The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday again denied West Coast cities the ability to remove homeless people from the streets unless they can provide enough shelter for all of them.
The court <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-judges-oregon-ruling-homelessness-unconstitutional-1811615" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declined</a> to rehear a case involving the Oregon city Grant&#8217;s Pass, meaning a lower court&#8217;s ruling in July 2020 against the city will remain in effect.
The lower court&#8217;s decision in the case, Johnson v. Grants Pass, said that Grant&#8217;s Pass cannot have ordinances against homeless people camping or sleeping outside in public areas because this violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits excessive punishments. The fines for violating such ordinances also violate the Eighth Amendment, the court ruled.
Judge Roslyn Silver <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-judges-oregon-ruling-homelessness-unconstitutional-1811615" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in the court&#8217;s opinion declining to hear the case again that the number of homeless people in Grants Pass is higher than the available shelter beds.
Three conservative justices slammed the appeals court&#8217;s decision in dissents.
Justice Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee, argued that by citing the Eighth Amendment, the court has hamstrung local authorities and said the homelessness problem even extends to the Ninth Circuit&#8217;s doorstep.
&#8220;Looking out the windows of the Ninth Circuit&#8217;s courthouse in San Francisco, one sees the most difficult problems plaguing big-city America on display. Homelessness, drug addiction, barely concealed narcotics dealing, severe mental health impairment, the post-COVID hollowing out of our business districts,&#8221; Bress <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-judges-oregon-ruling-homelessness-unconstitutional-1811615" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in his dissent.
Conservative Ninth Circuit justice Milan Smith Jr., called homelessness the &#8220;defining public health and safety crisis&#8221; in the western states and said &#8220;unelected federal judges&#8221; are acting like &#8220;homelessness policy czars.&#8221;
&#8220;There are stretches of [Los Angeles] where one cannot help but think the government has shirked its most basic responsibilities under the social contract: providing public safety and ensuring that public spaces remain open to all,&#8221; Smith <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/9th-circuit-court-orders-cities-and-towns-cannot-force-homeless-people-off-the-street/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
Another Trump appointee, Justice Daniel Collins, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-judges-oregon-ruling-homelessness-unconstitutional-1811615" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the court&#8217;s rulings in this case and another 2018 homelessness case should be &#8220;overturned or overruled at the earliest opportunity, either by this court sitting en banc or by the U.S. Supreme Court.&#8221;
The other case is Martin v. City of Boise, in which the Ninth Circuit ruled that if a homeless person has no option to sleep inside, a city cannot cite the person for violating an ordinance against sleeping outside in a public area.
Homelessness in major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as many smaller cities dotting the western coast has only gotten worse since before the pandemic. Harrowing scenes of homeless people engaging in open-air drug use and living in filth on city streets continue to come out of the neighborhoods most in need of help.
In Los Angeles, homelessness is up 10% this year, <a href="https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=927-lahsa-releases-results-of-2023-greater-los-angeles-homeless-count#:~:text=LOS%20ANGELES%20%E2%80%93%20The%202023%20Greater,to%20an%20estimated%2046%2C260%20people." target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the latest count, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/los-angeles-homelessness-up-10-2023-count-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> last month. Los Angeles County’s homeless population rose to about 75,518 people, up from 69,144 in 2022.
In the Bay Area, about 38,000 people <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rising-crime-homelessness-leave-residents-of-san-francisco-and-oakland-on-edge" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are homeless</a> on a given night, up 35% since 2019. More than 7,000 people are homeless in San Francisco itself. Crime as well as open-air drug use often comes with the homeless issue, causing businesses to flee San Francisco’s downtown, where foot traffic has thinned.

