As you can see from this next paragraph, the Biden Regime is hoping to cram this farce through before the election.

President Biden and Vice President Harris look forward to working with Congress and empowering the American people to prevent the abuse of Presidential power, restore faith in the Supreme Court, and strengthen the guardrails of democracy. President Biden thanks the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States for its insightful analysis of Supreme Court reform proposals. The Administration will continue its work to ensure that no one is above the law – and in America, the people rule.

The only positive thing you can say about the first proposed reform is that it does not violate the Constitution because it calls for a Constitutional Amendment.

No Immunity for Crimes a Former President Committed in Office: President Biden shares the Founders’ belief that the President’s power is limited—not absolute—and must ultimately reside with the people. He is calling for a constitutional amendment that makes clear no President is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. 

This next proposal completely shreds Article 3 of the Constitution, which does not include an actual term limit.

Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices: Congress approved term limits for the Presidency over 75 years ago, and President Biden believes they should do the same for the Supreme Court. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court Justices. Term limits would help ensure that the Court’s membership changes with some regularity; make timing for Court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary; and reduce the chance that any single Presidency imposes undue influence for generations to come. President Biden supports a system in which the President would appoint a Justice every two years to spend eighteen years in active service on the Supreme Court.

The third and final proposal also shreds Article 3 of the Constitution because neither the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch are granted the authority to impose a code of conduct on the Supreme Court.

Binding Code of Conduct for the Supreme Court: President Biden believes that Congress should pass binding, enforceable conduct and ethics rules that require Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Supreme Court Justices should not be exempt from the enforceable code of conduct that applies to every other federal judge.

Here is the actual text of Article 3 Section 1 of the Constitution.

Section 1- Judicial powers. Tenure. Compensation.

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

The one great failure of our Constitution proved over time to be the structure and organization of the Supreme Court.  That branch is far too dependent on the supposed integrity of a small number of individuals, who have proved to be too flawed to yield that much responsibility and authority.

On Wednesday, June 26th the current Supreme Court proved itself to be one of the most flawed incarnations of this august body.  They accomplished this by upholding The Biden Regimes despicable censorship by proxy scheme, SCOTUS Allows Feds’ Censorship Plot Ahead Of 2024 Election (thefederalist.com)

In her majority opinion, Barrett claimed that “[a]t this stage” of litigation, plaintiffs have not “established standing to seek an injunction” against the named federal agencies and that as such, the Supreme Court “lack[s] jurisdiction to reach the merits of the dispute.”

“The plaintiffs, without any concrete link between their injuries and the defendants’ conduct, ask us to conduct a review of the years-long communications between dozens of federal officials, across different agencies, with different social-media platforms, about different topics,” Barrett wrote. “This Court’s standing doctrine prevents us from ‘exercis[ing such] general legal oversight’ of the other branches of Government. … We therefore reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

I’m sorry but Justice Barrett demonstrated extreme cowardice when she issued her opinion, along with a callous disregard for the letter and spirit of the First Amendment.  Most unfortunately for the people of the United States, the other two faux conservatives on the high court, Roberts and Kavanaugh, sided with her.

Justice Alito wrote an epic and blistering dissent.

In his dissent, Alito noted that “[w]hat the officials did in this case was more subtle than the ham-handed censorship found to be unconstitutional” in a prior case before the court but that the feds’ censorship shenanigans documented in Murthy v. Missouri is “no less coercive.” In fact, the associate justice highlighted how the Biden administration’s efforts were “even more dangerous” due to the high-level government officials involved.

“It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so,” Alito wrote. “Officials who read today’s decision together with Vullo will get the message. If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by. That is not a message this Court should send.”

I predict that the Biden Regime and social media will strengthen their unholy alliance and accelerate their schemes to suppress speech that would make another stolen election more difficult.

The high court’s Wednesday ruling has major implications for the upcoming 2024 election.

Leading up to the 2020 election, for example, CISA upped its censorship efforts by flagging posts for Big Tech companies it claimed were worthy of being censored, some of which called into question the security of voting practices such as mass, unsupervised mail-in voting. This was done despite CISA privately acknowledging the risks associated with such practices.

The FBI also took on a censorship role during the 2020 election, in what has been characterized as a clear attempt to help Joe Biden’s election prospects. In the months leading up to the November contest, the agency — which had authenticated Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop as early as November 2019 — was issuing warnings to then-Twitter and Facebook to be on the lookout for so-called “Russian propaganda” and “hack-and-leak operations” by “state actors.”

Jonathan Turley of the Media Research Center provided an excellent summation of the betrayal of the First Amendment by the three cowardly faux conservative justices.

The relationship between the States and the Federal Government today is vastly different from the relationship created by the Constitution.  The relationship has been completely turned on its head.  Today the States are mere administrative districts, almost completely subservient to a tyrannical and consolidated National Government. The relationship actually created by the Constitution is a loose republic of mostly independent States tied together by a weak Federal Government. 

The States transferred only a tiny fraction of their government powers to the Federal Government, while retaining the vast majority of possible powers.  This is enshrined in the Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Article1 Section 8 is a complete list, or enumeration, of the powers transferred to the Federal Government by the States.  Article 1 Section 10 is a complete list of all powers prohibited to the States.

For over a hundred years the Federal Government has operated under three delusions.  The first delusion being that all federal laws, executive orders, and Supreme Court decisions are the Supreme Law of the Land.  Second, only the Supreme Court can judge whether a law is constitutional or not.  Lastly, the Federal Government has complete control of the States. 

