A belated “Thank you!” to President Donald Trump is long overdue.

In the past week, two different Stream authors have cited the crucial role that Trump’s impact on our federal courts is playing. Jason Jones noted that the U.S. Supreme Court, as reshaped by Trump, is our last line of defense against lawless federal agencies and our ruthless pagan elites “in the wake of the dodgy 2020 election, and given the failure of House Republicans to use the power of the purse to rein in the Deep State.”

Our columnist Mark Judge pointed to the role of that court in reversing the march of “punitive liberalism” which blames America for everything evil on earth, and wants to punish Americans accordingly. Judge’s own steely fortitude in resisting Christine Blasey Ford’s perjury aimed at destroying Brett Kavanaugh was crucial in making the current Court possible.

So were Trump’s own grit and spine. Can you imagine a President Mike Pence toughing it out when George Soros lawyers were spewing toxic lies about Kavanaugh, and the media (along with NeverTrump “conservative” columnists) and Michael Avenatti were leading the lynch mob? Considering how Pence caved to LGBTQMYNAMEISLEGION activists who challenged religious freedom back in Indiana, and failed to defend our election on January 6, 2021, the answer is sadly clear.

He’d have told Kavanaugh to bow out, leaving his good name and career dead under the bus where the White House had thrown him. And the “safe” John Roberts clone nominated next would doubtless have voted as John Roberts did … to leave Roe v. Wade on the books.

For the whole grim but finally hopeful story, get Mark Judge’s new book, The Devil’s Triangle.

A Rare Setback for the Deep State

Now there’s yet another instance of Trump’s judicial picks defending our Constitution. The Western Journal reports:

A federal court judge on Tuesday barred multiple federal departments and federal officials from contacting social media companies to remove content the judge said is protected by the First Amendment.

The order from U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana bans numerous federal agencies — including the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and State and senior officials including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — from telling social media companies to remove posts.

The order said that everyone in the almost-three-page-long list of names and agencies is banned from “meeting with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social media platforms.”

They were also barred from “specifically flagging content or posts on social media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech,” said Doughty, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Donald Trump in 2017.

His order also banned those parties from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech.”

Gee, I remember way back when liberals would have screamed at the notion of appointed or career bureaucrats trashing the First Amendment, using federal power to silence free speech. But such thinking is so pre-Obama administration. In Barack Obama, Hope became flesh and dwelt among us. Then all limits on government power over citizens became a kind of blasphemy. And the Deep State became the fourth, highest, and totally unaccountable branch of government.

Ben and Jerry’s to Donate All its Assets to Displaced Indian Tribes

Nah, just kidding. Of course that company isn’t giving its own stuff away to the Native Americans who once lived on the land where its offices and factories now sit. But that won’t stop the shrill hypocrites who run the company from virtue-signaling, the better to sell more artery-clogging ice cream to its smug cadre of customers. As The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Ben & Jerry’s on Independence Day declared that the United States exists on stolen land that must be returned, starting with Mount Rushmore.

“This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it,” the ice cream brand tweeted on the national holiday.

The company went further on its website, saying traditional Independence Day celebrations can “distract” from “an essential truth.”

“Ah, the Fourth of July. Who doesn’t love a good parade, some tasty barbecue, and a stirring fireworks display,” the Vermont-based company said. “The only problem with all that, though, is that it can distract from an essential truth about this nation’s birth: The US was founded on stolen Indigenous land.”

The company said the United States must first look to restore justice by ceding Mount Rushmore and surrounding National Park land in South Dakota to tribal communities.

Twitter users responded by suggesting the company follow its own call to action. “Sounds like it’s time for Ben and Jerry to donate 100% of their profits to indigenous people,” one user said.

Ben and Jerry’s views morality itself as a kind of dessert. It doesn’t need to be healthy, sustaining, or substantive — just something that gives you a sugar high and makes you briefly feel a little bit better about yourself. And here’s the lefty twist: it’s even sweeter if it leaves you feeling superior to other people. I’ve got a new flavor idea for the company: Whited Sepulchre Surprise, with creamy vanilla hiding a crunchy, bony center of gamy, dry-aged venison.

Stalinism on the Potomac

Students of history will remember Stalin’s infamous “Purge Trials,” in which obedient and patriotic Soviet officials (some of them “heroes” of the Communist revolution) were smeared as traitors and “saboteurs,” who’d worked simultaneously for foreign powers like Great Britain, Nazi Germany … and the Vatican. After torture and vicious threats against their family members, the accused would collapse and confess — in some cases begging for the executions which they “deserved.”

One key feature of those trials was that even the defense council wouldn’t stick up for their clients. They actually spoke up for the prosecution — doubtless afraid of retribution if they even pretended to do their jobs.

Well today’s leftist elites who control the legal profession have studied their history. They reflected on Stalin’s purge trials and found them a noble example to emulate. That’s why the January 6 hearings in Congress had such an old-timey Soviet feel, complete with a ban on witnesses who might dispute the official narrative. Now those same elites are draping another red Bolshevik flag over America: they’re persecuting the distinguished attorneys who spoke up for Donald Trump over the 2020 election. They’re even trying to eliminate “election attorney” as a profession.

The indispensable Revolver News reports:

Now there are several new advocacy groups funded by millions in “dark money” dedicated to shutting down any lawyer involved in shedding light on election issues. Groups like the 65 Project and States United Democracy Center staffed by the usual crew of longtime Democrat party activists and RINO never-Trumpers are looking to bury concerned lawyers under a mountain of official complaints. Their stated tactics are disbarments, “making them toxic in their communities and in their own firms” and destroying their careers. It’s explicitly personal, right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. If they can destroy anyone who officially investigates the integrity of our elections, they can keep using the same bag of tricks that worked for them in 2020 forever.

The result is a massive chilling effect on the practice of election law and the loss of the profession entirely.

Today there’s one man speaking out. John Eastman is a constitutional scholar who, through his long career, has clerked at the Supreme Court, served as an attorney at Kirkland & Ellis where he specialized in constitutional litigation, taught constitutional law at Chapman University in California, and served as dean of the school. In 2020 he helped President Trump evaluate issues arising from the 2020 election and has been involved in election integrity efforts since then. Now the Democrat lawfare machine has him in their sights. On Tuesday this week he went before the State Bar of California to defend himself against disbarment, a trial engineered by the activist States United Democracy Center who filed complaints against him. He also faces a bar complaint filed against him with SCOTUS by the 65 Project.

These are unfortunately just the beginning of his troubles. He’s also been approached by the FBI at the behest of the January 6th committee, even though he was nowhere near the Capitol on that day. He’s had his address printed in local newspapers and radical activists picket his house on a daily basis. They have even set spikes in his gravel driveway to damage the cars of his family and visitors, thrown dog feces at his house, and graffiti’d his street to direct more protestors to his home.

Watch John Eastman speak up for himself in this chilling interview:

John Eastman’s legal defense fund can be found right here.

Along The Stream

The Ruth Institute reveals that the vicious, aggressive and disgusting behavior escalating each “Pride” month has driven down public support for homosexual activity. Let’s see if that backlash continues.

Alex Chediak examines the spiritual roots of the “epidemic of loneliness” afflicting America, massacring marriage, and driving down our birth rate to unsustainable lows.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”