53percenter's Blog

I guess that’s one way to answer the media accusations that the White House forgot all about the caravan as soon as the election ended.

Remember what Trump said a few days before the big vote?

Asked if he envisions the US military firing at migrants at the border, President Trump says: “I hope not.”

“I will tell you this, anybody throwing stones, rocks … we will consider that a firearm, because there’s not much difference when you get hit in the face with a rock.” pic.twitter.com/mnsc56EFT7

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 1, 2018

The order issued yesterday by John Kelly doesn’t say that rocks will be treated like bullets. In fact, the “use of force” element may be the least controversial part of it. Of course the military can use force — proportionately, to defend themselves if force is used against them first. What’s more interesting are the details about crowd control and detaining people, tasks that the military normally isn’t allowed to do per the Posse Comitatus Act.

The new “Cabinet order” was signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, not President Donald Trump. It allows “Department of Defense military personnel” to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” to protect border agents, including “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention. and cursory search.”…

The Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan research agency for Congress, has found that “case law indicates that ‘execution of the law’ in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act occurs (a) when the Armed Forces perform tasks assigned to an organ of civil government, or (b) when the Armed Forces perform tasks assigned to them solely for purposes of civilian government.” However, the law also allows the president “to use military force to suppress insurrection or to enforce federal authority,” CRS has found.

Kelly said in the signed directive that the additional authorities were necessary because “credible evidence and intelligence” have indicated that the thousands of migrants who have now made their way to the U.S. checkpoint near Tijuana, Mexico, “may prompt incidents of violence and disorder” that could threaten border officials.

Is the White House treating immigration at the border as an “insurrection”? (Can foreigners even be guilty of an insurrection?) The Insurrection Act says that “Whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.” A similar statute lets him call in the military when “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” How to harmonize those laws with the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the military from performing U.S. law enforcement duties, is for the lawyers to hash out. Given the judiciary’s hostility to Trump’s more novel policy moves, I wouldn’t bet on any arrests at the border made by American troops holding up in court on “insurrection” grounds.

But they won’t be making arrests. The man empowered by Kelly’s order to set the rules of engagement here is James Mattis, and Mattis is much less inclined to ignore norms of government than his boss is. Trump doesn’t call him “Moderate Dog Mattis” for nothing.

We are at nearly 40 mins with #SecDef in press gaggle – lots more on borderto come. Bottom line from Secretary Mattis – US forces will NOT act in violation of Posse Comitatus pic.twitter.com/vIHxTHYLDj

— Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) November 21, 2018

SecDef Mattis On detention: “I would put it in terms of minutes…if someone’s beating on a border patrolman and if we were in a position to have to have to do something about it we could stop them from beating on them and take them over and deliver them to a border patrolman” https://t.co/SevxqQx8af

— Ryan Browne (@rabrowne75) November 21, 2018

Mattis also understands far better than Trump that American troops aren’t trained to perform law enforcement duties:

A politically conservative veteran’s reaction: “Using the military like this is an awful precedent and puts the soldiers down there in a no-win situation. It isn’t something a commander in chief who understands or respects the military would ever do.” https://t.co/1rUrEPtr0x

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 21, 2018

The SecDef has been embarrassed once over the border deployment, when he insisted that the U.S. military doesn’t do “stunts” only to have the midterm-focused timing of the mission cited repeatedly by critics in characterizing it that way. (If it’s a stunt, it’s an expensive one.) Some troops stationed at the border are already preparing to return home even though the caravan hasn’t arrived yet. Mattis isn’t going to compound the headache by mainstreaming the practice of using American soldiers as an auxiliary Border Patrol via ordering them to start carrying out basic BP functions. And no doubt John Kelly knows it.

Which brings us to the most interesting detail in the story: Why did Kelly, not Trump, issue the “cabinet order” here? Some on Twitter speculated this morning that maybe they did it that way to try to insulate Trump from the consequences in case things get hairy between the troops and the caravan once the two sides finally come face to face. I don’t think that’s it, though. Trump is already on record per the clip up above about wanting the military to shoot if any rocks are thrown at them. He’s not afraid of being blamed for a confrontation; if anything, he probably thinks a melee would be a useful deterrent to other would-be illegals by showing them what awaits if they try to sneak into the U.S. The fact that Kelly signed the order rather than Trump might even give illegals who are detained by the military a defense in court, that they were arrested pursuant to authority that was never formally granted by the commander-in-chief.

The reason Kelly’s name is on the order, I’m thinking, is that it was his idea. And maybe the reason it was his idea is because both his job and especially that of his protege, Kirstjen Nielsen, are hanging by a thread. Nielsen in particular is reportedly all but gone due to Trump’s dissatisfaction with the pace of illegal immigration on her watch. Maybe this order was Kelly’s way of placating POTUS. In return for Trump leaving Nielsen in place for now, Kelly would lend his own name and authority as a former four-star Marine to the idea of expanding the troops’ powers to fight illegal immigration — knowing full well that Mattis would instruct underlings not to exploit that grant of power. (Which wouldn’t be the first time Mattis and Kelly had quietly teamed up to restrain Trump.) A showy order to the Pentagon about taking the gloves off on the border that won’t amount to much of anything in practice might please Trump and thus protect Kelly and Nielsen. For awhile. Exit quotation from Mattis: “We are not doing law enforcement. We do not have arrest authority.”

Here are a few facts about America.

The unemployment rate among those with a high school education is 3.9 percent. The poorest quintile of Americans have seen their post-tax incomes increase 80 percent since 1979, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and post-tax and transfer income for that quintile has skyrocketed 32 percent since 2000. The upper-middle class in America constituted 13 percent of the population in 1979; as of 2014, it constituted 30 percent. According to Pew Research from 2015, when it comes to standard of living, “The U.S. stands head and shoulders above the rest of the world. More than half (56 percent) of Americans were high income by the global standard … and 2 percent were poor.”

Fantastic products are cheaper than ever. Human Progress investigated the amount of time Americans must spend to earn enough money to buy key products and found that since 1979, the amount of time spent to earn a refrigerator had dropped 52 percent, 95 percent for microwaves, 65 percent for gas ranges and 61 percent for dishwashers. Between the mid-1960s and 2007, Americans were able to work less and leisure more: They worked nearly eight hours fewer per week, according to The Heritage Foundation. The wage gap is almost entirely a myth: Women who work the same jobs as men for the same number of hours, and have the same work history and same education as men make the same as men. The chief obstacles to income mobility in the United States are related to personal decision-making, not racial discrimination: As the Brookings Institution points out, of the people who finish high school, get a full-time job and wait until age 21 to get married and have children, nearly 75 percent join the middle class, and just 2 percent remain in poverty.

What of freedom? In America, people of all religions practice freely, so long as the government isn’t attempting to cram social justice down on them. People are free to speak, so long as government actors aren’t utilizing the heckler’s veto. We are free to use the press, free to associate and free to protest.

All of this is the result of the greatest governmental philosophy ever committed to paper: God-given individual rights protected by limited government. We haven’t always lived up to that philosophy — in some areas, we’ve progressed mightily, and in others, we’ve regressed. But the overall success of the United States should be ringing proof that at the very least, we should be grateful and proud to live here.

Yet as of July 2018, fewer than half of Americans surveyed by Gallup said they are extremely proud to be American. Just 32 percent of Democrats, down from 56 percent in 2013, said they are extremely proud to be American; only 42 percent of independents said are were extremely proud to be American. That’s ridiculous. Regardless of political affiliation, we should be proud to live in a society founded on eternal truths, in which we have the ability to thrive based on our own choices.

In 1789, as America struggled to find her footing after a revolution against the most powerful military and economic engine in the world, then-President George Washington issued a proclamation. He thanked God for “his kind care and protection of the People of this Country,” for “the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed — for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness.”

If Washington could urge gratefulness in 1789, we’d be fools not to do so now, when our lives are so much better in every material way. This Thanksgiving, let’s remember what we have — and let’s remember the eternal ideas that provide the groundwork for our prosperity.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS 2018

She was told to not let parents and other teachers know if students expressed a belief that they were transgender.

What she saw happening was a vulnerable segment of the school’s students being “tricked” into believing they were.

And she hasn’t stayed quiet about it. She’s taking a stand.

According to the U.K. Daily Mail, 17 children at one British school are currently at some stage in the process of changing their gender. A whistleblowing teacher, identified only as “Carol” due to fear of reprisals, told the newspaper that most of the students undergoing those changes are autistic.

In the UK, there are 17 students in one school in the process of changing genders. Since transgenderism accounts for less than 1%, this defies the odds. What else is going on? Well, according to a teacher, most are autistic and are convinced they are transgender by the state.

— Terry Smith (@VoteoutTrudeau) November 19, 2018

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The teacher told the Daily Mail said that most of the students do not have gender dysphoria –the medical term for individuals’ belief that their true sex is not the one they were born with. She said the students were young people led to believe they are the wrong gender because they are “easily influenced.”

She points, in part, to politicians and schools that have bought the goods sold to them by liberal activists regarding transgenderism and related issues. She also mentioned students “mimicking” the transgender “stars” they see on YouTube.

But that isn’t the only influence at work. The teacher said that while children who “come out” as gay may be bullied, those who identify openly as transgender may actually be “idolized” by their peers.

And for the younger ones, it’s a way of finding acceptance, she said.

“They are just young people with mental health problems who have found an identity and want to be part of a group of like-minded people,” she said.

Not all politicians are following the crowd. Conservative Member of Parliament David Davies publicly lauded the teacher for her courage in speaking up.

I congratulate this teacher for coming out and telling us what I have long suspected has been going on in schools. It is horrendous that children are being encouraged by other pupils to identify as #transgender, particularly if they have autism.https://t.co/e1PdpMQ80e

— David Davies MP 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧 (@DavidTCDavies) November 19, 2018

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In The Daily Mail article, the rest of his quote reads, “Parents are not told about this and there is no way of challenging these pupils who are convinced by others that they have a problem they almost certainly do not have. Tragically, the end result could be irreversible surgical procedures. This is scandalous.”

“Carol” asked to be kept anonymous due to fear of being fired. It’s something she says other teachers and administrators may also fear and it is keeping them from also speaking up about the problem.

And the problem isn’t just at this one school. In the article, the Daily Mail article noted that earlier this year, approximately one-third of children referred to the only gender identity clinic for children in Britain’s National Health Service had been found to have “moderate to severe autistic traits.”

This resulted in 150 autistic youth being given puberty-blocking drugs. And the next step on that path is surgery.

For many, the U.K. is a forewarning of what could be ahead for the United States if Americans don’t start waking up. This assault on autistic children is a warning of how those pushing an agenda will stop at nothing, including using vulnerable children, to further their goals.

The narrative has become a weapon used even by students against teachers. One example “Carol” gave was of teaching students about menstruation, only to have a student — born a girl but who now identifies as male — take aim at her for not saying that “boys” can also have periods.

Offense is quickly taken, against language, pronouns, and not being “inclusive” enough. It’s a tool the left uses, here and across the pond, for punishment in the form of harassment, job loss and more.

Christian Teacher Suspended for ‘Misgendering’ Pupil https://t.co/yAv4gYPHkF

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 12, 2017

If the United States is not careful, a spike in children undergoing life-changing transformations may occur all in the name of the left’s narrative.

Without reason and courage utilized by the adults, the vulnerable will be at risk.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

While the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a practice common in some Muslim-majority and African countries, has only recently been thrust into the American sphere, there has been debate over the practice in the UK for decades.

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman ruled Tuesday that an anti-FGM law was unconstitutional and Congress had no authority to enact a law that criminalises the practice, allegedly performed to dull the sexual urges of women, dismissing the case against Dr Nagarwala, according to The Detroit News.

Prosecutors alleged that Dr Jumana Nagarwala, a member of Detroit’s Indian-Muslim Dawoodi Bohra community, conducted female genital mutilation (FGM) on more than 100 girls in Detroit, Michigan, over a span of 12 years in a conspiracy involving seven other people.

“As despicable as [FGM] may be… [Congress] overstepped its bounds” by banning the abuse, the U.S. district judge said.

Breitbart News reported Tuesday that Judge Friedman’s decision may end the Detroit trial as the defendants cannot be charged in Detroit because the state’s anti-FGM law was passed after the group had been arrested.

European countries have been battling with the imported problem of FGM for decades, with varying degrees of success. Britain’s failures may present a window into the pitfalls lawmakers may face until a robust, American, response to the abuse is taken:

1) Passing an anti-FGM law is only half the battle

Britain outlawed FGM in 1985, with new laws and requirements strengthening that legislation in 2003 and 2015. Yet there has never been a single successful prosecution.

While some doctors have been struck off the medical register for advising on or performing the procedure — banning them from practising as medical professionals — not one single case was brought to trial in the UK until 2015. However, the trial collapsed and the doctor involved was acquitted.

The second ever prosecution — against a father accused or arranging his daughter’s genitals to be cut — collapsed in March 2018.

Official figures by Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) revealed that last year there were 4,495 new cases of FGM in the preceding 12 months — the equivalent of one girl cut every two hours, 24 hours a day for a whole year.

Those victims represent only one part of the total of 28,326 cases recorded in just three years since law required medical professionals report FGM to the police when they encountered patients who had been mutilated.

Still, that is only a fraction of estimate 137,000 women and child victims believed to be in England overall. One-third of the victims were born in Somalia, according to NHS data.

Despite Dr Nagarwal’s case being the first, it will likely not be the last in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 500,000 women and girls in the U.S. are at risk of or have been subjected to FGM.

Another Female Genital Mutilation Case Fails, Zero Convictions in 33 Years https://t.co/iLQ0aUfkIM

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 23, 2018

2) Do not underestimate the power of Political Correctness

While the Department of Justice has said that it is “committed” to stopping FGM in the U.S., British police have provided mixed messages over what is more important: protecting children or avoiding offence.

Breitbart London reported in 2017 that West Midlands Police said that prosecuting FGM was not a priority for the force as it was “unlikely to benefit the child,” saying their focus was “educating and safeguarding vulnerable girls.”

Police prioritising community outreach over prosecution has also become a target for Britain’s largest police force, London’s Metropolitan Police. In July 2018, FGM lead Inspector Allen Davis stressed the importance of “having conversations” with the immigrant community for whom “community ties” and practices are paramount.

While British police have appeared to take a soft approach to community relations, Surrey Police did not hesitate to threaten the public over “Islamophobic” tweets on Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation Day in February.

Surrey Police told Breitbart London that no arrests of those suspected of facilitating or committing FGM were made on Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation Day — but had said that “Islamophobic” tweets were passed onto their “intelligence teams” for investigation.

UK Police Threaten Public over ‘Islamophobic’ Tweets on FGM Awareness Day… Despite ZERO FGM Convictions https://t.co/H4FefzFvFu

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 6, 2018

3) Defence of FGM from European — and American — Islamic clerics.

The strongest voices in favour of female genital mutilation will often come from those whose voices carry the most weight in the ‘community.’

In February, Breitbart London reported that the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (IZRS) had defended FGM, saying that it is justified under Islamic law — despite the practice being illegal in Switzerland since 2012.

Ali Selim, a spokesman for the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland, also said that FGM was permissible in Islam because of a saying by the Muslim prophet Mohammed, and claimed that “female circumcision” was different and acceptable. FGM has also been illegal in the Republic of Ireland for 12 years.

In the United States, an imam at a Virginia mosque reportedly said that FGM prevents “hypersexuality” in women, and unless she is “circumcised,” a woman is not “satisfied with one person or two or three.”

4) What do you do when girls are taken abroad for mutilation?

The CDC advises that while victims are being cut in the U.S., victims are also sent abroad for the procedure.

In the UK, parents taking their daughters back to their countries of origin to have their genitals cut during the school summer holidays has become known as “cutting season.”

In the case of Britain, 86 per cent of FGM cases where the details are known were undertaken in an African country, with young girls frequently taken abroad during school vacation for a “holiday” by relatives to be cut.

British law was extended in 2005 to include the crime of FGM beyond just those who undertake the cutting, to those who facilitate it — including people who take women and girls abroad to be mutilated.

Multicultural Britain Prepares for Summer Vacation by Warning Children About FGM, Forced Marriages Abroad https://t.co/KxZSmDJmgA

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 25, 2018

Breitbart London reported in July that as many schools broke up for summer holidays that police forces were taking to Twitter to warn against holidays that are not “what it seems”, and patrolled airports to talk to members of the public to “raise awareness” about FGM.

This year was unique, however, in the UK and U.S. as police and border officers coordinated in joint operations at New York City’s JFK Airport and airports across Britain in September, targeting families on return flights from countries where the abuse is prevalent and looking for warning signs — including girls having trouble walking or standing.

Operation Limelight USA (based on Britain’s Operation Limelight) launched their own programme in June to aid children at risk of FGM at Newark Airport, following on from a pilot programme initiated at JFK International Airport in 2017.

5) Can the USA learn from France?

While the lessons of Europe point to struggles with cultural influencers, Politically Correct police, and toothless legal systems, there exists one ‘success story’: France.

France introduced an anti-FGM law in 1983 with the threat of 10 years in prison, or up to 20 years for cutting a girl under the age of 15, and with parents considered accomplices to the crime.

Hundreds of parents and “cutters” have been jailed.

“At first the African communities didn’t want parents prosecuted, but it’s against the law and the law is the same for all,” French lawyer Linda Weil-Curiel told The Guardian in 2014. “We explain to doctors the importance of examining all children. In that way they can check not just for FGM but for sexual abuse.”

30 Per Cent of Young Girls in Paris’s Troubled Suburbs Face FGM Threat https://t.co/Lz1RRrz8vE

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 13, 2018

Dr Emmanuelle Piet, a physician who works in the heavily-migrant populated Seine-Saint-Denis region, says that the does not “give a damn about cultural sensibilities. It’s more important to prevent a violent crime being committed against a child or woman.

“People talk of culture and tradition, but children have a fundamental human right not to be mutilated,” he added.

Due to France’s hardline approach, both Dr Piet and Ms Weil-Curiel told the newspaper that the number of cases they have come across had decreased significantly.

However, despite the hundreds of convictions, there are believed to be 60,000 women in France who have been subjected to the practice.

For more information about FGM, please visit the Desert Flower Foundation here.

It is often advised to avoid hot topics, such as religion and politics, during the holidays. Now, climate change might be added to that list.

The Weather Channel has reported that Thanksgiving and Black Friday may see record cold temperatures across parts of the Northeast.

when I lived in South Carolina 1 to 4 inches of snow was no big deal Cold Temps were normal for WINTER ! What changed ? MEDIA SENSATIONALISM & their desire to use climate change to turn America over to the globalist! Historic cold forecast for Thanksgiving https://t.co/MwS9uLRwCs

— jb⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@jabs611) November 20, 2018

Yes, indeed, winter weather may actually be experienced in winter in the Northeast. The Weather Channel said that for some cities, the temperatures may be the coldest on record for Thanksgiving.

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Interestingly, the usual suspects are suspiciously silent with their climate change meltdown when it comes to extreme weather. Of course, the climate skeptics have been weighing in and making that point.

The cause for the cold blast is believed to be due to “a strong area of high pressure originating from the Arctic Circle” that is headed for the Northeast. It should be noted that the temps may be colder than usual for Thanksgiving in some areas, but not for the season.

Isn’t it AMAZING, we’re going to have cold weather for Thanksgiving 🦃🦃🦃, why does that happen every year? That’s right CLIMATE CHANGE, 🤣🤣 LMFAO….

— 🇺🇸m haas🌵🌵🌵🌚🌝🍋 (@mhaas16288307) November 20, 2018

The temperatures expected are common during the winter months, but are usually seen around New Year’s Day. Some cities could even break their record high for Thanksgiving.

The coldest Thanksgiving in New York City on record was in 1871 with a high of 22 degrees, according to The Weather Channel. Boston could break its coldest Thanksgiving high of 24 degrees set in 1901.

USA Today wrote that in addition to an increase in cold temperatures in the Northeast, other parts of the country may see some interesting weather for Thanksgiving. Fire-hit areas of California may get rain and snow, although flooding can accompany the rains.

Rain and mountain snow will spread across California ahead of #Thanksgiving, bringing the risk of flooding and travel delays: https://t.co/QL8nAujKlb pic.twitter.com/MqhCv8tsWn

— AccuWeather (@breakingweather) November 19, 2018

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Whiteout level snowfall may hit the Great Lakes area and some of the Northeast. Again, this is weather commonly seen in the winter.

Snow squalls could bring dangerous whiteouts to people traveling across the Northeast on Wednesday ahead of #Thanksgiving: https://t.co/vjWhqQAmJg pic.twitter.com/VQ4UAa4lbg

— AccuWeather (@breakingweather) November 19, 2018

U.S. News & World Report wrote that Thanksgiving and Black Friday aren’t the only events that may be hit by the predicted cold. The wind chill may subject Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade participants and those lining the route to single-digit temperatures.

“Frigid winds” and “icy air” are also predicted to hit the route, so anyone participating or attending may wish to prepare accordingly.

In an age where everything seems to get amped up to the extreme, it can be disheartening to see even weather being used to push political narratives. Winter gets cold, and there is always a new record coming around to break the old record.

Best advice is to prepare for winter weather, cold temps, travel delays and power outages, as you would during winter, storms or holiday travel. Even the usual climate change crowd isn’t calling this winter blast an alarm bell for global warming.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Police in Warren, Ohio, praised a homeowner who shot a home invasion suspect in order to defend his family early Tuesday morning.

WKBN reports that Ken and Heather York were asleep when their dog began to growl and they heard the sound of glass breaking. Ken observed, “He was making all kinds of noise. I thought burglars were supposed to be quiet.”

Ken then armed himself and confronted the suspect, 48-year-old Billy Morrow, Sr.

Ken said Morrow looked at the gun and allegedly said, “What size gun is that?” Ken responded, “Big enough to kill you.” He said Morrow responded by allegedly charging at him.

So Ken fired once, striking Morrow in the arm, ending the alleged threat.

Afterward Ken said, “What are you supposed to do? I can buy other sh**, but I can’t replace my life or hers.”

The Youngstown Vindicator reports that Warren Police Department Capt. Robert Massucci said Ken fired “just out of fear of this guy.” Massucci praised the way York handled the situation.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts offered rare public criticism of the President of the United States on Wednesday when he pushed back against President Trump’s claim Tuesday that an “Obama judge” had blocked his effort to deny asylum to those entering the country illegally.

But as outgoing Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) later noted, Roberts was silent when President Barack Obama attacked the Court during the State of the Union address in 2010:

Chief Justice Roberts rebuked Trump for a comment he made abt judge’s decision on asylum I don’t recall the Chief attacking Obama when that Prez rebuked Alito during a State of the Union

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) November 21, 2018

Likewise, Roberts said nothing when Obama bullied the Supreme Court on numerous occasions — and even appeared to yield to Obama’s pressure.

In 2010, President Obama used his first State of the Union address to denounce the Court’s January 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case, which struck down restrictions on corporate political speech under the First Amendment.

With six of the nine justices sitting silently in the House of Representatives, Obama told the nation their ruling “will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”

Democrats leapt to their feet in applause. Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words, “Not true” — and never attended another State of the Union address.

But Roberts said and did nothing to defend the Court from Obama’s unprecedented assault on its independence.

In April 2012, when oral arguments in the Obamacare case (NFIB v. Sebelius) appeared to go against the administration, Obama warned the Supreme Court against overturning the law, attacking the very idea that “an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.” His aides later scrambled to explain that the president — once a lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago — certainly accepted the idea of judicial review.

But Roberts did not defend the court’s prerogatives. In fact, Roberts buckled, effectively rewriting the law to save Obamacare — perhaps even reversing his original vote.

On Monday evening, Judge Jon S. Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, an Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from implementing President Trump’s November 9 proclamation that asylum requests would no longer be granted to those arriving in the U.S. illegally. In speaking to reporters, Trump criticized the decision of the “Obama judge,” adding that he considered it a “disgrace.”

