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.

Antifa terrorists try to murder ICE agents

The New Neo Posted on by

And here they are. Quite a rogue’s gallery. By the way – continuing a recent trend – two members of the gang are trans (second row, lower left):

Andy Ngo @MrAndyNgo
These are the 10 alleged members of a north Texas Antifa terror cell accused of carrying out the attempted murder of federal officers at a shooting terrorist attack on an ICE facility on the Fourth of July in Alvarado, Texas.

One local police officer was shot in the neck, and survived. The group was armed with multiple rifles, pistols, body armor, escape vehicles, radios, and other devices indicating a planned conspiracy.

Multiple members of the cell are confirmed trans.

They’ve been charged federally with attempted murder and also face local charges of terrorism in Johnson County, Texas.

As Ace points out, former FBI director Christopher Wray had sworn that Antifa was “just an idea.”

I imagine I’m not the only person “of a certain age” who remembers the violent revolutionary perps of the 1960s and 1970s, and is reminded of that. Not exactly the same, of course – but it rhymes. This particular group seems to have very much intended to kill multiple ICE agents and/or police. They were apparently not all that competent at their task, fortunately. They are egged on by the MSM and the Democrat Party, who have made ICE agents out to be more or less the Gestapo, preying on poor innocents.

Now it’s Sotomayor who schools Ketanji Brown Jackson on the law

The New Neo Posted on by

Recently Justice Barrett gave Jackson somewhat of a tongue-lashing when Barrett wrote the majority opinion on the national injunction case. I wrote about it in this recent post. That sort of personal dissing is somewhat unusual between or among SCOTUS colleagues. But at least Barrett and Jackson are on different sides of the political spectrum.

Now the task of reprimanding Jackson has fallen to a fellow liberal justice, Sonia Sotomayor. That’s even more newsworthy:

I find it interesting that both of these chidings were issued by other women on the Court.

Incredibly sad: the Texas flood victims

The New Neo Posted on by

We are getting more information on the victims of the Texas flash flood. It’s almost indescribably sad to see their photos and read their stories, including those of so many young girls. Many of the victims at the camp were around eight years old, which leads me to believe that particular cabin was hardest hit. There are also some sisters, including a pair of twins.

See this as well as this. So so sad. And now the governor of Texas is saying that at least 160 people remain missing.

And yet the left is trying to make political hay of such a tragedy. No surprise there; Katrina was the template.

The tragedy stirs up the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people. There are a number of choices. The first is that God exists but is not omnipotent. The second is that God exists but does not micromanage the world and create constant miracles; floods are the consequence of natural forces in nature. The third is to be an atheist. The fourth is the response of the Book of Job, which if I understand it correctly says that God exists but we cannot possibly understand His ways and should trust Him.

RIP.

The imperial judiciary strikes again

The New Neo Posted on by

A Massachusetts district judge has stopped Congress’ defunding of Planned Parenthood, at least for the next two weeks:

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani placed a temporary restraining order on the provision of President Donald Trump’s bill that defunds Planned Parenthood.

It expires in 14 days.

The abortion mill sued the Trump administration because the “big, beautiful bill” banned it from receiving Medicaid payments.

The organization claimed Trump’s administration targeted it “in order to punish them for lawful activity, namely advocating for and providing legal abortion access wholly outside the Medicaid program and without using any federal funds.”

How can the judge do that, in light of the recent SCOTUS limits on nationwide injunctions by district courts? I’m scratching my head on that, but perhaps because it’s not technically an injunction but instead a restraining order, which has basically the same effect? And in addition, this was a piece of duly-passed Congressional legislation, not a mere executive order.

So, on what basis did Judge Talwani make the decision? I searched around, looking at commentary that didn’t explain that, and finally I went to the judge’s order itself. No reason whatsoever is given. I guess Judge Talwani felt she didn’t have to do so.

As you might expect, Judge Talwani has the usual liberal/left bona fides. Radcliffe undergrad, Berkeley law school, Obama appointee. No doubt a heroine to many, but not to me.

Why do people care about the Jewish vote?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s commenter “Niketas Choniates” on the recent thread about the Jews of NYC not voting for Mamdani:

Probably this is because it’s a primary and only a small percentage of people voted at all.

If anyone is still paying attention at the time, we will learn the true answer after the election for mayor, presuming that someone bothers to poll NYC Jews to find out how they voted.

The votes of Jews, however, except in a few cities, are electorally negligible, there are not many of them to begin with and overwhelmingly concentrated in deep-blue cities. Chasing their votes seems to be to be outdated thinking, as there are other minority blocs that are larger and in places that matter more.

Pew estimated in 2020 about 6 million Jews in the US, 1.5 million of whom say they are not religious. They say a lot more than that of course because of the “who counts” issue.

This website has a different number but breaks down by metro area. New York, Los Angeles, and Miami account for just under half of the total. DC, Philadephia, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and Detroit account for another quarter, which leaves something like 2 million more scattered across the country.

Jews in America are comparable in size to Chinese Americans and Indian Americans, each at about 5.5 million. It seems hardly anyone spends as much time talking about what Chinese and Indian Americans are going to think, as they spend talking about what Jews are going to think. Especially with Indians I think this a huge mistake, considering where Indians tend to concentrate in the economy. There are increasingly more Indians in C suites and in national office.

Of course Mexican Americans and Black Americans represent far larger shares of the population, each near 12% of the total population. There’s also a lot of outdated thinking on who Mexican Americans actually are and what is likely to appeal to them, but I bet some party is spending bezillions to try to figure it out, either now or very soon. It would be effort much better spent than worrying about if American Jews want to vote for socialist Democrats or not.

Good points. And yet people do seem to care more about how Jews vote for several reasons. One is Jew-hatred by those who like to blame them. As I said in my post, I often see comments on the right that say something like, “I’ll start caring about Jew-hating when the Jews stop voting for Democrats.” It’s the same with Israel – much of the world cares disproportionately about Israel because a great deal of the world hates Jews.

But it’s certainly not just that. Those who love and/or admire Jews care too, of course – but the point is that feelings about Jews are often hyper-intense, both positive or negative.

In addition, the post I wrote about Jews and Mamdani was about the NYC primary, a city where Jews are a very important voting bloc, about 11% or 12% according to most sites. That’s not as large as the city’s black or Hispanic population, but it’s still a large and influential group.

They are also an important voting bloc in the swing state of Pennsylvania. Also in Florida, which is not a swing state, and where Jews vote more for the GOP than in a state such as NY; see this about the 2024 election:

The AP/Fox News Voter Analysis Exit Poll has updated some of its numbers since yesterday, showing even better results than we quoted in the graphic above:

In Arizona, Trump won 38% of the Jewish vote.

In Nevada, he won 42% of the Jewish vote.

In Florida, he won 44% of the Jewish vote.

In New York he won 46% of the Jewish vote.

In Pennsylvania, where the Honan Group did a specific, state-wide exit poll, President Trump won 41% of the Jewish vote.

*Many polls (including CNN) don’t have a large enough sample of Jewish voters to be reliable. The AP/Fox News Voter Analysis Exit Poll is a national poll with a much larger sample size, making it possible to extrapolate data about some specific states.

It’s challenging to get figures for Jews, because of the sampling problem, but those figures for GOP votes among Jews in 2024 are probably significantly higher than most people imagine.

There’s another thing about Jewish voters: they tend to have high turnout.

And lastly, much of the emphasis on the Jewish vote, or appealing to the Jewish vote, is actually an appeal to Jewish donors.

Iran soldiers go over to the Mossad?

The New Neo Posted on by

Can this be true?:

A social media account, reportedly belonging to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, has claimed it has been contacted by hundreds of soldiers and officers who wish to abandon Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

A Persian-language X/Twitter handle, which styles itself as an official Mossad account, wrote Thursday that it has been overwhelmed by the response it received from members of the IRGC, the Iranian regime’s military arm, and urged willing defectors to be patient and wait to be contacted by the intelligence agency.

“We expected it, but not to this extent!” the Mossad Farsi posted. “Hundreds of active IRGC soldiers and officers, fed up with this regime, are reaching out to us.”

I have no idea whether that’s true.

I do know that a turning point for any regime is when its own security forces defect and/or no longer will enforce the regime’s wishes. In the case of Iran, it may be that the IRGC no longer sees this regime as the strong horse.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) We already knew this, but there is more evidence coming out about the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas and other Gazans on October 7, and later on directed at the hostages during their captivity. Many groups on the left seem not to care:

The research addresses criticism of inadequate responses from international organizations such as UN Women (full name the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) following reports of sexual violence by the Sunday Times and other outlets.

The project also deals with questions raised by false claims from first responders and arguments that Hamas, as an Islamic organization, would not commit rape—despite examples from Islamic State (ISIS) in the Middle East and Boko Haram in West Africa.

Some critics argued that the sexual violence issue had been “weaponized” by the Israeli government to justify its actions in Gaza.

(2) Good news from Wisconsin:

On June 25, the left-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to hear two lawsuits brought by Democrats that challenged the state’s congressional district boundaries.

Wisconsin has eight Congressional districts. Republicans represent six of them.

The Democrats are desperate to flip the seats in 2026.

We are so used to judges on the left deciding cases based on politics that this decision is surprising.

(3) Roger L. Simon and Trump on Musk:

Elon Musk is an extraordinary entrepreneur having pioneered several companies of great originality with considerable influence on the future. Unfortunately, the obvious skills he had honed or was born with to do these things do not translate to politics where some degree of compromise comes with the territory. That he has made an ass of himself with his bravado is the least of it. It’s hard to see what he contributes to national discussion at this point. X, that he once laudably opened to free speech, has morphed into a home for the marshmallow-brained.

Did Donald Trump encourage this? A little. But Elon now behaves like the most pathetic of rejected sons. The America Party is an example of his flailing. I don’t know if it’s in the betting market yet but I would guess this party has somewhere around three weeks before its founder moves on to better things—like next year’s Tesla. He could be, already almost is, our Edison. Why is he wasting time on politics?

President Trump, who has a way of getting to the essence of a problem, responded this way when asked about Musk’s new political party: “It’s ridiculous.”

I hope that’s true, because Musk’s third party has at least the potential of helping Democrats take control of the House.

(4) Actions have consequences:

[Dr. Christina] Propst is a pediatrician responsible for the health of our smallest and some of our most vulnerable citizens. Presumably, she pledged an oath to do no harm at some point before her 25-year career began, but deep down, she feels that politics trump that (pun not intended). Over the weekend, she proved that she’s nothing more than a vile, disgusting excuse for a human being.

In a social media post that has since been deleted, Propst wrote (along with a prayer emoji):

May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry.

Kerr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA.

They deny climate change.

May they get what they voted for.

Bless their hearts.

While she may have deleted the post, screenshots last forever, and her statements went viral over the last 24 hours or so.

Initially, her employer, Blue Fish Pediatrics, said she’d been placed on administrative leave, but a new announcement on its website says she has now been fired …

In addition to the bile expressed in her tweet, did she not realize there might be blowback?

(5) Apparently the reason the NY Times published a report about Mamdani’s lying about his race on his Columbia application was that Christopher Rufo was going to scoop them. That makes more sense than any other explanation I was able to come up with. The Times is not in the habit of reporting on things that can hurt the left.