Briefly Noted: Legal News--And Russia

I had occasion to point out yesterday (An Independent Judiciary?) that President Trump's (and Mitch McConnell's) strategy of concentrating on confirming appellate level federal judges is paying dividends. Not all is smooth sailing, of course. The 9th Circuit can still be a problem (as recently in a 2A case), but it's still far better than when Trump took office. A couple of cases on this relatively slow news day (so far) illustrate the impact Trump's appellate judges are having.

Since I mentioned the 2A just now, a case from New Jersey is a good place to start. Defense Distributed is a TX company that distributes various 3d print files for firearms and firearm accessories. New Jersey's Attorney General, Gurbir Grewal, sent Defense Distributed letters in TX attempting to restrain Defense Distributed from doing its business in NJ and threatening to prosecute Defense Distributed. The federal district court in TX agreed with Grewal that those letters were insufficient to provide the TX court with jurisdiction in the case. However, the Fifth Circuit disagreed. The SCOTUS has now--by declining Grewal's petition for certiorari--agreed with the Fifth Circuit.

The practical effect of this jurisdictional decision is that NJ will now have to justify its conduct to an unsympathetic federal court in TX. The Truth About Guns points out that the Fifth Circuit

has already made it clear that it believes that governmental efforts to restrict Defense Distributed’s distribution of 3D files have very serious if not fatal First Amendment implications.

This complicates anti-gun matters for crusading officials in anti-2A states. The SCOTUS undoubtedly knew this.

There's more good news from the 6th Circuit (which includes Ohio). You can read a longer account here:

Professor's Win in Transgender Case Is Bad News for Cancel Culture Warriors

The nub of the decision by a three judge panel (written by Judge Amul Thapar, a Trump appointee--and one I had favored for the SCOTUS) is simple enough:

In a unanimous ruling, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Shawnee State University violated Prof. Nicholas Meriwether’s rights of free speech and free exercise of religion by punishing him for resisting school rules that forced him to address students in the terms of their choosing.

Meriwether, a philosophy professor and devout Christian, sued Shawnee State, claiming that its mandate to use terms that conflict with biology infringed on his religious belief that gender is fixed from the moment of conception.

Free exercise of religion appears to be a hot button issue for the current SCOTUS, so this could prove to be an important decision down the road.

Next, there's an interesting article by John Lott about election fraud in Montana at Real Clear Investigations:

A River of Doubt Runs Through Mail Voting in Montana

As is true of a number of states, while MT is solidly Red in presidential elections it is divided in local and down ticket federal elections--including for US senators. Jon Tester is, IMO, a particularly objectionable senator. What Lott details is a full audit that was conducted in MT of mail in ballots in Missoula County--a Blue county.

A mountainous, 2,600-square-mile region with a population of approximately 119,600 does not seem like your prototypical setting for machine politics. Yet a recent audit of mail-in ballots cast there found irregularities characteristic of larger urban centers — on a level that could have easily swung local elections in 2020, and statewide elections in cycles past.

Investigations of fraud in Election 2020 continue to move forward in swing states--belatedly, yes, but late may prove far better than never for the long term. The fact that a state that is generally so overwhelmingly Red could have been victimized by Blue fraud in a Dem controlled county lends credence to the belief that even in safe Blue states the Dems are running up popular vote totals through fraud. I believe that to be the case in places like IL, where clear anomalies appeared to crop up in 2020. 

Now, I've been lectured by various commenters that the SCOTUS will not address election issues, including the questionable constitutionality of HR1. Before lecturing me again, please refer to Briefly Noted: Arizona Election Law Case In SCOTUS. That post concerns a very important case that the SCOTUS has recently heard oral arguments on. I fully share everyone's disappointment in Roberts, but I'm not ready to despair. In that context, here's another good article today about election law and the constitution: The States Must Resist the Federal Takeover of Elections.

Finally, foreign policy.

