theamericanconservative--2020-05-27--WaPo’s Dirt on Trump’s ‘Rapid’ Nuclear Testing is a Real Dud

The Washington Post recently published an article which quotes an unnamed “ senior administration official ” and two unnamed “ former officials familiar with the deliberations ” as saying that during the course of a “ meeting of senior officials representing the top national security agencies ” on May 15 , a discussion was had about the possibility of the United States conducting a “ rapid test ” of a nuclear weapon .
Furthermore , this testing was proposed as a means of compelling Russia and China to enter into trilateral arms reductions talks designed to find a replacement for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which expires in February 2021 .
The Post report set off an explosion of condemnation across the width and breadth of the nuclear nonproliferation world , with experts universally condemning any resumption of nuclear explosive testing .
“ It would be an invitation for other nuclear-armed countries to follow suit , ” Daryl Kimball , the Director of the Arms Control Association , tweeted , “ the starting gun to an unprecedented arms race.
” Kimball argues that the Trump administration is incorrect in believing nuclear threats , including demonstration nuclear tests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ History shows they are wrong , ” Kimball noted .
The Trump administration has accused both Russia and China of violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by conducting low-yield nuclear explosive tests , allegations both nations deny , and for which the United States has failed to provide any evidence in support .
“ Sadly ( but not surprisingly ) , ” Kimball observes , “ Trump ’ s gaggle of advisors only seem to be interested in making allegations rather than pursuing effective solutions to ensure compliance with the global taboo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ] , a treaty they neglect to support.
” The United States has not conducted a nuclear explosive test since 1992 , when the administration of President Bill Clinton initiated a voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests in an effort to help pave the way toward the passage of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that would ban all such tests .
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty grew out of the ever-present dangers posed by the existence of nuclear weapons during the Cold War—their testing poisoned the earth and its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nuclear weapons .
Efforts to prevent the former , in the form of the Limited Test Ban Treaty , banning atmospheric testing , and the Threshold Test Ban Treaty , limiting the size of nuclear tests to 150 kilotons ( approximately ten times the size of the explosions that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 2 ) , were both signed by presidents and ratified by the U.S. Senate .
A treaty intended to end all nuclear testing—the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty—was signed by President Clinton but failed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ successive administrations since then have sought to keep open the possibility of resumed nuclear testing while continuing to abide by a moratorium on nuclear testing which has been in place since 1992 .
The dual nature of this policy is perhaps best captured in a letter to Senator Pete Dominici , dated June 25 , 2007 , from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice , noting that the policies being pursued by the administration of President George W. Bush made it “ more likely that the United States would be able to continue its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not , however , provide guarantees regarding the voluntary moratorium .
We may find at some future time that we can not diagnose or remedy a problem in a warhead critical to the U.S. nuclear deterrent without conducting a nuclear test.
” This policy was furthered by President Barack Obama .
While failing to advance the issue of Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty , the Obama administration supported policies that modernized the U.S. nuclear arsenal and “ develop a responsive nuclear infrastructure to support further reductions in the number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done “ without introducing new nuclear weapons for new missions into the U.S. arsenal ” and “ without relying on nuclear explosive testing for stockpile maintenance.
” The Obama administration ’ s position was born out of a general agreement within the National Nuclear Security Administration ( NNSA ) , that the national weapons laboratories responsible for nuclear weapons design , manufacture and maintenance have more knowledge about U.S. nuclear weapons and how they operate today than they did during the era of active nuclear testing , and that there was no need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. stockpile .
This does not mean that there is universal acceptance of a policy of no testing , or that such a policy is good for the security of the United States .
One of the most vociferous proponents of a return to nuclear testing is retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert M. Monroe .
Trained as a surface warfare officer , Admiral Monroe went on to serve as the Director of the Defense Nuclear Agency .
In this role he led the charge against President Jimmy Carter ’ s efforts to move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during his administration .
After retiring , Admiral Moore joined Bechtel , where he worked issues pertaining to “ Cooperative Threat Reduction ” in the former Soviet Union , as well as Department of Energy nonproliferation programs , including those relating to nuclear explosive testing .
From Admiral Moore ’ s perspective , “ [ t ] he nuclear weapons business is based upon the world of science , which depends upon on the scientific method , which centers on testing .
As a substitute for testing , we ’ ve attempted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ detonation .
It is highly unwise to stake America ’ s continued existence on this.
” As Moore points out , “ [ a ] nuclear weapon is made up of about 6,000 parts , and most of them change with age .
Nuclear weapons design is both an art and a science , and the intuition of experienced designers plays a big role .
Computers don ’ t understand this…the slightest change—in any direction—may cause total failure to detonate ” , something nuclear weapons designers call “ falling off the cliff.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the testing era , key design changes made at the last minute were often not recorded , nor were the drawings updated , because of the Cold War ’ s pressure of time .
Thus , today ’ s computer codes , built on old test data , may be fatally incorrect.
” Moore , and other experts like him , advocate for the resumption of underground nuclear testing “ without question.
” What Admiral Moore ’ s comments illustrate is that the issue of securing America ’ s nuclear stockpile without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as many assume , a closed issue .
John C. Hopkins , the former head of the Los Alamos Nuclear Test division , has publicly expressed his own concerns “ at the steady degradation of U.S. nuclear test readiness—that is , the capability of the United States to test its nuclear weapons should the need to do so arise , ” noting that a review “ of assessments made by the Department of Energy ( DOE ) of U.S. nuclear test readiness leads me to question whether the DOE has , after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the testing business , any realistic appreciation for what nuclear testing involves or how to stay prepared to do it again within 24–36 months , as legally required by Presidential Decision Directive 15 ( 1993 ) .
” It is in this last context that The Washington Post story must be fully assessed .
Even if one accepts at face value the article ’ s contention that the idea of a “ rapid test ” was proposed in the context of exerting pressure on both the Russians and Chinese to enter into strategic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embrace the result—the proposal was rejected in favor of other , unspecified policy options .
That the topic of a “ rapid test ” was raised in a national security meeting designed to elicit policy options is not , in and of itself , unusual .
Every administration since Bill Clinton has had to wrestle with the question of how to secure an aging nuclear stockpile without the benefit of testing .
The fact that every administration has , to date , decided that the best course of action was to adhere to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to instead rely upon advanced computer simulations to produce the necessary calculations does not mean that expert opinion does not exist to the contrary .
Moreover , The Post fails to dig deeper into what exactly a “ rapid test ” would constitute .
Since the time of the Clinton administration , the United States has spent millions of dollars every year maintaining nuclear testing capability so that testing could resume within 24-36 months after a decision had been made to do so .
This timeframe , which is a limiting feature that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision , does not lend itself to pressuring Russia and China to negotiate , even if they were prone to such pressure ; it is nonsensical to believe that a nuclear explosive test carried out in 2022 or 2023 could somehow convince either Russia or China to enter negotiations on a treaty which expires in February 2021 .
This fact seems to have escaped the paper ’ s reporters and their editors , who seem more inclined to publish unsustainable rumor as fact , and breathe relevance into words which , simply put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump administration had , in fact , decided to resume nuclear explosive testing , then there would be cause for concern and debate where viewpoints such as those expressed by Moore and Hopkins could—and would—be challenged publicly .
I personally am vehemently opposed to any resumption of nuclear weapons testing , and would be among those leading the charge against any such policy .
But this isn ’ t what happened , and for the Washington Post to trigger a politicized debate over a non-existent policy problem is the ultimate definition of irresponsible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties , in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm , and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD .
He is the author of several books , including his forthcoming , Scorpion King : America ’ s Embrace of Nuclear Weapons From FDR to Trump ( 2020 ) .

The Washington Post recently published an article which quotes an unnamed “senior administration official” and two unnamed “former officials familiar with the deliberations” as saying that during the course of a “meeting of senior officials representing the top national security agencies” on May 15, a discussion was had about the possibility of the United States conducting a “rapid test” of a nuclear weapon.
Furthermore, this testing was proposed as a means of compelling Russia and China to enter into trilateral arms reductions talks designed to find a replacement for the bilateral U.S.-Russian New START Treaty, which expires in February 2021.
The Post report set off an explosion of condemnation across the width and breadth of the nuclear nonproliferation world, with experts universally condemning any resumption of nuclear explosive testing.
“It would be an invitation for other nuclear-armed countries to follow suit,” Daryl Kimball, the Director of the Arms Control Association, tweeted, “the starting gun to an unprecedented arms race.” Kimball argues that the Trump administration is incorrect in believing nuclear threats, including demonstration nuclear tests, can be successful in coercing adversaries. “History shows they are wrong,” Kimball noted.
The Trump administration has accused both Russia and China of violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by conducting low-yield nuclear explosive tests, allegations both nations deny, and for which the United States has failed to provide any evidence in support. “Sadly (but not surprisingly),” Kimball observes, “Trump’s gaggle of advisors only seem to be interested in making allegations rather than pursuing effective solutions to ensure compliance with the global taboo against nuclear testing established by the [Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty], a treaty they neglect to support.”
