Oh please. Of course there is. I fell off the turnip truck, well, seven decades ago.
This issue came front and center when the Northern District of California (kissing cousins to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals) in San Francisco ruled, once again, against President Trump on behalf of individuals who have not yet even set foot in this country — giving precedence to potential illegals over actual American taxpaying citizens. From TheWashingtonTimes.com:
Trump vows to battle judges after latest immigration court defeat
by Stephen Dinan
President Trump vowed to retaliate Tuesday against liberal judges on the West Coast who he said appear to have it in for him, commenting hours after an Obama-appointed judge delivered yet another legal spanking to the administration on immigration policy.
“I’m going to put in a major complaint, because you cannot win if you’re us,” Mr. Trump said at the White House, facing reporters just before jetting off for a Thanksgiving holiday in Florida.
An interesting point. Another good point is coming.
He said he’s fed up with his opponents’ ability to file cases in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a set of notoriously liberal courts that have ruled against Mr. Trump on everything from the travel ban to sanctuary cities to this latest ruling Tuesday morning blocking his asylum crackdown.
Mr. Trump predicted he will eventually prevail on the asylum case when it reaches the Supreme Court, just as he did after a long back-and-forth on the travel ban.
It was well known in law enforcement arenas that, at one point, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had an 85+ percentile overturn rate. One of my department’s cases, based upon a general order I had written regarding pursuits, went through the 9th Circuit and was overturned by SCOTUS in County of Sacramento v Lewis.
“That’s not law. That’s not what this country stands for. Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten,” he said.
Once out, the statement was taken and splattered throughout American Media Maggot territory. “How dare President Trump rail against our sacred courts?!” the Maggots bleated. “Sinner! Apostate! Impious liar!”
Except that it had happened before. Barack Hussein Obama set precedent when he called out the US Supreme Court to their faces in his January 27th, 2010 State of the Union speech, accusing them of “getting it wrong” on free speech regarding the Citizens United case.
When he said that, Ginsburg woke from her sleep, Sotomayor looked up and Alito frowned and shook his head. At least Trump didn’t invite the justices into Congress just to hock a loogie into their collective faces on television.
For even having shaken his head, Associate Justice Samuel Alito was taken to task immediately by said AMM. Alito dared to “shake his head” and “mouth the words ‘not true’.” Apostate! Heretic! Sinner! Impious liar! How dare you make Squinty Face and go against The Anointed One??
TheHill.com continues with our story.
A judge from the Northern District of California, which has cases appealed to the Ninth Circuit, dealt the administration another legal setback this week by blocking the order denying the asylum. Both courts are based in San Francisco.
U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar late Monday (November 20th) sided with opponents of Trump’s policy prohibiting certain immigrants from claiming asylum, granting their request for a temporary restraining order.
“Whatever the scope of the President’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” Tigar wrote in his 37-page ruling.
Trump on Tuesday dismissed Tigar without naming him, referring to him as “an Obama judge.” Tigar was nominated by the former president in 2012.
The Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, has frustrated Trump repeatedly by ruling against his proposed travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, and a Department of Justice effort to cut off federal funding for so-called sanctuary cities.
Hence, the president’s comments.
Chief Justice John Roberts then decided to weigh in on Trump’s comments. “This is CNN.”
The problem was that, in response, many people happened to believe and say that Chief Justice Roberts was himself quite in error.
But first, let’s start with this story from April of 2017 involving — wait for it — bias on behalf of judges. In this instance, a federal judge with a bias for Barack Hussein Obama.
Judge Who Blocked Trump Sanctuary City Order Bundled $200K for Obama
Federal Judge William Orrick III, who on Tuesday blocked President Trump’s order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, reportedly bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars for President Barack Obama.
Orrick, of the Northern District of California, issued an injunction against the Trump administration after the city of San Francisco and county of Santa Clara sued over the president’s plan to withhold federal funds from municipalities that harbor illegal immigrants.
But wait, there’s more.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge William Orrick III in San Francisco said that Trump’s order targeted broad categories of federal funding for sanctuary governments, and that plaintiffs challenging the order were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional.
The decision will block the measure for now, while the federal lawsuit works its way through the courts.
The news comes on the heels of the Department of Justice threatening on Friday to cut off funding to eight so-called “sanctuary cities,” unless they were able to provide proof to the federal government that they weren’t looking the other way when it came to undocumented immigrants.
Nah. What bias?
The same judge issued a restraining order in 2015 against the advocacy group responsible for undercover videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood employees plotting to sell baby organs.
At the time, The Federalist found that Orrick raised at least $200,000 for Obama and donated more than $30,000 to groups supporting him.
Orrick, 63, also raised money for the failed presidential bid of then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004.
In 2015, President Obama vowed to veto legislation that would have cracked down on sanctuary cities.
Judicial Watch also reported that Obama’s Justice Department granted more than $340 million to sanctuary municipalities as of 2016.
But hey. Remember: judges aren’t biased. Chief Justice Roberts says so. And you can take that to the bank.
