Mike Huckabee

Imagine how thinly Trump’s attorneys must be stretched this week.  As we reported yesterday, they just found out on Tuesday that they have only till next Monday, February 12, to file their request with the Supreme Court for an appeal in Jack Smith’s “election interference” case based on presidential immunity.  Otherwise, the stay would no longer be in force and the case would go right back to court in DC, where pre-trial steps would continue as Jack Smith rushed frantically to try and convict Trump before the election.

And today, the High Court is hearing the Colorado 14^th Amendment case.  As Victoria Taft says for PJ MEDIA, this is “Democrats’ latest effort to weaponize the law to make Donald Trump unelectable --- and broke --- in the 2024 election cycle.”  On Thursday, she says, “the Supreme Court now becomes the center ring in their Get Trump circus.”

Many legal experts have looked at this case and said it could --- and should --- be a unanimous decision by the Court that the 14^th Amendment cannot be used in this situation.  To start with the obvious, Trump is NOT an insurrectionist.  (Recall what Scott Adams said about this:  that if at this point you think January 6 was actually an insurrection, you are too dumb to hold public office and should resign immediately.)  And it’s not up to a state court to simply declare him one.  He’s never been charged, let alone found guilty, of insurrection.  (Pelosi’s House impeached him in a blatantly political process, if you want to count that as being “charged,” but the Senate did not convict.)  Even Trump-hating special counsel Jack Smith, whom you KNOW would’ve charged Trump with insurrection if he’d thought he could, didn’t do that.

But the Supreme Court might not even need to get into those issues (although one might wish they would).  Legal experts have said that the President isn’t even covered by the language of Section 3 of the 14^th Amendment, which specifically applies to an “officer” of the United States.  In U.S. v. Mouot (1888), the Supreme Court ruled that “unless a person in the service of the government...holds his place by virtue of an appointment...he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.”

Constitutional scholar Steven Calabrisi has explained why the writers of the Amendment would have meant it this way.  The wording of Article II, Section 2, shows that the President and “officers” are spoken of separately.  “Officers” are people who have been commissioned by the President, not the President himself, as he doesn’t commission himself!  Plus, there’s a really big clue that they didn’t mean to include the President:

“The words ‘President or Vice President’ were deliberately edited out of the final version of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This, together with the disqualification of presidential electors and vice-presidential elector(s) who have engaged in ‘insurrection or rebellion’ makes it clear that the Framers of Section 3 did not intend for it to apply to presidents or vice presidents who engaged in insurrection.” 

There you are.  If it can be shown that the framers of Section 3 DELIBERATELY EDITED OUT the words “President or Vice President,” then clearly, they did not want that section to apply to those positions.  We don’t see how their intention could have been clearer.

As Pavlich also reported, Vivek Ramaswamy filed an amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief arguing that same point, that the President is not an “officer.”  He also said that the Democrats “have resorted to antidemocratic methods because they doubt that they can beat him in a fair election.”  He also expresses concern that such a precedent would “warp incentives for state decision-makers and voters alike.”  As if these weren’t getting warped enough as it is.  See Colorado and Maine.

So this might be a good time to pray for Trump, his legal team and the Justices, that wisdom might prevail and we have no further warping of the electoral system.

https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/02/07/the-supreme-court-tees-up-n4926204

Finally, here’s some good news for all of us who desire transparency on the part of sneaky Special Counsel Jack Smith, who won’t even divulge the names of his legal team.  District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who’s presiding over the “classified documents” case in Florida, has ruled that some discovery material Smith wanted to keep under seal will have to be disclosed.

Smith had tried to argue “witness safety and intimidation concerns,” but the judge seems not to have been impressed.  She found his response “sparse and undifferentiated” and said it “fails to provide the Court with the necessary factual basis to justify sealing.”  So, “there shall be no filing under seal of any unclassified material in this case,” she said, unless the Court has given permission to do so, which would be only in “clear and supported cases of risk to personal safety or national security.”  As it should be.  Thank you, Judge Cannon.

https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/07/federal-judge-damper-jack-smiths-victory/

