Late yesterday, the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court again sided with Dave McCormick, ordering counties not to count undated ballots.
It is essential to note this is the second time the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has had to intervene to force Democrats to follow the law. Democrats in the state openly admitted they would break the law to count ballots that they had no proof were legitimate.
The incoming Department of Justice should prosecute the individuals involved and should consider RICO.
It was a brazen, brazen act for Democrats to defy a Supreme Court ruling in an effort to steal an election. After four years of screaming about Donald Trump being a threat to democracy, the Democrats have become the threat they claimed Trump was.
In Coffee County, Georgia, the state prosecuted a Board of Elections worker for giving unauthorized access to the Trump team after the 2020 election.
In Pennsylvania, now, Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said, “”I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country,” before proceeding to defy the Supreme Court’s order.
The only way to ensure precedent by a court does matter is to prosecute those who defy the court.
“People violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes,” Ellis-Marseglia said.
I wonder how she likes the color orange? Over to you, Matt Gaetz.
Senate Republicans, Please Do Better
Joe Biden just got a seat filled on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals because Senators Braun, Daines, Fetterman, Hagerty, Rubio, and Vance did not show up to vote. Those are all Republican Senators. Had they been there, they’d have joined Joe Manchin’s no vote and killed the nominee.
That’s one less seat on a Court of Appeals that Trump can fill because of Republican no-shows. The nominee in this case has argued that laws against child rape are racist.
Embry J. Kidd now has a lifetime appointment.
CNN Reporter Wonders Who’ll Pick the Cotton
It really is a damning indictment on the press and left that they’re so okay with a class of serfs in this country to do the work. It’s just a practical matter of reality for them. Watch Matt Egan talking to Dana Bash and then let me note a few things.
First, there are between 11 and 15 million illegal aliens in this country, but he can only document 1.7 million in the food/agriculture space.
Second, he and CNN continue to use the ridiculous phrase “undocumented immigrants,” despite knowing the numbers. So they’re documented, but undocumented, because the left — and it was and is the left — do not want them called “illegal alien.” That, in and of itself, is discrediting to the press.
Third, so? They are not supposed to be here. That the press corps is utterly unbothered by a massive wave of illegal aliens flooding the country and that the press thinks mass deportations are controversial when over 70% of Americans suppport them just speaks to how out of touch with reality the press is.
Again, they are not supposed to be here. We can talk about migrant worker programs, etc. But let’s start with respect for the border and existing laws.
Fourth, Trump’s team has made clear they’re going to start with felons, gang members, etc. Scaring everybody right now about mass inflation, the collapse of the agriculture sector, etc. is just parroting Democrat talking points of worst case scenarios — something the press does all the time with Trump.
Lastly, and again, so what? The idea that we need serfs to pick the cotton is an infuriating recognition that Democrats are fine with a slave class even all these years after the Civil War and much of the press is too.
Bonus points: the real issue is that the census counts even illegal immigrants for congressional reapportionment purposes. Democrats are using illegal immigrants to pad the populations of blue states. Right now, California is expected to lose up to 4 seats in the 2030 reapportionment. But if you deport all the illegal aliens in California, it could lose 6 to 8 seats total. Democrats need illegal immigrants to game the Electoral College.
About That Comment
Yesterday, Fred left us. In leaving us, Fred left us this gem.
I am holding the expletive that this piece warrants. I am done here. Canceling my subscription and encouraging others to do the same.
Erick, with this, you are branded the enemy of the good people of this country. You are one of them. You are an upper class political media chattering class bot that is the exact type of person in the media that we just elected to rid ourselves of. I am done with your types… time to lump you into the basket of real evil that is basically the collection of self-anointed superiors that scold the rest of us for being not good enough to occupy your hallowed life-space.
Name a damn Trump appointment that you have not jumped to oppose.
Why the hell does anyone buy your inauthentic brand of conservative? You are just one of the media Trump Deranged trying to carve out a niche of hate of regular Americans to fund your upper class life-style.
Yes, worldview matters, and I have had enough with yours.
So, because I think a gun grabbing pro-abortionist who opposes red dye number five is not a good person to put in charge of one quarter of the federal government’s entire discretionary budget, I am “the enemy of good people” and “real evil.”
The other reason to oppose a man who seemingly drove his wife to commit suicide and then would not give her family her body is because these weirdly deranged nuts come out of the woodwork. Fred does not actually seem to have a worldview, but a leg he wants to hump and an ear he wants tickled.
Additionally, Fred asked me to “[n]ame a damn Trump appointment that you have not jumped to oppose.”
Well, let’s do that. In part and I’m sure I’m forgetting some,
- Marco Rubio
- Chris Wright
- Mike Huckabee
- John Ratcliffe
- Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
- Pete Hegseth
- Susie Wiles
- Stephen Miller
- Mike Waltz
- Tom Homan
- Lee Zeldin
- Elise Stefanik
- Steven Witkoff
- John Sauer
- Will Scharf
- Brendan Carr
In fact, Dr. Bhattacharya would be the perfect head of HHS, not just NIH. And the Mom’s For Liberty lady in charge of the Department of Education would be fantastic if that happens, though I continue to believe the Department of Education should go to Corey DeAngelis.
Speaking Of Good Nominees…
Last night, President-Elect Trump nominated former Congressman Sean Duffy to be Secretary of Transportation. Duffy has no real experience in transportation, but then neither did Pete Buttigieg and the press did not care. Mayor Pete got the job because he’s gay, liked trains, and the press wanted a diversity pick, not a qualified Secretary of Transportation.
