Topic category:  Other/General

Vigorous Mitt Romney's been an honorable man of faith all his life (ask his wife) and over time grew wiser and more conservative (as smart folks tend to do).

Now old John McCain WAS an honorable man, and a heroic one, but he dumped his first wife and the mother of children for a rich, much younger, politically helpful wife and a second family, became the liberals' favorite Republican and finally took to lying in the hope of satisfying his lust for the presidency.

Wendy Long, Judicial Confirmation Network General Counsel: "It is not overstatement to say that the Supreme Court and the future of the Constitution are at stake in the next election. Republicans must win, yes. But the right Republican must win. Because there's not much difference between a David Souter and a Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Republicans can nominate bad Justices, too. Earl Warren, William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, David Souter....the list goes on."

That's straight talk and another big reason why Republicans should nominate Mitt Romney instead of John McCain.

Mrs. Long: "When it comes to Constitution and the Supreme Court, unfortunately, McCain was —and still is — the weakest of the GOP presidential field. There are many reasons why."

More straight talk.

One big reason is McCain's enormous pride in and protective attitude toward the liberal (and unconstitutional) McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Ironically, the Justices that McCain publicly claims to favor--Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito, Jr.--are justices who follow the Constitution and therefore found McCain-Feingold constitutionally flawed!

Wikipedia on McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93 (2003), a case upholding as constitutional most of McCain-Feingold (aka the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002):

Justices Breyer, Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg established the majority for two parts of the Court's opinion:

With respect to Titles I and II of the BCRA, Justices Stevens, O'Connor wrote the opinion of the Court.

With respect to Title V of the BCRA, Justice Breyer wrote the Court's opinion.

Two dissenting opinions were included in the decision:

Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg, and Breyer, dissented on one section of the part of the Court's opinion written by the Chief Justice.

The Chief Justice, joined by Justice Kennedy and Scalia, issued a 15-page dissent against the Court's opinion with respect to Titles I and V of the BCRA.

Three other justices wrote separate opinions on the decision:

Justice Kennedy, joined by the Chief Justice, issued a 68-page dissenting opinion and appendix, noting that BCRA forces "speakers to abandon their own preference for speaking through parties and organizations."

Justice Thomas issued a separate 25-page dissenting opinion noting that the Court was upholding the "most significant abridgment of the freedoms of speech and association since the Civil War."

Justice Scalia issued a separate 19-page dissenting opinion, a "few words of [his] own," because of the "extraordinary importance" of the cases.

Will McCain really nominate the kind of person who will strike down McCain-Feingold, or a judicial activist who would uphold it?

Think about it.

The truth is that McCain is compatible with the Supreme Court's activist justices, not its justices who practice judicial restraint.

Example: Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. ___ (2007), a case holding that organizations engaged in genuine discussion of issues are entitled to a broad, "as applied" exemption from the electioneering communications provisions of McCain-Feingold that limited advertising naming a particular candidate by name within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election, if the ad is paid for by a corporation or union.

Wikipedia:

"The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, crafted a major exception to the limitations on broadcast ads within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. The court ruled that unless an ad could not reasonably be interpreted as anything other than an ad urging the support or defeat of a candidate, it was eligible for an 'as applied' exception to the McCain-Feingold limits on issue ads close to an election.

"The decision of the court by Chief Justice John Glover Roberts, Jr. is most notable for its strong language it concludes 'Enough is enough' and demonstrating a skepticism of campaign finance regulation that was absent in the McConnell. Roberts' opinion, however, was joined only by Justice Samuel Alito. The rest of the majority consisted of Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas, who would have gone further and simply reversed McConnell altogether.

"Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg dissented."

Mrs. Long: "In McCain's 'maverick self' moments, in private discussions, he has given us reason to believe that he will listen to his dear old friend — and current key adviser — Warren Rudman. McCain says privately that he would not nominate more Sam Alitos to the Supreme Court, because McCain thinks Alito 'wears his conservatism on his sleeve.'"

Desperate to be nominated, McCain denied what he said privately after it was publicly reported and professed great respect for Justice Alito.

BUT...the private McCain is the real McCain, the real McCain is hostile to and outrageously wrong about Justice Alito, and, as a President dealing with a Democrat Congress, he would have additional reason not to antagonize them by nominating persons anathema to them, that is, justices who would strike down McCain-Feingold and refuse to pretend that abortion is a constitutional right instead of a matter for the states or that the Constitution prohibits government from acknowledging God and supporting religion generally.

Mrs. Long helpfully suggested that to win the support of advocates of judicial restraint, "McCain would have to shed his attachments to key advisers, repudiate his prior unconstitutional legislative acts, and come clean about private comments that he's had a chance to reflect upon and would like to change," and warned, "Even if he does all this, it will be hard for conservatives to trust him to uphold the Constitution — which the President, not just the Supreme Court, has an independent obligation to do — and to appoint solid Supreme Court Justices who are committed to principles of judicial restraint and originalism."

Mrs. Long added: "McCain could announce a committee of judicial conservatives he promises to rely upon for suggestions of Court nominees. Maybe announce who his White House Counsel and Attorney General would be. They will all have to be trusted conservatives, to overcome the specter of Warren Rudman whispering in the other ear. And the specter of a presidential 'litmus test' for justices on support for McCain-Feingold.

Hell will freeze over before McCain repents and accepts Mrs. Long's advice, so Republicans better nominate Mitt!

McCain has proven himself to be a liar.

Thomas Sowell, a real straight talker, put it perfectly in "McCain's Straight Lies":

"We have been hearing for years that Senator John McCain gives 'straight talk' and his bus has been endlessly referred to as the 'straight talk express.' But endless repetition does not make something true.

"The fact that McCain makes short, blunt statements does not make him a straight-talker.

"There are short, blunt lies -- and he told a big one on the eve of the Florida primary, when he claimed that Mitt Romney had advocated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

"Even the Washington Post, which supports McCain, said that the Senator 'has distorted the meaning' of what Governor Romney said, that Romney 'has never proposed setting "a date for withdrawal."'

"During Mitt Romney's ABC News interview that Senator McCain twisted, Governor Romney was asked by the interviewer whether he agreed with President Bush's veto of Congressional legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal, and whether Romney as President would veto similar legislation.

"'Of course,' was Romney's reply. There was no ambiguity.

"Confronted with his lie on Wednesday night's debate, McCain blustered and filibustered in a manner reminiscent of Captain Queeg in 'The Caine Mutiny,' when he was caught in a lie during a navy inquiry.

"When confronted with any of his misdeeds, Senator McCain tends to fall back on his record as a war hero in Vietnam.

"Let's talk sense. Benedict Arnold was a war hero but that did not exempt him from condemnation for his later betrayal.

"Being a war hero is not a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card. And becoming President of the United States is not a matter of rewarding an individual for past services."

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.