U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black was one of the longest-serving members of the court, having held his position from 1937 to 1971. No one during that period of time – or before or after – was a bigger champion of the First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech.
When law students read free speech cases from that era, Black’s position is hardly ever a surprise. He opposed almost any restriction on freedom of speech. If he disagreed with his fellow judges, it would normally be because their interpretation – in his opinion – restrained free speech.
Black’s view of free speech for many years was the position of almost all Democrats. In 2010, Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the First Amendment was “highly overrated.” Black would have strongly disagreed with Emanuel, but the Emanuel position has prevailed.
While Black’s views on freedom of speech are now out of line with most of his fellow Democrats, there is one area in which he is still very much in step with members of his party. Black didn’t have a problem with unlawfully tinkering with an election.
In 1948, Lyndon Johnson indisputably stole a primary election from a fellow Democrat. Johnson’s opponent, former Gov. Coke Stevenson, decided to take the case to federal court to get the election overturned. A federal district judge – a fellow Democrat, I should point out – agreed to hear the case, much to the surprise of Johnson and his attorneys. After several days of evidence, the case was not going well for Johnson and the judge said as much. At that point Justice Black – an old drinking buddy of Johnson’s – came to his rescue and prevented the district judge from hearing any further evidence. The case was over.
It’s ironic that an old Alabama boy like Justice Black, with close ties to Johnson, could rule in the Johnson case, but another Alabama boy, Sen. Jeff Sessions, was forced to recuse in the Russian Collusion case, even though there was no evidence of any kind.
Johnson went on to serve 12 years in the Senate and in 1960 was chosen by John F. Kennedy as his running mate. Kennedy chose Johnson because Kennedy had to have Texas to win the presidency and Kennedy knew Johnson would accomplish that job, regardless of what needed to be done.
Many are upset with Trump. Many are upset with the actions of the Trump supporters at the Capitol. Many are upset with the fact it is OK for Democrat supporters to do basically what we saw take place at the Capitol last week. But my beef is with the U.S. Supreme Court. Those people owed it to the American people to look at November’s election.
Johnson claimed that he won the 1948 election fair and square. As with much of what Johnson said, that was a huge lie. The truth finally came out. In 1990 – after 10 years of research – author Robert Caro published Means of Ascent, Volume 2 of Caro’s history of the life of Johnson. In all of its gory details, Caro explains how Johnson stole that election. Can we afford to wait 42 years for another historian to come along and tell us how Biden, the Democrats, the media and Big Tech stole the November election?
Democrats cannot help themselves. They are addicted to stealing votes. They’ve been doing it for 150 years. The big difference is they haven’t always been Communists. This time around it’s going to be different. There are advantages to being 79 and disadvantages to being young.