The United States has not conducted a nuclear explosive test since 1992, when the administration of President Bill Clinton initiated a voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests in an effort to help pave the way toward the passage of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that would ban all such tests. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty grew out of the ever-present dangers posed by the existence of nuclear weapons during the Cold War—their testing poisoned the earth and its atmosphere, while abetting the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Efforts to prevent the former, in the form of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, banning atmospheric testing, and the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, limiting the size of nuclear tests to 150 kilotons (approximately ten times the size of the explosions that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 2), were both signed by presidents and ratified by the U.S. Senate. A treaty intended to end all nuclear testing—the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty—was signed by President Clinton but failed to receive Senate ratification.
The policies of successive administrations since then have sought to keep open the possibility of resumed nuclear testing while continuing to abide by a moratorium on nuclear testing which has been in place since 1992. The dual nature of this policy is perhaps best captured in a letter to Senator Pete Dominici, dated June 25, 2007, from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, noting that the policies being pursued by the administration of President George W. Bush made it “more likely that the United States would be able to continue its voluntary nuclear testing moratorium. We cannot, however, provide guarantees regarding the voluntary moratorium. We may find at some future time that we cannot diagnose or remedy a problem in a warhead critical to the U.S. nuclear deterrent without conducting a nuclear test.”
This policy was furthered by President Barack Obama. While failing to advance the issue of Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Obama administration supported policies that modernized the U.S. nuclear arsenal and “develop a responsive nuclear infrastructure to support further reductions in the number of deployed and non-deployed weapons.” This was done “without introducing new nuclear weapons for new missions into the U.S. arsenal” and “without relying on nuclear explosive testing for stockpile maintenance.”
The Obama administration’s position was born out of a general agreement within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), that the national weapons laboratories responsible for nuclear weapons design, manufacture and maintenance have more knowledge about U.S. nuclear weapons and how they operate today than they did during the era of active nuclear testing, and that there was no need to resume explosive testing to maintain the U.S. stockpile.
This does not mean that there is universal acceptance of a policy of no testing, or that such a policy is good for the security of the United States. One of the most vociferous proponents of a return to nuclear testing is retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert M. Monroe. Trained as a surface warfare officer, Admiral Monroe went on to serve as the Director of the Defense Nuclear Agency. In this role he led the charge against President Jimmy Carter’s efforts to move forward with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty during his administration. After retiring, Admiral Moore joined Bechtel, where he worked issues pertaining to “Cooperative Threat Reduction” in the former Soviet Union, as well as Department of Energy nonproliferation programs, including those relating to nuclear explosive testing.
From Admiral Moore’s perspective, “[t]he nuclear weapons business is based upon the world of science, which depends upon on the scientific method, which centers on testing. As a substitute for testing, we’ve attempted to create computer codes which simulate a nuclear detonation. It is highly unwise to stake America’s continued existence on this.”
As Moore points out, “[a] nuclear weapon is made up of about 6,000 parts, and most of them change with age. Nuclear weapons design is both an art and a science, and the intuition of experienced designers plays a big role. Computers don’t understand this…the slightest change—in any direction—may cause total failure to detonate”, something nuclear weapons designers call “falling off the cliff.” Moreover, according to Moore, “during the testing era, key design changes made at the last minute were often not recorded, nor were the drawings updated, because of the Cold War’s pressure of time. Thus, today’s computer codes, built on old test data, may be fatally incorrect.” Moore, and other experts like him, advocate for the resumption of underground nuclear testing “without question.”
What Admiral Moore’s comments illustrate is that the issue of securing America’s nuclear stockpile without resorting to nuclear explosive testing is not, as many assume, a closed issue. John C. Hopkins, the former head of the Los Alamos Nuclear Test division, has publicly expressed his own concerns “at the steady degradation of U.S. nuclear test readiness—that is, the capability of the United States to test its nuclear weapons should the need to do so arise,” noting that a review “of assessments made by the Department of Energy (DOE) of U.S. nuclear test readiness leads me to question whether the DOE has, after almost 25 years of being out of the testing business, any realistic appreciation for what nuclear testing involves or how to stay prepared to do it again within 24–36 months, as legally required by Presidential Decision Directive 15 (1993).”
It is in this last context that The Washington Post story must be fully assessed. Even if one accepts at face value the article’s contention that the idea of a “rapid test” was proposed in the context of exerting pressure on both the Russians and Chinese to enter into strategic arms reduction negotiations, one must also embrace the result—the proposal was rejected in favor of other, unspecified policy options. That the topic of a “rapid test” was raised in a national security meeting designed to elicit policy options is not, in and of itself, unusual. Every administration since Bill Clinton has had to wrestle with the question of how to secure an aging nuclear stockpile without the benefit of testing. The fact that every administration has, to date, decided that the best course of action was to adhere to a ban on nuclear explosive testing and to instead rely upon advanced computer simulations to produce the necessary calculations does not mean that expert opinion does not exist to the contrary.
Moreover, The Post fails to dig deeper into what exactly a “rapid test” would constitute. Since the time of the Clinton administration, the United States has spent millions of dollars every year maintaining nuclear testing capability so that testing could resume within 24-36 months after a decision had been made to do so. This timeframe, which is a limiting feature that cannot be altered by any policy decision, does not lend itself to pressuring Russia and China to negotiate, even if they were prone to such pressure; it is nonsensical to believe that a nuclear explosive test carried out in 2022 or 2023 could somehow convince either Russia or China to enter negotiations on a treaty which expires in February 2021.
This fact seems to have escaped the paper’s reporters and their editors, who seem more inclined to publish unsustainable rumor as fact, and breathe relevance into words which, simply put, could not exist. If the Trump administration had, in fact, decided to resume nuclear explosive testing, then there would be cause for concern and debate where viewpoints such as those expressed by Moore and Hopkins could—and would—be challenged publicly. I personally am vehemently opposed to any resumption of nuclear weapons testing, and would be among those leading the charge against any such policy. But this isn’t what happened, and for the Washington Post to trigger a politicized debate over a non-existent policy problem is the ultimate definition of irresponsible journalism.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books, including his forthcoming, Scorpion King: America’s Embrace of Nuclear Weapons From FDR to Trump (2020).


theamericanconservative--2020-05-29--The Right Now Interview: Jeff Sessions on his Florida Man Opponent and the Free-Trade ‘Religion’

The following is an edited excerpt from former Senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions ’ interview on TAC ’ s Right Now podcast this week , about his campaign to return to his old senate seat in Alabama .
To hear the full interview with Sessions , followed by a conversation with Ann Coulter , hit play on the widget below , or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes , Stitcher , Spotify , or Google Play .
TAC : Your opponent , Tommy Tuberville has so far refused to debate you , why ?
Sessions : Well , Tommy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any fixed values .
He ’ s asking us to send him to Washington to advocate for Alabama values but he ’ s not really an Alabamian , number one .
But number two , he has very little history to suggest that he ’ s not going to be blown about by every wind of doctrine .
In the first 65 years of his life he ’ s never even declared himself a conservative , never given a single contribution to a single political candidate , claims he ’ s a strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind word about him , never endorsed him , and never gave a dime to the Trump campaign .
That ’ s the kind of thing I think is worrisome , he needs to stand up before the people of Alabama to reveal what he truly believes , and if you don ’ t have deep views , when you get to Washington , you get blown about , there ’ s no doubt about it .
And we do not need , being a red state , to send a potted plant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ willing to fight for the classical American values Alabamians hold dear .
TAC : There ’ s a lot of criticism over Tuberville ’ s staffers that have come from either Mark Zuckerberg ’ s group , or the Jeb Bush campaign , and it seems like Tommy Tuberville , or his associates anyway , come from the corporatist class of the GOP .
Should that be worrisome ?
Sessions : It absolutely should be , he said a number of things that I think are very revealing of where he comes from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a hundred thousand people at the border — that was the number at the time , and they just want jobs , we want them to have jobs , we just want to know who they are .
That ’ s not the right values for Alabama , we need a lawful system of immigration .
People don ’ t need to come illegally .
He said in December we need 400,000 people from India because they ’ ve got skills , we need to bring them into the United States .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ mentality , it just is .
He says , on trade , he ’ s not just a free-trader , but a 100-percent free-trader , and he flatly opposes tariffs , and he opposed President Trump ’ s standing up to China , and using tariffs against them .
He said , I don ’ t agree with Trump ’ s position on China .
Also he said his business buddies tell him this , and his business buddies tell him that , well maybe the skybox buyers at the football games think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not what we need for America .
So I agree that there are strong indications that he does not understand the real issues facing America today .
TAC : If you do succeed in regaining your old seat , do you think your conflict with the president will harm or inhibit your ability to work with him in Washington ?
Sessions : Look , I intend to be supportive of almost every issue he ’ s promoting .
I was supporting them before he ran .
that ’ s why I endorsed him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well on those agenda items .
I got ta say , we ’ ve got great judges , on regulations , on taxes , we ’ ve stood up and redone NAFTA , challenging China now with tariffs and fighting back against their abuses and misbehavior , so I think I ’ ll be able to be a good and effective advocate for him .
What you really need , sometimes , in Washington , is strong voices out there .
TAC : Looking forward , if you do go back to Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and what do you think America in 2021 should really focus on ?
Sessions : Well , I have come to understand that the neocon foreign policy , the libertarian free market ideology , beyond common sense , was not healthy , and resulting in damage to families and to American citizens .
It ’ s our duty as public officials to protect American citizens from damage from unfair foreign competition and other tactics .
That ’ s a big deal .
I think our Republican agenda has got to be more focused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unfair attacks on our businesses , closing our factories , losing our jobs , transporting our jobs .
I ’ ll be an advocate for that .