Will the Zhou Baiden regime plunge the US into a hot--or hottish--war with Russia? Yesterday Zerohedge ran a thoughtful article by Tom Luongo: The Brewing Conflict In Ukraine (spoiler--this isn't about beer). For anyone who's been following US miltary moves in Syria, in Norway's Arctic regions, and in the Black Sea and Eastern Europe, the idea that the Zhou regime could push the US into something like a shooting war with Russia has to be considered a real possibility.

We know that Trump was very interested in reaching some sort of accommodation with Russia--that was a major reason that the Deep State was so four square behind Hillary and the DC Establishment. Trump's hope, as I take it, was that Russia could become a valuable ally in the coming struggle with China. The US Establishment is pretty much joined at the hip with George Soros' World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos, and bringing Russia to heel is central to Globalist strategy. Of course, the relentless Globalist pressure on Russia--which wishes to retain its independence--has been pushing Russia into China's arms. The Globalists, in their hubris, believe they can bully Putin into knuckling under to them.

Here are two key passages from the article--which I highly recommend in its entirety:

The brewing conflict in Ukraine is all of these and more. The project to add Ukraine to NATO and the EU is a long-held dream of neocons like Victoria Nuland and neoliberals like Biden. It’s an important cog in the World Economic Forum’s desire to expand the EU to both encircle Russia thereby disrupting any dreams of Eurasian integration which could form a bulwark against their brave new world.

...

Biden’s counter is to now invite Putin and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping the big Climate Summit in late April where the WEF controls the agenda and Biden’s anti-diplomatic corps led by the completely over-matched Secretary of State Antony Blinken can further embarrass the U.S. on the world stage.

Since both Putin and Xi told the WEF to go scratch on both Climate Change, Agenda 2030 and, most notably from Putin, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, I don’t see how this summit ends any better than virtual Davos did earlier this year.

In fact, with Biden’s approach to both China and Russia so far, this summit is shaping up to be a colossal waste of time while also threatening everyone the world over with what they can expect policy-wise from the West until someone finally puts these insane people out of our misery.

With each day that passes the U.K., for example, under tyrant Boris Johnson sinks further into a complete totalitarian nightmare (see here, here, here, and here… from the last 24 hours) thanks to COVID-19, while ramping [amping?] up the anti-Russian rhetoric to eleven.

But, back to Ukraine, because it’s tied directly to all this climate change nonsense. Putin understands as well that Biden will allow every escalation in Ukraine because he’s shackled by it and they need to complete the job started with the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovich in 2014.

That means we’ll see something far worse than Victoria Nuland’s latest Cookie Campaign for freedom. We’re going to see a war for the Donbass soon, likely right after Orthodox Easter and the end of the snow melt.

Putin tried to go directly to the people to end this destructive spiral to the bottom, because he knows where this ends.

It will be a confrontation that one side will have to commit to completely or allow it’s bluff to be called. The game Biden’s handlers have played to this point has been a massive escalation of rhetoric while continually moving real pieces into position for a real conflict. I just don’t see cooler heads prevailing here because there is no upside for the U.S., the EU and the WEF if China and Russia stand their ground and Biden et.al. back down.

Russia has to be destroyed or subjugated if the Great Reset is to happen and Europe is to remain a relevant global player. That means control of the Black Sea, which means taking back Crimea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently reiterated publicly that Russia has had zero diplomatic contact with the European Union since the 2014 vote by Crimea to rejoin Russia.

Diplomacy is nearly over between the major powers. Biden’s simple refusal to talk to Putin publicly is a major event.

In the end everything we’ve lived through since COVID-19 began boils down to the need to destroy the global economy built on oil and coal, otherwise all major energy production stays under Eurasian control as it strengthens not Atlanticist as it peaks in global power and their grand dreams wither.

Time is getting short for this to happen. Public opposition to this program is rising. It happens now or not at all.

It's certainly worth considering based on the track record of our War Party.