Will the United States Supreme Court correct a previous error?

 

May 10, 2022

The United States Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case that may reverse Roe v. Wade, which the History website explains “was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, 1973, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States. The court held that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.”

The History website also explains that “In May 2022, the nation's highest court agreed to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, regarding the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The case presents a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.”

The news broke when a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to and published by Politico. This draft opinion, secretly and wrongly provided by someone associated with the Court, has started two huge reactions. 

One reaction is outrage that the decision beloved by abortion supporters may be reversed. The other is disgust and anger that the leak has damaged the integrity of the Court as never before in its history, and that it was done by someone on the inside.

"We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives."

He also wrote that while defenders of Roe point to the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to justify the decision, they are mistaken, CNN reported.

“In the draft, Alito batted away arguments that other provisions of the Constitution dealing with privacy or liberty might be relied upon to uphold a right to an abortion,” the network’s story continued.

“That's because, according to Alito, while the Due Process Clause might guarantee some rights that aren't mentioned explicitly in [the] Constitution, such rights have to be ‘deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition. The right to abortion does not fall within this category,’ he said.”

Alito went on to say that Roe was "egregiously wrong" from the start and its reasoning is "exceptionally weak," CNN reported.

His conclusion was that the issue must be decided by the states, not the Supreme Court. "That is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand," he wrote. "Our Nation's historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people's elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated," he added.

Paul Stark, writing for Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (mccl.org) on Jan 20, 2017, provided three reasons why Roe was an improper ruling.

“First, and most importantly, the outcome of Roe is harmful and unjust. Why? The facts of embryology show that the human embryo or fetus (the being whose life is ended in abortion) is a distinct and living human organism at the earliest stages of development. ‘Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to form a single cell, a zygote,’ explains a leading embryology textbook. ‘This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.’"

“The second problem with Roe is that it is an epic constitutional mistake. Justice Harry Blackmun's majority opinion claimed that the ‘right of privacy’ found in the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is ‘broad enough to encompass’ a fundamental right to abortion. There is no reason to think that's true.”

“Third, Roe is undemocratic. Roe and Doe v. Bolton together struck down the democratically decided abortion laws of all 50 states and replaced them with a nationwide policy of abortion-for-any-reason, whether the people like it or not. Of course, the Court may properly invalidate statutes that are inconsistent with the Constitution (which is the highest law). But Roe lacked any such justification.”

A National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) factsheet estimates that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, "18 states would protect unborn children immediately." This is due to laws implemented prior to the Roe ruling, or “trigger” laws that would go into effect upon Roe’s reversal, or both.

The NRLC also estimates that action to “allow abortion either through legislatively-enacted statute or a court ruling interpreting the state constitution to convey the right to abortion” would occur in 23 states. 

The leaked document predictably has liberals and conservatives blaming each other. PBS online said, “Republican members of Congress are suggesting a sinister left-wing plot to derail the outcome of the final decision. Liberals are alleging machinations from the right to lock the justices into their preliminary vote.”

Regardless of who leaked the opinion and why, this is a serious problem for the Court, which has been immune to such scurrilous behavior, thus far.

Chief Justice John Roberts called the act “absolutely appalling.” Appearing at the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference in Atlanta, Roberts said he hoped “one bad apple” would not affect “people’s perception” of the Court, adding that “the person” or “people” who leaked the document are “foolish” if they think it will affect the courts work.

Put abortion in the hands of the states, and punish the leaker accordingly.

A Constitutional crisis? Another Democrat talking point gets life

So, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Chair of the House Judiciary Committee thinks we have entered into a Constitutional crisis because Attorney General William Barr has refused to turn over a completely un-redacted copy of Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s report.

Barr has, however, provided a copy for key members of Congress that is almost un-redacted. Out of the well-over 400 pages in the report only two entire lines of text are redacted, and seven lines are partially redacted. This version of the report is far better than the heavily redacted version previously made available, but only three members of Congress have chosen to review it, and – surprise, surprise, surprise – none of the three is a Democrat.

And, the redactions that remain are still in place because of a federal circuit court ruling to the effect that grand jury materials cannot be made public. The reason is that making public grand jury testimony about people who were investigated but not indicted would potentially unfairly harm those whose names appeared, even though they were not indicted for any criminal wrongdoing.

But that’s not a good enough reason for Nadler and his Democrat comrades.

It appears, therefore, that if there is unconstitutional behavior, it is the behavior of Nadler himself, who is attempting to punish the AG for refusing to break the law just to help Nadler and the Democrats create another smoke screen. He led the Judiciary Committee in holding Barr in contempt of Congress, although the entire body of the House has not yet voted to do so.

The following explanation appeared in National Review last month. “At issue was this question: Does a federal court have the authority to order disclosure of grand-jury materials if the judge decides that the interests of justice warrant doing so; or is the judge limited to the exceptions to grand-jury secrecy that are spelled out in Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure? The D.C. Circuit’s McKeever ruling holds that the text of Rule 6(e) controls. Consequently, judges have no authority to authorize disclosure outside the rule.” And if a judge may not do so, obviously the AG may not.

