The Supreme Court’s emergency docket, which is made up of expedited cases from applicants seeking immediate action, currently features 18 applications, with 11 of them pertaining to the agency’s aggressive power plant regulations finalized in April. The flood of emergency applications seeking immediate relief from landmark EPA rules is a sign of things to come in the wake of the court’s June ruling that overturned Chevron deference, a precedent that formerly gave federal agencies broad power to essentially interpret the law themselves in instances of statutory ambiguity, former high-ranking EPA officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I do think we’re going to see more of this in a post-Chevron world, particularly when an agency tries to go beyond the congressional intent or the longstanding regulatory practices of the agency,” Andrew Wheeler, who served as EPA administrator for former President Donald Trump, told the DCNF. “This power plant rule is supposed to be fuel switching, and this section of the Clean Air Act has not done that in the past. I think when you deviate from standard practices, you’re going to see more post-Chevron challenges.”

‘Entirely Unachievable’: Biden EPA Locks In Stringent Emissions Rule For Heavy-Duty Vehicles To Fight Climate Change https://t.co/hTI7251lp1

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 30, 2024

Each of the 17 cases pending against the EPA were filed in the weeks that followed the court’s decision to overturn Chevron deference, according to SCOTUSblog. Beyond the 11 applications that pertain directly to the EPA’s power plant regulations, there are also six taking aim at the agency’s May 7 action establishing new National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, and one application does not have to do with the EPA.

If enforced, the EPA’s power plant rules will require existing coal plants to control 90% of their emissions by 2032 if they want to run after 2039, and the regulations will also mandate new natural gas-fired plants to do the same in order to stay open past 2039, according to the agency. Critics of the EPA’s power plant rules have characterized the regulations as a de facto attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which overturned the Obama EPA’s so-called “Clean Power Plan.”

Plaintiffs in the various applications sitting on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket — sometimes referred to as the “shadow docket” — include states, such as Oklahoma and North Dakota, and industry stakeholders like Continental Resources and America’s Power. While it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will take up all or even many of these cases, it has the opportunity to seize on at least one of the opportunities in the emergency docket to take on one of the most aggressive regulations promulgated during President Joe Biden’s term in office.

“To me, it’s very exciting, because it is an available legal tool that I think will be really important to push back against this administration’s continued disregard for clear lines of the law,” Mandy Gunasekara, who served as chief of staff for the Trump EPA, told the DCNF regarding the post-Chevron deference legal landscape.

Dems’ Climate Bill Overrules Supreme Court, Expands EPA’s Control Over Energy Industryhttps://t.co/mhG3FJvxoz

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 25, 2022

Gunasekara likened the Biden EPA’s approach to major regulations as “a little bit of the spaghetti-against-the-wall approach,” but also gave the agency some credit for generally being strategic in pursuit of its agenda. However, the agency may have made a miscalculation by rushing to finalize major rules quickly in hopes of avoiding possible Congressional Review Act (CRA) actions if a second Trump administration and GOP-controlled Congress came into power in November, according to Gunasekara and Wheeler.

“They are giving the Supreme Court numerous opportunities to take a shot at fundamental legal problems with this administration’s regulatory activity,” Gunasekara said of the EPA.

Wheeler agreed that the EPA may have blundered in rushing out major rules to beat CRA deadlines at the expense of being able to hedge their work against a post-Chevron deference future.

“I think the Biden administration made a strategic error in trying to push these regulations out prior to the artificial deadline of the Congressional Review Act,” Wheeler told the DCNF. “I said this at the time, they should have waited for the Loper decision so that they could incorporate the Supreme Court’s decision into their cases to make their regulations stronger. They made a conscious decision to try to get as many of these regulations through the process before the artificial Congressional Review Act deadline, knowing that the Loper decision was coming. And I think they should have waited.”

The EPA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

On a post he made on Truth Social, he said:

The “Sentencing” for not having done anything wrong will be, conveniently for the Fascists, 4 days before the Republican National Convention. A Radical Left Soros backed D.A., who ran on a platform of “I will get Trump,” reporting to an “Acting” Local Judge, appointed by the Democrats, who is HIGHLY CONFLICTED, will make a decision which will determine the future of our Nation? The United States Supreme Court MUST DECIDE!

The sentencing itself is less important than the timing. Trump has already noted that he is “okay with it” if Judge Juan Merchan sentences him to jail time, but if he’s taken into custody then it will completely upend the Republican National Convention scheduled for four days after the sentencing.

The Supreme Court must act BEFORE sentencing and undo this horrible evil being perpetrated against not only Trump but against the entire country.

It is not hyperbole to note that jailing the leading presidential candidate will cause extreme turmoil for the nation. Not only would it further polarize a country that is already on the verge of mass conflict, but it would improve the chances of a disastrous selection to be installed in the White House. Whether that’s Joe Biden, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Nikki Haley, or any other candidate who would be viable if Trump is taken out, the nation will be in the darkest place it has been in since the Civil War.

