Source: http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/senator-susan-collins-stokes-embers-civil-war/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 04:02:33+00:00

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Senator Susan Collins (R. Maine) echoes an ugly history when she says she will only support a Supreme Court nominee who upholds “established laws” like Roe v. Wade.
The readers of these pages know that I was able to purchase a tablet computer a few months ago with limited opportunities for various types of electronic communication. People “out there” can send personal letters to me electronically and can even attach photos to them. The first such photograph I received was from my niece, Emily. She excitedly attached an image taken the day before from the second trimester prenatal ultrasound of her daughter who in a matter of months will enter our world.
It is not exactly a daily event that I am sent an image like this. Many of the men around me were sipping their coffee before work at 6:00 AM. They had their tablets open and were showing off their first photos from their loved ones. When I opened the image attached to my message from Emily, I gasped. It was a shocking image, but I mean that in a most wondrous sense. It was just something that caught me entirely off guard.
In that 2016 post, I wrote that the identity of the next occupant of the White House may be of secondary importance to the future welfare of this nation than the fact that he or she will likely nominate one and possibly two judges for lifetime appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. I suggested that the candidates’ personalities (or lack thereof) might not be our sole measurement for the presidency at this particular time.
Since then, what I wrote has come to pass, and not for the first time in memorable history. You may have noticed how sanitized the language has become in court cases and media coverage since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Words like “mother” and “infant” are avoided. “Reproductive rights” and “fetal tissue” are the limits of political correctness. The only rights considered are those that exclude the interests of both motherhood and personhood.
At the end of President Ronald Reagan’s first term in office in 1984, both sides of the abortion debate realized that the next president, like the current president, could have a major impact on the makeup of the Supreme Court. In 1984, the pro-choice camp led by NARAL – the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws – thus made the defeat of Ronald Reagan its top priority.
But Reagan won a second term, and a year into that term, Chief Justice Warren Burger retired from the Supreme Court. President Reagan named Justice William Rehnquist as Chief Justice, and then nominated a Catholic pro-life supporter, Antonin Scalia to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat.
One year later in 1987, Justice Lewis Powell also resigned. Reagan’s nominee was the highly respected Constitutional expert, Judge Robert Bork. However, abortion champion Senator Ted Kennedy destroyed his nomination with a high profile and relentless propaganda campaign.
Reagan then nominated Anthony Kennedy whose judicial background convinced Reagan that he might support overturning Roe v. Wade. Reagan was a popular president, but his supporters recognized the critical importance of assuring a second term, not only for his legacy, but for the future direction of the nation.
This is the mirror image of what is happening in Washington now. The exception, of course, is that in some circles President Trump is far less popular. He is certainly no Ronald Reagan who was dubbed “The Great Communicator.” Trump is more likely to be remembered as “The Great Disrupter.” But there are many in this nation who think that disruption of politics as usual is not necessarily a bad thing right now.
I just cannot get past the fact that as the 2016 presidential primary season opened, there were 16 seasoned professional politicians and one wide-eyed outsider, Donald Trump, on the presidential primary stage. In the end there was only Hillary Clinton v. Donald Trump, and the nation spoke in apolitical language that “politics as usual” ignores to its peril.
Does my title for this post seem extreme? It isn’t meant to be. In fact, it is rooted in history, and it’s a history that those tasked to vet President Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee should know. The evidence is not hopeful that all of them do.
As you likely know, Justice Anthony Kennedy, after having been seated on the Supreme Court by President Reagan 31 years ago, has announced his retirement. Now, for the second time in his first term in office, President Donald Trump presents a nominee to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
When Justice Kennedy announced his retirement recently, the news media went into high gear to stoke the flames between two camps in this debate for the coming ideological civil war – which so far is anything but civil. One figure who has stood out in public comments is Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine. Sadly, I do not mean “stood out” in any positive sense.
As a member of Congress, the first thing that should trouble Senator Collins is that “established law” is supposed to be enacted by the legislative branch of government, not the judicial branch. The practice of “legislation from the bench” was empowered by Roe v. Wade and should trouble any member of Congress greatly for the demise of authority and integrity that Congress has suffered in its wake.
My second objection to Senator Collins’ statement is her suggestion that Roe v. Wade must stand, and must be defended by any future nominee, because it is an “established decision.” That is nonsense! There are many established decisions of the Supreme Court that future courts have reviewed and reversed.
One of them – and it’s the decision with which Roe v. Wade is most often compared by legal scholars – is Dred Scott v. Sanford. In 1857, Dred Scott was a man born into slavery who sued for his freedom in federal courts. His “owner” had taken him to Illinois and then from there to the Wisconsin territory where slavery had been barred by Congress in the Missouri Compromise.
