Law Commentary The Left’s Plan for Hostile Takeover of Supreme Court Thomas Jipping

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/05/01/lefts-plan-hostile-takeover-supreme-court/

“If successful, the Left’s hostile takeover of the Supreme Court will destroy the independence of the judiciary that is necessary for our liberty.”

Democrats in Congress, together with their allies among left-wing groups and in the media, are attempting a hostile takeover of the Supreme Court. Their current tactics demonstrate what “by any means necessary” really means.

In the system of government America’s Founders gave us, limits on government are necessary to achieve its purpose of protecting liberty. Those limits include the separation of powers, federalism, a written Constitution, and a judiciary that will follow—rather than control—that Constitution.

Limits like those help keep too much power from ending up in too few hands.

The Left, however, is after power rather than liberty and, therefore, sees limits on government as obstacles to be overcome. They especially want to control the Supreme Court because it’s the final interpreter of the Constitution, the “supreme law of the land.”

Joseph Ladapo Bucks the Covid Vaccine Orthodoxy The Florida surgeon general’s critics ignore the science and resort to personal attacks.By Allysia Finley

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joseph-ladapo-bucks-the-covid-vaccine-orthodoxy-politico-sensitivity-analysis-myocarditis-43201b8b?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_171&cx_artPos=5&mod=WTRN#cxrecs_s

Justice Clarence Thomas isn’t the only black conservative target of a recent media drive-by. Last week Politico published a hit piece on Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who has long resisted the left’s Covid orthodoxies.

The story, by Arek Sarkissian, claims that Dr. Ladapo “personally altered” a state study last year to show that mRNA vaccines posed a significantly higher cardiac health risk for young men “than had been established by the broader medical community.” In reality, he simply reviewed a study conducted by lower-level staff before publication.

Nowhere in Politico’s piece will you find an explanation of what’s supposed to be wrong with Dr. Ladapo’s edits. It merely quotes people who denounce it, such as Matt Hitchings, an assistant biostatistics professor at the University of Florida, who asserts without elaboration: “I think it’s a lie.” Politico does include a link to the pre-published study, which indicates Dr. Ladapo’s edits and shows how Mr. Sarkissian is making a Matterhorn out of a molehill.

Dr. Ladapo’s study found a doubled risk of cardiac death for men 18 to 39 in the 28 days after vaccination. His offense appears to be that he removed a “sensitivity analysis” in the draft study that showed a statistically insignificant increase in cardiac mortality among young men after the second dose.

Prosperity Requires a Stable Dollar By trying to do too much, the Fed has given us a volatile currency. I’d change that as president. By Vivek Ramaswamy

https://www.wsj.com/articles/prosperity-requires-a-stable-dollar-federal-reserve-fomc-rates-easing-2024-vivek-bdfed87b?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

With a recession looming, and on the heels of recent regional bank failures, the Federal Open Market Committee meets this week. The standard account for the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and now First Republic is that the Federal Reserve held interest rates too low for too long, only to hike rates too high too quickly. The deeper problem, however, is how the Fed has tried to achieve its mandate.

Attempting to balance low inflation and full unemployment—trying to hit two targets with one arrow—has proved to be disastrous since the Phillips Curve cult gained prominence at the Fed around 2000. If elected president, I will return the Fed to a narrower scope: preserving the U.S. dollar as a stable financial unit to help prevent financial crises and restore robust economic growth.

Beginning in the 1980s and lasting through most of the 1990s, the Fed governors, including Vice Chairman Manley Johnson and Wayne Angell, used a framework first adopted by Paul Volcker in 1982 to stabilize the dollar. The idea was to consider the dollar’s value in terms of commodities, letting it serve as a reference point for other nations’ floating fiat currencies. This provided financial stability for two decades following the stagflation of the 1970s.

Beginning in the late 1990s, the Fed’s scope drifted to include “smoothing out” business cycles. This was a mistake, since business cycles serve a healthy function by transferring the assets and employees of poorly run companies to more capable management. Even worse, the Fed’s actions often exacerbated business cycles by creating transitions that create boom-bust-bailout cycles instead. The Fed now typically tightens when an economic slowdown is impending, engineering a downturn of liquidity that catalyzes a profit downturn, leading to a credit-cycle downturn in which credit events—bankruptcies, credit spreads and financial-institution failures—prompt cries for bailouts. This was the pattern in 2000, 2008 and—so far—2023.

