Yes, it’s time for college commencements once again.  That time when the graduates finally get their diplomas, and their families free themselves of tuition and fees.  You go to the campus, where you brave the heat, or the rain, and you get to sit through a commencement address, typically from some boring academic you never heard of.  At my college commencement nearly 50 years ago, we got to hear from psychologist Bruno Bettelheim.  I’d like to tell you his words inspired me, but I don’t remember anything he said.

But there are commencements, and then there are commencements.  If you went to a more prestigious school, you may have heard from a more well known commencement speaker.  The service academies are a good example.  Each year, the President speaks at one of them.  In 2023, President Biden spoke at the Air Force Academy.  The most memorable part of that speech was Biden’s trip-and-fall face-plant while on stage.

This year, President Trump spoke at West Point.  The speech was typical Trump.  A little flattery, a little comedy, and a little bluster, with Trump’s national security accomplishments generously sprinkled in.  The President told the graduating cadets that each and every one of them was a winner.  Then he detailed his improvements in military readiness.

President Trump told the graduates that the era of DEI advancement in the military is over.  Going forward, promotions will be made solely based on merit.  About time.

He offered the new second lieutenants words of inspiration. “There are a lot of different paths you can take. So follow your instincts and make sure that you take the path that you love, that you’re doing something that you love within your military.  You will be happier in the Army.  Second is to think big.  Always think big.  Third, though, you’ve got to do this with great power you have to have, potential you have to have, but to be real successful, you’re always going to have to work hard.  Fourth is, don’t lose your momentum.”

Then he spoke of culture and tradition.  “And finally, hold on to your culture and your traditions, because that’s what makes something really great.  And that’s what’s made the Army great.  The culture and the tradition. Whether we’re talking about attacking a business, a sports team, or even a nation, history has shown that in many ways culture is destiny.”

All in all, the Trump commencement speech was uplifting and hopeful.  Compare that to the Scott Pelley commencement speech at Wake Forest University.  CBS, 60 Minutes correspondent Pelley gave a speech that devolved into what amounted to an anti-Trump rant, replete with the same nonsensical Leftist talking points that have made the Democrat Party the hopeless wreck it is today.

Pelley began with a lie, “As a reporter, I have learned to respect opinions.  Reasonable people can differ about the life of our country.  America works well when we listen to those with whom we disagree and when we listen and when we have common ground and we compromise.”  The problem is that Pelley and the rest of his cabal don’t respect differing opinions.  The consider those who disagree with them  unreasonable, and thus, unworthy of being heard.

The foray into fantasy continued.  “Today, great universities are threatened with ruin.  Institutions of higher education share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”

Here Pelley gives voice to the goals and values that once were respected by our institutions of higher learning, but no longer.  Faculty, students, and staff are not free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints.  The only viewpoints permitted on campus by the 60’s radicals who run the schools are Left wing opinions.  Conservative speech has been relentlessly suppressed by violence and threat of violence.

“First, make the truth seekers live in fear.  Sue the journalists.”  “Truth seekers,” really?  These are the truth seekers who actively hid Joe Biden’s dementia and who regularly buried the truth by spiking stories for political gain.

“Sue the journalists?”  When Trump sued ABC for defamation they confessed judgment and had to pay him $16 million.  Maybe he meant the suit against CBS, 60 Minutes, where he works.  That’s the one where CBS fabricated answers to their questions to Scamala Harris to resurrect her horrendous performance, in an attempt to influence the 2024 election.

Journalists have no need to live in fear.  Journalists are not being sued.  But those who masquerade as journalists, and who bury the truth in hopes of deceiving the public ought to live in fear.  Pelley’s message seems to be, “We’re allowed to lie with impunity under the guise of journalism, and any attempt to correct our lies is a crime against speech.”  He is mistaken.

Pelley was just getting started.  “Then, move to destroy law firms that stand up for the rights of others.”  He refers to Perkins Coie, the firm of Mark Elias, the lawyer who helped perpetuate the Russia hoax.  Once again, Pelley paints Republicans as mere ducks in a Left Wing shooting gallery.