Surely Nadler, who is rumored to be a lawyer and is chair of the Judiciary Committee, knows that Barr cannot release a clean report. And wouldn’t he, and several more of his Democrat fellow travelers, benefit from the lightly redacted version that Barr provided. One would certainly think so.

All of these shenanigans are a strong indication that this entire episode is just more political swampiness by a desperate Democrat faction in Congress.

After all, Barr said in testimony before the Committee that he intends to look into several of the irregularities by the FBI and DOJ, and if Nadler himself is not at risk, quite a few public servants who share the anti-Trump obsession surely are.

Law professor Jonathan Turley, described by Townhall.com as “left-leaning,” has a reputation for ignoring political considerations when addressing constitutional issues.

About the topic of Barr’s refusal to respond to the subpoena, Turley said, “The problem is that the contempt action against Barr is long on action and short on contempt. Indeed, with a superficial charge, the House could seriously undermine its credibility in the ongoing conflicts with the White House.”

He went on to say, “As someone who has represented the House of Representatives, my concern is that this one violates a legal version of the Hippocratic oath to ‘first do no harm.’ This could do great harm, not to Barr, but to the House. It is the weakest possible case to bring against the administration, and likely to be an example of a bad case making bad law for the House ... Barr promised to release as much of the report as possible, and he has delivered.”

Nadler and his fellow OCD-plagued anti-Trumpers are uninterested in what destruction they may impose on the country in their frenzied efforts to harm Donald Trump.

“The end justifies the means” is the current ruling motto of Democrats, and some misguided Republicans. “Trump must be defeated, removed from office, even prosecuted” seems to be the operative theme. It doesn’t matter whose life is unfairly ruined, or how many people they trash in the process.

Being morally upstanding and behaving with integrity are lost virtues among Congressional Democrats, as they climb lower and lower in their efforts to remove Trump from office.

While the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was going on in strict secrecy, at the end of the proceedings a Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin responded immediately, "A republic, if you can keep it."

We must give Congressional Democrats their due for being transparent: They are clearly showing, for all to see, that they care little for the law or for honorable behavior. Nothing is as important than doing in Donald Trump, and it seems nothing will be allowed to stand in their way. And the republic that Franklin celebrated and warned about is under attack from within.

Draining the swamp: restoring proper operation to federal agencies

It is a difficult task trying to determine which federal agency has done the most damage to the country and its citizens. A very strong candidate for this dishonor, if not a shoo-in for it, is the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA.

The EPA’s sins run from declaring mud puddles on private property to be under federal control through the Waters of the United States rule to picking winners and losers and deciding to shut down an entire industry based upon a manic fear of CO2, a compound that is essential for animal and plant life.

A good rule for all of us to remember is, “all things in moderation.” If that is a good rule for CO2, as the EPA asserts, it is also a necessary rule for regulations. Too many regulations really gum things up, stunt our economy, punish taxpayers and businesses, create uncertainty, and the EPA may well be the king in that regard, although the IRS is a strong contender.

President Donald Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been charged with corralling that agency, and he sat down with The Heritage Foundation’s Rob Bluey at Heritage’s President’s Club meeting to discuss that process.

First up, the topic of “sue and settle” and how that process amounts to backdoor rulemaking.  An article on Forbes online describes the process as follows: “’Sue and Settle’ practices, sometimes referred to as ‘friendly lawsuits,’ are cozy deals through which far-left radical environmental groups file lawsuits against federal agencies wherein court-ordered ‘consent decrees’ are issued based upon a prearranged settlement agreement they collaboratively craft together in advance behind closed doors.” Read that again, carefully.

“Then, rather than allowing the entire process to play out, the agency being sued settles the lawsuit by agreeing to move forward with the requested action they and the litigants both want.”

Pruitt noted an additional irregularity. “But then here’s the kicker: They (the agency) would pay attorneys fees to the group that sued them.” So the group is effectively making “comfortable” rules and the government pays for their lawyers.

Acknowledging the fraudulent nature and duplicity of this process, Pruitt said, “My job is to enforce the laws as passed by whom? Congress. They give me my authority. That’s the jurisdictional responsibilities that I have, and when litigation is used to regulate … that’s abusive. That’s wrong.”

A bit later Bluey asked about the Waters of the United States rule. “[P]eople all over the country have no idea today where federal jurisdiction begins and ends under that 2015 rule,” Pruitt responded. He was in Salt Lake City with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and an Army Corps of Engineers representative about two months ago when the representative pointed to a thermal drainage ditch and said, “Scott, that is a water of the United States.”

“It’s not going to be anymore,” Pruitt said. “That’s really the challenge here—that you had so much confusion and uncertainty about what waters were in [and] what waters were out.”

Next, Bluey turned to the Clean Power Plan, asking Pruitt where he sees the EPA going with this regulation.

“It’s not the job of the EPA to say to the utility company in any state of the country, you should choose renewables over natural gas or coal,” he answered. “We need fuel diversity in the general electricity. We need more choices, not less.”