Mike Huckabee

Most of the news outlets are leading with outraged mobs of leftists throwing fits and screaming about the end of Roe v. Wade. As usual, their reporting reflects an incorrect view that aside from a handful of fringe crazies, everyone agrees with the left’s viewpoint. In fact, there are tens of millions of Americans, the majority of them women, who have worked for years to overturn Roe and who see the loss of over 60 million babies to abortion as an unspeakable national tragedy. For them, Friday wasn’t a “dark day for women,” it was a long-hoped and prayed-for miracle. Let’s take a look at their victory celebrations first before getting into the really ugly stuff.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/24/photos-pro-life-americans-celebrate-the-overturning-of-roe-v-wade-after-nearly-50-years/

Last night, pro-abortion activists (I’m not going to call them “pro-choice” because they have no interest in women having any choice other than abortion) held their threatened “Night of Rage.” This might have been more effective if the left didn’t react to every election, court decision or stand-up comedian’s joke that doesn’t go exactly the way they want by flying into a quivering rage. Fox News has a continually-updated roundup of stories about the giant national tantrum following the SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-in-landmark-opinion

Breitbart also has a running account of the left’s meltdown…

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/24/livewire-pro-abortion-protests-escalate-in-americas-major-cities/

Protesters at the Arizona State Capitol gave January 6th Committee viewers a helpful demonstration of what a violent insurrection attempt looks like.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/arizona-senate-abortion-protest-hostage

Great quote at that link from Arizona state legislator Warren Peterson: “Feeling safe at the Capitol as I sit by 3 of my fellow senators who are armed."

Of course, the Night of Rage was preceded by a Morning of Mindlessness, a Midday of Hypocrisy and an Afternoon of Incitement. To listen to the insane ranting, from unhinged Twitter warriors urging violence (and of course, not being suspended by Twitter)…

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2022/06/25/crazy-thread-of-crazier-lefties-proves-the-real-danger-in-america-is-frothy-mouthed-nut-jobs-losing-their-minds-over-roe/

…to allegedly responsible Democratic Party office holders, you could safely assume that they didn’t even read the decision, or for that matter, know anything at all about the original Roe ruling. I wonder if they know that Roe originally legalized abortion fully only in the first trimester? If it still held, abortion laws in many blue states would be much stricter than they are now. 

The cluelessness wasn’t limited to American liberals. French President Macron took to Twitter to denounce the SCOTUS and declare abortion a “fundamental right of women.” The Mississippi law the Court upheld bars abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In France, it’s barred after only 12 weeks.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/macron-denounces-supreme-court-for-upholding-abortion-law-less-strict-than-france-s/ar-AAYQfPx

I’ve also never seen so many hard leftists morph instantaneously into hardcore Libertarians. They’re now railing against unelected judges making decisions about something that should be determined by the people. They apparently don’t comprehend that that’s what Roe was, as the pro-life side has been pointing out for half a century. By overturning Roe, the Court voided the judicial overreach and sent decisions about abortion back to the people’s elected representatives in the states.

It’s mind-boggling to see so many leftists denouncing judicial activism when this is actually the opposite of that. Particularly since judicial activism has been the left’s favorite way of sidestepping legislatures and imposing their will on the people for decades. It’s how they forced abortion on America with Roe because they couldn't convince the voters. But what the Courts do, the Courts can undo. It’s tempting to tell them the same thing parents often say to children who are throwing tantrums: “You brought this on yourself.”

Sadly, the Democrats once again proved themselves unworthy of holding any position of responsibility, from the President on down. Biden could have reacted to the decision in a statesmanlike fashion and attempted to calm the fury and urge Americans to come together and respect our Constitutional system. He could have at least denounced the illegal protests at Justices’ homes and the threats against them and churches and pro-life pregnancy centers. Instead, he chose to demagogue, throw more gas on the fire (I’m amazed he could afford it), and exploit the rage to shill for votes for Democrats.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/06/24/joe-biden-just-told-us-who-he-really-is-n583769

I don’t believe this will be the turning point issue they think it will be. Most Americans are at least somewhat pro-life. The number of abortions has been falling in recent years. And acting like violent lunatics, threatening people who disagree with you and calling for burning down the Supreme Court when you don't get your way is not a good way to convince voters to give you more power. Besides, a new McLaughlin poll found that only 5% of voters call abortion a “top concern” to them.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/just-5-call-abortion-top-issue

FYI: Joe Biden used to be pro-life himself. In fact, in 1982, he proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue of abortion to the states. Sound familiar?

https://instapundit.com/527749/

It was only as recently as 2019, when he had to pander to the far left to win the Democratic Presidential nomination, that he dropped his support for the Hyde Amendment barring federal funding of abortions.

