In 1999, when the Constitution Party was looking for a Presidential nominee, one of those I interviewed and encouraged to run was Tennessee Congressman John J. "Jimmy" Duncan, Jr., who represents the Knoxville district where my daughter, Alexandra, is in graduate school at the University of Tennessee.

Congressman Duncan is one of the unsung heroes of Constitutional conservatism, and I was, therefore, delighted to see an excellent tribute paid to him in the September 12 edition of The American Conservative. As reported in an article by Bill Kauffman, "John J. ‘Jimmy’ Duncan Jr. of Tennessee was one of the noble sextet of House Republicans who voted against the Iraq War. (The others were Ron Paul, John Hostettler, Amory Houghton, Jim Leach, and Connie Morella.)

"The vote, Duncan says as we chat in his Capitol Hill office, was ‘a tough one for me. I have a very conservative Republican district. My Uncle Joe is one of the most respected judges in Tennessee: when I get in a really serious bind I go to him for advice. I had breakfast with him and my two closest friends and all three told me that I had to vote for the war. It’s the only time in my life that I’ve ever gone against my Uncle Joe’s advice. When I pushed that button to vote against the war back in 2002, I thought I might be ending my political career.’

"He wasn’t. Congressman Duncan has won almost 80 percent of the vote in both elections subsequent to his vote against Mr. Bush’s war. Not all acts of political courage are suicide. …

"He is a Robert Taft Republican in a party whose profligate and bellicose foreign policy today melds the worst features of Nelson Rockefeller and Wendell Willkie.

"Jimmy Duncan’s paternal grandparents were small farmers in Scott County, which in 1861 left Tennessee, refusing to follow the Volunteer State into the Confederacy, and declared itself ‘the Free and Independent state of Scott.’

"Duncan is a free and independent member of Congress as well as that even rarer specimen in modern American politics: a man who knows his place, which in this case is Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, John Duncan Sr., ‘hitchhiked into Knoxville with five dollars in his pocket,’ and after an education at the University of Tennessee was elected mayor of Knoxville and then congressman.

"‘I supported the first Gulf War because I went to all those briefings and heard Colin Powell and all of them say that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the entire Middle East. I saw his troops surrendering to CNN camera crews and I became convinced that the threat had been greatly exaggerated.’

"Duncan was not going to be fooled again. As Bush II readied his war, ‘I was called down to the White House for a briefing with Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet and John McLaughlin. I asked, ‘How much is Saddam Hussein’s total military budget?’ It was a little over two-tenths of one percent of ours. He was no threat to us whatsoever. He hadn’t attacked us. He hadn’t threatened to attack us. He wasn’t capable of attacking us.’ The U.S. invasion, he says, was ‘like the University of Tennessee football team taking on a second-grade football team—it’s unbelievable.’

"The war has enshrined foreign aid—once a conservative bête noire—as a virtual sacrament of the 21^st-century Washington Republican. Duncan notes that the U.S. is draining its treasury into Iraq to ‘rebuild roads, sewers, power-plants, railroads’ and subsidize a ‘small business loan program, prisons, a witness protection program, free medical care. …I’ve said all along that the war in Iraq was going to mean massive foreign aid and huge deficit spending.’

"‘When I was called down to that briefing at the White House,’ recalls Duncan, ‘Lawrence Lindsey had just said a war would cost between $100 and $200 billion. I asked about that. Condoleezza Rice said no, it wouldn’t cost anywhere close to that—and now we’re going to be at $300 billion by the end of September.’ …

"Duncan ascribes Republican support for the war to the straitjacketing exigencies of party loyalty—that is, the subordination of one’s critical judgment to the demands of Team Red and Team Blue…‘Eighty percent of the House Republicans voted against the bombings in Bosnia, Kosovo, and all that,’ he points out. ‘I’m absolutely convinced that if Gore or Clinton had been in the White House, 80 percent of the Republicans would have been against this, too.’ …

"Duncan concedes that the Republicans have become a party of Big Government. …

"The three leading House Republican voices for withdrawal—Duncan, Ron Paul, and Walter Jones of North Carolina—are all Southerners. …