And then the common sense answer that has been absent for eight or more years: “No agency at the federal level should use their coercive power to force business utility companies to take those fuel sources away. They should be making it on cost, stability, and I would say resiliency of the grid.”

Hallelujah!

Turning to the day-to-day operation of the agency, Pruitt talked about the advisory bodies that provide input into decisions and policy. “The scientists who make up these bodies, and there are dozens and dozens of these folks, over the years those individuals as they’ve served those capacities, guess what has also happened? They’ve received moneys through grants, and sometimes substantial moneys through grants,” he said.

“I think what’s most important at the agencies,” he continued, “is to have scientific advisers who are objective, independent minded, providing transparent recommendations to me as the administrator and to our office on the decisions that we’re making on the efficacy of rules that we’re passing to address environmental issues.

“If we have individuals that are on those boards that are receiving money from the agency, sometimes going back years and years to the tune of literally tens of millions of dollars, over time,” he said, “that to me causes questions on the independence and the veracity of the transparency of the recommendations that are coming our way.”

This pro-Constitution, commonsense rule of law perspective is one that all heads of federal agencies ought to share, and what the concept of constitutional government demands.

After many years of bureaucratic excesses, frequently spurred by political bias, it is refreshing and it inspires confidence to see Scott Pruitt and other administration officials at last focusing on proper management of the government we pay for, but which has so often gone off the rails into ideological self-service.

Do Republicans realize that this is a pivotal time for America?

 

One thing most of us likely can agree on is that this has been a season of tragedy in the United States, most recently with the California wine country wild fires, and before that the Las Vegas shooting, and the hurricanes. Where disagreement thrives is on how we should respond to them.

During the presidency of Barack Obama our government took a sharp turn to the left, a dramatic increase in the much more gentle leftward drift it has been in for a long time. The election of Donald Trump was in large measure a backlash against Obama’s socialistic ideas, the Democrats’ abandonment of many of the values normal Americans observe, and the prospect of more of the same from Hillary Clinton.

So the voter’s said a loud “No!” to continuing the leftist governance of the Democrats by electing a Republican president and giving the GOP control of both houses of Congress. Unfortunately, what should have been a concentrated effort to start restoring Constitutional government has been put on hold by an obstinate faction of Republicans, some of whom have fallen victim to their own liberal impulses, and others who have let their egos overpower their sense of duty to their constituents, and have given in to hurt feelings in reaction to Donald Trump’s tweeting addiction, which too often gets personal.

If there is good news in this scenario for traditional Americans it is that the Trump presidency is not quite a year old, and there is time for both Trump and many Congressional Republicans to put these personal feelings behind them and get important things done.

But a sense of urgency about the Republican failures is certainly justified. A recent poll shows that a disturbing percentage of millennials would support an openly socialist candidate who follows in the misguided footsteps of Obama and company, precisely the opposite of what our country needs. If their voter participation rate increases, they could add significant support for socialist government, so Republicans had better get busy undoing the socialist initiatives and returning our government to its traditional, constitutional orientation.

Perhaps a lesson in what happens to good people when they are forced to live under the leftist, socialist prescription for governance will help, and there is probably no better example than that of Venezuela.

“As with all socialist systems, present-day Venezuela is marked by vicious poverty and a parasitical yet gilded ruling class,” wrote the President of The Mises Institute, Jeff Deist. In “The Austrian,” the Institute’s bi-monthly periodical, he wrote, “Sold to gullible Westerners as egalitarianism and concern for average people, socialism always makes ordinary citizens far worse off while destroying any hope for upward mobility. It is truly the ideology of the 1 percent.”

Economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises, after whom the Institute is named, said this about socialism in his treatise “Human Action”: “In a socialist economy it is only the government’s value judgments that count, and the people are deprived of any means of making their own value judgments prevail.”

Raphael A. Acevedo and Luis B. Cirocco are Venezuelans who participated in this year’s Mises University at the Institute as presenters on the subject of socialism’s impact on the lives of their country’s citizens. They wrote an account of Venezuela’s slide from relative freedom to a socialist hellhole for the current issue of “The Austrian.”

A hundred years ago the country began a lucrative period when it entered the international oil race, Acevedo and Cirocco write, and things were pretty good for a while, with not much government control of economic interests. It even overthrew a dictator and became a democracy in 1958.

However, the first democratically elected president, Romulo Betancourt, was a communist-turned-social democrat, and “he started destroying the economic institutions we had by implementing price controls, rent controls and other regulations we hadn’t had before,” they said, and then he created a new constitution hostile to private property.

Betancourt’s successors continued his socialist tendencies, and then in 1998 Hugo Chavez won election, promising to replace the country’s light socialism with more radical socialism. After Chavez’s death in 2013, Nicholas Maduro followed, and introduced a new constitution, which almost totally abolished private property.

“So, socialism is the cause of the Venezuelan misery,” Acevedo and Cirocco write. “Venezuelans are starving, eating garbage, losing weight. Children are malnourished. Anyone in Venezuela would be happy to eat out of America’s trashcans. It would be considered gourmet.”

