Muslims Fear for the Lives (VIDEO)

Following-up, "'Tolerant' Campus Administrators Exclude Trump Voters."

I attended the "safe places" event yesterday at my college, and two young Muslim women were there. They both wear the hijab, and one reports that's she's been harassed on campus since the election and the other says she's been living in fear for her life, even before the election. She thinks it's going to get worse after the inauguration.

I don't have any reason to discount their experiences. It's ugly all around. All I can say to people, as I've done in my classes, is that everyone deserves respect regardless of their background, religion, or political preferences. I'll continue to do that.

I'm also advocating for more resources on my campus. I think the best way for leftists to get used to the Trump era is for them to feel safe and included. I know media types will keep fanning the flames of division, so as a conservative I'm out to prove them wrong. That's what you have to do. Prove the leftist fuckers wrong.

In any case, at CNN:

Supreme Court's Docket Likely to Change

One of the most importantly impacts of Trump's election will be its effect on the Supreme Court. We'll have a new member sometime early next year, and it's likely to be a conservative, which will preserve the 5-4 balance existing at the time of Antonin Scalia's death.

And Ruth Bader Ginsberg is frail. She's pledged to hang on, but how long is unknown. (Rumors swirled last year that Clarence Thomas was thinking about retirement, and so now's a good time, since he can rest assured Trump will appoint a conservative to replace him.)

At any rate, at WSJ, "Republican Victories Likely to Alter Supreme Court’s Docket":

WASHINGTON—Republican victories in Tuesday’s election are nearly certain to alter the Supreme Court’s docket, reviving conservative ambitions and dashing liberal hopes, even before President-elect Donald Trump nominates a successor next year for the court’s open seat.

Legal observers are discussing which cases already in the court’s pipeline are likely to disappear as the Trump administration reverses policies advanced under Democratic President Barack Obama.

The docket shift should accelerate as the appointment of a successor to the late Justice Antonin Scalia nears, likely reviving cases challenging public-sector unions and campaign-finance regulations.

Without clarity about the court’s future direction since Justice Scalia died in February, the justices ducked cases that otherwise might have been accepted. That will change once a ninth justice joins a court now split evenly between conservatives and liberals.

Before the court’s docket gets more interesting, however, it is likely to get less so if some of the most prominent cases are removed, such as a dispute over which restrooms in public schools transgender students can use.

In April, a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., relied on legal guidance from the U.S. Education Department in ruling for Gavin Grimm, a transgender student who contended the Gloucester County, Va., school board violated federal sex-equity laws by requiring students to use facilities corresponding to their biological sex. If the Trump administration rescinds that guidance or takes the opposite position, the justices might throw out the lower court opinion without requiring oral argument.

Other cases involving Obama administration policies could meet similar fates.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court sent back to lower courts challenges to Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which requires cuts in carbon emissions to reduce climate change; the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program, which would allow illegal immigrants with children who are U.S. citizens to work; and Affordable Care Act regulations attempting to ensure that women who work for religion-affiliated organizations can obtain prescription birth control through employer-provided health insurance.

With the Trump administration expected to consider canceling such policies, the cases could vanish. The incoming president could also ensure the government doesn’t appeal a lower court decision last month that reduced the independence of another Obama-era legacy, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Another high-profile case, challenging a Missouri law limiting public subsidies for religious schools, is almost sure to leave the docket as a result of Tuesday’s election. The newly elected Republican attorney general, Josh Hawley, had while in private practice filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the state on behalf of the Assemblies of God denomination. After taking office in January, he could settle with the Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo., which is seeking a state grant to resurface its preschool playground.

Progressive legal activists had imagined a Hillary Clinton presidential victory that, by filling the Scalia vacancy, could create the first liberal majority on the Supreme Court since 1969. Now, however, they can expect to return to the role they have played for nearly half a century: defense against a conservative legal offensive.

The nature of environmental litigation before the high court also is almost certain to shift. During the Obama years, industries, developers and their allies have challenged administration regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws...

Still more.

I love that all these Obama-era clusterfuck policies and regulations are going to be flushed. I love it to the high heavens. I love it!

Elections have consequences.

Supreme Court Justices Return to Face Volatile Docket

I was just thinking about the Court's new term this week, since I'm doing civil liberties in my classes and I thought I might show my students an article or two or the coming term, which starts (each year) at the beginning of October.

So, what do you know?