"Duncan writes his own newsletters—‘every word’—and he writes them on legal pads in longhand, for he proudly admits to being a ‘holdout’ from the mousy tyranny of Microsoft. ‘I do not use, and do not worship, the computer,’ he says. ‘One of my goals is to get to the end of my career without ever learning how to turn on a computer.’ …

"I hope more of my fellow conservatives will soon wake up and realize that an unnecessary war and a greatly exaggerated threat of terrorism are being used to expand government at a faster rate than any time in our history.’ He muses about the ways in which computers sever people from their communities; he criticizes the Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind; he praises the Tenth Amendment and the civic-minded citizens of Knoxville. He urges the University of Tennessee to hire professors who are able to speak recognizable English. He is, in short, an intelligent, patriotic small-city American who finds himself in Congress during a topsy-turvy age when down is up, imperialist bullies masquerade as ‘conservatives,’ and dissent is treason. …

"‘Traditionally, conservatives have been for small government, they’ve been supported by small farmers, small business,’ he says. ‘Now what you have is this big government-big business duopoly,’ through which ‘big business gets government contracts, favorable tax rules, and all these things small businesses don’t get.’ Thus he is a vocal critic of corporate welfare ranging from the space station (‘the biggest boondoggle in the history of Congress’) to the imposition of the metric system (a project of ‘multinational companies’ scornful of American uniqueness)."

Here are some of the questions which I hope members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will ask Judge Roberts during confirmation hearings with respect to his nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States:

1. To what degree would a Justice Roberts feel bound by precedent, even in cases which he acknowledges to have been wrongly decided, such as Roe v. Wade?

2. Is Judge Roberts prepared to set aside the "Lemon test" which requires that public acknowledgment of God have a secular purpose?

3. What view does Judge Roberts have concerning the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution?

4. Under what circumstances, if any, would Judge Roberts reference foreign law, foreign constitutions, foreign court rulings and "world opinion" in formulating his Supreme Court opinions?

5. How does Judge Roberts interpret the proper application of the "good Behaviour" clause in Article III of the Constitution?

6. Would Judge Roberts conclude as a Justice that, even though Article III Constitutionally authorizes restrictions on the Federal judiciary that it ought not be applied, for reasons of prudence?

7. Does Judge Roberts believe that Romer v. Evans was wrongly decided? What about Hardwick v. Bowers? What about Lawrence v. Texas?

8. Is it legitimate, in Judge Roberts’ view, for the Federal government to fund organizations which engage in policy advocacy?

My friend, Casey Emerson, a Montana State Senator, is determined to get the Federal government to surrender its unconstitutional occupation of land for purposes unrelated to the establishment of a Federal city or the maintenance of fortifications.

Here is what Casey has to say: "Our goal is to get some state to sue our Federal Government for the return of our lands. With a state suing, the suit will go directly to the Supreme Court due to [sic] Art. 3, Sec. 2 of the constitution, middle paragraph ("In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.")

"The E.T.C. (Enforce The Constitution) – Our Goal…The Federal Government has been breaking the United States constitution in many, many ways. Our goal is to make them follow the U.S. Constitution, starting with an issue concerning Federal land ownership. The Federal Government unlawfully claims ownership to land in numerous states. This land issue and others such as separation of Church and State are just the beginning for us to reclaim our rights under the Constitution of the United States of America. We want to stop the government from illegally taking private property and stop them from making decisions regarding state issues by far away government officials. We need to bring the decision making back to the states and local government where decisions are made by and for the citizens that will be affected. When the solutions are made by people close to the problems, the solutions will be far superior. …

"The Constitution sets up clear regulations regarding ownership of public lands by the Federal government. Members of E.T.C. believe the states own all public land except what is listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. That act says the government can establish post offices and post roads, the District of Columbia and purchase property, with the consent of the state legislature, for the construction of necessary building such as forts, armories, etc. …

"ACTION WHICH NEEDS TO BE TAKEN: Our goal is to get some state to sue our Federal Government for the return of our lands. With a state suing, the suit will go directly to the Supreme Court due to Art. 3, Sec. 2 of the constitution, middle paragraph."

The mailing address for Senator Casey Emerson is E.T.C., 5350 Love Lane, Bozeman, MT 59718. I know he’d like to hear from you.

