The 9th Circuit Court has some vacancies and President Trump has made nominations to fill those holes. This bypass of traditional norms comes after a Supreme Court confirmation process that deviated from many norms. Senator Feinstein was undoubtedly culpable for that. In recent weeks, the Left talks a lot about the legitimacy of the courts. In fact, to them the confirmations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh represent a crisis for the legitimacy of our nation’s highest court. Michael Tomaski at the New York Times writes:

And if the Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh soon, the vote is likely to fall along similar lines, meaning that we will soon have two Supreme Court justices who deserve to be called “minority-majority”: justices who are part of a five-vote majority on the bench but who were nominated and confirmed by a president and a Senate who represent the will of a minority of the American people.

Initial Story

Fox News: Trump snubs Feinstein, Harris to nominate conservative judges to liberal 9th Circuit

President Trump is plowing ahead to fill three vacancies on the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, brushing aside Democratic resistance to nominate conservative judges.

Presidents traditionally work with senators from judicial nominees’ home state — in this case, California — to put forward judicial picks. They often seek what’s known as a “blue slip,” or an opinion from those senators.

But in a snub to California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, the White House announced Wednesday that Trump had nominated Patrick Bumatay, Daniel Collins and Kenneth Kiyul Lee (all from the Golden State, and reportedly all members of the conservative Federalist Society) to the influential circuit. The court, with a sprawling purview representing nine Western states, has long been a thorn in the side of the Trump White House, with rulings against the travel ban and limits on funding to “sanctuary cities.”

GOP critics have branded the court the “Nutty 9th,” in part because many of its rulings have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Any working relationship is likely only to have soured further after Harris and Feinstein led the charge on the Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In particular, Trump and Republicans accused Feinstein of withholding information about an allegation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh until after the hearings were over. Both Feinstein and Harris voted against Kavanaugh’s nomination, joined by all but one Democratic senator.

Solutions of the Left

Fake Conservative of the Washington Post Jennifer Rubin has this much to say about “salvaging” the Supreme Court.

In some respect, the fix for the Supreme Court is the same as the fix for our politics — leveling a right-wing populist party that abhors democratic norms and building a center-left to center-right coalition. (Some structural reforms such as ranked voting, eliminating gerrymandering and automatic voter registration would help.)

Basically, get rid of Conservatism. But at least she knows that 17th Amendment exists. This is a simplistic petty fantasy of a solution. Then there is the age old progressive trick to stack the courts. What failed under FDR, is now table talk once again. Socialist online publication, Jacobinmag, writes an apocalyptic defense of court packing. Note: he thinks the New Deal worked.

And this is the important point: with union density near an all-time low and climate catastrophe on the horizon, future lawmakers will need tools even more robust than what FDR was able to get through — think a Green NIRA on steroids. A handful of justices pulled from Federalist Society debating clubs can’t and shouldn’t get in the way of a more democratic and sustainable economy.

A thoughtful court-packing proposal would ensure that the Court more carefully reflects the mores of the time, rather than shackling democracy to the weight of the past. With inequality and human rights abuses spiraling upward and justices making it all worse, the time to begin mainstreaming an enlarged Court is now.

Ultimately, the Left’s arguments for court packing openly admit that they do not care for the process of interpreting the law or the intent of the US Constitution. They see the court as a means to protect their agenda. Take court packing argument from The Outline:

We cannot lose sight of one simple point. We — those of us left of center, who believe that the role of the courts should be to protect the weak from the powerful and not the other way around — are right and conservatives are wrong.

The New Republic isn’t as petty but they believe that the court should have a more democratic representation

Court-packing is bad, but allowing an entrenched majority on the Supreme Court to represent a minority party that refuses to let Democratic governments govern would not be acceptable or democratically legitimate, either.

Final Thoughts

The 9th Circuit Court has a terrible batting average with when it comes to the Supreme Court upholding their rulings. And that batting average is sure to crumble even lower seeing that the next SCOTUS session has multiple cases where the 9th Circuit Court is in conflict with the rulings of other appellate courts. If any court isn’t legitimate, it’s the ultra left 9th Circuit Court. Yet the issue of the Supreme Court reveals a substantially different view of the Court’s duties. The Left, dating back to FDR, believes that the Court’s job is to uphold their agenda. Don’t take my word for it, take theirs. In contrast, Conservatives believe that the court should uphold the Constitution in its original form. These are the foundations for which one from either side would determine a legitimacy crisis.