First, from Joseph diGenova, former USA for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988, at FoxNews.com:
Justice Roberts’ attack against President Trump was blatantly political and wrong
by Joseph diGenova
In a remarkably inappropriate and blatantly political statement Wednesday, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts chastised President Trump for the president’s quite accurate criticism of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and its rogue district and appellate court judges.
The spectacle of the ostensibly nonpolitical chief justice engaged in a dispute with the president of the United States is insulting to the Supreme Court and to our system of justice.
Shame on the chief justice. What he did is unforgivable, especially after the corrosive Senate confirmation battle over now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was the subject of bitter and baseless partisan attacks and character assassination by Senate Democrats.
With everyone looking for ways to remove the high court from the political thicket, Roberts strode arrogantly right into it. Sad day.
Wait for it.
But President Trump’s criticism of liberal judges in the 9th Circuit who were nominated by President Obama was accurate. These judges previously issued an order blocking the president’s Travel Ban Executive Order that was designed to protect our country from terrorists crossing our borders. As President Trump correctly noted, the Supreme Court later overturned the ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Roberts’ comments seemed particularly strange because he had never injected himself into a political debate before.
Stand by:
In fact, Roberts sat quietly through President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union Address when Obama sharply attacked Supreme Court justices sitting in the audience for their ruling in the Citizens United case, which allowed unlimited political campaign contributions by unions and corporations.
President Obama falsely claimed in this speech that the Citizens United ruling allowed massive political contributions by foreign corporations. It did no such thing.
As the justices sat in the House chamber listening to his speech, President Obama embarrassed the court directly and fiercely. Not a peep from Roberts. Only Justice Samuel Alito quietly mouthed to himself “no, no” as Obama railed against foreign campaign contributions.
Roberts has said nothing about Obama’s remarks in the eight years since.
So why did Roberts attack President Trump on Wednesday? Well, Trump is not a Democrat.
You want bias? There it is. Right there. Timing makes a difference and, as far as I am concerned, there are no longer any “coincidences.”
I’m on a roll. How can I stop the story?
Many believe that Roberts caved to political criticism by President Obama and his Democratic cohorts in a case where Roberts was the decisive vote in a ruling that found ObamaCare was constitutional – a historic victory for Democrats.
Roberts clearly accepted the claim by Democrats in that case that the Supreme Court could not overturn ObamaCare or the high court would forever harm the republic and subvert the legislative process and the will of the people.
It is widely believed that Roberts changed his vote at the last minute to stop the Supreme Court from overturning ObamaCare in that landmark case because of pressure from outside forces directed against him.
Indeed, the wording of various dissents in the ObamaCare case – especially Justice Antonin Scalia’s – made it clear that Roberts’ decision to find that ObamaCare was constitutional was political and nothing more – not a decision based on the Constitution or on the law.
The ObamaCare ruling was a legacy opinion for Roberts because he couldn’t take another wave of criticism like what he received from the liberal media, Obama and the Democrats after his ruling in the Citizens United case. Roberts caved in an obvious nod to the attacks on him. It was palpable and most unfortunate.
Roberts’ ObamaCare opinion had a quality of “oh by the way” and artificiality to it that was apparent to Supreme Court observers.
So Roberts’ pro-Democratic bias that we saw Wednesday is nothing new. It is, in fact, a repetition and a return to normal for him.
Then, of all people, Mark Thiessen from the WaPo.com wrote:
Marc Thiessen: Chief Justice Roberts is wrong. We do have Obama judges and Trump judges.
For someone trying to demonstrate that the judiciary is not political, getting into a political fight with the president sure is a funny way to do it.
After President Trump called a judge who ruled against him an “Obama judge,” Chief Justice John Roberts issued an extraordinary public rebuke of the president, declaring in statement “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” Roberts was not only wrong to speak out, but also his claim that there are no Obama judges or Trump judges was wrong.
If we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, then why did Senate Republicans block President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia in the final year of Obama’s term? And why did Democrats filibuster Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch, to fill Scalia’s seat?
Facts in evidence.
Even Roberts’s fellow justices know there is a difference. If there were no Obama judges or Trump judges, then why did Anthony Kennedy wait for Trump’s election to announce his retirement?
I submit that Kennedy’s retirement wasn’t “pro-Trump.” It was simply this: he’d had enough of the bullshit on both sides.
And why doesn’t Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just retire now and let Trump nominate her replacement? Because they both want a president who would appoint a successor who shares their judicial philosophy. (And, lo and behold, Trump appointed a former Kennedy clerk, Brett Kavanaugh, to succeed him).
The American people know that Roberts is wrong. In the 2016 election, exit polls showed that 70 percent of voters said Supreme Court appointments were either the most important or an important factor in deciding their vote. And polls show that Republicans expanded their Senate majority in 2018 in large part because conservative voters were angered over the left’s brutal campaign of character assassination against Kavanaugh.
There is an “ideal” of course. But it is — after having served seven decades on this planet — simply pie-in-the-sky. Purple clouds. Unicorns. Tiaras by My Little Pony.
