Let’s cut through the legal jargon: the Supreme Court yesterday did the only thing it could do, and did it unanimously.

The justices rejected the notion that a Colorado court – all-Democratic appointees – could simply kick Donald Trump off the ballot. Just on the face of it, the idea was ludicrous, absurd and anti-democratic, and the court explicitly banned any other state from trying such a stunt.

On Sunday’s ‘Media Buzz,’ I was griping about the fact that the justices were taking so long, and said they must be honing their opinions and concurring opinions. That turned out to be the case.

In the unsigned opinion, all nine justices declared that ‘nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos – arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the inauguration.’

While legal observers say the court moved at rocket speed, the ruling came on the last day before voters in Colorado head to the polls, along with those in the other Super Tuesday states.

Much of the back and forth had to do with the 14th Amendment, but put that aside for a moment.

When Colorado’s court first made its ruling, a veritable army of anchors, correspondents and legal analysts, especially on MSNBC, cheered the move, saying Trump was finally being held accountable for fomenting the Capitol riot. 

Many of the anti-Trumpers wanted more states to remove the former president from their ballots – as Maine’s Democratic secretary of state did, followed by an Illinois judge late in the game.

That means they were all taking a hard-line stance that has now been rejected Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. That should tell us something: Who’s more out of step with the country?

Trump, stepping before the cameras at Mar-a-Lago, calling the ruling a step toward national unity:

‘They worked long. They worked hard. And frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be spoken about a hundred years from now and 200 years from now. Extremely important.’

Trump then pivoted to the other case the Supreme Court just took, his claims of total unity for actions taken while president. The legal pundits say SCOTUS may well rule against him on that one, though no one knows for sure, which would amount to a split decision on the two high-stakes cases.

Trump was soon doing the greatest hits, attacking such prosecutors as Jack Smith, Letitia James and Fani Willis, and slamming the judges hearing several of his cases. 

A New York Times reporter said that Mario Nicolais, attorney for the Colorado side, said the Supremes had ‘abrogated their responsibility to our democracy….I hope that the cowardice of the court today doesn’t lead to bloodshed tomorrow.’ Pretty gracious, huh?

Remember, Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson found common ground with Sam Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, but the critics are still carping. 

Jim Acosta, the anti-Trump CNN anchor, said his antagonist ‘has sort of played the legal system like a fiddle over the last couple of years. He’s thrown the kitchen sink into the gears of America’s judicial system.’

Maine GOP director Jason Savage told the Times that his goal is replacing Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, the Democrat who ruled in December that Trump was ineligible for the Maine ballot: ‘One bureaucrat was trying to alter the presidential election based on her opinion.’

What triggered the entire battle was Colorado dusting off an obscure, little-used legal provision passed after the Civil War: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It was aimed at former Confederate officials and soldiers who had rebelled against the country.

Where some of the justices parted company was over the scope of the unsigned opinion, with the court’s three liberal members saying in concurring opinions that the conservative majority went too far in attempting ‘to insulate the court’ and Trump from ‘future controversy….

‘In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course.’

Some of the conflicting views involve whether only Congress has the power to utilize Section 3 and whether the president is considered an officer of the United States.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed with the liberals, saying the majority should not have raised ‘the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced…

‘This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency … Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the court should turn the national temperature down, not up.’

However you slice and dice it, it was a big win for Donald Trump, and for those who believe the voters, not partisan state officials, should get to pick the president.

The White House on Monday lifted regulations on those working in close contact with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, no longer requiring a negative COVID-19 test.

The decision marks the end of one of the last remaining federal restrictions from the pandemic era.

The White House has pointed to changing guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a key factor in its policies surrounding COVID-19.

On March 1, the CDC officially dropped its recommendation for people to isolate themselves for five days after a positive COVID test.

The agency’s new guidance tells people to stay home if they are sick, but when they are feeling better and have been fever-free for 24 hours, they can return to school or work.

Prior to this most recent update, the CDC called for people who test positive for the virus to ‘stay home for at least five days and isolate from others in your home,’ a recommendation that was implemented in late 2021.