We have a nation , and the government ’ s job is to protect the nation .
President Trump said it simply : Other nations protect their interests , why aren ’ t we protecting ours ?
We don ’ t ever use a tariff ?
When people cheat you every day , how do you fight back , are you going to drop bombs on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use tariffs , which Alexander Hamilton and George Washington did at the very beginning of the republic , that ’ s a perfectly normal response to an adverse attack on your people .
So those are the kind of things that I feel strongly about .
I believe in markets , competition , and international trade , but we can no longer sit quietly while are savaged by very clever , devious mercantilists who want to advance their interests and weaken the United States , while we sit there , based on some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impose a tariff .
Give me a break !
Also , we need to reestablish a foreign policy for this time in our country ’ s history , and it has to be really bipartisan .
You remember the Kennan Long Telegram that laid the foundation for the containment policy against the Soviet Union .
It lasted for 40 years with basic bipartisan support .
That ’ s the kind of thing we need to be rethinking today .
We can not continue , as the president has warned us , getting involved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , thinking that we can just remake humanity .
That ’ s not conservatism .
Conservatism , as Bob Tyrell said , is a cast of mind , it ’ s a thought process , about , ‘ wait , is this realistic ?
You sure this theory is going to work ?
Are you trying to put a square peg in a round hole ?
It ’ s just not going there .
Aren ’ t you getting feedback from reality , don ’ t you adjust to it ?
’ Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people happy , prosperous , and stable .
Family , traditions , culture , those kinds of things have got to be defended .
And this ideological view that we ’ re not a nation , we ’ re an idea , somehow our constitution is supposed to apply worldwide , is ridiculous .
We have borders , and we have a right to defend those borders , to establish good , healthy conditions within our country .
Not just for the billionaires , wages need to go up for working people .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for average Americans did not increase .
GDP was going up , that seemed to be all the economists cared about , CEOs were making more and more money , but the wages for the core American people were not going up .
They have , under President Trump , some , and we need to focus on that .
TAC : In both military and economic terms , how should we begin confronting China ?
For starters , we need to take off the rose-colored glasses .
This is a communist regime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t so , people hoped they would moderate when they got wealthier , but actually the opposite is occurring .
Xi Jinping is using technology to repress his people even more ruthlessly .
And they are not free market people .
They are not free market people , they ’ re communists !
They are using our free-market theories — religion — against us , to destroy us , to gain market share , and they ’ ve been highly successful .
President Trump and I talked about it on the airplane a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and he understands one thing : China needs our markets more than we need their products .
We can make those products in the United States , we can make our drugs here , we can buy them from Mexico , our neighbors like that , we can buy them from the Philippines , South Korea , Japan , India , Vietnam , places that aren ’ t threats to us strategically , and who will deal honestly with us .
So we absolutely need to alter that supply chain system that has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other nations of the world , and we can do that in a way that does not harm our economy significantly .
Listen to the rest of the interview here .

The following is an edited excerpt from former Senator and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ interview on TAC’s Right Now podcast this week, about his campaign to return to his old senate seat in Alabama. To hear the full interview with Sessions, followed by a conversation with Ann Coulter, hit play on the widget below, or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or Google Play.
TAC: Your opponent, Tommy Tuberville has so far refused to debate you, why?
Sessions: Well, Tommy Tuberville doesn’t seem to have any fixed values. He’s asking us to send him to Washington to advocate for Alabama values but he’s not really an Alabamian, number one. But number two, he has very little history to suggest that he’s not going to be blown about by every wind of doctrine. In the first 65 years of his life he’s never even declared himself a conservative, never given a single contribution to a single political candidate, claims he’s a strong Trump supporter, but never said a kind word about him, never endorsed him, and never gave a dime to the Trump campaign. That’s the kind of thing I think is worrisome, he needs to stand up before the people of Alabama to reveal what he truly believes, and if you don’t have deep views, when you get to Washington, you get blown about, there’s no doubt about it. And we do not need, being a red state, to send a potted plant to Washington, who isn’t willing to fight for the classical American values Alabamians hold dear.
TAC: There’s a lot of criticism over Tuberville’s staffers that have come from either Mark Zuckerberg’s group, or the Jeb Bush campaign, and it seems like Tommy Tuberville, or his associates anyway, come from the corporatist class of the GOP. Should that be worrisome?
Sessions: It absolutely should be, he said a number of things that I think are very revealing of where he comes from. He said, well, to have a hundred thousand people at the border — that was the number at the time, and they just want jobs, we want them to have jobs, we just want to know who they are. That’s not the right values for Alabama, we need a lawful system of immigration. People don’t need to come illegally. He said in December we need 400,000 people from India because they’ve got skills, we need to bring them into the United States. So this is the corporate, Zuckerberg mentality, it just is. He says, on trade, he’s not just a free-trader, but a 100-percent free-trader, and he flatly opposes tariffs, and he opposed President Trump’s standing up to China, and using tariffs against them. He said, I don’t agree with Trump’s position on China. Also he said his business buddies tell him this, and his business buddies tell him that, well maybe the skybox buyers at the football games think that way, but that’s not what we need for America. So I agree that there are strong indications that he does not understand the real issues facing America today.
TAC: If you do succeed in regaining your old seat, do you think your conflict with the president will harm or inhibit your ability to work with him in Washington?
Sessions: Look, I intend to be supportive of almost every issue he’s promoting. I was supporting them before he ran. that’s why I endorsed him, and he has delivered pretty darn well on those agenda items. I gotta say, we’ve got great judges, on regulations, on taxes, we’ve stood up and redone NAFTA, challenging China now with tariffs and fighting back against their abuses and misbehavior, so I think I’ll be able to be a good and effective advocate for him. What you really need, sometimes, in Washington, is strong voices out there.
TAC: Looking forward, if you do go back to Washington, what issues would you champion, and what do you think America in 2021 should really focus on?
Sessions: Well, I have come to understand that the neocon foreign policy, the libertarian free market ideology, beyond common sense, was not healthy, and resulting in damage to families and to American citizens. It’s our duty as public officials to protect American citizens from damage from unfair foreign competition and other tactics. That’s a big deal. I think our Republican agenda has got to be more focused on helping American people fight back against unfair attacks on our businesses, closing our factories, losing our jobs, transporting our jobs. I’ll be an advocate for that.
We have a nation, and the government’s job is to protect the nation. President Trump said it simply: Other nations protect their interests, why aren’t we protecting ours? We don’t ever use a tariff? When people cheat you every day, how do you fight back, are you going to drop bombs on them? Why don’t you use tariffs, which Alexander Hamilton and George Washington did at the very beginning of the republic, that’s a perfectly normal response to an adverse attack on your people. So those are the kind of things that I feel strongly about. I believe in markets, competition, and international trade, but we can no longer sit quietly while are savaged by very clever, devious mercantilists who want to advance their interests and weaken the United States, while we sit there, based on some theory, that we can’t impose a tariff. Give me a break!
Also, we need to reestablish a foreign policy for this time in our country’s history, and it has to be really bipartisan. You remember the Kennan Long Telegram that laid the foundation for the containment policy against the Soviet Union. It lasted for 40 years with basic bipartisan support. That’s the kind of thing we need to be rethinking today. We cannot continue, as the president has warned us, getting involved in endless wars all over the globe, thinking that we can just remake humanity. That’s not conservatism. Conservatism, as Bob Tyrell said, is a cast of mind, it’s a thought process, about, ‘wait, is this realistic? You sure this theory is going to work? Are you trying to put a square peg in a round hole? It’s just not going there. Aren’t you getting feedback from reality, don’t you adjust to it?’ Our fundamental goals are to make the American people happy, prosperous, and stable. Family, traditions, culture, those kinds of things have got to be defended. And this ideological view that we’re not a nation, we’re an idea, somehow our constitution is supposed to apply worldwide, is ridiculous.
We have borders, and we have a right to defend those borders, to establish good, healthy conditions within our country. Not just for the billionaires, wages need to go up for working people. For example, for 20 years wages for average Americans did not increase. GDP was going up, that seemed to be all the economists cared about, CEOs were making more and more money, but the wages for the core American people were not going up. They have, under President Trump, some, and we need to focus on that.
TAC: In both military and economic terms, how should we begin confronting China?
For starters, we need to take off the rose-colored glasses. This is a communist regime. We can wish it weren’t so, people hoped they would moderate when they got wealthier, but actually the opposite is occurring. Xi Jinping is using technology to repress his people even more ruthlessly. And they are not free market people. They are not free market people, they’re communists! They are using our free-market theories — religion — against us, to destroy us, to gain market share, and they’ve been highly successful. President Trump and I talked about it on the airplane a number of times during the campaign, and he understands one thing: China needs our markets more than we need their products. We can make those products in the United States, we can make our drugs here, we can buy them from Mexico, our neighbors like that, we can buy them from the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, India, Vietnam, places that aren’t threats to us strategically, and who will deal honestly with us. So we absolutely need to alter that supply chain system that has given China an advantage over all the other nations of the world, and we can do that in a way that does not harm our economy significantly.
Listen to the rest of the interview here.
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theamericanconservative--2020-05-29--Nevertheless, Pro-Life Democrat Ellen McCormack Persisted

This is the story of a middle class Catholic grandmother who took on the feminists and ran for president in 1976 .
Ellen McCormack , candidate for the Democratic Party ( Photo By : Paul DeMaria/NY Daily News via Getty Images ) “ The infant would be delivered .