A lower federal court ruled that Dred Scott, his wife, and their two children were entitled to their freedom under the Missouri Compromise and its ban on slavery. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a split (5-4) decision authored by Chief Justice Roger Taney, reversed that ruling with an “established decision” holding that any ban on slavery was unconstitutional.
Justice Taney wrote that the Missouri Compromise violated the property rights of slave owners. Like the Constitutional right to an abortion created in Roe v. Wade, Justice Taney created in Dred Scott a Constitutional right to own slaves.
This gets worse. The majority decision also asserted that black men cannot sue in federal court because they are not citizens and can never be citizens. Thus, “a black man has no rights that any white man is bound to respect.” This decision had the effect of opening the American West to slavery, and it led the nation into Civil War.
Extending the logic of Senator Susan Collins, would she today hold that a future Supreme Court nominee should have been bound to the decision in Dred Scott creating a Constitutional “right” to own slaves? Would Senator Collins go on record to state her support for Dred Scott as an “established decision” that should not have been revisited by a future court? The logic she is applying today in opposition to the President’s nominee applies by extension to other past established decisions.
This is her only objection, and her only stated reason for defying the platform of her party in the treatment of President Trump’s nominee. Her vote, and that of fellow Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, are seen by Democrats as essential to their cause which is to obstruct the current President’s nominee.
Senator Collins could not possibly believe that established decisions should not be revisited by future courts. That leaves only two explanations for her position: either she disregards the legitimacy of her party’s pro-life stance or she panders to the anti-Trump wave in the news media. Either is contemptible.
After Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, the Right to Life movement came to see itself in a sacred cause to protect the right to life just as the abolitionists did after the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott. Roe v. Wade became the Dred Scott of this age.
It was at just about this time that President Reagan, who had nominated Kennedy, began to be seen wearing boots.
Congratulations on your new family member and also on your new tablet! I am so glad that you will have access to this important communication device so that you can keep up to date with the latest information.
Considering that you’ve spent the last 2 decades in prison, I find it amazing that your knowledge of current events is better than 99% of the so called “reporters” in the Main Stream Media. Your take on the most important issues is spot on, especially when it comes to the travesty of abortion.
I am also glad that your posts are getting noticed over at Conservative Tree House which is one of my favorite blogs. There’s always a lot of useful info on the site that’s not covered elsewhere.
As I always, you are in our prayers and I hope that someday the good Lord will see fit to get you out from behind your stone walls.
The picture you included in this post of Presidents Obama and Trump speaks a thousand words by itself. In polite society, it is customary to look another in the eye and listen to the one speaking to another. In this case, the listener is off in another world in his own thoughts. I do understand that a photojournalist shoots thousands of pictures and places a few of them for publication. I do not know that this was your choice to include the photo. I only ask you to consider my observations. My prayers, as always, continue for your TSW family.
The Wall Street Journal carried a front page photo last week with all the leaders of NATO countries gazing off to the left and President Trump alone is gazing off to the right. There is no question that he marches to a different drummer. Your observation is spot on.
CONGRATULATIONS, FR. GORDON, ON YOUR NEW FAMILY MEMBER!! I think I was hoping for the picture of the ultra sound. Is this something we can hope to see in the future? Those first photos are breath taking. We are able, today, to see God’s miracle before they appear on the world’s stage. Whew, that knocks my socks off.
Regarding the language of the political arena, how cunning of them to change wording to make sin sound like virtue. Murder is murder. Whether we see the babies or not, we’re killing life and preventing them from making a difference on the world. Often, I’ve thought of saying to those, who promote abortion…”what if YOUR mother had thought it a good solution”. Does anyone ever think of that?
Oh, boy, do I pray for our president…and I do ask for the Lord to defend him. He’s got the world, literally, on his shoulders.
I hope that we, who read your pages, will follow the Spirit of prayer for our president, who is pro-life. May God hear the pleas for His babies who are being restricted from life on this planet.
Thank you, Fr. Gordon, for your weekly posts. I’m so happy to see how many are coming to know about you…and read you. God uses you, greatly. I pray He will continue.
Thank you for YOU…God bless and prosper you…not to mention FREE YOU!!
PS: Praying for your healing, Charlene. I hope you’re recovering.
Congratulations for becoming a Great-Uncle, Father MacRae—to a Grand-Niece soon!
I pray everything goes well—those baby ultrasound pictures are pretty cool, aren’t they?