Roberts is correct that we should not have “Trump judges” or “Obama judges.” It would be better for the country if every judge, regardless of which president nominated him or her, strictly interpreted our laws and the Constitution. But the reality is that not all do. While conservative presidents tend to nominate judges who exercise a philosophy of judicial restraint — follow our laws as written — liberal presidents tend to nominate judicial activists who legislate from the bench and shape the law to reach their preferred outcomes. The left believes in a “living Constitution,” which can be interpreted to mean whatever they want it to mean without being formally amended.
Stand by for truth.
Democratic presidents have been much more successful than Republicans in nominating judges who hew to their judicial philosophy. Over the past three decades, nearly half of all Republican Supreme Court nominees have either become “swing votes” (Sandra Day O’Connor, Kennedy) or defected to the court’s liberal bloc entirely (David Souter). Even Roberts has joined the court’s liberal bloc at key times, abandoning his judicial philosophy that judges should not legislate from the bench to provide the swing vote to uphold ObamaCare.
Grok this concept:
By contrast, not one liberal justice during the past three decades has defected to the conservative bloc or turned into a regular swing vote.
Let me repeat at the risk of being repetitive:
By contrast, not one liberal justice during the past three decades has defected to the conservative bloc or turned into a regular swing vote.
Whoopsie. Damned facts. Thiessen continues:
Trump is right, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is a disgrace. This is the court that ruled that the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional, that the Second Amendment doesn’t recognize an individual right to bear concealed arms and that bans on assisted suicide are unconstitutional.
Wait for it again.
This is why it is so important that Trump has nominated, and the Senate has confirmed, a record number of district and circuit court judges — and why liberals are aghast at the pace of Trump’s judicial confirmations. As former Hillary Clinton adviser Ronald Klain complained, “Trump’s judicial nominees will be deciding the scope of our civil liberties and the shape of civil rights laws in the year 2050 — and beyond.” Everyone, left and right, knows that Roberts is wrong.
Thiessen wraps with this:
Rolling around in the rhetorical mud with Trump is not just bad form; it also undermines the very judicial independence Roberts is seeking to uphold.
Then there was this in Florida about the elections:
Obama-appointed judges take charge in disputed Florida, Georgia elections
by S.A. Miller & Alex Swoyer
Anyone wondering why Senate Republicans are so intent on approving President Trump’s judicial picks need look no further than Georgia and Florida, where three Obama-appointed jurists have taken charge of ballot counting.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled Thursday that thousands of ballots that failed to strictly follow the rules can still be tallied in Florida — a decision hailed by Democrats as putting the Senate race within their grasp.
In Georgia, two federal judges in separate cases ruled in favor of tallying previously discounted ballots, again winning cheers from Democrats hoping to close the gap in a closely watched race for governor.
And this:
“It tells us that federal court judges are politically driven when rendering decisions,” said Wellesley College political science professor Nancy S. Scherer, author of “Scoring Points: Politicians, Activists and the Lower Federal Court Appointment Process.”
“In fact, they do this with all of their cases, not just the decisions on election outcomes,” Ms. Scherer said.
That is why the Senate Republican leadership made a priority of reshaping the federal judiciary with a conservative bent during Mr. Trump’s first two years.
Hello? Earth to Reality? Nothing that a Demorat president wouldn’t have done had they been in the Oval Orifice. This is obvious. It’s why presidents get changed out in the Oval Office. People get tired of one or the other.
Then this opinion piece from Robert Charles:
Trump is right about biased judges; Schumer acknowledges ‘highly political’ rulings
Like a basketball player who mistakenly shoots into his own basket and scores points for the opposing team, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has inadvertently backed President Trump’s accurate contention that there are liberal judges appointed by Democrats and conservative judges appointed by Republicans who rule differently on cases.
After President Trump criticized U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar of San Francisco on Tuesday for issuing an order to stop Trump’s new emergency restrictions on asylum claims by immigrants from taking effect – calling Tigar “an Obama judge” – Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts issued a rare public statement rebuking the president.
“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts said Wednesday. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
Schumer piled on, criticizing President Trump in a Friday tweet: “I don’t agree very often with Chief Justice Roberts, especially his partisan decisions which seem highly political …. But I am thankful today that he – almost alone among Republicans – stood up to President Trump and for an independent judiciary.”
Wowzer. See what Schumer did there?
OK, stop and think about that tweet. If Schumer calls Roberts a Republican and believes the chief justice issues “partisan decisions which seem highly political” he is corroborating President Trump. The New York Democratic senator sank one for the president.
Further, from Charles:
President Trump’s observation about the 9th Circuit undercuts respect for rulings from that circuit, but the truth hurts. As the old saying goes, “facts are stubborn things.”
Here, the facts are with President Trump, if you look at the numbers. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – where I served as a law clerk many years ago – has swung incontrovertibly to the left over the past 30 years.
Thomas Homan, former Acting Director of ICE, responded to Harris Faulkner:
Suggestion to John Roberts: get off your high horse. The altitude doesn’t suit you. And people can smell the stench of a lie miles away. Yes, certainly we “get” that you have to Support Your Black Robes, all well and good.
But stop with the faux umbrage. It just doesn’t suit you.
BZ