He went on.  “Diversity is now described as illegal.  Equity is to be shunned.  Inclusion is a dirty word.”  Diversity isn’t illegal.  The private sector can pursue all the diversity and equity it likes, whatever that is supposed to mean.  Just no longer expect the government to pay for a perverted system that destroys merit.

Then Pelley really exhibited hypocrisy laden with ignorance.  “If we walk a little bit further past the BBC, we will encounter another hero in the fight against fascism, George Orwell.  He’d be standing there, frozen in bronze with his words carved in the side of a building: “If liberty means anything at all, it means something worth saying that some people don’t want to hear.” ”He understood that ignorance works for power.”  Yeah. He also understood the danger of the Big Brother government CBS and Pelley protected, dictating every aspect of our lives.

The fascists Orwell opposed were socialists, just like Pelley and his lefty pals.  Liberty does mean the ability to say things that some people don’t want to hear.  Unfortunately, Pelley and company are the ones who don’t want to hear any dissent.  They believe in free speech only when they’re talking.

If the Scott Pelley commencement speech proved anything it was that Democrats still don’t get the point.  They’re so consumed by Trump Derangement Syndrome that they’re willing to oppose positions held by 80% of the electorate simply because Trump supports them.  Here’s some free advice.  Unless and until Democrats are ready to work for the betterment of the American citizen, spare us your lectures.

Class dismissed.

At the risk of sounding coldhearted, can Joe Biden just go away already?  Here’s a guy who never had a real job, and made a career of being a half-assed, crooked politician.  In some ways, Biden was the perfect Establishment politician.  He had no real principles, no real values, and absolutely no ideas.  Like too many politicians, if asked, “What do you stand for?” the only answer you would get is “Reelection.”

Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972, before he was 30 years old.  His was the typical Washington success story.  He arrived in the Capitol with nothing, and left with millions.  As my late father-in-law used to say, you don’t get that kind of money working for a living.

Biden was a crooked Senator, and a crooked Vice-President.  He sold out so completely to the credit card industry that he became known as “The Senator from Mastercard.”  Ever wonder why, when interest rates were nearly zero, credit cards charged 24%?  Thank Joe Biden.

Not satisfied with domestic graft, Biden sold political access to foreign nations and foreign companies – for a steep price.  Millions in tribute was paid to son Hunter, brother James, and other family members.  With 10% for “The Big Guy,” of course.

As Vice-President, Joe had Hunter Biden hired by a Ukranian company at $1 million a year.  It was a no-show job.  When Ukranian prosecutors began investigating the finances of the company, Joe flew to Kiev on Air Force II, with Hunter at his side, and threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee.  And then, after shaking down the Ukrainian government, Joe publicly bragged about what he had done.  “I told them if you don’t fire the prosecutor, you’re not getting the money.  And son of a B, he was fired.”  He faced no consequences.  Any time the question came up, he reminded the questioner that his son Beau had died and cultivated sympathy.

Eventually, Old Joe stole his way to the top, and was elected President in 2020.  Unsurprisingly, the man who had been known as the dumbest man in the Senate managed to screw up everything he touched.  That is, if he was the person making the decisions, which is far from a certainty.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Britt Hume observed that Joe Biden was “non compos mentis.”  In English, he was not in his right mind, he was demented.  In Italian, he was a stunad, or as my late grandfather would say, “He was no there all.”  After his election, things did not improve.

Joe had that blank stare on his face.  He wandered off during public appearances, more than one time.  He shook hands with imaginary people, and forgot the names of long-time aides.  And whoever was making the decisions did a really bad job.

The pullout from Afghanistan left 13 Americans dead.  He admitted millions of illegal alien invaders, many of them criminals.  The DEI requirements, the transgender nonsense, the pronoun police, and the BLM riots made a mockery of merit advancement, decimated the ranks of the military, and destroyed the morale of law enforcement.  The ruinous spending gave us runaway inflation and soaring interest rates.

And through it all, the Left and its media lapdogs swore that Biden was “sharp as a tack,” and attacked anyone who dared to notice Biden’s mental deficits as bullies making fun of a poor man with a stutter.  Biden spent 40% of his presidency on vacation, mostly sleeping on the beach.  His doctor, Kevin O’Connor, always gave Biden a clean bill of health.

