House sues to stop border wall
Once the Congress failed to stop Donald Trump’s emergency declaration we knew it was only a matter of time before they took the President to court and on Thursday they voted to do just that. Here is more:
Top Democrats voted to authorize a lawsuit against President Trump emergency declaration on Thursday.
Pelosi announced that the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which is comprised of five people, voted 3-2 (on party lines) to authorize a lawsuit challenging the President’s decision to transfer funds from appropriated accounts for his border wall.
“The President’s sham emergency declaration and unlawful transfers of funds have undermined our democracy, contravening the vote of the bipartisan Congress, the will of the American people and the letter of the Constitution,” Pelosi said in a statement Thursday.
“The House will once again defend our Democracy and our Constitution, this time in the courts,” Pelosi added. “The President’s action clearly violates the Appropriations Clause by stealing from appropriated funds, an action that was not authorized by constitutional or statutory authority.”
I still get a kick out of it when I hear Democrats who suddenly claim to care about the Constitution, what they care about is simply making sure they do not lose a grip on pushing their agenda through and Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to that agenda.
We know how this is going to end, the Democrats will shop this lawsuit around until they find a sympathetic judge who will rule this national emergency declaration is unconstitutional and order a stay while the lawsuit makes it through the court system. It will eventually make it to the Supreme Court, but the game plan here is not to let it get that far. The Democrats are hoping to stall the wall until Donald Trump is out of office and then it will not matter how the Supreme Court would rule because the construction would be stopped.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Judicial Watch postpones Clinton email deposition after DOJ misses court ordered deadline
You would not know it by watching the mainstream media but Judicial Watch is still trying to get information on the Hillary Clinton email scandal. The organization has scheduled several depositions of Obama-era officials and they have been ordered by the court to answer any questions Judicial Watch has.
Today Judicial Watch was supposed to take John Hackett’s deposition but had to delay it because the State Department and the Department of Justice missed a court imposed deadline to turn over documents.
The more things change the more they stay the same. It is clear the deep state is still in control and we are never going to get to the bottom of this.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Rutgers professor claims that ‘time’ is racist
Over the last several years we have seen political correctness run amok on college campuses. We have seen college theme parties either cancelled or apologized for after the fact on the grounds they were insensitive to one particular group or another.
I have done several posts on this but that one that comes to mind first tonight is Stevenson College. This college apologized for serving Mexican food at a space themed party because comparisons could be drawn–they said–between space aliens and illegal immigrants.
It has been awhile since I have written a post about something like this but then along comes Rutgers professor Brittany Cooper claiming that “time” is a white man’s concept and therefor must be inherently racist. Here is more:
According to a report from The College Fix, Cooper spoke with NPR last week about how white people “own time.” In the interview, Cooper made the case that white Americans have solely been responsible for conceptualizing the notion of “time.”
“If time had a race, it would be white,” Cooper said. “White people own time.”
Yes. So when I say time has a race, I’m saying that the way that we position ourselves in relationship to time comes out of histories of European and Western thought. And a lot of the way that we talk about time really finds its roots in the Industrial Revolution. So prior to that, we would talk about time as merely passing the time. After the Industrial Revolution, suddenly, we begin to talk about time as spending time. It becomes something that is tethered to monetary value. So when we think about hourly wage, we now talk about time in terms of wasting time or spending time. And that’s a really different understanding of time than, you know, like seasonal time or time that is sort of merely passing.
And here is the kicker:
Time has a history, and so do black people. But we treat time as though it is timeless, as though it has always been this way, as though it doesn’t have a political history bound up with the plunder of indigenous lands, the genocide of indigenous people and the stealing of Africans from their homeland. When white, male European philosophers first thought to conceptualize time and history, one famously declared, Africa is no historical part of the world. He was, essentially, saying that Africans were people outside of history who had had no impact on time or the march of progress.
So there you have it, how can you even argue with that logic?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Colorado sheriff would rather go to jail than enforce state’s unconstitutional gun confiscation law
The Colorado legislature recently passed a “red flag” gun control bill which is expected to be signed into law shortly. So-called red flag gun laws are laws which will allow the confiscation of a person’s weapons if somebody believes he or she could be a threat to themselves or somebody else. The problem with this type of law is that guns will be confiscated from a law-abiding citizen based on the complaint, whether justified or not, of another citizen who may have a vendetta against the person.
One Colorado Sheriff is fighting back, saying he would rather go to jail than enforce an obviously unconstitutional law. Here is more:
One Colorado sheriff says he’d rather go to jail than enforce a gun-control bill passed by the state legislature, expected to become law. Known commonly as a “Red Flag” law, the measure would allow judges to take guns away from people who are found to be a danger to themselves or others.
Weld County Sheriff Steven Reams said it would go too far. “It has so many constitutional questions I can’t go forward in good faith and carry out a law that I feel puts constituents’ constitutional rights at risk.”
“They could sentence me to my own jail,” Reams said, “fine me, or hold a contempt hearing to further this argument along, and honestly I think any of those possibilities are out there.”
