Bizarre, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts

Gingrich: I Will Arrest Federal Judges

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich appears to be running against the Constitution as much as against President Obama these days. Gingrich has been promising to round up judges who do not agree with him — statements that have even conservative figures like Michael Mukasey, former attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, denouncing him. Mukasey was the attorney general who blocked prosecutions into torture, but finds Gingrich truly scary. I am currently scheduled to be on Hardball tonight to discuss this latest attack on the judiciary.

On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Gingrich indicated that he would call judges who hand down controversial opinions to appear before Congress to answer for their transgressions and would send federal law enforcement to arrest judges failed to appear.

It is the latest attack on the judicial branch — attacks that led Mukasey to denounce his proposals as “dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle.”

Here is one of the exchanges:

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you this and we’ll talk about enforcing it, because one of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, the congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before congress and hold a congressional hearing. Some people say that’s unconstitutional. But I’ll let that go for a minute.
I just want to ask you from a practical standpoint, how would you enforce that? Would you send the capital police down to arrest him?

GINGRICH: If you had to.

SCHIEFFER: You would?

GINGRICH: Or you instruct the Justice Department to send the U.S. Marshal. Let’s take the case of Judge Biery. I think he should be asked to explain a position that radical. How could he say he’s going to jail the superintendent over the word “benediction” and “invocation”? Because before you could — because I would then encourage impeachment, but before you move to impeach him you’d like to know why he said it.
Now clearly since the congress has….

SCHIEFFER: What if he didn’t come? What if he said no thank you I’m not coming?

GINGRICH: Well, that is what happens in impeachment cases. In an impeachment case, the House studies whether or not — the House brings them in, the House subpoenas them. As a general rule they show up.

It is the very definition of demagogy to dangle out the image of judges being clapped in irons to satisfy citizens angry over decisions by judges. Article III is designed to guarantee independence from people like Gingrich so that judges can rule in favor of the Constitution and, yes, at times take positions disliked by the majority.

Source: Washington Post

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747 thoughts on “Gingrich: I Will Arrest Federal Judges”

  8. Or maybe it was the Irish, Bron.

    Or those darn Eye-tal-yans.

    Or maybe the problem is most of what you’ve read is von Mises pseudo-history, Bron. Progressivism, like the American Revolution, is firmly rooted in the French and English thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. You may not like that, but it has the benefit of being the truth. Like the inconvenient truth that Objectivism has more to do with the antisocial philosophy of Nietzsche than any progressive thought does and that he, like Rand, was nuts. You are entitled to your own opinions, Bron, but once again, you are not entitled to your own facts.

  9. Anarcho:

    you do understand the symbolism of the “pink carnation” I trust?

    McLean is trying tell you that he is a young socialist, he was driving his Chevy to the levy to push it into the water so he could he buy a Volga when the revolution came.

  10. Anarcho:

    Why did you decide to embrace anarchy? Other than you think government never ends well.

    We were pretty free for the first 50 years or so after our founding.

    Cant an informed citizenry keep government in check?

    From what I have read, the problem seems to start in the aftermath of the German and European immigration from say 1840 on. They brought with them the seeds of what we now see. That belief in a strong central government and in government sponsored social welfare programs, a Germanic desire/will for order.

    Most people are not going to embrace anarchy, hell most people dont want to embrace free markets. But they are more acceptable than pure anarchy.

    I would suggest you work for limited government and free markets. Those ideas arent far from the American mainstream and certainly much better than we have today.

    Funny thing though, most people do not initiate force against other people person to person. But a good portion of the population have no prohibitions against government doing it for them.

  11. Here’s a movie scene that speaks to the issue. Names have been changed to protect Kevin Klein:
    **********
    A-c: Don’t call me stupid.

    Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I’ve known sheep that could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?

    A-c: Apes don’t read philosophy.

    Wanda: Yes they do, A-c. They just don’t understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, A-c. I looked them up.

    ********

    Also, being mistaken for Tootie – and by Bron of all people – is not a good sign.

    You go, Rebel Without A Clue, you go.

  13. See now I feel guilty for not mentioning a whole bunch more writers, like Lysander Spooner, Bastiat, the Tanneyhills, John T. Flynn, Ropke, Ok. Thats a good start. Get to work.

  14. Lew Rockwell has been growing on me lately. I hadn’t ever heard him really until recently and recently he has been speaking very well for “civil liberties”- freedom. Likewise, Ralph Nader and Denis Kucinich have been growing on me in that regard though their economics are flawed and thus they embrace their own form of fascism, unknowingly. They are socialists. They stand for what they think is right. I respect that. They want justice, and they have a definition. The fascist majority wants nothing but power, wants to tell everyone what to do. The plan can be by the moment, as long as everyone obeys their ideas. Still, of course, I oppose socialism.

    My ideas are a long stretch of evolution. I read much of the utopian and civil disobedience genres as a child such as Thoreau, Heinlein, Orwell, Huxley, King, Gandhi etc. But, I was brought up and indoctrinated with progressivism-fascism, eventually read some economics and gained some experience and thus rejected the Nazi aspects of that faction and moved to the “right” to neo-conservativism, fighting for “economic liberty” in a world of “economic” fascists. I then embraced Objectivism. Eventually I read all it had to offer and followed the references, already having troubles with certain statements, attitudes of ignorance-intolerance, and hero-worship of the “free country.” So I read Ludwig von Mises. What a great mind. What a scholar. He planted all the good seeds we see now growing around us in resistance to the fascist 4th Reich. But then I read Rothbard, Hoppe, Block, and another hundred or so Austrian school historians plus their adversaries like Keynes, Hayek, Friedman, etc, economists and philosophers of all schools. I study to defeat tyranny. I am sure I read more pages a week than anyone else but a very, very few. Plus I write, since I must speak against your fucking NAZIS.

  15. Bron, I can assure you he is not Tootie. Tootie may be nuts, but she is at least civil in her comments, and I believe she is taller as well.

  16. Anarcho:

    where do you get your ideas? I know you posted that one pamphlet but where else? Can you post some more links?

  18. Its all bad dayzzzz in Amerika. How can you watch the rise of the 4th Nazi Reich and enjoy it, say nothing, do nothing? Argue some trivia about what Gingrich the fucking idiot wannabe says, as if its important. Anyone having good dayzzz in Amerika is evil, a Nazi.

  20. The personal attacks, from fascist authoritarians indefinitely detaining, bombing, torturing and murdering peaceful people no less, would be amusing if it wasn’t for the simple fact that I am only giving you anarcho-capitalism 101. There are many millions of us, all over the world. We think you people are crazy. You are the ones making up all these absurd rules you can’t enforce, working to pay tyrants to imprison peaceful people and spending your money bombing poor people all over the world. When I go to an insane asylum like this blog, I’m not concerned with whether the lunatics think I am crazy. Fuck the US empire. Fuck you. Fuck your rules.

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