US-HOMELESS-LOS ANGELES-SOCIETY-POVERTY-CRISIS

Ninth Circuit Again Refuses To Let West Coast Cities Remove Homeless People Until They Provide Shelter For All

9th Circuit

California

Crime

Drugs

Homeless

Homelessness

Oregon

Portland

San Francisco

Seattle

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is in need of some serious soul-searching.
LAUSD heartlessly terminated nearly 500 school teachers — simultaneously &#8216;displacing&#8217; hundreds more district employees — for declining the COVID vaccines. Then, as if violating its employees’ constitutionally-protected religious beliefs and individual medical needs was not injury enough, LAUSD audaciously sought to recover more than $200,000 in attorneys’ fees from the fired employees and other plaintiffs.
In its motion to the <a href="https://healthfreedomdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/LAUSD_II_DE-1_Complaint_11.03.2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">United States District Court</a> requesting legal fees, LAUSD had the gall to claim the lawsuit defending the employees’ constitutional rights is “frivolous.”
On April 3, 2023, the court issued its one-sentence ruling: “For reasons stated by Plaintiff, the Motion is Denied.”
Health Freedom Defense Fund (<a href="https://healthfreedomdefense.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HFDF</a>), California Educators for Medical Freedom (<a href="https://educatorsformedicalfreedom.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CAEMF</a>), and several individual plaintiffs <a href="https://healthfreedomdefense.org/hfdf-lawsuits/challenge-to-lausd-vaccine-mandate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued LAUSD</a> when it mandated the COVID vaccines for all employees on August 13, 2021.
In the <a href="https://healthfreedomdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/LAUSD_II_DE-1_Complaint_11.03.2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">complaint</a> the plaintiffs argued that COVID injections are therapeutics, not vaccines, as they do not prevent infection or transmission. This is not an empty assertion as on July 27, 2021, CDC <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0730-mmwr-covid-19.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revised guidance</a> stating that COVID injections do not stop transmission or infection of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
This point is critical as the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled in Cruzan vs. Director in 1990 that medical treatments may be refused even if they might save a recipient’s life.
However, this ruling has never been reconciled with a 1905 decision by SCOTUS in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, in which the court decided that vaccines could be mandated in clearly defined and limited situations, such as a deadly smallpox outbreak. But COVID is not smallpox. What’s more, Jacobson allowed those who declined the vaccine to pay a fine — Jacobson did not allow the state to force a vaccine on unwilling recipients on pain of losing their livelihoods.
Worth noting is that Jacobson was decided in 1905, in a very different world than we live in today. In 1905, women were prohibited from voting and Jim Crow laws existed. In the decades since our appreciation for basic human rights has advanced as reflected in the Nuremberg Code and the UNESCO Declaration on Human Rights and Bioethics acknowledging the ethical principle of voluntary informed consent.
Unfortunately, the U.S. District Court granted LAUSD’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, stating that “Without further guidance from the Ninth Circuit, the Court declines to adopt case law applying strict scrutiny in cases of forced medical treatment to the COVID-19 vaccine context.”
In other words, the judge said she could not rule in our favor without getting the green light from a superior court so HFDF et al. have appealed to the 9th Circuit and are very optimistic about the prospects.
Unfortunately, LAUSD has a track record of unethical behavior. In early 2021, it mandated the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) COVID vaccine for all employees despite federal law clearly stipulating that EUA products be voluntary.
Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF) helped CAEMF and several individuals to file their first lawsuit against LAUSD on March 17, 2021, challenging the mandate. The following day, LAUSD rescinded the mandate.
In July 2021, as the case was working its way through the system, LAUSD represented to our attorney and in a brief filed with the court, that there “is no mandate” and that LAUSD had no intention of issuing a mandate. The court accepted this representation in dismissing the case as not “ripe” on July 27, 2021. (Ripeness is a legal term requiring that a harm has already occurred before a lawsuit may be adjudicated.) Thus, if there is no mandate, the lawsuit is not ripe.
But LAUSD turned around only 17 days later and issued a COVID vaccine mandate on August 13, 2021.
So HFDF, CAEMF, and individual plaintiffs filed suit — again — challenging LAUSD’s vaccine mandate. We discovered that LAUSD had not been forthright with the District Court during the first case when it claimed there “is no mandate.”
According to depositions taken during the course of the second case, LAUSD Chief Human Resource Officer Ileana Davalos stated that “they were drafting a mandate in the first half of July 2021,” demonstrating that LAUSD had not been telling the truth about the mandates with the court in the first case.
LAUSD is a repeat offender having violated its employees’ constitutional rights, mandating an EUA product, claiming that a lawsuit protecting its employees&#8217; protected rights is frivolous, lying to plaintiffs’ counsel, and lying to the court.
Thankfully the court saw through LAUSD’s latest attempt to bully HFDF, CAEMF, and its employees by denying its hollow attempt to obtain attorneys’ fees from the plaintiffs.
Hopefully, the court will also recognize LAUSD’s cynical pattern of behavior.
Leslie Manookian is the President and Founder of <a href="https://healthfreedomdefense.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Health Freedom Defense Fund.</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MacArthur Park Los Angeles California – aerial view

