Ed Meese (Heritage)
Former Attorney General Ed Meese is leading a group of conservative leaders who will sign the “Mount Vernon Statement” this afternoon on land that was owned by President George Washington.
The statement, of “conservative beliefs, values and principles,” contends that America’s founding principles are “presently under sustained attack” and that the “federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.”
Meese is a scholar with the Heritage Foundation. As Attorney General for President Ronald Reagan, Meese was known for his study on pornography’s harmful effects on society, his work against drug use, and his opposition to Miranda warnings.
Others who are expected to sign the statement include Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and a number of other prominent conservatives. The signing will be held at the Collingwood Library and Museum on Americanism at 2:30 p.m. ET.
The text of the statement:
The Mount Vernon Statement Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century
We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.
These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.
Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.
Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?
The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.
The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.
A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.
A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.
* It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
* It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
* It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
* It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
* It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.
If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.
We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.
February 17, 2010
Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez at the National Press Club on Friday (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).
Appearing at the National Press Club on Friday, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez gave an impassioned speech on his vision for the Civil Rights Division, while criticizing its actions under the George W. Bush administration with the harshest language he has used to date.
“I learned, to my great disappointment, that those who had been entrusted with the keys to the division, and to its great power to pursue justice, treated the division instead like a buffet line at the cafeteria, cherry‐picking which laws to enforce,” Perez said in prepared remarks before the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
“I’ve seen the eyes and the faces of the wonderful career professionals who toiled during the last eight years, who did their best and did so much, but it was so difficult,” said Perez during his speech.
“I must say I wasn’t surprised by much of the data [showing fewer civil rights prosecutions in other areas during the Bush administration]. I rather expected it, but I was rather shocked in the hate crimes setting because Ed Meese made hate crimes a priority, Brad Reynolds made hate crimes a priority, John Dunne made hate crimes a priority, George Herbert Walker Bush made the prosecution of hate crimes a priority, Bill Clinton made the prosecution of hate crimes a priority, and Barack Obama and Eric Holder will once again make the prosecution of hate crimes a significant priority,” said Perez.
Touching on his theme of transformation and revitalization of the Civil Rights Division, Perez said that it must recognize “emerging areas of interest, areas where the Civil Rights Division may not have played a large role historically, but must play a large role today. One essential area is the area of civil rights and human rights, recognizing that we must set an example for the world.”
Perez recounted his testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary panel last week on how the Civil Rights Division saw its role in implementing several international human rights treaties. He said the division would be working closely with the State Department on international human rights issues to make sure that the U.S. is in compliance with those treaties.
“We are the nation’s problem-solvers, not simply the nation’s litigators,” said Perez. “I’m a firm believer that if you want a job done well, give it to a busy person, and we’re having a lot of busy people at our department,” said Perez.
The conclusion of Perez’s speech, filmed by Main Justice, can be viewed below. The full speech, as aired on C-SPAN, can be viewed here.
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Michelle Bachmann has criticized Eric Holder's handling of the 9/11 trials (file photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).
In a press conference in front of the Supreme Court on Thursday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and GOP House members joined Republicans who have criticized Attorney General Eric Holder for his decision to hold the trial of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City.
“The decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City and give him all the benefits and perks reserved for American citizens is a slap in the face of the 9/11 victim’s families, the American people, and the men and women who risk their lives to defend our liberties each and every day,” said Bachmann in a statement released after the news conference.
Bachmann was joined at the news conference yesterday by Andrew McCarthy, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York who prosecuted “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman and others involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Bachmann has emerged as a conservative leader in the Tea Party movement, leading a rally against the health care reform bill on Capitol Hill last month. Her controversial statements have made her a regular on the cable news circuit.
“If President Obama admits that we are a nation at war, then we should act like one,” Bachmann said in her statement. “Justice for the 9/11 attackers should be swift and conclusive, something that won’t be done when KSM exploits the abundant appeals and legal loopholes he has been inexplicably awarded as a foreign combatant.”
Other House members in attendance included Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), reports Talking Points Memo.
To recap, here are some of the conservatives who have come out against the trial:
The Republican mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has supported the trial.
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John Ashcroft (USDOJ)
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Friday that trials for the Sept. 11, 2001, plotters could endanger the public and give anti-U.S. elements a public stage to voice their rhetoric, according to the Associated Press.
“If your top priority is the liberty and life of American citizens and the security of their lives and liberty, then this decision is less than optimal,” he told reporters at a Kansas fundraiser for Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s campaign for U.S. Senate. ”I believe we are still in a very significant war on terror. The administration doesn’t appear to believe that we are in a war on terror.”
Last Wednesday, Ashcroft said that Holder technically lacks the legal standing to move alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other detainees to federal courts in New York City to stand trial.
“The attorney general doesn’t have the authority to mandate that the secretary of Defense turn somebody over to him and yield jurisdiction so that something that would have been done in a military setting is done in a civilian setting,” Ashcroft told the Chris Stigall show on KCMO radio, according to the Hill.
Notwithstanding Ashcroft’s views, the trials will be held in New York City; Holder made his decision in consultation with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, according to the Justice Department
Ashcroft, who was Attorney General from 2001-2005, joins former Attorneys General Ed Meese and Michael B. Mukasey in criticizing Holder’s decision to give the Sept. 11 plotters civilian trials.
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