The stakes of the presidential race were put in sobering perspective over the weekend with the sad passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In an election where the courts have been a backseat issue for everyone but former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the country’s eyes are now fixed on the empty, black-draped chair of Justice Scalia.

In 29 years, the Constitution had no greater friend than the man whose body will lie in repose in the Court’s great hall Friday. For three decades, the bombproof cases at National Archives protected the physical document, while down the street Justice Scalia guarded its intent. “The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead, or as I prefer to call it, enduring,” he once said. “It means today not what current society, much less the courts, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.”

An ardent defender of the charter’s “bright lines,” Scalia will be missed for the artistry of his opinions, his deep love of country, and his blunt and brilliant perspective. In the days to come, Scalia’s legacy will be one of family — at home, where he and his wife raised nine children, and at the Court, where he will be remembered for his passionate defense of life, freedom, and marriage. At a time when the bench seems overrun with wannabe legislators, Justice Scalia stood in stark contrast to the liberal ideology that distorts the Constitution for its own purposes. Now, a month shy of his 80th birthday, the country is grappling with how to move forward.

There are dozens of high-profile cases pending before the Court — including the key conservative battles over the Texas abortion law and the conscience rights of Little Sisters of the Poor. While the Court copes with Scalia’s absence, the White House seems intent on nominating his replacement, despite the 80-year tradition of leaving an election-year vacancy to the next president. Invoking the Constitution he has selective use for, President Obama told reporters it was his “duty” to submit a name to the U.S. Senate for confirmation. Of course, the greatest insult to Justice Scalia’s memory would be to appoint a replacement in the mold of Obama, who’s spent seven years trampling on the Constitution on the way to his own personal policy goals.

Almost immediately, Senate leaders fired back, insisting that voters were less than nine months away from selecting a new president — and, following eight decades of tradition, Scalia’s replacement should be left to that person. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joined Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and others in insisting there would be no confirmation “The fact of the matter is that it’s been standard practice over the last nearly 80 years that Supreme Court nominees are not nominated and confirmed during a presidential election year,” Mr. Grassley said. “Given the huge divide in the country, and the fact that this president, above all others, has made no bones about his goal to use the courts to circumvent Congress and push through his own agenda, it only makes sense that we defer to the American people who will elect a new president to select the next Supreme Court justice.”

The situation is a critical one, as Alliance Defending Freedom’s Matt Bowman points out. “The Senate is doing what the people elected them to do in 2014 — put a check on President Obama’s radical executive excesses and protect the people’s right to decide on any transformative changes. It’s no longer hypothetical what those changes are: because Scalia could represent the Court’s swing vote, we might as well write on the November ballot alongside the Democrats’ names, partial-birth abortion, gun confiscation, and lawless Democratic executive orders thwarting the people’s representatives.”

The Supreme Court’s fate has always been intricately linked to the president’s. Now, less than 300 days from an election, “two branches of government are at stake,” Cruz warned. “If liberals are so confident that the American people want unlimited abortion on demand, want religious liberty torn down, want the Second Amendment taken away, want veterans’ memorials torn down, want the crosses and stars of David sandblasted off of the tombstones of our fallen veterans, then go and make the case to the people. I don’t think the American people want that.”

Originally published here.

Survey: a Rand Canyon on Women in Combat

Americans support their troops — but they certainly don’t support the choices this president has made regarding them. Fewer people than ever think the U.S. is the world’s greatest military power, according to Gallup’s World Affairs survey. Forty-nine percent of Americans think we have the globe’s top military force — a 10-point drop from this same time last year. Most of the downturn has nothing to do with our selfless servicemen and women, and everything to do with the administration’s radical social policy and deep budget cuts.

The U.S. military has become a minefield of social experimentation, starting with open homosexuality and religious hostility and ending, the White House hopes, with women drafted into combat. The changes have come at breakneck speed in a force known for its proud history and strong moral foundation. Now, seven years into the Obama presidency, the military hardly resembles the force that most of our veterans were proud to serve. Instead, it’s become a laboratory of social engineering with little to show for it but low morale, retention and recruitment woes, suicide, and sexual abuse.

On the verge of throwing open the infantry and special operations positions to women, the president’s political appointees are continuing their practice of basing decisions on personal agendas — not proven research. First, Navy Secretary Rob Mabus ignored the Marines own year-long study on the fallout of mixed-sex combat units. Now, the administration is poised to ignore even more warning signs: a breaking Rand Corp. study on the troops’ own concerns about the move. The Washington Times’s Rowan Scarborough dug up this piece of information from the president’s own budget: “U.S. Special Operations Command and its 69,000 personnel are up against ‘training challenges’ and is noticing ‘minor impacts to the forces’ ability to accomplish missions’ that could grow worse.”

All of this is happening in the face of Army Green Beret and Navy SEAL cutbacks — which will only complicate the integration process. Already, Rand warns, 85 percent of the men in those units oppose the idea, and 90 percent are convinced that it will lead to lower physical standards, jeopardizing missions where “high endurance and brute strength are vital.” In fact, Scarborough notes, “some male warriors are so opposed that Rand scholars labeled them ‘extreme.’” With special ops already under tremendous stress, military leaders are worried about adding more. “We are a force who has been heavily deployed over the last 14 years, and our military members, civilians, and their families have paid a significant price.”

Instead of forcing a deadly change on troops that don’t want it, the best favor the commander-in-chief could do is listen to the military he’s commanding. If not them, then at least the research — which points to a crippled force for women and men alike. For more on the president’s lethal mission, don’t miss Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin’s (U.S. Army-Ret.) piece on the Hill blog, “What the U.S. Can Learn from Women Serving in the Israeli Defense Forces.”

Originally published here.

Waiting for the other Schumer to Drop…

About that thing Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said about not confirming George Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, forget it. That was a completely different situation, the New York Democrat insists in a new column defending his remarks from nine years ago. In the aftermath of Justice Scalia’s death, some conservatives have defended their decision not to confirm a Supreme Court replacement in the waning months of Obama’s presidency by pointing back to Schumer’s own statements. Back then, the Democrat left little doubt where he stood: “We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court, except in extraordinary circumstances.” And he said that with 19 months left in Bush’s term — not nine!

Now, almost a decade later, the senator has had a change of heart, arguing that the GOP’s position is an “apples to oranges comparison” to his in 2007. But let’s face it: the only thing that’s different between then and now is who controls the White House! “[Judicial nominees] must prove by actions, not words, that they are in the mainstream rather than we have to prove that they are not,” Schumer said nine years ago.

Fast-forward to this week, when Schumer is calling Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “an obstructionist” for holding the same position — with even less time on the lame duck president’s clock! Desperate to change the record, the senator is trying to put some distance between his position and Republicans’. “What I said in the speech given in 2007 is simple: Democrats, after a hearing, should entertain voting no if the nominee is out of the mainstream and tries to cover that fact up. There was no hint anywhere in the speech that there shouldn’t be hearings or a vote…”

On the contrary, what Senator Schumer told his colleagues is that they not only have the right, but the responsibility to block a lame-duck president from appointing justices. Apparently, liberals like their history like their Constitution: revised.

Originally published here.