Free Republic

Truly there is nothing new under the sun. In recent months Democrats have been bleating about fat Iraq construction contracts going to Halliburton, about Halliburton's ties to the administration because Vice President Cheney happened to run the company just before taking his current job and a shocking GOP tendency to help contributors. These are all coincidences, but some critics have even called for an independent investigation into Houston-based Halliburton. It should be clear that these odd coincidences are not something invented by Republicans. They are a venerable tradition. During the Vietnam War, for example, members of Congress were ripping into...

Daughter's teen pregnancy and failed shotgun marriage played a part in rulingWASHINGTON, March 4, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The late Harry Blackmun was the Supreme Court Justice who supported and authored the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which sanctioned the legalization of murder by striking down the US abortion law. In an interview Sunday, Blackmun's daughter Sally Blackmun, the executor of his private papers, revealed the background behind his ruling. The interview is a result of her decision to release his private documents for public purview this week. According to his daughter, Justice Blackmun's choice to strike down the abortion law...

<p>The Supreme Court was ready in 1992 to effectively overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy got cold feet, and the vote went the other way.</p> <p>Internal notes in the papers of late Justice Harry A. Blackmun provide a glimpse of the secretive dealings that led to the court's ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that year. Justice Blackmun's extensive records from 24 years on the court were made public yesterday, the fifth anniversary of his death.</p>

WASHINGTON - As lawyers and court watchers have long suspected, the Supreme Court was ready to effectively overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade (news - web sites) ruling legalizing abortion in 1992, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy got cold feet, and the vote went the other way. Internal notes in the papers of late Justice Harry A. Blackmun provide a glimpse of the secretive dealings that led to the court's ruling in Planned Parenthood (news - web sites) v. Casey that year. Blackmun's extensive records from 24 years on the court were opened Thursday, the fifth anniversary of his death....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The public gets a behind-the-scenes view into the private Supreme Court this week with release of the personal files of the late Harry A. Blackmun, the justice who authored the 1973 decision that legalized abortion. Blackmun's paper legacy, filling more than 1,500 boxes, will be unsealed Thursday on the fifth anniversary of his death. It's been more than a decade since intimate details of the court's inner workings were revealed in Justice Thurgood Marshall's papers, which elicited bitter criticism within the court because the papers include secret memos and unpublished draft opinions in controversial cases. Most current...

WASHINGTON (AP) - As lawyers and court watchers have long suspected, the Supreme Court was ready to effectively overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion in 1992, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy got cold feet, and the vote went the other way. Internal notes in the papers of late Justice Harry A. Blackmun reveal the secretive dealings that led to the court's ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that year. Blackmun's extensive records from 24 years on the court would be open to the public March 4. Details of the archives were first released by NPR's Nina Totenberg,...

The Three Stooges July 3, 2003 For the last week we have been reminded by various pundits that the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are “unpredictable,” often surprising the presidents who appointed them. It would be more accurate to put it more narrowly: justices appointed by Republican presidents often issue the most liberal rulings. Think of Earl Warren and William Brennan (Eisenhower picks); Harry Blackmun (Nixon); John Paul Stevens (Ford); Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy (Reagan); and David Souter (the first Bush). Felix Frankfurter, chosen by Franklin Roosevelt, was the last justice named by a Democrat who turned...

You almost have to feel sorry for Harry Blackmun. He is in the unenviable position of forever being judged in light of his single worst act. In 1973, Blackmun wrote the majority opinion for Roe vs. Wade -- the case in which the Supreme Court legalized abortion. In recent years, Blackmun had specifically stated that the Roe decision was made on purely constitutional grounds, without the influence of any particular moral or political agenda. However, when one looks at the poor reasoning used to prop up this decision, his statement becomes less believable. What agenda influenced Blackmun (and the six...