Are Blue States (and Rogue Judges) Itching for a Civil War?
What else could explain their brazen defiance and rebellion, calculated to cause chaos and division?
This week’s morning report is a day late…. Thanks to Instapundit (here)!
The State of Nature
What is the human condition? The Book of Genesis contains the story of Adam and Eve, who were banished from the Garden of Eden and punished (along with their descendants) for their transgression with original sin. According to ancient theology, humankind’s inherent faults consist of the “seven deadly sins”: pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth. This list is probably underinclusive. Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century British philosopher, described the “state of nature,” i.e., what life would be like without the benefit of civil society (or government), as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Without laws and law enforcement—the rule of law–men in the state of nature would be in a constant “war of all against all,” a Darwinian struggle for survival.
Civil society is how humans escape from the anarchy and predation of the state of nature. Public safety is, therefore, the primary goal of government. This requires laws to protect our rights, and law enforcement to make sure that the laws are obeyed and offenders are punished. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that insurrectionists seeking to overthrow or de-stabilize a democratically-elected government focus on promoting law-breaking and undermining law enforcement. This is exactly what left-wing Democrats are doing by creating “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens; suspending enforcement of laws against drugs, vagrancy, petty theft, prostitution, etc.; de-funding the police; and installing Soros-funded prosecutors, who thwart the enforcement of laws.
Opening our national borders, restricting gun ownership, providing shelter for illegal aliens, condoning urban lawlessness, refusing to punish criminals, and punishing self-defense all represent the left’s campaign to undermine the rule of law and create anarchy, chaos, and fear—leaving confused citizens clamoring for change. The left also seeks to create a constituency of moochers dependent on the welfare state, who will eventually demand socialism to provide for their needs. This is sometimes referred to as the Cloward-Piven strategy.
Blue States and Blue Cities Promote Lawlessness
With this in mind, the motivation for the soft-on-crime policies in blue states and blue cities (and the open-borders agenda of the Biden administration) becomes crystal clear. Blue city mayors actively encourage crime as a strategy to create chaos, induce a sense of helplessness, and foster submission to a cradle-to-grave welfare state. The fruits of this strategy are apparent in the election of avowed socialists in New York City and Seattle. The Democrat Party is becoming indistinguishable from socialism, so the rest of the blue cities, especially Chicago, are well on their way to joining NYC and Seattle.
But it begins with creating an epidemic of crime. Which is why blue states and blue cities are so passionate about preventing President Trump from sending the National Guard and federal law enforcement to crime-ridden cities to restore public safety. The Washington Examiner recently ran a story with the headline “Trump’s National Guard deployments show enforcement works,” with this unassailable message: First in Washington, D.C., and now in Memphis, President Donald Trump has surged federal law enforcement officers and National Guard to high-crime neighborhoods, and the results have been unequivocally successful: lower crime, safer streets, and a quiet but telling rise in law-abiding behavior.”
Chicago Manufactures Anarchy
Chicago is a corrupt, crime-ridden city run by one of the worst mayors in the country (Brandon Johnson, even worse than his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, whom everyone thought was the worst imaginable). Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has presidential aspirations and a raging case of TDS. Chicago is a “sanctuary city” for illegal aliens, and is Ground Zero for the militant opposition to President Trump’s enforcement of immigration laws and vow to deport tens of millions of illegal aliens. Chicago also has a federal bench full of left-wing activists engaged in judicial insurrection.
I have talked about the craziness in Chicago before. To recap:
With the support of local officials, a judge in Chicago ordered the ICE to remove protective fencing around its Broadview facility, despite frequent disruptive protests designed to interfere with ICE operations, and violent attacks on ICE personnel elsewhere.
According to Fox News, “A federal judge in Chicago has ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release more than 600 illegal immigrants” apprehended as part of “”Operation Midway Blitz,” a Trump enforcement sweep that immigration activists claim traumatized communities across the Chicago area.”
Chicago gang leaders have reportedly authorized a “shoot on sight” order on ICE and Border Patrol agents. Simultaneously, Border Patrol agents in Chicago have been the subject of drive-by shootings while conducting operations in Chicago.
Predictably, without protective fencing, and facing hostile court rulings, the Broadview ICE facility has been subjected to siege conditions. Fox News reports that “Chaos erupted outside an immigration processing center in Chicago on Thursday when anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agitators clashed with law enforcement, leading to nearly two dozen arrests and multiple officer injuries. Authorities said 21 demonstrators, 12 men and 9 women, were arrested after blocking traffic and refusing orders to disperse, according to affiliate FOX 32 Chicago.”
Meanwhile, a suspect arrested for shooting at Border Patrol agents during a raid in Chicago was identified as an illegal alien from El Salvador with prior convictions for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon or vehicle, felony possession of a weapon, and illegal entry. Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security stated that the suspect is “wanted in El Salvador for AGGRAVATED HOMICIDE, extortion, possession of drugs, and a litany of other felonies. He is a confirmed member of the 18th Street Gang.”
Notwithstanding the state of siege against ICE and Border Patrol agents in Chicago, a rogue judge who was previously reversed by the 7th Circuit, Sarah Ellis, issued an injunction indefinitely restricting federal agents from using riot control techniques such as tear gas in the course of implementing Operation Midway Blitz. In other words, while violent protests obstruct ICE, and gang members shoot at ICE and Border Patrol agents, federal officers are prevented from protecting themselves.
It is almost as if federal judges and local officials are in rebellion against President Trump’s enforcement of federal law.
The Virus Spreads to Charlotte, N.C.