Others were not so solicitous.  Special Counsel Hur declined to prosecute Biden for blatantly violating classified documents laws because he lacked the mental competency to be tried.  Yet Joe continued to be President, and they continued to swear he was “just fine.”  During the interviews, Biden again fell back on his son’s death, seeking sympathy.

This week, in the aftermath of the release of recordings of Hur’s interviews with Biden, which recordings exposed his mental deficits, and called into question whether it was Joe making decisions such as the granting of 8,000 pardons, it was time to change the narrative.

Having been supplied with the talking points, every Democrat asked about the Hur interviews said the same thing.  “We’re not going to look back.  We’re looking forward.”  In other words, they ducked.  But the pressure was on.  Clearly it was time to, as Kamala Harris might say, “turn the page.”

And so, this week, we are informed that Joe Biden has advanced prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones.  That’s a terrible diagnosis, to be sure, and I neither  doubt it nor make light of it.  However, this revelation is just one more occasion to seek sympathy.  I say that because we are supposed to believe that the cancer was discovered just last week.  In other words, at precisely the right time to blunt coverage of the Hur interviews, and so as not to impede Biden’s $30 million book deal.

Prostate cancer takes years to advance to the condition Biden is in.  The physical examination of any man over the age of 40 includes a  blood test to detect prostate cancer.  Every President has an annual exam, and the result of this test is routinely reported.  Except in the case of Joe Biden.  It’s missing from his report.  We’re told he hasn’t been tested since 2014.  No one believes it.

It’s unlikely that Dr. O’Connor forgot to do the test.  It has been learned that the good doctor is a long-time friend of the Biden family, who partnered with brother James in a rural hospital venture that ended in bankruptcy.  Former White House physician Ronnie Jackson says, “He’s part of the Biden family.  He would do or say anything to cover up and protect that family, regardless of what it meant professionally for him.”

The revelation of a cancer diagnosis on a man already beset by senile dementia would have doomed a 2024 Biden reelection run much earlier than Biden’s debate performance put on end to his candidacy.  So like everything else, they just lied about it.  And now, the media is playing the sympathy game for Joe Biden.

Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter addressed this issue in a recent column, We Have No Moral Obligation to Forgive or Forget the Biden Lies.  And I have to say, I’m with Kurt.  “The Democrat Party: It’s all a lie. It’s all a scam. They hid his likely terminal disease so he could be reelected.” “I’m going to say what I want, all the time, and I’m going to continue to point out that Joe Biden is an evil, senile, corrupt pervert, who was and is surrounded by minions interested only in retaining their prestige, power, and plunder.”  “The dude has been an eggplant for the last ten [years], and even before that he was a moron.”

Strong words perhaps, but he’s not wrong.  Simply put, Joe Biden’s sympathy well has run dry.  The sin lies not in those who criticize a man with terminal illness, but rather in those who conceal such an illness for political advantage, and reveal it only to fabricate a false legacy.

As we pass the 100 day mark of the Trump 47 Administration, Democrats are determined to resist, but they’re still not entirely clear about what they should be resisting.  Donald Trump has learned to turn rampant Trump Derangement Syndrome to his advantage.  Once it became apparent that the Left would reflexively oppose anything and everything Trump supports, he staked his claim to the common sense side of every issue, and the Left automatically took the opposing side.

The problem for Democrats is that the anti-Trump side of every issue is the losing side every time.  Trump wants to end the war in Ukraine.  Democrats favor continuing to piss money down a Ukrainian rat hole while thousands die each week.

Trump is trying to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, to address our $36 trillion debt.  Democrats have mobilized their judicial henchmen to try to force the government to continue to throw your money away.

Trump wants to cut taxes, so Democrats favor a $4 trillion tax increase on the very people the Dems claim to be trying to help.  And the $4 trillion is just for starters.

Trump wants to deport criminal aliens.  Democrats are expending their limited political capital to keep illegal alien criminals on the streets killing, robbing and raping Americans.  In New York City it’s even worse.  NY Democrats want criminals not only at large, but registered to vote.  If nothing changes, by the end of the year, any person who applies for Medicaid will be registered to vote, no questions asked, or should I say, “Sin hacer preguntas?”