The ‘Ethics’ Assault on the Supreme Court Democrats want to gain more political control over the Justices.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-ethics-reform-hearing-senate-democrats-john-roberts-clarence-thomas-ketanji-brown-jackson-sonia-sotomayor-d0304d65?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Senate Democrats are holding another hearing on “Supreme Court Ethics Reform” on Tuesday, and it’s important to understand that this isn’t about ethics at all. This is another front in the political campaign to delegitimize the Supreme Court, with a goal of tarnishing its rulings and subjecting it to more political control.

The campaign is on full display in the press, with reporters at multiple publications suddenly searching for supposed ethics violations or conflicts of interest. Our writers have examined and debunked these reports highlighting Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch in recent weeks.

It’s useful to expose for the record how thin these accusations are. But it’s also a mistake to assume that the facts matter to Democrats and their media researchers. This is a political project, and hyped accusations will continue to be asserted as if they are serious.

***

“Ethics” is a time-honored political weapon in Washington, and it’s being used now against the Court because conservatives have a majority that is cleaning up some of the legal mistakes of recent decades. It has sent abortion policy back to the states (to the political benefit of Democrats in most places), expanded protections for the Bill of Rights, and is slowly restoring constitutional guardrails on the administrative state. Most of all, the Court is no longer a backstop legislature for progressives to impose policies they can’t get through Congress.

The Biden Administration’s Vacuum of Leadership by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19609/leadership-vacuum

The vacuum of leadership can also now be seen in Sudan conflict. The Biden administration has reportedly abandoned 16,000 US citizens in the country, who were left there to make “life or death decisions”.

“[Y]ou had President Xi in Moscow with Putin earlier this week, you have a China negotiating relations and some sort of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran is all evidence of a vacuum that’s been created… It’s a vacuum of American leadership. It’s one of the reasons why we need strong bold leader, we’re the leader of the free world. And if America is not leading in the free world, the free world is not being led.” – Former Vice President Mike Pence, interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM, March 23, 2023.

The ruling mullahs of Iran have also become a major exporter of weapons to Russia – and are not limiting themselves to exporting just drones.

The vacuum that the Biden administration has left across the world as well as a result of its failure to lead is not only effectively handing the US over to China, Russia and Iran; it is also apparently viewed by these rogue states as a green light to act in whatever malign way they want.

Russia is taking over Sudan, reportedly for its gold and to build a port that will be able to block shipping through the Suez Canal. Iran’s ruling mullahs have reportedly poisoned “hundreds of schoolgirls” to try to discourage them from receiving an education. Last week, another oil tanker was seized in the Gulf of Oman; and an interrogator recently broke the kneecaps of a 70-year old grandmother, a political prisoner serving 10 years in prison.

Why is the United States allowing this monstrous Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons?

Due to the vacuum of leadership that the Biden administration has left on the global stage, China, Russia and the Iranian regime have become more empowered and emboldened than ever — a situation that helps the Iranian regime to skirt US sanctions. It also enables the ruling mullahs to gain access to funds and advanced military materiel, empower its militia and terror groups in region, and especially accelerate its race towards acquiring nuclear weapons.

The Constitution Under Fire No nation can survive when its government deceives and corrupts its people. by Scott S. Powell

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-constitution-under-fire/

An awakening is sweeping across the land causing more and more people to recognize their welfare and that of the United States are in deep trouble, with increasingly visible forces destroying the country, the family, and the people’s security and standard of living.

America is now in a war—not a shooting or kinetic war—but one with many fronts. Assaults on the spiritual, cultural, and informational fronts are the most important because they shape what happens downstream in politics and economics.

Enemies of the American Republic are found both inside and outside the United States—and they advance by deceiving,  demoralizing, and dividing the American people. Their goal is to nullify the Constitution. If the latter succeeds it will bring a swift end to the United States as we have known it, and make recovery all but impossible.

When we connect the dots, we can see that the manipulation of public opinion and the creation of narratives is directed at undermining traditional institutions such as law enforcement, the family, church, schools and other “carriers” of civility, tradition, and continuity.

War has been declared on average Americans through the Biden administration’s southern border policies that have resulted in unprecedented illegal entries—including criminals, terrorists, and human, child, sex, and drug trafficking cartels, a development that hurts American families by overwhelming law enforcement, schools, and the healthcare system.

Traditional families are being attacked in other ways and from every direction.

