Amy Coney Barrett: Adding a Handmaid to SCOTUS

[Marmion]

Quote

Opposition to Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, has centered on his efforts to put her on the bench weeks before a Presidential election and her rightwing judicial positions. In three years since Trump appointed her a federal appeals court judge, Barrett has opposed reproductive freedom, gun regulation, immigrant rights, and efforts to combat discrimination. Ultimately disqualifying, however, are Barnett’s own statements about how her religious views shape her legal philosophy and that her primary goal as a lawyer is “building the Kingdom of God,” not defending the Constitution of the United States.

Supreme Court Justices are required to take two oaths of office prior to taking their lifetime position on the court, the Judicial Oath and the Constitutional Oath. According to Article VI of the United States Constitution, all judicial officers “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.” It also says “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Since passage of the Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, judicial appointees affirm that they “will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

Since the Constitution forbids a “religious test,” Amy Coney Barrett’s membership in a Christian fundamentalist group is not a disqualification for office, however, her legal philosophy is. Barnett would be swearing to something she does not believe and will not do, which is a federal offense.

In 2017 Senate confirmation hearings, Barrett asserted “If you’re asking whether I take my faith seriously and I’m a faithful Catholic — I am, 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.” However, according to a 1998 journal article that Barrett co-authored, “(Catholic judges) are . . . obliged to adhere to their church’s teaching on moral matters.” In the same article, the authors quoted Justice William Brennan, who argued at his Senate confirmation hearing that in his position on the Supreme Court “what shall control me is the oath that I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States and [I shall] so act upon the cases that come before me for decision that it is that oath and that alone which governs.” Barrett and her co-author commented that “We do not defend this position as the proper response for a Catholic judge to take with respect to abortion or the death penalty”.

NEW: Amy Coney Barrett signed a letter urging the end of ‘barbaric’ Roe v. Wadehttps://t.co/z4UfbEHyr2

— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 1, 2020

In a 2006 commencement speech to graduates of Notre Dame Law School, Barrett went even further in spelling out the role of religion in her legal philosophy proclaiming “A legal career is but a means to an end … and that end is building the Kingdom of God.” Barrett also recommended that Catholic lawyers consult “God before making a choice” asking God, “In which situation can I best serve You? . . . we are a community engaged in the enterprise of legal education and scholarship, we are also a community engaged in the enterprise of bringing about the kingdom of God.”

The United States Constitution says that judicial officers should not be subject to a religious test. The problem is that Amy Coney Barrett acknowledges she applies a “religious test” to every legal decision. Barrett has the absolute right to apply her “religious test” in her personal life and in her legal career, but not as a Supreme Court Justice and that is why her legal philosophy should disqualify her.

http://churchandstate.org.uk/2020/10/amy-coney-barrett-is-not-qualified-to-be-a-supreme-court-justice/   

[Cartmann99]

Notice where it says CWA LAC next to Coney Barrett's head? This bus is paid for by Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee.

So who are these women? Well, do you remember Tim LaHaye and the Left Behind books? His wife Beverly started this group in 1978.

Quote

Beverly LaHaye watched a television interview of Betty Friedan, founder of the National Organization for Women. Realizing that Friedan claimed to speak for the women of America, Beverly LaHaye was stirred to action. She knew the feminists’ anti-God, anti-family rhetoric did not represent her beliefs, nor those of the vast majority of women.

The first meeting to educate and alert Christian women on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), led by Beverly LaHaye, occurred in San Diego, California. More than 1,200 attended. This was the springboard to beginning Concerned Women for America as a national organization.

  I've skipped over the Bible verses CWA uses to support their views, but if you follow the links you can read those too.

• Sanctity of Life

Spoiler

• Marriage and the Family

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• Education

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• Religious Liberty

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• National Sovereignty

Spoiler

 

• Sexual Exploitation

Spoiler

• Support for Israel

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There's also the current topics section:

Spoiler

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Cartmann99

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

She wants to take us back in time...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good:

[GreyhoundFan]

"Postpone the election? Voter intimidation? Amy Coney Barrett is open to it."

Spoiler

udge Amy Coney Barrett wasn’t inclined to opine on anything — not on whether in vitro fertilization is “tantamount to manslaughter,” not on whether she might support re-criminalizing homosexuality and certainly not on whether she’d invalidate Obamacare or Roe v. Wade.

