Continuing legal education is imposed on lawyers by the Missouri Bar Association and the Missouri Supreme Court, and right before the November election I took a day to fulfill the requirements. The only CLE show in town at the time was a seminar presented by the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys on using a vocational...
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Justice for Tommy
Harvard’s Cass Sunstein recently complained that conservatives’ slippery-slope arguments about the left’s latest push to codify and enforce radical equality are intellectually “lazy.” Sunstein and his followers give the example of conservative opposition to gay marriage, which often includes the observation that “the Supreme Court shouldn’t force states to recognize same-sex marriages because, if it...
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Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush
Thank God for Republican presidents who appoint strict constructionists to the U.S. Supreme Court. Otherwise, the Court today might have upheld ObamaCare.
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Hillary vs. The Donald
In a Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump race—which, the Beltway keening aside, seems the probable outcome of the primaries—what are the odds the GOP can take the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court? If Republicans can unite, not bad, not bad at all. Undeniably, Democrats open with a strong hand. There is that famed...
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Boogaloo Down Broadway: The Charade of Liberal Change
Here it is 2008, and everything else is old news. The provisional and absentee ballots, recounts, scores, and statistics of 2000-2007 are all in the history books, along with Afghan and Iraqi elections and constitutions, insurgencies, hurricanes, disgraced mayors and governors, and Supreme Court, lobbying, earmark, wiretapping, and energy and cartoon ruckuses. Since Barack Obama...
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Dreams of My Daughters
President Barack Obama surprised even battle-hardened pro-life Americans with his official remarks on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that has, since 1973, littered garbage dumps across America with the corpses of 50 million babies, 32 percent of them African-American. In a White House press ...
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Sociological Balderdash
The Supreme Court’s recent Casey decision on abortion is a memorable example of sociological balderdash. The joint decision began, “Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt,” to which Justice Scalia fired back in his dissent, “Liberty finds no refuge in this jurisprudence of confusion.” Scalia’s observation becomes painfully clear when one reads the...
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Guns Incorporated?
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review McDonald v. City of Chicago, a case that presents the watershed issue of whether the individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, established in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller, applies to states. Most Court observers agree that it appears very likely that the...
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Is a New US Mideast War Inevitable?
In October 1950, as U.S. forces were reeling from hordes of Chinese troops who had intervened massively in the Korean War, a 5,000-man Turkish brigade arrived to halt an onslaught by six Chinese divisions. Said supreme commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur: “The Turks are the hero of heroes. There is no impossibility for the Turkish Brigade.”...
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Franklin Pierce and the Fight for the Old Union
If Franklin Pierce is remembered at all today it is as an inept, do-nothing President whose only accomplishment was to sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Historians generally cite this bill, along with the 1857 Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case, as evidence of the aggressive designs of the South to extend slavery...
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Our Constitution and Theirs
We here at Chronicles are Constitutional Fundamentalists. We swear allegiance to the Constitution of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, and not the Constitution of Warren, Brennan, and Souter. We do not believe that the Constitution is a “living document” that must be altered by successive Supreme Court justices to keep pace with the times. The Constitution...
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Change and Its Consequences
Last October I journeyed to Moscow by invitation for a conference on conversion from military to civilian production. Upon arrival, my colleague, Professor Constantine Danopoulos of the political science department at San Jose State University, and I were informed that the meeting had been shifted to December to coincide with the Congress of the Supreme...
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R.I.P. Antonin Scalia
The case called Planned Parenthood v. Casey was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992. At the time there was some thought that it might be the vehicle for overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that made abortion a constitutional right. But Casey only made things worse: it reaffirmed Roe, and added an...
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There’s No Right to Sleep Outdoors
Supreme Court arguments on Monday suggest the Court will rule 6-3 or 5-4 that municipalities can ban sleeping on public property. The ruling will affect the entire nation.
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Vote for Romney (And Hope He Keeps his Promises)
On Monday, the Supreme Court in Arizona v. United States struck down three of four challenged provisions of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, eliminating the law’s penalties and therefore leaving a shell of the former law in place. Not satisfied with this overwhelming victory, the Justice Department has helpfully set up a hotline for Arizona citizens who feel their “civil...
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Of Death and Diapers
Our Endangered Children: Growing Up in a Changing World by Vance Packard; Little, Brown; Boston. Who Will Take the Children? A New Custody Option for Divorcing Mothers—and Fathers by Susan Meyers and Joan Lakin; Bobbs-Merrill; Indianapolis. Secular liberalism is the supreme doctrine of the sovereign self. As such, its failures are particularly obvious at the...
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Something Rotten in the State?
When does a political deal become a bribe? At the 1952 Republican National Convention, California’s favorite son, Gov. Earl Warren, released his delegation reportedly in return for Ike’s promise that he would give Warren the first open seat on the Supreme Court. In September 1953, Chief Justice Fred Vinson dropped dead of a heart attack....