See the New York Times, "Supreme Court Faces Volatile, Even if Not Blockbuster, Docket":

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, awaiting the outcome of a presidential election that will determine its future, returns to the bench this week to face a volatile docket studded with timely cases on race, religion and immigration.

The justices have been shorthanded since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February, and say they are determined to avoid deadlocks. That will require resolve and creativity.

“This term promises to be the most unpredictable one in many, many years,” said Neal K. Katyal, a former acting United States solicitor general in the Obama administration now with Hogan Lovells.

There is no case yet on the docket that rivals the blockbusters of recent terms addressing health care, abortion or same-sex marriage. But such cases are rare, whether there are eight justices or nine.

“This term’s cases are not snoozers,” said Elizabeth B. Wydra, the president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal group. “This term features important cases about racial bias in the criminal justice system, voting rights and redistricting, immigration and detention, and accountability for big banks that engaged in racially discriminatory mortgage lending practices.”

There are, moreover, major cases on the horizon, including ones on whether a transgender boy may use the boys’ restroom in a Virginia high school and on whether a Colorado baker may refuse to serve a same-sex couple.

“If either of these cases is taken, it will almost immediately become the highest profile case on the court’s docket,” said Steven Shapiro, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

There is also the possibility that a dispute over the outcome of the presidential election could end up at the Supreme Court, as it did in 2000 in Bush v. Gore.

“That is the doomsday scenario in some respects of having an eight-member court,” said Carter G. Phillips, a lawyer with Sidley Austin. A deadlocked Supreme Court would leave in place the lower court ruling and oust the justices from their role as the final arbiters of federal law.

Race figures in many of the new term’s most important cases, including two to be heard in October, and that seems to be part of a new trend. “The court hasn’t had a lot of cases recently dealing with race in the criminal justice system,” said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a law professor at Stanford.

In June, a dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor brought a new perspective to the issue. Citing James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me,” she insisted that the brutal history and contemporary reality of racism in the United States must play a role in the court’s analysis.

That dissent may prove influential, said Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “One item to keep an eye on this term,” he said, “is the extent to which the Black Lives Matters movement makes its presence felt on the court’s docket.”

On Wednesday, the court will hear arguments in Buck v. Davis, No. 15-8049. It arose from an extraordinary assertion by an expert witness in the death penalty trial of Duane Buck, who was convicted of the 1995 murders of a former girlfriend and one of her friends while her young children watched. The expert, presented by the defense, said that black men are more likely to present a risk of future danger.

The justices will decide whether Mr. Buck, who is black, may challenge his death sentence based on the ineffectiveness of the trial lawyer who presented that testimony.

“The Buck case raises questions that could not be more relevant to ongoing conversations sparked by police shootings about implicit bias and stereotyping of African-American men as violent and dangerous,” Ms. Wydra said. “The Roberts court, and particularly the chief justice himself, has often been reluctant to acknowledge the reality of systemic racism in this country, but the egregious facts of the Buck case make it impossible to avoid.”

On Oct. 11, the court will consider another biased statement, this one ascribed to a juror during deliberations in a sexual assault trial. “I think he did it because he’s Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want,” the juror said of the defendant, according to a sworn statement from a second juror.

The question in the case, Peña Rodriguez v. Colorado, No. 15-606, is how to balance the interest in keeping jury deliberations secret against the importance of ridding the criminal justice system of racial and ethnic bias.

Race also figures in cases on redistricting, fair housing and malicious prosecution...

Well, that's a lot of stuff on race and criminal justice, but I can't wait to see the Court take up the transgender restroom issue, to say nothing of the homosexual wedding cakes. You gotta ask how far is the culture war going to succeed in rending our country into that which is totally unrecognizable.

But keep reading. We'll certainly know in due time.

Out Today: Kim R. Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind

I blogged Mr. Holmes' YouTube video last Thursday, "Kim R. Holmes: How Liberals Lost Their Way (VIDEO)."

His new book is out today. Actually, I'm pretty excited to read this one. I might shuffle my reading list around a little to boost this one to the top.

At Amazon, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

Pope Francis Calls on Catholics to Be More Understanding, Except on Homosexual Marriage (VIDEO)

Well, the Church isn't budging on homosexual nuptials, which they still won't recognize.