But the most chilling moment of her Supreme Court confirmation testimony Tuesday came when she said she would “need to hear arguments” about whether President Trump can postpone the election.

“President Trump made claims of voter fraud and suggested he wanted to delay the upcoming election,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, observed. “Does the Constitution give the president of the United States the authority to unilaterally delay a general election under any circumstances? Does federal law?”

This should have been a gimme. There was only one correct answer: No.

But this is not the answer Barrett gave. “Well, Senator, if that question ever came before me, I would need to hear arguments from the litigants and read briefs and consult with my law clerks and talk to my colleagues and go through the opinion-writing process,” she answered. She said she didn’t want to give “off-the-cuff answers” like a “pundit” but rather approach matters “with an open mind.”

What? Sure, nominees try to avoid the slippery slope of opining on potential cases, but there is no room for argument here, especially from a self-proclaimed “originalist” and “textualist.”

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states: “The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution requires: “The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January … and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”

Title 3, Section 1, Chapter 1 of the U.S. Code specifies: “The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President.”

By the plain wording of the Constitution and the law, a president cannot unilaterally postpone an election. But this nominee, sounding more Trumpist than textualist, tells us it’s debatable.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) returned to the subject of elections, asking Barrett: “Under federal law, is it illegal to intimidate voters at the poll?”

Again, an easy question with an obvious answer. The U.S. Code (Title 18, Chapter 29, Section 594) calls for a fine, imprisonment or both for “whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote.”

But Barrett answered differently. “I can’t apply the law to a hypothetical set of facts,” she said.

What makes Barrett’s answers disturbing (and what probably makes her so wary about answering) is there is nothing hypothetical about any of this. Trump did propose postponing the election. He has made clear he will dispute the results if he does not win. He refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. He has repeatedly raised unfounded doubts about the integrity of elections and falsely declared mail-in balloting fraudulent. He has called for armed civilians to patrol the polls. He has mobilized federal police against his critics.

After Trump proposed on Twitter “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd amendment. It is under siege!,” members of a self-proclaimed militia hatched a plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan, and considered the same for the governor of Virginia, according to the FBI. Trump is using the Justice Department to protect friends; he has used Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark A. Milley in his reelection ads without their consent; and he turned the White House into the set for a political convention.

He got the national intelligence director to declassify unverified information about his political opponents; he circumvented Congress to give election-season tax breaks and payouts by executive order; and he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to “put down” election-night unrest.

Against that backdrop, Barrett’s remarks on postponing elections and intimidating voters could serve as an invitation to lawlessness from the woman who would, if Republicans have their way, be on the Supreme Court by the time Trump tries to discredit the election.

“This president,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said, “expects his nominee to side with him in an election dispute” and find that “Democrats have rigged the election.” Leahy asked Barrett to recuse herself from such a dispute to protect “confidence in both you and the court.”

The nominee demurred.

Thanks to the GOP’s abolition of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, Barrett needn’t win over a single Democrat — and she didn’t try. Republican questioners delighted in her past criticism of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s ruling upholding Obamacare.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Barrett votes to strike down Obamacare and abortion rights. But is it too much to ask that a Supreme Court nominee would defend the Constitution and federal law from a president who disregards both? Apparently so.

 

[Becky]

15 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I love Amy Klobuchar:

 

Amy K. is very awesome and we are fortunate the people of Minnesota put her in the Senate.  She was my pick in the primary.  

[SPHASH]

22 minutes ago, Becky said:

Amy K. is very awesome and we are fortunate the people of Minnesota put her in the Senate.  She was my pick in the primary.  

Mine too.

[GreyhoundFan]

[hoipolloi]

If you've got a half hour, it's worth spending on watching this video of Senator Whitehouse's comments from yesterday's (10/13) hearing: 

 

He goes into great detail on how SCOTUS seats, including Barrett's, have been bought & sold by monied conservative interests.

He clearly hit a nerve because today's Wall Street Journal had an editorial chastising him.

[fraurosena]

59 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

If you've got a half hour, it's worth spending on watching this video of Senator Whitehouse's comments from yesterday's (10/13) hearing: 

 

He goes into great detail on how SCOTUS seats, including Barrett's, have been bought & sold by monied conservative interests.

