Category: The Courts

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Corruption How sick is this? Politics The Courts

Roe v Wade Opinion: Republicans Decry Supreme Court Leak, Democrats Call to End Filibuster

Amazing how fast these PROFESSIONALLY printed signs showed up. Coincidence?
It’s amazing how fast these PROFESSIONALLY printed signs showed up. The leak was not made public until Monday afternoon, yet by dark protesters already had professionally printed signs. Coincidence?

 

Republicans in Congress on May 2 decried the leak of a Supreme Court opinion which would end legal protections for abortion, while Democrats called for the end of the Senate filibuster to preempt the court’s ruling.

Politico published a leaked opinion on May 2 authored by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The opinion, written in February, shows that Alito believed at the time that four other justices have voted in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, the decades-old Supreme Court precedent which prohibited states from making laws restricting access to abortions.

The leak is unprecedented and represents a major breach of decorum and trust within the court, which is known for its cordial fellowship.

“The Supreme Court’s confidential deliberation process is sacred & protects it from political interference. This breach shows that radical Democrats are working even harder to intimidate & undermine the Court. It was always their plan. The justices cannot be swayed by this attack,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote on Twitter.

“This leak is outrageous & dangerous. I pray & remain hopeful SCOTUS stays true to this potential decision, but this unprecedented, intentional leak is malicious & threatens the independence of our highest court,” Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) wrote on Twitter.

“This unprecedented leak of a draft ruling is an effort to overtly inject politics into the court itself. This individual should not be celebrated. They should be held accountable for their egregious breach. I am praying for the safety of all the Justices during these extraordinarily challenging and unprecedented times,” Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) wrote on Twitter.

Democrats, in the meantime, called for the end of the filibuster so that the Senate can pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would legalize abortion up to the point of birth nationwide.

“Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW. And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) wrote on Twitter.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), responding directly to Sanders on Twitter, wrote: “Let’s change the rules of the Senate to pass a federal law legalizing the killing of unborn children right up to the day of delivery.”

“This is utterly shameful but we can stop it. The Senate MUST end the filibuster and codify Roe,” Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) wrote on Twitter.

“There is no time left to wait. We need to abolish the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade, ” Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.) wrote on Twitter.

A number of Democrats called for the passage of the act but did not mention ending the filibuster to do so: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), and Rep. Don Breyer (D-Va.)

A small number of Democrats in Congress called for the expansion of the Supreme Court as a way to fight back.

“There is no other recourse. We must expand the court,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote on Twitter.

“#ExpandTheCourt and pass the Women’s Health Protection Act!” Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) wrote on Twitter.

Several Republican lawmakers celebrated the opinion, while Democrats lamented what the decision would bring about.

“I was a senior in high school when Roe v. Wade was decided,” Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) said in a statement. “I didn’t understand abortion then, and I don’t understand it now. Killing an innocent human life is simply incomprehensible to me. I am optimistic that these reports are true, and that the Supreme Court will do the right thing, finally overturning this travesty of a decision.”

“This draft is harrowing and blatantly ignores 50 years of settled law with a complete disregard to the fundamental rights of women. We can not go back to a time when women couldn’t make decisions about their own bodies,” Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) wrote on Twitter.

Original here:

Isn’t it amazing how this was leaked to a LEFT-LEANING website?

And how quickly the demonstrators appeared with PROFESSIONALLY crafted signage?

The SCOTUS responds:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday responded to the leak of a draft ruling and confirmed its authenticity, issuing a statement from Chief Justice John Roberts, who called the leak “a betrayal of the confidences” of the institution. “To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations,” Roberts wrote, “it will not succeed,” adding that the “work of the Court will not be affected in any way.”

Roberts also said he directed the Marshal of the Supreme Court to carry out an investigation into the leak and the individual who leaked it to the press. Should the leaker be identified, it’s not clear what punitive actions will be taken against them, although Roberts said the leak could be considered a significant breach of trust.