The contrast between the CDC’s rhetoric about COVID-19 during the pandemic and afterward has caused controversy among some.

In response to last week’s change in guidance, a community called LC/DC, which describes itself as non-partisan, is planning a protest at the Lincoln Memorial on March 15.

‘LC/DC is fighting to raise awareness about long COVID, and we recognize that reducing the isolation policy will result in more infections, long-term illnesses and disability,’ said Paul Hennessy, one of the three main organizers of the planned event.

The demonstration at Lincoln Memorial will take place on March 15 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Donald Trump won’t clinch the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday.

But with the former president likely to capture the lion’s share of the 854 Republican delegates up for grabs when 15 states hold GOP primaries or caucuses on what’s known as Super Tuesday, Trump is expected to move significantly closer to locking up his party’s presidential nomination over his last remaining rival – Nikki Haley.

‘It’s big stuff and it’s the single most important primary day of the year,’ Trump told his supporters in a video posted on social media ahead of Super Tuesday.

Trump has swept all but one of the first nine contests on the GOP nominating calendar, including North Dakota’s Republican presidential caucuses on the eve of Super Tuesday. 

Another strong showing by the former president in Tuesday’s coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses will help him in his mission to completely pivot from a primary battle with Haley to a general election rematch with President Biden, who defeated Trump four years ago to win the White House.

‘If every single conservative, Republican, and Trump supporter in these states shows up on Super Tuesday, we will be very close to finished with this primary contest,’ Trump emphasized. ‘Republicans will then be able to focus all of our energy, time, and resources, on defeating crooked Joe Biden.’

Among the states holding nominating contests on Super Tuesday are delegate-rich California and Texas. Also holding primaries are Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. Two states, Alaska and Utah, are holding caucuses. 

The scant public opinion polling conducted in some of these states indicates the former president holds formidable leads over Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration.

Some of the states – including California with 169 delegates at stake – have winner-take-all rules to varying degrees, which should boost Trump’s delegate haul.

With more large states like Georgia, Florida, Illinois and Ohio among the eight holding primaries on March 12 and 19, Trump is expected to reach the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the nomination by the middle of this month.

Trump’s campaign predicted in a memo last month that even under the most favorable modeling for Haley, the former president would clinch the nomination by March 19.

Trump for nearly a year has dominated the GOP nomination race, which last summer peaked with over a dozen challengers taking on the former president. Helping to boost Trump among the Republican base – his history-making indictments last year in four different criminal cases – including charges in two cases that he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. 

The former president kicked off the nominating calendar with double-digit wins in the Iowa caucuses and in the New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Michigan primaries. He also grabbed landslide victories in the Nevada and U.S. Virgin Islands GOP caucuses.

Trump rolled into Super Tuesday with plenty of momentum, after securing the 39 delegates up for grabs Saturday at Michigan’s GOP’s party convention.

A few hours later, the former president was victorious in the Missouri caucuses, and he closed out Saturday evening by scoring a win in the Idaho caucuses.

‘We’ve been launching like a rocket to the Republican nomination,’ Trump touted Saturday night at a rally in Richmond, Virginia, as he pointed to his ballot box victories in Michigan, Missouri and Idaho.

Heading into Super Tuesday, Trump was well more than 200 delegates ahead of Haley, following his North Dakota victory on Monday night.

‘Republican voters have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest and this race is over,’ Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a recent statement. ‘Our focus is now on Joe Biden and the general election.’

The former president also won a major court victory on Monday, as the Supreme Court sided unanimously with Trump in his legal challenge to the state of Colorado’s attempt to kick him off the 2024 primary ballot. 

But Haley, who remains in the GOP nomination race at least through Super Tuesday despite the extremely long odds she faces, on Sunday enjoyed victory for the first time in the 2024 race.

Haley topped Trump by roughly 30 points in Washington D.C.’s Republican primary. She captured 19 delegates and made history as the first woman to win a GOP presidential primary or caucus.

‘Republicans closest to Washington’s dysfunction know that Donald Trump has brought nothing but chaos and division for the past 8 years. It’s time to start winning again and move our nation forward!,’ Haley wrote on social media Sunday night.