L.A. School District Loses Court Battle Against Employees Who Refused The Jab

COVID-19 Vaccine

Los Angeles

Readers Pass

school district

Senate Republicans may not be in a hurry to schedule an impeachment trial &#8212; a feat made even more difficult by House Democrats&#8217; refusal to release the articles of impeachment &#8212; but they&#8217;ve been pretty busy regardless. approving dozens of President Donald Trump&#8217;s nominees to various courts, largely remaking the American judicial system.
The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/one-in-every-four-circuit-court-judges-is-now-a-trump-appointee/2019/12/21/d6fa1e98-2336-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html">Washington Post reports</a> that a staggering 25% of circuit court judges &#8212; one in four people on the bench &#8212; are now Trump appointees, cementing the President&#8217;s legacy, and making good on one of Trump&#8217;s top campaign promises.
&#8220;When Trump took office, nine of the nation’s 13 circuit courts were dominated by Democratic appointees. Now, seven of them have Republican majorities,&#8221; the New York Post reports. &#8220;Trump has had 50 of his circuit-court judges confirmed — far more than any other recent president at this point in their first terms. President Barack Obama managed just half that number, 25, in the same time frame.&#8221;
&#8220;Altogether,&#8221; the outlet continues, &#8220;187 Trump-nominated federal judges have been confirmed by the Senate — outpacing the 169 new judges named by George W. Bush and the 166 brought on board by Bill Clinton in their first three years.&#8221;
Sen. Mitch McConnell is pretty proud of the achievement, telling radio host Hugh Hewitt last week that his &#8220;motto for the remainder of this Congress is ‘leave no vacancy behind.’&#8221;
The project has continued, unabated, even during the House&#8217;s impeachment hearings. On November 14th alone &#8212; the first day Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) officially opened House Intelligence Committee hearings on the subject &#8212; &#8220;the Senate approved a Trump-nominated judge that flipped the Manhattan-based Second Circuit to a Republican majority,&#8221; per the New York Post.
All in all, the Trump White House has impacted dozens of court systems, but perhaps none more dramatically than the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has the dubious designation of being the most reliably left-leaning &#8212; and, perhaps accordingly, the most overturned &#8212; Federal circuit.
&#8220;The Senate confirmation of Lawrence VanDyke and Patrick Bumatay to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this month brought to nine the number of appointments President Donald Trump has made to the 29-member bench that serves as the last stop for nearly all legal complaints lodged in nine Western states,&#8221; <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/22/trump-judges-9th-circuit-appeals-court-088833">Politico reports</a>. &#8220;Democratic-appointed judges now hold a three-seat majority, compared with 11 at the start of Trump&#8217;s presidency.&#8221;
Trump targeted the Ninth Circuit, specifically, for change, and to that end, he&#8217;s succeeded dramatically. With just a few more years in office, Trump could, conceivably, flip the Ninth altogether, leaving Democrats without a reliable Federal Circuit court.
The nominees the Trump White House is sending to the Senate are more conservative than their predecessors, too, according to Trump&#8217;s liberal critics: &#8220;Daniel Goldberg, legal director of the liberal judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice, stressed that beyond the numbers, Trump has appointed nominees with strong ideological views. That was the case with VanDyke, who was confirmed in a 51-44 vote on Dec. 11 after drawing criticism for past writings and opinions on same-sex marriage, abortion, labor and immigration.&#8221;
Trump has long stressed that he would repay voters who took a chance on him with real results, and on the judiciary, he may be able to call the changes a real win.