It will be interesting to see if he puts his money where his mouth is if and when the time comes but this is a growing trend across the nation with the Democrats trying to push more gun laws in various states. As of this writing there are now 60 counties and towns across the nation which have declared themselves to be “gun sanctuaries.”
Of course liberals will claim if Steven Reams cannot or will not do his job he should resign or be fired, but I would ask them if they feel the same about state officials who refuse to enforce federal immigration laws. I think we know the answer to that question.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Joe Biden got Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was working on a case involving Hunter Biden
In addition to having hands he is not able to control Joe Biden also has a bit of a problem controlling his mouth. Much like his groping, it is no secret that the former Vice President has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth. Also like the groping this is laughed off by his supporters as Joe being Joe but I still remember the time Joe Biden gave away the location of the secret government bunker Dick Cheney hid in during September 11th. What a riot that one was…
It is now being reported here that last year Joe Biden made a gaffe which he might not be laughing about in the near future. During an event with foreign policy experts Joe Biden decided to brag about how he got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. Here is more:
Two years after leaving office, Joe Biden couldn’t resist the temptation last year to brag to an audience of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.
“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.
That might be how Joe Biden would like the story to end but it does not:
Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member.
U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.
The general prosecutor’s official file for the Burisma probe — shared with me by senior Ukrainian officials — shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.
The article goes on to claim that the prosecutor was going to interview and question Hunter Biden but of course this firing presented that from ever happening, what a coincidence!
Here is where it could get troublesome for ole Uncle Joe:
Lutsenko said some of the evidence he knows about in the Burisma case may interest U.S. authorities and he’d like to present that information to new U.S. Attorney General William Barr, particularly the vice president’s intervention.
I would not expect much to come from this but maybe, just maybe, at least one of them will get what they deserve.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
When Barack Obama was President he issued a couple of Executive Orders banning oil drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. Enter Donald Trump, he used his pen and his phone to reverse the bans using an Executive Order and naturally lawsuits ensued.
A Federal Judge has now ruled that Donald Trump exceeded his authority by reversing the ban using Executive Order even though Barack Obama did not exceed his authority by banning the drilling using Executive Order. Judge Sharon Gleason has nullified Donald Trump’s Order and put the ban back in place. Here is more:
President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed bans on offshore drilling in vast parts of the Arctic Ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean, a U.S. judge said in a ruling that restored the Obama-era restrictions.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in a decision late Friday threw out Trump’s executive order that overturned the bans that comprised a key part of Obama’s environmental legacy.
Presidents have the power under a federal law to remove certain lands from development but cannot revoke those removals, Gleason said.
“The wording of President Obama’s 2015 and 2016 withdrawals indicates that he intended them to extend indefinitely, and therefore be revocable only by an act of Congress,” said Gleason, who was nominated to the bench by Obama.
The problem with this decision, as this article points out, is the fact that this ban was unilaterally imposed by Barack Obama and was not passed by the Congress therefor it does not take an act of Congress to reverse it just because it goes against Barack Obama’s original intent.
The judge who made the ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason, claimed that presidents have the power to remove lands from development, but not to revoke those removals.
Gleason is arguing that because Obama wanted these drilling bans to be indefinite, that no future president has the authority to reverse them. Yeah, that’s not how it works. Any executive action, since not done with the consent of Congress, can be reversed by another executive action. In fact, it happens all the time.
The article then goes on to give a few examples of Presidents reversing the Executive Orders of previous Presidents with their own Executive Orders but apparently that is no longer how it works.
We have seen this time and time again and it is only a matter of time before a judge out there rules that Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he declared a national emergency at the border.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, March 31 open thread: ‘Goody Two Shoes’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. 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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Here is Adam Ant performing “Goody Two Shoes” from back in the day:
While so many things seem to be headed in the wrong direction one thing that has been very interesting to watch is what has been happening with the Second Amendment. With a couple of exceptions (the President unilaterally and unconstitutionally banning bump stocks and with so-called red-flag gun confiscation laws now being debated in the Congress as examples) things have been moving in the right direction.
Just recently South Dakota became the 15th state to adopt constitutional carry, a North Carolina county became the latest to declare itself a “gun sanctuary,” and the courts have been ruling in favor of the second amendment.
The latest court decision comes from the state of California where a Federal judge has ruled that state’s ban of magazines over 10 rounds is unconstitutional. Here is more:
In one of the strongest judicial statements in favor of the Second Amendment to date, Judge Roger T. Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California determined on Friday that California’s ban on commonly possessed firearm magazines violates the Second Amendment.
The case is Duncan v. Becerra.
The NRA-supported case had already been up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the question of whether the law’s enforcement should be suspended during proceedings on its constitutionality. Last July, a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld Judge Benitez’s suspension of enforcement and sent the case back to him for further proceedings on the merits of the law itself.
Judge Benitez rendered his opinion late Friday afternoon and handed Second Amendment supporters a sweeping victory by completely invalidating California’s 10-round limit on magazine capacity. “Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts,” he declared.
In a scholarly and comprehensive opinion, Judge Benitez subjected the ban both to the constitutional analysis he argued was required by the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller and a more complicated and flexible test the Ninth Circuit has applied in prior Second Amendment cases.