Some would argue our future is even darker than that bloody period.

At the very least, the Supreme Court or one of the lower courts will need to delay his sentencing until the appeals process is complete. It would be nice if his conviction is completely reversed so we won’t have to listen to repetition of the words “convicted felon” that Alex Soros has orchestrated in the media. But even if that doesn’t happen in time (and I believe it will happen once it gets to the Supreme Court or before), then at the very least Trump must be allowed to continue on the trajectory of being the Republican nominee for president.

Join the conversation at The Liberty Daily Substack.

In 2012, after oral arguments in Sebelius v. NFIB, the Supreme Court met in a secret conference to determine the constitutionality of Obamacare and its “individual mandate.” Following three days of oral arguments, hundreds of pages in briefing, and hours in chambers with clerks and fellow Justices, Roberts provided the critical fifth vote to create a majority holding that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional.

But the arguments did not cease when the Court adjourned, and the Chief soon dithered under public scrutiny.

Three days after oral arguments, President Obama spoke from the Rose Garden to pressure the Court to uphold his signature legislation. Senator Patrick Leahy, then Chair of the Judiciary Committee, addressed Roberts on the Senate floor weeks later. “I trust [Roberts] will be a Chief Justice for all of us and that he has a strong sense of the proper role of the Judicial Branch.” Newspapers and cable news anchors warned Roberts that if he voted with the majority “his ambition of transcending politics on the Supreme Court will have to be judged a failure.”

The Wall Street Journal took note of this in its column “Targeting John Roberts: the left tries to intimidate the High Court on Obamacare” arguing “We doubt the High Court will be intimidated by any of this, and…no Justice would be worthy to sit on the Court if he is…The Court’s reputation will be tarnished if it bows to the political distemper of the moment, not if it follows the Constitution.” But the editorial staff was wrong.

Chief Justice Roberts flipped his vote in response to the public pressure. CBS reported that “Roberts switched views to uphold health care laws,” writing “Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As Chief Justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the court, and he also is sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public.”

Supporters and critics agreed that Roberts’ decision was a political calculation rather than a legal determination. In the New York Times, Ross Douthat authored “John Roberts’s Political Decision,” writing that Obamacare was “saved by political considerations.” At National Review, Jonah Goldberg noted, “No one is confident, never mind certain, that Roberts actually believes his own position.”

Now, the Court faces another Democratic president’s unprecedented expansion of federal power in Murthy v. Missouri (formerly known as Missouri v. Biden). Like the Obamacare case, decided in 2012, the decision comes in an election year and features the heavy-handed influence of the medical industry’s lobbying and public pressure campaigns.

On Monday, the Court will hear oral arguments in the case, and the Justices will confront the most pervasive forces in American society: the private-public censorship industry, the influence of the Intelligence Community, and the Biden Administration’s repeated attacks on free expression.

The argument comes just two weeks after President Biden’s targeting of the Court in his State of the Union address and amidst the regime’s demonstrated antipathy for the separation of powers.

May 2020: The Chief Invents a Pandemic Exception to the Constitution

Just two months into the Covid response, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to rebut the government’s tarnishment of the Bill of Rights. The Justices could affirm that our Constitution has no pandemic exception, and cloaks of benevolent phrasing cannot warrant the usurpation of our liberties.

Instead, Chief Justice Roberts suspended the Constitution in deference to “experts,” thus ushering in three years of emergency orders from charlatans and petty tyrants. It proved a turning point in the Covid response, acting as a green light for prolonged church closings, First Amendment violations, and turnkey totalitarianism.

In May 2020, a California church petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn Governor Gavin Newsom’s restrictions on church attendance. The “fog of war” is no excuse for “violating fundamental constitutional rights,” they argued.

Newsom’s order limited attendance at religious ceremonies to 25% capacity with a maximum of 100 attendees, no matter the size of the venue. The State offered no “justification for this arbitrary cap,” the church explained. Retail stores were permitted to hold 50% capacity at the time, and offices, food packaging, museums, and and “every other sector [had] no percentage cap.”

Four members of the Court were able to see through the state’s flimsy pretext of “public health.” Justice Kavanaugh asked, “Assuming all of the same precautions are taken, why can someone safely walk down a grocery store aisle but not a pew? And why can someone safely interact with a brave deliverywoman but not with a stoic minister?” Justices Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas joined Kavanaugh in voting to grant the church’s motion.

The liberal wing of the court – Justices Kagan, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Breyer – voted to deny the motion without offering any opinion to support their vote.

The critical fifth vote thus came to the Chief Justice. Roberts sided with Governor Newsom, arguing that the Court should defer to “experts” because the “unelected judiciary lacks the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people.”