In the past few days, Haley landed the endorsements of two GOP senators from Super Tuesday states – Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Haley, who has garnered strong support in the GOP primaries from independents and whose fundraising has remained formidable, has stayed in the race as an option for voters dissatisfied with a likely Biden-Trump rematch. 

But while Trump plans to make comments Tuesday evening from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, Haley has no public events or election night gatherings scheduled for Super Tuesday evening and remains mum on any plans going forward.

Haley reiterated in an interview on Saturday with Fox News’ Bill Melugin that ‘we’re going to go as long as we’re competitive,’ but she did not specifically define what competitive means.

One U.S. territory – American Samoa – also holds nominating contests on Tuesday.

Except for Alaska, all the states holding GOP primaries or caucuses on Tuesday are also conducting Democratic ones as well. And Iowa Democrats will announce the results of a vote-by-mail caucus they’ve been holding since mid-January.

The president, who faces nominal challenges from Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, is likely to romp in the Democratic contests.

Biden is expected to win the vast majority of the 1,420 Democratic delegates up for grabs on Tuesday, and move much closer to the 1,968 needed to lock up renomination.

A group of pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday accosted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her fiancé outside a movie theater in Brooklyn and demanded that she call Israel’s offensive in Gaza a ‘genocide.’

Video obtained by Fox News Digital shows the protesters, phones in hand, approaching the congresswoman outside the Alamo Drafthouse. 

‘You refuse to call it a genocide,’ one of the protesters can be heard saying, to which Ocasio-Cortez fires back: ‘I need you to understand that this is not okay.’ 

‘It’s not okay that there’s a genocide happening and you’re not actively against it,’ the protester says. 

‘You’re lying!’ Ocasio-Cortez shouts back. 

The video shows the protesters following her down the escalator, continually berating her for not labeling the war a ‘genocide.’ 

‘If you can’t say it, just say it. Literally. We’re just talking to you like normal people. Just say it’s a genocide. Just say it. Over 30,000 people are dead AOC, you can’t just say it for once?’ another protester shouts, citing figures from the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. ‘Just say the word, that’s it. That’s all we want you to say.’ 

The protesters chase her and her fiancé, Riley Roberts, outside the building. At one point, Roberts pleads with the protesters to stop as they continue following the couple down the sidewalk. 

One of the protesters asks whether Ocasio-Cortez is concerned her comments would ‘go viral.’ 

A visibly angry Ocasio-Cortez tells the protesters that they’re going to clip the video so that her comments are ‘completely out of context.’ 

She then appears to concede that Israel’s actions constitute a genocide. 

‘I already said that it was. And y’all are just gonna pretend that it wasn’t. Over and over again. It’s f—ed up man. And you’re not helping these people. You’re not helping them,’ Ocasio-Cortez says. 

The protesters, clearly unassuaged and dissatisfied with her answer, continue chasing the couple down the sidewalk. One of them mentions her past comments, condemning the Armenian genocide. 

‘Why won’t you say it in front of everybody, why us?’ 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment. 

Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly condemned Israel’s retaliation after the Oct. 7 massacre, in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 civilians, injured hundreds more, and took around 250 hostages. 

She has called for a ceasefire and suggested the U.S. ‘conditioning aid, if not cutting aid to the Netanyahu government.’  

Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, Ocasio-Cortez accused Israel of committing war crimes, while qualifying that she was not defending Hamas. 

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, March 8 will be a make-or-break moment. It could very well be the president’s last opportunity to turn around his dismal standing with the American people which, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll, is mired at the lowest point yet of his presidency. After all, it’s not often that Biden’s handlers allow him to appear before a national audience. 

Biden has three critical missions. One is to look like a robust, energetic man who can capably govern our country for the next four years, and not a doddering and confused 81-year-old. The vast majority of Americans – 86% in one survey– thinks he is not up to the task. His job is to prove them wrong. 

