Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) praised the U.S. Supreme Court this week for overturning the Chevron decision late last week, saying that the ruling would play a major role in dismantling the administrative state. Cruz made the remarks during the most recent episode of his “Verdict” podcast with co-host Ben Ferguson while talking about the Supreme Court’s 6-3 vote to overturn the 1984 ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. “The Chevron decision created something that is called ‘Chevron Deference.’ Now what is Chevron Deference? It was a doctrine that said the courts will defer to federal agencies on rules and regulations so long as that rule and regulation is, quote, ‘reasonable,'” Cruz said. “What it did is it gave enormous powers to un-elected bureaucrats and Chevron, you can trace in a very direct line, the rise of the administrative state, the rise of unelected bureaucrats issuing rules that are incredibly costly to the American people, incredibly harmful to the American people, you can trace that rise to the Chevron Doctrine.” Cruz explained that the courts would refer to the ruling in handing unelected bureaucrats enormous amounts of power to regulate Americans’ lives. “And so, the court last week overruled Chevron, what that means now, is that it is Congress, it’s the elected members of Congress that have to make policy decisions that impact the American people, not the armies of bureaucrats who have no democratic accountability,” he said. “The result today is there is more power in the elected members of Congress. And the reason that matters because where power resides, you want it to reside where there’s accountability.” Cruz added that Democrats and the media were “horrified” by the ruling because it protected the Constitution and was pro-democracy. “Even though Democrats in the corporate media love talking about how much they want to defend democracy, they are horrified whenever the voters actually get to decide,” he said. “They want unelected judges, deciding so long as they agree with what the judges are deciding, and they want unelected bureaucrats deciding and they know they’re gonna agree with that, because the bureaucrats are overwhelmingly left-wing and disconnected from the harms that their rules and regulations are causing.” WATCH: LISTEN: Sen. Ted Cruz on what it means now that the Supreme Court put an end to Chevron deference: “It’s the elected members of Congress that have to make policy decisions that impact the American people, not the armies of bureaucrats who have no democratic accountability. …… pic.twitter.com/IYHX8SFrrA — Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) July 1, 2024

Former Atlanta Democrat Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a senior advisor to President Joe Biden’s campaign, slammed Georgia’s largest newspaper this week for criticizing Biden, saying that by doing so they were interfering in the election. Bottoms made the remarks Monday afternoon during an interview on MSNBC with Chris Jansing when asked about what advisers are telling the president following his disastrous debate performance. “Let me just say I was very disappointed with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,” she said in response to the newspaper’s editorial board writing that Biden should drop out. “As we have talked about making sure that we’re protecting elections and making sure there’s no undue influence, this was undue influence by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or an attempt to influence.” “I think voters should be able to make the decision the same way they did in primaries that were held,” she added, even though the Democrat Party did not hold primary debates. When Jansing pushed back, noting that the editorial board was just doing its job, Bottoms responded: “Editorial boards are supposed to honor fair elections. I don’t think it’s fair when an editorial board with ten people sitting in a room are trying to influence an election, especially in a state like Georgia where there’s already been discussions about influencing elections.” “If you’re going to ask a candidate to step aside, let’s also look at Donald Trump’s record and all of the reasons, including his indictment in Fulton County, trying to influence the secretary of state, his convictions,” she added. “Let’s put them side-by-side. I’ll take a 90-minute bad night over the totality of Donald Trump’s presidency any day of the week.” WATCH: Top Biden campaign advisor Keisha Lance Bottoms accuses editorial boards of election interference for writing negative pieces about Biden ? pic.twitter.com/ed740GLrGD — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 1, 2024

Many people who were close to Queen Elizabeth remember her for her quick-witted sense of humor. And after hearing this story, we understand why. Former Royal Protection Officer Richard Griffin spoke with Sky News in June 2022, shortly before Her Royal Highness passed away. He worked with Buckingham Palace for 30 years and had come to appreciate the queen for her “wit and charm.” And one story of her playing a joke on some American tourists remained one of his most cherished memories. Richard said the Queen would spend a weekend each May relaxing at her estate in Balmoral. While there, she would go to a special spot for a picnic. Usually, no one would pass through that area. But on this particular occasion, Queen Elizabeth and Richard ran into two hikers who did not recognize the queen. “The American gentleman was telling the queen where he came from, where they were going to next, and where they’d been to in Britain. And I could see it coming, and sure enough, he said to Her Majesty, ‘And where do you live?'” “She said, ‘Well, I live in London. But I’ve got a holiday home just on the other side of the hills,'” he laughed. Queen Elizabeth Left The Tourists With The Perfect Keepsake The queen told the tourists that she’d been visiting the area since she was a little girl, “so over 80 years.” One of the tourists replied, “Well if you’ve been coming up here for 80 years, you must’ve met the queen.” “As quick as a flash, she says, ‘Well, I haven’t. But Dick here meets her regularly,'” he continued. The man asked Richard what the queen was like, so he joined in the joke and said, “Oh, she can be very cantankerous at times. But she’s got a lovely sense of humor.” Richard laughed as he said the man was impressed that Richard was friends with Queen Elizabeth, so he handed his camera to Elizabeth and asked her to take a picture of them together. To make the little prank better, Richard then offered to take a picture of them with Elizabeth. “We never let on,” he continued before adding her best line. “And we waved goodbye. Then Her Majesty said to me, ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photographs to the friends in America, and hopefully someone tells him who I am.” This story’s featured image is by Chris Jackson/Getty Images. The post Former Royal Protection Officer Shares Hilarious Joke Queen Elizabeth Played On Two American Tourists appeared first on InspireMore.

