Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
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More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 19, 2024 • 08:35 AM

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Chuck Schumer's Despicable Attack on the Supreme Court Print
By David Harsanyi
Friday, March 06 2020
Schumer's thuggish attack on Kavanaugh and Gorsuch is a transparent attempt to intimidate justices. And wow – a sitting senator threatening an independent judiciary.

"If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices," argued Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78.

If we ever needed a pristine example of why justices are bestowed lifetime appointments and shielded from the vagaries of the electorate and the intimidation tactics of unethical politicians, Chuck Schumer has now provided us with one.

While speaking to pro-abortion protesters in front of the Supreme Court today, the Senate minority leader threatened  there's no other way to put it  two sitting justices with repercussions if they ruled to uphold a Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to gain admitting privileges to hospitals before offering their services to women:

"I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions."

It's conceivable that Schumer  who, like the rest of his party, doesn't have the slightest interest in protecting babies who've survive botched abortions  can't think of any good reason for hospital-admitting privileges. But treating as an "undue burden" any laws that require abortion clinics to provide basic medical facilities for women is just an example of the Democrats' extremism on the issue. Threatening justices over the case is hysterical.

Moreover, Schumer's thuggish attack on Kavanaugh and Gorsuch is a transparent attempt to intimidate justices. And wow  a sitting senator threatening an independent judiciary. Surely the champions of norms and decency will be horrified by this development. When Donald Trump, rather absurdly, demanded that Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse themselves from "Trump-related" Supreme Court cases because of their partisan positions  and, yes Notorious RBG is openly partisan and anti-Trump  it was a major national story. In this case, I suspect we're going to hear a lot about a general "coarsening" of discourse.

Whatever the case, this is an unprecedented attack on Supreme Court justice. And by unprecedented, I mean that you won't be able to unearth an instance in modern history of a member of Congress threatening a justice  by name, no less  for ruling against his wishes. Which is why, I imagine, Chief Justice John Roberts felt the need to release this statement:

"Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter."

Sometimes, in highly charged debates over public policy, the moment gets the better of a person. It's happened to all of us. Yet, rather than walking back his statement, Schumer compounded the ugly behavior by smearing the chief justice as a partisan ideologue, as well.

"For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing's deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes," Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman said in a statement to USA Today. The senator meant only that there would be a "political price Republicans will pay for putting them on the court," Goodman added.

First of all, is Schumer really arguing that being critical of justices is tantamount to threatening them? If that's the case, why, during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address in 2010, did Schumer stand and clap for Obama's norm-breaking attack on the Supreme Court justices who had upheld the First Amendment in Citizens United? It seems clear that Obama was attempting to manipulate the court, as well, but at least he had the decency not to sound like some wannabe Mafioso.

By accusing Roberts of misrepresenting his comments for partisan reasons, Schumer (via his spokesman) is obviously trying to influence the chief justice, as well. But he's lying. Schumer's initial statement specifically and unequivocally named two justices  one of whom he and his colleagues had already attempted to humiliate and defame. He was not calling out the Republicans who put Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the court.

Schumer doesn't have the power to follow through on any threats, thankfully. His attack, like many less obvious ones, is just part of the left's concerted effort to delegitimize the court, denigrate its justices and undermine the legality of its decisions. This isn't surprising; the Constitution  and the jurists who are inclined to uphold it  is the biggest impediment to the progressive agenda. So, expect a lot more of this.


David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and the author of the book "First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History With the Gun." 
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