Source:

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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections Politics The Courts

Surprise, surprise! Nonprofit behind ‘Sedition’ lawsuits is Leftist funded and run.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., talks to the media about her suspended accounts on Twitter, during a news conference, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
By Mark Tapscott for Epoch Times April 27, 2022
Updated: April 29, 2022

Just minutes after Donald Trump was sworn in as president in January 2017, Free Speech for People (PFS), working with RootsAction, another obscure left-wing activist group, launched the website ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org.

The Trump impeachment website remains live today, but PFS has moved on from years of seeking to drive the embattled Trump from the Oval Office to now trying to remove four of his strongest congressional supporters from their respective November 2022 ballots.

Although officially a nonpartisan educational nonprofit, PFS’s most notable activities since being organized in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision have all been directed at Trump and other Republicans.

Most recently, PFS made headlines with litigation it filed against four House Republicans and one Arizona Republican state representative seeking to have state courts remove the officials’ names from the November ballot.

An Arizona Superior Court judge rejected PFS’s request to remove U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, both Arizona congressmen, and Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem from the November ballot.The PFS lawsuit stated that the lawmakers’ alleged efforts in support of the January 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol amounted to participation in an insurrection seeking to bring down the federal government.

Biggs and Gosar are seeking reelection to the U.S. House, while Finchem seeks to be elected as Arizona’s secretary of state.

Judges in North Carolina and Georgia are hearing similar suits brought by PFS-backed plaintiffs seeking the ouster of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from the November ballots in their states.

An analysis by The Epoch Times and the Capital Research Center (CRC) of available public records for PFS reveals a top leadership with deep ties throughout far-left precincts of liberal and progressive nonprofit political activism and funding from numerous well-known and some not-so-familiar liberal foundations.
A total of 91 grants to PFS from left-wing foundations with a value in excess of $7.3 million were found by CRC using the Foundation Search database.

Among the grants received between 2012 and 2019 were these: two grants (totaling $750,000) from the Schumann Media Center in New York; nine grants ($485,000) from the National Philanthropic Trust of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania; four grants ($375,000) from the Gaia Fund of San Francisco; five grants ($365,000) from the Madrona Foundation in Seattle; six grants ($255,000) from the Clements Foundation in Wilmington, Delaware.

Other notable grants during the period included four totaling $249,148 from the Tides Foundation in San Francisco; three grants ($205,000) from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York; two grants ($60,000) from the Rockefeller Family Fund; and four grants ($54,670) from the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund in Boston.

The funding from the Tides Foundation is notable because, in the 1970s, the San Francisco nonprofit pioneered the dark money fund that first provided a way for liberal donors to send large sums to support favored and oftentimes extremely controversial causes but without their names being publicly linked to the recipients.

The contribution is instead officially credited to Tides.

Such “donor-advised” funds are now common across the ideological and political spectrum.

The PFS 2020 IRS 990 tax return indicated that President John Bonifaz received nearly $217,000 in compensation that year, while legal director Ronald Fein was paid more than $159,000 for the period.

The depth of PFS links throughout the vast network of far-left liberal and progressive political activist nonprofits is seen in this analysis by InfluenceWatch, a CRC publication that specializes in reporting on such connections:

“Free Speech For People is led by a team with strong ties to the political left. John Bonifaz, founder of Free Speech for People, is the founder and former executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute (NVRI), a left-of-center electoral advocacy group.

“PFS chairman Ben Clements also sits as a board member for Stop Handgun Violence and works on the advisory committee of the Boston chapter of the American Constitution Society.

“Steve Cobble, [former] senior political adviser for Free Speech for People, [was] an assistant fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank.

“Cobble is also a co-founder of Progressive Democrats of America, an organization that aims to support the Democratic Party and advocate for an agenda focused on fighting climate change and expanding public healthcare.”

Other PFS officials have similarly left-wing backgrounds. Alexandra Flores-Quilty, who is PFS’s campaign director, was previously executive director of We the People, an activist group that organizes mass protest marches against Trump.

