Nazis? Not exactly

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Mrs Whatsit” has made this thoughtful observation:

I used to wonder how on earth the “good Germans” allowed Hitler to happen. I’m afraid that now I see, as it’s happening around me among many people who sincerely think of themselves as good and yet are blindly, enthusiastically cooperating with evil.

I’ve been reading Douglas Murray’s extraordinary new book, “On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization.” It’s painful to read, but illuminating as to how so many meaning-to-be-good people — including too many of my friends and relatives — have let their prior certainties lead them into this abyss of hatred and upside-down thinking. I’m losing sleep over it.

Yes, but for me the analogy isn’t so much to the Germans and Hitler, but rather to the Orwellian upside-down world of Nineteen Eighty-Four and its inversion of the truth. The details are quite different in both analogies, but the common denominator is how chilling it is to see how easily people can be made to believe lies, and how those lies become entrenched, and how that leads to demonizing the Other – including the widespread idea on the left that it’s the pro-Trump right who are the real Nazis.

Sobering.

After Trump’s 2024 victory, a friend who had stuck with me as a friend through many decades of “agree-to-disagree” politics stopped talking to me and explained that she can no longer talk to people who support Trump. Also after his election, another old friend told me, only slightly jokingly, that if she had a terminal medical diagnosis she would purchase a gun and make plans to assassinate him and consider it well worth it to suffer the consequences.

This latter person is someone I grew up with and have been at least somewhat friendly with all these years, but I probably only speak to her (on the phone; she lives far away) about once a year. I seem to recall that the prior time we mentioned politics – maybe ten years ago? – she was fairly moderate and not enamored of the Democratic Party. Apparently, something about Trump had subsequently pushed her over the brink into raw hatred – although she knew I support him and was perfectly happy to talk to me. During the recent conversation, I asked her what made her hate Trump so very much, and she cited his Charlottesville remarks – which tells you how important propaganda is in shaping such deep antipathy. She seemed to think that the incident proved he was a Nazi, or Nazi sympathizer and enabler. Even though I informed her that his Charlottesville remarks had been twisted and distorted by the press and the left, she wasn’t particularly interested in hearing details or softening her point of view.

But back to the actual history of the actual Nazis. Germany in the 1920s and 1930s had really been through the mill. First there was their huge losses in the First World War plus the Versailles Treaty, and then their economic hardship during the Weimar years. I don’t think our recent history compares. Not only that, but I think it’s important to remember that although the “good Germans” did indeed allow Hitler to happen, they didn’t actually elect him. Yes, there were plenty of Nazis, but not a majority of Germans when he was appointed in the proverbial “backroom deal.”

But perhaps even more importantly, the Nazis imprisoned and/or even murdered a great many of the “good Germans,” as soon as the Nazis got to power, and then used a great many approaches to make it very very difficult and very frightening to oppose them. They consolidated their power very quickly with the Enabling Act (it was passed about seven weeks after Hitler’s ascension), something that has not happened here and hopefully never will.

Until I became especially interested in how the Nazis came to power, I really didn’t know the extreme nature of what they did quite early on in their rule, but I’ve written about it on this blog in the following posts: this one on the passage of the Enabling Act, and this one on the speed and violence of their actions to make sure everyone who might even think of opposing them was terrified, except for the exceptionally courageous.

The book I describe in the latter post – The Nazi Seizure of Power – is especially edifying and I recommend it highly. It describes step by step how it was done, and why resistance was futile. If you read the book, you’ll see that, for example, although our own J6 prosecutions were akin to some of these actions, the crackdown on the J6-ers and on the right in general during the Biden years was far milder than what the Nazis did to their own opponents. The book describes how this was accomplished in the first six months of the Nazi regime:

Very early in the Nazi era an event occurred in Thalburg [the fictitious name of the actual German city that was the subject of the book] which effectively fused propaganda and terror. This was the boycott of the Jews, April 1 to 4, 1933. … [T]his particular action was also a miniature example of what the Nazis intended to do to the entire German population. For the essential effect of the boycott of the Jews was to atomize them socially: to cut them off from the rest of German society so that normal human ties could not work to restrain the dictatorship. …

Thus the position of the Jews in Thalburg was rapidly clarified, certainly by the end of the first half-year of Hitler’s regime. …

