A case out of Massachusetts is different. There, a federal judge has blocked an act of Congress — not an executive order but legislation — steering Medicaid funds away from abortion providers. Allocating public money is Congress’s core competency. Yet U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani not only countermanded Congress’s spending choice in a preliminary injunction, she also refused to stay her ruling pending appeal. This is the kind of lower court activism that gives the Trump administration fodder for its attacks on judges.



If you’re a liberal activist judge who has lost the Washington Post, you might want to consider whether you’ve gone to far. In an editorial published last night, the paper that reminds us daily that “democracy dies in darkness” sheds light on the unconstitutional judicial activism in response to Congress’s defunding of Planned Parenthood, the premier abortion business in America and a darling of the Democratic Party.
The Post editorializes — under the headline, “This is what judicial overreach looks like”:
This White House has aggressively tried to withhold federal money from programs it dislikes. Those efforts have rightly faced scrutiny in the courts because the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse.
Defunding Planned Parenthood won’t end the fight against abortion. And pro-abortion activists really don’t have to make up constitutional penumbras that even the Post can’t get behind.