Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

JASON LEWIS: Radical Democrats Regard The Bill Of Rights As A Nuisance

(Flickr/Supreme Court Following Facade Restoration)

Of all the left-wing attacks on the rule of law, the most dangerous is the deliberate attack on the Supreme Court of the United States. It is, of course, a “threat to democracy” as high-court justices are nominated by an elected president and confirmed by elected senators. But more troubling, it is a direct assault on the republic itself because lifetime appointments to the bench were designed to counter the mob.

Which is precisely what the unhinged left has become.

At some point, however, the Democrat hypocrisy must be evident to the average voter. Republicans advisers are jailed for contempt of an illegitimate J6 committee while Merrick Garland scoffs at Congress by refusing to turn over the rambling audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel — made all the more egregious by the faltering president’s debate performance.

This same attorney general who has presided over a clearly weaponized Department of Justice using a white-collar Enron-era statute to prosecute J6ers. That is, until the high court said enough. Once again, the same Democrat partisans lecture former President Donald Trump about respecting a runaway state court in New York while savaging sitting justices on the Supreme Court.

Why?

Because they have no “limiting principles” that might constrain their insatiable desire to get the outcome they want from every single legal decision.

It matters little to them that no serious observer would confuse Chief Justice John Roberts with Robert Bork. Indeed, the high court has hardly trail-blazed a path toward strict constructionism. Roberts has put his finger to the wind too many times to mention and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch have both showed signs of their inner Anthony Kennedy.

But even flirting with originalism is taboo to the anarchist mob. And that explains the hysteria from the Democrat/Media complex over the just completed term which at least kept the Republic hanging on by a thread.

Obviously, Democrats are irate in their failure to use the courts to prosecute Trump. The justices quickly saw through the dangerous schemes, ruling 9-0 that conflating Donald J. Trump with Robert E. Lee to keep the former president off the ballot was, well… a threat to democracy.

As mentioned, a 6-3 majority down attempts to charge J6 protestors with violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a 2002 law that prohibited financial “evidence tampering.”

But the coup de grace was the SCOTUS immunity ruling that, ironically enough, might just benefit Biden more than anyone. History was never on the side of Garland’s witch-hunt for myriad reasons that had less to do with Trump and more with everyone who might succeed him. No president could conduct the “official” affairs of office if everything they say or do is subject to criminal prosecution by a weaponized DOJ.

The high court’s good week did not end with all things Trump. Finally, after years of nibbling around the edges of an out-of-control administrative state, the justices found in favor of congressional intent and trial by jury in two landmark cases.

It overturned the Chevron doctrine giving undue deference to federal agencies in interpreting ambiguities in the law. After years of watching “wetland” and “endangered species” regulations trample property rights, SCOTUS reasserted the constitutional duty of Congress to write the law — not delegate it to unelected bureaucrats — and the judiciary to settle disputes accordingly.

It also ruled, in a separate case, that the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot conduct its own “trials” and enforce penalties without the judicial imprimatur of due process. It is not surprising that those going after Trump are the most upset with the decision.

As they were with another that properly put on hold an EPA pollution rule circumventing state prerogative through provisions in the Clean Air Act that may not have authorized such sweeping federal power. A logical conclusion on the heels of West Virginia vs. EPA where SCOTUS had previously struck down the Obama-Biden Clean Power Plan due to its lack of “clear congressional authorization.”

Something the inimitable Justice Clarence Thomas said was evident in a different case. Writing for the majority, Thomas explained that not only had the National Firearms Act of 1934 clearly defined a “machine gun” as “any weapon which shoots…automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger,” but that the ATF “consistently took the position that semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks were not machine guns under” the law.

This, no doubt, was salt in the wound of liberal activists who still haven’t forgiven Thomas for his opinion in Bruen finding that the Second Amendment isn’t a “constitutional orphan” after all. But it did not stop his “originalist” colleagues from concluding that a domestic abuser “found to pose a credible threat” could be disarmed prior to a conviction.

Why, SCOTUS even denied standing to a pro-life attempt at having the Food and Drug Administration re-regulate the abortion pill, mifepristone. You would have thought this might earn a few liberal cheers. Nope, the court-packers were too busy howling over a long-overdue decision slapping down the silly Ninth Circuit ruling that cleaning up the streets amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Really. Municipalities can’t put an end to the public drug dealing and defecation in homeless “tent cities” that clearly “pose a credible threat” to the community? Well, now they can.

But as I’ve noted before, the critics’ hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Yet, all was not lost for radical Democrats who regard the Bill of Rights as a greater nuisance than a filthy homeless encampment. In the high court’s worst decision of the term, written by Barrett, the majority found that White House coordination with social media companies in order to censor COVID “misinformation” (much of which turned out to be more accurate than what the government was saying) failed to show harm to the plaintiffs.

Yeah, right…just everyone else.

Nevertheless, the relentless drumbeat against Justices Kavanaugh, Alito and Thomas continues unabated. Partial victories, compromise and the give and take of a constitutional republic just won’t do. The mob wants it all.

Former Congressman Jason Lewis is the author of “Party Animal, The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics and the Partisan Press.” This article was originally published on the author’s Substack page, which can be viewed here. Lewis is also the weekday host of Jason Lewis Live on Patriot TV.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Featured Image Credit: Flickr/Supreme Court Following Facade Restoration