🔥 This Week's Top Five Stories 🔥

Your weekly update of the most popular content from The Federalist. Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray [View this email in your browser]( 1. The Obama Legacy Deserves To Be Destroyed By David Harsanyi Smash the rickety legacy of executive abuse! --------------------------------------------------------------- It’s strange that a president who had such a transformative effect on our national discourse will leave such a negligible policy legacy. But Barack Obama, whose imperial term changed the way Americans interact and in some ways paved the way for the Trump presidency, is now watching his much-celebrated and mythologized two-term legacy be systematically demolished. This, in many ways, tells us that American governance still works. When Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Iran deal, he could do so without much difficulty because the agreement hinged on presidential fiat rather than national consensus. But Obama’s appeasement of Iran was only one in a string of unilateral norm-busting projects that deserve to be dismantled. [Full Article]( 2. Here’s How The Supreme Court Already Repealed The Second Amendment By Mark Overstreet The Supreme Court effectively repealed the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller by restricting the amendment to common arms. --------------------------------------------------------------- In March, retired Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens called for repealing the Second Amendment, implicitly admitting that it does what, in his dissent in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), he pretended it does not: prohibit laws infringing the right to keep and bear arms. Why Stevens called for repeal and dissented in Heller is a mystery, however. The Second Amendment was repealed, in effect, by Heller’s majority opinion. The opinion went beyond questions raised in the case and laid out a rationale by which Congress, states, and courts could ban the private possession of many offensive and defensive arms today and all such arms of the future. [Full Article]( 3. What We Know About China’s Suspected Laser Attack On U.S. Soldiers Last Week By Megan G. Oprea They aren’t just some high-tech toy bought off the shelf. This was a military weapon being used on U.S. Air Force pilots. --------------------------------------------------------------- Apparently Chinese soldiers attacked U.S. Air Force pilots in Africa with laser beams last week. U.S. pilots in Djibouti said lasers struck their plane while in flight, The Wall Street Journal reported. They also said the lasers appeared to be coming from the direction of a nearby Chinese military base. The two airmen reported symptoms of dizziness and seeing rings. (Pointing lasers at aircraft is extremely dangerous. It can temporarily blind pilots, and in the United States it’s a federal offense.) While the pilots are expected to make a full recovery, the incident raises questions about how far the United States will allow China to push it without pushing back. [Full Article]( 4. Rudy Giuliani Knows Exactly What He’s Doing By David Marcus Former federal prosecutor and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has a simple message to Robert Mueller: Put up or shut up. --------------------------------------------------------------- The day after President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani unexpectedly admitted on cable news that his client had reimbursed Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for the payout to Stormy Daniels, he was roundly criticized for having gone off the reservation and compromising the White House. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, Giuliani, a bare-knuckles brawler in the rings of both politics and litigation, was laying down a marker. The former New York mayor is sending a clear message to Special Counsel Robert Mueller: It’s been more than a year; show your cards. Put up or shut up. [Full Article]( 5. Why Paul Manafort Will Lose In Court—And So Will Robert Mueller By Margot Cleveland Beyond the news that Robert Mueller’s charges against Paul Manafort were unrelated to Russian meddling, the government only decided to indict Manafort after Mueller took over. --------------------------------------------------------------- On Friday, district court judge T.S. Ellis heard arguments in a Virginia federal court in one of the two criminal cases Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has brought against Paul Manafort, the former Donald Trump campaign chairman. Claiming that Mueller exceeded his authority in charging Manafort with multiple counts of tax evasion, bank fraud, and failing to report foreign bank accounts—all unrelated to Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election—Manafort’s attorneys argued Ellis should dismiss the criminal charges. Manafort’s motion to dismiss represents his third attempt to challenge the special counsel’s authority to prosecute him for crimes unrelated to the Russia investigation. Last month, Manafort’s attorneys filed a civil suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a court order enjoining Mueller from prosecuting Manafort for crimes unconnected to the special counsel’s inquiry into election meddling. [Full Article]( Copyright © 2015 The Federalist, All rights reserved. You are receiving this e-mail because you opted in to receive e-mail updates from TheFederalist.com. 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