Thalburg’s Jews were simply excluded from the community at large. At the same time the Nazis undertook their most Herculean task: the atomization of the community at large. Though the methods differed, the result was the same, and by the summer of 1933 individual Thalburgers were as effectively cut off from effective intercourse with each other as the Jews had been from the rest of the townspeople. …Eventually no independent social groups were to exist. Ultimately all society, in terms of human relationships, would cease to exist, or rather would exist in a new framework whereby each individual related not to his fellow men but only to the state and to the Nazi leader [Hitler] who became the personal embodiment of the state. …

Most of this was accomplished in the first few months of the Nazi era. Clubs were dissolved; others were fused together; others lost their purpose and went into rapid decline. All societies came under Nazi control …

… [By this process] individuals had a choice: solitude or mass relationship via some Nazi organization.

There’s so much else in the book that I can only recommend reading the entire thing, because it gives a highly detailed and comprehensive step-by-step picture of that era. And although there are some similarities – after all, clubs have been on the wane in the US for quite some time – what’s happened here is neither as fast nor as organized and totalitarian in every sense of the word.

For that, we can be thankful that we don’t have the Germanic tendency towards efficiency or obedience. COVID lockdowns showed that we have more of a tendency towards obedience than most of us had previously thought – and yet it was by no means a universal response, and many states regained their freedoms relatively early in the game. Consider it a warning.

The Epstein brouhaha

The New Neo Posted on by

The Epstein conspiracy theories are tenacious, and most people who hold to them will never give them up. They take three forms, not mutually exclusive. The first is that Epstein was running a ring in which he supplied underage girls to the rich and famous for sex. The second is that there is a list he kept of such compromised clients. And the third is that he was murdered and did not kill himself.

I think all of those ideas are likely to be false – even the first one. Of course, that’s not the same thing as saying I believe there’s no way on earth any of them could be true. It’s possible, but I nevertheless think all three are unlikely. In that, I probably disagree with the majority of people in the blogosphere, especially those on the right. But I’ve done a lot of research into the case and I’ve written many posts about it, and that’s my conclusion.

If you’re interested in some of my reasoning, please see the following previous posts of mine: this, this, this, and this.

The present Epstein-related flap, however, seems to be between Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi, and is about these issues, over which Bongino is said to be contemplating handing in his resignation. For example:

The infighting over the case came to a head during a Wednesday meeting, which included Bongino, Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, the sources said. Bongino and Patel were confronted about whether they were behind a story that said the FBI wanted more information released but was ultimately stymied by the Department of Justice, they said.

Bongino denied leaking that notion to NewsNation, which published the story, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, though he did not sign on to a statement defending the review included in that article.

The following tweet is typical of the sort of reactions I’ve seen among many on the right; the ire seems to focus on Bondi’s unfulfilled promises regarding the Epstein “client list”:

What did Bondi actually say about this, back in the early days of the administration? Did she specifically say she had the client list of guilty parties? I think people often tend to hear what they want to hear, and they wanted to hear that. Granted, she was not especially clear in her statements; see this. But at no point did I get any sense that she was saying she had the smoking gun list of guilty parties, although I can understand why other people might think she was saying exactly that.

The thing is, Epstein had plenty of clients and contacts and names and addresses. But he did not have – nor would he even be expected to have had – a list that went something like “here are the people whom I supplied with underage girls for sex.” Why would anyone keep such a list, even if he was engaging in that activity? It makes no sense to me and never made sense to me. And a list of mere clients and contacts drags innocent people through the mud, without proving anything whatsoever about whether they engaged in criminal contact in concert with Epstein.

This is about Bondi’s February 21 Fox interview, the one that I believe has been so misinterpreted and/or misunderstood:

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday she is reviewing a list of clients of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who was charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.

“It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” Bondi said during an interview with Fox News anchors John Roberts and Sandra Smith. “That’s been a directive by President Trump.”

Roberts then asked the attorney general whether she’s seen anything that’s led her to say ‘oh my gosh,’ to which Bondi responded, “not yet.”

“It’s sitting on my desk to review” means the in-depth review hasn’t happened yet. And she’s specifically saying that, so far, there are no smoking guns. That’s what the administration ended up saying, too, which many people take as a coverup.