Dear Friend of The Conservative Caucus:

I hope you can join me in Columbus, Ohio on September 17 to commemorate the two hundred eighteenth anniversary of the completion of the Convention that gave us our U.S. Constitution.

There is no admission fee, but, because attendance will be limited by the size of the room, we must know as soon as possible whether you plan to attend.

TCC is sponsoring Constitution Day for the fifth consecutive year, in cooperation with The Conservative Caucus Foundation and the U.S. Taxpayers Alliance.

Beginning at 1:00 P.M. at the Concourse Hotel and Conference Center near the Columbus airport, and continuing until 5:00 P.M., you will have the opportunity to learn more about the Constitution from several knowledgeable, compelling speakers.

Invited lecturers for this September 17 event include Dr. Edwin Vieira (author of How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary), Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith, former Congressman William Dannemeyer, and Charles Orndorff, a leading expert on U.S. Constitutional history.

I know that you and I share a love and respect for the Constitution, and that we each want Constitution Day to have a powerful impact.

That is why I hope you will support this event with a donation of $25, $50, $100 or more. In fact, if you can send $1,000, you will be listed as a Sponsor in the Constitution Day program.

TCC cannot afford to lose money on this event. We need to receive enough donations, designated for Constitution Day, to pay the full cost.

That is why I am asking you to help with a donation of $25, $50, $100, or even a Sponsor’s fee of $1,000 to make TCC’s Constitution Day possible.

Whether or not you provide financial support, I hope you will be able to attend on September 17. Since we will have to stop accepting reservations once we expect a full room, be sure to let me know as soon as possible, so that I can have your name added to the attendance list.

Sincerely,

Howard Phillips
Chairman

P.S. If you contribute $100 or more, you will be listed in the program as a "Friend of the Constitution", and a $1,000 gift makes you a Sponsor.

Call 703-938-9626 now to reserve your seat and to make a donation.

[ Additional Information | E-Mail | Donate On-Line! ]

"Bipartisanship" is a term often used to deceive the gullible and undiscerning.

Simply because Republicans and Democrats participate in a coalition does not mean their views on key issues diverge.

This is certainly the case with respect to the "New World Order" establishment.

The Hill for August 3 reports "A new, bipartisan think tank aims to develop national-security policies by harkening back to an era when there was broad consensus on U.S. foreign policy.

"A group of 23 foreign-policy luminaries representing both sides of the aisle will launch the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA), dedicated to bridging the deep ideological divide that dominates current foreign-policy making. Jamie Metzl, one of the group’s chairmen, will announce the new think tank today at the National Press Club.

"The 11 Republican board members are former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger; ex-Sens. Warren Rudman (N.H.), Howard Baker (Tenn.), Nancy Kassebaum Baker (Kan.) and John Danforth (Mo.), who served as Bush ‘s U.N. ambassador and envoy to Sudan; former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean; former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld; former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills; former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane; Rita Hauser, chairwoman of the International Peace Academy; and John Whitehead, a former deputy secretary of state.

"The 11 Democratic board members are former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher; former Defense Secretary William Perry; former National Security Advisers Samuel Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Tony Lake; former Ambassador Richard Holbrook; former Sen. Gary Hart (Colo.); former Rep. Lee Hamilton (Ind.); former U.N. Ambassador Donald McHenry; and lawyer Ted Sorenson.

Every one of these distinguished personages is a shill for the "one world" New World Order establishment advanced by super rich Big Media and Big Business moguls.

In 1970, as a candidate for Congress from the Sixth Congressional District of Massachusetts, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with one of my prospective constituents, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.

Lodge had been a U.S. Senator until defeated in 1952 by John F. Kennedy. He was President Eisenhower’s Ambassador to the United Nations and President Kennedy’s Ambassador to South Vietnam.

Interestingly, when my immigrant grandfather, Sam Goldberg, arrived in the United States in the early 1900’s, one of his first jobs was driving a cab in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts for Ambassador Lodge’s grandfather, U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the man who was instrumental in defeating Woodrow Wilson’s push for the League of Nations.

During the course of a long, fascinating conversation with the latter Ambassador Lodge on a cement bench in his family compound at Beverly Cove, Massachusetts, the Ambassador tearfully recounted to me his regret at having played a key role in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the then President of South Vietnam.

