Conservatives and Christians are wildly ecstatic that Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the newest justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. To hear all of the euphoria over Kavanaugh’s confirmation, one would think that he was heralding the Second Coming. He’s not. But his appointment does herald other things—many of them BAD.
First, let me briefly discuss the Democrat and Republican rancor that was put on public display during the confirmation hearings. As I have tried to point out to the American people over the past several decades, the entire left-right, liberal-conservative, Democrat-Republican paradigm is pure propaganda. It is nothing but public theater. Both parties use the “us vs. them” demagoguery as a way to keep their constituents who buy into the charade happy enough to keep electing and reelecting them to public office.
To use an analogy that many sports fans can identify with right now, the Democrat-Republican rivalry is tantamount to the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox rivalry. Each side is cheering like crazy for their team and rabidly booing the other team. But both teams are playing the same game; they are throwing and hitting the same ball; and they are running the same bases. It’s pure entertainment. And that’s what the two major parties in Washington, D.C., are doing. They root and cheer for their party and boo and hiss the other party, but they are playing the same game. It’s pure entertainment.
All of the theatrics surrounding Kavanaugh’s confirmation was nothing more than political posturing for the November elections by both parties. I promise you, had Kavanaugh been appointed by a Democrat president, the same game would have been played, except the two sides would have switched uniforms. The fix was in: Kavanaugh was going to be confirmed, and everyone inside the Beltway knew it. It was all a show, folks. Now, Republicans have a “win” in which to motivate constituents to go vote November 6, and Democrats have a “loss” in which to motivate constituents to go vote November 6.
The left-right rivalry is pure theater. It’s not about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, truth, freedom or the American way; it’s all about political power. Oh, there might be a handful of hardcore liberals and conservatives who are truly driven by ideology, but what drives the vast majority of these miscreants—otherwise known as politicians—is power: pure, unabashed, raw power.
The other thing that the Democrat-Republican phony rivalry does is obfuscate the really important developments that are taking place that neither party wants the American people to know about.
For example, while most Americans were transfixed on Brett Kavanaugh’s version of Peyton Place (did I really say that? One must be at least 50 to even remember that TV series) on CNN and FOX News, they didn’t notice that Israel manipulated the Syrian shoot-down of a Russian aircraft that took the lives of 15 Russian airmen, and in retaliation Russia delivered several S-300 missile defense systems to Syria. They didn’t notice that the GOP and Donald Trump passed a massive $854 billion spending bill that fully funds Planned Parenthood and fetal tissue research. They didn’t notice that the government’s annual spending report came out and Trump and the GOP exploded the federal deficit by over $1 trillion. I could keep going, but you get the point.
Before continuing, let me briefly digress to point out one of the most egregious hypocrisies of President Trump and Republicans in the U.S. Senate: How was it that Trump and the GOP sat back and did absolutely nothing to assist Judge Roy Moore when he was accused of decades-old sexual improprieties? Trump and the GOP left Judge Moore to be devoured by the wolves but then came to a ferocious defense, like a hornet’s nest defending its queen, when Kavanagh was accused in similar fashion. Why? Huh? Why?
And not only did the “she said, he said” circus that passed for confirmation hearings for a U.S. Supreme Court justice obfuscate serious developments on the national and international stage, it also obfuscated Brett Kavanaugh’s REAL record.
Confirming (or voting for) a judge should be all about his or her fidelity to upholding the U.S. Constitution. For a judge, nothing is as important as that. And the plain truth is, Judge Kavanaugh’s report card on defending the Constitution is a big, fat “F.”
I have already pointed out in previous columns that Kavanaugh is an “enemy” of the Fourth Amendment. And that accusation is made by many legal scholars, including Judge Andrew Napolitano. Kavanaugh helped create the Patriot Act that has done more to trample the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution than any act ever passed by Congress.
Judicial Watch founder, attorney Larry Klayman, wrote this:
Judge Kavanaugh either has no respect for the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, or he was unethically attempting to curry favor with the Republican establishment, exemplified by former President George W. Bush and his administration, which Kavanaugh had worked for as staff secretary in the White House Counsel’s office. President Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney, not coincidentally, had also put in place this mass surveillance, using September 11 as the pretext.
Kavanaugh obviously understood that his aspirations to someday become a Supreme Court justice would depend on his close ties to this Republican Bush-Cheney establishment, who would someday, if the chance arose, push for his nomination. And, indeed this came to pass in the last weeks, after Kavanaugh’s mentor who he clerked for in his early career, Justice Anthony Kennedy, announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. The swamp creatures of this slimy Republican establishment . . . pushed The Donald to name Kavanaugh as the next SCOTUS justice.