People don’t like that idea. It doesn’t fit with their preconceived notions or their expectations or their assumptions. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But no, not always.

I discover that I seem to be in basic agreement with this guy.

Also, on February 27, 2025, I wrote this post back when the Epstein files were supposedly released. So now I’m just going to repeat the content of that older post, because I think it contains a lot of relevant information – and so everything from here on is the content of my February 27 post.

I’ve long been curious about the so-called Epstein files. Most people seem to think that the list of names will be a list of perpetrators in the sexual abuse of minors. But I’ve never understood why they believe that, although it’s certainly true that some of those names may be of guilty people. But in terms of criminal evidence, what would the list mean? I’ve never seen a definitive description, perhaps because most people don’t know and are merely imagining.

Epstein was, among other things, a man who liked to sexually abuse underage girls in their teens, as far as I can tell. I don’t think there’s much doubt about that. But did he procure such women for others? And if so, who were those others who were also guilty of the sexual abuse of minors? Epstein also was a very rich man who was a major Democratic donor and had an enormous number of contacts and acquaintances. Those people almost undoubtedly would make up the bulk of those on his contacts list, I’ve always assumed.

Now the list – or some portion of the list – has dropped:

A source who has reviewed the files said the release spans more than 100 pages, including a list of contacts without further context.

The person said the unveiling was likely to be a “disappointment” to sleuths eager for bombshell new evidence about the billionaire pedophile’s connection to prominent political and business leaders.

It’s called “Phase 1.” Will there be a Phase 2? And what will that reveal? More names without context?

Reactions:

The limited scope of the release drew criticism from transparency advocates including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who leads a House GOP task force on government transparency. …

“THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment. GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!”

Just what is that information? A list of guilty parties? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the government doesn’t have such a list, there’s only a list of contacts and flight logs and that sort of thing. Guilt by association, which isn’t guilt enough – although the public will infer guilt.

If the authorities do have better evidence than that, the proper way to deal with it is to prosecute.

You might believe that is naive of me and that obviously tons of smoking-gun evidence is being covered up. But I just don’t think so. Of course, I could be wrong. But until I see something that changes my mind, my best guess is that such a list says nothing about guilt and that the government lacks good enough evidence to prosecute. You might ask, what of the videos? As far as I can tell, Epstein made videos of himself having sex with minors. But I”ve never read anything about videos of others having sex with minors, other than speculation that such videos exist.

NOTE: Bondi seems to think the FBI is covering something up. But I think that perhaps Bondi just doesn’t want to look like Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone’s vaults.

ADDENDUM: In response to some comments in this thread –

I thought I made my point of view quite clear. But perhaps not clear enough. So I’ll try a clarification.

Epstein was a sexual abuser of many underage women. I am not disputing that at all. And I am also NOT saying there couldn’t once have existed evidence that implicated others in some sort of sex ring run by Epstein, one that exploited underage women, with the evidence having been destroyed at some point. In fact, if there was such evidence and especially if it implicated powerful people, it probably would have been destroyed.

However, I think it’s wrong to assume either that there were such other people for whom Epstein was procuring underage women, and/or that strong evidence of their guilt existed, and in particular that anyone on an Epstein contact list was guilty simply by virtue of being on that list.

Regarding Epstein and whether there were other men involved – I understand that many human beings are guilty of very dark doings. I don’t think I’m the least bit naive about that. But I also believe that many such people are quite secretive about their crimes and do not necessarily like to spread the word around, and I think Epstein may have been of the latter variety. There are plenty of other reasons all those people might have associated with him short of engaging in sex with underage girls. He may also have been a voyeur who liked to spy on people with hidden cameras when they were his guests. But again, that doesn’t mean he procured underage girls for them. Just that he himself was guilty of sex crimes.

The evidence that Epstein procured girls for other powerful men rests solely – so far at least, as far as I can tell – on the testimony of a couple of the women years later as part of civil lawsuits they filed for money. I am not a proponent of the idea that women don’t ever lie about such things, especially where there’s notoriety and money involved.

