Category Archives: Conservatism

UPDATED (4/21): Donald Trump’s Judicial Appointments: His Most Enduring Legacy. But, But …

Conservatism, Constitution, Donald Trump, Justice, Law

“Everything else could in theory be reversed. [Trump’s] effect on the law will be profound,” writes The Economist:

.. No president has confirmed more federal appellate judges (12) in his first year than Donald Trump. He has also seen six federal district-court judges confirmed, and one Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch. Another 47 nominees await confirmation; 102 more federal judgeships remain open for Mr Trump to fill. With two of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices, and its one unpredictable member (Anthony Kennedy) aged 79 or older, the president may get to name another justice, cementing the Court’s conservative bent.

Mr Trump’s tax reform, penchant for deregulation and foreign-policy direction could all be reversed by the next president. But because federal judges serve for life, the largely young conservatives whom Mr Trump has placed on the bench will have an impact on American life and law that long outlasts his administration.

The federal judiciary is organised into 12 regional circuits and the nine-member Supreme Court. Around 400,000 cases are filed yearly in the federal system, which has around 1,700 judges. Each of these circuits has several district courts (there are 94 in all), which hear civil and criminal federal cases, and one appellate court (there are 13: one for each circuit and the appellate court for the federal circuit), which hears appeals against decisions made by federal district courts and agencies. Because the Supreme Court hears so few cases, federal appellate courts define most contested matters of federal law.

Every president leaves his mark on the federal bench, but Mr Trump’s will be larger than most, for two reasons. First, Senate Republicans confirmed fewer judges in Barack Obama’s last two years (22) than in any two-year period since 1951-52. Mr Obama left office with 107 federal judgeships still vacant—including Mr Gorsuch’s seat, held open because Senate Republicans refused to give Merrick Garland, Mr Obama’s nominee, a hearing. This was more than twice the number George W. Bush had at his presidency’s end. Second, in 2013 Senate Democrats eliminated the filibuster for lower-court nominees, which means judges can be confirmed with a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 required to break a filibuster. For many conservatives, this opportunity alone—rather than fear of letting Hillary Clinton exploit it—justified their support for Mr Trump.

He has not disappointed. …

… Mr Trump has nominated orthodox conservatives whom the Republican-controlled Senate has happily confirmed.

During his campaign, Mr Trump promised that the judges he nominated would be “all picked by the Federalist Society”, America’s leading organisation of conservative and libertarian lawyers. Many of his nominees have ties to the group, as do Mr Gorsuch and Don McGahn, the president’s counsel. Mr McGahn told a Federalist Society gathering in November that the administration wanted to nominate “strong and smart judges…committed originalists and textualists [who] possess the fortitude to enforce the rule of law”. Mr Trump’s nominees, he crowed, “all have paper trails…there is nothing unknown about them.”

That list of qualities contains subtle digs at the two types of judges conservatives want to avoid. The first, embodied by David Souter, whom George H.W. Bush appointed, is the nominee with a thin record on constitutional issues who turns liberal on the bench. John Roberts, the current chief justice, exemplifies the second type: many conservatives deride him as a squishy institutionalist who caved in to public pressure when he twice voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act.

The maturing of the conservative legal movement, which was in its infancy when Mr Bush picked Mr Souter in 1990, and the strength of its pipeline and networks, has made wild-card nominees less likely, particularly under Mr Trump, who appears happy to be guided by the “Federalist people”. That does not mean, of course, that presidents know how judges will vote on each issue for ever. But Republican judicial nominees share a legal philosophy that is sceptical of executive and federal power and inclined towards “originalism”, which interprets the constitution’s meaning narrowly, as it would have been understood when it was written.

The Economist: “Donald Trump’s judicial appointments may prove his most enduring legacy.”

UPDATE (4/21):

Justice Neil Gorsuch has forbidden the deportation of a criminal under a law the Judge deemed “unconstitutionally vague.” What’s vague about a clause that states a burglary can turn violent/deadly and, by extension, a man who commits one?

