Just sayin' #6

Wes Vernon, RenewAmerica analyst

Supreme Court fight – suppressed information

Everywhere you turn, the media, including some of our conservative favorites, are touting Brett Kavanaugh as having the inside track for President Trump's nomination to become the Supreme Court replacement for Anthony Kennedy, who is retiring. The supposed leading candidate for the pick has surface qualifications. Cliff Kincaid, a fellow columnist for this website, says Kavanaugh would be a "major catastrophe." Why? Because he played a significant role in the cover-up on the murder of Vince Foster.

And there is strong reason to believe it was in fact a murder, although there was a massive cover-up to make his death look like a suicide. The late Reed Irvine, long-time chairman of Accuracy in Media, did the bulk of the shoe-leather investigation of the case – a job that was made to order for any curious and skeptical reporter who – in another era – would have gone out of his way to track the case and might have merited a Pulitzer for it. Unfortunately, the Deep State establishment closed ranks, and threw all kinds of barriers in Reed's way. But with a steady, unflappable persistence, he brushed aside such hindrances as so much irrelevant noise.

Vince Foster was a lawyer for the Clintons, and for many years their close friend. One report at the time had it that he and Billy Clinton went to kindergarten together. But the Clintons were knee-deep in scandal. Foster was expected to keep them out of trouble, and it bothered him. One day in July of 1993, he ended up dead in Ft. Marcy Park not too far from the White House. For details on the story of what ensued, you can find it all at Cliff's own writings found in many places beyond what he writes for this site.

A conservative (with an asterisk)

Judge Brett Kavanaugh has served since 2006 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and checks favorably on the gut issues of the day as measured by
conservatives – immigration, religious liberty, trade deals, abortion, gun rights – the kind of record that pretty well mirrors those of the president. Cliff Kincaid nonetheless believes Judge Kavanaugh's elevation to the Supreme Court would be "a major catastrophe" because, Cliff argues, the judge "went along with the cover up" (that the Foster death was a suicide, rather than a murder as evidence indicates).

The onetime editor of Irvine's newsletter – who also worked on the Foster case – Kincaid should be heard in the debate on this rather heavy "sticking point" when and if the Kavanaugh nomination is before the Senate. There's no question the left will weigh in against him because 1) he would be a Trump nominee, and 2) he would tip the balance on the court from a (mostly) 5-4 conservative majority to a conservative majority that could hold for as long as 30 years.

Speaking of Schumer

Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer has said that there is one potential Trump pick to the high court that the senator really opposes – Judge Amy Coney Barrett – because, according to the New York lawmaker, she passed President Trump's litmus test on overturning Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case that wiped out state laws against abortion. The president has denied ever asking that question of any nominee he has interviewed. Judge Barrett is currently a circuit court judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She was previously a Professor of Law at Notre Dame. She has previously faced down a grilling from Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose questioning on her Catholic faith at times appeared to some to come close to raising issues on the constitutional prohibition against considering one's religion as a disqualifier for holding public office.

Judge Barrett has said that rejecting any move to overturn precedents set by previous court decisions is not in line with the Constitution, saying "there is little reason to think reversals would do great damage." More important, she adds, is a justice's "first duty to the Constitution," rather than to a precedent the justice believes is clearly in conflict with it. (See Barrett write-up in Wikipedia). One guest on Fox News Thursday said Barrett's view on precedent was "scary." He did not venture an opinion, nor was he asked if he found opinions that subvert the Constitution also to be "scary."

One website reported that Judge Barrett is the one court nominee who causes Schumer to lose sleep at night. Later, that web post was pulled down, and efforts by this column to retrieve it resulted in a cat and mouse game with those apparently determined to prevent the item from seeing the light of day.

© Wes Vernon