President Trump Delivers Remarks On Federal Judicial Confirmation Milestones

Senate Goes On Judge-Approval Binge, One In Every Four Circuit Court Judges Now Trump Appointee

Donald Trump

Mitch McConnell

According to a new poll released by Ami Magazine, an international magazine catering to the Jewish community, 91.6% of Orthodox Jews from the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut approve of President Trump as &#8220;satisfactory&#8221; or &#8220;very satisfactory.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
NEW POLL: A new poll commissioned by <a href="https://twitter.com/Ami_Magazine?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Ami_Magazine</a> shows a whopping 91% of Orthodox Jews give <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RealDonaldTrump</a> a &#8220;Satisfactory&#8221; or &#8220;Very Satisfactory&#8221; rating. 
See the rest of the poll results in this week&#8217;s issue. <a href="https://t.co/CulPDJCtMk">pic.twitter.com/CulPDJCtMk</a>
&#8212; Ami Magazine (@Ami_Magazine) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ami_Magazine/status/1025092852588658690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
The 263 respondents of the poll varied in political affiliation, with 34.6% registered as Republican, 29.3% as not registered, 28.9% as Democrat, and 7.2% independent.
&#8220;There are many possible reasons why,&#8221; Jake Turx, Ami Magazine&#8217;s Senior White House Correspondent told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Though, one thing I see that Orthodox Jews have in common with Trump himself&#8212; personality wise&#8212; is a very strong sense of loyalty, in the sense that &#8216;if you have my back, I have yours.&#8217;&#8221;
Turx also says that there were many critics of Trump in the Orthodox Jewish community at the beginning of Trump&#8217;s term but many are now quieter. 
&#8220;After the Jerusalem declaration and the commuting of Rubashkin, they just disappeared,&#8221; Turx explained, referring to Trump&#8217;s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Trump commuting the sentence of of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/24949/trump-just-commuted-his-first-prison-sentence-and-amanda-prestigiacomo">Sholom Rubashkin</a>, the former owner of the largest U.S. kosher meat processing plant who was sentenced to prison for 27 years for financial crimes. &#8220;Some became fans, and some just stopped criticizing him, not because of pressure, but because at the end of the day they feel that if he has their back, they have his.&#8221;
The poll&#8217;s results also show that 60% believe Trump is &#8220;doing a great job&#8221; on both the economy and foreign policy, while 25% think he is only doing well on the economy, and 15% only think he is doing well on foreign policy.
Most respondents (82.4%) plan to vote for Trump in 2020 and only 17.6% plan to not vote for him.
More details about the poll can be found in <a href="http://www.amimagazine.org/#">Ami Magazine&#8217;s latest issue.</a>

POLL: 91.6% Of Orthodox Jews Find Trump Satisfactory or Very Satisfactory

Businessmen and gun rights advocates filed a petition with the Supreme Court to overturn a zoning law in Alameda County, California that bans gun shops from operating within 500 feet of a residential area. 
Entrepreneurs John Teixeira, Steve Nobriga and Gary Gamaza attempted to open a gun shop in the city of San Lorenzo, but were met with hostility from an archaic law prohibiting the opening of the store near a residential area. This legislation is clearly an attack on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
According to a Fox News <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/09/california-zoning-law-banning-gun-shops-is-challenged-in-supreme-court-filing.html">report</a>, Teixeira and his business partners investigated the area and discovered that not a single business in the city met with the restrictive zoning law, showing that their potential gun shop was singled out by the county. 
They filed a lawsuit to allow their business to open and received widespread support from gun rights organizations such as the Calguns Foundation, Second Amendment Foundation, and California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees.
They initially won the suit in 2016 thanks to a 2-1 three-judge panel decision of the 9th Circuit which ruled that Alameda County had restricted the businessmen&#8217;s Second Amendment freedoms.
Unfortunately, their case hit a snag in October 2017 when a federal Court of Appeals made the controversial decision to uphold the zoning law, claiming that it did not violate the plaintiffs&#8217; Constitutional rights. 
Judge Marsha Berzon said at the trial, &#8220;Gun buyers have no right to have a gun store in a particular location, at least as long as their access is not meaningfully constrained.&#8221; 
This prompted the group to file a petition with the Supreme Court in the hope that this infringement on their rights would be overturned. 
Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb explained to Fox News, &#8220;You simply cannot allow local governments to ignore the Second Amendment because they don&#8217;t like how the Supreme Court has ruled on the amendment twice in the past ten years.&#8221; He added, &#8220;You shouldn&#8217;t be able to zone the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights.&#8221;
(<a href="http://www.bizpacreview.com/2018/01/10/scotus-case-seeks-full-2nd-amendment-recognition-right-sell-guns-586701">H/T BizPac Review</a>)

