Mark Caserta: Court may address abortion during Trump presidency
24 Jul
Roe v Wade is not settled law
Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor
Jul 20, 2018
God’s Word leaves no doubt when life begins.
Luke 1:41-42 shares the delightful account of Elizabeth (six months pregnant with her son, later to be known as John the Baptist), being visited in the hill country of Judea by her friend Mary (who had just been told by an angel she’d found favor with God and would give birth to our Savior, Jesus.)
“And it came to pass, that, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, ‘Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.'”
This year marks the 45th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. In January, people from across our nation gathered in our nation’s capital for the annual March for Life.
It was heartening that among the estimated 100,000 plus participants, teenagers and young adults recognizing the impact the 1973 court decision has had on their generation carried signs reading, “One-third of my generation is missing,” referencing more than 1 million babies, on average, aborted each year in the U.S., per The Baptist Press.
What makes this particularly encouraging is that people younger than my generation of baby boomers are taking notice of the infanticide plaguing our nation for decades because of a progressive movement that incessantly challenges the standards of morality and principles of life God desires for our nation.
The acceptance of abortion in society is an example of liberals successfully achieving a foothold in an emotional issue and tenaciously working to challenge the argument’s viability. This is done by gradually improving the general standard of acceptability through attrition of the opposition’s resolve and desensitization to the moral consequences.
The court’s primary decision in Roe v. Wade held that a person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment.
The court then applied a controversial trimester time line designed to guide judges and lawmakers in balancing the mother’s health against the viability of the fetus.
In the first trimester, the woman had the exclusive right to pursue an abortion, not subject to state intervention. In the second trimester, the state couldn’t intervene unless the mother’s health was at risk.
Once the pregnancy enters the third trimester, the state could restrict the right to an abortion but must always include an exception if the health of the mother is at risk.
Let’s be clear. Choosing abortion simply to negate another poor choice in life is not a “health care” choice, as some argue. Since 1973, compromise and outright pandering has resulted in abortion available on demand and in many instances, merely for convenience.
Twice, in history, a decision to destroy children before they could fulfill their life’s mission was employed. Both followed the emergence of a “deliverer.”
During the birth of Jesus, King Herod, fearing for his kingdom, sought to destroy the Christ child. Unable to engage the Magi in locating the child, he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem who were 2 years old and younger.
In retaliation for plagues Egypt endured following Pharaoh’s refusal to let the Israelites go at the prompting of God’s chosen deliverer, Moses, Pharaoh ordered every Hebrew boy to be “thrown into the Nile.” Sadly, Egypt suffered from his decree.
The return of our Deliverer is approaching. Righting this inherently wrong decision to destroy life is not an option we can ignore if given the opportunity.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
Mark Caserta: Trump to decide balance of the Supreme Court
6 Jul
The Supreme Court of the United States of America: The highest court in the land.
Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor
July 6, 2018
Let me be perfectly clear. The reason liberals are incessantly attacking Donald J. Trump, is they know they’re losing ground in “fundamentally changing America.” During the Obama administration, priorities were turned upside down, and we were rapidly becoming a nation of insignificance to the world.
But let not your heart be troubled. The more wins this president gains for America, the more obnoxious and out of touch with reality progressives become. We should begin worrying when liberals stop attacking Trump!
For example, last week, in the wake of Trump’s enforcement of his “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal immigration and decision to adhere to the law, liberals irresponsibly began calling for the abolishment of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Can you imagine the impact if ICE were dissolved? Our borders would be massively overtaken by illegals, including those desiring to do us harm. Isn’t it telling liberals seem to fight harder for the rights of illegal immigrants than they do for the protection of their fellow Americans?
The notion we should be willing to compromise our safety is another reason liberals can’t be taken seriously where the prosperity and safety of our nation is concerned.
Thankfully, considering recent events, liberals may as well get used to losing.
The pending balance of the Supreme Court was right at the top of the list for conservatives voting for Trump in 2016. We’ve witnessed the deleterious impact a liberal-leaning court can have on our nation. Millions of innocent babies have been murdered because of a Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. Conservatives were committed to electing a president who would help mold a court incapable of such calamitous decisions for future generations.
