Posted on 07/06/2018 9:47:11 PM PDT by familyop
Brett Kavanaugh has by far the strongest, most consistent, most fearless record of constitutional conservatism of any federal court of appeals judge in the country.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh should be the next Supreme Court justice. He has by far the strongest, most consistent, most fearless record of constitutional conservatism of any federal court of appeals judge in the country.
Over 12 years and 300 opinions, he has repeatedly fought for principles of textualism and originalism, reined in regulatory overreach, and ensured that administrative bureaucrats are accountable to the elected president. Nominating Kavanaugh would continue President Trump’s exemplary record of selecting the best-qualified person for the Supreme Court, as he did with his brilliant choice of Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Unfortunately, being the clear best choice has downsides, including inviting unfair attacks. One came Monday in a lengthy article by Christopher Jacobs claiming that Kavanaugh “wrote a roadmap for saving Obamacare.” That is nonsense, and conservatives should not be misled into thinking otherwise.
In 2011, two judges on the D.C. Circuit upheld the Obamacare individual mandate under the Commerce Clause. Kavanaugh dissented from that decision, which was authored by the respected Judge Laurence Silberman, a Reagan appointee. Kavanaugh explained that Obamacare could be challenged as unconstitutional, but that a federal jurisdictional statute required such a challenge to be brought in the future.
Critically, and almost entirely absent from Jacobs’ account of the decision, Kavanaugh then called the individual mandate “a law that is unprecedented on the federal level in American history” and observed that upholding the individual mandate would be a “a jarring prospect” that would “usher in a significant expansion of congressional authority with no obvious principled limit.” The government’s argument for the mandate, Kavanaugh continued, would “ultimately extend as well to mandatory purchases of” many other products, a result that would have “extraordinary ramifications.”
Kavanaugh’s thorough and principled takedown of the mandate was indeed a roadmap for the Supreme Court—the Supreme Court dissenters, justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, who explained that the mandate violated the Constitution. I am very familiar with that opinion, because I served as Kennedy’s law clerk that term. I can tell you with certainty that the only justices following a roadmap from Brett Kavanaugh were the ones who said Obamacare was unconstitutional.
Kavanaugh was equally critical of the individual mandate under the weak Taxing Clause argument advanced by the government and catastrophically accepted by the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh explained that “no court to reach the merits has accepted the Government’s Taxing clause argument,” thereby showing his agreement with all the courts of appeals that correctly found the mandate unsustainable under that clause.
The Taxing Clause, he continued, “has not traditionally authorized a legal prohibition or mandate,” which Obamacare plainly contained. Contrary to Jacobs’ revisionist history, Kavanaugh’s Taxing Clause discussion is thus the opposite of a roadmap to upholding the statute under the Taxing Clause, as the Supreme Court ultimately did in its indefensible decision. Rather, Kavanaugh’s dismissal of the Taxing Clause argument is a roadmap to the conclusion reached by the dissenters—that the individual mandate is unconstitutional under the Taxing Clause.
To be sure, Kavanaugh suggested that a different statute without a mandate might pass muster under the Taxing Clause. But a statute without the mandate would not be Obamacare; it would be an entirely different law. Kavanaugh’s hypothetical discussion of a different statute without a mandate could not be a roadmap to upholding the statute with the mandate that was actually before the court.
A final point: Kavanaugh explained that waiting to resolve the challenge to Obamacare was not only required by law, but also the wise and judicially restrained course. There might never be a need to address the constitutionality of the mandate, he explained, because a future president (after the 2012 election) might choose not to enforce it. That suggestion triggered a furious response from liberal commentator Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker.
Moreover, Kavanaugh warned that rushing to resolve the constitutionality of Obamacare in 2012, rather than respecting the statutory limitations on the court’s authority, could result in an error in judgment. Kavanaugh was right.
Six years later, with the individual mandate finally coming off the books thanks to President Trump, the stakes of this nomination could not be higher. Fortunately, the president’s selection of Gorsuch shows that he knows what to do.
Kavanaugh is by far the strongest choice for the job. His courageous and influential opinions on countless different issues—presidential power, regulatory overreach, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, and the list goes on—leave no doubt that he would be a forceful conservative justice for decades to come. Conservatives should not be misled by misinformation. Judge Brett Kavanaugh has the principles, the record, and the backbone that we need on the Supreme Court.
He's the strongest judge on that issue:
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/04/america-first-scotus-choice-judge-brett-kavanaugh-applies-trumps-economic-patriotism-to-the-law/
It's crazy to assume that.
Foster may well have either been murdered or committed suicide elsewhere but finding the evidence to prove that is an entirely different matter.
And, if the Clinton mafia is that powerful, his life would have been endangered if he did find any evidence.
You must be kidding me. It takes a real level of utter gullibility to think Foster walked into Ft Marcy Park on a suicide quest. All evidence points to his having been murdered elsewhere and many far brighter and experienced in criminal justice than I have taught me this.
And this Kavenaugh was a major help to the killer(s).
There was enough suspicious evidence to consider Foster’s death a homicide. Even just the transcripts alone, so many things don’t match up and clearly point to one side lying. It’s crazy not to see that.
Clearly, as so often since then with the Clintons, the fix was in.