But as far as most conservatives and Christians are concerned, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t exist. It is the invisible Bill in the Bill of Rights. But it’s even worse than that. Not only do most conservatives and Christians not care about defending the Fourth Amendment, they are actually some of the most radical enemies of the Fourth Amendment. No wonder they like Brett Kavanaugh so much.
President Trump said Monday that he’s directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to provide federal assistance to the city of Chicago to limit gun violence and suggested the city implement the controversial practice of “stop and frisk.”
“We want to straighten it out and straighten it out fast. There’s no reason for what’s going on there,” Trump told law enforcement officials at a convention for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Trump said he’s urging Chicago officials to “strongly consider stop and frisk.”
“It works, and it was meant for problems like Chicago,” Trump said, garnering applause from the audience.
Trump’s “stop and frisk” procedures are quintessential Police State machinations. Only anti-Constitution, rabid Police State lawyers like Rudy Giuliani support such practices.
Yet, when Trump promotes the Hitlerian/Stalinesque “stop and frisk” procedures, his law enforcement audience—comprised of many Christians and conservatives—roar their enthusiastic support.
I’m telling you again: The Fourth Amendment is dead to most Republicans, Christians and conservatives. In fact, there wasn’t a single Republican senator—not even Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning son of liberty champion Ron Paul—who even dared to broach the subject of Kavanaugh’s pathetic anti-Fourth Amendment record. The only senator from either party who called Kavanagh out for his many Police State rulings was Montana’s Democrat senator, Jon Tester.
[Montana U.S. Senator Jon] Tester focused on [Brett] Kavanaugh’s judicial record rather than sexual assault allegations made against the nominee.
Tester spoke about researching the candidate deeply, finding a few issues that he felt were disqualifying for his vote, including his involvement in mass surveillance and the Patriot Act as two issues that violate the 4th Amendment.
I am not endorsing Senator Tester, of course, but I am pointing out the fact that Tester accurately addressed the singular issue upon which any court justice (or any elected office holder, for that matter) should be primarily judged: his or her fidelity to the U.S. Constitution (albeit, I seriously doubt that Tester would have been so concerned about the Constitution had the Supreme Court nominee been appointed by a Democrat President). But all of the theatrics surrounding the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings thoroughly obfuscated this most-important issue from public debate or public attention.
Neither did Judge Kavanaugh take a position against Obamacare, but used an obscure law to turn Obama’s “healthcare” law into a government “tax” to make it more palatable. In the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein writes:
Though nobody would question his credentials, there’s fear among a subset of conservatives that as a Washington insider and former Bush administration lawyer, Kavanaugh could turn out to be overly cautious and fearful about upsetting elites, thus upholding unconstitutional laws and sustaining bad precedents.
Though Kavanaugh’s hundreds of decisions in a dozen years as an appellate judge have been broadly conservative (particularly when it comes to reining in the regulatory state), there is one decision in particular that has divided conservatives — his dissenting opinion in an Obamacare case brought to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011. This has triggered a debate over whether Kavanaugh could be another Chief Justice John Roberts, who the Right still does not forgive for upholding Obamacare.
In the Seven-Sky v. Holder case, a forerunner to the landmark Supreme Court ruling, a three judge panel decided 2-1 that Obamacare’s individual mandate was constitutional. While Kavanaugh dissented from the main opinion, he did not go as far as declaring Obamacare unconstitutional. Instead, he argued that the court was not yet in a position to hear the case, because under an arcane 19th-century law known as the Tax Anti-Injunction Act, courts could not hear challenges to a tax that had not been collected yet, and thus any decision would have to wait until 2015, when taxpayers had to file mandate penalties for the first time. In summary, Kavanaugh didn’t uphold Obamacare, but he did not take the opportunity to strike it down, either.
Furthermore, Judge Kavanaugh believes that a sitting President (ANY President) is exempt from criminal investigations and even civil suits. From Politico:
Kavanaugh’s allies note that the 2009 Minnesota Law Review article he wrote addressing such subjects advocates for a congressional statute that would exempt the president from civil suits while in office, as well as immunizing him from criminal investigation and prosecution. He does use some pretty strong language about the prospect of a criminal trial of a sitting president, saying it would “cripple the federal government”—an assessment that one could imagine leading a Supreme Court justice to step in to avert such a prospect.
Earlier in the panel discussion, helpfully preserved for eternity by C-SPAN, Kavanaugh refers to the issue as “a question that has been a lurking constitutional issue for a long time which at some point here should be resolved so we can determine whether the Congress or an independent counsel should investigate the president when his conduct is at issue.”