At USA Today, "Pope has good news for divorced, but not for gays":

There had been hope among some Catholics that the pontiff might overhaul its position on gay marriage, but the large document that ends with the hand-written signature of “Franciscus” — the pope’s Latin name — made it clear that would not happen. It said there are “absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar … to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

The document also made repeated references to Christian marriage as a “union between a man and a woman.”

Kim R. Holmes: How Liberals Lost Their Way (VIDEO)

Kim R. Holmes is a Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and his book's out on April 12th. I'm really looking forward to it.

At Amazon, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

A former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Kim R. Holmes surveys the state of liberalism in America today and finds that it is becoming its opposite—illiberalism—abandoning the precepts of open-mindedness and respect for individual rights, liberties, and the rule of law upon which the country was founded, and becoming instead an intolerant, rigidly dogmatic ideology that abhors dissent and stifles free speech. Tracing the new illiberalism historically to the radical Enlightenment, a movement that rejected the classic liberal ideas of the moderate Enlightenment that were prominent in the American Founding, Holmes argues that today’s liberalism has forsaken its American roots, incorporating instead the authoritarian, anti-clerical, and anti-capitalist prejudices of the radical and largely European Left. The result is a closing of the American liberal mind...

More.

Outrageous! Federal Judge Rules That Christian Cross Has No Place on Los Angeles County Seal

This is ridiculous, a total outrage.

Frankly, the teeny-tiny crosses are almost unnoticeable at the original county seal.

Leftists are once again working to drive even the slightest mention of our religious history from public recognition, and the public memory.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Christian cross has no place on L.A. County seal, judge rules":

In a long-awaited ruling, a federal judge has sided with plaintiffs who argued it was unconstitutional for Los Angeles County supervisors to place a Christian cross on the county seal.

A divided Board of Supervisors voted in 2014 to reinstate the cross on top of a depiction of the San Gabriel Mission, which appears on the seal among other symbols of county history. They were sued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and a group of religious leaders and scholars, who said placement of the cross on the seal unconstitutionally favored Christianity over other religions.

A decade earlier, the county had removed a cross from the seal — this one shown floating above the Hollywood Bowl — after being threatened with a similar lawsuit. The proponents of reinstating the cross on the seal argued it was needed to make the image of the mission historically and architecturally accurate. When the seal was redesigned in 2004, there was no cross on top of the mission, as it had gone missing during earthquake retrofitting. The cross was later restored atop the building...

Keep reading.

Colorado Preschoolers Indoctrinated with Homosexual Marriage Curriculum

At iOWNTHEWORLD Report, "Four-year-old preschooler expelled in the name of LGBT tolerance":

A 4-year-old Aurora girl was kicked out of a preschool last month when her parents raised questions about books read in her class, including ones that told the stories about same-sex couples and worms unsure about their gender.

Her mother, R.B. Sinclair, sees it as sex education and wanted to opt her daughter out of those discussions.

Instead, school officials from Montview Community Preschool & Kindergarten in Aurora — run as a private, parent cooperative — explained the stories were part of the school's anti-bias curriculum, and because the discussions are embedded through the day, they told her that opting out was not possible.

Sickening.

It's bad enough in grade school. But they keep pushing depraved leftist indoctrination down to the younger ages.

Lila Kagedan, the First Orthodox Jewish Woman to Take the Title of Rabbi (VIDEO)

Via CNN:

Followers Flock to Hear Pope Francis Warn Against 'Dialogue with the Devil'

Shoot, I would've flocked to listen to that, heh.

At the Los Angeles Times, "More than 1 million flock to hear Pope Francis warn against 'dialogue with the devil'":

Pope Francis Sunday traveled to one of Mexico’s most dangerous and impoverished cities to tell the faithful that they must not negotiate with “the devil” and that embracing God will protect against the divided, conflictive societies that imperil the world.

He also paid recognition to Christians slain for their faith, “martyrs,” from centuries ago and from today—an allusion to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa, one of Francis’ great preoccupations.

More than a million people are believed to have attended the pope’s Mass, inside the venue and outdoors, in this scruffy suburb of the Mexican capital, braving cold temperatures in the morning to fan out over a wide area of the city, across block after block, to receive the first pope from the Americas.

“You cannot dialogue with the devil,” the pope said in his homily, departing, as he often does, from his prepared text. “He will always win.”

Instead, the pope said, people should embrace the spirit of fraternity to avoid forces that “try to separate us, making a divided and fractious family, a divided and fractious society. A society of the few for the few.”