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80th Annual Convention
When the 80th annual convention of the NAACP gathered in solemn conclave in Detroit last July, the delegates listened approvingly to Executive Director Benjamin Hooks’ call for “civil disobedience on a mass scale that has never been seen in this country before.” Mr. Hooks was upset that the Supreme Court recently delivered itself of some...
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Is Putin the New King of the Middle East?
“Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East,” proclaimed Britain’s Telegraph. The article began: “Russia’s status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the US.” “Donald Trump Has Handed Putin the Middle East on a Plate” was...
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Ounces of Flesh
On the same day last year that the Supreme Court sliced a few ounces of flesh out of its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion, it also carved up an American tradition governing the public observance of Christmas. In the case of Allegheny v. ACLU, the Court held that Allegheny County in Pennsylvania could...
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Big Brother, Little Sisters
When Sonia Sotomayor decided, in the last hours of the last day of last year, to issue a temporary stay on the enforcement of the ObamaCare contraception mandate, she surprised a lot of people, but likely no one more than the man who had appointed her to the U.S. Supreme Court. Barack Obama prefers his...
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Terminating an Unwanted Parentcy
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES On Writ of Certiorari to the Court of Appeals June 21, 2017 Justice Breyer delivered the Opinion of the Court. Sheila X is a single woman living in San Diego. Shortly after giving birth to a child, she received her Law School Admission Test scores. ...
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A Badge of Honor
This is for you writers out there: if you’re not canceled, you’re no good. The good Dr. Seuss is out, as is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Adolf Hitler is still in, although I can’t say the same for William Shakespeare. Everyone who is anyone is getting canceled, so I was glad to see Captain Cook...
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A Hallucinogenic and Unrepentant Rant
Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser in the infamous 2018 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has written an unrepentant and incoherent book while showing no remorse for the ordeal she caused others and the nation.
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America: The Movie
Another of those alarming clashes between solid democratic values has arisen, as the Supreme Court has agreed to rehear arguments relating to Citizens United v.Federal Election Committee. In the weeks before the 2008 Democratic primaries, Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit group and creator of an uncomplimentary documentary called Hillary: The Movie, had wished to broadcast...
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Christmas, That Winter Festival
When the Supreme Court declared Christmas a secular occasion, to be celebrated for its lowest-common-denominator cultural value in the public schools, I expected serious Christians to protest. Here a powerful public body officially secularized what for the history of Christianity has represented a most sacred moment. But so deeply have the forces of secularization, organized...
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The Harvard Way of Life
She’s more likely than not to win confirmation to the Supreme Court. Thus, the really big question about Elena Kagan is blunter: How and when does the United States as a whole get out from under the sway of an alien enterprise such as her university, Harvard? That the Kagan nomination positions one more Harvard...
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It’s Been a Long Time Comin’
Not surprisingly, the U.S. Supreme Court seems to be saving the worst for last as it releases its decisions for the 2014 term. A ruling on challenges to bans on homosexual “marriage” in Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and Kentucky was not among the decisions handed down on Monday, June 22, and while the Court may hand down...
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More Observations and Lamentations on the Way We Are Now
Are you enjoying your New American Century? You may as well enjoy it. It is all you are getting instead of your “peace dividend.” Justice Ginsberg has recently invoked the laws of some foreign states in justification of her Supreme Court decisions. The Founding Fathers and subsequent generations would have found this impeachable and treasonous. ...
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The Court Saves the Day—For Insurance Companies
On June 25, 2015, in a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court saved ObamaCare once again. Appropriately, Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the first opinion saving ObamaCare (see “Earl Warren Rides Again“), authored the latest one as well. The case involved the federal subsidies received by those who purchase health insurance through ObamaCare. The...
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The Smoke of Satan
Before Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church appeared to be a fortress against the raging tide of modernity, a supremely self-confident institution that attracted converts of the caliber of Evelyn Waugh, G.K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, and Christopher Dawson. After Vatican II, the Church’s attitude toward modernity changed, vocations dried up, and entire countries came close...
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The Court and Marriage
Well. I really can’t believe I am saying this. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to tell us what marriage means. Not speculate; not explain. Tell: as in, “Wipe that smile off your face and listen to what I’m telling you.” We are at a remarkable moment in human affairs: one we would hardly have...
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The Mystery of Gay Marriage, Solved
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, has struck down all remaining state bans on gay “marriage.” The decision was authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, a putative Catholic and a Republican appointee. That such a decision was coming should have surprised no one; the only question was how far-reaching that decision would be. Just...
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Disenfranchising the Deplorables
If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, it is likely that Donald Trump would have won reelection. He achieved a growing economy that was seeing more wage gains at the bottom than the top, he refused to start another foreign war, and he appointed three Supreme Court justices and nearly a third of all active federal...