Kristen Eastlick, CRC vice president, told The Epoch Times that “while this organization [PFS] was founded in the wake of the Citizens United decision, the group’s agenda has expanded beyond generic campaign finance activism into partisan hackery—from their effort to launch ImpeachDonaldTrump.org as soon as he took the oath of office to their efforts to remove individuals from appearing on ballots.”

“Free Speech for People might be the name, but if political speech is the bedrock form of free speech, then eliminating the people’s election options is an assault on that freedom,” she said.

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Corruption Politics The Courts

Former Democratic Pennsylvania AG arrested after allegedly driving drunk while on probation

Some people never learn.

Kane previously served prison time after her 2016 conviction.
By Louis Casiano | Fox News

Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane surrendered to law enforcement Friday for an alleged probation violation after being charged last month in a drunk driving case.

Kane, 55, turned herself in to authorities in Montgomery County after a judge issued a warrant for her arrest, Fox affiliate WTXF-TV reported. She is being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility outside Philadelphia.

Kane was found behind the wheel of an Audi on March 12 by Scranton police officers, who were called to respond to a two-car crash. She denied she had been drinking and pointed to her passenger, who said: “It’s totally not me,” according to an affidavit obtained by the news outlet.

Kathleen Kane, the former Pennsylvania attorney general who served jail time for leaking grand jury material and lying about it was taken into custody Friday on an alleged probation violation. 

Kathleen Kane, the former Pennsylvania attorney general was taken into custody Friday on an alleged probation violation.  (Montgomery County / AP)

She said she had picked her sister up and was giving her a ride.

The other driver told authorities that Kane drove into his vehicle at an intersection and that he smelled alcohol on her. Kane allegedly sprayed perfume on herself before officers arrived and offered to pay for the damage to the other vehicle.

The driver called the police. Surveillance video shows Kane had been drinking prior to the crash at a restaurant, authorities said. She also failed a field sobriety test and refused a blood test, police said.

She had watery, bloodshot eyes and slurred her words — police said she had trouble saying the word “designated” — and failed a field sobriety test, the documents said.

Kane was a rising star when she resigned in 2016 after being convicted of perjury, obstruction and other counts for leaking secret investigative files to embarrass a rival prosecutor, the news outlet said. 

Kathleen Kane.

Kathleen Kane. (WTTG)

She was eventually sentenced to 23 months in prison and released in 2019. At the time of the crash, she was on probation.

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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections Faked news Politics The Courts

“None of Them Should Be in Jail. They Should All Be Out On Bail…It Is an American Gulag” – Judge Napolitano

By Joe Hoft for Gateway Pundit April 14, 2022 at 7:25pm

Judge Napolitano was on The Joe Hoft Show at the Real Talk radio network today.  He discussed the Jan 6 incident and the horrors of the abuse taking place in DC.

Judge Napolitano was on The Joe Hoft Show at the Real Talk radio network today. He discussed the Jan 6 incident and the horrors of the abuse taking place in DC.

The judge shared the following about those being held in the DC jail due to their actions on Jan 6.

None of them should be in jail.  They should all be out on bail. Most jails are garbage, particularly inner city jails.  There’s no political support for spending an nickele in there.  Politicians don’t care because the public doesn’t care.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise.

But what’s surprising is that they have been attacked violently and that they’ve been subjected to a disgusting environment for more than a few hours and that they’re in jail to begin with.  I mean none of these people is a threat to society and all of them would gladly come back at time of trial and most of them shouldn’t be charged anyway because most of them are there to partake in 1st Amemdment protected behavior.

The judge then talked about reading a piece by Roger Stone about the heartbreaking stories in the DC jail and then the Virginia state jail system.

The Feds are trying to wear these people down.  They’re way overcharging them so they can get guilty pleas and they’re making their lives miserable so that the defendants will say to their lawyers, ‘get me out of here’, or ‘I’ll agree to testify to anything, just so I can have a decent night sleep and a decent shower and a decent meal.’  It shouldn’t be that way.  It is an American Gulag.  