Big 2nd Amendment Case: Gun Shop Owner’s Lawsuit Heads To The Supreme Court

California Supreme Court

Conservatism

Constitution

Fox News

Guns

Second Amendment

Supreme Court

For years, Bremerton School District assistant football coach Joseph A. Kennedy prayed at the 50-yard-line after football games and before them as well. Students frequently joined him, and he would also give them religiously-oriented motivational speeches. The school district attempted to punish him for doing all of this; he settled for praying alone after the games. But soon enough, he began praying at the 50-yard-line before everyone had gone home.
So the school district suspended him, and allowed his contract to expire.
Kennedy sued, suggesting religious discrimination under the First Amendment. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the school district had every right to dismiss Kennedy: &#8220;When Kennedy kneeled and prayed on the fifty-yard line immediately after games while in view of students and parents, he spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected.&#8221;
Then the Court went further. In a concurrence, one of the judges wrote that the school did the right thing in firing Kennedy.
That is insane viewpoint discrimination.
Kennedy&#8217;s job included becoming a &#8220;coach, mentor, and role model for student athletes.&#8221; It included an explicit job requirement to attempt to create both good athletes and &#8220;good human beings.&#8221; Kennedy&#8217;s post-game prayers originally lasted a grand total of 30 seconds, and were &#8220;a brief, quiet prayer of thanksgiving for player safety, sportsmanship, and spirited competition.&#8221; Over time, they morphed into motivational speeches given to students of both teams &#8212; students who voluntarily wanted to hear him.
The District suggested that these activities violated school board policy that said &#8220;staff shall neither encourage nor discourage a student from engaging in non-disruptive oral or silent prayer or any other form of devotional activity.&#8221; There is no evidence that Kennedy pushed students into anything; the school board even acknowledged as much. But the school board insisted that Kennedy not allow students to pray with him at all &#8212; that any activity had to be &#8220;physically separate from any student activity, and students may not be allowed to join such activity.&#8221;
Kennedy eventually agreed to engage in a prayer on the 50-yard-line by himself, but students and spectators spontaneously joined him. Naturally, Satanists &#8212; being good Satanists &#8212; then suggested that they wanted their own right to pray on the field. The district responded by telling Kennedy that he had to pray only when the stadium was empty. Kennedy disobeyed and prayed immediately after games anyway; the district notified him of violation and suspended him, and eventually fired him.
The Court found in favor of the district. They made two legal arguments. First, they said that Kennedy was acting as a public employee, and that he therefore could be disciplined under that rubric:
<blockquote>
Kennedy spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen &#8230; the &#8216;speech at issue&#8217; is directed at least in part to the students and surrounding spectators; it is not solely speech directed to God. &#8230; All told, by kneeling and praying on the fifty-yard line immediately after games, Kennedy was fulfilling his professional responsibility to communicate demonstratively to students and spectators. Yet, he &#8220;took advantage of his position to press his particular views upon the impressionable and captive minds before him.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Secondly, the Court made clear that it approved the district&#8217;s logic &#8212; that it wanted religious exercise banned so long as it exerted any influence on anyone. Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. wrote in concurrence:
<blockquote>
The context would bolster the perception that the District was endorsing religion. &#8230; Irrespective of the District&#8217;s views on that matter, a reasonable observer would conclude in light of the history and context surrounding Kennedy&#8217;s conduct that the District, &#8220;in actuality,&#8221; favors religion, and prefers Christianity in particular.
</blockquote>
Now, teachers don&#8217;t have the absolute right to do and say what they want as employees of school districts. Did the school district have the right to fire Kennedy? Perhaps so. But to suggest that public schools have an obligation to fire those like Kennedy is a despicable, purposeful misreading of the First Amendment, and a blow at Christianity more generally. Kennedy forced no one; his religious practice inspired many. That&#8217;s something good. But for the Left, even the presence of religion in any decent light must be proscribed on the public dollar. The Founders would have been appalled by such nonsense.