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Defending Marriage
Over at Crisis Magazine, I’ve offered up some thoughts on “Taking Back Marriage” that echo a piece I wrote for Crisis in June 2013 (“Where Do We Go From Here?“), when the U.S. Supreme Court last weighed in on the subject of gay “marriage.” Two years ago, my proposed solution—that the churches, led by the...
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Conservatives Back Gay Marriage
A great deal of ink is being spilled on the two Supreme Court cases taking up same-sex marriage, but the effect is rather like the ink released by a cuttlefish to cloud the vision of its enemies. To anticipate my conclusion, let me go on record as saying that family-values conservatives have done vastly...
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Art
Léger Peter de Francia: Fernand Léger; Yale University Press; New Haven, CT. During the fabulous, legendary, supreme outburst of artistic creativity that occurred during the first three decades of this century, concentrated in Europe between Vitebsk and Pyrenees and called “avant-garde” (or the School of Paris, modern abstraction, fauvism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, constructionism, suprematism, surrealism,...
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Global Challenges in 2017
In terms of any traditionally understood calculus of national security, the United States is the most invulnerable country in the world. America is armed to the teeth, sheltered on two sides by oceans, and supremely capable of projecting her power to the distant shores. Unlike Russia, China, and India, she has no territorial disputes with...
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To Catch a Terrorist
The watershed U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, we are told, “empowered women” to control their lives. In reality, they empowered the Police State and set the U.S. Imperium on a trajectory where it not only could deny the personhood of the unborn but could legally classify whole groups of...
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Comparable Worth?
“On the whole, the home remains the supreme cultural achievement of women.” -Georg Simmel Elisabeth Griffith: In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Oxford University Press; New York. Kathleen Brady: Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker; Seaview/Putnam; New York. Near the turn of the century Charles Peguy, alarmed by the advance of secularism in the modern...
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Sophistory
Two thousand fifteen was the year that we Americans broke history. By “breaking history,” I do not mean something like “breaking news,” or “breaking records,” or even “breaking the Internet” (though the Internet certainly played a role). Yes, the “historic moments” of the Summer of #LoveWins and #HateLoses—the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v....
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‘War Between the States’
Judge John Roberts can rest assured that his Supreme Court confirmation will go very smoothly, judging from the weak 11th-hour attacks the left is mounting against him in the media. A “shocking” discovery about his record appeared in an August 26 report in the Washington Post that took issue with a phrase Roberts used while...
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Affirmative Agitprop
The University of Michigan is now the scene of the most important battle over affirmative action since the Bakke case at Stanford, settled so inconclusively some 25 years ago by the Supreme Court. There is absolutely no question that Ann Arbor’s undergraduate and admissions policies are based on a principle of racial preference that, in...
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Dreams of My Daughters
President Barack Obama surprised even battle-hardened pro-life Americans with his official remarks on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that has, since 1973, littered garbage dumps across America with the corpses of 50 million babies, 32 percent of them African-American. In a White House press release praising the landmark case...
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Peaceable Kingdoms
“The consent of all nations is the law of nature.” —Cicero On the Law of Nations is a powerful brief in favor of what the United States Supreme Court in 1900 declared to be “the customs and usages of the civilized world.” (In Paquete Habana, the highest court declared international law to be “part of...
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Functionally atheist government schools
A couple of times in my writings for Chronicles I’ve mentioned “functionally atheist government schools.” That’s what they’ve been since the early 1960s, when several U.S. Supreme Court edicts effectively banned any mention of religion, or anything approaching religion, from public schools. I remember sitting in my 6th grade class at Elliott Elementary School in...
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The Spanish Civil War and the Battle for Western Civilization
After a lengthy legal battle concluded in September, Spain’s Supreme Court gave its approval to the socialist government’s plans to exhume and remove the remains of General Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen, where they have lain since his death in 1975. The controversial general led Spain’s Nationalist forces to victory over their...
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Ten Days That Shook the Presidency
What a difference a week can make. Saturday, Sept. 26, was among the best days of the Trump presidency, or so some of us thought watching the president introduce in the Rose Garden his sterling candidate for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court. The academic and professional credentials of Amy Coney Barrett, 48,...
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Christianity and the Legitimacy of Government
The late Paul J. Tillich (1886-1965)—not exactly a hero to conservative Christians, Protestant or Catholic—spoke of the rival impulses that cause agony in personal and community decisionmaking, which he defined as the clash between autonomy and heteronomy. In autonomy—literally, “self-law”—individuals think of themselves as a law unto themselves; in heteronomy, “other-law,” they see themselves as...
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A Jolt from the Slumber of the Self
Werner Herzog, in his new memoir, turns his attention to himself, and singles out essential elements of his life that have given birth to ideas, perceptions, and films.