Less than six months into his presidency, Trump successfully nominated and achieved confirmation of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch replaced the late Antonin Scalia and backfilled his conservative stance on the bench.
Last week, I thought liberals were going to lose their minds when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. A Ronald Reagan appointee, Kennedy took the bench in 1988 and was often the moderate “swing vote” between liberal and conservative-leaning justices. His key votes were influential in rulings for same sex-marriage and abortion access.
Kennedy’s decision to step down could transform the Supreme Court and impact the progressive movement for generations. A justice is bound by an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and a berth on the Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment.
Should Trump be successful in replacing Kennedy on the court with another conservative, the balance of the court is likely to lean to the right, possibly resulting in not only more conservative rulings, but past liberal judgments overturned upon challenge.
Liberals are enraged because he’s negated many of Obama’s socialist policies. They’ll be incensed beyond measure if Trump successfully tilts the balance of the Supreme Court to the right for decades.
Currently in this political tennis match, it’s advantage Trump. If progressives decide to double-down in the weeks to come on their attacks on the president, Trump is sure to break his opponents’ serve.
But if the Supreme Court picks up one or two more conservative justices, it might just be game, set and match for conservatives.
Mark Caserta is a Cabell County resident.
Doug Smith: Cautionary Tale from a Curmudgeon
2 Jul
Doug Smith: Author, Historian and regular contributor to Free State Patriot
“The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number.
The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
Robert Heinlein
Some of our idealists and are enthusiastically celebrating SCOTUS’ ruling on Obamacare. So, for them: a Cautionary Tale.
Our vaunted Brethren (and Sisterns? ) reversed their own positions and found, because they wanted it to be so, that the words of a law did not say what they said, but rather what the Brethren thought they ought to have said, if the Congress intended what the Brethren thought the Congress ought to have intended.
The court, in very nearly the same breath, has said Government may NOT control your decisions, yet Government May control your decisions, depending 9 people’s whim of the moment. The Court, has, then, gathered to itself the role of Grand Arbiter, final word on all decisions of law or politics regarding what Government may do TO you.
How’s that again?
Our Constitution was enacted to protect citizens from what Government could do to its citizens, by people who had been subjects of a Government which could, and did, exercise arbitrary power at the whim of King or Noble. People who live under a monarch thought to rule by divine Right, unquestionable, are the Subjects of his will, and the whim of his lesser nobles. Or 9 Robed Arbiters.
Citizens are protected by laws and rights that may not be infringed under those laws. Altering those laws, under the Constitution is, by design, possible, but difficult. We ought not to alter our laws on the whims of a few or a passing fashion, but by a dawning and sustained consensus that a change ought to take place, and carries popular support. Because what is so easily gained, “just like that”, can just as easily be taken away.
As part of this cautionary tale, consider that we fought a war to get the 13th Amendment, and how enduring it is. Whereas the 18th Amendment, which, like Obamacare, involved a Progressive Government controlling businesses and personal financial choices, lasted barely 10 years.
Prohibition, like Obamacare, was touted as “the law of the land”. But it quickly became unpopular, and was repealed. Why? Because it didn’t work, and was a financial disaster. Obamacare has been, and remains, hugely unpopular. Why? Because it doesn’t work, and is a financial disaster.
Our cautionary tale, then, suggests the Idealists might want to temper their celebrations. Or, perhaps, elect politicians who will vote and work to make it workable. To make it survivable, it would be necessary to change it to earn support.
Idealists don’t want to do that. They prefer that you accept their will since acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number.
But their neighbors are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. And we are comfortable with that.
Mark Caserta: Supreme Court has become too political
25 JunDo these nine individuals deserve our trust for a lifetime?
Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor
As the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of the United States has the responsibility of interpreting the law as it applies to all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution. Unfortunately, through the years, the court has succumbed to being government’s ultimate political apparatus.
Article III, Section I of the U.S. Constitution states that “The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” As the guardian and interpreter of the Constitution, the court is charged with ensuring “equal justice under the law” for all Americans.
A Supreme Court ruling is final and cannot be overturned by any single entity, including the president of the United States. Rulings may be nullified only if a decision is based on a law that Congress has passed, and Congress decides to change the law. Or if the decision is based on the Constitution, and the Constitution is amended. And of course, a later court may overturn a ruling if they deem it unconstitutional.
