Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Thousands of pages of newly released documents from John Roberts' first government job show a highly intelligent, politically savvy young man, wrestling with charged legal and political issues on behalf of the deeply conservative Reagan administration. As a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith in 1981 and 1982, Roberts advocated positions and drafted memos on issues from judicial restraint to voting rights to affirmative action, which were as controversial then as they are now that Roberts is no longer a twenty-something aide but a nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court. Roberts generally took strongly...

Senate Democrats are preparing to play to the cameras once more while raking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts over the coals, but the fight may not be as fierce as some Liberals want. There's bound to be some huffing and puffing during the confirmation hearings, as many of the radical groups controlling the Democrats demand they fight a battle that cannot be won. Though Democrats will probably use the "we need more documents" dodge to avoid an outright filibuster, Roberts will surely be confirmed in the end. One almost has to feel sorry for the Democrats, pushed into this fight...

Thoughtful Democrats — the rarest birds on the endangered species list — might want to ponder this: "Another hanging chad has dropped. His name is John G. Roberts Jr., and he undoubtedly will turn out to be opposed to abortion rights, affirmative action, an expansive view of federal powers and a reading of the Constitution that takes a properly suspicious view of the state's embrace of religion. You hang enough chads, and you get to change the Supreme Court." That's not moveon.org, or the wilder shores of the Internet. That's Richard Cohen, big-time columnist in that bastion of mainstream media,...

Would you let you child go fishing alone with a known child molester? Why not? The answer is simple enough: because patterns of behavior are called “patterns of behavior” for a reason, and once someone does something once, they are likely to do it again. Evil people do evil things over and over. Over the last 50 years, the radical left has established a pattern of winning minor precedents from an activist judiciary system then slowly building on those precedents to warp the interpretation of the law and erode the fundamental foundations of our society. The original Supreme Court decisions...

Let's not beat around the bush. Since 1973, Roe v. Wade has been the "settled" law of the land. John Roberts can help reverse that decision. That is why the Conservative movement is holding its collective breath. Likewise, that is why activists on the left are doing their best Howard Dean impersonations. A historical moment is at hand. Assuming Roberts is confirmed, he will take the place of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- a "conservative" justice who voted to reaffirm the "central principle" of Roe in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Not that you need reminding, but...

President George W. Bush makes one of the most important decisions defining his legacy by uttering a name. If that name for Supreme Court justice is a constant conservative to the end of the life-time term, then the Bush presidency defines the start of an era. The momentum for change, like a glacier, will creak forward. Anything less, including a scheme of one conservative for two open seats means enough conservative Christians stay home, even if Hillary runs, and liberals win the 2008 election. The U.S. Culture War widens, deepens, and threatens because the judges will get worse. A conservative...

The Democrats' orgy over retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is just one fraudulent component of their grand con game in preparation for war over her successor. Oh, sure, they approve of O'Connor's steadfast protection of the Court's pro-abortion precedent. And they appreciate other positions she took in furtherance of their policy agenda, but she's hardly their ideal jurist. After all, she sided with the majority in "selecting" George W. Bush president. Their recent, unified celebration of O'Connor is part of their cynical calculation to position themselves as mainstream and Republicans as extremists. They see this as an essential...

Ronald Reagan, like all presidents, made a few mistakes while he was in office, and one of his more regrettable blunders was nominating a judge by the name of Sandra Day O'Connor for a position on the highest court in the land. Although many people in the left-wing media like to refer to her as a "moderate" jurist, that characterization only proves that they have no idea what a judge's job actually is. Using the word ''moderate'' to describe a judge is like using the word Jewish to describe a cat. The term simply does not apply. It is a...

In the board game Jenga, a tower of wooden blocks is erected. Players remove one block at a time from the tower, and then stack it on top. As each successive block is removed, the tower becomes increasingly precarious. The game ends when the tower's foundation can no longer bear the weight of the structure built on top of it, and the tower falls. The Supreme Court's recent decisions in the Ten Commandments cases are a form of constitutional Jenga. Think of our system of government and the liberties it grants as a Jenga tower. In our analogy, the blocks...

I was hoping they would have come up with an easy call to keep the Ten Commandments after the deliberations seemed to lean that way. But since it has taken to the last day and with last Thursday's rewrite of the 5th Amendment I am scared to death we will see a 5-4 vote against us.

It's correct that there is political commotion mounting in opposition to the Iraq war. It is important to distinguish between two kinds. One, which is gaining attention, centers on misrepresentations. The so-called Downing Street Memo is cited. This records an exchange at 10 Downing St. on July 23, 2002, at which, it is said, the representatives of Mr. Bush made it clear that the president had resolved to proceed against Iraq irrespective of what the United Nations might do. Rejecting that account, the Bush people have said that the invasion was not finally planned until after the appeal to the...

