02/18/16

The Legacy of Antonin Scalia

By: Michael Johns

Antonin Scalia

When I first became engaged in national public policy and politics in the mid-1980s, the conservative movement had a saying, which I believe originated with former Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner: “People are policy.” In essence, the phrase represented our collective recognition that success (or lack thereof) ultimately rested with the people of our movement. Without capable and committed conservatives, little was possible. But with them, nearly anything was.

In the years since, we have lost a number of American conservatives who were more than just capable and committed. They were and are conservative icons whose work helped shape and develop American conservatism—and our Tea Party movement—as the major global political and intellectual force it is today.

Who are these icons?

  • Austrian school economist Ludwig von Mises, who provided much of the intellectual foundation of today’s free market economic thought, left us in 1973 at age 93.
  • Prominent anti-communist Whittaker Chambers, who fled the Communist Party, went on to articulate fundamental truths about communism and ultimately outed State Department employee Alger Hiss as a Soviet agent, died in 1961 at age 60.
  • Author and intellectual Russell Kirk, who helped define many of the enduring principles of conservatism, died in 1994 at age 75.
  • Ayn Rand, whose individualist fictional writings have proven hugely inspirational to our national Tea Party movement, died in 1992 at age 77.
  • William F. Buckley, Jr., who inspired many of today’s most prominent conservative intellectuals and writers, died in 2008 at age 82 (read my 2008 tribute to him here).
  • And of course (most prominent of all), our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, who proved that conservatism can win and succeed as a governing political force, died in 2004 at age 93.

Read more here…

02/14/16

A Constitutional Originalist Falls and Everything Is At Stake For Conservatives and the Republic

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Scalia

Yesterday, my world was rocked when I saw the very sad news that Justice Antonin Scalia had unexpectedly passed away. It was like a gut punch and I was not alone in feeling as though I had lost a member of my family. Scalia was a Constitutional originalist and one of the most brilliant legal minds to ever grace the Supreme Court bench. Written constitutionalism implies that those who make, interpret and enforce the law ought to be guided by the meaning of the United States Constitution — the supreme law of the land — as it was originally written. This has always been how I have viewed Constitutional law and jurisprudence. The loss of Scalia is a grave one to conservatives and now a battle is brewing in DC that will forever change the political landscape. It will not be pretty or civil.

Justice Scalia was 79 years-old. There are several justices older than he is and he appeared in fairly robust health. He passed away in West Texas at a luxury resort. Scalia was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa. He arrived at the 30,000-acre ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people that night, according to a federal official. The Washington Post is claiming it was a heart attack. Not to be conspiratorial, but a heart attack can be caused by a myriad of reasons. And why wasn’t an autopsy done? He was found in his pajamas and in bed. He was pronounced dead over the phone. I find that highly suspicious. I find it even more suspicious when you read the account by the ranch owner:

A first-time guest to the Cibolo Creek Creek Ranch, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was animated and engaged during dinner Friday night, as one of three dozen invitees to an event that had nothing to do with law or politics, according to the ranch owner.

Just hours later, he would be found dead of apparent natural causes, which media outlets reported on Sunday was a heart attack.

“He was seated near me and I had a chance to observe him. He was very entertaining. But about 9 p.m. he said, ‘it’s been a long day and a long week, I want to get some sleep,” recalled Houston businessman John Poindexter, who owns the 30,000-acre luxury ranch.

When Poindexter tried to awaken Scalia about 8:30 the next morning, the judge’s door was locked and he did not answer. Three hours later, Poindexter returned after an outing, with a friend of Scalia who had come from Washington with him.

“We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled,” said Poindexter.

A pillow over his head and they declare natural causes over the phone? Was it over his head or over his face? Come on! It is true that Scalia was somewhat overweight, but it would be the height of foolishness not to consider other aspects surrounding his death. It is outrageous that a man of his stature would not have an autopsy to confirm cause of death. I would think his family would have insisted on one. In less than 24 hours, he is already embalmed destroying any chance of deducing foul play. You begin with what sounds like a reasonable supposition, but then as facts begin to emerge it becomes less and less reasonable and the eyes begin to widen. Couple this with the timing and you have to squint really hard not to begin to wonder if all is as it seems.