I have no idea what Kavenaugh’s motivation to cover for the murderer would have been. Maybe it was some sort of threat. It doesn’t matter; he is not Supreme Court material solely based on his inability to put truth and justice higher than his own self interest. We already have at least one of those on the Supremes.
Of course Obamacare was unprecedented and unlawful. It’s nice that a potential Supreme Court Justice would admit that obvious truth. Nowhere in the enumerated powers is there anything close to permitting that dreadful power grab.
Karl, Is that you?
JChief Justice Roberts takes the seizure medicine Dilantin. That should have disqualified him from consideration for the Bench. Take Dilantin for more than a couple of years and your will power disappears among a group of other deleterious and distressing effects. If you are under a lot of pressure to do something, even if you know it is wrong, you will do it. I experienced all this for a decade and some and have talked with several other people I have met who take Dilantin. It is not a scientific double blind study but I bet it is right.
That said I guess all the conservatives' yammering and carping about this or that perceived naiveté or wrong move contributes to the cover under which he gets loads of important stuff done. It helps misdirect MSM and Schumer et al.
There is FAR, FAR too much boosterism for Kavanaugh as the nearly coronated candidate (it is sounding a lot like the media predicing Hillary’s victory) and not just in “Conservative” venues. I smell a campaign and I am fearing a deep state trojan horse.
Welcome to the obvious, Kavanaugh.
Just nominate Thapar already and watch the lefties heads explode.
“He is right. Obamacare WAS unlawful.”
I was amazed that anyone could imagine that it was lawful! As I told a number of people, if that mandate is constitutional then there is nothing to stop the government from mandating that every American must buy a quart of buttermilk every week or anything else equally as absurd. It simply removes any limit on what the government can do.
Here is the $64,000 question. If Kavanaugh is nominated will the liberal/Marxists in the Dem party go after him because he is a RC? And, if they do, will not it tip their hand as to being anti-Christian?
Of course, they will have plenty of other issues to grill him on, but I do think it might become humorous if they raise the old canard again! All the old nuns who are still voting Democrat because when they were little their grandparents voted that way - might suddenly see the light.
Yep, it was patently unconstitutional on the face of it. Watching Roberts trying to justify his decision was painful and embarrassing. I knew right then we are no longer a nation of laws. Scratch that, Roe v. Wade made us no longer a nation of laws, so it has been a long, long time since we were truly a Constitutional Republic.
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Remember, Kavanaugh helped Clintons by intimidating Vince Foster witness
Brett Kavanaugh --
http://www.dcdave.com/article5/070909.htm ---
Intimidation of Patrick Knowlton (The inconvenient Witness at Fort Marcy Park)
(snip) -- “ As a last resort, Knowlton prepared a "Report of Witness Tampering" and took it personally to the Office of the Independent Counsel. "It was their responsibility, at the very least, to find out who leaked word of his subpoena," notes Evans-Pritchard. According to Evans-Pritchard, John Bates responded by calling security and having Knowlton removed from the building.
Perhaps the most telling indication of Starr's attitude toward Knowlton is the humiliating cross-examination to which this brave man was subjected before the grand jury. Knowlton says that he was "treated like a suspect."
**** PROSECUTOR BRETT KAVANAUGH appeared to be trying to imply that Knowlton was a homosexual who was cruising Fort Marcy Park for sex. Regarding the suspicious Hispanic-looking man he had seen guarding the park entrance, Kavanaugh asked, Did he "pass you a note?" Did he "touch your genitals?" ****
Knowlton flew into a rage at Kavanaugh's insinuations. Evans-Pritchard writes that several African American jurors burst into laughter at the spectacle, rocking "back and forth as if they were at a Baptist revival meeting.
Kavanaugh was unable to reassert his authority. The grand jury was laughing at him. The proceedings were out of control."
It was at that point, reports Evans-Pritchard, that Patrick Knowlton was finally compelled to confront the obvious: "the Office of the Independent Counsel was itself corrupt." (pp. 106-107)”
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This is Brett KAVANAUGH.
Kavanaugh helped the Clintons literally get away with murder. HOW THE HELL DOES HE BELONG ON THE SUPREME COURT? He lied, he LIED, to get Foster’s death unbelievably categorized a suicide.
Skim through this long transcript for the Kavenaugh parts. THERE IS NO WAY anything good he has ever done could make up for this. Conservative creds? Is that somehow more important than actual good over PURE EVIL? Or a spine that folds when he’s threatened? Cause we already have a Supreme who is dancing to oligarchy whims out of blackmail. We don’t need another.
http://www.fbicover-up.com/miguel-rodriguez.html
I'll read your article.
Did you see what Kavanaugh did to a good man ......... Patrick Knowlton (The Inconvenient Witness)? Sick stuff.
I am amazed that you are the only one here outraged about this slimey Kavanaugh!
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Maybe to add an extra layer onto the swamp scum.
It’s in that link, the testimony, Knowlton’s speaking on how shocked he was when Kavenaugh started lying in front of the grand jury.
I too am somewhat amazed at how people here care more about a political view espoused by someone’s lips than his actual deeds. Just like that creepy guy running for Alabama Senate. It’s why Dershowitz came running to our side after he was caught having sex with a teen girl. As long as you espouse conservative words, “we” accept anything. Sad.
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Yes he has had his moments in the dark apparently. He may need another young girl now that all his friends "are shunning him on Martha's Vineyard".
;-)
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