Here we go again.
After Obama pal Judge Derrick Watson decided that he's really the President of the United States, another judge has decided that her role is arguing about policy.
In a 76-page memo accompanying the ruling, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their case arguing the transgender ban violates their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
“The court finds that a number of factors—including the sheer breadth of the exclusion ordered by the directives, the unusual circumstances surrounding the President’s announcement of them, the fact that the reasons given for them do not appear to be supported by any facts, and the recent rejection of those reasons by the military itself — strongly suggest that Plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment claim is meritorious,” she wrote.
Once you hear "unusual circumstances", you know that a judicial activist is claiming that some sort of extraordinary circumstances allow her to behave in ways that are otherwise unacceptable.
Now the ban was and is, as a practical matter, already in place. Was the ban illegal under Obama? Apparently not. But it magically became illegal when President Trump restored it. Much as when President Trump brought back Obama's travel ban, it became magically illegal.
Ununusual circumstances. You know.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's idea of a judicial ruling is arguing policy. It's not her job to voice her opinions about whether the policy is a good idea. But increasingly Federal judges are arrogating executive and legislative powers to themselves. And so we have a ridiculous situation in which judges announce that they don't accept the presidential's rationale for a policy.
That's nice. And should make for a nice op-ed piece. But instead they issue op-ed rulings. And that must stop.