That’s vague? Pathetic.

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The Conservative Cult Of Dr. Martin Luther King, Communist, Plagiarist, And Worse

BAB's A List, Boyd Cathey, Communism, Conservatism, Cultural Marxism, Ethics, History, Intellectualism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality, Republicans

I almost lost my lunch listening to a radio rerun of Sean Hannity’s odes to Martin Luther King Jr.  To declare the schmaltzy, sub-intellectual fare of  King Jr.  to be the greatest thinking ever is to kill one’s intellectual credibility and affront the history of thought. I read Plato—yes yes, he was a statist—and I think, “Just wow,”and “what genius.” I listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech, and I think, “Oprah,” and “what kitsch.”

Barley A Blog correspondent Dr. Boyd Cathey fills in the blanks:

For the past thirty-five years (officially since 1986) the third Monday in January has been celebrated as a federal holiday, Martin Luther King Day. Federal and state offices and many businesses either close or go on limited schedules. We are awash with public observances, parades, prayer breakfasts, stepped-up school projects for our unwary and intellectually-abused children, and gobs and gobs of over-the-top television “specials” and movies, all geared to tell us—to shout it in our faces, if we don’t pay strict attention—that Martin Luther King Jr. was some sort of superhuman, semi-divine civil rights leader who brought the promise of equality to millions of Americans, a kind of modern St. John the Baptist ushering in the Millenium. And that he stands just below Jesus Christ in the pantheon of revered and adored historical personages…and in some ways, perhaps above Jesus Christ in the minds of many of his present-day devotees and epigones.

It seems to do no good to issue a demurrer to this veritable religious “cult of Dr. King.” There are, indeed, numerous “Christian” churches that now “celebrate” this day just as if it were a major feast in the Christian calendar. In short, Martin Luther King has received de facto canonization religiously and in the public mind as no other person in American history.

Mention the fact that King plagiarized as much as 40 percent of his Boston University Ph.D. dissertation [cf. Theodore Pappas, Plagiarism and the Culture War: The Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr, and Other Prominent Americans, 1998, and Martin Luther King Jr Plagiarism Story, 1994], or that he worked closely with known Communists throughout his life, or that he advocated American defeat in Vietnam while praising Ho Chi Minh, or that he implicitly countenanced violence and Marxism, especially later in his life [cf., Congressional Record, 129, no. 130 (October 3, 1983): S13452-S13461]—mention any of these accusations confirmed begrudgingly by his establishment biographers David Garrow and Taylor Branch, or mention his even-by-current-standards violent “rough sex” escapades (which apparently involved even under-age children) [cf., Cooper Sterling, January 13, 2018]—and you immediately get labeled a “racist” and condemned by not just the zealous King flame-keepers on the Left, but by such neoconservatives like James Kirchick and Dinesh D’Souza who supposedly are on the Right.

Indeed, in some ways Establishment “conservatives” such as Jonah Goldberg, Rich Lowry (National Review), D’Souza, Glenn Beck, the talking heads on Fox and the furious scribblers at The Weekly Standard, and many others, not only eagerly buy into this narrative, they now have converted King into a full-fledged, card-carrying member of “conservatism inc.”—the (contemporary) “conservative movement,” a “plaster saint” iconized as literally no one else in our history.

Celebrating King becomes a means for these ersatz conservatives to demonstrate their “civil rights” and “egalitarian” bona fides. The neocons, with their philosophical and ideological origins over on the Trotskyite Left of the 1930s and 1940s, when they made their pilgrimage towards conservatism in the 1960s and 1970s, brought with them a fervent believe in a globalist New World Order egalitarianism that characterized Trotskyite Marxist ideology, and the determination to redefine and re-orient the traditional American Rightwing, and to re-write, as well, American history.

