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Here's the pathetic reason Republicans have launched a radical assault on the American judiciary
March 05, 2021
Donald Trump's disgraced lawyer, Roy Cohn famously said, "F*** the law, who's the judge!"
Chief Justice Roberts, defending judicial independence, said that there is no Republican or Democratic way of deciding cases. In his confirmation hearings he likened judges to baseball umpires, calling balls and strikes, oblivious to the score or the team or the player. There is a certain tyranny in analogy.
<p>Trump believed that judges are simply politicians in robes. He thought that they would return a favor like any other politician. That's the way it went down in Roy Cohn's Bronx or Fred Trump's Queens where Donald grew up.</p><p>So Trump professed to be astounded when he brought 61 lawsuits to try to overturn the election, and was thrown out of court every time. Predictably, some of the sharpest judicial rebukes came from Democrats; he was amazed, however, when some of the key decisions came from Republicans—even Republicans he had appointed.</p><p>No state was blunter in its rejection of Trump's claims than the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In a blistering decision in December a Philadelphia federal appeals court issued a sizzling 21-page ruling repudiating Trump's effort to stop Pennsylvania's certification process. "Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here." These words were written by Judge Stephanos Bibas. The irony is that Judge Bibas was appointed to the bench for life by Trump himself.</p><p>Judge Bibas affirmed a district court ruling, which had likened Trump's suit to "Frankenstein's monster," saying it was replete with "strained legal arguments" and "speculative accusations …unsupported by evidence." Those words were written by an Obama appointee, Matthew Brann, a former Republican official and member of the conservative Federalist Society.</p><p>Safe to say, Republicans have not done well in the federal courts. So they have pushed back. Led by Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader over the past four years, Trump managed to appoint 231 federal judges, plus three new Supreme Court justices, an enviable record. After the impeachment trial in the senate, Trump described McConnell as a "dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack." With friends like that, who needs enemies?</p><p>As for the Pennsylvania state courts, the bench is overwhelmingly Democratic. Unlike the case with the federal courts, state court judges are elected for a term of years, and come up through the political process. When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which tilts Democratic 5-to-2, reviewed Trump's attempt to overturn the state's election results last November, Justice David N. Wecht spoke for a unanimous court in condemning the gambit as "a dangerous game," an exercise in futility. Revealing what judges do and how judges think, Justice Wecht stated in no uncertain terms: "It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of the people."</p><p>At the Pennsylvania state court level, the GOP is eager to put its thumb on the scales of justice. Stung by the repeated rebuke of its positions by state court judges, Pennsylvania Republicans have embarked upon a plan to change the entire way judges are selected.</p><p>The plan, which would require voter approval in a statewide referendum, changes elections for judges with a scheme to divide the state into judicial districts drawn by the GOP dominant legislature. Under this proposal, the rural conservative areas in the state would place the judges on the Supreme Court and seek to change its ideology. Of course, the GOP drive has triggered an immediate Democratic response called "Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania."</p><p>It appears unlikely that the Republicans can get their act together in the legislature in time to put the referendum on the ballot in May. If they miss the May deadline, there will be an all-out war in November.</p><p>The whole scenario is an assault on the justice system. The courts, ever since John Marshall wrote <em>Marbury v. Madison</em> in 1803, are supposed to rein in the legislature when it gets out of hand. Now the legislature is trying to influence how the courts decide cases—a cynical subversion of judicial independence and the constitutional system.</p><p>Pennsylvania is the fifth state to try this one. Illinois, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky have already revamped their judicial systems to provide for electoral districts. If Pennsylvania succeeds, other states will surely follow.</p><p>Race is of course an issue. In Texas, Republicans have weakened the votes for judges in certain Black and Latino communities by moving these areas into different districts.</p><p>And then there is drop box and mail in voting, the bane of Trump's existence. In Georgia, Republicans want to ban or severely limit these practices entirely. Arizona doesn't like mail-in voting either, and the GOP is introducing legislation to prevent it.</p><p>Having seen that appointed judges refuse to toe the party line at the federal level, the GOP has decided to employ partisan gerrymandering to change the way judges are elected at the state level. <em>O tempora! O mores</em>!</p><p><em><br/></em></p><p><em>James D. Zirin, a former federal prosecutor, is the author of </em>Plaintiff in Chief—A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits.</p><p><a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/179362" target="_blank">This article was originally published at History News Network</a></p>
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‘Not true’: MSNBC host refuses to let GOP senator off the hook after he attacks COVID relief bill
March 05, 2021
As the Senate debated President Joe Biden's $1.9 billion COVID relief plan this Friday, Indiana GOP Sen. Mike Braun (R) appeared on MSNBC and was asked by host Hallie Jackson why Senate Republicans won't be voting for the bill despite the fact that almost 60 percent of GOP voters support it.