'Andrew was always friendly'

'Plaintiff States have standing'

The United States Supreme Court has been lauded by such diverse members as conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist and liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the “crown jewel” of the Constitution for its power of judicial review. The court should be venerated not because of the happenstance of personalities or ideological persuasion but because of its pivotal institutional role in the Constitution’s separation of powers in checking government abuses and saluting liberty as the glory of the United States. James Madison, father of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, elaborated, “independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive; they will be naturally led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the constitution by the declaration of rights.” Unlike Congress or the White House, the justices are appointed, not elected on the back of opportunistic promises inspired by handsome campaign contributions. Justices serve for life. They come to the court without any voting commitments. As Abraham Lincoln noted, “We cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it.” The media disserves the public and the court by creating the impression that cases are decided by results-driven ideological clashes: red versus blue with an occasional purple justice. In other words, the Supreme Court is the same old polarized politics by other means. But that picture is false. All the justices are sincere in their votes even if they disagree. That is because constitutional law is inherently more chiaroscuro than primary colors. It is not written with the details of the Internal Revenue Code. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously wrote in “The Common Law,” “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed.” Moreover, accepted canons of constitutional or statutory interpretation commonly collide. Some Supreme Court precedents, for example, give primary weight to text. Others make the policy or purpose of a law decisive. The court thus wrote in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892), “[A] thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute because not within its spirit nor within the intention of its makers.” The Supreme Court is also reluctant to overturn a precedent inconsistent in principle with later decisions. The doctrine of stare decisis and predictability in the law militate in favor of letting inconsistencies endure. Read carefully the cases which divide the court. (They are a minority in the court’s docket). You will be amazed at how convincing the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions are. They all marshal time-honored canons of interpretation and precedents in their favor. None are outside the constitutional mainstream. Take the recent Second Amendment case of United States v. Rahimi. The court ruled 8-1 that the amendment did not protect an individual who had been found after a hearing to pose a credible threat to the danger of another. The dissent came to the opposite conclusion, relying on the same standards of constitutional interpretation, including text and history. Despite differences in background and time-honored interpretive theories, the justices are amazingly collegial. None questions the intellectual sincerity of another. They do not huddle in separate quarters. Intellectual opposites Antonin Scalia and Ginsburg famously remained close friends despite dueling opinions. We are thankfully beyond the days when Justice James McReynolds refused to speak to Justice Louis D. Brandeis because the latter was Jewish. The Supreme Court is the least dangerous branch because it lacks the purse or the sword. To the extent the court is sincere in its judgments, to that extent it will enjoy public confidence and support. Disagreements among the justices surface not because of ulterior political motives but because constitutional interpretation is an art, not a science. Judge Learned Hand thus noted: I venture to believe that it is as important to a judge called upon to pass on a question of constitutional law, to have at least a bowing acquaintance with Acton and Maitland, with Thucydides, Gibbon and Carlyle, with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and Milton, with Machiavelli, Montaigne and Rabelais, with Plato, Bacon, Hume and Kant, as with books that have been specifically written on the subject. A difference of opinion among the justices is not a difference in constitutional principles. The court itself should be celebrated by the media as one of the finest hours in statesmanship. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Supreme Court Is Not Red v. Blue appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A House Republican has introduced a bill designed to achieve tax fairness for ministries that share health care costs.  A member of the House Ways and Means health subcommittee, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., is the sponsor of the Health Care Sharing Ministry Tax Parity Act, which he introduced last Monday. Kelly’s bill would allow members of these faith-based organizations and ministries to deduct “health care-related expenses from their taxes,” just as Americans who have conventional health insurance are able to do. Kelly’s bill also would make it explicit that these organizations don’t offer health insurance, averting misunderstandings about how the IRS should handle them—particularly regarding federal mandates that affect regular insurance.  Each year, about 1.3 million Americans partake in so-called HCSMs, sharing over $1 billion in medical expenses. Those who opt for Christian and other faith-based ministries instead of regular health insurance typically have moral and financial motivations, advocates say.  However, Kelly’s bill states that these Americans should have the same access to tax benefits as those who use traditional health insurance.  Brad Hahn, CEO of a health care ministry called Solidarity HealthShare, commended Kelly’s legislation for its “crucial and positive development” for millions of Americans who are part of what Hahn calls the health-sharing community.  “Solidarity HealthShare is grateful to Congressman Kelly for sponsoring this necessary legislation to ensure parity for those Americans who choose to share in faith-based ministries rather than health insurance to facilitate medical expenses,” Hahn said.  The post Pennsylvania Lawmaker Proposes Tax Fairness for Faith-Based Health Care Sharing appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Whitmer Now Says Biden Can Win Michigan

June may be over, but we’re certainly not done talking about the nefarious ripple effects of Pride Month. Two summers ago, Alex Stein busted an event hosted by Mr. Misster, a gay bar in Dallas, Texas, for exposing children to sexually explicit content. To say the video footage is disturbing is an understatement. Viewer discretion is advised. EXPOSING Disturbing Child Drag Show In Dallas www.youtube.com The footage captures several drag queens dancing erotically in front of a neon sign that reads, “It’s not gonna lick itself,” while taking money out of children’s hands. Some of the kids even got to strut the catwalk alongside the performers. What’s even more disturbing is that several policemen were present at the event, and all of them were perfectly content to allow children to enter a bar where they would be exposed to sexually explicit content. At least none of them got away without facing some of Alex’s infamous trolling. Check it out for yourself in the clip above. Want more from Alex Stein?To enjoy more of Alex's culture jamming, comedic monologues, skits, and street segments, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

The Court was right that some presidential acts can’t be criminalized. But it pushed that principle too far, and its application not far enough.