Late Friday afternoon, the White House announced that President Trump had intervened in the cases of three U.S. military personnel — Army Lt. Clint Lorance, Army Green Beret Maj. Matt Golsteyn and Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher — who were convicted of various crimes related to their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump issued full pardons to Lorance and Golsteyn while restoring Gallagher’s rank and pay.

Predictably, the president’s critics were outraged and accused him of undermining the military justice system. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg blasted the president’s pardons. 

Biden knows his problem is with the “woke” part of his party that despises the U.S. military. So he cast his lot with the radical left that would like to see the Pentagon padlocked and more U.S. soldiers behind bars.

What the left seems to forget is that the president is at the top of the military justice system. He is the court of last appeal. In these cases, he saw injustice and corrected it, just as he did with Alice Marie Johnson. 

Here’s the old Washington consensus: We get into no-win wars that go on forever. To satisfy the left, the wars are fought by rules dictated by the ACLU and the New York Times editorial board. As a result, a great nation gets bled dry in foreign disasters while our warriors are sent to jail. That is a prescription for disaster.

Donald Trump is making it clear that he stands with our brave soldiers who kill the enemy. Below is an excerpt of the White House statement announcing the president’s action:

The president, as commander-in-chief, is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the law is enforced and when appropriate, that mercy is granted. For more than two hundred years, presidents have used their authority to offer second chances to deserving individuals, including those in uniform who have served our country. These actions are in keeping with this long history.  

As the president has stated, “when our soldiers have to fight for our country, I want to give them the confidence to fight.”

Barr Blasts the Left

In an address to the Federalist Society Friday night, Attorney General William Barr took the swamp to task and blasted the left for “shredding constitutional norms." 

While much of his speech served as a treatise on the Constitution and executive authority, Barr devoted a significant portion of his remarks to how left-wing politicians and judges have abused their authority at the expense of the presidency, and most especially this president. Barr warned that progressives "treat politics as their religion,” using the “coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image.”

Here are some excerpts of the attorney general’s remarks:

Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called “The Resistance,” and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his administration…

A prime example of this is the Senate’s unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent process… As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to [limit debate] on 236 Trump nominees — each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time… How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during President Obama’s first term? 17 times…

One of the ironies of today is that those who oppose this president constantly accuse this administration of “shredding” constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law… The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of “Resistance” against this administration, it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law…

Since President Trump took office, district courts have issued over 40 nationwide injunctions against the government. By comparison, during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued a total of two nationwide injunctions…

It is no exaggeration to say that virtually every major policy of the Trump Administration has been subjected to immediate freezing by the lower courts. No other president has been subjected to such sustained efforts to debilitate his policy agenda.

Attorney General Barr also ripped the legacy of former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote key decisions granting constitutional rights to terrorists captured on foreign battlefields. Referring to one of Kennedy’s rulings, Barr said, “The idea that the judiciary acts as a neutral check on the political branches to protect foreign enemies from our government is insane.”

The Pigskin Prima Donna

Colin Kaepernick clearly doesn’t want to play football. He just torpedoed an incredibly generous and unusual chance for a career comeback. I hope the NFL has learned its lesson, but I doubt it has.

As you know, Kaepernick’s left-wing activism has caused nothing but controversy for the NFL for years due to his disrespectful on- and off- field antics and antagonism toward America and law enforcement. He was responsible for Nike’s absurd decision to scrap a patriotic shoe based on the Betsy Ross flag. And he sued the NFL for millions.

Nevertheless, Kaepernick claims that he just wants to play football. Really? 

Well, the NFL gave him a chance to demonstrate his ability this weekend at a special workout at the Atlanta Falcons’ training center. The NFL bent over backwards to accommodate all of Kaepernick’s demands, and more than two dozen teams sent representatives. Yet at the last minute, he backed out and changed the venue.

In a statement, the NFL said, “We are disappointed that Colin did not appear for his workout. Today’s session was designed to give Colin what he has consistently said he wants, an opportunity to show his football readiness and desire to return to the NFL.”

CBS broadcaster James Brown, while sympathetic to Kaepernick’s social-justice goals, said he missed an opportunity to build a bridge with the NFL and “move from protest to progress.”

Former NFL player Burgess Owens put it bluntly when he said:

[Kaepernick’s] interviewing for a job, if I’m correct, and he’s asking people to pay him a lot of money and now he’s going to dictate to them the conditions? It doesn’t work that way in the real world.

This is the result of our leftist colleges, having kids come out of school with no common sense [and] elitism… You’re gonna have to play by the rules and if you don’t, you’re not gonna have a job.

I couldn’t agree more!