Thus, the purges of the old conservative movement in the 1980s and 1990s—there was no room for Southern conservatives like Mel Bradford, no room for traditionalist Catholics like Frederick Wilhelmsen or Brent Bozell Sr., no room for paleolibertarians like Murray Rothbard, no room for Old Right anti-egalitarians like Paul Gottfried, and no room for “America Firsters” like Pat Buchanan … And those traditional conservatives who were too significant in the “pantheon of greats,” like a Russell Kirk, they attempted to simply whitewash and give new, cleaned up images and identities (part and parcel of their “rewriting” of conservatism). Thus, Kirk’s opposition to the civil rights bills of the 1960s and 1970s, his staunch arguments against egalitarianism—are all swept under the carpet or carefully ignored.

In this, in fact, the dominant necons have joined with their cousins on the “farther Left,” to the point that Bush consultant guru and Fox pundit, Karl Rove, could boast that hardcore Marxist/Communist historian Eric Foner (who lamented the collapse of Soviet Communism) was his favorite historian (when examining Reconstruction) [See Dr. Paul Gottfried’s incisive critique of Foner and those “conservatives” who have praised him, “Guilt Trip,” The American Conservative,” May 4, 2009, pp. 21-23].

King Day becomes, then, for the Conservative Movement an opportunity for it to beat its chest, brag about its commitment to civil rights and the American “dream, the unrealized idea of equality (that is, to distort and re-write the history of the American Founding), and to protect its left flank against the ever increasing charges that it could be, just might be, maybe is—“racist.”

And for the “farther Left,” that catapulting cultural Marxist juggernaut that continues to move the societal and political goalposts to the Left, King Day becomes as a major ideological blitzkrieg, a weaponized cudgel used to strike down and silence anyone, anywhere, who might offer the slightest dissent to the latest barbarity and latest “advance” in civil rights, now expanded to include not just everything “racial,” but also same sex marriage, transgenderism and abortion on demand. Martin Luther King–that deeply and irredeemably flawed and fraudulent figure imposed upon us and our consciousness—has become an icon, a totem, who serves in martyred death the purposes of continuing Revolution.

The heavily-documented literature detailing the real Martin Luther King is abundant and remains uncontroverted and uncontested. During the debates over establishing a national “King Day” in the mid-1980s, Senators Jesse Helms and John East (both North Carolinians) led the opposition, supplying the Congress and the nation, and anyone with eyes to read, full accounts of the “King legacy,” from his close association and collaboration with the Communist Party USA to his advocacy of violence and support for the Communists in North Vietnam, to implicit support for Marxist revolution domestically. Ironically, it was Robert Woodson, a noted black Republican, who highlighted, in a lecture given to honor the “conservative virtues of Dr. Martin Luther King” at the Heritage Foundation on November 5, 1993, the difficulties in getting black advocates of the older generation to respect King’s role as a Civil Rights leader. According to Woodson, as quoted in an excellent essay by Paul Gottfried,

“When Dr. King tried to bring the Civil Rights movement together with the [Marxist] peace movement, it was Carl Rowan who characterized King as a Communist, not Ronald Reagan. I remember being on the dais of the NAACP banquet in Darby, Pennsylvania when Roy Wilkins soundly castigated King for this position.” [Paul Gottfried, “The Cult of St. Martin Luther King – A Loyalty Test for Careerist Conservatives?” January 16, 2012]

But not only that, behind the scenes there were voluminous secretly-made FBI recordings and accounts of King’s violent sexual escapades, often times with more than two or three others involved in such “rough sex” trysts; and of his near total hypocrisy when discussing civil rights and other prominent civil rights leaders. It is, to put it mildly, a sorry record, scandalous even by today’s standards…Indeed, King makes Harvey Weinstein look like a meek choirboy in comparison.

But you won’t hear any of that mentioned by the slobbering Mainstream Media or the media mavens on Fox News. In fact, such comments will get you exiled to the far reaches of the Gobi Desert and labeled a “racist,” quicker that my cocker spaniel gobbles down his kibble.