The infant would be kept comfortable , ” said Virginia Governor Ralph Northam , explaining to a radio audience how a Democratic-proposed bill in the state legislature would handle an unsuccessful late-term abortion .
“ The infant would be resuscitated if that ’ s what the mother and the family desired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between the physicians and the mother.
” The discussion would be whether or not the unwanted newborn would be allowed to live .
The Virginia proposal to eliminate restrictions on late-term abortions was tabled due to Republican opposition , but a similar measure had already passed in New York .
The governor ’ s blasé description of infanticide was a shock to the conscience of many .
The abortion debate had officially reached its biological limit : post-birth .
The Democratic Party wasn ’ t always on this path .
When the Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many Democrats believed Roe v. Wade was the wrong decision .
The list included the “ Lion of the Senate ” Edward Kennedy , the good Reverend Jesse Jackson , and even the Democratic Party ’ s presumptive 2020 presidential nominee , Joe Biden .
As these men began to abandon the pro-life cause , one group of women organized a last-ditch protest against their party ’ s embrace of abortion .
This band of housewives and homemakers , organized around the 1976 presidential campaign of Ellen McCormack , would introduce the pro-life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the party realignment on social issues Americans see today .
Their story begins in the late 1960s , following the Vatican II reforms , when the Catholic Church began developing local community organizations to engage more with parishioners .
In Merrick , Long Island , a dialogue group was formed under the eye of Father Paul Driscoll .
“ Basically it was just a bunch of friends , and a lot of them just went because it was a chance to have adult conversation , because a lot of them…had four plus children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all women who were going to the dialogue group , ” explained Stacie Taranto , associate professor of history at Ramapo College and author of Kitchen-Table Politics : Conservative Women and Family Values in New York .
“ A lot of them said , other than paying attention to [ John ] Kennedy because he was a ‘ handsome Catholic man ’ —that ’ s how a lot of them described him—they ’ re not paying attention to political issues , ” Taranto told The American Conservative .
“ They are raised to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and this isn ’ t something that concerns them.
” Ellen McCormack was a founding member of the dialogue group , and it was here that she and her friends became aware of the movement to legalize abortion .
“ I went to some meetings and saw some slides , ” she recalled to TheNew York Times .
“ I couldn ’ t believe what was happening .
Some people called it a ‘ fetus.
’ I was convinced it was a human life being taken .
It was a baby .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The catalyst for action came in the spring of 1970 , when their home state , helmed for over a decade by Republican Nelson Rockefeller , passed the most open-ended abortion law in the nation .
Rising to the challenge , this group of mothers and housewives formed the New York Right to Life Party to advance a cause neither side was articulating .
“ This is an issue they feel very energized by because they don ’ t even see it as a political issue .
They see it as an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ morality , ” Taranto said .
“ It ’ s something that they ’ ll get off the sidelines for .
Whereas they don ’ t have a history of organizing.
” From 1970 to 1975 , now meeting at each other ’ s homes instead of the church , the women nominated candidates for local and state elections to run single-issue pro-life campaigns .
Their hope was to fashion together a strong showing at the polls that they could then use to influence legislators .
“ It was really fluid which legislators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to vote against legal abortion .
That was sort of the idea , ” explained Taranto .
“ They didn ’ t feel hopeless if they were in a Republican or Democratic district because they were just trying to show legislators that there was an important swing vote.
” It is important to remember that at the start of the 1970s , it was the Republican Party that had been leading the movement for abortion access .
Their notorieties included Rockefeller , icon of the Eastern establishment and the bête noire of McCormack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ godfather of the conservative movement Barry Goldwater ; and even Ronald Reagan , who as California ’ s governor in 1967 signed a measure to liberalize abortion laws .
This was contrary to the historic Democratic Party of Catholic urban voters that Ellen McCormack and her friends descended from .
“ In the city , families … would hang FDR ’ s picture next to the pope , at a time when the New Deal anti-poverty measures lined perfectly with the Catholic Church ’ s anti-poverty measures , ” Taranto said .
Ellen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Great Depression .
She married her husband Jack in 1949 and using a subsidized loan they moved to the suburbs of Long Island , becoming first-generation homeowners and part of the post-World War II middle class .
Ellen never attended college or worked a salaried job .
But by 1976 , at the age of 49 , she was the mother of four children , a grandmother of two , and she wore the description of housewife with maternal pride .
Her story was representative of so many other northern Catholic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her presidential run .
In 1975 , the women of the New York Right to Life Party came to the decision to run one of their own for president , not for any conceivable chance of winning , but to make abortion a defining issue of the campaign and to advocate for a Right to Life amendment to the U.S. Constitution .
It was decided that Ellen McCormack would carry the banner .
Despite never holding elected office—not even on the school board—McCormack had gained a following in pro-life circles for a weekly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Titled , “ Who Speaks for the Unborn Child , ” it was circulated in 40 , mostly Catholic , newspapers .
Instead of acting under their third-party organization , it was decided that McCormack would run in the Democratic primaries .
It was the party that the women had always inherently identified with , and it was the party they increasingly saw being taken away from them .
The McGovern-Fraser Commission , created in 1969 , had heavily reformed the primary process .
The power of the urban machines and political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proportional delegate allocation and mass democratic participation .
The Democratic Party created a space for women ’ s voices , and at the turn of the decade the only organized women were feminist groups .
The face of women in the Democratic Party was quickly becoming Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan , not the Catholic homemaker it once was .
“ The feminists have convinced the politicians they represent all women , ” McCormack complained at the time .
“ But I am a woman too .
I differ with some of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the poor , but I don ’ t favor childcare for the middle class .
I think we are teaching mothers it is more prestigious to work than be home with their children.
” “ I believe there is no human being too small or too young , or , for that matter , too old or too handicapped or too dependent or too anything else not to count .
Our society can—and with our help it will—respect the dignity of every human life , ” she said .
McCormack filed her paperwork @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 1975 and made her public announcement in November at the Parker House Hotel in Boston , Massachusetts .
This began an uphill struggle for both attention and respect from the media and party functionaries who were not inclined to give her a fair hearing .
“ While there was tremendous energy on the pro-life side in 1976 , recall the conventional wisdom in the press and among the college and university elite was that the abortion issue was settled , ” said David O ’ Steen , who has been the executive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Committee since 1984 .
Despite being a national presidential campaign based out of New York City , The New York Times would write less than two dozen articles about McCormack , and in October 1975 , Morton Dean informed Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News that there were no women running for president in 1976 .
It took two months for the network to issue a correction .
To the consternation of the political establishment , however , the campaign finance laws at the time were advantageously designed for someone like McCormack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Following Watergate in 1974 , Congress passed amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act , which created the Federal Election Commission and introduced matching funds to federal politics .
Under this system , the federal government would match the fundraising of individuals for presidential campaigns that met a certain threshold .
To understand these arcane and intricate federal election laws , the women were helped by Gene McMahon , a local Long Island attorney who had been assisting the New York Right to Life Party since its founding .
With McMahon ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to establish their own political action committee and set appropriate fundraising targets .
It was required that McCormack raise at least $ 5,000 in individual contributions under $ 250 from at least 20 different states .
Tiling among the grassroots , while their candidate participated in speaking engagements to small groups throughout the Northeast , these dedicated wives and mothers began constructing a presidential campaign from their dining room tables .
“ They ’ re literally taking out rolodexes , their Christmas card lists .
‘ Oh I have a relative in California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the ballot there !
’ That ’ s how it ’ s organized , ” said Taranto .
“ It ’ s sort of amazing to see and to hear how it was interwoven in their everyday domestic and maternal lives .
But they saw this as sort of an extension of mothering.
” By February 1976 , Ellen McCormack became the first woman in U.S. history to qualify for federal matching funds or to receive round-the-clock Secret Service protection .
The campaign already knew what they would spend the money on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most advanced way to beam the abortion debate directly into people ’ s homes at a time when major networks like ABC , CBS , and NBC—who collectively accounted for 90 % of television viewers—were too tepid to draw the controversy .
But under the Federal Communication Commission ’ s equal time law , a network was obligated to give political candidates equal opportunity to air advertisements for their campaign , no matter the content .
“ Did you know that the heart of an unborn baby begins to be formed at three @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also that a million babies have their hearts stopped each year in a very painful way , by abortion ?
” narrated McCormack ’ s voice , over the image of a developing fetus , the sound of its heart beating , and then flatlining , in the background .
The candidate herself then appeared , holding a cooing infant in her arms .
“ I ’ m Ellen McCormack , a Democratic candidate for president .
Help me to keep these hearts beating .
Together we can help both the mother and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McCormack appeared beside Dr. Mildred Jefferson .
A surgeon by training , Dr. Jefferson was the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School .
She left her practice to serve as the president of the National Right to Life Committee from 1975 to 1978 and was an early endorser of McCormack ’ s campaign .
Dr. Jefferson expressed to the television audience that “ We must find candidates of vision and imagination who will know that we must find better means of solving the social problems than getting rid of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an abortion procedure , Dr. Jefferson did not mince words .
Showing pictures of a fetus at 11 and 24 weeks after conception , she said , “ Tragically , many babies like these lose their lives in a very painful way , through abortion .
In one kind of abortion , the child is literally pulled apart .
In another kind , salt solution sends the baby into convulsions .
Together we can stop abortion.