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02/14/16

Justice Scalia Found Dead Days After Supremes Block Global Climate Agenda

By: Dan Lyman | Western Free Press

Antonin Scalia

The most conservative, Constitutionally-adherent Supreme Court Justice has passed away, in his sleep, after a night of celebratory festivities, during a hunting trip in West Texas. He was pronounced dead of natural cases, over the phone, by a justice of the peace, who had not seen or examined Atonin Scalia, and who deemed that an autopsy was unnecessary. His body was raced to an El Paso funeral home and immediately embalmed.

Let’s be purely objective: at 79-years-old, he was the longest-serving Justice. He was overweight. It is being reported that he died of a heart attack. Or ‘natural causes.’ They stillhaven’t officially decided. But, of course – no autopsy needed.

Let’s also not be complacently naive: Scalia was the Supreme Court’s staunchest opponent to the progressive agenda. He demolished last summer’s gay marriage ruling in a scathing 9-page dissent, admonishing the court for trampling individual states’ rights and its non-representative make-up, stating –

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07/7/15

Impeach Justices Kagan and Ginsburg

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

Matthew Kidd of the Foundation for Moral Law discusses how Justices Kagan and Ginsburg violated the law and judicial ethics by officiating at gay weddings and then ruling in favor of a so-called constitutional right to gay marriage. Kidd agrees with Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival that we are in a constitutional crisis. The Foundation for Moral Law had called for Kagan and Ginsburg to recuse themselves, or withdraw from the case, but they refused to do so. That means the Congress can open hearings into their impeachment. Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia said the 5-4 majority in the case was guilty of a “judicial Putsch,” or secret power grab, and that the ruling was a threat to democracy. Urge Congress to impeach by calling 202-224-3121.

07/2/15

Celebrate the 4th: Impeach Kagan and Ginsburg

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Justice Antonin Scalia said in his dissent in the same-sex marriage case that the ruling was a threat to our democratic form of government and constitutes a “judicial Putsch,” or secret power grab. He didn’t just say the majority was wrong or misguided; he essentially said they had conspired to overthrow our form of government. His position on the Court may have made it impossible to supply specifics. But one possible explanation of what he meant is that he saw a conflict-of-interest on the part of members of the majority, which required their recusal from the case.

Rather than investigate what Scalia is hinting at, our media have opened fire on Scalia for blowing the whistle on judicial corruption.

In fact, the push for gay marriage has been tainted by lies from the beginning. As Professor Paul Kengor notes, Obama himself was caught lying by his own adviser, David Axelrod, who now admits Obama favored gay marriage when he was publicly opposing it to get elected. “According to Axelrod,” Kengor told WorldNetDaily, “Obama supported gay marriage as far back as the mid-1990s, when he was an aspiring Chicago politician. He publicly suggested otherwise, however, in order to get votes, especially from African-Americans who rejected gay marriage in higher numbers than white Americans.”

Kengor, author of Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, said he believes Obama was influenced in favor of “a more open view toward sexuality” by his communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, a pornographer and pedophile. But Obama was careful to sound conservative and Christian on these issues when he ran for president.

What’s more, as AIM has documented on numerous occasions, media “coverage” of the issue has been non-stop propaganda, much of it emanating from a group called the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. Most people haven’t heard of the group, which is the way they want it. The nature of gay pride parades has even been censored, prohibiting the public from understanding that the homosexual movement celebrates crude displays of nudity and vulgarity.

Politically, it would be one thing if Scalia had responded that there was an honest disagreement over the meaning of certain words in the Constitution. Instead, he said the majority subverted the Constitution by reading into it something that does not exist—the “right” to force government at all levels to recognize gay marriage. By inventing this “right,” Scalia and the other dissenters said, the Court has put our actual rights of freedom of religion and expression in grave jeopardy. This seems to be the nature of the “putsch” Scalia is talking about. He could very well be referring to behind-the-scenes pressures put on the Justices by homosexual elite forces, the financially powerful one to two percent, who seem to have so much sway over the media, academia and the corporate world. These people are now attempting to suppress a new film, “An Open Secret,” about pedophilia in Hollywood.