He clearly hit a nerve because today's Wall Street Journal had an editorial chastising him.

I didn't watch, but listened to this while I was doing some painting. And maybe that's why this jumped out at me. If you listen carefully, you will notice that  every time Sheldon explains why she's being nominated, and what she's supposed to do when she's on the SC, Coney Barret nervously scrapes her throat. Every.single.time.

[hoipolloi]

While I'd like to see a D Congress & President go all in on expanding SCOTUS & the federal judiciary, an easier & faster way to fix SCOTUS might be to launch investigations on sitting justices, particularly Kavanaugh. 

Kavanaugh had a shit ton of debt, even for an up & coming federal judge. Maybe ESPECIALLY for a federal judge. The Rs suppressed all of this very disturbing info as best they could but it clearly needs a real and public investigation. I suspect that the results of a bona fide investigation + Kavanaugh's repeated perjury under oath would be enough to impeach him if he doesn't resign first.

Edited October 14, 2020 by hoipolloi

[Cartmann99]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@hoipolloi -- I agree with you. I would also like to see federal judgeships, including SCOTUS, not be a lifetime appointment. I wouldn't mind a fairly long term, say 10 years, but this lifetime thing just lends itself to abuse. I haven't done any research into how such a change could be made, however.

The other change I'd love to see, but it would never happen, is for the senate to become the lower house in congress, since it is not representative of the actual population of the country.  This minority rule forced by the senate and electoral college is ridiculous.

[GreyhoundFan]

This seems to be the position of most repugs.

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The other change I'd love to see, but it would never happen, is for the senate to become the lower house in congress, since it is not representative of the actual population of the country.  This minority rule forced by the senate and electoral college is ridiculous.

I agree. They're actually analogous to the House of Lords in the UK's parliament. They should have, at most, a ceremonial status but no real power.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

So she's a liar, no wonder the repugs love her.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The more I hear about and from Amy, the more I despise her.

 

Again, in contrast to Kamala's intelligent questioning, we get Bluto Kennedy:

 

[JMarie]

St. Rachel just made a good point: why is Biden's Catholic faith such an argument starter for conservatives, but Barrett's (same) Catholic faith is No Big Deal?

[fraurosena]

11 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

I agree. They're actually analogous to the House of Lords in the UK's parliament. They should have, at most, a ceremonial status but no real power.

 

What they most certainly should not have is the power to appoint judges. In a trias politica (executive, legislative and judicial) it's impossible to have a separation of powers if one entity appoints members of the other.

The judicial branch should appoint its own. They are uniquely qualified to judge (unintentional pun) the qualifications and capabilities of candidates to fulfil the position. And politics wouldn't factor into it.

[AnywhereButHere]

On 10/14/2020 at 9:44 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

She wants to take us back in time...

 

Well Amy, if we want to go back to when the constitution was ratified, then you need to step down as a judge, because women certainly couldn't hold that position. Or, you know, vote.

[GreyhoundFan]

Greta is so clear-eyed.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Barrett’s hearings were a frustrating charade. But they were still chilling."

Spoiler

What did we learn about Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett at her confirmation hearings? Well, thanks to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), we know she used to play the piano, but now only supervises the kids’ practicing.

Who does the laundry in the Barrett household remains something of a mystery, despite the piercing questioning by Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.). Somehow, I missed that line of inquiry for Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

“We increasingly have been trying to get our children to take responsibility for their own,” Barrett reported, “but those efforts are not always successful.”

And so it went during an exercise whose outcome was never in doubt. Every Supreme Court confirmation hearing since that of failed nominee Robert H. Bork in 1987 has been an exercise in evasion. Nominees divulge only as much information as needed to win. Barrett, with the vote well in hand, didn’t need to offer up much.

It is tempting, then, to again pronounce confirmation hearings the “vapid, hollow charade” that Justice Elena Kagan, while still a law professor, found them to be and give up on them entirely. But even Barrett’s hearings, frustrating as they were, offered some useful — and chilling — insights into the new justice.

Sometimes what a nominee won’t say is as telling as what she does. Thus Barrett was willing to pronounce that both Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark school desegregation case, and Loving v. Virginia, which declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, had been correctly decided. But when it came to a precedent even older than Loving, the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, Barrett balked.

