Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Federal Judge Appoints Himself President - Judge Mortimer Dithers of Northern District of Calif.

‘Federal Judge Appoints Himself President’

That’s the latest scoop from the Babylon Bee, a satirical newspaper with a nose for news.

Chief Justice Roberts arrives before President Biden delivers the State of the Union address on February 7, 2023. AP/Jacquelyn Martin, pool

THE NEW YORK SUNPublished: Mar. 17, 2025 07:38 AM ETUpdated: Mar. 17, 2025 08:39 AM ET

“Federal Judge Appoints Himself President” is the headline over the latest scoop in the Babylon Bee. The appointment, the Bee reports, was made by Judge Mortimer Dithers of the Northern District of California. The Trump administration’s agenda, the breathless Bee reports,“was stopped in its tracks” by the judge appointing himself president. “There’s nothing we can do about it,” the Bee quotes “legal experts” as saying. “He’s a federal judge.”

Hah. Good for the Bee. The story is satire, which is the Bee’s business. There is no Mortimer Dithers on the bench in California. Nor is it true that a Judge Dithers granted himself “all the powers of the executive branch in an emergency move to stop Trump.” Nor did a Judge Dithers issue executive orders for Tesla to stop making cars. Yet the gag marks better than any jape we’ve yet seen the hubris of federal district courts in a race to stymie a duly elected president.

It’s not our intention to belittle the claims that are being brought to court — or weigh the personal tragedies behind these cases. Yet most of the discussion in the news strikes us as missing one of the most basic points about visa and green card cases — the burden of proof. There is no right, per se, to a visa or green card in American law. Plus, the burden of proof is different than in a criminal case, where the burden of proof is always solely on the government.

This is marked in the policy manual for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, under the heading “Burden of Proof and Standard of Proof.” It says: “In matters involving immigration benefits, the applicant always has the burden of proving that he or she is eligible to receive the immigration benefit sought.” That could mean uphill sledding for a lot of these cases. It marks how reckless some of these protesters were with their immigration status.

The question of who bears the burden could prove decisive in the case of the Columbia encampment leader, Mahmoud Khalil, who sits in Louisiana awaiting word on his fate. The effort to deport him could reach the Supreme Court, where it could become a landmark in reckoning the president’s power to remove green card holders. The Nine could decide the case based on an analysis that spotlights Mr. Khalil’s burden rather than the government’s rationale.

As for national injunctions, our A.R. Hoffman has reported on the rise of such injunctions as a stratagem. President Trump notes in a recent Supreme Court petition that more such injunctions were handed down last month alone than in all of President Biden’s first term. To wonder about this spate of judicial red lights is not to gloss over the question of whether Washington ignored such an order in deporting Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The administration denies defying such an order by keeping planes flying to El Salvador. The White House Press Secretary avers that the planes “had already been removed from U.S. territory” by the time Judge James Boasberg ruled, though His Honor contemplated “turning around the planes.” The issue, though, is an important one. No court system, however politicized, can let pass such contempt, a point that has been marked by Chief Justice Roberts.

Which brings us back to the Babylon Bee. What its “scoop” tells us is that the courts have their own credibility issues. The moment reminds of the SNL spoof of a press conference at which the scribes ask the “secretary of defense” where our lines in Iraq would be most vulnerable to attack by the enemy. Jack Fuller, then editor of Chicago Tribune (and now gone, alas) shook his head and said the press had lost the public. It could happen to the courts.

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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 18, 2025 at 1:17pm: Chief Justice Roberts Defends Rogue Judiciary, Slams Trump’s Call For Impeaching Judges in Rare Rebuke
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/chief-justice-roberts-defe...

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 18, 2025 at 1:13pm: Maine Democrats Push Bill to Require Tampons in Boys’ Bathrooms Across the State’s Public Schools
https://www.themainewire.com/2025/03/maine-democrats-push-bill-to-r...

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U.S. Sen Angus King

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RECORD HILL WIND

The Untold Story of Record Hill Wind, continued

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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