Of course, every tyrant has claimed “competence” to control the lives of his subjects. Our Constitution, however, is designed to restrain all men, regardless of self-proclaimed insight, genius, or title, from abridging the rights of citizens.

The Chief’s fifth vote ignored constitutional text in favor of an imaginary pandemic exception to the Bill of Rights. As the head of the judicial branch, his deciding vote suspended judicial review as lockdowns obliterated Americans’ liberty.

The Chief Justice continued his deference to “experts” for over a year despite their demonstrable failures. Two months after the California decision, he again provided the fifth vote to uphold Nevada’s limit of religious gatherings to 50 people, despite the order permitting casinos to hold up to 500 gamblers at a time. Justice Gorsuch explained in dissent: “the First Amendment prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion. The world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges. But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.”

The death of Justice Ginsburg and the confirmation of Justice Barrett to the Court flipped the 5-4 split, but Chief Justice Roberts continued his pandemic-exception jurisprudence into 2021. In February 2021, he upheld California’s banning on singing in church, explaining that “federal courts owe significant deference to politically accountable officials with the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health.”

In April 2021, he voted to deny Californians’ petition to challenge Governor Newsom’s edict limiting in-home religious gatherings to three households. Justice Barrett, however, overrode his dissent, and the Court restored the petitioners’ First Amendment freedoms.

Unclouding the Fog of War

The Chief Justice has a penchant to capitulate to political pressure. Murthy v. Missouri features perhaps the most powerful and united hegemon that the Court has ever encountered.

Let us hope that the Chief no longer allows the fog of war or fear of political blowback to excuse the deliberate and repeated violations of fundamental constitutional rights.

Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist, No. 78, “whenever a particular statute contravenes the Constitution, it will be the duty of the judicial tribunals to adhere to the latter and disregard the former.”

It is not just the Court’s power to remedy usurpations of our liberty, but it is its duty. The Chief has been derelict in the past, deferring to the capricious whims of political opportunists, but Murthy v. Missouri offers the Chief an opportunity to reaffirm his Court’s commitment to the Constitution.

Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

According to CNBC:

The Biden administration announced Friday it would automatically forgive $39 billion in student debt for 804,000 borrowers. The relief is a result of fixes to the student loan system’s income-driven repayment plans. Under those repayment plans, borrowers get any remaining debt canceled by the government after they have made payments for 20 years or 25 years, depending on when they borrowed, and their loan and plan type.

In the past, payments that should have moved a borrower closer to being debt-free were not accounted for, according to the Biden administration.

“For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

To bring people over the line for forgiveness, the Biden administration counted payments for borrowers who’d paused their payments in certain deferments and forbearances and those who’d made partial or late payments.

To put this into perspective, this new plan is a smaller version with tighter restrictions than the one struck down by the Supreme Court. The original plan would have stolen taxpayer money to pay off loans made by 37 million instead of 800,000.

According to The Gateway Pundit:

These 804,000 borrowers will be notified on Friday by the Department of Education and relief will begin 30 days later. Individuals who do not want debts discharged are encouraged contact their loan service providers.

This new plan is part of previous “fixes” to other programs the Regime believes were failing borrowers. ABC News notes that this includes $45 billion to people enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness who weren’t getting the debt relief and $22 billion to borrowers who were defrauded by for-profit colleges.

The move by the Education Department is quite audacious considering the Supreme Court struck down Joe Biden’s lawless program to cancel debt relief back in June.

Despite the greatly reduced number of  beneficiaries, this is still a major blow to common sense. It also sets the stage for further theft of taxpayer dollars using similar loopholes in the future.

Sound off about this development on my Substack.

The comments came in a statement Justice Samuel Alito filed when the court denied a request to review the plan of New York City and New York State to deprioritize the treatment of white COVID-19 patients during the recent pandemic.

Justice Clarence Thomas joined the statement.

Both justices concurred with the denial only because the “circumstances underlying the dispute below have long since come and gone,” meaning because the COVID-19 emergency has ended.

Without providing an explanation, the Supreme Court turned down the petition for certiorari, or review, in Roberts v. McDonald (court file 22-757) in an unsigned order on June 30. At least four of the nine justices have to vote to grant a petition in order for it to move forward to the oral argument stage.

The denial of the petition came a day after the court issued a landmark ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in which the court found that racial discrimination in the college admissions process was unconstitutional.

Petitioners Jonathan Roberts and Charles Vavruska, both New York residents, filed a lawsuit (pdf) on Feb. 8, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, against the New York State Department of Health and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene of the City of New York.

As a surge in the Omicron variant of COVID-19 took place in December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval for Paxlovid, a drug that was hailed as an “antiviral superstar,” that “reduces the rate of hospitalizations by around 90 percent” with “no safety issue beyond placebo.”

Despite plans to boost production, supplies of the drug were limited when the petition was filed.