The court in Griswold found that a constitutional right to privacy protected the right of married couples to obtain contraception. Barrett argued that her view on this case didn’t matter — “an academic question that wouldn’t arise” — because no state in the modern era would consider criminalizing contraception.

But then she contended just the opposite: that she couldn’t offer her view on Griswold because it was anything but academic. “I think the only reason that it’s even worth asking that question is to lay a predicate for whether Roe was rightly decided. Because Griswold does lie at the foundation of that line of precedent,” Barrett told Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.). “So because Griswold involved substantive due process, an area that remains one subject to litigation all over the country, I don’t think it’s . . . a case that I can opine on.”

Actually, it is: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — among others — all commented on privacy and Griswold in their confirmation hearings. Roberts, in 2005, said, “I agree with the Griswold court’s conclusion that marital privacy extends to contraception.” President Trump’s two previous nominees, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, largely ducked the question.

Barrett’s studied silence offers yet another indication that she sees no protection for abortion rights in the Constitution. If she’s willing to say that Loving was correct, what’s the significance of her refusal to say the same about the same-sex marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges? Again, it’s not hard to guess.

Something Barrett was able to talk about — her dissent in a 2019 gun-rights case, Kanter v. Barr — was revealing in a different way. The case involved a Wisconsin man convicted of felony mail fraud — he was billing Medicare for shoddy shoe inserts — and, therefore, precluded under federal and state law from possessing a gun. He argued that that ban was unconstitutional because there was no proof that he posed any danger.

The Supreme Court, ruling in 2008 that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to bear arms, said that right was not absolute. “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority.

In Kanter, two Ronald Reagan-appointed judges voted to uphold the felon ban. Legislatures, they observed, are “far better equipped than the judiciary to make sensitive public policy judgments (within constitutional limits) concerning the dangers in carrying firearms and the manner to combat those risks.”

Barrett disagreed. She acknowledged that the government’s interest in “keeping guns out of the hands of those who are likely to misuse them . . . is very strong.” But, she said, “neither Wisconsin nor the United States has introduced data sufficient to show that disarming all nonviolent felons substantially advances its interest in keeping the public safe.”

Flash forward to Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee, repeatedly insisting that her role as a judge was limited — that she could not be, as she put it, Queen Amy. “I just don’t have the power by fiat to impose my policy preferences or choose the result I prefer,” Barrett said. “That’s just not my role. I’ve got to go with what you guys have chosen.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked Barrett how to square that claim of judicial modesty with her Kanter dissent. That opinion, he said, “seems to usurp the legislature’s role in deciding who should be permitted to have firearms and who should not.”

He never really got an answer. But, as Barrett prepares for a lifetime seat, at least the question is out there — even if it got buried under a pile of more pressing issues, such as the Barrett family laundry.

 

[starfish]

On 10/14/2020 at 2:21 PM, hoipolloi said:

While I'd like to see a D Congress & President go all in on expanding SCOTUS & the federal judiciary, an easier & faster way to fix SCOTUS might be to launch investigations on sitting justices, particularly Kavanaugh. 

Kavanaugh had a shit ton of debt, even for an up & coming federal judge. Maybe ESPECIALLY for a federal judge. The Rs suppressed all of this very disturbing info as best they could but it clearly needs a real and public investigation. I suspect that the results of a bona fide investigation + Kavanaugh's repeated perjury under oath would be enough to impeach him if he doesn't resign first.

Apparently he had some gambling debt, if I remember correctly. Or something that was related to sports. 

Coney Island Barrett has creepy fundie eyes. She reminds me of Carri Williams from Washington state. 

I think there's some train up a child bs going on. 

 

 

[Imrlgoddess]

She presents herself, imho, as a typical classic Louisiana shark attorney.  They are skilled at omission and avoidance responses in order to get what they want.  It has been said for decades that Louisiana has the best politicians money can buy and the vast majority of the time that money comes from shysters across the state.  

I hate that out of all the people that could have been chosen for this seat...it's her.  She is a calculated choice, watching Lindsey Graham faun over her in the hearing videos was sickening.  I have a small hope that home life will get so sticky for her that she voluntarily steps down before she can get too much footing. 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Imrlgoddess
riffles