Category Archives: Constitution

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, July 16, 2019: 

When Donald Trump took office in January 2017, there were more than a hundred judicial court vacancies waiting for him to fill. With Senate confirmation of Daniel Bress to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week, thanks to retirements since then, the president has filled 127 vacancies.

And the impact of his “originalist” appointments is now beginning to be felt.

Although most attention has been paid to the confirmation battles over Supreme Court nominees Neal Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, it’s the appeals courts which do the heavy lifting — or as Caleb Parker of Fox News put it, these are the “big leagues” of the judiciary system. That’s because, of the 7,000 cases sent to the Supreme Court for judicial review every year, it accepts only around one percent of them. This leaves the decisions made at the appeals level in place.

The numbers tell part of the story.

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, June 19, 2019: 

Don’t call them popular vote supporters. Call them by their real name: Electoral College abolishers, and along with it, the American Republic.

The Founders knew their history. Said John Adams: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” His eldest son, John Quincy Adams, agreed: “The experience of all former ages has shown that, of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating, and short-lived.”

So did the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison: “Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Supporters of the National Popular Vote coalition don’t seem to care. Instead they are promoting direct democracy. The group claims that such a move “would make every person’s vote equal throughout the U.S. It would ensure that every vote, in every state, will matter in every presidential election.”

It would do no such thing, according to Constitutional scholar and Gettysburg College professor Allen Guelzo. A week after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Guelzo wrote that complaints that Trump won only in the Electoral College but not the popular vote were understandable, but unjustified in light of the Founders’ original intents: “The Electoral College is at the core of our system of federalism.” He added:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, June 17, 2019:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he was fulfilling a campaign promise on Friday when he signed into law a bill prohibiting local municipalities from adopting “sanctuary city” laws. The new law, which becomes effective next month, also requires law-enforcement officials in the state to “cooperate” with federal ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials when they present a “detainer request” on individuals being held on criminal charges in the state. The new law also provides sanctions for law-enforcement officials who don’t comply.

Tweeted DeSantis:

Earlier this year I made a promise that we would ban sanctuary cities in Florida and today we are delivering on that promise.

 

I am proud to sign the bill … to uphold the law and ensure that our communities are safe.

Then the governor compared sanctuary cities to “gun-free zones”:

Sanctuary cities basically created law-free zones where people can come to our state illegally and our country illegally, commit criminal offenses and then just walk right out the door and continue to do it.

Upon learning about the action of DeSantis, President Trump tweeted:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, May 15, 2019: 

The bill that just passed the Alabama State Senate banning almost all abortions in the Yellowhammer State was designed specifically to challenge the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The bill — House Bill 314, the “Human Life Protection Act” — declares that a fetus is a human being with all inherent rights, and that a provider performing an abortion that ends that life could be sentenced to life in prison. There are no exceptions for rape or incest; the only one is when “an abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk” to the mother.

The bill’s sponsor, Representative Terri Collins, called the bill a “direct attack” on Roe v. Wade, adding, “The heart of this bill is to confront a decision that was made by the court in 1973 that said the baby in the womb is not a person. This bill addresses that one issue. Is that baby in the womb a person? I believe our law says it is.”

The ACLU of Alabama, along with the National ACLU and Planned Parenthood, is preparing a lawsuit to challenge the bill even though it has yet to be signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey. She is expected to sign it, but even if she doesn’t, the strong majorities in both houses that passed the bill would be more than sufficient to override her veto.

The legislation was drafted by Eric Johnston,