Mr. Roberts and Mr. Vavruska objected to the policy of the state and city to instruct health care providers to adhere to the state’s directive for distributing scarce COVID-19 treatments—oral antivirals Paxlovid and Molnupiravir, along with monoclonal antibodies.

“The directives require providers to prioritize treatment to individuals based on age, vaccination status, and a number of risk factors. Risk factors include medical conditions such as cancer, chronic disease, diabetes, and obesity.

“The directives also state that, apart from any medical condition, non-white race or Hispanic/Latino ethnicity must be considered as an independent risk factor,” according to the petition.

For example, “an unvaccinated 64-year-old African-American with diabetes receives priority over an unvaccinated white 64-year-old with diabetes. A vaccinated 66-year-old who is Hispanic receives priority over a vaccinated 66-year-old who is not.”

“New York’s designation of race as an independent risk factor has no basis in science. Although race may be associated with different risk factors, New York has cited no evidence that race—on its own—makes an individual more susceptible to suffering adverse effects from COVID-19.”

Such evidence “does not exist, because race does not connote any attribute inherent to any individual. It is instead an arbitrary classification that lumps in many different individuals with different attributes and different needs.

“New York’s designation of race as an independent risk factor deprives deserving individuals of much-needed medical treatments solely due to their race.”

Mr. Roberts was white and not Hispanic, vaccinated against COVID-19, and had no known risk factors for severe illness that could result from the disease. This meant Roberts did not “qualify for inclusion in any tier of the ‘risk groups’ established” by the state or city health departments.

“If he were any race but white, he would qualify for the last tier [1E] of the risk groups,” the legal complaint stated.

Mr. Vavruska was also white and not Hispanic, and vaccinated against COVID-19. He contracted the disease in March 2020 and was hospitalized for 10 days. He had at least one risk factor for severe illness that could result from the disease and therefore “qualifies for inclusion in the last tier [1E] of the risk groups for prioritization of certain COVID-19 treatments.”

The petitioners sued to gain “the ability to access oral antiviral or monoclonal antibody treatments on an equal basis, without regard to their race, if they contract COVID-19.”

The district court dismissed the case for lack of standing, and that ruling was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

Mr. Alito said in his statement that the case: “Involves an issue of ongoing importance: whether the Equal Protection Clause permits governments to use race or ethnicity as a proxy for health risk and therefore ‘prioritize the treatment of patients’ on that basis.”

He said if “any government again resorts to racial or ethnic classifications to ration medical treatment, there would be a very strong case for prompt review by this Court.”

The state’s policy “justified the use of race and ethnicity as proxies for health risk by appealing to ‘longstanding systemic health and social inequities.’”

But the Equal Protection Clause “places a ‘daunting’ obstacle in the way of any government seeking to allocate benefits or burdens based on race or ethnicity, typically giving way only when the measure in question is ‘narrowly tailored’—that is, ‘necessary’—to ‘remediate specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute,’” Mr. Alito wrote, quoting the Harvard decision last month.

New York’s reference to “longstanding systemic health and social inequities” does not justify the state denying a person medical treatment “simply because that person is viewed by the State as being a member of the wrong racial or ethnic group.”

“The shortage at issue in this case appears, thankfully, to have concluded. But in the event that any government again resorts to racial or ethnic classifications to ration medical treatment, there would be a very strong case for prompt review by this Court,” the justice wrote.

Jim Burling, vice president of legal affairs for the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), which represented Mr. Roberts and Mr. Vavruska, told The Epoch Times he agreed with Mr. Alito.

PLF is a national non-profit public interest law firm that challenges government abuses.

The idea of giving preference to a racial or ethnic group because of “‘longstanding systemic health and social inequities,’ makes no sense because all the data showed that there were no significant differences in morbidity between various ethnic groups,” Mr. Burling said in an interview.

“The court in this term, came out in no uncertain terms against racial gerrymandering for college admissions, and it shouldn’t be any different for health care,” he said.

“If there is a live case, and it gets up to the Court soon enough, they certainly could win.”

Usually, when the Supreme Court turns down a petition, it simply says “denied” and puts it on the list of denied cases, he said.

“But on those occasions where the Court comes out with a statement, or sometimes they dissent from the denial, that really gives a lot of people a roadmap to the future to try to get another similar case before the Supreme Court.”

So this Roberts v. McDonald case “is just another one of these cases where some members of the Court are saying, ‘hey, don’t give up on this. We’re interested and bring us another case and we might take it,’” Mr. Burling said.

Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson, who brought a similar case against New York for its discriminatory medical policy but did not appeal its dismissal for lack of standing to the Supreme Court, said the 2nd Circuit’s standing standard was impossible to meet.

The standard “required a plaintiff to contract Covid, be medically eligible, and be in a position to seek the medicine, before a suit.

“Legally and substantively it’s an idiotic standard because the medication was only effective if taken within five days of symptoms. So the courts set up a standing requirement that almost no one could meet as a practical matter because of the tight time frame to seek judicial relief.