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/06/24/biden-has-flip-flopped-like-a-fish-on-abortion-over-his-long-career-n583922

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has yet to do his duty and arrest people protesting at SCOTUS Justices’ homes, again proved that he either doesn’t grasp or doesn’t care that his job requires him to enforce laws objectively and not display political prejudice. He issued a statement condemning the Court ruling and declaring that the “Justice” Department will “work tirelessly to protect and advance reproductive freedom.” Not only was this wildly inappropriate (it’s described at the link as the “most overtly political moment in DOJ history"), it also contained elements that could easily be taken as racist. As if the incoming GOP Congress didn’t have enough reasons to impeach and remove Garland, this alone is more than enough.  

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/06/24/merrick-garland-should-be-impeached-for-his-response-to-roe-being-overturned-n583724

Over in Congress, Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi took a break from accusing Republicans of violent insurrection against a branch of the government to rush into the streets and demand violent insurrection against a branch of the government.

https://www.westernjournal.com/pelosi-melts-scotus-decision-accuses-republicans-coordinated-nationwide-plot/

Naturally, AOC joined in the irresponsible, insurrection-y rhetoric, with a side order of her specialty: clueless ignorance about the Constitution and how our government works. And just one day before, this woman was complaining about how underpaid she is at only $174,000 a year.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-democrats-explode-after-supreme-court-makes-it-harder-to-kill-unborn-babies 

You didn’t think Maxine Waters was going to act like a responsible adult, did you?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/06/24/insane-maxine-waters-pretty-much-calls-for-insurrection-after-supreme-court-abortion-ruling-n2609309

Far-left Rep. Cori Bush joined in the loon squad by telling a crowd that called abortion an “act of love” and was chanting, "Free abortion on demand, the people hate abortion bans!" that these “unelected” Justices (at least she knows that much) made a decision that will affect people “whose children and children’s children they will never know.” I doubt that’s going to be an issue to the people she was talking to.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cori-bush-pro-choice-rally-protesters-abortion-act-love-no-restrictions

Law professor Jonathan Turley tried to correct some of the Democrats’ spit-flecked hysteria, but it will probably be as effective as trying to reason with a bobcat.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/24/jonathan-turley-dropkicks-the-attacks-from-pelosi-biden-and-aoc-over-scotus-decision-n583713

In the meantime, leave it to the Babylon Bee to sum up the day’s news perfectly:

https://babylonbee.com/news/roe-v-wade-aborted-in-198th-trimester

https://babylonbee.com/news/dems-pause-january-6-hearings-to-call-for-insurrection

https://babylonbee.com/news/weird-democrats-everywhere-using-word-woman-today-almost-as-if-they-know-what-it-means

https://babylonbee.com/news/authorities-warn-tonights-protests-may-escalate-from-mostly-peaceful-to-somewhat-peaceful

Mike Huckabee

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has struck down New York’s requirement that citizens prove to the government that they have a specific need to carry a weapon for self-defense outside their homes.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/06/23/scotus-gun-case-n2609212

Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas said the Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense is not a second class right subject to an entirely different body of rules than other rights. For instance, you don’t have to prove to the government that you have a need to voice unpopular speech or freely exercise your religious beliefs.

Justice Alito concurred, writing, "Today, unfortunately, many Americans have good reason to fear that they will be victimized if they are unable to protect themselves. And today, no less than in 1791, the Second Amendment guarantees their right to do so.”

This is a major victory for gun rights, but if you follow the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine it going any other way. The law was obviously unconstitutional from the start, and with each passing day, as New York’s liberal policies hampered police responses and allowed crime to flourish, the need for self-protection wherever you went became increasingly urgent. Personally, I don’t know how the Justices could keep a straight face listening to lawyers from New York argue that nobody needs to carry a weapon to feel safe…in NEW YORK.  

Mike Huckabee

To sum up this past week, Spencer Brown at Townhall.com recaps some of the left’s most ludicrous and hysterical reactions to the leak of the SCOTUS draft ruling on Roe v. Wade. From their reactions, you’d think it was not only going to ban abortion, but also interracial marriage, contraceptives and owning more than five cats. Their bonkers response is perfectly encapsulated in the title: “Did Democrats Even Read the Leaked SCOTUS Draft?