And their summary of the country’s downfall: “As Venezuelans, our poor understanding of the importance of freedom and free markets has created our current disaster.”

We Americans have lost much of our freedom to government over the decades, and that increased substantially during the tragic Obama years.

Today we find that heavy federal intrusions in the area of healthcare through regulation and Obamacare raise prices and reduce access; the EPA’s regulatory over-reach aimed at killing the coal industry put thousands out of work; abundant welfare programs dampen the normal tendency of people to take care of themselves; the federal government controls much of K-12 education through financial “incentives” and Common Core requirements.

Republicans can and must address and reverse these trends. So get busy.

230 year-old U.S. Constitution is under attack by the Left

Thirty-nine delegates represented the people of the 13 original states at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When they signed the document on September 17, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was ratified and put into effect.

While the United States is young at just 230 years, the United States Constitution, our country’s supreme law, is by far the longest lasting constitution in human history. And it is responsible for our nation becoming the freest and most prosperous nation ever.

Those two paragraphs contain far more information about our Constitution than a frightening number of American citizens actually know about their founding document.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania conducted a poll about the Constitution in 2014, and it revealed how shockingly little people know about even the most basic elements of our government and the Constitution that formed it.

Here are some examples from the poll:

* More than one person in three (37 percent) could not name any of the rights protected by the First Amendment.

* Freedom of speech was identified by 48 percent, but the right to peaceably assemble came in at just 10 percent, freedom of religion at 15 percent, freedom of the press at 14 percent, and the right to petition the government at 3 percent.

* Only one of four (26 percent) could name all three branches of the government. (In 2011, 38 percent could name all three branches.)

* One-third couldn't name any branch of government.

*Asked which party has the most members in the House of Representatives, 38 percent said they knew the Republicans were the majority, but 17 percent responded the Democrats were, and 44 percent reported that they did not know (up from 27 percent who said they did not know in 2011).

*Asked which party controls the Senate, 38 percent correctly said the Democrats, 20 percent said the Republicans, and 42 percent said they did not know (also up from 27 percent who said they did not know in 2011).

Annenberg’s director, Kathleen Hall Jamieson lamented, "Protecting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution presupposes that we know what they are. The fact that many don't is worrisome."

An Annenberg poll in 2017 would likely produce even worse results. The future of both our freedom and prosperity are in question in our country, largely because our schools and families have failed to teach our young people the fundamentals of America that are essential to creating informed citizens and preserving our republic. And as bad as the picture painted by the Annenberg study is, The Federalist online paints a picture that is much worse.

“U.S. civics education, if it exists at all, is being transformed into a political machine to push left-wing causes, undermine American government, and incite civil unrest,” writes The Federalist’s managing editor, Joy Pullman.

A 525-page report from the National Association of Scholars titled “Making Citizens: How American Universities Teach Civics,” reveals the “New Civics” that uses attractive, bipartisan-sounding words like “civics” and “service learning” to trick Americans into allowing Leftist political machinery to hijack public funds and young minds, Pullmann wrote.

“Poor civics instruction has increased over the past half-century,” she wrote, “likely contributing to the broad decline of American civic life.” She then listed some long-standing and strong social influences we are losing:

* Volunteering has dropped dramatically despite increases in unemployment and free time

* Far fewer Americans participate in social activities and organizations

* Those who join the military are increasingly drawn from a narrowing subset of Americans

* Many adults have scant knowledge of American government and history (but still can vote!)

Anyone over the age of 60 should recognize the high degree of failure of our education system and families to properly educate our youth about the wonders of the United States of America, so that they can actually perform as competent and loyal citizens.

Recent protests adequately show that the demonstrators do not understand the First Amendment. They often don’t have an informed idea of what they are demonstrating against, and many protests are based not on what actually happened at an event, but instead on a perception of it. And, they either don’t understand, or don’t care, that a constitutionally protected protest is neither violent nor destructive.

Karl Marx would be proud of the Left’s efforts and success. We see his words at work: “Take away a nation’s heritage and they are more easily persuaded.”

Quiet subversion, done both deliberately and through ignorance, is at work in many schools and the news media. Once regarded as living its motto “all the news that is fit to print,” The New York Times has abandoned fairness and objectivity, an infection shared by much of the national news media, which now seem to subscribe to the motto, “all the news that fits.”

Benjamin Franklin is quoted as having answered a question about whether the Founders had created a republic or a monarchy with this statement: A republic, if you can keep it.

A large number of the American people have decided that our republic should no longer be kept, and will happily sacrifice its historic and broad successes.

Restoring government’s three branches to Constitutional balance

The unequaled genius of the Founders produced an original form of government that included a system of checks and balances to maintain its integrity. That design has been substantially abandoned, and all three branches of government are guilty of creating this situation.