“I tend to think it has to be the Congress,” Kavanaugh added, presaging the views he would offer in more detail in his law review article a decade or so later. Democrats are expected to press Kavanaugh hard on the topic at his confirmation hearings, arguing that Trump picked him as a kind of insurance policy against potential negative developments in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia probe.
Some scholars are of the view that a president could be indicted while in office, but could not be tried until he vacated the office, whether by impeachment, resignation or because his term expired. But the most recent Justice Department opinion, which is likely binding on Mueller’s office, says that even a sealed indictment of the president would be impermissible.
But Democrats did NOT “press Kavanaugh hard on the topic at his confirmation hearings,” did they? Instead, they focused on the accusations of sexual misconduct from over thirty years ago. Why didn’t they press Kavanaugh on his assertion that presidents are exempt from legal accountability? Because they want to reserve the same protections from criminal or civil accountability for future Democrat presidents, that’s why. Neither party in Washington, D.C., wants to be held accountable for crimes against the Constitution or other acts of illegality.
The Kavanaugh confirmation all but forever seals the deal that Robert Mueller’s investigation—or any other independent investigation against a sitting President—will never be allowed to have any teeth. And always remember that this is the same guy—Brett Kavanaugh—that helped cover up the government’s murder of Vince Foster during the administration of President Bill Clinton.
Joel Skousen wrote:
The Vince Foster cover-up wasn’t a simple case of an erroneous conclusion based upon weak evidence. This was a full blown conspiracy to intimidate witnesses that proved the official version was a lie. As Starr’s deputy, there is no way that Kavanaugh could not have known that there was a cover-up and conspiracy going on.
Kavanaugh will always be subject to the blackmail of “you knew what Starr did to Patrick Knowlton [the key witness exposing the Deep State conspiracy that killed Foster], and you went along with it.” That also implies a more lethal threat of “you know what they did to Vince Foster when he got cold feet about protecting the Clintons.”
Tim Brown wrote more about Kavanaugh’s collusion in the cover-up of Vince Foster’s murder.
And let’s not forget that Trump is personally beholden to Kavanaugh for a judicial ruling back in 2012 regarding the attempted unionization of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Again, The Hill has the story:
President Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2012 sided with the future U.S. president’s casino in a case over unionization, Bloomberg reported.
Kavanaugh threw his weight behind Trump Entertainment Resorts’ successful attempt to end a unionization effort at one of its casinos six years ago.
He voted with two other Republican-nominated judges on the D.C.-based federal appeals court to set aside an order by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that would have required the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in New Jersey to bargain with the United Auto Workers.
And listen to this:
Kavanaugh worked for Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated former President Clinton. He once argued that a president could be impeached for lying to his staff or misleading the public.
He later recanted this stance after observing the discord caused by Clinton’s impeachment, saying presidents should not be indicted or distracted by investigations while holding the office.
No wonder Donald Trump wanted Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.
But that’s not all. Trump has very close financial ties to retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Come to find out, Kennedy’s Deutsche Bank gave Trump over $1 billion in loans when no other bank would do so due to Trump’s numerous financial failures. It seems that Trump encouraged Kennedy to retire, promising to appoint Kennedy’s protégé, Brett Kavanaugh, to replace him. Talk about backroom deals!
And for the pro-life Christians and conservatives who believe that Kavanaugh is going to help overturn Roe v Wade, they are living in a fantasy world. NPR reports:
Republican Sen. Susan Collins says Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh told her he views the landmark abortion rights ruling Roe v. Wade as “settled law.”
That assurance, made during a Tuesday morning meeting in the Maine senator’s office that lasted more than two hours, likely goes a long way toward securing a key vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Collins supports abortion rights and made sure to point out she viewed the 1973 decision as “settled law” in her initial reaction to the news that abortion rights swing vote Anthony Kennedy was retiring from the Supreme Court.
“We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law,” Collins told reporters after the meeting. “He said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing, at which he said that it was settled law.”
I realize that many conservatives and Christians have been bamboozled into believing that Donald Trump is some kind of superhero who is engaged in a deep, gallant conspiracy with other covert superheroes to dismantle the Deep State, but it’s all an illusion. Trump is not a superhero working to dismantle the Deep State. He himself is a Deep State toady; and so is Brett Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh will indeed make some conservative rulings as a Supreme Court justice. That by itself is no indication that Kavanaugh is not a compromised shill for the Deep State. Many big-government Deep State toadies are known as “conservatives.” In fact, “conservatives” are often the first ones to trample the Fourth Amendment and facilitate America’s burgeoning Police State. And given Kavanaugh’s track record, he is the perfect “conservative” to continue the Deep State’s assault on our Fourth Amendment liberties.
Believe me, what you don’t know about Brett Kavanaugh can and will hurt you.
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