Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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We will find out for sure tomorrow, unless he forgets and goes to play golf.
President Donald Trump plans to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Saturday. The judge is a favorite of social conservatives who, if confirmed, will be the youngest justice on the court and could reshape the nation’s laws for decades.

CNN, CBS and PBS reported Barrett as Trump’s pick on Friday. Barrett was widely seen as the front-runner to fill the seat that opened when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Sept. 18, and she was on the short list to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018. That seat ultimately went to now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Barrett, 48, has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit since 2017. She taught for 15 years at Notre Dame Law School in Indiana, and before that, clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Civil and human rights groups strongly opposed Barrett’s nomination to her current court seat over her views on a range of issues.

During her 2017 Senate confirmation, 17 women’s rights groups wrote to committee members urging them to oppose Barrett for her record of having “expressly opposed reproductive and women’s rights.” They cited a 2003 article by Barrett in which she refers to Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision ensuring women’s access to abortion, as an “erroneous decision.” Their letter also notes that Barrett signed a public “statement of protest” against the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, referring to the policy as an “assault on religious liberty.”

More than two dozen LGBTQ rights groups raised concerns about Barrett wavering on the idea of landmark LGBTQ rights decisions qualifying as “superprecedents” ― decisions so important they should not be overturned. They also note she took a speaking fee from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit that has defended forced sterilization for transgender people and been dubbed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Barrett responded by saying she didn’t know Alliance Defending Freedom is the largest anti-LGBTQ legal advocacy group in the nation. As for abortion rights, she said her personal views on the precedent set by Roe v. Wade would not affect her decisions as a federal judge.

Barrett belongs to a small Christian group called People of Praise that until recently referred to its female leaders as “handmaids” ― evoking comparisons to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.” People of Praise describes itself as a “charismatic” Christian community, referring to a form of Christianity that believes that supernatural occurrences ― such as prophecy, miraculous healing and speaking in tongues ― can occur in people’s daily lives through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Like so many of Trump’s nominees to lifetime federal court seats, Barrett is a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization that has essentially served as a pipeline for many of the president’s court picks. Both of Trump’s other Supreme Court picks, Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, are members of the group.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amy-con ... c912628955
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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Bisbee wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 6:57 pm Ms. “Handmaid’s Tale”... just marvelous.
↑ This! The wall of separation is in more danger of crumbling than the shoddy one Trump supporters built.

Aaaand, cue the highlights of horror reel!

What you need to know about Amy Coney Barrett
Barrett has stated that “life begins at conception,” according to a 2013 Notre Dame Magazine article. She also said that justices should not be strictly bound by Supreme Court precedents, a deference known as stare decisis, leaving open the possibility that she could vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if seated on the court.
source: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/1 ... now-418378
archive.org snapshot: https://archive.vn/IHn1m

Some Worry About Judicial Nominee’s Ties to a Religious Group
Ms. Barrett told the senators that she was a faithful Catholic, and that her religious beliefs would not affect her decisions as an appellate judge. But her membership in a small, tightly knit Christian group called People of Praise never came up at the hearing, and might have led to even more intense questioning.

Some of the group’s practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a “head” for men and a “handmaid” for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family.
source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/a ... igion.html
archive.org snapshot: https://archive.vn/XJ2PX

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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JaxTeller wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 9:40 pm Say goodbye to the ACA.

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk
It's time for Dems in both houses to find their spines, drop their foibles, forget about playing fair, and do WHATEVER it takes to stop this! So WHAT if they paralyze the Senate? All it does is confirm shit far-right assholes as judges.

Let the House Impeach Trump again and again...the Senate must take that up first. Schumer must lead the Dems to refuse Unanimous Consent, to demand quorums, Bring the Senate to a dead stop and let ReTrumplicans whine and tantrum...until the 117th convenes!
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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We talked about this on the RBG thread. Harry Reid abolished the filibuster for federal judges, then Mitch McConnell abolished the filibuster for SCOTUS justices - the filibuster for judicial nominees is gone forever. Trump has the votes to get his nominee confirmed, even Republicans in tight election races aren't bucking him.
Once Trump names a nominee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is facing a competitive reelection fight, will outline how the committee will handle the nomination. Graham has said that the committee plans to hold three days of hearings for the Supreme Court nominee in October.