Judge Nap went on to say:

Judges don’t like to tell jailers how to do their jails but when it’s a violation of a constitutional right, the judges should.  The judges should be releasing these people, like I said.  They should be released on a moderate amount of bail because the Constitution prohibits requiring an unreasonable amount of bail…The overwhelming majority are not accused of an act of violence…There’s every indication that these people should be given bail and they’re not…Judges are not doing their job.  This stuff should make its way to the Supreme Court of the United States which rarely hears matters involving bail or conditions in prison unless a cause of death.  But it needs to be exposed and it needs to be corrected.

Original here (includes video)

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Corruption Elections Politics The Courts

Zuckerberg Ends Controversial Grants to Election Offices

Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors” in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC on October 23, 2019. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP) (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
By Matthew Vadum for Epoch Times  April 13, 2022

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who in the 2020 election cycle flooded election offices across the United States with hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, won’t be participating in such grantmaking this year, according to a spokesman.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, made $419.5 million in donations to nonprofits—“Zuckerbucks” or “Zuckbucks,” as some have called the money—$350 million of which went to the “Safe Elections” Project of the left-wing Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL). The other $69.5 million went to the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The CTCL reportedly distributed grants to upward of 2,500 election offices.

Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBolt, who was previously spokesman for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the donations were a one-time deal.

“As Mark and Priscilla made clear previously, their election infrastructure donation to help ensure that Americans could vote during the height of the pandemic was a one-time donation given the unprecedented nature of the crisis,” LaBolt told The New York Times on April 12. “They have no plans to repeat that donation.”

The money was supposed to be used to buy personal protective equipment and new ballot-counting equipment, train poll workers, and expand mail-in voting.

But critics have a less charitable take on what happened. They say the Zuckerbergs helped buy the presidency for presidential candidate Joe Biden by improperly influencing election officials and artificially driving up turnout in Democrat, but not Republican, strongholds across the nation.

Author J.D. Vance, who’s seeking the Republican nod for the Ohio U.S. Senate seat, said on April 12 on the campaign trail that he believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen through fraud. Illegal ballot harvesting and Zuckerberg putting money into Democratic turnout in battleground states were also key in the election, he said.

The donations spawned a series of lawsuits across the country. For example, last month, the Thomas More Society filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission claiming that Milwaukee officials were involved in an election bribery scheme for accepting election-assistance money from CTCL, as The Epoch Times reported.

Grants to election administrators created “a two-tiered election system that treated voters differently depending on whether they lived in Democrat or Republican strongholds,” Phill Kline, director of the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, wrote in a report in late 2020.

“This privatization of elections undermines the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which requires state election plans to be submitted to federal officials and approved, and requires respect for equal protection by making all resources available equally to all voters,” Kline wrote.

Several states, including Florida, subsequently banned private donations to election offices.

In May 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the state’s new election integrity law, which, in addition to prohibiting the use of private funds to administer elections, also banned ballot harvesting and mass mailing of ballots, and strengthened voter identification requirements.

“Florida took action this legislative session to increase transparency and strengthen the security of our elections,” DeSantis said at the time, as The Epoch Times reported. “Floridians can rest assured that our state will remain a leader in ballot integrity. Elections should be free and fair, and these changes will ensure this continues to be the case in the Sunshine State.”

Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) President J. Christian Adams, a former U.S. Justice Department civil rights attorney whose group frequently files election integrity lawsuits, said at the time that the Zuckerbergs’ money had a huge influence on the 2020 elections.

“Zuckbucks were the biggest factor, juicing blue areas in 2020,” Adams said around the time Florida cracked down on private money being used in election administration.

“A private citizen should not be allowed to influence how our elections are run. At the Public Interest Legal Foundation, we are proud to have played a role in ensuring that this money will not be spent to influence the Florida elections in 2022.”

CTCL Executive Director Tiana Epps-Johnson said earlier this week that her group is launching a new five-year, $80 million program called the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence to assist election offices across the United States.

Bolt said the Zuckerbergs won’t be involved in the new project.