Anarchy is contagious. Just as broken windows in a city connote chaos and encourage more serious crimes, news reports of rebellions foster similar conduct elsewhere. Thus, in the wake of the seditious resistance in Chicago, copy-cat criminality is occurring in Charlotte, N.C. According to Fox News, “At least one law enforcement officer was injured after two separate vehicle ramming incidents during operations in Charlotte on Sunday, as immigration raids there have netted the arrests of at least 130 illegal immigrants so far, according to Border Patrol officials.”
In a separate report,
Screaming and whistles filled a wooded stretch of Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday as protesters surrounded federal agents carrying out Operation Charlotte’s Web, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mission aimed at arresting people with criminal immigration warrants.
DHS said Friday it had “surged law-enforcement resources” into the city to capture “criminal illegal aliens terrorizing Americans.” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the effort was meant to “remove public-safety threats and restore order.”
By Saturday afternoon, video from the scene showed furious residents shouting, “Get the f— out of my city!” as Border Patrol and Homeland Security agents pushed through trees amid the operation.
This is an organized rebellion against the federal government, fostered and encouraged by blue state officials. Ironically, “Operation Charlotte’s Web comes as the city faces intensifying scrutiny over violent crime,” according to Fox News.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Pointless Tantrum
I have talked previously about Biden’s pathetic DEI appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom I will refer to as KBJ. KBJ is a combination of the two worst qualities for a Supreme Court jurist: she is both rabidly partisan (to the far left) and not very smart. As a result, her opinions are an embarrassment. As the Circuit Justice assigned to the First Circuit (which encompasses a few small New England states), she was responsible for issuing the initial stay of the rogue injunctions granted by activist judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ordering the Trump administration to continue paying SNAP benefits despite the government shutdown and the lack of a federal budget.
When the initial stay came up for an extension, KBJ threw a pointless tantrum. As reported by Josh Blackman at The Volokh Conspiracy blog, “Justice Jackson dissented from the extension of the administrative stay, and from the application altogether.” That, by itself, was not unusual. What raised eyebrows among Court watchers was the way she handled the order, for which she was responsible as the Circuit Justice. Blackman reports:
The order used an unusual locution:
“The application for stay presented to Justice Jackson is referred to the Court.”
Do you see it? The order uses the passive voice. I could only find a handful of entries on the Supreme Court’s docket with this construction, and none in the modern era.
By contrast, usually the structure is that the Circuit Justice affirmatively refers the application to the full Court.
Just last week, the order in Trump v. Orr provided:
“The application for stay presented to Justice JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is granted.”
The order in Boyd v. Ivey provided:
“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
There were thousands of hits with this structure: “and by him referred” or “and by her referred.”
What do we make of the use of the passive voice in Rollins? Is it possible that Justice Jackson would have summarily denied the application, and did not refer it to the Court? Did the Chief Justice, or the majority of the Court, override Jackson’s decision, and involuntarily refer it to the Court?
The case is now moot, in light of the agreement by Congress to re-open the government, but my theory is that KBJ simply didn’t want to acknowledge that she even referred the application for an additional stay to the rest of the Court, because she disagreed with it—even though it was merely a ministerial act. If I am correct, KBJ engaged in a petty fit of pique. This is not the first time KBJ displayed what amount to adolescent insolence toward her colleagues.
As I explained in my recent review of Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s book, Listening to the Law, for the Acton Institute, KBJ’s dissent in the “universal injunction” case, Trump v. Casa, contained some unprofessional, impudent rhetoric directed at the majority opinion written by Justice Barrett. The Court was divided 6-to-3. KBJ wrote a solo dissent that neither of the other dissenters joined. (The principal dissent was written by Justice Sotomayor.)
Here is what I said about the exchange between Justice Barrett and KBJ:
In Trump v. Casa, Justice Jackson resorted to ad hominem arguments, rank hyperbole, and unseemly political rhetoric in her solo dissent. Jackson called the 6-to-3 majority opinion (written by Barrett) “an existential threat to the rule of law” and “also profoundly dangerous.” Jackson would allow every federal district judge in America (numbering over 600) to issue nationwide injunctions hamstringing the executive branch. Ignoring the limits of judicial authority set forth in Article III of the Constitution, Jackson insisted that “courts must have the power to order everyone (including the Executive) to follow the law—full stop.”
In the course of her intemperate harangue, Jackson accused the majority of relying on “a mind-numbingly technical query,” dismissing the Court’s precedents as mere “legalese” serving as a “smokescreen” for the Court’s “creation of a zone of lawlessness” that will “disproportionately impact the poor, the uneducated, and the unpopular.” (Recall Barrett’s indignant response to her aunt’s invocation of a similar objection.) Jackson’s overheated diatribe continued in this fashion for 22 printed pages, containing such bizarre (and jejune) statements as this: “A Martian arriving here from another planet would see these circumstances and surely wonder: “what good is the Constitution, then?”… “Those things Americans call constitutional rights seem hardly worth the paper they are written on!” (Emphasis in original.)
Needless to say, Jackson’s ill-informed and injudicious dissent did not sit well with Barrett, who acidly responded that Jackson “chooses a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these [conventional legal] sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever. Waving away attention to the limits on judicial power as a “mind-numbingly technical query,” she offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush…. We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary….
Observing the limits on judicial authority—including, as relevant here, the boundaries of the Judiciary Act of 1789—is required by a judge’s oath to follow the law. Justice Jackson skips over that part. Because analyzing the governing statute involves boring “legalese,” she seeks to answer “a far more basic question of enormous practical significance: May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?” In other words, it is unnecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive. Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition: “[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.” That goes for judges too.” (Emphasis added.)
Ouch. Coming from the supremely courteous Barrett, and appearing in the text of a Supreme Court decision (not a footnote), this is a brutal rebuke.