More.

Reverend Franklin Graham: 'This is the most important election in my lifetime...' (VIDEO)

Stuart Varney has the interview, at Fox Business, "Franklin Graham: This is the most important election in my lifetime."

Secularism and communism go hand in hand, and America's at a fork in the road.

How Ted Cruz Engineered His Iowa Triumph

I meant to post this piece from Sasha Issenberg earlier.

He's so extremely good, at Bloomberg.

And buy his book, The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns.

Melissa Francis: 'C'mon Donald!' Iowa Caucuses: Trump Didn't Spend Enough Money (VIDEO)

Watch the Outnumbered analysis featuring Rich Lowry and Andrea Tantaros.

Toward the end of the clip Melissa Frances jumps in with some numbers, comparing the Cruz campaign's big expenditures to the billionaire's tight-fisted failures in the Hawkeye State.

Via Fox News:



PREVIOUSLY: "Donald Trump's the Biggest Loser Coming Out of Iowa (VIDEO)."

Donald Trump's the Biggest Loser Coming Out of Iowa (VIDEO)

Yeah, well, I said as much earlier, although the campaign's just beginning now.

And frankly, he gave a classy concession speech, which I'm just now seeing, since CNN was running with somebody, I think Hillary, at the time.

As far as expectations go, he's definitely taken a beating. The sign of a winner, though, is how well they take defeat, with sportsmanship or bitterness. The Donald's gonna be fine. He needs to be on the ground campaigning in New Hampshire first thing in the morning.

In any case, at U.S. News and World Report, "In Iowa, the Emperor Has No Clothes":

The day has arrived. GOP front-runner Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed consummate winner, is now officially a loser, placing second in the Iowa caucuses behind Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Trump lost despite polling nearly five points ahead of Cruz and the other GOP candidates. He could taste the victory. "Unless I win," Trump said Sunday, "I would consider this a big, fat, beautiful – and, by the way, a very expensive – waste of time. … If I don't win, maybe bad things will happen."

In contrast, a noticeably subdued Trump whitewashed his loss when he took the stage after the caucus, simply encouraging supporters to look forward to the future. "New Hampshire – we love New Hampshire. We love South Carolina." Rather than castigating the people of Iowa, as many expected (and as he's done before), Trump spun the loss as beating expectations: "I absolutely love the people of Iowa. … I was told by everybody, 'Do not go to Iowa. You cannot finish even in the top 10.' "

But overall, Trump's entire campaign has been predicated on his being a winner. And as Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall summarized, "If you're a 'winner', if you're the alpha, you have to win."

Keep reading.

How Ted Cruz Pulled Off Victory in the Iowa Caucuses (VIDEO)

From Philip Bump and Scott Clement , at the Washington Post, "How Ted Cruz won Iowa":

Powered by enormous support from very conservative voters, Ted Cruz surged past expectations to capture a victory in the Iowa caucuses on Monday night.

Cruz earned the support of 4 in 10 “very conservative” voters in the state, a group which made up 40 percent of the electorate according to preliminary entrance poll data. Cruz was also backed by 1 out of every 3 evangelical voters -- an important victory in a group that was nearly two-thirds of the electorate.

Donald Trump may have been hampered by two unexpected factors: Weaker than expected performance among new voters and a late surge by Marco Rubio. In the last Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in Iowa, Trump led Cruz among first-time caucus-goers by 16 points. On Monday night, Trump’s margin among this group was closer to half that.

Rubio earned about as much support from new voters as did Cruz. and was the preferred candidate of about 3 in 10 Iowa Republicans who made up their minds in the last week.

TRUMP FADES WHILE RUBIO CLOSES STRONG

Nearly half of Republican caucus-goers report making their final decision in the week before the caucuses, and the entrance poll shows Rubio performed best among this group. Nearly 3 in 10 of final-week deciders supported Rubio; he garnered about as much support among those deciding in January, but only about 1 in 10 of those who decided earlier than that backed Rubio.

Equally stark was Trump’s weakness among late-deciding voters. Just 14 percent of Republicans who decided in the final week supported Trump, compared with 23 percent of those who decided earlier in January and 40 percent who made their decision in December or earlier.