Multiple sources familiar have told CNN that both the White House and Graham are targeting the week of October 12 for the nominee's confirmation hearing. That would allow for a confirmation vote by October 29, hitting a pre-election timeline that the White House and congressional Republicans are increasingly coalescing behind.
Until a nominee is formally announced and has a chance to be vetted by the Senate, it's impossible to predict precisely how the timeline will unfold and whether there will be any delays to the process along the way.

But if Republicans want to install a new justice on the court before the election, they will have to work very quickly over a matter of weeks, not months. A recently updated report from the Congressional Research Service states that "on average, for Supreme Court nominees who have received hearings from 1975 to the present, the nominee's first hearing occurred 43 days after his or her nomination was formally submitted to the Senate by the President." If hearings begin in the Senate the week of October 12, that would mean a timeline of only around 17 to 18 days between the President's formal announcement of a nominee to the start of hearings.

A confirmation vote by October 29 -- if it were to happen -- would mean only around 33 days between the announcement of a nominee and the vote to confirm.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/26/politics ... index.html

Mitt Romney is onboard with the confirmation, some hoped he would have protested. Reality is that Romney's own state will go for Trump. Polls have Trump ahead of Biden by around 18 points in Utah, so much for Mormons being uncomfortable with Trump.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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Trump Formally Nominates Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

President Donald Trump on Saturday formally nominated Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, with about five weeks left until Election Day.

Barrett, a 48-year-old judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, follows an extreme brand of conservatism that makes her a particularly polarizing choice.

She is widely viewed as a threat to abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act, based on past comments and her personal life. In 2016, Barrett indicated during a talk at Jacksonville University that the Supreme Court could still make it easier for states to restrict access to abortion, particularly late-term procedures. In 2017, she argued in a law review article that the Affordable Care Act went against a textual interpretation of the Constitution.

Her peers reportedly described her as a constitutional originalist for whom the words in the Constitution mean what they meant to the Founding Fathers in the 18th century.

Barrett is also reported to be a member of a secretive Catholic group called People of Praise, whose members believe that, in marriage, husbands are decision-makers and should wield power over their wives. People of Praise also follows practices drawn from evangelical Christianity, such as faith healing.

The group is based in South Bend, Indiana, where Barrett lives with her husband and seven children. Critics worried that its ideology may influence Barrett’s decisions, a perspective conservatives regard as anti-Catholic bigotry.

Barrett gave a 2006 commencement speech at Notre Dame Law School in which she said that lawyers should view their work through the lens of religion. She expressed the hope that each graduate would “fulfill the promise of being a different kind of lawyer.”

“And that is this: that you will always keep in mind that your legal career is but a means to an end, and as Father Jenkins told you this morning, that end is building the kingdom of God,” she said. “You know the same law, are charged with maintaining the same ethical standards and will be entering the same kinds of legal jobs as your peers across the country. But if you can keep in mind that your fundamental purpose in life is not to be a lawyer, but to know, love, and serve God, you truly will be a different kind of lawyer.”

In her 2017 confirmation hearing for the circuit court, however, Barrett assured senators that she would be capable of separating her personal views from her work as a judge.

“If you’re asking whether I take my faith seriously and I’m a faithful Catholic, I am,” she said at the time. “Although I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge.”

Trump’s decision to press forward with the confirmation process so close to the election triggered nationwide alarm. The Supreme Court may wind up adjudicating cases related to the outcome of the election, as it did in 2000.

Democrats are particularly angry that Republicans are proceeding with Barrett’s nomination even though they refused to move ahead with President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. At that time, Republicans cited a supposed tradition against filling a Supreme Court seat during an election year.

Scalia died 269 days before the 2016 presidential election; Ginsburg died just 46 days before the 2020 election.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell argued in 2016 that the results of the midterm elections, which favored Republicans, proved that American voters were dissatisfied with incumbent leadership and should make “their voices heard” before a new judge was put on the bench.