Whatever the reason for the putsch, our form of government has been overthrown and another put in its place—a judicial dictatorship that is devoted to elevating to protected status a sexual minority seeking the abolition of traditional values. Left unchecked in its drive for power over others, this cabal threatens not only our heritage but America’s standing in the world as a superpower. It appears the Obama administration wants to spend more money on Pentagon gay pride events and climate change than actual weapons systems to defend America.

As we get ready to celebrate Independence Day, however, we can rest assured that the American people remember enough about the founding of their country that they cannot and will not accept a judicial tyranny. That would make a complete mockery of what July 4th is all about and what millions of Americans have sacrificed for.

The critical part of the law in the gay marriage case is Title 28, Part I, Chapter 21, Section 455 of the U.S. Code, which is applicable to judges and courts. It says, “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” These disqualifications include cases in which “he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party…”

Our media didn’t treat it as a big deal, but Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg had both officiated at gay weddings. Groups such as the National Organization for Marriage, the American Family Association, the Coalition of African American Pastors, and the Foundation for Moral Law had called for Kagan and Ginsburg to withdraw from the case.

Matthew Kidd, executive director of the Foundation for Moral Law, told Accuracy in Media that the failure by Kagan and Ginsburg to withdraw from the case leaves them open to impeachment and removal from the bench.

But will Congress act?

According to the Supreme Court website, the only Justice to be impeached was Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805. It says the House of Representatives passed Articles of Impeachment against him; however, he was acquitted by the Senate. A majority is required for impeachment in the House but a two-thirds vote is required for conviction.

In the case of Kagan, an Obama appointee, she may have had a personal conflict-of-interest. This is a sensitive matter, but various reports indicated that Kagan was a known lesbian before she was nominated to the Court by President Obama. For example, the gay blog QueerTY had identified her as a lesbian. That would mean she was compromised on homosexual issues prior to her ascension to the bench and after she was confirmed. This is a conflict of interest that cannot be tolerated.

Whether the reports of her lesbianism are true or not, we know that Kagan had an extremely radical record as Dean of Harvard Law School (2003 to 2009) where she promoted homosexuality and transgenderism. Nevertheless, she was confirmed to the Supreme Court in a 63 to 37 vote.

Kagan “avoided the sort of scrutiny that some nominees have faced,” The Washington Post noted at the time.

We now see the evidence of what happens when the media and Congress fail to do their jobs.

Congress, however, can try to undo some of the damage by holding hearings into the possible impeachment of Justices Kagan and Ginsburg. This would be one way of getting to the bottom of Scalia’s sensational charge that America’s democratic system has been subverted and stolen from the American people.

We are bound to hear that impeachment would be difficult and conviction impossible. There’s always an excuse for not taking bold action in Washington, D.C. But a congressional failure to act, in the wake of Scalia’s extraordinary charge of a judicial Putsch, would suggest that celebrating July 4th means fireworks and nothing more.

I think enough Americans are sufficiently concerned about this matter that they want to see some real fireworks, in the form of Congress exposing the lies, corruption and conflicts of interest that went into the sick and tyrannical gay marriage ruling.

Members of Congress taking up this cause will not get sympathetic headlines in the media. But it is something that has to be done if Independence Day is going to have any meaning left at all.

07/1/15

Walmart, Comcast Celebrate Gay Pride

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

“Homo is Healthy” was one of the signs on the official gay pride website for the big march celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage on Sunday, June 28, in New York City. It was brought to you, in part, by Walmart, a high-level Platinum sponsor that happens to be America’s largest private sector employer. The giant retailer was among a “Who’s Who” of corporate America that also included sponsors Coke, Netflix, Hilton, PBS, Macy’s and Comcast Universal (NBC).