The Legislative Branch is now weaker and the Executive Branch now stronger due to malfeasance by the Congress and the eager acceptance of extra-constitutional power by administrative agencies. Likewise, failure of the duty to the Constitution’s original language and intent has increased power to the Judicial Branch.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress, and only Congress, the authority to pass laws. But through laziness and other misfeasance through the years Congress has abdicated much of that duty by allowing administrative agencies to pass rules that are in effect laws. That is how the EPA is able to implement a rule that absurdly allows it to tell a farmer in Iowa that the drainage ditch along his dirt road is a waterway that falls under federal control.

That is also how the Department of Education justifies using SWAT teams to break down the doors of people because their education loan payments are past due. There are dozens of other examples of this unconstitutional over-reach by federal agencies.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee confirms this unconstitutional transfer of power, and blames lawmakers, saying, “We are not, in fact, the victims, we are the perpetrators.” He went on to tell The Daily Signal that this was done to make Congress’ job easier, because it is less politically risky to let others do the lawmaking through the rule-making function.

Speaking at the Federalist Society’s 5^th annual Executive Branch Review Conference, Lee talked about his efforts to combat this situation through the Article One Project. He outlined three pieces of legislation designed to address the problem.

The REINS Act would require both Congress and the president to approve any administrative rule with an economic impact of $100 million or more. Lee said that ultimately, “Congress would be responsible for every major regulation that went into effect.” The Act has passed the House, but not the Senate.

The second measure is the Separation of Powers Restoration Act (SOPRA), which Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe told The Daily Signal would reverse the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision that established the “Chevron doctrine” that “determined that courts must defer to agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous laws as long as their interpretation is deemed ‘reasonable.’”

“This bill would end the dysfunctional status quo that tilts the legal playing field in favor of bureaucrats,” Lee said. SOPRA passed the House last year, and Ratcliffe has introduced it again this year.

Currently, federal agencies use funds received through fines, fees, and proceeds from legal settlements at their own discretion, thereby avoiding the formal appropriations process, and escaping congressional oversight. It may also encourage agency action aimed at raising funds. The Agency Accountability Act will require funds acquired by agencies outside the appropriations process to be turned over to the Treasury.

Lee commented, “You see the Constitution has this pesky little provision that … Congress has the power and the responsibility to direct spending of federal dollars. The power of the purse is one of Congress’ most potent tools for controlling bureaucracies.”

The Judicial Branch also has strayed from the straight and narrow path created by the Constitution through increasingly liberal interpretation of the language and intent of the Constitution and federal laws, citing how society has changed over the years as the need to reinterpret them. Amending them is too slow and difficult, you see.

Carson Holloway, author of “Hamilton versus Jefferson in the Washington Administration,” explains another liberal judicial technique. President Donald Trump’s revised Executive Order temporarily halting travel to the U.S. from several countries with ties to terrorism was found unconstitutional by some lower courts, which agreed with opponents that the order actually bans Muslim immigration.

The order does no such thing, Holloway notes, since it applies to only a fraction of Muslim countries, and that the lower courts reacted not to the language of the order, but to things Trump said during the campaign. In other words, the courts abandoned interpreting actual written language in favor of reading the president’s mind, and finding a hidden agenda there.

Looking back in history to the days of Chief Justice John Marshall, Holloway explains that while Marshall acknowledged both the letter and spirit of the law, Marshall said, “the spirit is to be collected chiefly from its words,” not the imagination of judges.

Holloway said, “rule of law does not mean rule by judges acting on their whim,” but that it requires “judicial modesty.” And Marshall noted in Fletcher v. Peck that “an inquiry into the subjective motives of the lawmaker quickly leads judges into a realm in which there are no clear, compelling standards of judgment.”

Holloway concludes with the hope that the Appellate Court “follows the path of judicial modesty … and not the endlessly debatable intentions that may lie behind” the order.

Our government is badly out of balance, and a quick return to constitutional government and originalism in the courts is essential.

Moving forward, with the election of 2016 in the rearview mirror

Tuesday, November 8 was a stunning repudiation of the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. It was a revolution. The media and the left are in a daze; they don’t understand what happened. They didn’t notice that the people were unhappy with the direction of the country, and the people showed them that they are in charge.

With a Republican president and Republican majorities in each House of the Congress, the stage is set for needed change, and the by-word for Republicans is: Restoration.

That is a tall order; given the deep slide the country has been in for so many years. Among items badly needing attention:

* Gain control of the borders and restore immigration laws and policies so that they benefit and protect the people of the United States. There is no obligation to accept immigrants or refugees, and if we choose to accept some, they must be carefully vetted to select those that will help America the most. Do away with sanctuary jurisdictions in the U.S.

* Reverse many/all of Obama’s Executive Orders that are either unconstitutional, attempts to circumvent Congressional treaty authority, or just bad ideas.

* Revitalize and build up the American military to its former strength and effectiveness.

* The IRS, EPA, DOE and other executive departments are staffed by many who, instead of serving the people, are serving political/ideological masters. Replace these people with true public servants.