” As David O ’ Steen told TAC , “ You can not accurately and clearly describe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being strong language.
” At least 40 million Americans viewed Ellen McCormack ’ s campaign advertisements .
Their graphic nature incensed abortion activists , angry both that a pro-life campaign sought to repeal their political victories , and that the campaign was being partially funded by the federal government .
The National Organization for Women and the National Abortion Rights Action League sued McCormack ’ s campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to get the money returned .
“ Her candidacy points up the weakness of the law , ” said Congressman Charles Wiggins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already an opponent of the matching-fund statute , claiming that it only empowered “ spurious , one-issue candidates ” like McCormack .
Responding to the outrage , Congress reformed the law that spring and raised the qualification bar .
McCormack lost matching funds in May , after receiving a total of $ 244,000 from the federal government , duplicating dollar for dollar what she was given by supporters .
“ The professional politicians are making a great many mistakes , ” McCormack told Newsweek after the law changed .
“ I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because I haven ’ t been making those mistakes for the past twenty years.
” Throughout the primary , McCormack fought against the stigma that comes with single-issue campaigns .
“ I am a serious candidate , ” she said .
“ I stand for the rights of the unborn .
I don ’ t see why that one issue can be overlooked.
” While the pro-life cause was her motivation and dominant focus , McCormack did express opinions on other matters .
These included the death penalty ( “ It is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us abortion ” ) , busing ( “ While I favor [ racial ] integration , I do not approve of court-ordered forced busing ” ) , energy policy ( “ At the present time I believe that nuclear energy will provide the necessary needs of our country for centuries to come ” ) , and even foreign policy ( “ We have failed to use our resources for peace , but rather have let [ Henry ] Kissinger bargain them away , with no peace , no concessions , in return ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government and running against the consensus on abortion held by American elites , Ellen McCormack ’ s campaign struck a resolutely populist note .
“ Every American has the right to become involved in politics , ” she said .
“ The professional politician is out of touch with the issues that affect and concern the people.
” “ Politics is too important to be left to the politicians , ” she exhorted , mentioning elsewhere that “ people , not judges ” should be “ making the basic value judgements about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ found an audience .
McCormack ’ s kitchen-table campaign had worked to get her name on the ballot in 22 states , the most of any female candidate up to that time .
Her best performances were garnering 9.4 % of the vote in Vermont , 7.8 % in South Dakota , and 6 % in New Jersey .
By the end of the primary , she had earned over 267,000 votes , with 22 delegates to the national convention from five states .
McCormack outperformed three U.S. senators and two governors in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She was a candidate who had no national name recognition , no political experience , no business experience , no military experience .
So for someone whose only name recognition came within a limited circle of pro-life activists in New York state , for her to actually run nationally ( not in every state , but in a number of states ) , and in some of those states receive votes in the high single digits , that ’ s not bad , ” commented Daniel K. Williams , professor of history at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ author of Defenders of the Unborn : The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade .
One vignette well represents the pro-life tendencies that still existed in the Democratic Party , and that Ellen McCormack was able to tap into .
Her campaign put special focus on the Massachusetts primary , which was only the fifth contest that year , immediately following New Hampshire .
Another candidate who placed his bets on a good showing in the Bay State was Indiana Senator Birch Bayh .
Widely considered to be a major player for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ member of the Senate Judiciary Committee , been instrumental in ensuring proposals for the Human Life Amendment never came up for a floor vote .
“ That really hurt him among a lot of voters in Massachusetts who were pro-life .
Massachusetts had a substantial number of pro-life Catholics in the 1970s .
So Ellen McCormack was getting almost no national news coverage , but she managed to come within eight votes of Birch Bayh ’ s total in Boston , ” Williams told TAC .
“ It showed , at the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , position on abortion really mattered and the winning position was not necessarily the pro-choice position.
” McCormack capped off her presidential campaign by giving the keynote speech at a rally of 10,000 pro-life demonstrators in New York City , the day before the start of the Democratic National Convention .
She proceeded to lead this display of political strength in a two-mile march to Madison Square Garden , all the while carrying a sign that read “ Jimmy Carter to be born again one must first be born .
Stop Abortion.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name placed into nomination but she was unable to turn the tide on abortion within her party .
After a contentious debate—many Jimmy Carter delegates were pro-life as well—the Democratic convention adopted a party platform that “ recognized the religious and ethical nature of the concerns which many Americans have on the subject of abortion , ” but felt that it was “ undesirable to attempt to amend the United States Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court decision in this area.
” The wording was a milquetoast defense of the status quo , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as law .
“ In response , the Republican National Convention , which met later that summer , adopted a much stronger statement of opposition to Roe , endorsing a constitutional amendment to change the Supreme Court decision and , as they put it , ‘ restore protection of human life ’ , ” explained Williams .
This served two purposes .
First , the statement would be an outreach to McCormack ’ s voting bloc , who supported a national ban on abortion .
But it was also vague enough for liberal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gerald Ford preferred : that abortion should be decided on a state-by-state basis .
While both parties worked to keep their position exceptionally moderate—polling at the time showed both Republican and Democratic voters equally split on support for a pro-life amendment—it was the first divergence that would pave the way for the culture wars yet to come .
That year , Ellen McCormack refused to endorse either Carter or Ford , equally unimpressed with their wishy-washy positioning on abortion .
Her one high-profile endorsement went to New York ’ s Republican Senator James @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had repeatedly introduced the Human Life Amendment in Congress .
Buckley was defeated for reelection by Daniel Patrick Moynihan , who later on in his public career would have his own internal struggle with his party ’ s extremism on abortion .
The New York Right to Life Party continued to field candidates for the rest of the decade—in 1978 their gubernatorial nominee outpolled the quintessential Liberal Party of New York—but by 1980 the energy was gone .
“ At that point , a lot of them kind of got burnt out from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be politicians , ” explained Taranto .
“ They just wanted to make sure there was a political party that would strongly come out against legal abortion.
” By the time of the Reagan Revolution , the Republican Party had become the vehicle of pro-life activists and social conservatism .
While many of her supporters shifted to become part of the “ Moral Majority , ” McCormack herself declined .
She received pestering phone calls throughout the 1980 election , both from Reagan ’ s northeast coordinator Roger Stone and campaign manager @ @ @ @ @ @ @ endorsement .
She even received a call from the Gipper himself just prior to the general election .
But no matter the sincerity of the plea or the earnestness of the assurance , she would never forgive Reagan for signing California ’ s abortion reform law in 1967 .
McCormack herself appeared on the ballot in 1980 as the presidential nominee of the New York Right to Life Party .
It was an empty display , however , with none of the vim and vigor seen in 1976 .
She received 32,000 votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end , the efforts of those mothers from Merrick , Long Island did not move the needle on public opinion regarding abortion—little has in the past 50 years .
But what Ellen McCormack ’ s presidential bid did do was animate pro-life sentiment across the country .
She made abortion a lightning-rod issue on the campaign trail , demonstrating the untapped potential of social issues in politics .
The effort also symbolized a closing chapter in the history of the Democratic Party , whose mantle today is represented by men like Ralph Northam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Looking back at her campaign , which broke so many barriers for women in politics in service of the rights of the unborn , McCormack expressed , “ A traditional woman had to do something untraditional.
” And she did .
Hunter DeRensis is Assistant Editor at the Libertarian Institute and a regular contributor to The American Conservative .
You can follow him on Twitter @ HunterDeRensis .

“The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable,” said Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, explaining to a radio audience how a Democratic-proposed bill in the state legislature would handle an unsuccessful late-term abortion. “The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” The discussion would be whether or not the unwanted newborn would be allowed to live.
The Virginia proposal to eliminate restrictions on late-term abortions was tabled due to Republican opposition, but a similar measure had already passed in New York. The governor’s blasé description of infanticide was a shock to the conscience of many. The abortion debate had officially reached its biological limit: post-birth.
The Democratic Party wasn’t always on this path. When the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, many Democrats believed Roe v. Wade was the wrong decision. The list included the “Lion of the Senate” Edward Kennedy, the good Reverend Jesse Jackson, and even the Democratic Party’s presumptive 2020 presidential nominee, Joe Biden.
As these men began to abandon the pro-life cause, one group of women organized a last-ditch protest against their party’s embrace of abortion. This band of housewives and homemakers, organized around the 1976 presidential campaign of Ellen McCormack, would introduce the pro-life movement to national politics and contribute to the party realignment on social issues Americans see today.
Their story begins in the late 1960s, following the Vatican II reforms, when the Catholic Church began developing local community organizations to engage more with parishioners. In Merrick, Long Island, a dialogue group was formed under the eye of Father Paul Driscoll.
“Basically it was just a bunch of friends, and a lot of them just went because it was a chance to have adult conversation, because a lot of them…had four plus children. And it just happened to be all women who were going to the dialogue group,” explained Stacie Taranto, associate professor of history at Ramapo College and author of Kitchen-Table Politics: Conservative Women and Family Values in New York.
“A lot of them said, other than paying attention to [John] Kennedy because he was a ‘handsome Catholic man’—that’s how a lot of them described him—they’re not paying attention to political issues,” Taranto told The American Conservative. “They are raised to believe that politics is a male pursuit, and this isn’t something that concerns them.”
