The Kavanaugh Catastrophe And The Beltway Bandits

Some of President Trump’s biggest supporters on the Religious Right are now facing humiliation over Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s recent ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood. Kavanaugh, Trump’s second nominee to the court, joined with Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberal justices to declare that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, had a constitutional right to taxpayer money.

Rockefeller Republican Senator Susan Collins, who cast a deciding vote in favor of confirming Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, said she was feeling “vindication” after the new justice’s vote in the Planned Parenthood case. “Planned Parenthood was Brett Kavanaugh’s No. 1 opponent,” Collins said on CNN. “They went after him with everything that they had, and yet when it came to this case, he was able to put that aside and rule impartially, independently.” CNN noted, “Kavanaugh’s vote helped prevent the court from taking up the issue, effectively handing Planned Parenthood a win by leaving two lower court opinions in place.”

The conclusion is that, in order to get his lifetime job, Kavanaugh made a devil’s bargain with one of the most prominent congressional supporters of the abortion industry. It’s clear that he promised liberal Never-Trump Republican Senator Susan Collins that he would vote to preserve the pro-abortion ruling Roe v. Wade.

In addition to the human carnage, the really sad aspect of the Kavanaugh decision is the disappointment young pro-life conservatives feel at the perceived “betrayal” by Religious Right groups with fancy offices inside the beltway which relayed messages from the Trump White House that Kavanaugh was a sure pro-life vote. “The Pro-Life Generation Supports Brett Kavanaugh” was a video they produced in advance of his confirmation fight. “President Trump promised us he would only appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court,” said Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America. The cries of betrayal have given way to tears for the unborn.

The Family Research Council (FRC), a big backer of Kavanaugh, ran a bland article, “Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on State Decisions to Defund Planned Parenthood,” noting that the case was important “because of videos released depicting Planned Parenthood officials engaging in the sale of fetal tissue and body parts.” Yet, Travis Weber, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, told CNBC that his group was not holding Kavanaugh’s decision against him, because while the decision was “not the greatest result,” it was largely procedural. In this case, the procedural decision means more babies will die at taxpayer expense.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association (AFA) was more honest, writing a column under the headline, “Duped again: Kavanaugh biffs on first chance to defend life.” The AFA initially opposed Brett Kavanaugh, saying he was not conservative enough, and then supported him.

The Catholic Family News made a risky decision, running my column opposing Kavanaugh and laying out the reasons why Kavanaugh was the wrong choice. And then it ran my follow-up after the Planned Parenthood decision, “Brett Kavanaugh’s Chickens Come Home to Roost.” Sad to say, but my opposition was vindicated. However, many conservative web sites refused to run my columns exposing and criticizing Kavanaugh’s pro-abortion record. They fell for the propaganda.

One of the best reports on the implications of the ruling was on the conservative website Red State. It said, “Given the criminality involved and the basic absence of medical care available at Planned Parenthood facilities (no, they actually don’t do mammograms and most of their services are no more sophisticated that what you get at a drug store and do yourself at home…other than killing babies, of course) this should have been an open-and-shut issue of what businesses state governments decide to give their money to. What the Supreme Court has done with this decision is signal two things. First, it has no intention of touching abortion. Second, if it does touch abortion it will come down squarely on the side of abortion providers. In particular, this decision places Planned Parenthood in a competitive position unknown in the current health care field. Despite illegalities and improprieties, Planned Parenthood, alone, is now legally protected from losing access to Medicaid dollars regardless of what conduct it engages in.”

Daniel Horowitz of Conservative Review commented, “In a new trend where several members of the ‘conservative wing’ of the court allow very consequential bad lower court rulings to stand, Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh refused to hear an appeal on the issue of forcing states to fund Planned Parenthood…Thus, anything conservatives ever want to accomplish, even if they win elections, is essentially dead on arrival because of lower court judges allowed to reign supreme.”

Pro-abortion Senator Susan Collins, whose support of Kavanaugh was vindicated by the Planned Parenthood ruling, is now predicting that the Supreme Court will overturn a ruling by a federal judge in Texas that the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

She has reason to be confident that Kavanaugh will join with Roberts and the liberal justices in this case and save Obamacare.

It’s not enough to say that conservatives and Christians were fooled again. We have to have a heart-to-heart talk with disillusioned young people about why the basic right-to-life of the innocent unborn is so easy to sacrifice on the altar of political power and expediency. We have to be blunt about the principalities and powers running this world and their ability to corrupt our political and religious leaders.

[BIO* America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI) President Cliff Kincaid has had a nearly 40-year journalism career that includes serving as a co-host for the debate show “Crossfire” on CNN in the 1980s. He currently appears in a popular film on media bias and anonymous sources that is being shown in the Newseum, the journalism museum in Washington, D.C. Kincaid has written or co-authored more than 20 books and hosts an Internet-based Roku TV channel called America’s Survival TV that is available in more than 60 countries and is also on YouTube. Cliff’s book on Marxist dialectics, The Sword of Revolution, has been translated into Portuguese to reach people in Brazil, where an anti-communist revolution has taken root.]

E-Mail Cliff Kincaid: Kincaid@comcast.net