“The courts gave health officials almost unbridled authority to engage in racist conduct as to emergency medical treatments,” Mr. Jacobson wrote at Legal Insurrection.

Because of Mr. Alito’s statement, “We know that at least two of the Justices are interested in hearing a case of medical racism in the right procedural posture,” he added.

The Epoch Times also asked New York State’s solicitor general, Barbara Underwood, for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

New York City Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci said by email that the department “is not commenting.”

Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

Congress saw an opportunity to “do something,” and “wasn’t willing to let a ‘crisis’ go to waste.” The ultimate result is the National Firearms Act of 1934 (“NFA”), which was later amended by the Gun Control Act of 1968 (“GCA”). The net result is that certain firearms and firearm-related items have seriously disfavored status, completely unrelated to anything having to do with crime or Constitution.

The NFA states that for certain items such as machine guns and suppressors, the purchaser must pay a $200 tax and then wait for extended periods for the federal government to decide that it’s okay for him to have the item. But the Supreme Court said in Bruen that “lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“BATFE”) routinely violates this idea with wait times of a year or more before issuing permits. Granted, they’re purchase authorizations, not carry permits, but the same idea applies. When you have a constitutional right to a weapon or suppressor, all other considerations require extremely careful examination.

When I go to a dealer to purchase a firearm, I must first fill out Form 4473 and pay a $5 fee to run a National Instant Check System (“NICS”) background check. If I fail the check, I’m out the fin and must go through an appeal process. Only when that is finished can I buy the gun. But ordinarily, I’m cleared out the door in minutes because I have a Florida license to carry. Without the license, it’s a three-day wait. Not exactly the same as waiting for a trial after January 6 but still….

But for my silencer, I had to send in my fingerprints, fill out a form, pay my $200, do not pass Go, and wait. And wait. And wait. When I look at the legal rules to own a suppressor (“silencer”), there are three basic criteria:

• I’m legally eligible to purchase a firearm in a state that allows suppressors.
• I pass the BATFE background check.
• I pay the $200 tax.

That’s it. In short, all this could be done in the five minutes it took to do the NICS check because it’s functionally the same background check. Add in the two C notes, and everything should be over in the time it takes to ring up the transaction. But so far, I’m at eleven months and counting. That definitely qualifies as a “lengthy wait time.” Even if we throw in the fingerprints, that shouldn’t take more than a day, since police can routinely get prints run in hours.

Suppressors are legal. You heard me correctly. This is an essential key concept. Because I am a lawful gun owner, the only material difference is that I must pay the extra tax. Thus, the process does not describe a prohibition. Rather, the NFA is “to provide for… taxation.” Unfortunately, it’s also a way some bureaucrat who decides to shut you down to deny you your lawful exercise of your Second Amendment rights. Bruen, however, declared that if you are not a legally prohibited person, your right is exactly that: a right.

The NFA also covers “short barreled rifles,” “short barreled shotguns,” “machine guns,” “any other weapon,” and “destructive devices.” All of these, except for explosives, have the same conditions for possession. A brief overview will show how arbitrary these definitions are.

A short-barreled rifle has a barrel under 16 inches or a length of less than 26 inches. But!!! If the buttstock of an SBR is exchanged for a “brace” that can be secured to the shooter’s forearm, it’s now a pistol and doesn’t need to be taxed under the NFA. So, my AR pistol at 27 inches with a brace and a 10-inch barrel is legally a pistol and I’m free of the BATFE. But if I add a vertical foregrip for about $25, it suddenly becomes “any other weapon” and I must pay the $200 and go to BATFE for a blessing that may come next year. Of course, it’s still longer than the Israeli TAVOR battle rifle (26 ¼ inches) which is legally an ordinary rifle outside BATFE’s tax scheme regardless of any accessories I add.

Shotguns get more insane rules. They must have 18-inch barrels. Why? It’s just as arbitrary as 16-inch barrels for rifles. In United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court ruled against weapons that did not have specific military applications. Sawed-off shotguns were not military weapons in 1939 but became key guns the “tunnel rats” carried in Vietnam. So, they are presumptively protected. But for the moment, BATFE gets its pound of flesh.

Another shotgun rule is particularly silly. You can fire .410 shotgun shells in many 45-caliber revolvers. But if you put a smooth bore barrel on the revolver instead of the rifled one, you now have “any other weapon,” again subject to tax. But such a revolver might be particularly valuable for home defense, which is clearly a protected right under Heller and Bruen.

We could go on, but it’s clear that BATFE has been acting in a way clearly hostile to Second Amendment rights by unreasonably delaying approval to purchase various firearms and accessories. Further, the law under which it operates is the very definition of “arbitrary and capricious.” Florida Statutes 120.57 2.d explains that “A rule is arbitrary if it is not supported by logic or the necessary facts; a rule is capricious if it is adopted without thought or reason or is irrational.” The Supreme Court has applied this definition in multiple cases.