* Repeal or heavily modify the Affordable Care Act to increase private sector insurance coverage and encourage more choices and more competition among providers of insurance and health care, and to lower prices. Get the government out of healthcare as much as possible.

* Simplify the tax code and adjust rates, and reduce regulations. These things impair business development, stifle job creation, and that make moving jobs and companies overseas more appealing.

*Restore the constitutional balance of power and reverse Congress’ unconstitutional transfer of law making through regulations by executive agencies and departments.

* Vacancies on the Supreme Court and other federal courts must be filled by people who not only understand the original language and intent of the Constitution, but will honor it. Changes to the Constitution must occur through the process outlined in the Constitution itself, not through unelected activist judges.

* The election process has many weaknesses that allow the dead to vote and other problems that can be utilized for illegal purposes. Furthermore, there is simply no legitimate reason to not implement a photo ID requirement to vote in federal elections. A photo ID is required to buy alcohol or cigarettes; open a bank account; apply for food stamps, welfare, Medicaid/Social Security, unemployment, a mortgage or a job; drive/buy/rent a car; get on an airplane; purchase a gun; adopt a pet; rent a hotel room, and many other things. But not to vote. Clean up voter rolls, be more vigilant and punish cheaters.

* A balanced budget is not immediately possible, but begin to decrease the size and cost of government and start reducing the gargantuan National Debt.

* Congress was not intended to be, and should not be, a career, and lengthy Congressional service has produced an unhealthy culture. The Framers envisioned citizen legislators, people who did their elected job for part of the year and worked their jobs at home the rest of the year, and after a term or two returned to civilian life. We need to move toward that environment.

* And last, but certainly not least: Uphold the Rule of Law; eliminate the double standard: Government workers at all levels must be held to the same legal standards as the people who pay their salaries. This includes such folks as the IRS’s Lois Learner and, yes, Hillary Clinton. It is true that the defeat in the election was a true blow to her, and yes, that can be taken into account. However, as Secretary of State, Clinton breached security and put at risk sensitive national security information, destroyed evidence, and lied to Congress about it.

Others who have done similar things have suffered criminal penalties for their wrongdoing; retired Army General David Petraeus and active-duty Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier, and many others were punished through the legal system for security breaches. So, too, must Clinton be.

FBI Director James Comey introduced a new element into criminal law when he decided Clinton should not be indicted for her wrong doing because he was unable to establish the intent to breach security. She thus escaped justice where others did not. However, when lawyers for Saucier told the court their client did not intend to breach security, as Comey asserted about Clinton, the judge rebuked them for using that defense.

She should not be pardoned; the legal system exists to find and punish criminal behavior. If appropriate for her deeds, she should be charged, and absent a guilty plea, tried. If guilty by plea or by trial, a large fine and/or probation would be appropriate. It’s only fair: equal justice under the law. Otherwise, it will be a huge statement that some are above the law.

There is much to be done. Let’s get started.

What's really important in this election

Almost everyone agrees that this is the most unusual election in his or her lifetime. We have two major party candidates with the highest disapproval ratings that anyone can remember. And each candidate’s supporters ignore the negatives and continue to support the candidate.

Democrat Hillary Clinton comes from decades in the political sphere as the wife of a governor, the wife of a president, a U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. Republican Donald Trump comes from decades in the private sector as a businessman and entertainment show producer, having first entered political life for the 2015 Republican primary.

Both have a long list of negatives their political enemies hope will disqualify them in the eyes of voters. However, there are important differences between them.

It wasn’t Donald Trump who for personal convenience as Secretary of State flaunted the rules and established procedures, taking the unprecedented step of evading the official secure government email system in favor of a private email server for government business, including classified information, then had the server scrubbed, destroying thousands of messages that were not only government property, but evidence, and then couldn’t provide a credible excuse for any of that.

It wasn’t Donald Trump whose possible-criminal situation caused untold irregularities in the operation of the State Department, the FBI and the Justice Department, including a “chance” meeting on an airport tarmac between the Secretary of State’s husband and the Attorney General of the United States, putting dozens of public servants in the position to destroy their credibility and trustworthiness to save Secretary of State’s backside.

It wasn’t Donald Trump whose vast experience in government in the U.S. Senate and the State Department resulted in neglecting dozens of requests for increased security prior to the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya resulting in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans, and then tried blame a clear terrorist attack on an obscure Internet video, resulting in jailing the video’s producer.

And it wasn’t Donald Trump whose frequent profanity-laced tirades insulted and denigrated Secret Service agents and White House staffers.

But that was a long time ago, and since all of that was a long time ago, it probably isn’t relevant that it also wasn’t Donald Trump who worked for the Congressional committee investigating the Watergate cover-up many years ago, and was fired for lying.

But it was Donald Trump who took some money from his father, invested it in business and created hotels, casinos, golf courses and television shows. Some of his creations didn’t work out, as is not uncommon in the world of business. Luminaries such as Henry Ford, Walt Disney, F.W. Woolworth, Albert Einstein, and Bill Gates also sometimes failed. The best major league hitters fail to get a hit six or seven out of ten times.