You have to wonder why NY Democrats would do such a thing.  I mean, it’s not as though they need more Democrats to flip elections.  They have a 10 to 1 advantage now.  They don’t need to commit voter fraud.  They’re just crazy.

They have to be crazy to do some of the things they’re doing these days.  First it was the Democrat politicians going to El Salvador to support illegal alien gangster Abrego Garcia.  This week, the nuts got nuttier.

ICE agents in Newark rounded up about 150 criminal illegal aliens, including killers, rapists, and child pornographers.  The aliens were incarcerated in a facility called Delaney Hall, which used to be a halfway house for convicts who were about to be paroled.  ICE now is in charge of Delaney Hall, and ICE agents have the right and the duty to maintain security at the facility.

A group of politicians, including Newark Mayor, and gubernatorial candidate, Ras Baraka (nee Jones), and House Members Bonnie Watson Coleman, Lamonica McIver, and Robert Menendez, Jr., stormed the facility, trying to force their way into a prison, past armed guards. Picture that.  The gate opens to admit an ICE vehicle, and these idiots rush inside.

For what?  OK, maybe Menendez had an excuse.  He may have been trying to visit his father, former Senator Menendez, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison.  Regardless, trying to invade a prison is a good way to get shot.

The rest of these morons claimed all they wanted to do was to inspect the facility to ensure that the people being held were being properly detained.  However, there are some problems with that story.   1) Who ICE arrests is none of their business.  Their oversight function is limited to funding.  They have no business micromanaging arrests.  2) If they wanted to inspect, all they had to do was ask.  3) Democrats kept telling us that no one is above the law, and anyone who assaults law enforcement officers should be arrested and prosecuted.

After all, Democrats said throwing January 6 protesting grandmothers in jail without bail for trespassing was just.  So shouldn’t they support prosecuting their own, especially “Two Ton” Lamonica McIver, who body-checked ICE agents at the gate like she was auditioning for a bout on Women of Wrestling?  Apparently not.

Democrats really believe they have a right to manage every aspect of the government, even though they control no part of it.  They believe “elections have consequences” only when they win.  And they think the rules they want to impose on the rest of us don’t apply to them.

They’ll bitch and moan about your carbon footprint, but when Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Bernie Sanders want to fly all over the map on private planes, they’re entitled.  After all, it’s in a good cause.  You, on the other hand, are just a peasant.

As for the Delaney Hall insurrection, Democrats have no doubt that they’re above the law.  Ras Baraka went to to jail for a short time, but was released.  The House Members say flat out, that they’re above the law, claiming that their Identification Cards grant them unquestioned admittance to anyplace they deign to enter.  Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called arresting the Delaney Hall insurrectionists “A red line they [the Administration] know better than to cross.”  But there’s more.  AOC (All Out Crazy) has announced that “you lay a finger” on a Member of Congress, “and we’re going to have a problem.”

In the realm of reality, when you hit a cop while trying to break into a prison, you’re the one who’s going to have a problem.  The only problem the police have is making sure they have enough handcuffs.  But the Democrats think they’re special, you see.  They really believe that managing to get more votes in a non-competative election, in a one-Party District, gives them a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

Without knowing it, they think they’re the equivalent of the Roman Republic’s Tribunes of the Plebs.  The Tribune was an elected official whose veto could undo the actions of the Roman Consuls (Executive Branch).  Sound familiar?  What’s more, the physical bodies of the Tribunes were inviolate.  If Lamonica McIver was a Tribune, she could throw her considerable weight around without fear of reprisal by the government.  In our world, she’s just a fat-assed criminal who belongs in prison.

As this is written, Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba is considering bringing criminal charges  against the Delaney Hall insurrectionists.  Hakeem Jeffries has threatened that, if the Congress-people are arrested, law enforcement, “will find out.”  Jeffries didn’t explain what they would find out, but then to him, any discovery is a revelation.

