Sunday, June 4, 2017

Judicial Tyranny or Constitutional Supremacy

SCOTUS Travel Ban Ruling Decides

By John R. Houk
© June 4, 2017

Here is a quote that rings true about Lower Federal Courts striking down President Trump’s Executive Order travel ban from Islamic terrorist ridden nations or areas:

Lower federal court judges have struck down the executive orders as unconstitutional based on their ideology, not the rule of law”.

The quote comes from journalist author Douglas V. Gibbs at the Canada Free Press speculating with some positive certainty that SCOTUS will strike down the Lower Courts to President Trump’s favor.

Gibbs’ positivism comes from the plain English of the U.S. Constitution. Ergo Gibbs posits that SCOTUS will uphold the rule of law spelled out in ink in the Constitution.

I pray Gibbs is correct. We are about to find out of a Trump appointee to the Supreme Court was worth waiting to elect him as President.

There are roughly two trains of thought on Constitutional interpretation: Original Intent of the Founders and the Living Constitution which can loosely interpreted to fit the Secular Humanist’s view of what society is or will be.

President Trump’s EOs ran into Left-Wing Activist Judges committed to the Living Constitution interpretation.

The Activist Judges struck down President Trump’s Travel Ban Eos by interpreting Donald Trump’s campaign speeches as being anti-Islam and so the EOs were aimed at discriminating against Muslims rather protecting American citizens.

If a majority of SCOTUS Justices follow the Living Constitution methodology of interpretation you can kiss Separation of Powers goodbye in the separate but equal Checks and Balances that Civics so often affirmed as a constitutional doctrine of the U.S. Government.


Because a Living Constitution Judicial Branch becomes the dictator of laws made by man rather than the rule of law. A Judicial dictatorship was one of the great concerns of the Founding Fathers of the constitutionally created Judicial Branch:

“[N]othing in the Constitution has given [the judiciary] a right to decide for the Executive, more than to the executive to decide for them. Both magistracies are equally independent in the sphere of action assigned to them the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional, and what are not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature & Executive also, in their spheres, would make the judiciary a despotic branch.“- Thomas Jefferson [Undeniable Quotes: The Founding Fathers Warn About SCOTUS]

“[A] limited Constitution can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing To deny this would be to affirm that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.” – Alexander Hamilton [Undeniable Quotes: The Founding Fathers Warn About SCOTUS]

Thomas Jefferson letter to Charles Hammond
Categories: Courts / Judiciary
Date: August 18, 1821
It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression . . . that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; . . . working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped. (Thomas Jefferson - It has longQuotes Database)

Categories: Courts / Judiciary
Date: June 14, 1788

Thomas Jefferson letter to Judge Spencer Roane
Categories: Courts / Judiciary
Date: September 6, 1819
The Constitution . . . is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please. (The Constitution Quotes Database)

Categories: Courts / Judiciary
Date: June 14, 1788

Categories: Separation of Powers
Date: January 30, 1788

These are just a few quotes by the Founding Fathers on concerns of one Branch dominating the others thus promoting tyranny. To do a little reading on your own about the concerns of dominant Branch tyranny go to Quotes Database category Separation of Powers Quotations.

My concern currently is Judicial Tyranny which the concept of the Living Constitution enables. And it was Judicial Tyranny stemming from Living Constitution ideology that struck down the Executive Orders of President Trump.

The President has asked SCOTUS to expedite a decision on those Executive Orders. How SCOTUS rules will either strengthen Living Constitution Judicial Tyranny a take an important step toward Constitutional Supremacy.

Here is some further reading:

JRH 6/4/17
Supreme Court to Lift Ban on Travel Ban

June 4, 2017

In Trump’s Travel Ban Executive Order, the laws he is executing with the order are listed.  Among them is a law that gives the
President the ability to prohibit persons from entering the United States if he believes they may be a danger to the national security of this country.

Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution authorizes Congress to make laws prohibiting persons from “migrating” into the United States with legislation.

Based on the original intent of the United States Constitution, Trump’s travel ban regarding a few Muslim-majority countries who have proven they are sponsors of terrorism, and are willing to harbor terrorists, is completely constitutional.


There is no authority granted to the courts to strike down executive orders in the U.S. Constitution, so the actions of these judges have no foundation in constitutional law.

If President Trump understood all of these things, then he would simply tell the lower court judges to kiss off, and he would execute his travel ban, anyway.  The courts have no enforcement arm, and have no authority over his executive branch agencies.

However, the president decided to let the courts decide, and the next stop within days will likely be the United States Supreme Court.  A ruling is expected soon that would, based on their “opinion” and the current misguided view of the Constitution, lift a temporary stay on President Trump’s revised executive order banning travel from six mostly Muslim countries.

Immigration in the sense of who can cross the border, as per Article I, Section 9, is a federal issue.  The 1st Amendment’s religious clauses only disallow the Congress from making law establishing a state religion, or writing laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion within our jurisdiction.  It has nothing to do with the religion of who is entering (if Islam is a religion at all in the first place), and Article I, Section 9 does not mention that a religious test cannot be used in connection with which migrants can be prohibited.  It also does not violate the Due Process Clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments because this is regarding people who aren’t even citizens of the United States.  As for the alleged ban on nationality discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas contained in a 65-year-old congressional law, all Congress has to do is repeal that law, and replace it with a new one.