Fake History and a Profile in Courage How a brave scholar’s intellectual integrity shined a light on the degradation of critical thought in America. by Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fake-history-and-a-profile-in-courage/

A culture-war squall occurred recently over a Netflix series about Cleopatra, who is played by a black actress. The biggest protest came not from ancient historians calling out fake history, but from Egypt, where a lawyer filed a complaint with the public prosecutor alleging that the casting promotes “the Afrocentric thinking . . . which includes slogans and writings aimed at distorting and erasing the Egyptian identity.”

It seems that Egyptians, rightfully proud of their ancient civilization and its Greco-Roman history, don’t appreciate “cultural appropriation” and “stolen legacies”––crimes that “woke” identity-politicians and activists are so quick to caterwaul about––any more than the “woke” Stasi do. I guess like free speech, for the “woke” it’s “cultural appropriation” for me, but not for thee.

Behold the “woke” egregious double standards, and the fake history like the “1619 Project” that has corrupted academic history for political power and financial gain. A similar offense was committed against Israeli actress Gal Gadot a few years ago, when the Wonder Woman star was cast as Cleopatra. Her offense? Being “bland” and “too pretty,” and especially “white.” One “journalist” despicably Tweeted, “shame on you, Gal Gadot. Your country steals Arab land & you’re stealing their movie roles”––two lies in one smear.

So, an Israeli can’t portray a descendent of Macedonian Greeks, who were typically fairer than southern Greeks, because a historically challenged “journalist” thinks Cleopatra was an Arab? Christian, Greek, and Roman Egypt didn’t become an Arab nation until 645 A.D. with the Muslim conquest and subsequent occupation of Egypt, which continues to this day.

Usually I wouldn’t bother with such patent ignorance, but it reminds me of an early example of “cancel culture” and fake history: the vicious public assaults on Wellesley College classicist Mary Lefkowitz for challenging and exposing the historical distortions and racialist politicization wrought by Afrocentrism.

Bruce Bawer’s ‘The Victims’ Revolution’ Buy it. Read it. Share it. Act on it. by Danusha V. Goska

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bruce-bawers-the-victims-revolution/

EXCERPT:

Book-length works have tackled the decline of American education. A standout is James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose’s 2020 bestseller, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity – And Why This Harms Everybody.

The single best book I’ve read so far on this topic is Bruce Bawer’s The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Birth of Woke Ideology. The book was first published in 2012; it’s been rereleased because it is desperately needed right now. My review in brief: buy this book, read it, share it, and act on it.

Revolution is the product of a highly intelligent mind, a dogged researcher, and a passionate soul who cares deeply about the future and wants to do what he can to affect that future in a positive way. Bawer is an award-winning writer. His prose is easy to read and quote-worthy. While Lindsay and Pluckrose emphasize theories, rendering their book a cold and dry read, Bawer emphasizes people. You meet real students in his book, the students whose minds are reduced to mush by Woke education. The polish of Bawer’s prose and the flesh-and-blood humanity of his approach do not in any way lessen the books’ intellectual rigor. As I read, I deeply admired Bawer’s scholarly research. He is clearly fascinated by his topic and he pursued Woke education not just in the dusty pages of dead French perverts, but also in young people’s minds and hearts, and in consideration of America’s future.

Bawer is systematic, passionate, and wide-ranging, an awesome combo. He introduces the reader to big names of foundational theorists, and also to almost comical student writing from Woke courses. He reviews historical events, and then brings the reader up to date with visits to classrooms and conferences. Reading this book hurt. I cried. But I’m really glad I read it, and I want others to read it as well.

Bawer devotes chapters to Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Queer Studies, Chicano Studies, and a chapter that addresses several other “studies” including Fat Studies and Disability Studies. Readers must understand that Bawer’s evisceration of these departments is by no means an expression of hostility to blacks, women, homosexuals, Mexicans, fat or handicapped people. Bawer is himself gay, and he has written significant works in support of equal rights for homosexuals.

2026 and All That A Clinton family crony and a Soros scholar aim to make California a lot more China-friendly than it already is. By Lloyd Billingsley

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/30/2026-and-all-that/

Joe Biden is running in 2024 and Gavin Newsom will not challenge the 80-year-old Delaware Democrat. Newsom is also termed out as California’s governor, and Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis has announced a run for the post in 2026. 

“I will fight fiercely to build a future where everyone—regardless of race, class, or immigration status—has the same opportunity that my family and I had,” Kounalakis proclaimed on social media. Sounds good, but as she revealed last year, California’s white lieutenant governor has a problem with black Supreme Court justices. 