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/05/05/unserious-democrats-spread-false-claims-about-overturning-roe-n2606806?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky3

Personally, I suspect they haven’t read most things they get spitting mad over, from “Huckleberry Finn” to the Constitution. If they think all this lunatic behavior will help them in November, they obviously haven’t yet read a new CNN poll, taken after the SCOTUS leak. It found that while the abortion issue has increased voter enthusiasm among Democrats, it’s increased it even more among Republicans, and “the overall picture for the midterm elections is little changed after this week’s news.” Yes, this is actually from CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/06/politics/cnn-poll-abortion-midterms-roe-v-wade/index.html

“The share of registered voters who say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this fall rose 6 points between the first survey and the second, but that increase is about even across party lines. Among Democrats, 43% now say they are extremely or very enthusiastic, up 7 points. Among Republicans, it’s 56%, up 9 points. And voters who say overturning Roe would make them 'happy' are nearly twice as enthusiastic about voting this fall as those who say such a ruling would leave them 'angry' (38% extremely enthusiastic among those happy, 20% among those angry).”

The poll also found that while majorities don’t want Roe overturned, and if it is, want a national law allowing abortion, it’s not the primary issue driving most voting decisions. In fact, the Republican edge over Democrats on the generic ballot actually increased since the previous poll to 49-42%.

I also have a feeling the enthusiasm to rush to vote Democrat to protect abortion will also wane as time goes by and people realize just how much of what they’re currently hearing is groundless hysteria completely unhinged from fact. Even Bill Maher is already pointing that out.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/bill-maher-roe-v-wade-abortion-scotus

For the record, longtime Democrat strategist Doug Schoen is also trying to warn the Party that they’re deluding themselves about unfettered abortion being a winning issue, but I doubt they’ll listen to him any more than they do me.

https://www.dailynews.com/2022/05/06/the-supreme-court-overturning-roe-wont-boost-democrats-chances-in-the-midterms/

Mike Huckabee

It’s always hard to choose the dumbest, most hysterical reaction from the left to any news story that doesn’t go their way, but it’s a safe bet that the best place to start is with Rep. Eric Swalwell. Although to be fair, he’s not the only one to make the jaw-droppingly stupid claim that “the Republicans won’t stop with banning abortion. They want to ban interracial marriage. Do you want to save that? Well, then you should probably vote.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/03/left-spreads-fear-overturning-roe-means-ending-interracial-marriage/

That’s about the most succinct example I’ve seen that the Democrats intend to demagogue the SCOTUS’ Roe ruling to the hilt in a cynical attempt to get people to vote for more of the misery that having them in power inflicts on us all. I would never insult anyone by assuming they’re dumb enough to actually swallow (or Swalowell) this tripe, but for the record:

The Alito draft decision makes it crystal clear that this decision applies solely to the uniquely incorrectly-decided Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion and not to any other ruling or right.

One of the conservative Justices concurring in the opinion is Clarence Thomas, who is in an interracial marriage. He would probably agree with the outrage expressed by a number of other black Republicans at the idea that they want to outlaw their own interracial marriages.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/black-republicans-slam-swalwell-for-saying-gop-oppose-interracial-marriage-im-in-an-interracial-marriage/ar-AAWTKHK

Also worth noting: polls show that 94% of Americans approve of interracial marriages while 71% want abortion banned or restricted. Why are the Democrats attacking our democracy?

Mike Huckabee

Before I say anything about last night’s big bombshell story about the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade, let me get a few caveats out of the way:

The initial draft of a majority opinion allegedly written by Justice Alito appears genuine, but that doesn’t mean it is. Also, initial drafts are just that: drafts. They can change over time as the Justices continue to debate. They can even change their votes. And this decision was not set to be released for a couple of months yet. Also, while it seems that the most likely culprit to have leaked it would be a liberal law clerk hoping to gin up public pressure on the Justices to change their votes, we don’t know for sure who leaked it. Now, on to the story:

https://www.westernjournal.com/breaking-leaked-report-shows-scotus-overturned-roe-v-wade/

Politico released what it claims is a leaked initial draft of a majority opinion of the SCOTUS, overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling legalizing abortion (and isn’t it bizarre that the media suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story on the excuse they don’t publish hacked evidence – which that wasn’t – but they ran to get this out, when it could have been stolen by hackers.)