ANTI-RELIGIOUS BIGOTS: 9th Circuit Rules That School Was Right To Fire Coach For Praying On 50-Yard-Line

On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/federal_court_to_rule_if_a_mon.html">heard</a> oral arguments on the following question: Does a Celebes crested macaque hold copyright to a selfie? Celebes crested macaques are a <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/12556/0">critically endangered species</a> of Old World monkey originally from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
In 2011, British nature photographer David Slater did an experiment to see if the macaques could operate the camera. A female macaque named Naruto took many photographs, including a <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Macaca_nigra_self-portrait_large.jpg">selfie</a> that was the subject of the current litigation. Since the monkey took the photograph&#8217;s on Slater&#8217;s camera, the photographer took the images as his own and claimed he possessed the copyright.
That did not suit well many radical environmentalists, particularly with the radicals from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In September 2015, PETA <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/peta-files-suit-on-behalf-of-grinning-selfie-monkey/a-18730953">filed</a> a lawsuit in the United States District Court of the Northern District of California claiming that United States Copyright law does not preclude animals from owning rights to property. Namely, Naruto should own the rights to the selfies it took. The case was <a href="http://oldarchives.courthousenews.com/2016/01/29/judge-dismisses-petas-monkey-selfie-lawsuit.htm">dismissed</a> in January 2016 by Judge William Orrick, correctly stating that animals do not have standing in court. Orrick, who is also a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/15770/ridiculous-judge-who-blocked-trumps-sanctuary-robert-kraychik">known Democratic fundraiser</a>, quoted a 2004 Ninth Circuit case, elaborating:
<blockquote>
If Congress and the president intended to take the extraordinary step of authorizing animals as well as people and legal entities to sue, they could, and should, have said so plainly.
</blockquote>
Such laws do not expressly state that animals are a protected class in a series of laws, let alone United States Copyright Law. However, PETA appealed the dismissal and brought it to the Ninth Circuit.
During oral argument, the three-judge panel took the PETA lawyers to task on whether they had a legitimate relationship with the macaque to reach the threshold of the &#8220;next friend&#8221; doctrine, which holds that a party can act as representative to the aggrieved party if they are incapacitated or unable to advocate for themselves. If the Ninth Circuit believes that PETA fails to reach that threshold, then the macaque has no standing.
This is nothing short of a frivolous lawsuit filed by one of the most radical leftist organizations in the United States. Individual human beings and organizations are the only parties that could have standing in court and this attempt to extend standing for animals represents nothing short of an attempted bastardization of the law.
Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElliottRHams/">Facebook</a>.