It was Donald Trump who claimed business losses of nearly a billion dollars on tax returns many years ago, cancelling an equal amount of income over several years, using provisions in the tax code to reduce taxable income, just as most every American that pays taxes does, through deductions for such things as dependents, mortgage interest and charitable giving.

For taking legal tax deductions Trump has attracted mountains of criticism from his betters, who somehow twist this into meaning he doesn’t care about the country, or the military and dozens of other things. But the hundreds or thousands of people that work in his businesses do pay taxes, and that is significant.

And, yes, it was Donald Trump who managed to anger his primary opponents and many Americans with his petulant personal attacks of those who opposed and challenged him. His far-from-perfect manner leaves much to be desired, and his locker room vulgarity, spoken in private 11 years ago, really got people fired up. But if some rapper had used those same words as lyrics, it’d be #1 on Billboard.

Apparently, it’s a more serious offense to say things that offend someone than to put national interests at risk, to lose $6 billion of State Department funds and generally fail to competently run the agency you’ve been entrusted to run, and make millions giving $250,000 secret-content speeches to Wall Street banks that you publicly criticize. By virtue of merely having been elected a U.S. Senator and appointed as a cabinet secretary, you are thus qualified to be president, even if the best you did in those positions was inconsequential or harmful.

Strangely, people are more offended by Trump’s words than Hillary Clinton’s vicious attacks on her hubby’s numerous sexual victims and conquests, her position on coal mining and the Supreme Court, and her comments supporting open borders, spoken in a private $250,000 speech.

What Trump said that hurt someone’s feelings or shocked their sensibilities is worse to many than that Clinton put personal convenience ahead of national security and failed to protect State Department personnel who were in harms way.

Voters must put their hurt feelings aside, adjust their perspective and focus on the serious issues confronting the next president. They must understand that Clinton’s hubris already put national security at risk, and she will continue Obama’s dangerous, destructive, and unconstitutional policies.

The American immigration system, a la President Barack Obama

A common refrain about immigration is that the U.S. “is a nation of immigrants.” People coming to the colonies built what would become the United States of America, and since then millions have immigrated here.

“Most immigrant groups that had formerly come to America by choice seemed distinct, but in fact had many similarities,” as ushistory.org explains. “Most had come from Northern and Western Europe. Most had some experience with representative democracy. With the exception of the Irish, most were Protestant. Many were literate, and some possessed a fair degree of wealth.”

Most, but not all immigrants intended to become American citizens. Some, however, returned to their native land after earning money to send home. Not all were good people; some were criminals, mentally ill, anarchists, and alcoholics.

Furthermore, many Americans were not thrilled about immigration, and ushistory.org tells us, “In 1917, Congress required the passing of a literacy test to gain admission. Finally, in 1924, the door was shut to millions by placing an absolute cap on new immigrants based on ethnicity. That cap was based on the United States population of 1890 and was therefore designed to favor the previous immigrant groups.”

Throughout the decades and the problems and controversy that accompanied immigration, diversity came to the US, which had become a nation of primarily peaceful, self-reliant, hard-working people, qualities they generally passed on to the next generation.

However, the concept that America is a nation of immigrants is less and less valid. Today, the USA is a nation not so much of immigrants, but principally a nation of the descendants of people who were immigrants generations ago; a nation of Americans.

Our government has the duty to admit immigrants who want to become good American citizens, as demonstrated in the previously discussed examples of acts affecting immigration. No sensible person would allow people they cannot be virtually certain are good and honorable people into their homes; our government must be every bit as cautious.

But instead we find that the current immigration system is wholly dysfunctional, and the responsibility goes squarely on the shoulders of President Barack Obama and his administration. The idea held by many on the Left – that we are morally obligated to admit any and all who seek entry, legally or otherwise – is not just dumb, it is dangerous. And that concept has no basis in history or in the Constitution.

Nevertheless, that foolish idea has strong support, and it set the stage for what happened in a hearing of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee this past April, when Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, addressed comments to those testifying, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Sarah Soldana.

Chaffetz listed some startling facts:

** In a three-year period Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released more than 86,000 criminal aliens into the American public. These are people who were here illegally, got caught committing a crime, were convicted of that crime, and instead of deporting them, they were released back out into the United States of America. All told they had more than 231,000 crimes of which they were convicted.

** In 2015, 196 of these people were convicted of homicide, and ICE released them back into the public, rather than deporting them.

** One hundred and twenty-four of those who were released between 2010 and 2015 went on to commit homicide.

** In 2013 ICE released 36,007 criminal aliens who were unlawfully in the United States. As of September 2014, 5,700 of those individuals went on to commit additional crimes.

** In March of 2015, the director of ICE testified before this committee that during fiscal year 2014 ICE released another 30,558 individuals with a combined 79,059 criminal convictions, instead of deporting them. Of those 30,558 criminal aliens 1,895 were charged with another crime following their release, including sex offenses, assault, burglary, robbery, and driving under the influence.

“And ICE told us that in 2015 the agency released 19,723 criminal aliens with a combined 64,197 convictions,” Chaffetz said, “including: 934 sex offenses, 804 robberies, 216 kidnappings, and 196 homicide-related convictions. And that’s on your watch.” They were here illegally, committed crimes, were caught, tried and convicted, and then turned loose to prey on the American people again.

He then displayed an aerial photo of Notre Dame football stadium filled with game watchers, and said, “You released more people that were convicted of crimes and should have been deported than you can fit into that stadium. You’d still have people waiting outside in line. Those are the criminals that you released instead of deporting.”

Government’s job is to seal the borders from illegal entry, to thoroughly vet people before letting the acceptable ones in, and to prosecute and punish criminals. Put them in jail, or at the very least deport them and keep them out.

Do these colossal government failures rise to the level of criminal offenses? Should they? Or, is such dangerous and irresponsible behavior “merely” gross malfeasance? Is there no penalty for such wrongdoing, whether criminal or not?

Not in the administration of Barack Obama, where apparently the treacherous operation of this immigration system is a matter of celebration by his supporters.

Strong resistance to federal overreach is overdue, but growing

For four years, an organic farmer in Indiana was harassed when he supplied raw milk to the local organic co-ops. What prompted this action was what the Goshen News reported in 2010 as an outbreak of campylobacter bacterial infections “that might be traceable to the Forest Grove Dairy.”

Obviously, if bad milk makes people sick, health departments need to be involved, however, farm owner David Hochstetler told the paper at the time that health departments had not visited the farm to investigate, and he was never found to have sold bad milk.

Despite never having his product tied to the outbreak, Hochstetler’s farm was subjected to frequent inspections and harassment by two federal agencies, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, actions believed to be aimed at closing down the dairy farm. And then Elkhart County Sheriff David Rogers responded to Hochstetler’s complaint, realized there was no justification for such harassment, and stepped in and blocked this over-reach from the federal government.

Rogers wrote to the DOJ telling them he would take action, including “removal or arrest” of federal agents, if the inspectors came without a signed warrant specifying probable cause and giving a clear reason justifying their invasive searches.

Rogers explained in the local newspaper, “My research concluded that no one was getting sick from this distribution of this raw milk. It appeared to be harassment by the FDA and the DOJ, and making unconstitutional searches, in my opinion. The farmer told me that he no longer wished to cooperate with the inspections of his property.”

You may be wondering why federal agencies were involved in what clearly was a local/state issue. This is not unusual.

The Daily Caller reported a year ago on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Waters of the United States rule that critics say “would allow the agency to regulate waterways previously not under federal jurisdiction, including puddles, ditches and isolated wetlands.”

The EPA may be the agency that has done the most damage to the U.S. economy and business operations with its over-zealous and intrusive mandates, concerning such things as incandescent light bulbs, toilets that use “too much” water, limiting wood burning and charcoal use, and now extending its tentacles to regulating temporary water collections on private property.

Many states are growing tired of these overreaches. A bill introduced in the Indiana State Legislature reflects that state’s frustration. The bill nullifies all of the EPA’s regulations and places all environmental protection authority with the state’s Department of Environmental Management. And 24 states, including Indiana, have filed a lawsuit in federal court to strike down the new source performance standards affecting new coal burning power plants.

The EPA’s costly excesses and other excessive behaviors by administrative agencies trample all over the plain language the Founders deliberately wrote into the U.S. Constitution through the Tenth Amendment, which states: “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.”

However, it is the wont of federal bureaucracies to grow like weeds, often with the tacit approval of our elected representatives in Congress, and not infrequently at their behest. Bureaucrats isolate themselves into protected enclaves extending their reach beyond that which is appropriate. They often do serious harm to their bosses, the American people, usually without accountability for their misdeeds.

Having escaped the heavy hand of King George only a few years before, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution sought to create a document establishing a new government for the United States that could not evolve to be as oppressive as Mother England had been; a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” It was no accident that the phrase “the people” is mentioned five times in the Bill of Rights.

The Legal Information Institute of the Cornell University Law School explains: “The U.S. Constitution grants the federal government with power over issues of national concern, while the state governments, generally, have jurisdiction over issues of domestic concern. While the federal government can enact laws governing the entire country, its powers are enumerated, or limited; it only has the specific powers allotted to it in the Constitution.”

Some constitutional scholars and experts have described the Tenth Amendment as the Bill of Rights’ “catch-all” amendment, a strong reminder to federal lawmakers and officials that the federal government has strict limits, and everything outside those limits is under the control of the states.

The checks and balances of our governmental system give Congress the duty and the authority to oppose excessive behavior by the executive branch. The federal budget is an excellent tool for this purpose. It is shameful that these elected representatives have so often and for so long failed to protect their own Constitutional authority and, more importantly, the best interests of the people they were elected and sworn to represent.

The failure of Congress to oppose over-zealous federal agencies means the states have no other choice but to strongly oppose the unconstitutional federal intrusions, either through legal action, or by actions like that of Sheriff Rogers.