That’s the hard and painful truth that Democrats scream about. But it is true and has given Duffy a lesson in how not to behave as Transportation Secretary, e.g. taking a paternity leave to go tour the country with a hagiographic documentary about you, etc.
Duffy did not serve as a Mayor, but was a District of Attorney from 2002-2011 and then a member of Congress from 2011 to 2019. If Buttigieg was qualified, Duffy is more than qualified.
He’s also a genuinely nice person who will make a great addition to President-Elect Trump’s cabinet. I’ve backed Sean Duffy since he ran for Congress in 2010 and am glad to say the Senate should confirm him as soon as possible.
Lina Khan Kills American Jobs
Some in the incoming Trump Administration, including Vice President-Elect Vance, are fans of Lina Khan, the progressive socialist Chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
Republicans would be wise to toss her out onto the street as soon as possible.
Khan led the effort to block the merger between Spirit Airlines and JetBlue. Spirit claimed they needed a merger to survive. Yes, technically, it was the Department of Justice that led the lawsuit, but Khan at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at the DOJ were widely believed to be collaborative about the potential merger. Khan and Kanter both oppose corporate growth in the name of consumer protections that often hurt consumers.
JetBlue argued it could expand routes and discounted fares if allowed to merge into Spirit. For example, JetBlue has a very limited presence at the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta, Georgia. Combining with Spirit would have increased JetBlue’s gate access and forced Delta and Southwest to lower prices at the busiest airport hub on planet Earth.
That’s just one example.
But Khan did not buy the argument, and the federal government went to the mats to stop the merger. Now, Spirit Airlines is filing for bankruptcy. It will have to restructure, which will cost Americans jobs and cheap airfares. JetBlue already laid off employees and cut back hours for others.
Khan has no business at the FTC and the Trump Administration should pay attention to these crusades against mergers. In the name of protecting consumers, the FTC has hurt consumers and employees at Spirit and JetBlue.
Precedent and Power
As Donald Trump’s first term collapsed into madness after January 6, 2021, Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) tried to get Congress to pass a law ending the National Emergencies Act, passed in 1976, or to restrict it significantly.
McGovern’s efforts were killed by global warming alarmists who insisted that Biden could and should use the Act to declare a Climate Emergency, thereby giving the President broad powers to act. Democrats listened to the climate activists and ignored McGovern.
Donald Trump will now use the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to declare a border crisis and use the military to participate in mass deportations of illegal aliens.
Precedent matters, even the ones that are ultimately not enacted. The Democrats learned this when Harry Reid scrapped the filibuster.
Now, however, Trump is in danger of setting his own precedent. Some lawyers claim he can force Congress into recess to bypass the Senate on executive appointments. He’d like to try it.
This runs against the Scalia concurrence in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, 573 U.S. 513 (2014). That unanimous case, written by Justice Breyer held that the President cannot use short recesses to appoint.
Scalia, in a concurrence joined by John Roberts, Sam Alito, and Clarence Thomas, argued for a clearer rule and line. Scalia specifically argued,
To prevent the President’s recess-appointment power from nullifying the Senate’s role in the appointment process, the Constitution cabins that power in two significant ways. First, it may be exercised only in “the Recess of the Senate,” that is, the intermission between two formal legislative sessions. Second, it may be used to fill only those vacancies that “happen during the Recess,” that is, offices that become vacant during that intermission. Both conditions are clear from the Constitution’s text and structure and both were well understood at the founding.
Scalia went on to note that the problem with the Breyer written opinion was that, “The Court’s decision transforms the recess-appointment power from a tool carefully designed to fill a narrow and specific need into a weapon to be wielded by future Presidents against future Senates.”
Trump wants to force an adjournment of Congress to fill vacancies that existed while the Senate was in session as a way to put in those he fears the Senate might not confirm.
It is true that these “intrasession” appointments have been made in the past for various positions, but even the Supreme Court noted that, based on the evidence, it is not likely many were to fill appointments that were vacant while Congress was actually in session. George W. Bush alone had 171 recess appointments. 165 of those were also nominees for the position for the Senate to consider. 162 of the 165 had already been nominated and were pending before the Senate. However, none were particularly controversial or designed to bypass the Senate actively until Obama tried to pack the National Labor Relations Board, which is the Noel Canning case. In fact, almost all of Bush’s recess appointees were confirmed. But, most notably, Bush did not rig the adjournment of the Senate to make the appointment.
Again, as Scalia noted in 2014, joined by Roberts, Alito, and Thomas:
Washington’s and Adams’ Attorneys General read the Constitution to restrict recess appointments to vacancies arising during the recess, and there is no evidence that any of the first four Presidents consciously departed from that reading. The contrary reading was first defended by an executive official in 1823, was vehemently rejected by the Senate in 1863, was vigorously resisted by legislation in place from 1863 until 1940, and is arguably inconsistent with legislation in place from 1940 to the present. The Solicitor General has identified only about 100 appointments that have ever been made under the broader reading, and while it seems likely that a good deal more have been made in the last few decades, there is good reason to doubt that many were made before 1940 (since the appointees could not have been compensated). I can conceive of no sane constitutional theory under which this evidence of “historical practice”—which is actually evidence of a long-simmering inter-branch conflict—would require us to defer to the views of the Executive Branch.
Dismissing Congress in order to fill positions with nominees the Senate would not confirm is a dangerous precedent that I would not want any Democrat President to deploy. We fought and won against Obama trying something similar. This needs to be opposed as well.