WUT: Ninth Circuit To Decide Whether A Monkey Has Copyright Claims To A Selfie

Lawsuit

PETA

In yet another example of lawless judicial activism, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction against President Trump&#8217;s travel and refugee ban.
The court justifies the standing given to the plaintiffs, as they said that there was &#8220;concrete&#8221; harm for an Egyptian-American citizen whose Syrian mother-in-law would be prevented from coming to the United States because of the travel ban. The court also ruled that the other plaintiff, the state of Hawaii, had standing based on the notion that the travel ban would cause harm to its state university and prevent the state from letting in refugees on its own.
That justification for standing alone is insane. Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14485/3-most-idiotic-pronouncements-hawaii-judges-ben-shapiro">noted</a> that it was asinine to suggest that the Egyptian citizen had standing due to &#8220;concrete&#8221; harm, pointing out, &#8220;Most government action is devastating to someone. Does that give them standing to sue? What absolute idiocy.&#8221;
Shapiro also argued that the logic that a university would be harmed by the travel ban would essentially give the green light for states to &#8220;to overturn all immigration laws.&#8221;
The ruling only gets worse from there, as the court eventually concluded that the Trump administration failed to justify the need for the travel ban:
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9th Cir.: Travel ban EO doesn&#8217;t &#8220;offer a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180m people on the basis of nationality&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/R7XrDh4g7B">pic.twitter.com/R7XrDh4g7B</a>
&#8212; Brad Heath (@bradheath) <a href="https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/874312501575520256">June 12, 2017</a></blockquote>
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The panel makes some narrow arguments: Issue isn&#8217;t so much what the president did as the way he did the lack of supporting justifications. <a href="https://t.co/NWJK3PSjox">pic.twitter.com/NWJK3PSjox</a>
&#8212; Brad Heath (@bradheath) <a href="https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/874313347914760192">June 12, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Basically, the court is arguing that the Trump administration did not prove that the ban would advance national security interests and that national security alone does not justify executive action from the president.
But as National Review&#8216;s Andrew McCarthy has previously <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444371/donald-trump-executive-order-ban-entry-seven-muslim-majority-countries-legal">explained</a>, federal law does indeed give the president the power to put pauses on immigration at any time. It&#8217;s not for the court to decide if the policy is effective or not, only if it&#8217;s legal. 
Additionally, the court ruled that the travel ban violates federal law preventing discrimination based on nationality, but McCarthy has <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/444471/mccarthy-patterico-trump-immigration-order">also explained</a> that temporary pauses on immigration based on countries of origin are acceptable under federal law if the president believes that it&#8217;s necessary for national security purposes. Note that it&#8217;s what the president decides, not the courts.
However, the court did allow the administration to review their vetting standards, a sliver of rationality in an otherwise-ridiculous ruling.
Overall, the Ninth Circuit&#8217;s ruling is yet another example of judicial tyranny that is becoming increasingly rampant. The <a href="http://theresurgent.com/its-time-for-congress-to-declare-war-on-the-judiciary/">remedy</a> lies with Congress.
<a href="http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2017/06/12/17-15589.pdf">Read the full opinion here.</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter">Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter.</a>

