ACLU lawyer admits Donald Trump’s travel ban ‘could be constitutional’ if Hillary Clinton issued the order
Below is interesting audio of an ACLU lawyer arguing today against Donald Trump’s travel ban where he admits the order “could be Constitutional” if any President other than Donald Trump had issued it.
When pressed by the lawyers from Derek Smith and James White – Tacoma Criminal Defense Lawyers, Omar Jadwat talked himself around in circles, trying not to sound politically motivated, by claiming at one point the order could be Constitutional if another candidate (read Hillary Clinton) had won the election while at the same time trying to claim the order was unconstitutional on its face, even if the wording was the same.
“The same action could be Constitutional in some circumstances and not in others” is the key quote in my opinion. Either an action is Constitutional or it is not Constitutional. There can no longer be any doubt this whole thing is politically motivated.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified in front of the Senate today about her decision not to enforce Donald Trump’s travel ban (this decision led to her being fired) and she admitted that the Office of Legal Counsel deemed it lawful but she decided to overrule the counsel.
Here is some of the transcript:
Cornyn: Ms. Yates, this is the first time that you’ve appeared before Congress since you left the Department of Justice, and I just wanted to ask you a question about your decision to refuse to defend the president’s executive order. In the letter that you sent to Congress, you point out that the executive order itself was drafted in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel, and you point out that the Office of Legal Counsel reviewed it to determine whether, in its view, the proposed executive order was lawful on its face, and properly drafted. Is it true that the Office of Legal Counsel did conclude it was lawful on its face, and properly drafted?
Yates: Yes, they did. The Office of —
Cornyn: And you overruled them?
Yates: I did. The Office of Legal —
Cornyn: What is your authority to overrule the office of legal counsel whether it comes to a legal determination?
Yates: The Office of Legal Counsel has a narrow function and that is to look at the face of an executive order to determine purely on its face whether there is some set of circumstances under which at least some part of the executive order may be lawful.
I stopped the transcript there because next she explains why she ruled the Office of Legal Counsel was wrong and I wanted to separate it:
And, importantly, they do not look beyond the face of the executive order, for example, at statements that are made contemporaneously or prior to the execution of the E.O. that may bear on its intent and purpose. That office does not look at those factors. And in determining the constitutionality of this executive order, that was an important analysis to engage in, and one that I did.
In other words, the Office of Legal Counsel only looked at the Executive Order’s wording to see if it was legal, which of course is what they are supposed to do, while she went outside of what was written in the order and made her decision based on some of the rhetoric coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth during the campaign.
There is no doubt Donald Trump made the right move in removing her from office. Her job is to enforce the laws that are on the books and not to interpret them for political reasons as she sees fit
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The man who is considered to be one of the main architects of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, appeared with Chris Wallace today and when he was confronted with facts by the host, such as rising premium costs and insurers dropping out of the marketplace, he had the audacity to blame Donald Trump.
Despite the fact insurance premiums have risen every year since the inception of Obamacare, and despite the fact insurers have been leaving the marketplace gradually over the years, Jonathan Gruber tried to make the claim this phenomena only began to occur after the election of Donald Trump, here is the video:
I am not a fan of Karl Rove but he did a great job at putting Jonathan Gruber in his place. Quid est veritas? I guess Jonathan Gruber has some alternative facts of his own…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, May 7th open thread: ‘The Distance’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, May 7th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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Congratulations to Always Dreaming for winning the Kentucky Derby yesterday. Here is a song about another type of race, using a racing metaphor to describe running away from a girl who was won by another “jockey.” Enjoy “The Distance” by Cake as performed live in 1999:
frui diem
Last month we learned that some of the prisoners Barack Obama released as part of the Iran nuclear deal were, despite his claim to the contrary at the time, high level Iranian operatives. Around the same time as we learned about this the left-leaning website Politico released a much-ignored report that this deal seems to have violated the National Counterproliferation Initiative.
While the media ignored this story it seems to have caught the eye of leaders within the House Oversight Committee and they have announced they are launching an investigation into this story.
Here is more:
Judicial Watch announced today a judge has ordered the State Department to release the unredacted versions of some emails which were released previously in redacted form. These emails are related to Barack Obama’s phone calls which he made to foreign leaders following the terrorist attack in Benghazi.
Here is more:
Judicial Watch today announced that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has ordered the U.S. Department of State to turn over to Judicial Watch “eight identical paragraphs” of previously redact [sic] material in two September 13, 2012, Hillary Clinton emails regarding phone calls made by President Barack Obama to Egyptian and Libyan leaders immediately following the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. Both emails had the subject line “Quick Summary of POTUS Calls to Presidents of Libya and Egypt” and were among the emails stored on Clinton’s unofficial email server. Judge Jackson reviewed the documents directly and rejected the government’s contention that the records had been properly withheld under the FOIA B(5) “deliberative process” exemption.
