Posts Tagged → james boasberg
Eye for eye, order for order
Unelected over-reaching judges driven by blatant partisan political activism are trying to thwart the will of The People by issuing decisions (“orders”) on Trump Administration activities that are far outside their courts’ constitutionally defined jurisdictions. Something like nearly 100% of these decisions in the past twenty years have been issued against President Trump alone, which shows that Democrat Party judicial tyranny is the same as Democrat Party executive branch tyranny. These people will burn down America’s constitutional norms simply to hold on to power.
Executive branch decisions that are solely the jurisdiction of the executive branch are not up for question or “orders” by the judicial branch. But this elementary separation of powers fact is not stopping these political activists in black robes, and something needs to be done to stop their power grab, to restore balance to the galaxy.
That some people, especially John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, want these outlandish decisions to be adjudicated through the lengthy, time-consumptive appellate process means just one thing: They want to stop President Trump’s agenda from being implemented by any means necessary. No matter how illegal or unconstitutional, they want the judiciary to be the sole arbiter of the judiciary’s own unconstitutional over-reach.
In other words, “We have investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing.” The judiciary is so far mostly siding with itself in hogging more power than the Constitution grants to judges, and is unlikely to stop itself from hogging even more power.
This is not an acceptable way to run the American republic, and some thing or many things must be done to fend it off. Some are talking about impeaching the most rogue, most lawless, most openly partisan of these judges, such as James Boasberg and Beryl Howell. OK, one survey I saw showed a 2:1 margin in favor of impeaching them, so get on with it, US House Speaker Mike Johnson. Impeachment will probably send a good signal, even if conviction and removal in the US Senate is not guaranteed. Impeachment hearings will tie up a judge’s work load and cause it to be re-distributed to other active judges.
Another way to end this radical judiciary’s assault on democracy is to take away their funding, and to then re-organize the courts, and then even more clearly defining their jurisdictions in the reorganization process. All of this is the sole purview of Congress, and while the Republicans have the majority, so should they act. So get on it with it, US House Speaker Mike Johnson, and do your duty.
Another way to respond to these lawless activist judges is to simply ignore their decisions. Issue blunt and stinging rebukes to their overeach, and carry on with executive branch activities as if they had never been involved. This will cause the Democrat Party’s mainstream media outlets to scream that there is a “constitutional crisis,” but again, I think there is sufficient new media firepower to over-ride that dead horse with the response that whatever “crisis” exists is solely due to the judicial branch’s inability to stay in its own constitutional lane.
However, there is a potential hybrid response the Trump Administration can make, that I am advocating here. While I have not seen anyone else write about it, I am certain plenty of politically active people have been thinking it: For every dingbat leftwing anti-America judicial “order”, such as Boasberg demanding that hardened illegal alien criminals – murderers, rapists – be returned to America from where they were legally deported to, the executive branch must issue a commensurate order in response.
For example, President Trump can issue an executive order requiring Judge Boasberg to personally retrieve all the illegal aliens he wants returned to America. With no promise that said wildman judge will be allowed back into America.
Or President Trump can issue an executive order that countermands exactly the precise wording of whatever unconstitutional order Judge Beryl “Howlin Wolf” Howell has issued.
Thus, this whole “crisis” becomes a battle of equal orders, from the rogue judiciary against the executive branch, and from the executive branch back against the power-hogging judiciary. This “eye for an eye” order-for-order response will flesh out the visible constitutional symmetry that President Trump’s administration needs the public to see. No longer will this situation be cast as “The courts have spoken…,” which always goes against the Republican president, but rather, it will be two co-equal branches of government issuing co-equal orders against one another, each order cancelling out the other.
An eye for an eye, an order for an order. And if the judiciary refuses to follow the executive orders, then so shall the executive branch be free to ignore the wild judicial orders, as well. True constitutional parity restored.
Back to basics, America
We have a Republican Party crisis here in Pennsylvania, and in Dauphin County, and this blog will be addressing these problem children soon. However, the real friction happening between lawless, rogue judges and the Trump Administration is the most defining issue of the day.
