Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s new nominee for the Supreme Court, is a whip-smart legal conservative. As a judge in the highest-profile appeals court in the nation, he has shown an exemplary dedication to the rule of law. He has defended the separation of powers against threats coming from multiple directions. He has repeatedly cautioned his colleagues on the bench not to attempt to play a legislative role. He has also insisted on enforcing constitutional structures of accountability on government agencies. He has vindicated the right to free speech (against certain campaign-finance regulations), to bear arms (against the D.C. government’s attempts to implement sweeping bans), and to religious liberty (against a version of the Obama administration’s “contraceptive mandate”). And he has followed Supreme Court precedents even when gently suggesting they should be rethought.
His decisions have also been influential, with the Supreme Court repeatedly adopting his analysis and in one case running several block quotes from his opinion. Some conservatives have faulted the reasoning of a few of his opinions, but usually have not disagreed with the decisions he reached. His ruling on a Continue reading
By Jim Geraghty • National Review
Think of these poll results the next time someone laments that voter turnout is low in the United States. A disturbingly high percentage of Americans can’t name the three branches of government and basically don’t know anything about how their government works.
That’s nearly three-quarters of the American population that can’t cough up “legislative, executive, judicial” on demand and fully 60 percent that can’t name *more than one* of those . . . Continue reading
The presidential electors have a constitutional duty to vote for the person best-suited to be president, regardless of whether that person is Donald Trump.
By James Heaney • The Federalist
On November 8, Americans cast their votes, and Hillary Clinton won more of them. In most democracies, that would make her the winner—and the next president. But she isn’t.
This was not a stolen election. It is not an error in our system. This is by design.
America’s Founding Fathers were too wise to establish a national popular vote for the highest office in the land. Instead, they created an Electoral College. It spreads the power to elect the president across the country, with every state getting a certain number of votes, usually winner-take-all. This system means any would-be president has to win support from a broad coalition that encompasses many diverse states. Continue reading
by Ilya Shapiro • National Review
As we approach the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency, there isn’t much that the president can do to change people’s opinion of him, for better or worse. His legacy, barring some extraordinary occurrence — including an extraterrestrial one, as the holiday advertising blitz for the new Independence Day movie reminds us — is baked into history.
Setting aside legislation and executive action (on which more imminently), we note that one of President Obama’s chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse.
Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up federalism or the separation of powers but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document. With his pen and his phone, and hearkening to Woodrow Wilson’s progressive view of government, he’s been taking out his frustrations with the checks and balances that inhibit his ability to “fundamentally transform” the country. Continue reading
by Andrew McCarthy • National Review
As I argued in Faithless Execution, the principal constitutional duty of the chief executive is to execute the laws faithfully. President Obama, by contrast, sees his principal task as imposing his post-American “progressive” preferences, regardless of what the laws mandate.
In his latest harangue against Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and other Americans opposed to his insistence on continuing to import thousands of Muslim refugees from Syria and other parts of the jihad-ravaged Middle East, Obama declaimed:
When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted … that’s shameful…. That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion. Continue reading
by Joel B. Pollak • Breitbart
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told an audience at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley that the Supreme Court is “liberal,” not conservative–and that its views herald “the destruction of our democratic system.”
The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Scalia also blasted the notion of a “living Constitution,” one whose meaning changes over time for different circumstances–as interpreted by judges with their own personal biases. Continue reading
With the Senate lacking the two-thirds majority it would need to stop him, President Obama will succeed in implementing his nuclear deal with Iran. At this point, barring a miracle, Obama has outmaneuvered the Congress and won that fight.
He has also lost the argument.
For all the millions of dollars they promised to spend influencing public opinion, his allies failed to put a dent in the overwhelming opposition among the American public. The demeaning videos they trotted out featuring vapid celebrities failed to convince the undecided to embrace this deal. Nor could they assuage the glaring problems in its terms for those following closely enough to feel confident expressing an opinion. Continue reading
By John Podhoretz • New York Post
It’s rare for people to celebrate getting 41 percent of anything. If you score 41 percent on a test, you get an F. If you win 41 percent of the vote in a two-person race, you lose. If your tax rate is 41 percent, you’re likely to feel ripped off.
In the matter of his Iran deal, President Obama and his team have spent two months working relentlessly to secure 41 percent — and now they’re claiming an enormous victory even though by any other standards what they’ve achieved is nothing but a feat of unconstitutional trickery.
They worked throughout the summer to browbeat Senate Democrats so they could get 41 of them to say they would support the Iran nuclear deal. They’re up to 42 now — that’s a mere 42 percent of the Senate. Continue reading
How the Constitution Protects Us From Abuse and Stops the Abusers
By George Landrith
News reports of federal agencies abusing the rights of Americans and violating the law have become all too common. It is no longer plausible for defenders of big government to argue that these abuses are simply a few isolated incidents. We have witnessed a veritable parade of lawless abuses from all corners of the federal government.
For most of the last six years, the Senate ran interference for the Administration and the national media largely ignored the abuses of their ideological allies. But even in this dangerous and unaccountable age, the Constitution’s genius divides power in such a way as to limit the abuse of power — provided we are smart enough to rely upon the wisdom of the Constitution. Continue reading
The EPA acts as though it has the legislative authority to re-engineer the nation’s electric generating system and power grid. It does not.
by Laurence H. Tribe • The Wall Street Journal
As a law professor, I taught the nation’s first environmental law class 45 years ago. As a lawyer, I have supported countless environmental causes. And as a father and grandfather, I want to leave the Earth in better shape than when I arrived.
Nonetheless, I recently filed comments with the Environmental Protection Agency urging the agency to withdraw its Clean Power Plan, a regulatory proposal to reduce carbon emissions from the nation’s electric power plants. In my view, coping with climate change is a vital end, but it does not justify using unconstitutional means. Continue reading
by Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz • Washington Post
It is now well known that the IRS targeted tea party organizations. What is less well known, but perhaps even more scandalous, is that the IRS also targeted those who would educate their fellow citizens about the United States Constitution.
According to the inspector general’s report (pp. 30 & 38), this particular IRS targeting commenced on Jan. 25, 2012 — the beginning of the election year for President Obama’s second campaign. On that date: “the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] criteria were again updated.” The revised criteria included “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” Continue reading
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
December 31, 2012
As we approach 2013 we also review some of our must read articles from 2012. Please see below for several timely pieces by George Landrith on various topics, such as, taxes, the fiscal cliff, the economy, jobs, the election process and results, foreign policy, government largess, energy, and the Constitution. Continue reading