Pete Leather Bar

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth covered the event, publishing photos of nearly naked men and a “leather” contingent on a truck, among other scenes of debauchery. He said hundreds of children could be seen either marching in or watching the parade. “This is the evidence of why gay marriage and gay parenting are wrong,” LaBarbera told Accuracy in Media.

One photo showed a big rainbow flag being unfurled as the Walmart logo could be seen in the background.

LaBarbera said the scenes of nudity and vulgarity that he photographed at the pride march in New York City provided evidence of how the homosexual lifestyle is something America should not celebrate or make into protected status under law.

For its part, Comcast celebrated June as gay pride month with short films targeting “LGBTQ youth” and “LGBTQ teens.”

Comcast boasted, “In 2013, 2014, and 2015, the company earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and was named a Best Place to Work for the LGBT community.”

Nowhere is homosexual influence more pronounced than Hollywood. However, a new film on homosexual influence in Hollywood, “An Open Secret,” is having a hard time getting distributed, with those involved with the film saying that financial interests in Hollywood have been trying to suppress it. This film, however, does not celebrate “gay pride.” Rather, it exposes victims of sexual abuse in the entertainment industry. The homosexual pedophiles exposed in the film include Marc Collins-Rector, a major figure in the entertainment business who is a convicted child abuser and now a registered sex offender. The film is directed by Amy Berg, who also directed the 2006 American documentary film about a pedophile Catholic priest, Oliver O’Grady, called “Deliver Us From Evil.”

The decision by Walmart to embrace the homosexual rights movement is a case study of how the powerful interests who run the movement have worked their will on corporate America.

Quartz, a digital native news outlet, noted that “When Sam Walton started the company [Walmart] in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, he imbued the chain with a certain small-town conservatism. For instance, it long drew ire for its reluctance to sell music with explicit lyrics.”

Although Walmart still portrays itself as family-friendly, LaBarbera points out that the company is now publicly pro-homosexual and has been giving major grants to homosexual/transgender events and organizations, including $25,000 – $50,000 in 2014 to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a group that helps elect “out” homosexuals to political office. (Most of them are Democrats.)

The group’s 2011 annual report reveals that openly gay Obama ally, Terry Bean, co-founder of the major homosexual lobby, the Human Rights Campaign, has been a major supporter of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund as well. Bean took a leave of absence from the Human Rights Campaign after he was arrested on sexual abuse charges involving sex with a minor.

Corporate supporters of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund in 2011 included Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Bank of America, Southwest Airlines, AT&T, Shell Oil Company, Microsoft, Wells Fargo and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Wells Fargo achieved notoriety this year by becoming the nation’s first bank to run a national ad including a homosexual couple.

Labor union sponsors of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund included the Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association, and the AFL-CIO.

Meanwhile, open homosexuals in the media, such as Edward Snowden mouthpiece Glenn Greenwald, have opened fire on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for exposing the Court’s gay marriage ruling as a “judicial Putsch” that stole the democratic system away from the American people.

Writing on the website of First Look Media, financed by billionaire French-born Iranian-American Pierre Omidyar, Greenwald hailed the ruling and noted that “Harry Hay created the Mattachine Society,” the first homosexual rights organization in the U.S. However, Greenwald failed to point out Hay’s membership in the Communist Party and support for the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Greenwald is one of several media figures on Out Magazine’s list of “most influential LGBT people in American culture.” Others include Anderson Cooper of CNN, Shepard Smith of Fox News, Robin Roberts of ABC, Don Lemon of CNN, Harvey Levin of TMZ, Rachel Maddow and Thomas Roberts of MSNBC, and Kara Swisher of CNBC.

On the conservative side, support for homosexual marriage seems to be growing—or at least coming out of the closet. Mary Katharine Ham, a Fox News commentator and editor-at-large of HotAir.com, has declared herself in favor of same-sex marriage. She has written a book with homosexual political commentator Guy Benson, a Fox News contributor who serves as political editor of the TownHall.com website.

HotAir and TownHall are owned by Salem Media Group, a Christian firm. Salem has refused to respond to questions about its employees becoming advocates for or activists in the homosexual movement.