As you’d expect, the legal reasoning of the alleged Alito-written opinion is rock solid, and nothing new to anyone who’s paid attention over the past five decades. Roe was a ruling with zero basis in the Constitution; a political statement disguised as a judicial ruling. The draft opinion points out that there is nothing in the Constitution about a right to abortion, and the long history of laws banning abortion shows that the Founders never intended to include such a right. The Constitution also does not prohibit citizens of the states from banning or regulating abortion. This was clearly a profound moral question that the Founders left up to elected representatives in each state. It says that with the Roe v. Wade ruling, the SCOTUS arrogated that authority, which the Court now returns “to the people and their elected representatives.”

The Facts, For Those Who Care…

Not that they matter to the hopped-up radicals currently screaming all over TV and social media, but here are some facts:

If it is true that the SCOTUS has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, it will not be unprecedented. There have been bad rulings before, and some have been overturned by the Court while others were killed by subsequent laws.

https://moneyinc.com/worst-supreme-court-decisions/

It also will not mean that abortion will be banned. As I’ve been saying for years, it would return the question to the states. We already have blue states that are passing abortion bills so radical, they’ve virtually legalized infanticide. And there are red states like my home state of Arkansas that have recognized the sanctity of life from the moment of conception and passed laws limiting abortion to before a detectible heartbeat, or other early points of development.

As legal scholar Mark Levin explained, the Founders intended the federalist system to respect the individual cultures of the states, while allowing free travel between them for those who disagreed. There would be nothing stopping someone who wanted an abortion from going to a state that allowed them. While I would hope that the pro-abortion side would change their hearts (and open their minds to rapidly evolving science on what’s happening in the womb), for the foreseeable future, there would still be states that allowed abortion. Those who argue that poor women couldn’t afford to travel could just give them money for a bus ticket instead of showering millions on Planned Parenthood.

The Secondary Bombshell

What is unprecedented is the leaking of this SCOTUS draft, which was described by law professor Jonathan Turley as “unspeakably unethical” and by the SCOTUS Blog as “the gravest, most unforgivable sin,” an “earthquake” in terms of the destruction of trust among Justices and staff. The Justices need to be able to freely debate cases without concerns about their private thoughts leaking and being politicized, and that’s exactly what happened the second Politico released this.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2022/05/03/the-destruction-of-the-supreme-court-n559094

The “scream-at-the-sky” crazy leftwing went predictably berserk, forcing authorities to put security and barricades outside the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts reportedly wants an FBI investigation to identify who leaked this. There’s some question as to whether it’s a federal offense, but Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, who clerked at the SCOTUS, said clerks are told on day one that if they ever leak any private material, they are done at the Court and their law careers will be over. She called it “a line that could never be crossed.”

I assume that if a liberal clerk did this, he/she/xe doesn’t care and assumes the perfidy will result in a fat book contract, a CNN commentator gig and the other perks that typically support loyal leftists whose lack of ethics has left them otherwise unemployable.

And The Dems Are Off To The Races (the November Races)…

Naturally, some Congressional Democrats immediately seized on the news, since they’re desperate for any emotional issue to fire up their voters before the coming elections and make them forget just how terrible they are at governing.

The very first reaction of leftists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders was to call for either trying to stack the Court or circumventing the ruling by passing a national abortion legalization bill already passed on party lines by the House – and if they don’t have enough votes, then kill the Senate filibuster to shove it down Americans’ throats with 51 votes. That’s their typical “my way or the highway,” "cheating is justified when we do it" attitude. Lots of yak-yak about “diversity,” but zero tolerance for diversity of thought. And does Bernie really think Joe Manchin would vote to go along with that?

It’s so on-brand of today’s Democrats that after spending over a year accusing Republicans of launching an assault on the sacred institutions of democracy, they turn on a dime and rush to destroy the sacred institutions of democracy to get their way. It’s also very predictable that the bill they want to pass to legalize abortion bears the wildly misleading title, the “Women’s Health Protection Act.” If they truly believed that aborting babies was morally and ethically justifiable, then why do they struggle so hard to come up with fuzzy euphemisms to hide what they’re really doing, like “women’s health” or “reproductive justice”?

Or as President Biden put it as he tried to turn it into a winning election issue, “A woman’s right to choose is fundamental.” Two questions: To choose WHAT, Joe? Also, could you please define “woman”?