It gets rather complicated, but one of the main people on whom this perception of Epstein shopping young women around for other rich and/or famous men rests is a woman named Virginia Giuffre. You can read about her here and in particular about her accusations against Alan Dershowitz here. Read about her here also. Note that in the latter article she says, “When you are abused, you know your abuser. I might not have my dates right, I might not have my times right… but I know their faces and I know what they’ve done to me.” And yet later, regarding her allegations that she had sex with Dershowitz six times, she said maybe her accusations against him were a case of mistaken identity. Oopsies!

I have come to my own conclusions about her veracity, and you can come to yours.

Have to help a friend [see UPDATE]

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been dealing for a few hours with a friend’s medical problem, and I’m about to take that friend to the emergency room. Hopefully, all will be well and I’ll resume posting this evening.

Till then, here’s something to chew on, about California’s roadblocks to rebuilding Pacific Palisades after the fire.

UPDATE 9 PM:

I’m home now and the friend is still awaiting a couple of tests. It seems it was something not too serious but which needed quick attention, and of course it being Friday night the ER is pretty crowded. So I’m on call for when it’s time for the friend to go home; it’s not a long drive.

Forgetting what doesn’t fit your preferred narrative

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Ackler” writes:

There are two major events of the last two years which stood out as exemplars of just how solipsistic many liberals are and how tightly constructed some of their echo chambers truly are:

1. The Hamas Massacre on October 7, 2023

2. The Biden/Trump debate on June 27, 2024

Regarding both events, I was, and remain, genuinely stunned (and depressed) by the complete and willful ignorance of some of my friends/acquaintances. These are well educated, intelligent professionals who are firmly left of center, but not firebrands.

Regarding Biden, they were sincerely shocked at has cognitive decline at that debate. But how? How? They had truly convinced themselves of the Democrat/MSM spin, no matter how preposterous.

Far more disturbing is the Gaza War. Not surprisingly, virtually all of these folks are hostile to Isreal, to varying degrees. They’ll regurgitate standard pro-Palestinian talking points repeatedly. Fine. But there’s a much more disturbing element: they truly do not remember the mass murder and hostage taking of Israeli civilians. It’s not simply minimizing or rationalizing what happened (that’s very common). They state they have no memory of it (and I believe them). I have been left speechless a couple times now, when I’ve brought up the massacre to a blank stare in response.

This is what we are up against. A growing number of people, entirely mainstream intelligent people, who can (and have) created an echo chamber were major news events can be entirely forgotten if they contradict the approved narrative.

They are their own ‘Big Brother’

But do not underestimate how much the MSM has ignored inconvenient facts, and failed to report on them. Unless a person on the left is a news junkie seeking out sources on the right – which is very rare, in my experience – much of the news that might reflect poorly on the left and/or Democrats (redundancy?) either fails to reach that person or reaches him or her in an attenuated fashion with an anti-right spin. It’s seen differently in the first place, given different (or no emphasis), and then remembered differently or not at all.

Biden’s decline wasn’t seen by most, because the clips either were never shown or were labeled disinformation from the right. October 7 was almost immediately given the “oh, the poor Palestinians will now be attacked by the nasty Israelis” pivot.

It’s often been said that left and right are watching different movies, and that’s a good description.

NOTE: Also, please see my two plus two equals five post.

Republican senator proposes to raise penalties for attacking ICE officers

The New Neo Posted on by

Seems reasonable to me:

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., on Thursday announced that he would introduce a bill to raise the maximum penalties for attacking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel amid an uptick in violent opposition to mass deportations.

“The punishment for attacking an ICE agent should be swift and devastating,” he said.
”
I’m introducing a bill to double the maximum federal penalty.

Left-wing radicals want to use violence to advance their political agenda. We can’t let them win.

It’s interesting that the Democrats have cast their lot with those who demonize ICE officials, setting them up for attack. Do they think most Americans are sympathetic to the Democrats’ stance? I doubt it, because polls have consistently shown the majority of Americans – and substantial majorities at that – are in favor of deportations. So my guess is that Senator Schmitt’s proposal would be popular with the public, too.

And yet I doubt a single Democrat (with the possible exception of Fetterman) would vote in favor of it. Apparently, Democrats still think that keeping illegal aliens in this country, and even attracting more of them, is important for Democrat victory, or Democrat unity, or even for Democrats to keep the population counts up in their own districts. They are also hoping that at some point the public will turn on ICE, perhaps as they expand their deportations to affect people who are seen as more sympathetic than the current crop.

Meanwhile, the left-wing media – at least, some of it – tries to ignore the leftist attacks on ICE agents:

If you hadn’t heard about [the attacks on ICE] yet, you might just be a CNN or MSNBC viewer; neither network has devoted a single minute of airtime to covering the attack, though CNN managed to devote a sentence to it in an online story about another attack on immigration authorities.

Should that not strike you as unusual, imagine this scenario: 11 members of a right-wing militia group open fire on an FBI field office on a major holiday, and a responding police officer is shot in the neck.

You think that would have a cold chance in hell of escaping the attention of the likes of Joe Scarborough, Wolf Blitzer, Jen Psaki, Brian Stelter, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Dana Bash?

This glaring omission is particularly notable given the two news organizations’ relentlessly critical coverage of ICE and persistent warnings about right-wing extremism and violence.

That’s an opinion article at Mediaite, which is a generally left-wing site. If you go to the comments there you’ll see the vast majority criticize the ICE agents. One line of criticism is that these aren’t actually ICE agents, but rather imposters wearing masks. Another is, for example, “Looks to me like people were using their 2nd amendment rights to fight against a repressive government.”

Marc Thiessen on Trump and Ukraine

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s Marc Thiessen’s opinion on where Trump is currently, in terms of Ukraine and Putin:

When it comes to Ukraine, Trump has been clear about what he would do if Russian President Vladimir Putin did not agree to end the war: Trump promised to impose crippling secondary tariffs on all oil coming out of Russia and give Ukraine more weapons than they’ve ever received from the U.S. Now that Putin has rejected Trump’s peace efforts, I am confident Trump will do exactly what he said.

Already, the president has reversed a Pentagon pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine, declaring, “We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves.” But, as Putin defiantly escalates his attacks on Kyiv, and the last of the weapons authorized under President Joe Biden will soon run out, Trump needs a new way forward.

I have noticed lately that Trump seems fed up with Putin, and that he’s talking about being about to further arm Ukraine. But is this a feint, a negotiating tactic? I don’t know. What I do believe is that Putin is unlikely to give in; he’s staked his entire reputation and regime on what he’s doing in Ukraine.

More from Thiessen:

So, what should Trump’s strategy be? The goal can’t be to help Ukraine restore its pre-war borders — something every reasonable person knows is unrealistic at least in the near term. But the answer is also not to revert to Biden’s feckless policy of slow-rolling weapons, arming Ukraine just enough to stop Russia from overrunning the country, with no endgame in sight.

Rather, the goal should be to force Putin to do what Trump has demanded from the very beginning — end the war at the negotiating table — by imposing such heavy economic and military costs on Russia that Putin has no choice but to sue for peace.

Although I think that’s the goal, I don’t see Putin giving in, no matter what. I hope I’m wrong about that.

Thiessen again:

How to do that? Russia is in economic trouble as war spending has unleashed double-digit inflation, soaring interest rates and catastrophic labor shortages. The only things keeping the Russian economy afloat have been oil and gas sales, which skyrocketed under Biden. But under Trump, Russia’s oil and gas revenue has begun to collapse, falling 33.7 percent last month.

Trump should further tighten the screws with a “maximum pressure” campaign designed to drive Russian oil and gas from the global market, much like he did with Iran in his first term. …

As he crushes the Russian economy, Trump should also apply maximum pressure on the battlefield. He has announced that he will provide Ukraine with more defensive systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from Russian attacks. But to force Putin back to the peace table, he will need to provide Ukraine with increased offensive capabilities as well — including weapons that Biden slow-rolled, such High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), Stinger and Javelin missiles, as well as 155mm artillery rounds.

I think Trump is in a bind in Ukraine. Would he go as far as Thiessen says he should? I don’t know. The original goal, I believe, was to find a way for both Putin and Zelensky to have a face-saving way out. That hasn’t happened, and I don’t feel optimistic about it ever happening. If Trump can pull that off, my appreciation for his deal-making – already high – will rise even higher.

The left uses the class action loophole in CASA, just as Alito predicted

The New Neo Posted on by

What did Alito predict? I wrote about it here:

But district courts should not view today’s decision as an invitation to certify nationwide classes without scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23. Otherwise, the universal injunction will return from the grave under the guise of “nationwide class relief,” and today’s decision will be of little more than minor academic interest.

Give that man a gold star, because here’s what just happened:

Judge Issues New Nationwide Injunction on Birthright Using SCOTUS Guidance

The judge “agreed the plaintiffs could proceed as a class, allowing him to issue a fresh judicial order blocking implementation of the Republican president’s policy nationally.”

From USA Today:

“U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante in Concord, New Hampshire, made the ruling July 10 after immigrant rights advocates implored him to grant class action status to a lawsuit they filed seeking to represent any babies whose citizenship status would be threatened by implementation of Trump’s directive.

“Laplante agreed the plaintiffs could proceed as a class, allowing him to issue a fresh judicial order blocking implementation of the Republican president’s policy nationally.”

Very predictable. Now what will happen? SCOTUS will almost certainly have to rule again. Banning class action relief in cases such as this might be more difficult to justify, although I’m not sure. Note that Alito mentioned Rule 23; that’s the rule governing class action suits. Please take a look; your eyes may glaze over. Reading it reminds me why I detested my first-year Civil Procedure course.

It seems to me – and this is just winging it on my part – that a suit like this, if it’s on behalf of children of the future who might be born here, may not define a proper class because they don’t exist at present. I assumed that undoing birthright citizenship would not, as far as I know, work retroactively to mean that those born here in the past would lose citizenship. When I looked up Trump’s actual EO on the subject, issued on January 20 of 2025, I found that it said that it applied only to babies meeting the criteria who would be born after thirty days after the issuance of the EO. And so it seems to me that the class action would be limited to babies born from late February till now, and that perhaps that would be a proper class action suit.

I still don’t know for sure whether the current suit meets that criterion, but perhaps it does. Let’s say for the sake of argument that it does. Ultimately, no matter what, SCOTUS will be needing to rule on birthright citizenship itself. And prior to that, SCOTUS will probably need to clarify how a proper class action suit would have to work, and whether this one complies.

I see also that the suit was filed “on behalf of non-U.S. citizens living in the United States whose babies might be affected.” Does it matter that it’s parents and not the babies themselves? I think it might, because it’s not the parents who would be deprived of citizenship, it’s their babies (including those not yet born?). I’m having trouble finding the relevant facts on this.

In addition, the same article says this:

Under the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump’s executive order would take effect on July 27.

So does that mean it never took effect as originally intended? That would mean that all babies affected are as yet unborn. Do they have a right to a class action? Do their parents? And having a right to a class action doesn’t mean that you win a class action, of course. For that, there must be a decision on the merits of the EO.

NOTE: Commenter “Ray Van Dune” makes a comment today that I think is relevant, although it doesn’t bear directly on the case at hand:

I have not heard this anywhere, but it seems obvious that the Democrats long to make the Trump administration act “above the law”, since they see that as proven to be resonating with the average American.

Trouble is, appealing a decision is not acting above the law, as it is perfectly lawful behavior! Worse, when Trump succeeds on appeal, it is easily misunderstood as a permanent victory, which it sometimes isn’t. This is driving the Dems crazy… and it’s a short drive!

So this lawfare strategy needs to be understood for what it is, an effort to force Trump to defy the courts, and be seen to do so! That is why there seems to be no limit to the lengths Dems will stretch the law. They know that once they can force Trump to tell a court to go to hell, they can start using their favorite meme again – Trump thinks he is above the law!

Indeed. They use the meme anyway, of course. But it will have more teeth if he actually does defy a court ruling, especially a SCOTUS ruling.

The judge-emperor

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Barry Meislin.”]

With the growth of the imperial judiciary here as a result of the left’s reaction to Trump’s presidency, it has occurred to me that our judges are starting to resemble the leftist judges of Israel, who have runaway power. Only our Supreme Court stops our leftist judges, and that’s only because SCOTUS currently leans right. All it would take would be a few appointments by a Democrat president to change that.

Here’s an article that deals with such issues, and adds the court system of France to the mix:

From Israel to the United States, via Europe, the judicial coup d’état has become permanent. In the West, it is not the executive that threatens the separation of powers. It is faceless judges lacking democratic legitimacy who legislate on the pretext of judging. Here are four salient examples of this judicial imperialism — which have become a judicial tyranny — and a proposed American solution. …

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Israeli Supreme Court introduced three innovations that revolutionized Israel’s legal and political landscape. First, it abolished the “standing” requirement, allowing anyone to challenge any government decision before the Supreme Court simply because they disagreed with it, even if they were not personally affected by it. This is unique in the Western world. Second, the Court removed the restriction on justiciability, placing all government and administrative actions (including foreign affairs, military actions and the budget) under its control — an extraordinary measure. Third, the Court took on the power to assess the “reasonableness” of government decisions, thus giving itself a political veto over the elected government’s choices.

When you read about how Netanyahu has tried to reform the Israeli court system, remember those points because they are extraordinarily important in understanding the extent of the power the Israeli Supreme Court has seized for itself.

The article goes on to discuss France and the ban on Le Pen:

There is effectively no longer a single “right-wing” measure that can be adopted in any field by Parliament or the government without being struck down by the Constitutional Council or the courts. When the left loses at the ballot box, it is certain to win in the courts. In France, the judge reigns and the people no longer seem to have sovereignty over anything.

That may be an exaggeration, or perhaps not. I’m not as familiar with the French system, but I wrote about the Le Pen ban in this previous post.

On Europe and immigration:

The torrents of universal rules and requirements deriving from articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (e.g. privacy, dignity), and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights are probably the worst modern example of tyrannical judicial imperialism. The anarchy of immigration in Europe is entirely of its making. Since the rulings of the imperial European Court of Human Rights are deemed to be the “official interpretation” of the text of the European Convention on Human Rights, they are imposed on all European states (except Russia, Belarus and Vatican City) as supreme law, which no parliamentary majority can overturn. So much for “democracy.”

In discussing the US, the author cites the recent CASA decision in which SCOTUS largely limited the ability of district court judges to issue nationwide injunctions. This functions as a correction of a national trend in the US towards an imperial judiciary, but much more is needed to solidify the gains.

In summary:

The role of the judges is to enforce the law in the face of the disputes brought before them. Any attempt to legislate in place of democratic bodies is dictatorial, and a negation of national sovereignty, as well as the separation of powers.

But as the left loses power with the voters it turns to the courts in which leftist judges can advance the left’s agenda. It’s easier to not have to deal with the electorate at all, and the only corrective is the appointment of more judges who are not on the left. Once judicial power becomes entrenched, it’s very difficult to reverse course. Attempts to do so tend to be met with cries from the left of “imperial presidency!” and “dictatorship!” But, as Barrett’s opinion in CASA stated:

“Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” Barrett wrote. “No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation—in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so.”

She continued to suggest that Jackson should “heed her own admonition.”

“‘[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law,’” Barrett wrote, quoting Jackson. “That goes for judges too.”

But not for judge-emperors.

Biden’s doctor pleads the Fifth and doctor-patient privilege

The New Neo Posted on by

Congress wanted to question Biden’s physician, but he has declined to cooperate:

Kevin O’Connor, who served as Joe Biden’s physician while the former president was in office, refused to testify in a closed-door interview as part of the House GOP probe into Biden’s mental acuity and whether his inner circle sought to conceal his limitations from the public.

O’Connor Wednesday morning asserted doctor-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to a statement from his attorneys. He had repeatedly argued his duties as a doctor complicated his ability to testify under oath about his patient, preventing him from sharing some sensitive information.

“On the advice of his legal counsel, Dr. O’Connor refused to answer questions that invaded the well-established legal privilege that protects confidential matters between physicians and their patients,” the statement read. “His assertion of his right under the Fifth Amendment to decline to answer questions, also on the advice of his lawyers, was made necessary by the unique circumstances of this deposition.

Connor could be granted immunity from prosecution, but that would only affect his invoking of the Fifth and not the doctor-patient privilege.

When can doctor-patient confidentiality be breached? If Biden were to give his consent – which is highly unlikely – it could happen. But short of that, it’s hard to say. Most of the information on the subject (such as, for example, this) doesn’t seem to cover the special issue of a president’s health, which is a matter of grave national security. Plus, in this particular case, the doctor has already made public statements on Biden’s health in the past – false assurances – and perhaps that matters.