Is the era of Big Judicial Activism over?

It might just be.  Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch, in a ruling about denying green cards to migrants who come here to be "public charges," something that's plainly laid out in U.S. law as illegal, threw in a special warning to activist judges, all leftists, who have been beavering away to rule from the bench, warning them that he's tired of their shenanigans.  It's a spectacle to behold — a big lion on the Supreme Court who not only cares about rule of law, but is now warning the leftists out there that he's coming for them.

Here's PJMedia's report:

In addition to the 5-4 decision allowing the rule to go into effect, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a concurring opinion rebuking activist judges and their rush to apply "nationwide injunctions" against Trump administration policies.

"Today the Court (rightly) grants a stay, allowing the government to pursue (for now) its policy everywhere save Illinois. But, in light of all that's come before, it would be delusional to think that one stay today suffices to remedy the problem. The real problem here is the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the cases before them. Whether framed as injunctions of 'nationwide,' 'universal,' or 'cosmic' scope, these orders share the same basic flaw — they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case," Gorsuch wrote.

These details from the Wall Street Journal are important, too:

His concurrence, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, is a much-needed rebuke to what he calls "the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the cases before them. Whether framed as injunctions of 'nationwide,' 'universal,' or 'cosmic' scope, these orders share the same basic flaw — they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case."

Love the use of the word "cosmic" to describe this judicial overreach.  Kudos also to Justice Clarence Thomas, who has been laboring on this for decades.

Translation: Back off.  You are a problem.  You will be overruled.

The story here is that a new big lion has roared, and all the little judicial activist rats out there who have been scurrying hard to block President Trump's bid to do what the voters asked of him are now being read the Riot Act.

The problem Gorsuch stated is actually a huge issue, cutting to whether the citizens have the right to elect the leaders they want.  Seems any judge out in some wasted blue city has appropriated for himself the power to overrule the president on any spurious grounds whatsoever and knows that by the time the appeals get done, the presidency will be over.  Time enough to elect a Democrat for that.  Some of these creeps even know that their spuriously reasoned rulings will be overturned but for them, knowing full well the idea is to game the system. 

Those who lose out are the voters.  And the irony of the whole matter is that they elected President Trump to get rid of insane things like government by executive order, as in the case of DACA and assorted drilling bans.  Obama, or any Democrat, is free to issue these essentially sweeping dictatorial edicts, but the judicial rattery says Trump is not free to get rid of them, correcting course on previous presidential overreach.

Here's are fifteen such judicial activist bids to block Trump, and rest assured: the list is not comprehensive.

San Francisco judge William Orrick in 2017 blocked President Trump's bid to withhold federal funds from cities that shield illegal aliens through sanctuary city laws.

Hawaii judge Derrick Watson in 2017 blocked President Trump's temporary travel ban on citizens from terrorist-exporting countries, derived from an Obama administration list, a perfectly reasonable presidential decision based on who was getting in. 

Texas border judge Andrew Hanan in 2018 blocked President Trump's bid to shut down DACA, despite admitting that President Obama had no authority to impose DACA after Congress rejected it, arbitrarily saying Trump waited "too long" to get rid of the Obama executive order.  He didn't notice that Trump spent a lot of time trying in good faith to make a deal with the Democrats, who don't do deals.

Washington, D.C. judge John D. Bates in 2018 blocked Trump from shutting DACA down, too, ruling that not only were the DREAMers free of any deportation concerns, but the Trump administration would be forced to continue to take applications from the lawbreakers, keeping the incentive to immigrate illegally with small children going.

San Francisco judge William Allsup in 2018 blocked Trump from shutting DACA down so that all the little lawsuits from illegals and their advocates could go through first, a great plan for driving a decision on the issue well past the Trump administration for disposition. 

San Francisco judge Kim Wardlaw in 2018 continued to block the Trump administration from shutting down DACA on the logic that the illegals in question were "likely to succeed" in whatever new lawsuits they could cook up to stop Trump. Nothing like a convenient forecast.

El Paso judge David Brione in 2019 blocked President Trump's diversion of $3.6 billion in defense funding for a border wall, effectively saying that guarding the border from bona fide invaders was not a defense purposa, apparently thinking the Department of Defense is solely there for Iraq wars instead.

Oakland judge Haywood Gilliam in 2019 blocked President Trump's diversion of $3.6 billion in border wall funding to protect the border on the get-a-load "logic" that it might interfere with the Sierra Club's enjoyment of all the border scenery. Kid you not. When you see how much the other judges are getting away with in Gettin Trump, any old logic will do.

San Francisco Judge Jon Tigar in 2019 blocked President Trump's bid to enforce international asylum law requiring would-be asylees to take the first country of refuge, meaning, would-be asylum seekers would have to show their seriousness by taking any place they can get instead of country-shopping across multiple borders for the best package deal. His ruling pretty well rang the dinner triangle for the increasingly sophisticated and lucrative people smuggling networks from India, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Central America to come on in, passing through as many countries as they needed to. He actually did it two other times, too, creating a "gift to human smugglers and traffickers," as White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said.

Alaska judge Sharon Gleason in 2019 blocked President Trump's 2017 lifting of Obama-era restrictions on drilling, saying he hadn't done enough environmental assessmenting.

New York judge George Daniels in 2019 blocked President Trump's bid to enforce existing federal law about denying green cards to migrants who have come her to use pricey welfare services such as Medicaid, free housing cash, and food stamps, and he wasn't the first - three other judges in California, New York and Washington state were there first.

Washington, D.C. judge John Bates (him again) in 2019 blocked President Trump's bid to enable small businesses to band together with other small businesses to buy health care at the same cheap rates corporates get for their employees, saying it was "an end-run" around the punitive Obamacare. That's some logic he's got there: Pay higher rates or else. Stay punished, my friends.

Maryland judge Peter Messitte in 2020 blocked President Trump's decision to allow local officials to decide whether they wanted to accept "refugees," many of whom have created problems, with the vague flip of the hand that it was "not in the public interest." Apparently the members of the public who live in such places don't have interests. 

That's just fifteen such activist jackasses and rest assured there are more.

Gorsuch's move was sorely needed if the voters are ever going to be able to make choices based on democratic representation. It's a good thing for democracy, it restores the link between voter choices and voter results, allowing voters to be right and wrong, and ending a petty satrapy of petty leftwing judges who follow solely the activist agenda, allowing themselves to be the handmaidens of creatures such as George Soros and his vast NGO activist networks. It forces judges to rule by what the law says, not what they want and can't persuade votes to get at the ballot box. It forces them to stay in their lane or else endure the disgrace of seeing their stupid rulings overruled. It snaps the judges back to their role and curbs the vast unelected administrative state that Brought Trump.

Gorsuch's stellar move is in the same constellation as the great legal mind of Antonin Scalia. It's fealty to the Constitution. It's fealty to democratic rule. And it's a torch that has long been lying there, critical for someone to pick up. Gorsuch did it. This justice rocks.