“Who is Clarence Thomas? Is he my Saudi Arabian father who’s going to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body, with my life?” That was Kounalakis after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 takedown of Roe v. Wade. She added: “Be prepared to live in defiance of these six people who think that they have the right to tell you what you can do with their [sic] bodies.” 

As Californians might note, of the six justices voting in the majority, Kounalakis named only Thomas, the sole African American on the High Court, and compared only him a “Saudi Arabian father.” People of all nations, faiths and races might wonder what California’s lieutenant governor is all about. 

Eleni Kounalakis is the daughter of real-estate tycoon Angelo Tsakopoulos. According to Greek USA Reporter, Angelo is a “top political donor to the Clintons as well as the Democratic Party,” whose “donations to former President Bill Clinton were rewarded with a night in the prestigious Lincoln Bedroom.” In 2013, Tsakopoulos “confirmed that Hillary Clinton will seek the Democratic nomination in the next Presidential election.”

Angelo’s daughter Eleni, a protégé of Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, raised more than $1 million for Hillary Clinton in 2008, and that money found its reward. On January 7, 2010, Clinton, as Barack Obama’s secretary of state, swore in Kounalakis as U.S. ambassador to Hungary. She served until 2013, and, like Hillary, she forms a two-for-one package with her husband.

According to the lieutenant governor’s website, Dr. Markos Kounalakis is “an award-winning, nationally syndicated foreign affairs columnist, author, and scholar.” A political scientist, “Markos is currently a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Markos earned his Ph.D. from Central European University.” That’s the outfit founded by billionaire George Soros in 1991.

The Crazy Contours of the Crazier 2024 Election For the Left, having virtually no president at all certainly has its advantages. With no one in charge, everyone is in charge. Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/30/the-crazy-contours-of-the-crazier-2024-election/

We start with the likely American landscape over the next two years.

Joe Biden has no choice but to focus on a purely negative message. So we already know his talking points for the next 18 months: “ultra MAGA” demons, “semi-fascist” insurrectionists, Trump!, Trump!, Trump!, and more Trump!, murdering fellow Americans by putting limits on partial-birth and early abortions, “censorship” as banning critical race theory indoctrination and grooming books, inciting racial tribalism, along with the corollary old boilerplate triad of isms—“fascism, sexism, and racism!”

There will be no Democratic primary debates, even if support for Robert Kennedy, Jr. surges to 25-30 percent of the Democratic electorate. The latter is banking on his name, his gut instinct there are still some JFK-like Democrats and Independents in hiding, the decline of Joe Biden, and the pushback against all things woke.

Biden is failing at a geometric rate of enfeeblement and would likely not be able to rest up, medicate, and prep full-time to salvage the debates as he did as a candidate in the attenuated debate series of 2020. His handlers do not wish to tempt fate a third time and hope that if it comes to a Trump-Biden race that they can goad Trump into offering an excuse to curtail or cancel the debates entirely.

Why Stick with Biden?

So why does the Left stick with Biden, given his high negative ratings, the red-flag example of an enfeebled Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and a disabled Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.,), and his daily lapses of cognition, his inability to read off a teleprompter, his slurring of words to the point of incomprehensibility, his peculiar short-step, hands-out gait, and the indiscreet flashing of his paint-by-numbers, bold-letter prompt cards?

Does the Left not grasp that Biden is one additional bad fall on the steps of Air Force One from full disability, one sparkle-in-his-eye fixation on a young preteen girl in the audience that earns his eerie quips, blowing into the hair, and 20-seconds-too-long hug away from scandal? One complete freeze, in which he loses cognition and the ability to identify those in his immediate vicinity, away from total befuddlement?

Do they not appreciate that Biden is one crooked tax-document dump, one Hunter new-old email release, one burned and flipped former crony whistleblower away from special counsel/impeachment territory?

Do they not understand that the subtext of the current toxic inclusion of Hunter Biden on Air Force One, the shakedown pay for his nose-brush paintings, his new move into the White House, and his cue-card presence at the side of his bewildered dad are all a sort of implied familial blackmail by a prodigal son who believes he got dirty and decadent enriching the Biden clan–his father especially—and yet was never appreciated for his skullduggery?

We are watching a cornered Hunter reclaiming his due as first son. He seeks exemption from the walls-are-closing in law, and wishes to remind the Bidens at any moment he can take them all down with him. Keep your friends close, your family closer.