Lodge told me that he had virtually begged Diem to take refuge in the U.S. Embassy. Both he and Diem knew that an assassination was about to be attempted and that it would probably succeed. Diem, a patriot to the end, preferred to face death rather than dishonor.

Don Feder’s commentary concerning Supreme Court nominee John Glover Roberts, Jr. is well worth considering. The complete text follows:

          When the president announced John Roberts’ nomination to the United States Supreme Court – the most powerful deliberative body in the world, membership in which comes with lifetime tenure – I had doubts.

          As I said in a previous column, I wanted a nominee whose professional life was a 4-lane highway paved with paper. I wanted a picture window on his soul – I mean an iron-clad guarantee that we weren’t getting another Souter in Scalia-clothing.

          Everything we know about John Roberts says here is a man who’s been polishing his resume since age six -- a go-to guy who wanted to be liked by his colleagues, a savvy lawyer who put his conscience in a blind trust to advance his career.

          When the nomination was announced, the White House breathlessly informed us that when Roberts was tapped for the DC Circuit Court, 152 members of the DC Bar – prominent Democrats as well as Republicans – sang his praises to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Never trust a man who’s universally loved. Real conservatives are despised by the left.

          Before last week’s revelations, it was still possible to give Roberts the benefit of the doubt. Not any more.

          In an August 4^th article, the Los Angeles Times disclosed that as a partner with the high-octane DC law firm of Hogan & Hartson, in the mid-1990s, Roberts helped a homosexual group engineer one of the most disastrous Supreme Court decisions of the past two decades.

          In Romer v. Evans (1996), the Court overturned an amendment to the Colorado Constitution – passed by 53% of the state’s voters – prohibiting municipalities from enacting so-called gay rights laws (conferring special status based on bedroom behavior). It was the first time the Court recognized homosexuals as a protected class for civil rights purposes.

          Romer led directly to Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which declared laws against homosexual sodomy unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court ever finds a right to same-sex marriage banging around in the 14^th. Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, Romer will be the precedent.

In his blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia (supposedly the president’s model for Supreme Court nominees) said the majority opinion in Romer: "has no foundation in American constitutional law and barely pretends to. The people of Colorado have adopted an entirely reasonable provision…. Amendment 2 (the initiative the Court threw out) is designed to prevent piecemeal deterioration of the sexual morality favored by a majority of Coloradans, and is not only an appropriate means to that legitimate end, but a means that Americans have employed before. Striking it down is an act, not of judicial judgment, but of political will."

          And Bush’s first Supreme Court nominee helped facilitate this national disaster.

          According to Walter A. Smith Jr. (then the head of the firm’s pro-bono department), when he approached Roberts to assist the Lambda Legal Defense Fund in helping it to demolish the nation’s moral foundation, the Great Right Hope didn’t hesitate, "Let’s do it!" Roberts reportedly said.

          And do it he did. He read briefs, participated in a moot court session (to prepare the Lambda lawyer for the kind of tough questions she might get in oral arguments) and coached her on strategy. Jean Dubofsky, the plaintiff’s lead attorney, recalls that Roberts instructed her, "You have to know how to count and to get five votes. You’re going to have to pick up the middle." Advising gay litigators on how to push their cause is like giving Rommel a French road map.

          Says Smith, who now runs a liberal interest group: "I would have expected on these cases that he (Roberts) would turn them down. But none of them raised so serious a concern to him personally."

          Their conversation might have gone something like this:

          Smith: "John, I’d like you to help us get civil-rights status for homosexuals. We want to negate the will of Colorado voters, further eroding representative government in this country. We hope to establish the precedent that a state’s voters are to have no say over whether localities can create special rights based solely on performing certain sex acts."

          Roberts: "Delighted to help. I have no serious concern about marshalling the troops for this particular assault on Judeo-Christian values."

          Roberts’ apologists on the right (who are legion) are trying to rationalize his participation in this case, arguing:

1)   His involvement was minimal. Supposedly, Roberts only spent 5 hours on the case.

2)   As a lawyer with Hogan and Hartson, Roberts was expected to take pro-bono cases, regardless of his personal opinions.

3)   There’s no way that this can be taken as a sign that the nominee supports gay rights. (In other words, Roberts has never actually been seen leaving a motel with Barney Frank.)