According to Braun, states like Indiana simply don't need the bill since their economy wasn't as devastated by the pandemic as other states. "My constituents don't want to borrow more money ... the only thing we have to replenish is out unemployment fund," Braun said. "Everything else is done well because we had a good business climate, great economy."
<p>Jackson pointed out to Braun that while Indiana might be in good shape, other states are not. </p><p>"You talk about not wanting to spend more. Spending more was okay for members of your party back during the Trump administration when there was no discussion, or very little discussion about the deficit. Why is it a problem now?" Jackson asked. </p><p>Braun claimed that "only nine percent" of Biden's bill goes toward COVID-related issues, but Jackson then interjected. </p><p>"That's actually not true, Senator," Jackson said. "I don't want to go into a fact check back and forth with you here ... for the broad impact, the economic impact, for other issues related to what we've seen in this pandemic, there is far more than nine percent in that bill." </p><p>Watch the full exchange below: </p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QKpHwGBaIsk" width="560"></iframe></div>
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Wall Street Journal dismisses Trump as 'the most famous resident of Mar-a-Lago' in brutal response to his tantrum
March 05, 2021
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal didn't take Donald Trump's latest broadside at them laying down and responded in kind with an editorial that took more than a few sarcastic comments aimed at the man they dismissively called "the most famous resident of Mar-a-Lago."
On Thursday, the one-term president, still deprived of deprived of his Twitter and Facebook bully pulpits, issued a press release criticizing the conservative paper owned by Rupert Murdoch over an editorial from the editors calling on the Republican Party to put Trump in the past if they have any hope of regaining the White House and both chambers of Congress lost during his tenure.
<p>According to <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-wsj-rinos/" target="_self">Trump</a>, "The Wall Street Journal editorial page continues, knowingly, to fight for globalist policies such as bad trade deals, open borders, and endless wars that favor other countries and sell out our great American workers, and they fight for RINOS that have so badly hurt the Republican Party," before adding, "Fortunately, nobody cares much about The Wall Street Journal editorial anymore."</p><p>In turn, the editors responded with a snarky, "For someone who says we don't matter, he sure spends a lot of time reading and responding to us. Thanks for the attention."</p><p>The editorial took a tongue-in-cheek dig at Trump, insinuating he is a poor loser still unable to deal with being a rare one-termer.</p><p>"Former Presidents and Vice Presidents have told us how psychologically difficult the early months of lost political power can be. We can therefore empathize if former President Trump is frustrated these days, and perhaps that explains his attack on us Thursday over his role in the GOP's loss of the Senate," they wrote before making their case again that the ex-president is still trying to rewrite history.</p><p>"What really seems to rankle the most famous resident of Mar-a-Lago isn't his caricature of our policy differences," they wrote dismissively before adding, "It's that we recognize the reality that Mr. Trump is the main reason Republicans lost two Georgia Senate races in January and thus the Senate majority. Mr. Trump refuses to take responsibility for those defeats, contrary to all evidence."</p><p>Revisiting the loss of the two Senate seats the Republican Party held before Trump started bickering with Georgia's GOP leadership, the editors suggested that the former president still doesn't get it. </p><p>"It matters to GOP fortunes going forward," they wrote. "In the single Trump term, Republicans lost the House, White House and finally the Senate. How can it be that everyone other than the most prominent Republican in the country is responsible for victories but not the defeats that have left Republicans in the wilderness?"</p><p>In a biting summation, they added, "Losing to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/topics/person/joe-biden" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Joe Biden</a> of all people, and by 7.1 million votes as an incumbent President, must be painful," before twisting the knife with, "Counseling could be in order Any good analyst will explain that the first step toward recovery is to accept reality."</p><p>You can <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-georgia-rewrite-11614902503?mod=hp_opin_pos_1" target="_blank">read more here</a> (subscription required).</p><p><br/></p>
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