Many legal experts are warning that if the intent of the leak was to gin up the mob to threaten the Justices into changing their votes, that’s likely to backfire. The Justices take very seriously their duty to rule based on the cases and the Constitution, not heated political considerations. In fact, the conservative most likely to compromise or vote with the liberals, Chief Justice Roberts, is also known for being very concerned about maintaining the integrity and image of the SCOTUS, and appearing to bow before a mob would undermine it even worse than this leak.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/05/03/more-scotus-leaks-on-abortion-case-reveal-which-conservative-justice-might-vote-with-liberals-n559139

Again, this is an alleged leaked draft, and the Court has NOT yet ruled on this case. Mature adults know that you wait until the decision is released and then deal with it like rational people who respect the Constitution and the diversity of opinion among the various states (look at me, having to defend diversity from angry leftists!)

But the Democrats are reacting like hyperactive children, throwing a tantrum and threatening to burn down the house if they don’t get what they want. If they really think this is going to convince people to keep them in power, I can understand why they’re dumb enough to believe that Roe v. Wade was such a solid Constitutional ruling that it could never be overturned.

I was on Newsmax last night, talking about this issue, to emphasize that the Democrats’ version of “The Big Lie” is claiming that overturning Roe v. Wade would ban abortion. Also, that this leak is the Democrats’ version of “Insurrection” in attempting to undermine, damage and even destroy the institution of the Supreme Court.

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=140AB694-D852-4476-A007-E0853B78DE1E

PS: To correct a live TV slip of the tongue, I meant that 62 MILLION babies have been sacrificed on the altar of this terrible ruling since 1973.

Mike Huckabee

Republicans scored a couple of important court victories this week. The Supreme Court rejected an attempt to replace the Wisconsin legislature’s voting district map with one drawn by the Governor that created an extra 7th majority black district. Defenders claimed this was necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

The SCOTUS ruled that this was in error. In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the Court ruled that under the Equal Protection Clause, districting maps that sort voters on the basis of race “are by their very nature odious.” Any state that draws districts based on race has to withstand strict scrutiny in proving that there’s a compelling state interest in doing so, and it must be “narrowly tailored” to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

https://utexas.app.box.com/s/7ca2iocqmaz9xk8xlklcwqrvisa842bu

The larger point here is that the Court reaffirmed that states can’t use the Voting Rights Act as a blanket excuse to gerrymander voting districts based solely on race. That can only be done in a very limited way, and they must have a solid reason for why it’s necessary.

The other court win came in Ohio, where federal District Judge Michael Newman ruled in favor of attorneys general from Arizona, Montana and Ohio in a lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas.

https://www.westernjournal.com/judge-hands-republican-states-big-win-biden-blocking-dhs-order/

Mayorkas issued a memo to ICE agents, ordering them to prioritize deportations of illegal aliens who pose a threat to national security or public safety, or who recently came to the US. As for the rest, he wrote, “In exercising our discretion, we are guided by the fact that the majority of undocumented noncitizens who could be subject to removal have been contributing members of our communities for years…The fact that an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them. We will use our discretion and focus our resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country’s well-being require it.”

As you might imagine, federal immigration law doesn’t include an exception for those who’ve managed to dodge deportation long enough (those he euphemically called "removable noncitizens.") The judge quite correctly ruled that Mayorkas was attempting to rewrite the law to make it more to his liking. He cited a quote from a 1952 SCOTUS decision that we should probably embroider onto samplers and send to DC to decorate the entire executive branch:

“In the framework of our Constitution, the President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker.”

That’s a bedrock tenet of the Constitution that the Obama Administration regularly flouted and that Biden has continued. Whenever Obama didn’t like a law Congress had passed, his DOJ would simply refuse to enforce it; and when Congress refused to pass a law he wanted, even one he admitted he had no power to enact, he would go ahead and create it anyway by “executive order.” Too many times, activist liberal judges went along with the insane idea that somehow, Obama had the power to create laws by executive order, but Trump didn’t have the power to rescind those unconstitutional edicts.

Let’s hope that this ruling heralds a trend of judges putting the brakes on Biden’s attempts to continue lawless rule by executive order and ignoring laws that he took an oath to enforce.

Mike Huckabee

The first day of the Senate confirmation hearings for Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson consisted of nothing but opening statements by Jackson and the Senators.