Ever since Brown v. Board of Education, liberals have used judicial activism as a substitute for political persuasion. But we shouldn't ask judges to make laws. It is difficult to imagine a more fundamental assault on the separation of power than this spring's shameless attacks on the judicial appointments process. With their threats to end the right of filibuster and to measure judicial nominees by political standards, Republicans like Rep. Tom DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn brought partisan warfare and violation of basic principles to a new low. Either they do not understand the essentials of our constitutional system, or...

The recent release of Justice Harry A. Blackmun's private Supreme Court case files has starkly illuminated an embarrassing problem that previously was discussed only in whispers among court insiders and aficionados: the degree to which young law clerks, most of them just two years out of law school, make extensive, highly substantive and arguably inappropriate contributions to the decisions issued in their bosses' names. Even Roe vs. Wade, Blackmun's most famous decision, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, owed lots of its language and much of its breadth to his clerks and the clerks of other justices. A decade later,...

How radical Muslims masquerading as "moderates" are infiltrating our government, our military, our prisons, our schools -- and even the Department of Homeland Security Infiltration by Paul Sperry The most dangerous Muslim radicals won't be sneaking through our borders from the Middle East -- they're already here. That's the alarming message of Washington-based investigative reporter Paul Sperry's new book, Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington. Using access to classified documents as well as exclusive interviews with FBI agents, Customs officers, and military intelligence officials, Sperry reveals how the top levels of our government, armed forces and intelligence...

For 200 years the Senate carefully considered the professional track record of any judge nominated for the federal bench. That changed five years ago when ranking Democrats decided to turn the Senate Judiciary Committee into their own personal meat grinder. Despite having nearly 100 federal judgeships to fill, these Democrats resolved to torpedo most of President Bush's nominations. This partisan blood oath – as opposed to careful consideration of each jurist's record – now decides who presides over our federal courts. At least one major implication is that the dearth of federal judges (one-eighth of all federal judgeships still remain...

He wasn't President Reagan's first choice for the U.S. Supreme Court - or his second choice for that matter - and plenty of conservatives have never let him forget it. Seventeen years and a handful of decisions later, Justice Anthony Kennedy - a conservative by background but a swing vote on social issues - has become the poster boy, on the part of those calling for President Bush's most controversial judicial nominees to confirmed by the U.S. Senate, for why the president should get to install judges he really wants rather than capitulate to liberals and moderates. Pressure on Republicans...

WASHINGTON, April 26 - When Gary Small walked into a sports store in his hometown of Delmont, Pa., to buy a pistol, he probably did not see himself as the central figure in a Supreme Court case. But that is what he became. Before walking out of the store with his 9-millimeter pistol on June 2, 1998, he filled out the mandatory federal form. It asked whether he had ever been convicted "in any court" of a crime punishable by a year or more in prison. Fatefully, he answered "no." In fact, Mr. Small had never been convicted of any...

First, let us understand what the Terri Schiavo matter was not about: Despite ideological diatribes from David Corn at The Nation, this was not "an ugly big-government attempt to intervene in a family conflict" designed to appease "religious right crusaders." Despite ranting from Robert Scheer, also at The Nation, this was not "egregious political opportunism and shameless trafficking in human misery," and the citation of dubious polls won't validate Scheer's hope that the majority of Americans want to see a helpless woman starved to death by judicial order. And despite hysteria from the Los Angeles Times, this was not "a...

WASHINGTON, March 30 - The Supreme Court ruled today that older workers can, in some circumstances, recover damages from their employers for harm caused by age discrimination even if the harm was not deliberate. The court, ruling 5 to 3 in a case closely watched by business interests, held that the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act does allow such lawsuits. But the court also made clear that the estimated 75 million people covered by the law - workers over age 40 - must clear a high threshold of evidence to prevail. Justice John Paul Stevens and the four other...

Every once in a while I stumble across an opinion article that's so irrational, hate-filled and hypocritical that I feel compelled to comment on it, and New York Times writer Paul Krugman's most recent column is no exception. Titled "What's Going On?", this rambling op-ed is filled with more unprovoked attacks on religious minded people than any other I have had the misfortune to read, and I've read more than I care to remember. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/opinion/29krugman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fPaul%20Krugman Mr. Krugman begins his piece by attempting to impress upon his readers the dangers of extremism in democratic countries, quickly focussing his attention on the...