In the last week, however, McConnell attempted to fend off accusations of hypocrisy by arguing that the situation now differs from 2016 because the White House and the Senate are now controlled by the same party. He has apparently remained silent on the results of the 2018 midterms, which favored Democrats.

Few Senate Republicans have criticized Trump’s actions to fill Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court. So far, only Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have said the seat should be filled by the winner of the Nov. 3 election.

Trump’s nomination now goes to the Senate, where it appears to have just enough votes to squeak by.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-n ... f20e766f9a
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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We're lucky he's an idiot surrounded by idiots supported by idiots.

Imagine:
hypothetically intelligent Donald J. Trump wrote: I nominate the best judges. I've got one all picked out. But I'm not going to do it. You know why? Because we have an election coming. Elections have consequences. If I nominate her - did I mention? Great legs, I'd grab that - If I nominated her, and she got confirmed before the election, you know what I get? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. RINOs could breathe a sigh of relief and vote for Sleepy Joe, knowing there's a 6-3 majority on the Court no matter what. There's no reason for Republicans - loyal Americans - to come out to vote, especially not with this damn pandemic going on.

No. I've got a name. It's a great name. Great judge. But you gotta re-elect me first. Come out in November, it's safe, vote for me. Vote for my loyal supporters. Red, it's a beautiful color. Get me a Republican Senate, we'll pack the courts for years to come.

But if I lose? Fine. Let Sleepy Joe nominate Hillary for the spot instead. Good luck with that.
That's how you motivate every single Republican left in the ecosystem.

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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Before the death of Justice Ginsburg at age 87, the Supreme Court included five Catholic justices (Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor and Brett Kavanaugh) and three Jewish justices (Ms. Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan). The ninth justice, Neil Gorsuch, was raised Catholic but reportedly attends an Episcopal church.
Two-thirds of the current Supreme Court were raised in the Catholic faith, though Catholics make up only about 20 percent of the U.S. population. (Catholics are also over represented on Capitol Hill: 31 percent of the 115th Congress, when sworn in last year, identified as Catholic.)

Since its establishment in 1789, the Supreme Court has gone from a reserve for white, male Protestants to the contemporary bench diversified by race, creed and gender, beginning with the breakthrough appointments of Thurgood Marshall (1967) and Sandra Day O’Connor (1981).
Roger Taney was the first Catholic to be appointed, in 1836, but it took another 58 years for the second Catholic justice, Edward White, to serve. Eleven Catholics have been seated on the bench since then.
The Supreme Court, of course, is not supposed to be a place for applying religious principles to the law. The court’s purpose is to settle conflicting judgments from lower courts, and determine whether laws are in conflict with the Constitution or other federal laws.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politic ... reme-court

America Magazine is Catholic.
_______________________________________

The UK and other countries have insulated their highest court from politics. Term limits for federal judges is again being talked about. The other alternative is age limits.
There is no limit to UK justices' terms but they must retire when they are 75 years old. Similar age restrictions are in place in other Western European countries too.

In Germany, for example, the top judges serve 12-year terms with no re-election allowed and must retire at the age of 68. In Switzerland, they serve six-year terms and can be re-elected an unlimited number of times - but they must resign at the age of 68. (Both countries have different selection processes.)

Lifetime appointments in the US were originally designed to isolate them from political pressure. But given the current climate, critics argue that, in fact, the opposite is happening and some have defended the introduction of fixed terms.

"It doesn't make sense at all," said Prof Ackerman, from Yale, about lifetime terms.

And so, members nominated at a relatively young age - Justice Clarence Thomas, another controversial nomination, was 43 when he was appointed in 1991 - can serve for several decades.

