Crosstalk: April 27, 2017

  ​Larry Pratt is the executive director emeritus of Gun Owners of America, a national grassroots organization dedicated to promoting our Second Amendment freedom to keep and bear arms. He's a political analyst and also an author of a few books including, 'On the Firing Line: Essays in the Defense of Liberty'.

President Trump put an order into place to limit immigration in order to prevent terrorism only to have a federal judge put a stay on it. Then a second order came through from the president that met all the challenges of the first and it was deemed unconstitutional. Why do black-robed judges seem to have greater authority than the executive branch of the federal government?

Larry believes it's a dangerous notion when judges (like William Orrick) begin acting as though they don't need to refer to the law at all and actually make something up. In other words, the judge's opinion on this issue was embarrassing because it communicated that what the president was proposing would cause anxiety in certain cities if this was not challenged in court. He noted that apparently these judges don't need a law, they just need a 'feeling' in order to begin directing people to do things.

Jim then read a portion of a letter that was sent from the U.S. Department of Justice to sanctuary counties. In the letter dated April 21st, it stated that, for example, the Milwaukee county executive is required to submit documentation that validates that the county is complying with federal statutes and that a state or federal government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving from the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of an individual.

This shows that the federal government simply wants proof that the law is being followed. Instead these counties/jurisdictions are willfully refusing to comply and therefore are not eligible for federal grants.

Making matters even more complicated is news that Judge Orrick has been accused of buying his court seat by accepting his appointment from former President Barack Obama shortly after donating at least $230,000 to the campaign of the former president. This is an example of what Larry deemed as people that have been 'salted' by former President Obama into the bureaucracy/judiciary. Their job is to continue the Obama agenda in spite of the fact that he's no longer in office.

As this broadcast moved along, discussion involved the following:

--Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clark and his call for county leaders to cooperate with illegal immigration issues.
--The effort to petition Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to have Clark fired.
--Why Larry bothers to care about immigration and sanctuary cities.
--Are open borders a risk?
--Why is a border wall important?
--A proposed rule change that would ban certain types of AR-15 ammunition.
--Larry's feelings on Judge Neil Gorsuch.