For his part, Mayor Baraka hasn’t learned anything.  He returned to Delaney Hall this week, to join a pathetic group of 80 year-old, scruffy-looking hippies with guitars, who further embarrassed themselves with mindless chanting, and musical renditions of Pete Seeger’s 1931, Which Side Are You On?, using a song meant to support American coal miners, to come to the aid of Tren de Aragua and MS-13 killers.

Leader Jeffries and Mayor Baraka, we’re not confused.  We know which side we’re on.  We’re on the side of American citizens and law enforcement.  If you’re on some other side, you – A.  Have no business being an American elected official.  And – B.  Your ass belongs in prison.

Ever since Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015, the trolls have been hard at work.  The Left trolled Trump incessantly throughout the 2016 campaign, his first term, the 2020 campaign, and the 2024 campaign.

A quick learner, Trump understood the value of trolling, and for so long beset by the leftist trolls, has learned to troll right back at them.  Unsurprisingly, Trump soon learned how to beat the trolls at their own game.

“Trolling” is a strange term to be sure.  The word “troll” has an interesting etymology, dating back to its original meaning.  From Middle English, as adopted from Old Norse, a “trol” was a demon, sorcerer, conjurer, or witch.  From Proto-Germanic, it denoted a supernatural being; demon, fiend, giant, or monster.

Trolling developed an innocuous connotation as an intransitive verb, meaning to fish for, by trailing a baited line from behind a slowly moving boat.  However, the term “trolling” lately has been used to describe a more sinister purpose.  When used as a noun, a “troll” describes a person who makes or posts inflammatory or insincere statements in an attempt to lure others into combative argument, or the spurious information so transmitted or posted.

Democrat trolling of Trump commenced in 2015.  Admittedly, Trump helped to fuel the trolling by making statements of his own that made it easy for Democrats to take and twist them into damaging half-truths, or outright lies, in hopes of preventing his election.

For example, Trump’s 2015 observation that Mexico was not sending us its best citizens (a/k/a illegal aliens), while indisputably true, was twisted into the meme that Trump was a racist who opposed all immigration, both legal and illegal.  This troll was used to fuel the now discredited identity politics belief that no one with a Spanish surname would dare vote for Trump, because all so-called Hispanics necessarily support illegal immigration.  The 2024 election put that belief to rest.

Hillary Clinton practiced the art of the troll in 2016.  Although she herself, and members of her campaign were accepting Russian money, her campaign paid $1 million for a patently false dossier which accused Trump of “colluding with the Russians,” and contained a totally fabricated story of known germophobe Donald  Trump being blackmailed by Russian intelligence with photos of Russian prostitutes urinating on him in a Moscow hotel room.

Trump never had so much as spent one night in any Russian hotel, but that little troll was passed to our CIA and FBI by both Hillary and Senator McCain, and became the genesis of the RussiaGate allegations that sparked the Mueller investigation and the disruption of Trump’s first term.

Once Trump was elected in 2016, Democrat trolling marched on.  “Trump called fallen soldiers suckers.”  Then there was the infamous, Charlottesville “fine people hoax” which claimed Trump was supporting neo-Nazis.  Both were totally false, but each was repeated often enough to fully test the maxim, “a lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

Some trolls took the form of false headlines, trumpeted at length, and later proven false, but never corrected.  For instance, one claimed Trump removed the bust of Martin Luther King from the White House.  He didn’t.  Another claimed Trump removed Colin Powell’s name from a list of notable Americans buried at Arlington Cemetery.  Another lie.  Each despicable troll took a toll.

Fast forward to 2025, and Democrats are still at it.  A headline claimed Trump plans to release $150 trillion in assets, hidden for 161 years by the Government.  No thinking person would believe this, because, had such assets ever existed, Democrats would have spent (stolen) them by now.

Another, courtesy of Illinois Governor Pritzker claimed ICE agents raided an elementary school.  There was no truth to it.  In attempts to drive wedges between Trump and his Cabinet, the AP falsely claimed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said “President Trump is very good friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” and then there were the tried and untrue “Elon Musk is really the President” trolls.

These trolls failed, but Donald Trump learned from them and has succeeded in turning the Left’s rampant “Trump Derangement Syndrome” psychosis to his advantage.  Simply put, Trump has proven himself to be the King of the Trolls, and it’s driving Democrats even crazier than they already had become.