BREAKING: Ninth Circuit Rules Against Trump Travel Ban

Illegal Immigration

Trump Administration

If you had any doubts about President Trump taking on the leftist tendency to use the judicial system to implement their agenda, think again: on Wednesday he uttered a simple statement in which he stated his intention to break up one of the bastions of the leftist movement &#8211; the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Asked by <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-absolutely-looking-at-breaking-up-9th-circuit-court-of-appeals/article/2621379">The Washington Examiner</a> if he has considered breaking up the 9th Circuit, where two judges have blocked two of his executive actions, Trump answered bluntly, &#8220;Absolutely, I have. There are many people that want to break up the 9th Circuit. It&#8217;s outrageous. Everybody immediately runs to the 9th Circuit. And we have a big country. We have lots of other locations. But they immediately run to the 9th Circuit. Because they know that&#8217;s like, semi-automatic. You see judge shopping, or what&#8217;s gone on with these people, they immediately run to the 9th Circuit. It&#8217;s got close to an 80 percent reversal period, and what&#8217;s going on in the 9th Circuit is a shame.&#8221;
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-judge-blocks-trumps-sanctuary-cities-executive-order/article/2621249">temporarily blocked</a> Trump&#8217;s order to the Justice Department in January to put immigration-related conditions on grants for &#8220;sanctuary cities&#8221; that may not be directly related to law enforcement.
In February, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13663514430846630216">a 9th Circuit panel</a><a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3457898/2-9-17-9th-Circuit-Order.pdf"> ruled</a> that Trump&#8217;s immigration executive order was likely unconstitutional. That <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/15/five-9th-circuit-judges-dissent-arguing-for-vacating-panel-decision-on-president-trumps-immigration-executive-order/?utm_term=.4be3ee5b46a1">prompted</a> Trump to substitute another order, which was challenged; but the panel decision remained on the books as binding law within the 9th Circuit.
Trump told the Examiner, &#8220;The language could not be any clearer. I mean, the language on the ban, it reads so easy that a reasonably good student in the first grade will fully understand it. And they don&#8217;t even mention the words in their rejection on the ban. And the same thing with this [sanctuary city decision]. I mean, when you have people that are being enabled to commit crime. And in San Francisco, when you look at Kate Steinle, being shot and here is the court, you know, right in that same general area. And when you look at a Kate Steinle, when you look at so many other things.&#8221;
Steinle was gunned down by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco in 2015.
Trump continued, &#8220;Sanctuary cities have been very, very dangerous. Very, very bad. And, you know, we&#8217;ve done a great job on law enforcement, we&#8217;ve done a great job at the border. And all of our most talented people say sanctuary cities are a disaster.&#8221;
The 9th Circuit hears appeals from courts in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam and the Northern Mariana islands. There are 13 courts of appeals; the 9th is the largest with 29 active judgeships. It has the highest percentage of sitting judges appointed by Democratic presidents. Between 1999 to 2008, of the 9th Circuit Court rulings that were reviewed by the Supreme Court, 61% were reversed. Between 2010 to 2015, roughly 79% were reversed.
<blockquote>
&#8220;You see judge shopping, or what&#8217;s gone on with these people, they immediately run to the 9th Circuit.&#8221;
President Trump
</blockquote>
In March 2007, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?197182-1/america-courts">testified</a> before a House Appropriations subcommittee that the consensus among the justices of the Supreme Court was that the 9th Circuit should be split. The 9th Circuit struck down same-sex marriage bans in California, Idaho, and Nevada. The 9th Circuit <a href="http://If you had any doubts about President Trump taking on the leftist tendency to use the judicial system to implement their agenda, think again: on Wednesday he uttered a simple statement in which he stated his intention to break up one of the bastions of the leftist movement: the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Asked by The Washington Examiner if has considered breaking up the 9th circuit, where two judges have blocked two of his executive actions, Trump answered bluntly, &quot;Absolutely, I have. There are many people that want to break up the 9th Circuit. It's outrageous. Everybody immediately runs to the 9th Circuit. And we have a big country. We have lots of other locations. But they immediately run to the 9th Circuit. Because they know that's like, semi-automatic. You see judge shopping, or what's gone on with these people, they immediately run to the 9th Circuit. It's got close to an 80 percent reversal period, and what's going on in the 9th Circuit is a shame.&quot; On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick temporarily blocked Trump&#8217;s order to the Justice Department in January to put immigration-related conditions on grants for &quot;sanctuary cities&quot; that may not be directly related to law enforcement. In February, a 9th Circuit panel ruled that Trump&#8217;s immigration executive order was likely unconstitutional. That prompted Trump to substitute another order, which was challenged; but the panel decision remained on the books, as binding law within the 9th Circuit. Trump told the Examiner, &quot;The language could not be any clearer. I mean, the language on the ban, it reads so easy that a reasonably good student in the first grade will fully understand it. And they don't even mention the words in their rejection on the ban. And the same thing with this [sanctuary city decision]. I mean, when you have people that are being enabled to commit crime. And in San Francisco, when you look at Kate Steinle, being shot and here is the court, you know, right in that same general area. And when you look at a Kate Steinle, when you look at so many other things.&quot; Steinle was gunned down by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco 2015. Trump continued, &quot;Sanctuary cities have been very, very dangerous. Very, very bad. And, you know, we've done a great job on law enforcement, we've done a great job at the border. And all of our most talented people say sanctuary cities are a disaster.&quot; The 9th Circuit hears appeals from courts in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam and the Northern Mariana islands. There are thirteen courts of appeals; the 9th is the largest, with 29 active judgeships. It has the highest percentage of sitting judges appointed by Democratic presidents. Between 1999 to 2008, of the Ninth Circuit Court rulings that were reviewed by the Supreme Court, 61% were reversed. Between 2010 to 2015, roughly 79% were reversed. In March 2007, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee that the consensus among the justices of the Supreme Court was that the Ninth Circuit should be split. The 9th Circuit struck down same-sex marriage bans in California, Idaho, and Nevada. The 9th Circuit once ruled the words &quot;under God&quot; in the pledge of allegiance was unconstitutional, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that. In addition, the 9th circuit is overloaded, handling 20% of the U.S. appellate cases. Good for Trump.">once ruled</a> the words &#8220;under God&#8221; in the pledge of allegiance was unconstitutional but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that.
In addition, the 9th Circuit is overloaded, handling 20% of the U.S. appellate cases.

Trump: I’ve Considered Breaking Up 9th Circuit

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