Should Petty Judicial Tyrants Really Be Allowed to Act As Dictators?

A threat to the Republic.

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President Trump is trying to rid the country of the violent South American gang members who entered the country when Old Joe Biden’s handlers opened the southern border, and what sane person would be against such a project? It is thus understandable that Trump is annoyed with the far-left judge, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, who tried to block deportation flights to El Salvador, and on Tuesday morning, the president took to Truth Social to tell us what he really thinks:

This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President – He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING! I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS want me to do. This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!

But boasting about his mandate may distract from the valid point Trump was making: he was indeed elected in part because of widespread disgust with Democrat policies that led to millions of illegal immigrants, including an unknowable number of criminals and terrorists, entering the country, evidently in order to secure a Democrat electoral majority for generations to come. Patriots are fed up with leftist activist judges arrogating to themselves the power of the president and overruling the actual president, enacting public policy from the bench.

Boasberg, however, does have his supporters, and they aren’t all green-haired, bone-through-the-nose, socialist, internationalist, open-border lunatics. Journalist Michael Shellenberger, author of the superb and essential books “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All” and “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities,” declared that what the Trump administration did when it flew the criminal migrants out of the country just ahead of Boasberg’s order not to do so was “unconstitutional.”

Shellenberger explained: “It’s up to the courts, not the Administration, to determine whether it is non-justiciable. The administration must comply with the order until a higher court reverses it or sets it aside. That’s how our system works.” He added a warning: “If the Trump administration continues with these obviously unconstitutional actions, then it will lose the legitimacy, public support, and power it needs to pursue free speech diplomacy, which would be a very disappointing outcome.”

One X user, however, asked Shellenberger a pointed question: “Huge fan. So — do you believe district court judges have unquestionable authority to issue any order they want until it gets overturned by a higher authority? trying to understand.”

That was the problem. Shellenberger and others are concerned that Trump is trampling upon the powers of the judiciary. The idea of judicial review, that the judiciary has the right and responsibility to review the decisions of the executive and legislative branches and rule on their constitutionality, is not in the Constitution but dates back to the 1803 Supreme Court decision Marbury v. Madison. That decision, however, simply did not envision rogue judges of the Boasberg type, nullifying perfectly lawful actions of the chief executive based on his political opposition to them.

This is an issue that is going to have to be hashed out sooner or later. The American system, after all, was constructed as a system of checks and balances — that is, checks on the power of each branch of government by the other branches of government, so that a tyranny cannot develop. Yet what we have in the form of Judge James E. Boasberg and other far-left judicial ideologues like him is an incipient judicial tyranny that has no checks on its power.

Should a district judge really be allowed to overrule the president of the United States when the president is working within the law to remove illegal migrants from the country, simply because he wants the migrants here in order to serve the interests of his political party? The Supreme Court ruled in 1948’s Ludecke v. Watkins that “the very nature of the President’s power to order the removal of all enemy aliens rejects the notion that courts may pass judgment upon the exercise of his discretion.” Boasberg’s ruling is not the way the American system ought to work. Impeaching Boasberg and removing him from office would be a tough battle, as a two-thirds majority would be needed in the Senate. Still, it would be a good forum to settle these issues once and for all, or at least to work toward a settlement, before these petty judicial dictators lead to the demise of the republic itself.

House Passes Laken Riley Act, Delivering First Legislative Victory To Trump

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 23: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) signs the Laken Riley Act during an enrollment ceremony with members of the Georgia delegation in the Speaker's ceremonial office at the U.S. Capitol on January 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. Named after a young nursing student in Georgia who was murdered by a Venezuelan man, the Laken Riley Act requires the detainment of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes and it will be the first legislation that President Donald Trump will sign during his second term in office. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) signs the Laken Riley Act during an enrollment ceremony with members of the Georgia delegation in the Speaker’s ceremonial office at the U.S. Capitol on January 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. Named after a young nursing student in Georgia who was murdered by a Venezuelan man, the Laken Riley Act requires the detainment of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes and it will be the first legislation that President Donald Trump will sign during his second term in office. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
12:10 PM – Thursday, January 23, 2025

The Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention measure named after 22-year-old Georgia nursing school student Laken Riley, who was brutally murdered by an illegal alien from Venezuela last year, was enacted by the Republican-led House on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump is anticipated to sign the legislation into law this week after his return to the White House. Its goal is to crack down on illegal immigrants who commit nonviolent offenses such as theft, as well as ultimately inhibit violent and heinous crimes committed by illegals such as rape, assault, and murder.

All Republicans backed the motion, with 46 Democrats joining in. With 12 Democrat votes, the bill was approved by the Senate on Monday by a vote of 64-35.

A 26-year-old illegal alien from Venezuela named Jose Ibarra was convicted in November of kidnapping, assaulting, and murdering Riley as she was out on a run close to the University of Georgia campus in Athens. Police noted that when Riley’s body was found, her shirt had been pulled all the way up — and it was clear that he had attempted to sexually assault her at some point before or after her death.

Riley even tried to call 9-1-1 during the attack, but the only voice that the emergency operator heard was that of Ibarra. One of the charges against Ibarra is obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call, according to FOX Carolina.

Ibarra received a life sentence without the possibility of release.

Republicans and President Trump have highlighted how Ibarra was not placed under arrest after initially being detained by a Georgia police department for shoplifting, in addition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement not issuing a detainer for him.

The politician responsible for drafting the measure, Representative Mike Collins (R-Ga.), explained that ICE must now take custody of and detain illegal aliens who are charged, arrested, or found guilty of “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.”

“It’s bittersweet,” Collins said following the vote, noting that he had spoken to Riley’s relatives earlier that day. “For a young lady that wanted to dedicate her career and her life to saving lives, now her name will live on forever, and it will save lives.”

48 Democrats supported a previous version of the bill, which was approved by the House by a vote of 264-159. However, former President Joe Biden never expressed whether he backed the bill, which was enacted by the GOP-controlled House last year but later disregarded by the Democrat-led Senate.

“You now have a willing partner in the Senate that wants to confront real problems facing families, so that we don’t have more Lakens Rileys,” stated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). “You don’t have more murders of innocent people because of an open border. President Trump has already taken action to start reversing that open border,” he added.

Two amendments, one from Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), which includes assault of a police officer, and another from Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), which includes acts that cause death or bodily harm to an individual, were also adopted by the Senate in order to expand the list of actions that result in mandatory detention of illegal aliens.

The Laken Riley Act’s passage coincides with a contentious discussion among Democrats over how to address Trump’s intentions for mass deportations and the illegal immigration crisis following their crushing 2024 election loss. Additionally, the Laken Riley Act’s only opponents were Democrats who tried to argue that the measure was overly harsh.

“Laken Riley casts out a net to cuff, arrest, and deport people who have committed minor offenses. In that sense, it is not a good thing,” said Representative Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“Any discussion that should be had here around the issue of border security, around the issue of immigration,” he added, “should include something on Dreamers, farm workers, and families.”

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