Dear readers, One more point. Here is an example of what is happening in the culture war if we remain silent. Here is a message I sent Dartmouth College, an Ivy League school in New Hampshire.
I received a flyer today with information about a most worthy and important project you are undertaking at Dartmouth: the Summer Lecture Series devoted to the topic of “Our Divided Country.” However, right from the start your presentation only served to deepen our divisions. Your “common ground” presentation began with, “It has been said that ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand.'” You attributed this quote to “Abraham Lincoln, 1858.” That is ridiculous! Abraham Lincoln was quoting the Gospel of Matthew (12:25), a fact that he was not at all deterred by political correctness from revealing. Maybe the best way to find common ground could be by refraining from alienating the Christians in your midst who do not cower from the source of their truth.
I appreciate your article. It has clarified very well several issues about politics and politicians on such a capital matter as human life in the earliest stages. Special thanks you for telling us Dred Scott’s story.
A non-Catholic Christian I know has told me of his surprise that Brett Kavanaugh, being a Catholic, is not against the death penalty. I could not find out his stand on this matter. Do you or does anyone know?
Following Susan Dee’s suggestion (see below) of praying the Rosary will be life-saving.
Where I wrote “Special thanks you for telling . . . “ I meant to write “Special thanks to you for telling . . . “.
though not all by the same people who “liked” the comment.
Well, here’s a Top 10 list of SCOTUS “established decisions” for you, Susie baby….
The author asks: “Does my title for this post seem extreme? It isn’t meant to be. In fact, it is rooted in history, and it’s a history that those tasked to vet President Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee should know. The evidence is not hopeful that all of them do.” ….
It’s a shame that folks on our side cannot grasp how to fight leftists and liberal RINOs like that imbecile Collins. He correctly spots the hypocrisy but fails to understand such arguments cannot work against the enemy because they are sociopaths, they do not have the gene for cognitive dissonance, consequently they are perfectly comfortable hypocrites. Essentially the enemy are ‘bots, brainless sheeple who cannot be convinced by intellectual argument.
… then sit back and wait for the fallout. Nothing more really be said, let them protest. What is Susan Collins gonna say, the Supreme Court is not the highest authority and isn’t always right? That they were wrong in that case and Plessy and Korematsu but got it right in Roe? Sure, she will try to say that because its all she can do. Let her argue against herself.
For round two you double down and revisit Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood and the Ku Klux Klan with an article tying her support of the baby execution factory as necessary for the thinning out of the black race. Susan Collins favors black population control. The leftists make much bigger exaggerations than this on a daily basis. Let her see how it feels. She’ll sit on MSNBC and stutter her way into a seizure trying to explain away her hypocrisy and all we did was stir the pot.
I am grateful to Maria for posting this. Blade makes some very good points, and one of them is a point I made in another post, “Planned Parenthood; An American Horror Story”. Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood for the sole purpose of eugenics, a effort to control the black population. Planned Parenthood makes a great effort to play this down today.
Jason Riley, a terrific African American writer for the Wall Street Journal recently wrote that in 2017, for the first time, Washington D. C. had more aborted African American babies than live births. This is truly an American horror story. With blessing Fr. Gordon MacRae.
I suggest we push hard to promote the recitation of the Rosary. Our Blessed Mother said two things that I will repeat here. The first is that until people change their hearts there will be abortion. When they do it will be ended. All the money in the world will not change anyone’s heart – just appeal to their greed.
The second thing she said was that any problem can be correct by the recitation of the rosary.
Bravo, Fr. Gordon!!! So well said!! Thank you for clarifying this vital issue about the presence of human life in the womb from its earliest stages.. I pray that Americans will vote with their eyes and their brains in the midterms and beyond and not with their biases. Yea for babies!!!
Fr. Gordon…. this statement above from your very well written commentary is so sad. Justice Kennedy, who was supposed to be the “swing vote” in favor of pro-life came up with this idiotic reasoning? How disheartening! I along with many TSW readers feel frustrated when Senators like Susan Collins from Maine, betray us. I want to thank you for your wonderful knowledge and insights, and for sharing them with all of us. We must do more! Rise Up! Let your voice be heard!
Contact your senators! That is the very least we can do. If you, Fr. Gordon can make your voice heard behind stone walls, how much more should we be doing? You continue to be such an inspiration!
God bless you dear Fr. Gordon. You are always in my prayers.
Great post Fr. Gordon and beautifully explained. I will be contacting Senator Collins and would encourage others to do so. Her contact information is: https://www.collins.senate.gov/contact . I will also be sharing this on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and any other place I can. Thank you for helping us to understand what this is all about.

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