Opponents to terms, meanwhile, say they could actually make the politicisation even worse, as presidents would be more inclined to make partisan nominations as justices would have temporary terms.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45632035

Right now SCOTUS justices have the job for life and that brings up another question of why SCOTUS is hearing fewer cases, it could be because of the age of the court. Circuit and district court judges can take senior status after so many years of service and get a reduced caseload but still have an office and staff.
Last edited by highdesert on Sun Sep 27, 2020 3:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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TrueTexan wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:01 pm The reason they aren’t hearing as many cases is because the lower courts are packed with similar thinking Rightwing judges. Why hear a case when you agree with the lower court.
So the court not taking up any of the second amendment cases agree with the lower courts? So much for the conservatives being for the second amendment.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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sikacz wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:08 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:01 pm The reason they aren’t hearing as many cases is because the lower courts are packed with similar thinking Rightwing judges. Why hear a case when you agree with the lower court.
So the court not taking up any of the second amendment cases agree with the lower courts? So much for the conservatives being for the second amendment.
They don’t give a rat’s ass about the 2nd Amendment. Especially if it allows more POC and Liberals to be able to buy and own guns. The rulings against Guns are in the Liberal Blue states. The Red States don’t have those liberal restrictions. So why bother ruling.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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TrueTexan wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:40 pm
sikacz wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:08 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:01 pm The reason they aren’t hearing as many cases is because the lower courts are packed with similar thinking Rightwing judges. Why hear a case when you agree with the lower court.
So the court not taking up any of the second amendment cases agree with the lower courts? So much for the conservatives being for the second amendment.
They don’t give a rat’s ass about the 2nd Amendment. Especially if it allows more POC and Liberals to be able to buy and own guns. The rulings against Guns are in the Liberal Blue states. The Red States don’t have those liberal restrictions. So why bother ruling.
That’s about how I see it. Thought I’d bring it up since this is a second amendment supporting gun group.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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sikacz wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:44 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 1:40 pm
sikacz wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:08 pm
TrueTexan wrote: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:01 pm The reason they aren’t hearing as many cases is because the lower courts are packed with similar thinking Rightwing judges. Why hear a case when you agree with the lower court.
So the court not taking up any of the second amendment cases agree with the lower courts? So much for the conservatives being for the second amendment.
They don’t give a rat’s ass about the 2nd Amendment. Especially if it allows more POC and Liberals to be able to buy and own guns. The rulings against Guns are in the Liberal Blue states. The Red States don’t have those liberal restrictions. So why bother ruling.
That’s about how I see it. Thought I’d bring it up since this is a second amendment supporting gun group.
Blue states push on gun restrictions, but red states push on abortion restrictions.

When SCOTUS earlier this year issued their opinion on NY State RPA vs NYC and dismissed 6 2A cert petitions before them, Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas and Gorsuch signaled they weren't happy with lower court 2A rulings in applying Heller and McDonald. Monday, October 5th starts the 2020-2021 Term for SCOTUS and potentially more 2A cases.


I posted this on the other thread.

Amy Coney Barrett is a judge on the 7th Circuit of the US Court of Appeals headquartered in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune looked at her opinions and there is one involving firearms.
Barrett’s originalist mindset was on display in 2018 when she cited centuries-old laws in Britain and elsewhere in a dissent over a 7th Circuit appeal involving a Wisconsin man convicted of being a felon in possession of a handgun.

While Barrett’s colleagues ruled that Wisconsin’s law barring felons from having firearms was constitutional, Barrett wrote that since the plaintiff had been convicted of a white-collar crime, he was not inherently dangerous.

“Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons,” Barrett wrote in her dissent, which said the Wisconsin law should be declared unconstitutional. “In 1791 — and for well more than a century afterward — legislatures disqualified categories of people from the right to bear arms only when they judged that doing so was necessary to protect the public safety.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/cri ... story.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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featureless wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:24 pm I don't give a rats ass what someone's faith is, provided it doesn't weasel it's way into the legal argument. Separation of church and state is a thing. So is freedom of/from religion.
That has been my perspective. However, I really think there should be a few agnostics, atheists or a hindu or buddhist in the court.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: Trump Plans To Nominate Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

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featureless wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:24 pm I don't give a rats ass what someone's faith is, provided it doesn't weasel it's way into the legal argument. Separation of church and state is a thing. So is freedom of/from religion.
Jefferson, the author of the separation of church and state thing, also said about religion: "It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Problem now is, it kinda tries to do both.

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