LARGE EVANGELICAL TURNOUT

Cruz leads among evangelical Christians, who made up over 6 in 10 Republican caucus-goers, their largest share of the vote in recent cycles. Cruz garnered about one-third of the evangelical vote, compared with just over 2 in 10 each for Rubio and Trump. Trump’s margin was similar among non-evangelical Republicans, though they made up fewer than 4 in 10 caucus-goers, lower than 2012 or 2008...

Yes, Rubio did do extremely well, and sucked the air out of Trump's momentum.

But the night really does belong to Ted Cruz. It's impressive, especially considering how he's been taking it from all sides all week, and then proved 'em all wrong.

Donald Trump's a big loser, but he's far from out. This is fantastic because it makes New Hampshire a week from tomorrow a real decision-making and game-changing contest.

Still more.

PREVIOUSLY: "Ted Cruz Beats Donald Trump in Iowa's GOP Caucuses."

Ted Cruz Beats Donald Trump in Iowa's GOP Caucuses

Our long national nightmare is over!

I had on CNN, which had Marco Rubio making a victory speech for his surging 3rd place finish (which is hella impressive). But I missed Donald Trump's concession speech (gonna have to find it on YouTube in a little bit).

Meanwhile, I've got Fox News on now, and we're awaiting Ted Cruz's victory speech. It's really major.

Here's Politico's banner headline, "CRUZ WINS IOWA":

The result is a blow to Donald Trump, whose candidacy is premised on his strength and ability to deliver wins.

More at Instapundit, "NBC CALLS IOWA FOR CRUZ. Trump and Rubio in a very close fight for 2d and 3d place."

Whoa! Possible Donald Trump could come in 3rd place! #RubioMentum! #IA #IACaucus #IowaCaucuses

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 2, 2016

Is Donald Trump for Real?

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

At the Washington Post, "Is Donald Trump for real? We’ll start getting an answer in Iowa":

DUBUQUE, Iowa — As Republican front-runner Donald Trump arrived in Iowa this weekend for a final burst of campaigning ahead of the Monday caucuses, he did so in his usual over-the-top fashion: rolling his jet to a stop in front of an airport hangar filled with supporters in this eastern Iowa river town.

The arrival — set to the theme song from the movie “Air Force One” — captured the surreal theatrics that have defined Trump’s candidacy, attracting attention in a way that prompts many to ask: “Is this for real? Is he for real?”

In any other election year, with any other candidate, Trump’s consistently high poll numbers and massive rally crowds would earn him the title of presumed nominee. But this year is unlike any other and Trump is unlike any other GOP candidate — a thrice-married billionaire real estate developer who has never held elected office, wears white shoes to the Iowa State Fair, curses at his rallies and gives rides to children in his Trump-emblazoned helicopter.

Yet Trump is on the cusp of something historic: A candidate who has broken nearly every rule of traditional campaigning is favored to win the Iowa caucuses and several primary contests to follow. The prospect has continued to baffle political pundits, strategists and party leaders, many of whom don’t seem to want to believe what is happening until they see some proof. The Monday caucuses provide Trump with the opportunity to provide some.

“It’s very frustrating because if anybody had the numbers and the turnout and the support that Donald Trump has, I don’t think the media would have any problem saying the normal stuff — that he’s a shoo-in,” said Ted Hacker, 39, who lives in Dubuque and started a trucking company with his wife a year ago. He plans to caucus for the first time on Monday, casting his vote for Trump in hopes of proving that the candidate’s supporters aren’t just fans looking to be entertained. “It’s very frustrating.”

It's all about the turnout, and after reading that piece from Sasha Issenberg, I'm even less sure about Iowa than ever. It's crazy!

But keep reading.

Whoa! Donald Trump Downplays Significance of Hawkey State on Eve of Iowa Caucuses (VIDEO)

Well, he rattles off all the states where he's leading in the polls.

There's no context, but still. Ruptly says "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump named states that he expects to win his party's nomination, while speaking at a campaign rally in Sioux City, Sunday, in an attempt to ease concerns about his performance in the upcoming Iowa caucus."

Watch:

#IowaCaucuses — Weijia Jiang Reports!

This is great!

Via CBS News 4 Miami:

Donald Trump Slams Ted Cruz Over 'Dishonest' ObamaCare Attack (VIDEO)

I posted video last night, "WATCH: Ted Cruz Slams Donald Trump and Marco Rubio at Campaign Event in Iowa (VIDEO)."

We're gonna see if the genuine "cuckservatives" flood the caucuses for Cruz tomorrow, lol.

Here's The Donald: