Krauthammer; The travel moratorium: A hopeless disaster

Charles Krauthammer

"Stupid but legal. Such is the Trump administration’s travel ban for people from seven Muslim countries. Of course, as with almost everything in American life, what should be a policy or even a moral issue becomes a legal one. The judicial challenge should have been given short shrift, since the presidential grant of authority to exclude the entry of aliens is extremely wide and statutorily clear.

"The judge who issued the temporary restraining order never even made a case for its illegality.

"The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has indeed ruled against the immigration ban, but even if the ban is ultimately vindicated in the courts (as is likely), that doesn’t change the fact that it makes for lousy policy. It began life as a barstool eruption after the San Bernardino massacre when Donald Trump proposed a total ban on Muslims entering the country “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

"Rudy Giuliani says he was tasked with cleaning up this idea. Hence the executive order suspending entry of citizens from the seven countries while the vetting process is reviewed and tightened." . . .

About that Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

The Bay Area San Jose Mercury News stated the 9th Circus isn't as liberal as many say.  . . ." President George W. Bush appointed six of the court’s 25 active judges, but 18 have been appointed by Democrats, though the seven appointed by President Barack Obama are generally considered moderate, said University of Richmond Law School Professor Carl Tobias.
"Tobias called the notion that the 9th Circuit is liberal “dated.” Arthur Hellman, a federal courts scholar at University of Pittsburgh Law School, said the picture of where the court stands in relation to other circuits has become muddier." . . .

9th Circuit’s Opinion Is Wrong, But Its Impact Is Limited

The law that never was  . . .
. . . "Did judges Canby, Clifton, and Friedland each "faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon" them "as judge under the Constitution and laws of the United States"?  Their duty was to interpret and apply the law, specifically, 8 USC, sec. 1182(f).  If they believe that the law does not apply here, they had a duty to explain why.  If they believe that the law is unconstitutional, they had a duty to explain why.  They violated their duty.  They violated their oath.


"If you had to make a list of things that a judge could do that warrants impeachment, deliberately ignoring an applicable law that contradicts the judge's opinion would be on the list."

NY Dept Education apologizes for ‘Anti-Israel’ cartoon on statewide exam

"Continued Monitoring of Anti-Israel Activism in Public Schools is Necessary"

Legal Insurrection

"The New York Post reports:

The AJC petition condemned the cartoon as ‘blatantly anti-Israel, disparaging of Israeli soldiers … and is entirely inappropriate to include on a test administered to young minds.’
The petition, sent to Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa as well as the education agency, demanded an apology.
After seeing the petition, AJC reported that a top Education Department official called the group to discuss the complaint.
The department, according to AJC president Jack Rosen, then issued the following statement:
‘We regret this test question was included in the Regents exam and apologize to those who were offended by it. We are reviewing our internal procedures to vet all questions to ensure inappropriate questions are not included on future exams.’
‘Political cartoons contained on Regents exams are sometimes very pointed and thought-provoking but they are never intended to represent the point of view of the Board of Regents or the Education Department on a given issue.”

Obama Attempts To Spin Iran Deal’s Obvious Failure As Trump’s Fault

"Iran’s leaders are aware that once Donald Trump is in office, the Iran deal is most likely going to be altered or dismantled. So why not thumb their noses at the United States?" 

The Federalist  . . . "But Obama may yet be able to blame this on Trump. He will argue that, despite this being done under Obama’s watch, Iran is reacting out of fear of the incoming Trump administration. Because the enrichment levels of the development aren’t yet known, Obama can claim that everything is going along swimmingly. If Iran chooses to enrich above the allowed level during Trump’s presidency, well, that’s on Trump.

"In an effort to fully cover his rear end, on Wednesday Obama declined to sign the legislation, thereby allowing it to become law on Thursday without his signature. While he maintains that the law doesn’t violate the terms of the nuclear deal, Obama also made it clear that he doesn’t think the legislation is necessary.

"Regardless of how Obama spins this, the Iran deal was poorly conceived from the start. It was always destined to implode, whether Republicans took power or not. Because Obama hasn’t led with bipartisan support from Congress, the Iran deal, much like his executive orders, is just another example of how the Obama legacy will evaporate after he leaves office. While he might try to place the blame on Trump and other Republicans, there’s only one person who’s really responsible. Talk about being on the wrong side of history."

She Persisted: Betsy DeVos Calm And Collected After Protesters Blocked Her From Entering DC School

Matt Vespa from Townhall

. . .

As The Washington Post's Emma Brown reports and the video above shows, DeVos was prevented by protesters from entering a Washington public school on Friday morning. After the demonstrators blocked the staircase she was trying to use and shouted at her, DeVos returned to her car, escorted by an aide. She later used another school entrance and went about her work.

"One of DeVos’ predecessors, Arne Duncan, tweeted whether you agree or disagree with her position on education; she needs to be let into public schools to do her job. Even Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, a member of the AFL-CIO, who is staunchly opposed to DeVos, said that she should be allowed to visit public schools. Her tweet came after she heard a protester blocked and almost knocked down the education secretary." . . . 

California Goes Confederate

powerlineblog.com

Victor Davis Hanson  "Since Clinton’s defeat, the state seems to have become unhinged over Trump’s unexpected election.

“ 'Calexit” supporters brag that they will have enough signatures to qualify for a ballot measure calling for California’s secession from the United States.

"Some California officials have talked of the state not remitting its legally obligated tax dollars to the federal government. They talk of expanding its sanctuary cities into an entire sanctuary state that would nullify federal immigration law.

"Californians also now talk about the value of the old Confederate idea of “states’ rights.” They whine that their state gives far too much revenue to Washington and gets too little back.

"Residents boast about how their cool culture has little in common with the rest of the U.S. Some Californians claim the state could easily go it alone, divorced from the United States.

"Sound a bit familiar?

"In December 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union in furor over the election of Abraham Lincoln.

"Lincoln did not receive 50 percent of the popular vote. He espoused values the state insisted did not reflect its own.

"In eerie irony, liberal California is now mirror-imaging the arguments of reactionary South Carolina and other Southern states that vowed to go it alone in 1860 and 1861.

"Like California, South Carolina insisted it could nullify federal laws within its state borders.

"Like California, South Carolina promised to withhold federal revenues.

"Like California, South Carolina and other Confederate states bragged that their unique economies did not need the Union.

"They boasted that “King Cotton” had created the wealthiest class in the United States. Silicon Valley now often assumes that Google, Facebook, Apple, and others are near-trillion-dollar companies that are a world unto their own." . . .

Analysis of the Ninth Circuit Court's Immigration Decision

legalinsurrection.com

A legal analysis of the Ninth Circuit's dangerous usurpation of presidential power
"Federal District Judge James Robart violated the Constitution in issuing a TRO (temporary restraining order) against President Trump's temporary entry ban for citizens of seven countries. Now a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed that stay.

"What we have here is a creeping constitutional coup. As long as President Obama was in charge and had a massive open door policy at our borders and at our airports, in violation of statutory law, the judiciary was content to be silent. But when Donald Trump became president and tried to use the powers of the Presidency to put some national security safeguards into place, the judiciary sprung into action. The judiciary has usurped the executive branch's powers and has created a parallel constitution, one that bears no relation to the founding document of our nation. The courts have now cited this parallel constitution to justify taking away the ultimate decision making authority concerning national security from the Presidency, to rest in their hands. The constitutional crisis and injury to our national security caused by this illegitimate decision cannot be overstated.

"What follows is an analysis of this travesty and the damage done to our system of jurisprudence and national security." . . . Read more:

Allan J. Favish  . . . "Title 8 United States Code, section 1182(f) , which was enacted as section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, is entitled “Suspension of Entry or Imposition of Restrictions by President” and states:

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. (Italics emphasis added.). . .   Read More.

Not So Fast, UN: The US Owes No 'Reparations' to Blacks

American Thinker  . . . "This UN action, of course, was followed by last December’s resolution against Israeli settlements.  Interestingly, in the same December time period, the UN could not bring itself to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on a South Sudan that is plunged into ethnic conflict in which thousands have already been killed.  It seems the newer, anti-colonial, anti-West members suffer from a case of moral schizophrenia."
. . .
"Though Christians became involved in the slave trade somewhat later, Arab Muslim traders were probably first to hold blacks as slaves and as they ceded global dominion of the slave trade to Europeans later on. They also are estimated to have enslaved over a million European Christians in the “barbary states” of North Africa." . . . More here.

Mrs. Clinton Is Not the Future

And neither are her illiterate slogans.

thefederalistpapers

National Review  "Hillary Rodham Clinton has had an odd career for a feminist icon.
Her main occupation has consisted of being the long-suffering wife of a powerful man, infamous for treating subordinate women as disposable conveniences, who abused her ruthlessly and humiliated her publicly. In exchange for standing by her man, she was given an orphaned Senate seat in New York, where she did not live, and two shots at the presidency, which she lost to an unknown back-bencher from Chicago in 2008 and to a reality-television host in 2016.

"Margaret Thatcher she isn’t.

"She is back to her habitual form of paid work: making speeches that are so vague as to be nearly content-free, her famous face and bland, almost affectless mode of speech serving as a kind of blank screen onto which those gathered can project their fantasies about having been present for Something Very Important.

"Whatever that might be.

"This week’s speech was for the MAKERS conference, a project of AOL, which still exists. MAKERS is a collection of Web videos about famous women, featuring exactly the sort of women you’d imagine appealing to midlevel executives of AOL, which still exists: Lena Dunham, Oprah Winfrey, Shonda Rhimes, Lilly Singh. The women of the world were, one assumes, simply crying out for well-lighted videos of humorless American (Miss Singh is Canadian, i.e., American Lite) multimillionaires repeating the most tedious banalities imaginable. And so they now have them, courtesy of AOL, which still exists." . . .

Rep. Maxine Waters, a leader among the Democrats and the choice of Californians

" . . .Rep. Maxine Waters (D.-Calif.), the loud-mouth, left-wing congresswoman from South Central Los Angeles, home of the 1992 Rodney King riots. " 

Maxine Waters: Trump Should Be Impeached for letting Russia Invade Korea
. . . "What’s even more telling about what is going on in our government and media is the fact that not one person hearing her words corrected her that the nation that Russia is dealing with is Crimea, not Korea." . . .

. . . "Don’t forget that this is also the woman who called Americans who are opposed to Sharia Law “bigots.”  Yep, California, you got a real winner with this woman.  Why don’t you guys stop voting for people like this, or at least recall her, or at least give her a geography lesson?" . . .

Scandal-Plagued Maxine Waters Top Dem on Banking Committee

"A famously corrupt—and seemingly untouchable—congresswoman renowned for abusing her power to enrich family members is set to hold a ranking position on the powerful House committee that oversees the nation’s financial services industries.

"Even for Washington this is a bit much. Democrats have chosen a scandal-plagued college, veteran Congresswoman Maxine Waters, to be the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee despite her many transgressions over the years. The influential congresswoman has helped family members make more than $1 million through business ventures with companies and causes that she has helped, according to her hometown newspaper.

"A few years ago Waters was investigated by the House Ethics Committee for steering $12 million in federal bailout funds to a failing Massachusetts bank (that subsequently got shut down by the government) in which she and her board member husband held shares. Read all about it in Waters’ profile on Judicial Watch’s 2011 “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” list." . . .

Top 10 Outrageous Maxine Waters Quotes

There must be Obama-Clinton people still working at the White House

Trump White House besieged by leaks  . . . "The question is where they’re coming from.
. . . "More serious matters have been leaked as well, such as descriptions of Trump’s call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Trump apparently said a U.S.-Australia deal on refugees, agreed to by President Obama, was “the worst deal ever,” and told Turnbull their conversation was “the worst call by far” among several he had held with world leaders that day.

"The leakiness of the Trump White House has been a boon to the press corps, who find themselves feasting on the juicy insider details that were hard to come by during the “No Drama Obama” years.

"But to those rooting for a successful Trump presidency, the picture looks very different." . . .

Obama's party-building legacy splits Democrats

Party officials are having a painful discussion about the state and local losses that occurred on his watch.

Politico via Drudge:

"A painful Democratic rift over Barack Obama’s political legacy is finally bursting into the open. 

"For years, the former president’s popularity among Democrats stifled any public critiques of his stewardship of the party — a period in which the party suffered tremendous losses at the state and local levels. 

"But now that Obama and the political operation that succeeded his campaign, Organizing For Action, have expressed interest in playing a role in the task of rebuilding, it’s sparking pitched debates over how much blame he deserves for the gradual hollowing out of a party that now has less control of state elected positions than at any other time in nearly a century. " . . .