As most politically interested and involved readers already know, a real contest of wills is developing betwen the Trump Administration on the one hand, and politically radical / rogue/ lawless politically activist judges on the other hand. This contest may seem alarming to some people, but it is a perfectly natural and healthy aspect of how our Constitutional republican form of government is designed to operate.
With three separate but co-equal branches of government forming an equilateral triangle, but made of living, breathing people, and usually the most aggressive, power hungry, conniving people at that, American government is designed to have friction. That friction results in constant contest, and a constant creative renewal, as all three branches naturally seek to exert as much dominance as they can get away with over the other two branches. Or as much outright control of the decision process as the other branches will concede.
So when grotesquely overreaching politically corrupt activist judges, like James Boasberg, “order” the executive branch to turn around planes carrying lawfully deported violent gang members to foreign destinations, and return said violent deportees to American soil for the judge’s evaluation, we can expect some friction to result. The executive branch, and its chief executive/ military commander in chief (the president), is well within its rights and within its sole discretionary function when it engages in illegal alien deportation, as defined by the US Constitution.
The Trump Administration is under no duty or obligation to do whatever some judge tells them to do. Judicial Tyranny might be a goal for some Americans, but it is not something anticipated or accepted by the Founders and writers of the Constitution.
Not every situation or question or policy is justiciable, meaning that not every question can be resolved in a court of law. Some things, like deportations and war and a host of other subjects and government functions, are the sole purview of the executive branch. Neither the legislative branch nor the judicial branch have anything to say about it. It is not their “lane.”
Or, the judicial and legislative branches can try to say something about a given policy, but the best way to force the executive branch to follow is to pass a law requiring it.
In this particular case, President Trump blasted Boasberg’s unconstitutional overreach, and called for his impeachment, which is built right into the Constitution. Then US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in turn criticized the President for his calls to impeach said America-hating radical, James Boasberg. While Roberts personally dislikes Trump, he is defending his judicial branch more than anything, and trying to take power away from the executive branch.
This is all normal stuff, even if America has not seen this kind of constitutional friction in a long time. To my mind, this activity just shows that the various parts of the government machine are working properly. It took a Donald J. Trump to actually test run the American machinery for the first time in about seventy years. What is scary is how aggressive the judicial branch has been about hogging power over the past fifty years, and how little pushback the executive branch did until now. Presidents and Congress alike keep conceding judicial review as though the judicial branch is some sort of hallowed gathering of super smart and pure minded arbiters of fairness. Ha! Judges are just politicians in black robes, as one of my Penn State professors used to say.
Don’t worry, America has been down this path before in recent times. The Obama Administration, especially, engaged in a ton of simply ignoring judicial holdings and decisions and demands and orders; Obama DOJ lawyers were repeatedly held in contempt by a number of judges over the tenure of that administration. Not one judge got up out of his or her chamber to go enforce their order in person…nor could they.
And that’s the rub here: Crazy judges and even crazier Justices who allow some members of the judiciary to run wild, without restraint, can expect constraint by the branches they impact. Especially the executive branch.
Judicial review is not sacrosanct, it is not wide-open, nor can judges simply demand obedience to whatever or wherever their egos or political interests take them (or in the case of corrupt Judge James Boasberg, where his family’s wallet takes him on policy questions). Judges’ credibility depends upon the dignity and caution with which they discharge their duties.
When judges like Boasberg run bloody roughshod over America’s Constitutional geometry, and when justices like John Roberts do nothing to rein Boasberg in, but rather defend the indefensible, then they pretty much deserve what they have coming: Impeachment by the US House of Representatives, and being simply ignored by the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief as he does what his job requires him to do.
As one US president said in a similar moment of great friction, “Let the judge come and enforce his order himself.”
And no, that judge did not attempt to personally force the executive branch machinery to bend to his will. He astutely stood down and granted to the Chief Executive that which was his, and which still remains his. If Justice John Roberts wants Americans to respect his office and his decisions, then he must act similarly. We have to get back to the basics of running American government.