So why isn’t he in Jail? Answer: $$$$$$$

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Corruption Elections Politics The Courts

Here’s hoping: Durham Asks Court to Compel Production From Clinton Campaign, DNC

FILE - This 2018 portrait released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Connecticut's U.S. Attorney John Durham. Durham, the federal prosecutor tapped to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, has been presenting evidence before a grand jury as part of his probe, a person familiar with the matter said Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP, File)
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/09/john-durham.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200

Crossfire Hurricane

By Zachary Stieber for the Epoch Times April 7, 2022

Special counsel John Durham’s team on April 6 asked a federal judge to force Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and two other parties to hand over documents they claim are protected by attorney–client privilege.

The campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and research and intelligence firm Fusion GPS appear to be withholding documents that aren’t actually protected by the privilege, Durham’s team said in the filing, entered in the case against ex-Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Of the withheld materials, almost all “appear to lack any connection to actual or expected litigation or the provision of legal advice,” prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee who is overseeing the case.

In fact, of the 1,455 documents being withheld by Fusion GPS, only 18 emails and attachments are said to involve an attorney.

The Clinton campaign, the DNC, and Fusion didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The documents in question are being sought for the upcoming trial of Sussmann, who was charged with lying to the FBI for going to a bureau lawyer in 2016 and falsely stating he didn’t hand over unsubstantiated claims about then-candidate Donald Trump on behalf of a client.

The claims were compiled with funding from the campaign and the DNC by former British spy Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, which was founded by former reporters.

Sussmann and his lawyers have been pressing the judge to dismiss the case prior to trial, arguing that the lie about not bringing the information on behalf of a client wasn’t material to the information itself.

Attorney–client privilege protects many communications between a client and their lawyer. Disclosure to third parties usually undercuts privilege claims.

In the new filing, Durham’s team pointed out that Fusion GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch penned a book published in 2019, which means even if a valid privilege did once exist, it might have since been waived.

Prosecutors also noted that Fusion GPS operatives regularly communicated with reporters about their work, resulting in several stories before the 2020 election and a spate of others after voters hit the polls.

Further, the Clinton campaign (HFA) and the DNC have claimed privilege over communications sent between Rodney Joffe, whom Sussmann was also representing at the time, and a Fusion operative, “despite the fact that no one from either the DNC or HFA is copied on certain of these communications,” prosecutors said.

The government subpoenaed information from the parties in 2021.

Fusion GPS was paid by the Democratic entities through Perkins Coie, a law firm. The agreement was introduced as an exhibit in the case.

Many if not most of the actions taken by Fusion GPS employees “do not appear to have been a necessary part of, or even related to” Perkins Coie’s legal advice to the campaign and the DNC, Durham’s team said.

Prosecutors want to examine the communications in a private, in-camera setting “in order to resolve these issues and ensure that only legitimately privileged and/or attorney work product-protected communications and testimony be withheld from the otherwise admissible evidence and testimony that is presented to the jury at trial.”

The trial is currently set to start on May 16.

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Corruption Elections Politics The Courts

Judge Tosses Maryland Congressional Map Over ‘Extreme Partisan Gerrymandering’

The Maryland State Capitol Building in Annapolis, Md., in a file image. By Zachary Stieber for Epoch Times  March 26, 2022

A Maryland judge on March 25 threw out a congressional map lawmakers recently enacted, ruling that it was a product of “extreme partisan gerrymandering.”

Anne Arundel County Senior Judge Lynne Battaglia, an appointee of former Democrat Gov. Glendening, found that the map unconstitutionally was aimed at reducing the power of Republican voters because it shifted the only GOP member of Congress representing Maryland, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), into a different district, where he was likely to lose.

The new map, approved by Democrat state lawmakers in Maryland in late 2021, left Democrats with an estimated advantage in every single one of the eight congressional districts, according to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

Further, Sean Trende, an elections analyst tapped by plaintiffs, found through voting simulations that Democrats would likely win all eight districts.

Trende testified in the case that the map was drawn “with an intent to hurt the Republican party’s chances of letting anyone in Congress” and “dilutes and diminishes the ability of Republicans to elect candidates of choice.”