As you can see from Article 6 Section 2 of the Constitution, only laws pertaining to enumerated powers are the Supreme Law of the Land.

This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

 Supreme Court decisions are most definitely not the Supreme Law of the Land because they are not listed in the Supremacy Clause.  They are only the opinions of Supreme Court Justices, who are too often partisan hacks.

As you can see from this passage from the Kentucky Resolutions, written by Thomas Jefferson, the Supreme Court is not the final arbiter of all things constitutional; and the Federal Government does not have complete control over the States:

1. _Resolved_, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

Also from the Kentucky Resolutions it is clear that the States can easily set aside, or nullify, all unconstitutional federal laws:

8th. _Resolved_…that to take from the States all the powers of self-government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States; and that therefore this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General Government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non foederis,) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited,

The disgraceful Supreme Court decision discussed in this article, ‘Conservative’ Supreme Court justices side with leftists to keep the border open – American Thinker, is a perfect example of everything wrong with the Federal Government.

Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution states quite clearly that the Federal Government is constitutionally bound to protect all States from the invasion at the southern border.

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union, a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.

From Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1, you can see that the Federal Government is responsible for the common defense of the United States, not the internal defense of the individual States.

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States:

Texas has every constitutional right to defend itself.  So far Governor Abbott is doing the right thing by nullifying this atrocious decision: HOLDING THE LINE: More Razor Wire is Going Up in Eagle Pass, Texas [SEE IT] (hannity.com)

Lost all of the exhilaration revolving around the Supreme Court’s long overdue overturning of Roe versus Wade was a much needed decision, which overturned a harmful policy instituted by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama Administration. 

This decision is discussed great detail in this article, How The Supreme Court Upended EPA’s Power Grab And Curbed The Administrative State (thefederalist.com)

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency upends the EPA’s assertion of authority, under the Obama and Biden administrations, to squeeze fossil-fuel generation out of the nation’s electricity fuel mix.

The decision directly vacates the Obama administration’s “Clean Power Plan,” which aimed to reduce power-sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (80 FR 64665). By clear implication, the decision blocks any effort by the Biden EPA to mandate far more draconian power-sector emission reductions over the next eight years.

More importantly, by grounding its decision in the “major questions doctrine,” the Court puts the entire administrative state on notice that it will be skeptical of all major rulemakings that would give regulators vast new powers absent a clear authorization from Congress.

For a couple of decades I’ve been railing against the Administrative State and Executive Orders.  Both are highly unconstitutional.  This article, How Our Administrative State Undermines The Constitution (thefederalist.com) is well worth the read.

Article I of the Constitution declares, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” The people, in establishing the Constitution, delegated the power to make laws to Congress alone. The non-delegation doctrine, which holds that the legislature cannot delegate its legislative powers to any other hands, is a logical conclusion of the Founders’ understanding of government by consent of the governed. The people delegated legislative authority specifically to Congress. It cannot turn around and pass that authority to any other set of hands.

As the political philosopher John Locke wrote in 1690, the legislature holds authority “only to make laws, and not to make legislators.” The administrative state has no constitutional authority. At most, all administrative agencies would fall within the purview of the executive branch and be answerable to the president in his constitutional role of enforcing the nation’s laws. How, then, did this vast bureaucracy come to wield such sweeping powers to make the rules that govern us?

Over the course of the past century, Congress abandoned its legislative function and delegated its legislative powers to the unelected bureaucracy. It still passed resolutions that were officially called laws, but have generally taken the form of sweeping grants of authority empowering agencies to craft rules and fill in the details of unfinished legislation.

Here is the actual quote about the legislative branch lacking the authority to delegate their legislative authority.  The quote is from John Locke’s Second Treatise

The Legislative cannot transfer the Power of Making Laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated Power from the People, they, who have it, cannot pass it over to others…And when the people have said, We will submit to rules, and be govern’d by Laws made by such Men, and in such Forms, no Body else can say other Men shall make Laws for them; nor can the people be bound by any Laws but such as are Enacted by those, whom they have Chosen, and Authorised to make Laws for them. The power of the Legislative being derived from the People by a positive voluntary Grant and Institution, can be no other, than what the positive Grant conveyed, which being only to make Laws, and not to make Legislators, the Legislative can have no power to transfer their Authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.”

Here is the exact text of Article 1 Section 1 of the US Constitution, which is titled Legislative powers; in whom vested.

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Here is a definition of Legislative powers from the Law Dictionary

the authority of a branch of government that is charged with making and enacting laws.

Since all legislative power granted to the Federal Government is granted exclusively to the Legislative Branch and that Branch cannot delegate its legislative authority to any other entity, all edicts issued by the Administrative State are unconstitutional.

Under the US Constitution, neither the President, nor agencies of the Executive Branch, can issue executive orders that have the same legal standing as laws passed by congress, through the formal legislative process, because only the legislative branch was granted legislative power.

Since Executive Orders and edicts issued by the Administrative State violate the Constitution, they are not pursuant to the Constitution.   They are not the law of the land because they violate the Supremacy clause which states.

Article 6  Section 2. This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Administrative State and Executive Orders have done tremendous harm to the freedom and prosperity of every individual who has lived in the United States in the past 100 years.  West Virginia versus the EPA is a good first small step.  So much more needs to be done. Unfortunately, I do not see the Supreme Court doing more.  We the People must do the rest.