The Democrats have somehow equated the rejection of Islam by conservatives as being akin to how Germany treated the Jews while under the NAZI regime prior to, and during, World War II.  The reality is, Islam is not a religion, it is a political system and full way of life that calls itself a religion, and it has more in common with the NAZIs than it does with the persecuted Jews.

As Commander in Chief, among his primary functions, the President must protect the country (national security), and that is what his travel ban executive order seeks to accomplish.  Despite what one may think, the reality is that terrorism runs rampant in Islam, and in the countries listed.  If Islam doesn’t want us fearing them, and having the inclination that all Muslims are either terrorists, or support terrorist activity, then Islam needs to clean its own house (if that is even possible).  The problem is, like the Germans who were not NAZIs in Germany, the moderate Muslims are a moot point.  The violent jihadists are the ones driving the message of Islam, so that is what we have to address, despite the alleged notion that the poor moderate Muslims are not in agreement with the violence.

We, as a nation, have the right to protect ourselves from any potential enemy, no matter what they choose to call themselves (regime, government, or religion).

While there is no timetable on how quickly the Supreme Court will issue a final ruling in the case (again, I am not a supporter of the unconstitutional concept of judicial review, but as the system is thought to be now, this is the last resort the President has. . . aside from ignoring the courts, and carrying out his duties despite their opinions), there are other lower court decisions also brewing regarding the issue.  Two federal appeals courts are also currently considering the issue, and a ruling from the 9th Circus is still pending.  Trump’s Justice Department, however, has asked the Supreme Court to get involved in the issue now.

“The justices have the discretion to wait indefinitely to decide the broader merits of the case, but will issue an order in the meantime on whether the ban can be temporarily enforced. The federal government asked the high court to allow the order to go into effect now, and proposed oral arguments be held in October.”

The White House frames the issue as a temporary move involving national security, as they should.  Bureaucrats and men in black robes should not be able to interfere with the duties of the President as Commander in Chief.  His job to protect the United States, while on some fronts are dependent upon Congress (such as when it comes to funding), is his to prosecute, and for judges to abandon the rule of law and act in a manner based on ideology regardless of the law is disgusting, and unconstitutional.

The executive order is the second one.  Rather than fight for the first one, the language was changed in a manner that was considered to be “bullet proof,” and then was issued March 6.  The revision, in addition to the added “bullet proof” language, also removed Iraq from the list of countries.

Officials say the new executive order only applies to foreign nationals outside the U.S. without a valid visa.

The appeals court said its decision was based on what Trump said on the campaign trail about “banning Muslims.”

Chief Judge Roger Gregory called it an “executive order that in text speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”

Intolerance?  The Islamic culture has declared war on the United States, and the liberal left Democrats are treating this like it is a slight misunderstanding.  What about Islamic intolerance?  How about we ban mosques in the United States until Muslim countries start welcoming the building of churches and synagogues on their lands.  Did you know if you fly into a Muslim country, if they search you and discover you have a Bible, it will be destroyed onsite?  What about the genocide against Christians occurring in Muslim-majority countries?  Is that tolerance?

During World War II, would these judges have considered a ban against persons from the axis powers intolerant?

By the way, the law that started this thing about the President’s authority to prohibit immigration began with the The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, which gives the president the allowance to restrict immigration into the United States if he believes the persons to be a danger to our national security.  It was passed during a time when we as a country were worried about communist infiltration.  Some Democrats weren’t too happy back then, either, despite the reality that it was a Democrat sponsored law.  Carter, Reagan and Obama all used it to deny entry to certain refugees and diplomats, including from nations such as Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, but you don’t remember the courts worried about Obama’s use of it, do you?

The court’s attacks against the executive order has nothing to do with the law, and everything to do with who wrote the executive order. Congress should drag these activist judges before Congress and make them answer to the legislative branch for their unconstitutional rulings, and then impeach each and every one of them for their bad constitutional behavior.  Congress should also pass law nullifying each and every one of those unconstitutional rulings (a power they have according to Article III’s “Exceptions Clause”).

The problem, in short, is not that the courts are misbehaving, but that Congress and the President are letting them.

The judicial branch is supposed to be the weakest of the three branches.  They are not supposed to be a check against Congress or the President, other checks exist (or existed) to take care of that.  The judicial branch’s job is clear.  Their job is simply to apply the law to the cases they hear.  If they believe the law is unconstitutional or unjust, then they can issue an opinion so that Congress may reconsider the law.  What they are doing now has nothing to do with applying the law, or the rule of law.  These leftist judges are simply ruling against the president for political reasons, and then are misinterpreting the law to make it sound like their rulings are within the law.

They all need to be thrown off their benches, and either replaced, or those particular inferior courts need to be dismantled and the regions absorbed by another court - again, an authority that Congress has, but has been unwilling to wield.
Judicial Tyranny or Constitutional Supremacy:
SCOTUS Travel Ban Ruling Decides

By John R. Houk
© June 4, 2017
Supreme Court to Lift Ban on Travel Ban



No comments:

Post a Comment