Allan Lichtman, another analyst, told the court that Trende’s analysis was lacking and that he believed the map was actually tilted towards Republicans compared to previous maps, which would lead to the GOP gaining seats in the 2022 midterm elections. But he drew criticism from the judge when he falsely said the map did not pit Harris against Rep. Kewisi Mfume (D-Md.) in Maryland’s Seventh Congressional District—Harris moved to Cambridge after the map was enacted so he could defend the seat he holds—and he acknowledged under cross-examination that Democrats did not lose seats during midterm elections during former President Barack Obama’s time in office.

Battaglia said she found Trende’s testimony and analysis compelling and ruled that the map “is an outlier and product of extreme partisan gerrymandering.”

She ordered the General Assembly to develop a new plan “that is constitutional.”

The ruling came after voters represented by Fair Maps Maryland and Judicial Watch sued over the map.

“Judge Battaglia’s ruling confirms what we have all known for years—Maryland is ground zero for gerrymandering, our districts and political reality reek of it, and there is abundant proof that it is occurring,” Doug Mayer, spokesman for Fair Maps Maryland, said in a statement.

“This key court victory against abusive partisan gerrymandering by Democrats in Maryland could set a national precedent,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Members of the legislature on the General Assembly commission that was in charge of making the map did not respond to requests for comment.

Maryland  Sen. Bill Ferguson and state Del. Adrienne Jones, both Democrats and members of the panel, said in a joint statement after the map was enacted that it “provides cleaner lines and more compact districts while keeping a significant portion of Marylanders in their current districts, ensuring continuity of representation.”

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, has not decided on whether an appeal will be lodged, his office told The Epoch Times in an email.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who formed a body that recommended a different map, said the ruling “puts in plain view the partisan, secretive, and rigged process that led to the legislature’s illegal and unconstitutional maps” and called on lawmakers to adopt the map drawn up by the body.

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Corruption Crime Politics The Courts

City Under Siege: Staggering New York Crime Wave Roils Politics, Challenges Left

March 23, 2022 | Judicial Watch

The NYPD’s new anti-gun units hit the streets last week and not a moment too soon. New York City is in the midst of a staggering crime wave.

Over the past weekend, 29 people were shot in 24 separate incidents, the Daily News reported. According to the latest NYPD statistics, major felonies in the city increased 58% in February 2022, in year over year comparisons to February 2021. Murders rose 10%. Felony assaults rose 22%. Rapes increased 35%. Robberies increased 56%. Hate crimes—largely against Jews and Asian-Americans—surged 189%. Crimes in the transit systems—mainly the subways—were up 73%.

New York is a city under siege. Every day brings a new horror story. A child is assaulted in Times Square. A young woman is stabbed to death in her Chinatown apartment. A senior citizen is hacked to death by a wheelchair-bound transgender two-time convicted murderer. A madman smears feces on a woman’s face in a subway station, is released on bail, and arrested again after hurling a dumbbell through a window. A woman is shoved in front of a subway train and killed. Another woman is attacked with a hammer. A teen is shot to death in front of a Brooklyn high school. A baby is shot in the face in the Bronx. A teenage cashier at a Burger King in Manhattan is shot and killed during a robbery. Two police officers are killed by gunfire in Harlem.

At Judicial Watch, we warned for years that New York was slipping toward a crisis of crime and disorder. The reasons were not difficult to discern. Progressive policy makers were denigrating and defunding the police at every opportunity, dismantling successful policing units, decriminalizing quality-of-life crimes, emptying  jails, and launching a disastrous program of bail reform.

Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York abandoned the successful policing strategy of enforcing quality-of-life laws. This was the “Broken Windows” theory of policing, a key factor in crime reduction during the mayoral tenure of Rudy Giuliani.

“Broken Windows” is a metaphor for urban decline. The building with an unrepaired broken window soon leads to the other windows being broken and more disorderly conduct. “A neighborhood where minor offenses go unchallenged soon becomes a breeding ground for more serious criminal activity and, ultimately, violence,” write Giuliani police commissioner William Bratton and George Kelling, the father of Broken Windows theory.