          In reality, Roberts’ contribution to the case was crucial. He worked in the Reagan Justice Department, clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court. Thus, he was perfectly positioned to provide insights into the thinking of conservative justices – how to counter the objections they’d likely raise to the anti-Amendment 2 position.

          If Smith had gone to one of the many liberal lawyers at Hogan & Hartson and asked them to help Operation Rescue with a challenge to Roe v. Wade, or to assist the NRA in trying to overturn the assault weapons ban – what do you think the response would have been?

          But for Roberts – a solid conservative and a strict constructionist, the administration’s conservative cheerleaders assure us – assisting the homosexual lobby to establish a lethal precedent raised "no serious concern."

          Romer isn’t Roberts’ only pandering to political correctness. He spent over 200 hours representing DC welfare queens who saw their free-lunch counter shut down during a budget crisis.

          He also helped a Florida mass murderer (who gunned down eight people in two drug-related shootings) in his attempts to have his death sentence vacated on the grounds of temporary insanity (which certain conservative leaders may be pleading after Roberts has been on the Court for a few years).

          Smith discloses: "Unlike a lot of conservative lawyers at the firm, I don’t think that John had a doctrinaire view about certain issues that would cause him to say, ‘I shouldn’t work on that.’" This suggests that other conservatives at Hogan and Hartson declined to be involved in such cases, based on principle. Not John Roberts.

          It makes you wonder what other issues – besides gay rights – Roberts does not hold "doctrinaire views" (i.e., is morally flexible) on: abortion, religious expression in the public square or applying European standards to American justice?

          I don’t know if John Roberts supports gay rights or welfare rights or the rights of mass murderers. But neither do his conservative defenders.  And neither does George Bush.

          After solemnly and repeatedly promising the right Supreme Court nominees who are intellectual clones of Thomas and Scalia, the president gave us a man without a paper trail, a 50-year-old lawyer who isn’t on record expressing a conviction about anything more controversial than a preference for tuna-fish sandwiches over BLTs– a moral tabula rasa.

          Ann Coulter points out that, before he was confirmed, there was more in the background of David Souter to suggest he would be a conservative vote on the Court than there is in Roberts’ history.

          Apparently, the president’s priority is less putting another conservative on the Supreme Court, than getting one of his nominees confirmed without much of a fight.

          In 4 ½ years in office, Bush has shown no great passion for social conservative causes (though, on the whole, his picks for the federal appellate courts have been excellent). It took a good six months to get the president to endorse the Federal Marriage Amendment. Initially, he equivocated. (Let’s wait to see what the courts do with the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, he urged – which is rather like saying let’s wait and see what Hamas does to the peace process.)

          It wasn’t until Karl Rove began to worry about the president’s prospects of winning reelection, that Bush embraced the issue -- wisely, it transpires.  The president probably owes his 2004 win to a state marriage protection amendment that turned out tens of thousands of evangelical voters in Ohio.

          My take on Roberts: Ambitious, obsessively cautious, sociable and morally flexible – not the temperament that produces a Thomas or a Scalia.

          Souter me once, shame on you. Souter me twice, shame on me.

John Glover Roberts, Jr., George W. Bush’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, is no Antonin Scalia. It appears he is more like an Anthony Kennedy.

There are several reasons for conservatives, Christians, and Constitutionalists generally to be troubled by the voluntary assistance provided to the homosexual activists by Mr. Roberts. Among them are these:

1) Judge Roberts did not disclose his involvement when he responded to a specific question on the questionnaire he filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee;

2) Judge Roberts apparently had no moral objection to using his skills to advance the homosexual agenda;

3) It suggests an absence of an understanding by Mr. Roberts that homosexual conduct is sinful and ought to be discouraged;

4) It suggests that, as a Supreme Court Justice, Judge Roberts would divorce himself from common law principles and Biblical morality in determining his position in particular cases; and

5) It is another example of how Judge Roberts seems to go out of his way to pander to those on the Left who might otherwise oppose him.

Pending further explanation, it seems necessary to withhold support for the confirmation of Judge Roberts to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. We do not need another Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor, or David Souter.

Republicans in power are often far more dangerous to the Constitution than even the Left-wing Democrats. The 217 to 215 vote by which the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement is the latest example.