Jackson said, “During this hearing, I hope you will see how much I love this country, the Constitution, and the rights that make us free. I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath. I know that my role as a judge is a limited one – that the Constitution empowers me only to decide cases and controversies that are properly presented. And I know that my judicial role is further constrained by careful adherence to precedent.”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/03/live-day-1-ketanji-brown-jacksons-supreme-court-confirmation-hearing/

That’s reassuring, but also hard to believe. Jackson wasn’t chosen by whoever’s making President Biden’s decisions for him just because she brings much-needed diversity to the SCOTUS by being yet another liberal Harvard alum. There were other judges who checked Biden’s “black/female” boxes, but Jackson was known as the most leftwing activist of the choices.

Senate Democrats provided the comic relief by admonishing Republicans that they had promised to keep the process “civil.” This from the same people who accused Judge Barrett of being in a "Handmaid's Tale" style religious cult and who smeared Brett Kavanaugh as a drunk, rapist and rape gang organizer with zero evidence.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/03/21/ted-cruz-destroys-democrats-during-jackson-confirmation-hearings-n1568303

As Sen. Ted Cruz reminded them, it’s the Democrats who have a disgusting history of turning SCOTUS hearings into “high tech lynchings” (Clarence Thomas’ term for the hearings he faced, thanks to then-Senator Joe Biden.) Biden also voted against a black female Bush nominee. He claimed it was because he disagreed with her philosophy and rulings, but by the Democrats' own claims, we can assume he just was being a racist.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/03/21/ted-cruz-and-ben-sasse-remind-democrats-what-scotus-hypocrites-they-are-n538948

The Republicans launched no personal attacks on Judge Jackson, but they made it clear that they had serious reservations about her previous statements and rulings. These include seven cases in which she gave pedophiles sentences far more lenient than federal guidelines called for, and her comments praising “The 1619 Project” and saying that judges should consider Critical Race Theory in sentencing defendants.

That doesn’t sound like being neutral and applying the facts without favor and in adherence to precedent. It would be nice to know more on her thinking about sentencing, but Sen. Chuck Grassley complained that his request for public records on Jackson’s four years on the US Sentencing Commission (which Democrats cited as part of her valuable experience) had been blocked and 48,000 pages worth of documents withheld from view.

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/03-21-22%20Grassley%20Statement.pdf

Republican Senators, and indeed all Americans, deserve to know whether an unelected judge who may be handing down decisions that affect all our lives for decades to come is telling the truth about respecting the Constitution, the rule of law and limits on judicial power. Without that reassurance, we could end up with a two-tiered “justice” system – one in which people who, say, attempted to block the sacred duties of Congress by creating a disturbance in the chamber to block the Kavanaugh confirmation were let go without being accused of “insurrection” while a Trump supporter who was told by a Capitol Police officer that he could enter the Capitol, so he came in, looked around and left, faces up to 20 years in prison.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/03/21/man-told-by-an-officer-that-he-could-enter-the-capitol-on-jan-6-now-faces-20-years-in-prison-n1568195

It never used to be necessary even to ask SCOTUS nominees if they believed in the type of banana republic “justice” system where people are punished or released based on their political beliefs rather than their actions. Unfortunately, now it is. And Republicans didn’t create that.

Mike Huckabee

Despite the Supreme Court’s split ruling that OSHA doesn’t have the power to mandate vaccinations but the HHS can mandate them for healthcare workers, this court battle might not be over yet for all healthcare workers.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/maine-health-workers-latest-to-take-vaccine-mandate-to-supreme-court_4214387.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-01-16-1&utm

In a subscriber-only story, the Epoch Times reports that the Liberty Counsel has filed a brief with the SCOTUS on behalf of 2,000 health care workers in Maine who are seeking religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate. They’re using the same argument that succeeded in a Texas federal court against the Defense Department: if you allow for medical exemptions, people getting those exemptions pose the exact same risk to the state’s goals as those seeking religious exemptions. The virus doesn’t know the difference. So to allow secular exemptions and deny religious exemptions is unconstitutional religious discrimination.

I’ll keep you apprised on how this case goes. In the meantime, there are indications that support for vaccine mandates may be waning. For instance, there's this prominent person in the UK who says that considering that Omicron is a mild variant, Britain's mass vaccination effort is a "waste of time" and should come to an end. He says the government should focus instead on protecting the most vulnerable, such as unvaccinated elderly people.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/waste-of-time-to-keep-vaccinating-people-ex-head-of-uk-vaccine-taskforce_4216302.html

Now, before I get censored and demonetized for spreading "misinformation" from some quack, I should quickly note that those comments came from Dr. Clive Dix, the former chairman of Britain's Vaccines Taskforce.