New York decriminalized quality-of-life crimes under de Blasio. Public urination, public drinking, littering, and subway turnstile jumping were no longer illegal. Incidents of harassment, menacing, petty theft, public urination and public intoxication began to increase. That distant tremor in the urban air was the sound of windows breaking.

Meanwhile, progressives rammed through the state legislature in Albany a reform package that eliminated bail for a wide range of offenses—from assault, arson and child abuse to manslaughter, robbery and riot—and removed judicial discretion in holding suspects. The reform legislation took effect January 2020. Many more offenders walked. Some of them were poor first-time offenders on minor crimes who simply could not afford bail and deserved to walk; others were violent personalities or career criminals who did not. Crime rates jumped.

The public backlash was swift. In November 2021, New York elected a new mayor, a former police officer who had campaigned on a platform of public safety, Eric Adams. The new mayor’s plans include a refreshed version of the successful but controversial NYPD anti-crime unit, which was disbanded in 2020 in the midst of social justice protests. The new six-person anti-gun units, launched last week, will aggressively tackle gun crime in New York. About 170 police officers have been deployed so far, focusing on high crime areas, with 300 more to follow.

Adams also is advocating for reform of radical bail laws, tougher gun possession charges for youthful offenders, and a crackdown on transit crime with an increased police presence in the subways .

Initially stunned by the Adams electoral victory, New York’s powerful progressive factions have begun to push back hard on the new mayor. Adams’ appeal to Democratic leaders in Albany for bail reform—largely focused on giving judges more discretion to hold potentially violent offenders—was quickly shot down. Progressive politicians in New York argue that there is not a proven connection between the new bail laws and increased crime; conservatives disagree.

Adams, meanwhile, gained an important ally in the bail reform fight: New York Governor Kathy Hochul. The former lieutenant governor took over after Andrew Cuomo resigned. Last week, she sent the state legislature a “confidential” ten-point public safety plan that backed the Adams proposal to give judges more discretion in setting bail. The plan quickly leaked, infuriating the Left. Perhaps not coincidentally, Hochul will be asking the voters for a full term as governor in November.

Back in New York City, the new NYPD anti-gun teams acted quickly, making a first arrest just two hours into the first patrol—an alleged member of the Bloods crime gang with a loaded 9mm handgun. By the end of the first week, the anti-gun units had arrested thirty more suspects and taken ten illegal guns off the streets.

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COVID Drugs Politics The Courts

Federal judge blocks DC law allowing kids to get vaccinated without parental consent

Federal judge blocks DC law allowing kids to get vaccinated without parental consent
© The Associated Press
By Nathaniel Weixel – 03/21/22

A federal judge temporarily blocked the District of Columbia from enforcing a law that would have allowed children to get vaccinated without the knowledge of their parents, ruling the law violated parents’ religious liberties.

The law in question, the Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020, allows children as young as 11 years old to be vaccinated so long as a provider deems them capable of informed consent.

The decision, issued Friday, comes as health officials debate the merits of recommending additional COVID-19 booster shots, and as regulators and drug companies continue to analyze clinical evidence for COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5 years old.

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Under the law, children whose parents objected to vaccines on religious grounds would have access to their own medical records, and providers would be allowed to seek reimbursement directly from the insurer without parental knowledge or consent.

The law was initially aimed at allowing teenagers to have access to the HPV vaccine and the meningitis vaccine, as it was passed prior to COVID-19 vaccines becoming available. The law applies only to vaccines that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Parents brought two separate lawsuits in July that challenged the law.

One lawsuit, brought by the father of a teenager at a public charter school, alleged that the District created a “pressure-cooker environment, enticing and psychologically manipulating” their child to “defy their parents and take vaccinations against their parents’ wills.”

The father alleged that his child was “medically frail” and developed autoimmunity, alopecia (severe hair loss), asthma, and eczema after receiving vaccines. As a result, he said he is of the sincere religious belief that “he should not inject a foreign substance into his son’s body that may harm him,” and objects to the COVID-19 vaccine as well as all standard childhood vaccines.