THERE IS MORE HERE.

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~ DR. BOYD D. CATHEY is an Unz Review columnist, as well as a Barely a Blog contributor, whose work is easily located on this site under the “BAB’s A List” search category. Dr. Cathey earned an MA in history at the University of Virginia (as a Thomas Jefferson Fellow), and as a Richard M Weaver Fellow earned his doctorate in history and political philosophy at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. After additional studies in theology and philosophy in Switzerland, he taught in Argentina and Connecticut before returning to North Carolina. He was State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives before retiring in 2011. He writes for The Unz Review, The Abbeville Institute, Confederate Veteran magazine, The Remnant, and other publications in the United States and Europe on a variety of topics, including politics, social and religious questions, film, and music.

Troops In Niger And Norway Now Cheered, As Neoconservatism Is Normalized

Conservatism, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Republicans, War

Have you noticed that it’s now quite acceptable, on the so-called Left and phony Right, to casually quip about our troops in Niger and Norway? There is hardly any debate, disagreement or daylight, for that matter, on this dangerously united front between the brain-addled, muddled political factions at all.

This is the gift President Trump has given the neoconservatives, which now comfortably encompass neoliberals and all of Conservatism Inc.

Via Military.com (as everyone cheers for war or considers it inevitable if we want to flex our muscle):

VAERNES GARRISON, Norway — The stated goals of the Marine Corps’ newest rotational force in Norway are to enhance partnerships with European allies and improve the service’s ability to fight in cold weather.

But on a brief visit to the 300-member unit ahead of Christmas, the commandant and the sergeant major of the Marine Corps both described the strategic role the small unit fills — and the fact that a peacetime mission can be preface to combat if circumstances change.

The Norwegian Home Guard base near Trondheim that houses the Marine rotational force was the first stop on Gen. Robert Neller’s annual Christmas tour. …

… The stop was a new one for the tour. The first Norway rotation, from 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, deployed in January and was replaced by a new unit from 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, in late August.

Neller emphasized to the Marines that they should remain ready to fight at all times, predicting a “big-ass fight” on the horizon.

NEOCONSERVATISM HAS BEEN NORMALIZED.

Moore Defeat Marks End Of The GOP & More War Between Deplorables & ‘Detestables’

Boyd Cathey, Conservatism, Democrats, Elections, Republicans

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By Dr. Boyd Cathey

Yesterday in Alabama the Republican Party lit the fuse that will blow it up and possibly destroy it. That auto-destruction has been in the making for some time; one could even argue that ever since the presidency of Ronald Reagan there’s been a just-below-the-surface death wish within the GOP. But the extremely narrow defeat of US Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore in Alabama, the reddest of “red” states, by a leftwing, pro-abortion, pro-same sex marriage Democrat, Doug Moore, revealed that festering chasm, that unhealable division, that raging civil war, as never before.

Of course, there will be those who argue—and rightly, with some facts and reason—that the Moore candidacy and the issues swirling around him personally contributed mightily to the defeat. The all-of-a-sudden appearance of over a half-dozen women, claiming some form of sexual harassment, despite it having taken place—supposedly—forty years ago, took its toll in support for the judge. And the massive injection of hundreds of thousands of Hollywood pro-Jones dollars, and a frenetic get-out-the-black vote campaign, certainly helped do him in.

But, in the end, it boiled down to a vigorous and constant bombardment by fellow Republicans and by the elites. And it revealed the bitter and viciously unrelenting struggle between the “Establishment party”, the party of Washington DC and of Congress, of the big time lobbyists and major donors—and those millions of grass roots voters who for the past thirty years have more or less blindly followed them, and, at each election, have entered the voting booth to pull the GOP lever. In Alabama those elites, through a variety of factors, were able one more time to avoid electoral disaster.