Either way, Judge Benitez ruled, the law would fail. Indeed, he characterized the California law as “turning the Constitution upside down.” He also systematically dismantled each of the state’s purported justifications for the law, demonstrating the factual and legal inconsistencies of their claims.
NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox hailed the decision as a “huge win for gun owners” and a “landmark recognition of what courts have too often treated as a disfavored right.”
First of all, the idea that a 10 round magazine is “high capacity” is just silly on its face and shows us that the people who are making these laws do not even know what they are talking about.
This is a great victory for gun rights activists and for the Second Amendment but this is still not over as an appeal will head to the 9th Circuit and we know how that court will rule. We also know the 9th Circuit is the most overturned court in the nation and because yesterday’s decision was based on the Heller case it would seem likely the Supreme Court will rule against California’s “high capacity” magazine ban.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump promises to declassify FISA documents, Rand Paul calls for an investigation
Rather than uncovering a plot between Russia and Donald Trump it seems as if all the investigations into the 2016 election have uncovered is a plot between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the intelligence community to come up with an “insurance plan” to stop Donald Trump.
We learned yesterday that Devin Nunes is preparing to refer criminal charges to the Department of Justice for FISA abuses during the 2016 election and last night the President promised–once again–to declassify and release all documents related to the burgeoning scandal. Here is more:
“I do, I have plans to declassify and release. I have plans to absolutely release,” Trump said. “I have some very talented people working for me, lawyers, and they really didn’t want me to do it early on. … A lot of people wanted me to do it a long time ago. I’m glad I didn’t do it. We got a great result without having to do it, but we will. One of the reasons that my lawyers didn’t want me to do it, is they said, if I do it, they’ll call it a form of obstruction.”
Trump added: “Frankly, thought it would be better if we held it to the end. But at the right time, we will be absolutely releasing.”
This is not the first time the President has threatened to declassify these documents, in fact he has done it several times in the past, but his reasoning here makes sense to me. It is probably better for him to have waited until after the investigation was concluded and now that it is over I hope he finally makes good on this promise.
It looks like the whole investigation was based on a lie and I believe we need to get to the bottom of this. Rand Paul believes it was John Brennan who was behind pushing the discredited dossier and he is now calling for an investigation. Here is more on that:
Sen. Rand Paul escalated his demand for an investigation into former Obama officials who “concocted” the anti-Trump Russia scandal, revealing that former CIA Director John Brennan was the key figure who legitimized the charges and discredited “dossier” against the president.
In an interview, the Kentucky Republican said the Senate Judiciary Committee should immediately ask Brennan about his involvement in the document that helped to kick off the Russia collusion investigation of President Trump.
“I think we need to find the truth,” he told Washington Secrets. He said the goal would be to stop similar faulty investigations into future administrations, “Democratic or Republican.”
“A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report … Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP,” he tweeted.
It sure does look like this was a failed political hit job and now that Donald Trump has been vindicated it is time to appoint a special counsel to look into the cabal that attempted to take down a sitting President in this vast left wing conspiracy.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
After two years of investigations into the 2016 election we learned that not only did Donald Trump not conspire with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton but also that there is a good chance that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the intelligence community might have been colluding in an attempt to stop Donald Trump from becoming President.
From misleading FISA courts, to wiretapping Trump Tower, to having a spy infiltrate the campaign, and to creating a false dossier the list of potential crimes is quite exhaustive.
Now that Robert Mueller’s investigation is over Devin Nunes has decided it is time to “go on the offensive” and is now sending a criminal recommendation to the Department of Justice related to the “spygate” fiasco. Here is more:
House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) is planning to send a criminal referral next week to the Justice Department that will detail “multiple referrals on a number of different crimes,” including leaking classified information, as part of his investigation into misconduct at the Justice Department and the FBI.
“As of now, it’ll be one criminal referral but with multiple referrals on a number of different crimes,” he told Breitbart News on Wednesday in an exclusive interview. “We will have some leakers in there for sure.”
“We knew this was a joke from the beginning, and I’ve said as much for a long time. Basically from the time our report came out, which has been a year. But now, the real work begins. It’s good to not have that sitting out there. But we have to now go on offense and track down all these dirty cops and bad players,” he said.
In addition, Nunes plans to interview about 50 people—some who have never been called before Congress—who were involved or know about the pushing of the “pee dossier” within various U.S. government agencies, and its use to get a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
“It all stems from the fact that we know that this investigation started long before the end of July,” he said. “We are quite confident that this investigation started long before they told us that it did.”
He said it reaches all the way to the Obama White House, though it is not yet clear how involved former President Barack Obama was.
“Look, there’s big problems — big problems that the public needs to know about. Maximum transparency is the best thing here,” he said.
It looks like this could be pretty extensive before all is said and done although he is being pretty mum about the details right now. It is going to be interesting to see what William Barr does with this; will he have the guts to move forward or will he by another disappointment like Jeff Sessions?
For his part Devin Nunes does not believe this can be ignored so we will see, but does anybody else find it interesting that since the Mueller reported came out Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been silent? Especially Hillary Clinton, you would think she would have something to say…
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