Ellen McCormack was a founding member of the dialogue group, and it was here that she and her friends became aware of the movement to legalize abortion. “I went to some meetings and saw some slides,” she recalled to The New York Times. “I couldn’t believe what was happening. Some people called it a ‘fetus.’ I was convinced it was a human life being taken. It was a baby. It was a terrible thing to do.”
The catalyst for action came in the spring of 1970, when their home state, helmed for over a decade by Republican Nelson Rockefeller, passed the most open-ended abortion law in the nation. Rising to the challenge, this group of mothers and housewives formed the New York Right to Life Party to advance a cause neither side was articulating.
“This is an issue they feel very energized by because they don’t even see it as a political issue. They see it as an issue of life and death, and morality,” Taranto said. “It’s something that they’ll get off the sidelines for. Whereas they don’t have a history of organizing.”
From 1970 to 1975, now meeting at each other’s homes instead of the church, the women nominated candidates for local and state elections to run single-issue pro-life campaigns. Their hope was to fashion together a strong showing at the polls that they could then use to influence legislators.
“It was really fluid which legislators would be persuaded by this swing vote to vote against legal abortion. That was sort of the idea,” explained Taranto. “They didn’t feel hopeless if they were in a Republican or Democratic district because they were just trying to show legislators that there was an important swing vote.”
It is important to remember that at the start of the 1970s, it was the Republican Party that had been leading the movement for abortion access. Their notorieties included Rockefeller, icon of the Eastern establishment and the bête noire of McCormack and company; 1964 presidential nominee and godfather of the conservative movement Barry Goldwater; and even Ronald Reagan, who as California’s governor in 1967 signed a measure to liberalize abortion laws.
This was contrary to the historic Democratic Party of Catholic urban voters that Ellen McCormack and her friends descended from. “In the city, families … would hang FDR’s picture next to the pope, at a time when the New Deal anti-poverty measures lined perfectly with the Catholic Church’s anti-poverty measures,” Taranto said.
Ellen grew up in Manhattan, a daughter of the Great Depression. She married her husband Jack in 1949 and using a subsidized loan they moved to the suburbs of Long Island, becoming first-generation homeowners and part of the post-World War II middle class. Ellen never attended college or worked a salaried job. But by 1976, at the age of 49, she was the mother of four children, a grandmother of two, and she wore the description of housewife with maternal pride. Her story was representative of so many other northern Catholic women who would form the backbone of her presidential run.
In 1975, the women of the New York Right to Life Party came to the decision to run one of their own for president, not for any conceivable chance of winning, but to make abortion a defining issue of the campaign and to advocate for a Right to Life amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was decided that Ellen McCormack would carry the banner. Despite never holding elected office—not even on the school board—McCormack had gained a following in pro-life circles for a weekly editorial column she began writing in 1972. Titled, “Who Speaks for the Unborn Child,” it was circulated in 40, mostly Catholic, newspapers.
Instead of acting under their third-party organization, it was decided that McCormack would run in the Democratic primaries. It was the party that the women had always inherently identified with, and it was the party they increasingly saw being taken away from them.
The McGovern-Fraser Commission, created in 1969, had heavily reformed the primary process. The power of the urban machines and political bosses had been curtailed in favor of proportional delegate allocation and mass democratic participation. The Democratic Party created a space for women’s voices, and at the turn of the decade the only organized women were feminist groups. The face of women in the Democratic Party was quickly becoming Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, not the Catholic homemaker it once was.
“The feminists have convinced the politicians they represent all women,” McCormack complained at the time. “But I am a woman too. I differ with some of their beliefs. I believe in childcare for the poor, but I don’t favor childcare for the middle class. I think we are teaching mothers it is more prestigious to work than be home with their children.”
“I believe there is no human being too small or too young, or, for that matter, too old or too handicapped or too dependent or too anything else not to count. Our society can—and with our help it will—respect the dignity of every human life,” she said.
McCormack filed her paperwork to run for president in the summer of 1975 and made her public announcement in November at the Parker House Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. This began an uphill struggle for both attention and respect from the media and party functionaries who were not inclined to give her a fair hearing.
“While there was tremendous energy on the pro-life side in 1976, recall the conventional wisdom in the press and among the college and university elite was that the abortion issue was settled,” said David O’Steen, who has been the executive director of the National Right to Life Committee since 1984.
Despite being a national presidential campaign based out of New York City, The New York Times would write less than two dozen articles about McCormack, and in October 1975, Morton Dean informed Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News that there were no women running for president in 1976. It took two months for the network to issue a correction.
To the consternation of the political establishment, however, the campaign finance laws at the time were advantageously designed for someone like McCormack and the goals of the pro-life movement. Following Watergate in 1974, Congress passed amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act, which created the Federal Election Commission and introduced matching funds to federal politics. Under this system, the federal government would match the fundraising of individuals for presidential campaigns that met a certain threshold.
To understand these arcane and intricate federal election laws, the women were helped by Gene McMahon, a local Long Island attorney who had been assisting the New York Right to Life Party since its founding. With McMahon’s guidance, the women were able to establish their own political action committee and set appropriate fundraising targets.
It was required that McCormack raise at least $5,000 in individual contributions under $250 from at least 20 different states. Tiling among the grassroots, while their candidate participated in speaking engagements to small groups throughout the Northeast, these dedicated wives and mothers began constructing a presidential campaign from their dining room tables.
“They’re literally taking out rolodexes, their Christmas card lists. ‘Oh I have a relative in California, let’s try to get on the ballot there!’ That’s how it’s organized,” said Taranto. “It’s sort of amazing to see and to hear how it was interwoven in their everyday domestic and maternal lives. But they saw this as sort of an extension of mothering.”
By February 1976, Ellen McCormack became the first woman in U.S. history to qualify for federal matching funds or to receive round-the-clock Secret Service protection.
The campaign already knew what they would spend the money on: television commercials. It was the most advanced way to beam the abortion debate directly into people’s homes at a time when major networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC—who collectively accounted for 90% of television viewers—were too tepid to draw the controversy. But under the Federal Communication Commission’s equal time law, a network was obligated to give political candidates equal opportunity to air advertisements for their campaign, no matter the content.
“Did you know that the heart of an unborn baby begins to be formed at three weeks after conception? Did you know also that a million babies have their hearts stopped each year in a very painful way, by abortion?” narrated McCormack’s voice, over the image of a developing fetus, the sound of its heart beating, and then flatlining, in the background. The candidate herself then appeared, holding a cooing infant in her arms. “I’m Ellen McCormack, a Democratic candidate for president. Help me to keep these hearts beating. Together we can help both the mother and her baby.”
In other commercials, McCormack appeared beside Dr. Mildred Jefferson. A surgeon by training, Dr. Jefferson was the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School. She left her practice to serve as the president of the National Right to Life Committee from 1975 to 1978 and was an early endorser of McCormack’s campaign.
Dr. Jefferson expressed to the television audience that “We must find candidates of vision and imagination who will know that we must find better means of solving the social problems than getting rid of the people that caused the problem.”
Describing an abortion procedure, Dr. Jefferson did not mince words. Showing pictures of a fetus at 11 and 24 weeks after conception, she said, “Tragically, many babies like these lose their lives in a very painful way, through abortion. In one kind of abortion, the child is literally pulled apart. In another kind, salt solution sends the baby into convulsions. Together we can stop abortion.”
As David O’Steen told TAC, “You cannot accurately and clearly describe what goes on in abortion without it being strong language.”
♦♦♦
At least 40 million Americans viewed Ellen McCormack’s campaign advertisements. Their graphic nature incensed abortion activists, angry both that a pro-life campaign sought to repeal their political victories, and that the campaign was being partially funded by the federal government. The National Organization for Women and the National Abortion Rights Action League sued McCormack’s campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to get the money returned.
“Her candidacy points up the weakness of the law,” said Congressman Charles Wiggins, a California Republican. Wiggins was already an opponent of the matching-fund statute, claiming that it only empowered “spurious, one-issue candidates” like McCormack.
Responding to the outrage, Congress reformed the law that spring and raised the qualification bar. McCormack lost matching funds in May, after receiving a total of $244,000 from the federal government, duplicating dollar for dollar what she was given by supporters. “The professional politicians are making a great many mistakes,” McCormack told Newsweek after the law changed. “I don’t think I should be disqualified just because I haven’t been making those mistakes for the past twenty years.”
Throughout the primary, McCormack fought against the stigma that comes with single-issue campaigns. “I am a serious candidate,” she said. “I stand for the rights of the unborn. I don’t see why that one issue can be overlooked.”
While the pro-life cause was her motivation and dominant focus, McCormack did express opinions on other matters. These included the death penalty (“It is the same kind of negative philosophy that gave us abortion”), busing (“While I favor [racial] integration, I do not approve of court-ordered forced busing”), energy policy (“At the present time I believe that nuclear energy will provide the necessary needs of our country for centuries to come”), and even foreign policy (“We have failed to use our resources for peace, but rather have let [Henry] Kissinger bargain them away, with no peace, no concessions, in return”).
Having no previous experience in government and running against the consensus on abortion held by American elites, Ellen McCormack’s campaign struck a resolutely populist note. “Every American has the right to become involved in politics,” she said. “The professional politician is out of touch with the issues that affect and concern the people.”
“Politics is too important to be left to the politicians,” she exhorted, mentioning elsewhere that “people, not judges” should be “making the basic value judgements about the future of our country.”