When Trump and the GOP fully funded DACA, sanctuary cities, and refugee resettlement while failing to fund ICE and Trump’s “big, beautiful, powerful (border) wall” — so beautiful he wants to name it “The Trump Wall” — in last month’s budget betrayal, it was more evidence that their promise to fix the immigration problem was just another in a long list of lies made to get elected.

No money for the wall.
No money for ICE.
Obamacare funded.
Planned Parenthood funded.
DACA funded.
Refugee Resettlement funded.
Sanctuary cities funded.
Massive debt.
Massive deficit.
98% of Democrats voted YEA.#MinibusBetrayal#MAGA https://t.co/lSG7RgySny

— The Shannon Joy Show (@ShannonJoyRadio) September 28, 2018

So, it came as a bit of a surprise when a few of the so-called conservatives who routinely participated in the GOP’s betrayals for a seat at Trump’s table — I’m looking at you, House Freedom Caucus — expressed concern over the possibility that Trump will team up with RINOs and Democrats to cut an immigration deal during the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress if after Democrats take back the House in November.

Why these faux conservatives are shocked at the prospect that Trump would betray them and work with Democrats is beyond me. Trump has attacked conservatives as obstacles to his agenda, and he’s already worked with Democrats on issues like spending, gun control, and … wait for it … immigration reform (aka saving DACA) in exchange for money to build the border wall.

There are those who believe that an attempt by the Dealmaker-In-Chief to successfully cut an immigration deal with the Democrats a long shot since the Senate is expected to remain under Mitch McConnell’s reliable leadership — Hey, stop laughing! — but we need to remember that Republicans in the Senate have been pushing to save DACA and create a pathway to citizenship for years.

Do you remember the Gang of Eight? Led by Sens. Chuck Schumer and John McCain in 2013, this band of immigration misfits created many of the policies being considered today. Though they failed, one of the original members, Sen. Lindsey Graham, attempted to put the band back together during the 2016 campaign season. Other Republicans joining Graham were fellow Republicans John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Marco Rubio; all but McCain will be in the Senate during the lame duck.

Following the news that Trump might strike a deal with Democrats, Graham recognized the NY Liberal’s possible sellout as an opportunity for Republicans to get what they’ve always wanted concerning immigration. In an appearance on Trump’s favorite media outlet, Graham stated that he’s prepared to make a deal where DACA is saved in exchange for wall funding without conditions.

.@LindseyGrahamSC: “I’d like to do a deal: full wall funding for DACA.” @foxandfriends pic.twitter.com/sduPdkcdeN

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 16, 2018

Trump lied about fixing illegal immigration, just like the GOP has been doing for years. And with the 2020 presidential campaign underway, the Democrats retaking the House, and the Senate Republicans ready to make a deal, saving DACA and creating a pathway to citizenship for nearly two million illegals is a done deal.

Originally posted on StridentConservative.com.

David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative. His daily radio commentary is distributed by the Salem Radio Network and is heard on stations across America.

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This latest video from PragerU details how another vote-buying pipe dream from the Left can never work.

A new video from PragerU features policy expert Lanhee Chen from the Hoover Institution at Stanford, who explains how ‘Free Healthcare’ can never work in the real world. As is the case with most Leftist vote-buying schemes, the ‘The Medicare for all’ fiction is long on promises and short on how it will be funded. The tax burden for such a scheme would destroy the economy and would have to be levied on almost everyone. This kind of national socialized healthcare would also take away the incentive for innovation, which has made for the best healthcare system in the states and the rest of the world.

One often suspects that these assurances of freebies are never meant to operate as promised. Witness the much vaunted Obamacare that was supposed to eliminate the uninsured, but did nothing of the sort. Such is also the case with their push for Liberty control, since it never works as advertised.  In most cases, it should be apparent that the Left doesn’t care if their schemes will work or not. If they did actually care, they would try something else, something that actually works.

For the Left, their ‘Ends justifies the means’ mantra extends to most of their agenda. It doesn’t matter if their system of societal slavery works or not, only that it brings them the power they crave.