In order to continue to live rent free in the fevered minds of nutty Democrats, Trump has circulated a number of trolls, each of which have sent the Left into hysteria, and have permitted Trump to set the narrative for every news cycle.

First, “Let’s make Canada the 51st State.”  This was an obvious troll, and never was going to happen, but it led to the ouster of PM Trudeau, sent the Left reeling, and kept the Canadians off balance during the reciprocal tariff talks.  And although fanciful, this troll has Canadians in Alberta talking independence.

Then it was “let’s take over Greenland.”  Also not a likely prospect, but it got Greenlanders thinking, pissed off the Danish, and unsettled the European Union on the brink of the tariff fight.

And who could forget the troll over, “maybe US Criminals should be sent to an El Salvador prison.”  Trump had to know, or undoubtedly was told this is legally impossible.  However, it didn’t stop the Left from screaming about U.S. citizens being “disappeared and deported.”  Like any good magician, this was slight of hand.  While they were busy denouncing this one, Trump’s other hand was busily signing yet more Executive Orders to undo years of Biden malfeasance.

One of Trump’s best has been, “Maybe I’ll run for a third term.”  This one has Democrat heads exploding.  The media’s in an uproar.  Although Trump may pretend to know nothing about the legalities of this, he knows full well he can’t run, and doesn’t want to run again.  He’s about to be 79, and would be 82 at the end of his term.

This troll serves two purposes.  It makes the Left crazier (if that’s possible), and keeps him from becoming a premature lame duck.  The worst mistake Teddy Roosevelt ever made was announcing in 1905 that he wouldn’t run again.  It made him a lame duck from the start.  He chose Taft to replace him, then fell out with Taft, split the Party, and ushered in 8 years of Woodrow Wilson.

The latest troll is “How about reopening Alcatraz.”  Trump touted it as a place to hold the illegals the courts are preventing him from deporting.  This troll takes a shot at the judges.  “You don’t like ICE detention, huh?  How would you like Alcatraz?”  It sets media and leftist hair on fire, and  eats up media attention on an idea that isn’t real.

Alcatraz is a rusting dump.  It’s too small for the stated purpose, too remote, too expensive to rebuild and staff, and most importantly, it’s in the worst place possible to house illegal aliens.  California.  If he lodges them there, their cases get heard by California judges.  That’s counterproductive.  If he needs to house the soon-to-be-deported, a better idea is  unused military bases in Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, or all of the above.

So no matter how many times the loony Left cries, “we’ve got him now!” Trump continues to have them eating out of his hand.  To use an old, and off-color saying, “Democrats don’t know whether to shit or wind their wristwatches.”  But here’s a more delicate sentiment, courtesy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow –

Troll on, O Ship of State!
Troll on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

My hat’s off to Donald Trump, the King of the Trolls.

How many times have Democrats told us, and told us, “no one is above the law?”  They always focused on the area above the law, because they have proved conclusively that they considered that Donald Trump was below the law, as they relentlessly tried to bankrupt him and imprison him for life.

There always are exceptions to the Democrat “no one is above the law” meme, however.  Grandmothers who walked in one door of the Capitol, and out another on January 6 were not above the law.  On the other hand, Democrats thought that George Floyd rioters who rampaged while committing arson, theft, assault and murder should be above the law.

BLM rioters who obstructed traffic, damaged property, and attacked courthouses and police stations, while stealing millions of dollars of donations were considered above the law by Democrats.

Last week, we explored Democrat support of illegal alien criminals, who the Dems are fighting to keep in the country, rather than being deported in accordance with the law.  Clearly then, they think that illegal aliens are above the law.

This week, the Dems are at it again.  They’ve added a new category of people who are above the law.  Strangely, this group consists of highly educated people who have learned so much about the laws that they are entrusted with the duty of enforcing them.  I refer to judges.

In these pages I have discussed the judges who are forsaking their oaths in attempts to usurp executive authority which they have no right to attempt to exercise.  That conduct is bad enough.  But this week we saw two examples of judges who have blatantly broken the law.