“You have no other place to go—you have no other choice,” the refrain has always been. “It’s us, or those damnable socialists in the Democratic Party!”  And, so, millions in the grass roots have, docilely and continually, obeyed. And on rare occasions, a decent Republican has found his way into Congress, but their numbers were far and few between. Mostly, even the better candidates who arrived along the Potomac found themselves surrounded by the glittering temptations of money and power, or, if they resisted, veritable exile and being shunted off to some obscure role or responsibility. Who, indeed, could resist such enticements? After all, Senator Jesse Helms died nearly ten years ago…and there are few who could come close to his stamina and principles, or, for that matter, his ability to “play Washington and not be played by it.”

The so-called lessons about yesterday were already prepared and written weeks ago by the GOP establishment types. Here is their script: (1) Moore’s loss would be blamed on himself because  he was a flawed candidate (with totally unsubstantiated charges against him taking a toll), and (2) if those lowly “rednecky” voters in Alabama had only supported the more “moderate”—and establishment—candidate, Luther Strange, all of this could have been avoided.

The national GOP, thirty Republican US senators, and a goodly portion of the so-called “conservative” media never let us forget that.  From the pompously officious neoconservatives Marc Thiessen and Steve Hayes and other neoconservatives on Fox, to “conservative movement” journals like The Weekly Standard and National Review, the prepared refrain was the same: “If you had listened to us, if you had avoided the attempt to leave the ‘reservation,’ things would have worked out.”

“Mind your manners, you yokels, and let us make the decisions and run the country!”

Those Republicans—from the voluble US senators and House members to the various consultants and pundits, and those “conservative movement”  honchos—all those creatures of the Establishment “swamp,” feared a Moore victory and preferred, in effect, a Doug Jones triumph to having their power and authority challenged and compromised. True, they have had to deal with that great usurper, Donald J. Trump, and they are still grappling with how to approach him, at times begrudgingly going along, at times acting like the offended school marm, condescendingly telling him what to do and how to do it, warning him about his tweets, telling him to be “more presidential.” And attempting to sabotage his agenda if it did not suit them or if he did not listen to them. This latter strategy is the preferred one employed by Congress, where the president’s agenda is as popular as the measles.

They have their minions even scattered strategically within the administration, including possibly that most brain-dead of brain-dead has-been-but-wannabe power players, Nikki Haley.

Their refusal to support Moore, their withholding of support (including financial), their encouragement of efforts to undermine his campaign at every turn—the constant drum beat, the constant harping on “believe the women,” while certainly not the only factors, were still major ingredients in Tuesday’s loss.

But even worse were their public expressions of disdain and seething hatred, their upfront condemnations based on unverified, obviously political and trumped-up accusations, their consistently negative approach…they had to protect their rabbit hole on the Deep State preserve. It was that simple…and Roy Moore threatened that.

But what they have done, in effect, is not just manage to defeat Judge Roy Moore; after all, he is just one man, one controversial political figure in one Southern state. They have illustrated once again that, to quote John Milton’s Paradise Lost, they would “rather reign in Hell rather than serve in Heaven.” And so that increasingly public war—for that is what it is—between the “Deplorables” and those I would call the “Despicables”—now will rage even hotter and become even more severe.

Steve Bannon’s efforts are only a foretaste and a harbinger for what is to come.

 

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~ DR. BOYD D. CATHEY is an Unz Review columnist, as well as a Barely a Blog contributor, whose work is easily located on this site under the “BAB’s A List” search category. Dr. Cathey earned an MA in history at the University of Virginia (as a Thomas Jefferson Fellow), and as a Richard M Weaver Fellow earned his doctorate in history and political philosophy at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. After additional studies in theology and philosophy in Switzerland, he taught in Argentina and Connecticut before returning to North Carolina. He was State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives before retiring in 2011. He writes for The Unz Review, The Abbeville Institute, Confederate Veteran magazine, The Remnant, and other publications in the United States and Europe on a variety of topics, including politics, social and religious questions, film, and music.