The lawsuit did not identify the father’s religion. It was filed by Children’s Health Defense, an organization run by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

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A second lawsuit was filed by a Maryland resident who said his 16-year-old daughter sought a vaccine in D.C. in order to attend a summer camp, without his knowledge and despite his religious objections.

Judge Trevor McFadden, appointed by former President Trump, ruled that the parents in both cases have standing and showed a likelihood of success on the merits for those claims, because the law requires providers to hide children’s vaccination status from parents who invoke their religious exemption rights but not from other parents.

McFadden ruled the law “targets religious parents” by withholding information available to secular parents who file a medical exemption for their children and said it was preempted by the federal National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

McFadden said he doesn’t anticipate a wide ranging impact from the injunction.

The ruling “will not prevent children from being vaccinated. Nor will it prevent the District from continuing to advertise the importance of vaccines, incentivizing vaccinations, and setting up vaccine clinics in schools. The only impact will be that children will be unable to decide to get vaccinations without their parents’ consent,” he wrote.

This article comes from The sHILL and their support of the narrative can be seen both in the article (passages highlighted)and in their tags: Donald Trump Coronavirus COVID-19 vaccines anti-vaccination

Categories
Child Abuse Corruption Human Traficking The Courts

Federal Judge Orders Joe Biden to Stop Mass Release of Illegal Migrant Children at Border

by Jordan Dixon-Hamilton For Breitbart  

A Texas federal judge on Friday ordered President Joe Biden to stop the mass release of illegal migrant children crossing the southern border into the country.

Judge Mark Pittman’s order prevents Biden from exempting minor migrants from Title 42. Title 42 is an immigration policy implemented by former President Donald Trump that allows U.S. immigration officials to expel immediately migrants who come to the southern border. Title 42 was implemented in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the policy’s start in March 2020, the federal government has expelled more than 1.6 million migrants.

Biden previously declined to expel unaccompanied minor children under Title 42. Instead, he allowed the young migrants to enter the country, where they would be placed under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ supervision. From there, they would be placed with sponsors in the United States, who are typically family members.

Pittman wrote:

Here, the President has (arbitrarily) excepted COVID-19 positive unaccompanied alien children from Title 42 procedures—which were purposed with preventing the spread of COVID-19. As a result, border states such as Texas now uniquely bear the brunt of the ramifications. Yet, while policy decisions are beyond judicial review, those agency actions that are “arbitrary, capricious, . . . or otherwise not in accordance with law” will be set aside.

Pittman explained that the “ramifications” Texas deals with include strains on the state’s public school system and medical resources, and increased incarceration.

A record number of more than 122,000 unaccompanied minors arrived at the southern border during the fiscal year 2021.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the decision is a “win for Texas & children—loss for Biden & cartels!”

 

America First Legal, led by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, served as outside counsel for Texas as part of the lawsuit. Miller called the decision “a truly historic victory.”

In a statement, Miller said:

We are honored beyond words to have partnered with Attorney General Ken Paxton and the State of Texas in our landmark lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s egregious decision to except ALL illegal alien minors traveling without adults (UAC) from Title 42—and to have just obtained a preliminary injunction. Biden’s decision to except UAC from Title 42, and instead mass resettle them in the United States, has led to the largest wave of criminal child smuggling in human history–and the flood of illegal alien teens and minors has drained the resources of our schools, hospitals, and communities while creating a new unimpeded recruiting pipeline for MS-13. This preliminary injunction orders the Biden Administration to halt their order categorically excepting unaccompanied alien minors from Title 42 repatriation. This is a truly historic victory, but we have a long, long, long way to go to end the Administration’s crusade to eradicate our sovereignty.

Friday’s decision is Texas’s latest successful effort to prevent Biden from implementing his radical immigration agenda. Texas previously stopped a 100-day deportation moratorium from being enforced last February. Additionally, the state got a federal judge to order Biden to continue Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, where asylum seekers are returned to Mexico to wait for their hearings.

The case is Texas v. Biden, No. 4:21-cv-0579-P in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.