Free Republic

Over the past decade, left-leaning opinion makers have been at war against the U.S. Constitution and our Founders. The nomination of originalist judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has provoked renewal of the onslaught. The assault takes several forms, which are discussed below. First, however, let’s see what triggered it.The Constitution limits and distributes political power. American “progressives” almost universally favor a very powerful central government so most do not think highly of the Constitution. Throughout the 20th Century, however, they generally avoided direct criticism. Instead, they contended that the Constitution authorizes, or even mandates, their political agenda.A good...

During Friday’s Weekly Address, President Trump said that in picking a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, “my greatest responsibility is to select a justice who will faithfully interpret the Constitution as written.” He added, “Judges are not supposed to re-write the law, re-invent the Constitution, or substitute their own opinions for the will of the people expressed through their laws.” Transcript as Follows: “One of the most important decisions a president will ever make is the decision to nominate a justice to the United States Supreme Court. Last week, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his decision to take senior...

The vast majority of Americans believe it is important to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will apply the Constitution as originally set by the Founders and, in particular, protect religious freedom, according to a new Marist poll, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. Eight in 10 Americans, 80%, say it is an “immediate priority” or an “important” one “to appoint Supreme Court justices that will interpret the Constitution as it was originally written,” according to a statement from the Knights of Columbus. In addition, a majority of Americans — 52% to 40% — “want the court to interpret...

Even before Donald Trump chooses a Supreme Court nominee, the new president can take steps to make several contentious court cases go away. Legal challenges involving immigration, climate change, cost-free contraceptive care and transgender rights all could be affected, without any help from Congress... The cases turn on Obama administration policies that rely on the president's pen, regulations or decisions made by federal agencies. And what one administration can do, the next can undo.

NEW YORK (AP) -- For the combatants in America's long-running culture wars, the triumph of Donald Trump and congressional Republicans was stunning - sparking elation on one side, deep dismay on the other. Advocates of LGBT rights and abortion rights now fear setbacks instead of further gains. But the outcome emboldened the anti-abortion movement and breathed new life into the religious right's campaign for broad exemptions from same-sex marriage and other laws. Kelly Shackelford, head of First Liberty Institute, a legal group that specializes in religious freedom cases, said that, for his cause, the environment will transform from "brutal" under...

The debate over the Constitution's meaning takes a surprising turn; a pivotal gun-rights case Art Resource, NYThe nation's founders in 'The Signing of the Constitution,' a 1940 painting by Howard Chandler Christy. A debate is building over how to interpret the document. After the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban last June, gun-rights advocates trained their sights on similar restrictions in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill. Last month, the National Rifle Association received ammunition from an unlikely source: the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal litigation shop. In a brief filed with the federal appeals court in...

THIS week, for the fourth year in a row, President George Bush broke from affairs of state to address the Southern Baptist Convention. He promised the strict evangelical group, which has 16m members, that he would work hard to ban gay marriage and abortion, and that their “family values” were his values, too. In the 1960s, many liberal Americans thought they had banned religion from the public square for good. Yet nowadays the president, the secretary of state and the House speaker accept the evangelical label. A packed prayer breakfast takes place every Thursday in Congress. And liberals regularly contend...

The retirement of Justice O’Connor didn’t ignite the battle for the heart and soul of America, but it sure will kick it into high gear. The impending retirement of Chief Justice Rehnquist will shift that battle into overdrive and the political mental midgets’ pomposity into overload. [Balderdash from a pompous ass, for you sadly educated left-wing-nuts.] The first thing one must ponder on this topic is how the Supreme Court of the United States became the front line of this battle in the first place. According to one of my favorite founders Thomas Jefferson, "A free people claim their rights...

Like killer bees they will swarm in droves. No nominee will be safe. Ultra-Conservative. Stealth Liberal. Anti-(insert special interest here) Ideologue. Extreme Judicial Activist. The labels ascribed to whoever President Bush nominates to the United States Supreme Court will be legion. And they will be entirely useless in assessing whether that man or woman is fit for the Court. This is no postmodernist-gibberish screed on how words don’t mean anything. Indeed, the usual carping about labels in the law and in politics is considerably overwrought. Justice Rehnquist is generally conservative, and Justice Stevens is generally liberal. Labels often fit. But...

Last week the president admonished conservatives for daring to suggest that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be an unacceptable Supreme Court nominee because of an opinion he wrote in a Texas parental-notification case while serving on the Texas supreme court, and because of his role as White House counsel in watering down the administration's brief against reverse discrimination in admissions policies at University of Michigan. Keep in mind, conservatives have been respectful in their criticism of Gonzales. There have been no personal attacks or false accusations. And these are the same conservatives who went to bat for Gonzales when the...

With Sandra Day O’Connor’s recent resignation from the U.S. Supreme Court and the expected resignation of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, there is no shortage of talk about who should replace them. Senate liberals demand that the President “unite America” by nominating a moderate, consensus candidate. They further demand that the President consult with them and allow them to pre-approve the nominee. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) argues that these nominations are “an opportunity for President Bush to bring the country together.” By this, Schumer means that the President should appoint the sort of judge that John Kerry would have appointed had...

The Supreme Court decision in the Kelo v. City of New London case and the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor provide both the reason and opportunity for the president to nominate and Senate Republicans (and fair-minded Democrats, if there are any of them anymore) to confirm a true constitutional constructionist to the Supreme Court. The Kelo case, which has been the subject of numerous editorials in the past week, is possibly one of the most egregious rulings to be handed down by the Supreme Court since the 1857 Dred Scott decision. The court’s decision in that case excised a...

Some of the Supreme Court justices who defied expectations of the presidents who appointed them: -Oliver Wendell Holmes, appointed by Republican Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, sided with businesses and voted against the president in a case challenging the Sherman Antitrust Act. Roosevelt reportedly said of Holmes afterward, ``Out of a banana I could carve a firmer backbone.'' -Felix Frankfurter, appointed by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, became a strong advocate of judicial restraint, clashing with liberal members who sought an active court role in protecting minorities and monitoring fairness in the political process, such as legislative redistricting. -Earl Warren,...

My reaction to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement was almost as positive as my reaction in 1981 was negative when the Reagan administration announced that they were going to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court. It wouldn't matter if all nine Justices of the Supreme Court were women, if these were the nine best people available. But to decide in advance that you were going to appoint a woman and then look only among women for a nominee was a dangerous gamble with a court that has become dangerous enough otherwise. The recent outrageous Supreme Court decision making anyone's...

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union" . . . are getting restless and feel we are fighting an "insurgency" here in our own United States. The "power to the people" crowd, of this great country, are about to mount a full fledged war here at home if Congress doesn't get its act together. Oh, there won't be bloodshed likened to Valley Forge or Gettysburg, but there's a battle brewing nonetheless. We just might need to start over . . . perhaps another revolution. I feel one coming on. Where's George W . . . Washington...