Judge Jackson ruled: “the two records, even if just barely predecisional, are not deliberative. [The State Department] has pointed to very little to support its characterization of these two records as deliberative, and the Court’s in camera review of the documents reveals that they do not fall within that category.”
The full emails may reveal what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama knew about the September 11, 2012, terror attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.
Following Judge Jackson’s March 20 ruling, the State Department asked the court reporters to reconsider. The State Department argued that, due to an internal “mistake,” it failed to claim that the emails were classified and, therefore, exempt from production under FOIA Exemption B(1).
I do not expect much to come from this but it will be interesting to learn if Barack Obama was telling the leaders of Libya and Egypt one story while feeding the American people another story altogether.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Wolf Blitzer asked Dianne Feinstein if there has been any evidence uncovered during the investigation into the alleged Russia/Trump election collusion scandal and she had to admit there was none.
Here is the video:
This investigation has been going on for months now, if there is really an investigation, and still not one shred of evidence has been uncovered. Yet the Democrats still claim Russia hacking stole the election and they continue digging, hoping and praying (well, maybe not praying) that something will turn up. I have to believe that if there was anything to these allegations something would have turned up by now but of course that will not stop the Democrats from promoting this angle with no proof whatsoever.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The House votes to replace Obamacare
Paul Ryan managed to stave off another embarrassing loss when the House voted to replace Obamacare. Giddy Republicans joined the President to celebrate but I have to ask, what was actually accomplished today? This is one of dozens repeal bill to pass the House over the years and we all know how those bills turned out. The optimists will say yeah but now we have a Republican Senate and a Republican President so this time it will be different.
I predict, and I am not going out on a limb here, that this is going to suffer the same fate as all the other repeal bills. The Republicans only have 52 Senators and they are not all on board with this bill, they will be won over, along with 8 Democrats, which means changes will have to be made.
James Comey admits classified State Department emails were found on Anthony Weiner’s computer
Hillary Clinton is the Atlanta Falcons of national politics. She made the claim yesterday that if the election was held on October 27th she would be the President, that is akin to saying if the referees stopped the Superbowl with five minutes left in the fourth quarter the Falcons would be champions.
It is all for naught because you have to play the game until the end, Atlanta did not and neither did Hillary. The analogy is not perfect but in Hillary Clinton’s case her referee would be James Comey and she is basically blaming him for losing the election because he reopened the investigation into her email scandal shortly before the election.
Of course she is ignoring the reason why James Comey reopened the investigation, and as he admitted today, it was because classified State Department emails were found on Anthony Weiner’s computer while the FBI was investigating him on another issue. The reopening of the case was justified and was not politically motivated. If there was no scandal in the first place Hillary Clinton would not have had to worry about the investigation but she conveniently forgets this little tidbit.
The man who I believe should have been President, the man who I voted for in the New Hampshire primary even though he already dropped out of the race, Rand Paul, has some harsh words about the budget deal which Republicans negotiated with the Democrats, going so far as claiming Hillary Clinton would have been proud. Here is more:
Looking at all the smiling faces on the other side of the aisle, I have to ask: are Democrats still the minority party?
You would be tempted to think the $1 trillion government funding deal is like Christmas morning for them, as Republicans have handed them free media to brag about how much of the President’s agenda they have stopped.
You’ll see it in the news as an “Omnibus spending bill,” when it should really be called “the Status Quo Protection Act.” President Hillary Clinton would have been proud of this bill.
It tosses out campaign promises as it continues to fund the military industrial complex and the welfare state.
It not only rejects President Trump’s calls for cuts to multiple agencies, but it increases their funding by millions of dollars.
While good provisions are tucked in, “[o]verall,” as Bloomberg reported, “the compromise resembles more of an Obama administration-era spending bill than a Trump one.”
Instead of legislating from crisis to crisis, Republicans should use fiscal deadlines to articulate the principles that supposedly set us apart – to boldly defend the conservative philosophy that fueled the country’s growth and can lead it into a new era of prosperity.
Yet, for too long, Republican majorities have backed down from those debates.
There’s no doubt you and I live in a dangerous world, with threats we must defeat. But as long as we continue to spend with abandon, pile it on the backs of the taxpayers we claim to serve, and pretend it’s all okay, we are ultimately our own worst enemies.
We will not be able to adequately defend ourselves, much less lead others, if we’re drowning in debt with a destroyed dollar.
Earlier this year, I introduced a budget that repealed Obamacare, froze all on-budget spending without making changes to Social Security, gave agencies time to prepare for new spending levels, and contained zero specific cuts to any government function so we could work together to prioritize spending. It did all this while actually balancing.
We must meet our obligations, but we can do so while responsibly instituting reforms and embracing the change we promised the American people.
This is not the entirety of Rand Paul’s statement, you can read the whole statement by following the link, but he is 100% right! Where are the grownups in Washington?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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