So what makes these nine Supreme Court justices so wise that we grant them vast power and control over our lives? In this writer’s opinion, not much.
While both the executive and the legislative branch have a say in the court’s composition, little consideration is given to the “constitutional caliber” of this ruling entity.
As a matter of fact, the entire process of vetting individuals nominated for court vacancies has become shallow and conspiring to the point of absurdity. The Constitution doesn’t specify qualifications for justices such as age, education, profession or native-born citizenship. A justice doesn’t even have to be a lawyer or a law school graduate! Sadly, it seems more consideration is given to the ideological balance of the court than to the justices’ qualifications.
Frankly, the polarization that’s enveloped the nomination and confirmation of a justice of the Supreme Court has rendered it dangerously political. Remember, an appointment to the Supreme Court is a lifetime commission! The potential ramifications of an ineffective, perhaps partisan court could impact generations!
Currently, the Supreme Court is about as balanced as it’s ever been. It’s popularly accepted that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito (appointed by Republican presidents) comprise the court’s conservative wing. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan (appointed by Democrat presidents) make up the court’s liberal wing, with Anthony Kennedy (appointed by a Republican president) as the court’s moderate and often “swing vote” justice.
Over the years, Supreme Court rulings have literally changed the way we live our lives. Controversial decisions have, at times, been rulings with life or death consequences. Should we really place so much trust in so few individuals?
I’m concerned the Supreme Court has surrendered its noble calling to becoming the pinnacle of political activism. With its escalating impact on Americans, it’s time we protect our nation’s interest by imposing term limits and clearly defined standards qualifying someone to be a justice on our nation’s highest court.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
Mark Caserta: Progressives need liberal Supreme Court
24 Jul
Jul. 24, 2014 @ 12:00 AM
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the nation. Its decisions set precedents which all other courts must follow and can never be superseded. Not even Congress or the president can change, reject or ignore a Supreme Court decision.
In the third of my series of columns exposing the progressive movement in the United States, we’ll examine how I believe liberals will be intensifying their efforts to change the political face of the Supreme Court, determined to preserve and expand their ideology for future generations.
Understand, under the Constitution, justices on the Supreme Court receive lifetime appointments. While the process of appointing justices has undergone changes over the years, the sharing of power between the president and the Senate remains unchanged.
To receive appointment to the court, a candidate must first be nominated by the president and then confirmed by the Senate. Presidents have the power to make “recess appointments” when the Senate isn’t in session, but such appointments expire at the end of the Senate’s next session.
The framers of the Constitution designed the U.S. government with a system of “checks and balances” to ensure no one branch would have absolute authority. But make no mistake about it, the Supreme Court has formidable power and has become a prized asset in our nation’s political theater. While the court’s sole purpose is to interpret the Constitution, rulings increasingly tend to reflect a justice’s political persuasion.
Currently, the Supreme Court leans slightly conservative. Justices John Roberts Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are considered mostly conservative. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor are seen as liberal, while Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony Kennedy are considered moderate to moderate conservative, respectively. With four of these Justices over the age of 70, court openings are a real possibility over the next few years.
In June, the Obama administration was levied with two major Supreme Court decisions adversely impacting progressive advancement.
Unable to get several controversial nominees confirmed to the National Labor Relations Board, the Supreme Court unanimously held that President Obama violated the Constitution by appointing officials during a Senate three-day break. I submit the president strategically “tested” the recess appointment law just as he’s testing his executive authority in the face of congressional resistance, but failed.
In Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Inc. the Court ruled 5-4 that for-profit corporations with sincerely held religious beliefs are not required to provide a full range of free contraceptives to employees pursuant to Obamacare. Once again, this progressive challenge to our religious freedoms failed.
Don’t expect progressives to acquiesce in the face of these failures. They plan to do everything possible to elect a liberal president and retain the Senate in the upcoming elections.
If liberals are successful at “tilting” the balance of the Supreme Court to the left, our children and grandchildren will likely see an intensification of progressivism in their lives.
A misplaced vote could have impact beyond the term of any candidate. It could have impact for years to come.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
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