We might suggest that restricting private ownership of explosives could be legal. The imposition of these excise taxes might be a lawful act. But levying a tax on the exercise of a constitutional right is a clear infringement of that right. If I want to buy a fully automatic weapon and pay for the immense amount of ammunition it eats just because it has the giggle switch (full auto selector), that is my right. I become liable when I misuse it, just as I would become liable for misusing a single shot derringer or a delivery truck.

Imposing extra taxes on a constitutionally protected activity is a prior restraint on that right. First Amendment cases have clearly held prior restraints to be unlawful. Lengthy wait times are similarly unconstitutional. And the provisions of the NFA are arbitrary and capricious. That must include the GCA prohibition on private ownership of automatic weapons manufactured after 1969. We must therefore conclude that the bulk of both the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act is unconstitutional in both its text and application. SCOTUS should strike them both down at the earliest opportunity.

Ted Noel MD is a retired Anesthesiologist/Intensivist who podcasts and posts on social media as DoctorTed and @vidzette. His DoctorTed podcasts are available on many podcast channels.

Some of the video clips that I am going to share with you in this article are very raw.  So be warned in advance that you are going to see some disturbing images and you are going to hear some foul language.  In other instances, there are some that have attempted to find humor in what is taking place.  But of course there is nothing funny about abortion.

More than 60 million children have been killed in the United States since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, and millions more will be killed in the years ahead.  And even though the abortion industry will be able to continue to conduct business as usual in most of the country, liberals are throwing a monstrous temper tantrum now that Roe has been overturned.

In this article, I am going to try to show you what is really going on out there.  I am going to show you the good, the bad and the ugly and it will not be filtered.  The following are 11 of the most notable reactions to the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe…

#1 When the Supreme Court decision was officially announced, some pro-abortion protesters instantly burst into tears…

TRIGGERED: Pro Abortion protesters burst into tears and begin to condemn the Supreme Court as “ILLEGITIMATE” as the decsion to overturn Roe v Wade is announced in front of the Supreme Court here in DC | @TPUSA pic.twitter.com/Qgl8JSzjup

— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) June 24, 2022

#2 Other liberals responded to the decision by going into fits of rage.  Here is one woman that decided that recording herself screaming was the best way to deal with what happened…

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1541158351123337216

#3 Maxine Waters is up to her old tricks.  She made national headlines when she publicly promised to openly defy the Supreme Court…

BREAKING: Rep. Maxine Waters says "to hell with the Supreme Court, we will defy them!"https://t.co/XMYvgbpEHR

— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) June 24, 2022

#4 Many on social media have been suggesting that a national sex strike is the best way for women to use their leverage.  Here is one example…

“In protest of the overturning of Roe V Wade every unmarried woman should go on a sex strike, stand up for what you believe in.”

So to protest this Supreme Court decision, this individual is suggesting that promiscuous young liberal women should say no to sex until they get married?

I think that most conservative Christians would actually be thrilled to see that happen.

#5 To protest the overturning of Roe, one particularly crazed woman has decided to put her blood into an envelope and mail it to the Supreme Court…

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1541149526932615168

#6 During a panel discussion about abortion on CNN, Ana Navarro used members of her own family that have “special needs” as examples for why abortion is necessary…

Yikes — @ananavarro is talking about her “special needs” family members with Autism and Down's Syndrome to make the case for Abortion.

These people are SICK. pic.twitter.com/BSLprNd9ba

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 24, 2022

#7 As I detailed in a previous article, radical leftists in Arizona actually attempted to engage in a very real act of insurrection in Phoenix.  Kari Lake was absolutely horrified by this…

The left is showing everyone what a REAL “Insurrection” looks like right now in Downtown Phoenix.

This is domestic terrorism. The Arizona national guard should have been deployed hours ago, @DougDucey

Arrest these animals immediately. They are out for blood. pic.twitter.com/RI8uNrioVz

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) June 25, 2022

#8 Following the announcement of the decision to overturn Roe, there were some on Twitter that were openly calling for violence against Supreme Court justices.  In fact, one individual clearly stated that he intended to assassinate Clarence Thomas, and it took quite a long time before that post was finally removed…

While Twitter routinely bans conservatives, those who challenge the government-sanctioned Covid-19 narrative, or the results of the 2020 US election, threatening to assassinate a Supreme Court justice is just fine.

“I’m going to assassinate supreme court justice Clarence Thomas,” tweeted user @redfrnn after Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

#9 Others on social media suggested that much broader violence was needed…

They really do want you dead. pic.twitter.com/hmOD5fdsw0

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 25, 2022

#10 We are seeing such an outpouring of hatred toward Christians right now.  People are showing us what they truly think in their hearts, and it is absolutely frightening…

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1540528857186549760

#11 Of all the sick things that I have come across in recent days, what Stacey Abrams told Fox News was one of the sickest.  When asked if she would support any restrictions on abortion, she insisted that abortion should be legal all the way up to the point of birth…

Of course it isn’t just Stacey Abrams that feels this way.