Her message found an audience. McCormack’s kitchen-table campaign had worked to get her name on the ballot in 22 states, the most of any female candidate up to that time. Her best performances were garnering 9.4% of the vote in Vermont, 7.8% in South Dakota, and 6% in New Jersey. By the end of the primary, she had earned over 267,000 votes, with 22 delegates to the national convention from five states. McCormack outperformed three U.S. senators and two governors in the race for the nomination.
“She was a candidate who had no national name recognition, no political experience, no business experience, no military experience. So for someone whose only name recognition came within a limited circle of pro-life activists in New York state, for her to actually run nationally (not in every state, but in a number of states), and in some of those states receive votes in the high single digits, that’s not bad,” commented Daniel K. Williams, professor of history at the University of West Georgia, and author of Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade.
One vignette well represents the pro-life tendencies that still existed in the Democratic Party, and that Ellen McCormack was able to tap into. Her campaign put special focus on the Massachusetts primary, which was only the fifth contest that year, immediately following New Hampshire. Another candidate who placed his bets on a good showing in the Bay State was Indiana Senator Birch Bayh. Widely considered to be a major player for the nomination, Bayh had, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, been instrumental in ensuring proposals for the Human Life Amendment never came up for a floor vote.
“That really hurt him among a lot of voters in Massachusetts who were pro-life. Massachusetts had a substantial number of pro-life Catholics in the 1970s. So Ellen McCormack was getting almost no national news coverage, but she managed to come within eight votes of Birch Bayh’s total in Boston,” Williams told TAC. “It showed, at the time, that at least among Democratic voters, position on abortion really mattered and the winning position was not necessarily the pro-choice position.”
♦♦♦
McCormack capped off her presidential campaign by giving the keynote speech at a rally of 10,000 pro-life demonstrators in New York City, the day before the start of the Democratic National Convention. She proceeded to lead this display of political strength in a two-mile march to Madison Square Garden, all the while carrying a sign that read “Jimmy Carter to be born again one must first be born. Stop Abortion.”
At the convention, McCormack had her name placed into nomination but she was unable to turn the tide on abortion within her party. After a contentious debate—many Jimmy Carter delegates were pro-life as well—the Democratic convention adopted a party platform that “recognized the religious and ethical nature of the concerns which many Americans have on the subject of abortion,” but felt that it was “undesirable to attempt to amend the United States Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court decision in this area.” The wording was a milquetoast defense of the status quo, which meant Roe v. Wade would stand as law.
“In response, the Republican National Convention, which met later that summer, adopted a much stronger statement of opposition to Roe, endorsing a constitutional amendment to change the Supreme Court decision and, as they put it, ‘restore protection of human life’,” explained Williams.
This served two purposes. First, the statement would be an outreach to McCormack’s voting bloc, who supported a national ban on abortion. But it was also vague enough for liberal Republicans to interpret it the way President Gerald Ford preferred: that abortion should be decided on a state-by-state basis.
While both parties worked to keep their position exceptionally moderate—polling at the time showed both Republican and Democratic voters equally split on support for a pro-life amendment—it was the first divergence that would pave the way for the culture wars yet to come.
That year, Ellen McCormack refused to endorse either Carter or Ford, equally unimpressed with their wishy-washy positioning on abortion. Her one high-profile endorsement went to New York’s Republican Senator James Buckley, brother of Bill, who had repeatedly introduced the Human Life Amendment in Congress. Buckley was defeated for reelection by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who later on in his public career would have his own internal struggle with his party’s extremism on abortion.
The New York Right to Life Party continued to field candidates for the rest of the decade—in 1978 their gubernatorial nominee outpolled the quintessential Liberal Party of New York—but by 1980 the energy was gone. “At that point, a lot of them kind of got burnt out from it. They didn’t want to be politicians,” explained Taranto. “They just wanted to make sure there was a political party that would strongly come out against legal abortion.”
By the time of the Reagan Revolution, the Republican Party had become the vehicle of pro-life activists and social conservatism. While many of her supporters shifted to become part of the “Moral Majority,” McCormack herself declined. She received pestering phone calls throughout the 1980 election, both from Reagan’s northeast coordinator Roger Stone and campaign manager William J. Casey, begging for an endorsement. She even received a call from the Gipper himself just prior to the general election. But no matter the sincerity of the plea or the earnestness of the assurance, she would never forgive Reagan for signing California’s abortion reform law in 1967.
McCormack herself appeared on the ballot in 1980 as the presidential nominee of the New York Right to Life Party. It was an empty display, however, with none of the vim and vigor seen in 1976. She received 32,000 votes, or .04 percent.
In the end, the efforts of those mothers from Merrick, Long Island did not move the needle on public opinion regarding abortion—little has in the past 50 years. But what Ellen McCormack’s presidential bid did do was animate pro-life sentiment across the country. She made abortion a lightning-rod issue on the campaign trail, demonstrating the untapped potential of social issues in politics. The effort also symbolized a closing chapter in the history of the Democratic Party, whose mantle today is represented by men like Ralph Northam, not women like Ellen McCormack.
Looking back at her campaign, which broke so many barriers for women in politics in service of the rights of the unborn, McCormack expressed, “A traditional woman had to do something untraditional.” And she did.
Hunter DeRensis is Assistant Editor at the Libertarian Institute and a regular contributor to The American Conservative. You can follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.


theamericanconservative--2020-05-29--Right Now Interview: Jeff Sessions on Trump, Tuberville, and Free Trade ‘Religion’


theamericanconservative--2020-05-30--Cops Kill Because We Gave Them The Legal Framework to Do It

George Floyd moments before his death in Minneapolis on Memorial Day ( Twitter ) The brutal Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd has sparked violent protests , looting , and arson attacks in Minneapolis and St. Paul .
A police precinct building was torched and destroyed and the Minnesota National Guard has been called out to restore order .
But the killing in Minnesota is the latest reminder that politicians and judges—through federal law and judicial interpretation—have turned police into a privileged class that is most often unaccountable , if not entitled to oppress other Americans .
Almost everyone agrees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ horrendous injustice .
President Trump , who urged police officers in 2017 to not “ be too nice ” to suspects they arrested , condemned what the police did to Floyd as “ a very bad thing.
” Former Minneapolis police chief Janeé Harteau said that the video of Floyd ’ s killing was “ the most horrific thing I ’ ve seen in my career and in my lifetime.
” Washington , D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham declared that the officers ’ actions were “ nothing short of murder.
” Derick Chauvin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was arrested today and charged with murder ; he and three other police involved in Floyd ’ s death were fired earlier this week Floyd was killed by Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd ’ s neck for eight minutes after he was handcuffed and laying face down in the street .
Floyd repeatedly declared , “ I can ’ t breathe.
” It didn ’ t matter .
ACLU attorney Carl Takei told the New York Times that police departments that permit “ chokeholds try to differentiate between cutting off the flow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and cutting off the flow of oxygen , which is deadly.
” This dicey distinction often goes amiss , as in 2014 when Eric Garner was killed by a New York City policeman ’ s chokehold .
But how did government officials ever acquire a right to strangle people who fail to instantly submit to their commands ?
Such killings would likely not occur without the sense of impunity conferred on police in much of this nation .
Sen. Amy Klobuchar , a top contender for Vice President candidacy for Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ County ( including Minneapolis ) from 1998 to 2006 .
Klobuchar , who was nicknamed “ KloboCop ” by detractors , “ declined to bring charges in more than two dozen cases in which people were killed in encounters with police ” while she “ aggressively prosecuted smaller offenses ” by private citizens , the Washington Post noted .
Her record was aptly summarized by a headline early this year from the Twin Cities Pioneer Press : “ Klobuchar ramped up prosecutions , except in cases against police.
” Minnesota cops also benefit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police officer ’ s bill of rights , ” which impede investigations into killings by police and other misconduct .
Outrage over police abuses have become a regular occurrence in modern American life .
In 1994 , the ACLU and the National Rifle Association jointly called for President Bill Clinton to appoint a national commission to investigate “ lawlessness in law enforcement.
” In 2014 , after violent protests over a police shooting in Ferguson , Missouri , Attorney General Eric Holder declared that “ we must seek to rebuild trust between law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unjustified police shootings usually spark brief uproars and promises of reform— but no fundamental rollback of law enforcement ’ s lethal power and prerogatives .
Much of the media coverage quickly framed the Minneapolis killing as another example of systemic racism by police .
There are many bigoted cops who have unjustifiably shot or otherwise abused innocent black citizens but people of all races , creeds , and colors are at risk from lawless lawmen .
As the Washington Post noted , “ In 2017 , a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had called police about what she believed was a possible sexual assault near her home.
” The Montgomery County , Maryland Police Department continues to refuse to provide camcom videos or any other evidence on its predawn no-knock raid in Potomac , Maryland , in which police reportedly shot 21-year-old Duncan Lemp as he lay sleeping in bed in his parents ’ house .
The Lemp case has been largely ignored by the nation ’ s media ( except for my American Conservative articles here , here , and here ) .
Focusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundamental problem : the Supreme Court has effectively given police a license to shoot , pummel , or falsely arrest ill-fated citizens across the nation .
In the wake of the Civil War , freed southern blacks were terrorized by lynch mobs and other attackers .
Congress responded to Ku Klux Klan violence against freed southern blacks by enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1871 to authorize lawsuits against any person acting “ under color of ” law who causes a “ deprivation of any rights… secured by the Constitution and laws.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1967 , the Supreme Court gutted that law by permitting police and other government agents to claim they acted in “ good faith ” when violating citizens ’ rights .