On Tuesday, in response to queries from the Associated Press, Chief Justice Roberts said in a statement: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.” His views were widely reported as a rebuke to the president himself.

In response, Trump tweeted — with unusually restrained language — that Roberts was wrong, and that President Obama’s appointees, along with the courts of the Ninth Circuit more generally, were reliably opposed to all of his immigration policies. That made those courts the forums of choice for radical left-wing groups favoring amnesty — and they were frequently wrong, he implied, as judged by how frequently they were reversed.

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have “Obama judges,” and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an “independent judiciary,” but if it is why……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

…..are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security – these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

Trump later added:

“79% of these decisions have been overturned in the 9th Circuit.” @FoxNews A terrible, costly and dangerous disgrace. It has become a dumping ground for certain lawyers looking for easy wins and delays. Much talk over dividing up the 9th Circuit into 2 or 3 Circuits. Too big!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

Though Trump has often criticized judges, raising concerns during the election about his commitment to judicial independence, in practice he has arguably shown greater deference to the courts than Obama, even earning praise from the judge who stopped the family separation policy at the border.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

In one of the most shocking stories to get little media coverage this year, The Wall Street Journal reported ten days ago that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg pressured a top executive at his company to apologize for his support of President Trump in the 2016 election, and issue a letter just before that election explaining that he had switched his support to libertarian Gary Johnson.

According to reporters Kirsten Grind and Keach Hagey, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey says that he was put on leave and then fired for his support for Trump. The Journal reported:

In the fall of 2016, as unhappiness over the donation simmered, Facebook executives including Mr. Zuckerberg pressured Mr. Luckey to publicly voice support for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, despite Mr. Luckey’s yearslong support of Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the conversations and internal emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Luckey ended up negotiating a $100 million settlement, an acceleration of stock awards and bonuses that he would have received thanks to his sale of Oculus VR to Facebook in 2014. Facebook, for its part, denied that Luckey was fired for his political views. But Luckey was a supporter of President Trump’s for years, going back to 2011, when he urged Trump to run for president by mail. In September 2016, The Daily Beast reported that Luckey had given a $10,000 donation to NimbleAmerica, an anti-Hillary ad group focused on trolling the Democratic candidate. Luckey then apparently posted on a Reddit chain under a pseudonym regarding Clinton:

Hillary Clinton is corrupt, a warmonger, a freedom-stripper. Not the good kind you see dancing in bikinis on Independence day, the bad kind that strips freedom from citizens and grants it to donors.

Facebook employees complained about Luckey both via message boards and at a town hall, with engineering director Srinivas Narayanan writing, “Multiple women have literally teared up in front of me in the last few days,” and some developers stating that they wouldn’t work with Luckey. Luckey denied he had posted about Clinton under a pseudonym, and added that he was a libertarian who would vote for Gary Johnson.

The Journal report continues:

“I need to tell you that Mark [Zuckerberg] himself drafted this and details are critical,” Facebook Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal wrote to a lawyer for Mr. Luckey in a September 2016 email, attaching an early draft of the statement, according to the emails reviewed by the Journal. The draft said Mr. Luckey wouldn’t be supporting Mr. Trump in the election. Mr. Luckey has told people he did vote for Mr. Johnson, but only to avoid having his credibility questioned if he was asked about the issue under oath in unrelated litigation. The apology went through many drafts, and Mr. Luckey ultimately approved changes suggested by Facebook, according to people familiar with the process.

Facebook has consistently denied political bias in its programming. But Zuckerberg himself has admitted the company’s left-leaning tendencies, explaining to Congress that Silicon Valley is an “extremely left-leaning place.” Conservative companies have accused Facebook of tailoring its algorithms politically, damaging conservative traffic particularly in early 2017; according to Western Journal, Facebook has now corrected its algorithms to distribute traffic more equitably. Still, Silicon Valley’s overwhelming Leftist bias has been on full display in cases ranging from Twitter’s banning process to Google’s firing of James Damore. The story of Palmer Luckey is just another black mark on Silicon Valley’s record.