We have countless other politicians that hold the exact same position.

And what is truly sad is that the vast majority of the U.S. population fully embraces abortion.  Just check out these brand new poll numbers…

Americans disapprove of the decision by 59%–41%. Fully two-thirds of women oppose the ruling with only 33% agreeing with it. A majority of Americans — 52% — believe that overturning Roe is “a step backward for America” while 31% think it’s “a step forward.”

How could we have fallen so far?

If we stay on the road that we are currently on, there is no future for our country.

Even though Roe has been overturned, well over 80 percent of the abortions that were performed before will still be able to happen.

For most of the remaining cases, those that want abortions will just have to drive to a neighboring state.

So ultimately not that much has actually changed.

But that won’t stop liberals from throwing massive hissy fits.  Here is a compilation of some of those meltdowns that comes from Freedom Toons…

And here is a compilation that was put together by Paul Joseph Watson…

Abortion has once again become the hottest political topic in America, and now we are going to have a national debate about this issue that will be unlike anything we have ever seen before.

Emotions are very high, and our nation is becoming more deeply divided with each passing day.

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to kill babies on an industrial scale, and that is not going to change any time soon.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending digital copies as gifts through Amazon to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from End of the American Dream.

Pro-life justices will ban interracial marriage?

Vice President Kamala Harris implied the Dobbs decision somehow threatens “the right to interracial marriage.” The pro-life, constitutional ruling “calls into question other rights that we thought were settled, such as the right to use birth control, the right to same-sex marriage, the right to interracial marriage,” Harris said during prepared remarks in Illinois on Friday afternoon.

While Harris is not the first Democrat to make this charge — Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) claimed without evidence that “Republicans want to ban interracial marriages” in March — her assertion cannot be substantiated based on any of the opinions associated with the Dobbs ruling. Justice Clarence Thomas, whose forceful concurring opinion eviscerated Roe, is married to a white woman. There is no indication the former Catholic seminarian wishes to dissolve his union with Ginni Thomas.

Abortion is a broad consensus supported by people of all faiths?

On Friday, President Biden called Roe v. Wade “a decision with broad national consensus, that most Americans of faith and backgrounds [sic] found acceptable.”

Biden made the same erroneous assertion just last month. In reality Christianity, and to degrees Orthodox Judaism and Islam, reject abortion-on-demand. Nor did Americans hold a “broad national consensus” in favor of abortion at the time Roe was decided. In 1969, only 40% of Americans believed abortion should be legal during the first trimester. The late Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who founded the group now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America but later became pro-life, admitted the abortion lobby “simply fabricated the results of fictional polls” showing “60% of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion.”

Abortion pills “safely end early pregnancies”?

“My administration will also protect a woman’s access to medications that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration — the FDA — like … mifepristone, which the FDA approved 20 years ago to safely end early pregnancies and is commonly used to treat miscarriages,” said Biden on June 24.

Mifepristone, part of a two-drug cocktail used to induce early medical abortions, certainly isn’t safe for the baby. But as abortions have shifted from surgical to medical abortions, mothers have also suffered an increasing number of side effects and injuries. Women who take the “medications” touted by Biden run a 53% greater risk of visiting the emergency room than those who have a surgical abortion. “Women who had a chemical abortion followed by a second abortion of any type within the next 12 months were more than twice as likely to wind up in the emergency room,” the authors of the study, who are associated with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, said in a statement to The Washington Stand. “Consistent with CDC reports, we found the percentage of abortions performed by means of mifepristone and misoprostol increased from 4.4% of total abortions in 2002 to 34.1% in 2015. Similarly, ER visits following mifepristone abortion grew from 3.6% of all postabortion visits in 2002 to 33.9% of all postabortion visits in 2015,” the peer-reviewed study concluded.

“The safety of the abortion pill is greatly exaggerated,” said its lead author, Dr. James Studnicki.

Abortion-on-demand is a constitutional right?

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) claimed, “Six radical Supreme Court Justices have overturned nearly 50 years of precedent, stripping away the constitutional right to an abortion.” Biden likewise said, “I believe Roe v. Wade was the correct decision as a matter of constitutional law.” Numerous Democrats made similar remarks.

First, only five justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Chief Justice John Roberts’s concurring opinion upheld the Mississippi law protecting unborn children from abortion after 15 weeks but would not overturn Roe.

Second, it’s impossible to fact-check an opinion but, if Biden sincerely believes Roe v. Wade is good constitutional law, he is in the smallest of minorities. The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg once described Roe as “heavy-handed judicial intervention.” A former clerk to the justice who wrote the Roe decision, Harry Blackmun, said, “Roe borders on the indefensible,” because “it has little connection to the constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent.”

The Roe decision hardly pretended to root the judicial activists’ desired outcome in the language of the Constitution. The justices explained their creative approach to the Constitution in a prior ruling: “The Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance,” they wrote. Roe v. Wade asserted that these emanations created a constitutional “right” to “sexual privacy” which, they discovered, included the right to an abortion. Abortion is “protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbra,” they said.

“To hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them.”

Shortly after justices released the Dobbs decision, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) responded by saying, “To hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them.”

While nothing requires people to endorse any Supreme Court decision, few politicians since President Andrew Jackson or former segregationist Democrat George Corley Wallace have called for actively ignoring its rulings. While dissenting from a decision may be the right choice at times, some believe it straddles the line of undermining the High Court’s legitimacy. “Sounds very insurrectiony for a member of Congress,” retorted the principled conservative group ForAmerica.

Honorable mentions

Other statements worth noting:

• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said pro-life advocates base their actions on unbridled misogyny. “Republicans seek to punish and control women,” she wrote. “This cruel ruling is outrageous and heart-wrenching [sic]”;
• Pelosi invoked motherhood in her defense of abortion-on-demand. “American women today have less freedom than their mothers,” she said;
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told Fox News the judicial majority voted to “endanger the lives of all women and all birthing people in this country.” She tweeted, “People will die because of this decision” before retweeting a link to a pro-abortion rally hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America;
• Failed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton deemed abortion-on-demand “sacred,” a term usually reserved for human beings created in imago Dei. “Most Americans believe the decision to have a child is one of the most sacred decisions there is,” she said, claiming the Dobbs ruling “will live in infamy as a step backward for women’s rights and human rights.”

As outrageous as these statements may be, none matches the fundamental lie that the most innocent human beings are “clumps of cells” or “parasites” who deserve to lose their God-given right to life based on a 49-year-old piece of judicial fiction.

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand. Image by SaadiaAMYii from Pixabay. Article cross-posted from Washington Stand.

According to RSBN:

On Friday morning, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited ruling on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, effectively overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. In a 6-3 ruling, the court ruled in favor of returning the issue of abortion to the states to decide.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, held “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer dissented.

https://twitter.com/toddstarnes/status/1540338466667601920

BREAKING: Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN Roe v. Wade — VICTORY! Watch LIVE reaction OUTSIDE the COURT https://t.co/3Hb0oPgJlk

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 24, 2022

THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!!!

ROE IS GONE!!!!!

THIS IS A BIG, BEAUTIFUL DAY IN AMERICA!!!!

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) June 24, 2022

LIFE WINS!

Glory to God

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) June 24, 2022

Life wins.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) June 24, 2022

I’m a kid born to a 15-year old mom who almost aborted me right after #RoeVsWade. Thankfully, she didn’t, and now she has grandkids she adores because of it. But how many other children were killed, and would-be mothers broken and damaged by that fateful decision?

— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) June 24, 2022

https://twitter.com/BeezlyKre/status/1540338325445296130

Chief Justice John Roberts, who did not sign off on the original draft leaked to the press, joined the five conservatives on the bench to uphold Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But his concurrence reads more like a dissent, admonishing the court for a lack of judicial restraint in not rendering a more narrow opinion that wouldn’t have overruled Roe and Casey. He did not join the five Justices in explicitly overturning Roe v. Wade.

Riots will now start. Keep a close eye on local churches and pregnancy centers. We’re in for a bumpy weekend from domestic terrorists that will almost certainly rival the George Floyd riots of 2020.

The reason for this is likely to blunt any backlash by putting it out just before the weekend. It’s a common tactic in DC, and Chief Justice John Roberts is not above using political tactics for practical purposes. Congressman Paul Gosar issued a warning on Gab:

Upon hearing the news that the Supreme Court will release additional rulings tomorrow, I would like to ask all patriots to please consider watching your local churches and pregnancy centers.

If you see vandals and arsonists, call the authorities and record what you can.

Radical leftists propped up by George Soros and other globalist elites have promised massive violence should Roe v Wade be overturned. They have already been targeting churches and pregnancy centers with firebombs, graffiti, and threats to personnel. Dropping the ruling today could mitigate some of the damage done by the domestic terrorists.

Speculation has leaned toward Roberts delaying the ruling for the sake of effect. He likes to save the most newsworthy cases for the end of the session. But there’s also the fact that he has been trying to convince some of the Justices to go with a lighter version of a ruling in which Roe v. Wade isn’t completely overturned. Could he join the majority and commandeer the decision himself? That would also jibe with a Friday release.

Whether it drops today or not, eyes will be on the Supreme Court. And if it does drop, eyes need to turn to the radical leftists and any likely targets that they’ll hit.