Second, Biden must convince the 82% of voters (in the Times poll) who say his policies haven’t helped them that they are confused and that, in fact Bidenomics has been a smashing success. Ditto the 73% in a new Fox News poll who rated economic conditions today ‘only fair’ or ‘poor.’ 

Third, and possibly most important, Biden has to convincingly blame someone else for the unholy mess at the southern border. He will tell the public that his hands have been tied by Republicans, and that he is powerless to fix it. He’ll hope voters forget that Trump managed to close the border all on his own.

These are nearly impossible challenges. The Times survey shows the incumbent Democrat losing to Donald Trump by 5 points, and trailing with Hispanic voters. His advantage with Black voters has narrowed significantly and he has lost ground also with young people, many of whom are unhappy about the president’s support for Israel and have been checking ‘uncommitted’ in Democratic primaries.

For all these reasons, this SOTU looms large.  

Can Biden turn around his sinking ship? Bragging about cracking down on ‘junk fees’ or going full nuclear against ‘shrinkflation’ will not suffice. Touting his climate agenda or his student loan forgiveness plans is risky – working class Americans, whom the president is desperately courting, don’t like either. He can promise to save democracy, but since he and his party are feverishly trying to bankrupt, imprison and remove from the ballot his foremost opponent Donald Trump, such claims ring hollow. 

Those hoping for a reset, the kind of pivot to the middle that arguably saved Barack Obama’s presidency, will likely be disappointed. Obama, too, was unpopular at this point in his first term, but after receiving what he described as a ‘shellacking’ in the midterms, he edged towards the middle and managed to boost his standing. By all accounts, the Biden team thinks the campaign is going hunky-dory, no reboot necessary.

The number one issue for voters is immigration and the border, and rightly so. Biden and Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas continue to argue that they are blameless, even as the death toll from our open border continues to mount. 

The gruesome murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley allegedly by a Venezuelan migrant in the country illegally brings home the danger of our immigration fiasco. But so do the 112,000 deaths from fentanyl poisoning that took place in 2023 alone. And let’s not forget the hundreds of migrants who have died in their desperate effort to cross into our country between points of entry.  

The open border is also weakening our nation’s security; tens of thousands of military-age Chinese men have poured into the U.S. for the first time ever and hundreds of individuals on the terror watch list have tried to enter the country as well.  

The White House has responded to voter fury about the collapsed border by blaming Republicans. If only the GOP would have passed the immigration plan Biden proposed early in his presidency, they claim, we would not have this problem. That is bunk; Biden’s ‘U.S. Citizenship Act’ did little to protect our border and instead prioritized legalizing people in the country illegally. (The name gives it away.) The bill was such a dud that even Democrats ignored it during Biden’s first two years, during which they controlled both houses of Congress.  

The White House now blasts the GOP for ongoing inaction, even as voters know that Biden through executive action could restore the safeguards put in place by Donald Trump and then jettisoned by Biden during his mindless effort to obliterate his predecessor’s policies.  

Don’t expect Biden to apologize for allowing at least 7 million people to enter the U.S. illegally since he became president. Democrats are happy to welcome these ‘newcomers,’ as they now call them, whom they hope will become lifetime supporters of their party.  

Biden will also try to convince Americans voters that the economy is working for them, even though only a quarter of voters in a new Fox News poll say that is so, while 48% say his policies have hurt them.  His claims about the economy are so dishonest that even the friendly New York Times felt compelled recently to offer a fact-check. 

While unemployment is low and the economy continues to grow, inflation remains a huge problem for Americans living paycheck to paycheck. In particular, people are incensed that the cost of food is up more than 20% since Biden took office, while wages have only increased 15%. People are falling behind and they know it. 

Biden will again accuse ‘greedy’ food companies like Pepsi or Kraft Heinz of profiteering after the pandemic; he will try to blame them for rising prices. Don’t believe it. These companies’ profit margins plummeted after the COVID shut-downs; they have been scrambling ever since to cover increased labor and materials costs and, for the most part, are still underwater. This is another Biden lie.

Biden’s biggest challenge will be to look like a man in charge – a man that can be trusted to lead our nation for the next four years. 

That will take magic, not an hour reading from a Teleprompter.