In 1982 , the Supreme Court granted government officials immunity unless they violated “ clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.
” Regardless of centuries of court rulings that clearly demarcated citizens ’ constitutional rights , the Supreme Court decided government officials deserved “ qualified immunity ” unless a prior court case had condemned almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judge Don Willett declared in 2018 that “ qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity , letting public officials duck consequences for bad behavior—no matter how palpably unreasonable—as long as they were the first to behave badly.
” The Supreme Court effectively added an asterisk to the Constitution that expunged much of the Bill of Rights .
In a 2018 case absolving a reckless shooting that killed a motorist , Justice Sonia Sotomayor angrily dissented that the court ’ s decision “ tells [ police ] officers that they can shoot first and think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished.
” How does the Supreme Court ’ s idealism on “ good faith ” G-men play out in the real world ?
Courts have “ approved qualified immunity for cops who allegedly shot people without cause , sicced a dog on a man who was surrendering , tased a driver who was stopped for failing to buckle his seat belt , and ordered a 17-year-old boy to disrobe and masturbate so they could take pictures of his erect penis , ” Reason columnist Jacob Sullumreported in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appeals court bizarrely granted qualified immunity to Fresno , California , police officers who stole $ 225,000 during a search of two businessmen .
Sen. Lindsey Graham ( R-S.C. ) , chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee , said yesterday that his committee would hold a hearing on police violence to analyze “ why does this happen , how often is it , is it an aberration.
” Graham said the video of Floyd ’ s killing is “ hard to watch , and I just imagine how many people died without videos.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , been asleep on the job .
As Dan Alban , an Institute for Justice attorney and the nation ’ s most effective litigator against asset forfeiture abuses , observed , Congress could pass legislation “ clarifying that there is no qualified immunity ” for civil rights lawsuits against state and federal officials .
But the problem goes far beyond qualified immunity .
Politicians criminalize practically everything in daily life and then tell police “ be nice ” —or maybe mandate that cops attend sensitivity training .
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that further empower police .
A video went viral earlier this month of a New York Police Department officer tackling and pummeling a young black man who was suspected of violating new dictates on social distancing .
One wonders if there are a hundred such instances of idiotic brutality for each one that trends on Twitter today Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins announced yesterday that city officials will “ create a healing space at the site of the [ burnt-down ] 3rd Precinct so that people can grieve , express their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe and humane way.
” It remains to be seen whether a “ healing space ” will deter the unjustified looting and violence that has proliferated in Minnesota .
But rather than pillaging Family Dollar , Aldi ’ s , and Target , folks infuriated by Floyd ’ s killing should focus their wrath on the legislators and judges who have effectively given police a right to kill .
James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights , Attention Deficit Democracy , and Public Policy Hooligan .
He is also a USA Today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ JimBovard .

The brutal Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd has sparked violent protests, looting, and arson attacks in Minneapolis and St. Paul. A police precinct building was torched and destroyed and the Minnesota National Guard has been called out to restore order. But the killing in Minnesota is the latest reminder that politicians and judges—through federal law and judicial interpretation—have turned police into a privileged class that is most often unaccountable, if not entitled to oppress other Americans.
Almost everyone agrees that Floyd’s death was a horrendous injustice. President Trump, who urged police officers in 2017 to not “be too nice” to suspects they arrested, condemned what the police did to Floyd as “a very bad thing.” Former Minneapolis police chief Janeé Harteau said that the video of Floyd’s killing was “the most horrific thing I’ve seen in my career and in my lifetime.” Washington, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham declared that the officers’ actions were “nothing short of murder.” Derick Chauvin, the police officer who killed Floyd was arrested today and charged with murder; he and three other police involved in Floyd’s death were fired earlier this week
Floyd was killed by Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes after he was handcuffed and laying face down in the street. Floyd repeatedly declared, “I can’t breathe.” It didn’t matter. ACLU attorney Carl Takei told the New York Times that police departments that permit “chokeholds try to differentiate between cutting off the flow of blood, which renders someone unconscious, and cutting off the flow of oxygen, which is deadly.” This dicey distinction often goes amiss, as in 2014 when Eric Garner was killed by a New York City policeman’s chokehold. But how did government officials ever acquire a right to strangle people who fail to instantly submit to their commands?
Such killings would likely not occur without the sense of impunity conferred on police in much of this nation. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a top contender for Vice President candidacy for Joe Biden, was the chief prosecutor for Hennepin County (including Minneapolis) from 1998 to 2006. Klobuchar, who was nicknamed “KloboCop” by detractors, “declined to bring charges in more than two dozen cases in which people were killed in encounters with police” while she “aggressively prosecuted smaller offenses” by private citizens, the Washington Post noted. Her record was aptly summarized by a headline early this year from the Twin Cities Pioneer Press: “Klobuchar ramped up prosecutions, except in cases against police.”
Minnesota cops also benefit from their state’s so-called “police officer’s bill of rights,” which impede investigations into killings by police and other misconduct.
Outrage over police abuses have become a regular occurrence in modern American life. In 1994, the ACLU and the National Rifle Association jointly called for President Bill Clinton to appoint a national commission to investigate “lawlessness in law enforcement.” In 2014, after violent protests over a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, Attorney General Eric Holder declared that “we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community.” But unjustified police shootings usually spark brief uproars and promises of reform— but no fundamental rollback of law enforcement’s lethal power and prerogatives.
Much of the media coverage quickly framed the Minneapolis killing as another example of systemic racism by police. There are many bigoted cops who have unjustifiably shot or otherwise abused innocent black citizens but people of all races, creeds, and colors are at risk from lawless lawmen. As the Washington Post noted, “In 2017, a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed Justine Damond, an Australian woman who had called police about what she believed was a possible sexual assault near her home.” The Montgomery County, Maryland Police Department continues to refuse to provide camcom videos or any other evidence on its predawn no-knock raid in Potomac, Maryland, in which police reportedly shot 21-year-old Duncan Lemp as he lay sleeping in bed in his parents’ house. The Lemp case has been largely ignored by the nation’s media (except for my American Conservative articles here, here, and here).
Focusing on racial bias also risks obscuring the fundamental problem: the Supreme Court has effectively given police a license to shoot, pummel, or falsely arrest ill-fated citizens across the nation.
In the wake of the Civil War, freed southern blacks were terrorized by lynch mobs and other attackers. Congress responded to Ku Klux Klan violence against freed southern blacks by enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1871 to authorize lawsuits against any person acting “under color of” law who causes a “deprivation of any rights… secured by the Constitution and laws.” But in a series of decisions beginning in 1967, the Supreme Court gutted that law by permitting police and other government agents to claim they acted in “good faith” when violating citizens’ rights. In 1982, the Supreme Court granted government officials immunity unless they violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
Regardless of centuries of court rulings that clearly demarcated citizens’ constitutional rights, the Supreme Court decided government officials deserved “qualified immunity” unless a prior court case had condemned almost exactly the same abusive behavior. Federal judge Don Willett declared in 2018 that “qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behavior—no matter how palpably unreasonable—as long as they were the first to behave badly.”
The Supreme Court effectively added an asterisk to the Constitution that expunged much of the Bill of Rights. In a 2018 case absolving a reckless shooting that killed a motorist, Justice Sonia Sotomayor angrily dissented that the court’s decision “tells [police] officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished.”
How does the Supreme Court’s idealism on “good faith” G-men play out in the real world? Courts have “approved qualified immunity for cops who allegedly shot people without cause, sicced a dog on a man who was surrendering, tased a driver who was stopped for failing to buckle his seat belt, and ordered a 17-year-old boy to disrobe and masturbate so they could take pictures of his erect penis,” Reason columnist Jacob Sullum reported in 2019. That year, a federal appeals court bizarrely granted qualified immunity to Fresno, California, police officers who stole $225,000 during a search of two businessmen.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said yesterday that his committee would hold a hearing on police violence to analyze “why does this happen, how often is it, is it an aberration.” Graham said the video of Floyd’s killing is “hard to watch, and I just imagine how many people died without videos.”
But Congress has, as usual, been asleep on the job. As Dan Alban, an Institute for Justice attorney and the nation’s most effective litigator against asset forfeiture abuses, observed, Congress could pass legislation “clarifying that there is no qualified immunity” for civil rights lawsuits against state and federal officials.
But the problem goes far beyond qualified immunity. Politicians criminalize practically everything in daily life and then tell police “be nice”—or maybe mandate that cops attend sensitivity training. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a blizzard of new mandates and prohibitions that further empower police. A video went viral earlier this month of a New York Police Department officer tackling and pummeling a young black man who was suspected of violating new dictates on social distancing. One wonders if there are a hundred such instances of idiotic brutality for each one that trends on Twitter today
Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins announced yesterday that city officials will “create a healing space at the site of the [burnt-down] 3rd Precinct so that people can grieve, express their concerns, their anger, in a safe and humane way.” It remains to be seen whether a “healing space” will deter the unjustified looting and violence that has proliferated in Minnesota. But rather than pillaging Family Dollar, Aldi’s, and Target, folks infuriated by Floyd’s killing should focus their wrath on the legislators and judges who have effectively given police a right to kill.
James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights, Attention Deficit Democracy, and Public Policy Hooligan. He is also a USA Today columnist. Follow him on Twitter @JimBovard.