In New Mexico, a judge and his wife have been arrested on federal charges of harboring an alien.  It seems the judge and his wife were living with a number of illegal aliens, one of whom, Ortega-Lopez, is a member of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang that has been linked to human trafficking and other crimes targeting migrants, as well as money laundering, drug smuggling, kidnapping and extortion.

Ortega-Lopez had posted photos and videos on Facebook showing him at what appears to be a shooting range in Las Cruces holding handguns or assault-style rifles.  Investigators said they identified tattoos, clothing and hand gestures “commonly associated” with Tren de Aragua in photos and videos posted online by Ortega-Lopez.

The judge is now a former judge.  He and his wife are facing prison, and the illegal alien gang members will be deported, assuming the Supreme Court puts an end to the nationwide injunctions preventing the President from doing his job.

Then there is the puzzling case of Milwaukee County judge Hannah Dugan.  One moment, there she was, presiding over a domestic violence hearing, in which an illegal alien named Ruiz, with a record for violent criminal charges including strangulation and suffocation, battery, and domestic abuse, and illegally entering the US twice, was charged with assaulting his current paramour.  

The victims were present in the courtroom, hoping for justice to be done, when the judge got word that two ICE agents were in court to take Ruiz into custody.  Now, let me digress.  Judges of any political stripe do not take kindly to people, even from law enforcement, interrupting their proceedings.  I have had occasion to notify a NJ State judge that, once the case was called for arraignment, two FBI agents were going to arrest the defendant and take him to Indiana for federal prosecution. Given forewarning, there was no problem.   

But that’s not what happened in Milwaukee.  The complaint states that while the team assigned to arrest Ruiz, which included FBI and DEA agents, waited for the hearing to conclude, they were photographed by a public defender, who informed the judge’s clerk that “there appeared to be ICE agents in the hallway.”  Dugan “became visibly angry” and left the bench to confront the federal agents, according to an affidavit by a FBI special agent.

After initially demanding that the officers leave the building if they were not there for a court appearance, Dugan allegedly directed the federal agents away from her courtroom to Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office after being shown the immigration warrant for Ruiz.

After Dugan had gone back inside, a deputy assigned to her courtroom told a member of the federal team that he had not alerted Dugan to their presence and added that the judge was “‘pushing’ Ruiz’s case through.” After Ruiz’s appearance was completed, the deputy heard Dugan “say something like, ‘Wait, come with me’” before escorting Ruiz and his attorney out of the courtroom’s “jury door” to a non-public area of the courthouse, where the chief judge had advised the feds that they could not arrest Ruiz.

The courtroom deputy had previously heard Judge Dugan direct people not to sit in the jury box because it was exclusively for the jury’s use.  According to the courtroom deputy, only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door.  Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.  Ruiz and his lawyer made it out onto the street before the agents caught up with them, and took Ruiz into custody.

Judge Dugan was arrested on a federal warrant, and is facing up to six years in prison.  Presumably, once again, when the Supreme Court permits the Administration to do its job, Ruiz will be back in sunny Mexico, which, now that I think about it, has to be better than Milwaukee.  Paraphrasing Thomas More from A Man For All Seasons, “It profits a man nothing to violate the law for the whole world, but for Milwaukee?”

Unsurprisingly, the Left had a conniption fit over the judge arrests.  Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley once again proved the Left to be immune to irony.  “I couldn’t believe what I had seen and was horrified by the actions of the FBI coming onto our county courthouse grounds, literally going after a sitting judge who’s not a flight risk.”

Yeah right!  Just like 72 year old Roger Stone wasn’t a flight risk when the FBI raided his house at dawn with SWAT teams and frogmen, all one bogus charges.  Just like Peter Navarro wasn’t a flight risk, when he was arrested by a team of agents who carted him away in chains, for failing to answer a Congressional subpoena, the same offense former Attorney General, and Obama “wingman” Eric Holder committed without penalty of any kind.  And don’t even get me started on the elderly people who committed the heinous crime of praying outside abortion clinics, who were rousted out of their homes in handcuffs by teams of badge wearing thugs.

So the next time you hear any Democrat recite, “No one is above the law,” remind them of the exceptions discussed above.  And remind them that their conduct has proven that they mean “almost no one.”