Many Americans were shocked at the rejection by the U.S. Supreme Court of the Texas lawsuit against the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia for disenfranchising the voters of Texas by exercising fraudulent actions in the November 3, 2020, presidential election. The Court did not accept the case, rejecting it on the basis of Texas not having standing to file such a case against other states.
Louisiana Attorney John Milkovich penned a Memo to the Court expressing his angst and that of millions of other Americans at the inaction of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding this very serious matter.
John Milkovich is an American politician and attorney from the state of Louisiana. A Democrat, Milkovich represented the 38th district of the Louisiana State Senate, based in Shreveport, from 2016 until 2020. Milkovich was born and raised in Roundup, Montana, and went to the University of Montana. After obtaining his J.D. at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Milkovich worked as a judicial clerk for Fred C. Sexton Jr. of the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Milkovich has also been an attorney at law since 1985.
Memo to Supreme Court: Theft of Presidential Election Violates the Constitution
It’s true. The theft of a Presidential Election violates the Constitution. It constitutes illegal insurrection. It embodies a War on Freedom. It is for a time such as this, that you wear the robe.
Hyper-technical considerations of Jurisdiction, Casuistic deliberations over Standing, and Ivory Tower hairsplitting over legal causes have their place. But that place is not the Highest Court of a Crumbling Republic.
Your job is to defend the Constitution. And sometimes, in order to defend the Constitution, you must defend the Country–– without which there would be no Constitution.
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy all understood: A Constitution has no meaning or value, if the Nation it was designed to protect, it no longer exists. If there is no Country — there is no Constitution.
What happened in the 2020 Presidential Election was a coup, akin in some respects to the midday murder of President John F. Kennedy, in broad daylight, in Dealey Plaza, on November 22, 1963.
From all over America and the World, ordinary citizens whose primary expertise about the legal system comes from Traffic Court Summonses, understand this: You cannot take down America, without violating the Constitution. In the face of a tsunami of massive election fraud and deceit, if you do not defend the Country, there may be no Constitution left to defend. Next to the right to worship God, there is perhaps no other Constitutional right so fundamental to freedom, as the right to elect officials in honest elections. And if that right is lost, if the corrupt voting machine companies, Corporate Media’s stream of unconsciousness, and amoral vote thieves are allowed to steal a presidential election in full view of the American public, we may never have a fully free election again.
It’s past time to jettison the hackneyed, philosophic divergence between judges that are liberal, activist legislators from the Bench — and conservative non-interventionists.
It is not the Supreme Court’s job merely to determine whether pleadings and causes of action fit neatly within the contours of statutes and judicial precedent.
Occam’s Razor does not divide Conscience, Country, and Constitution.
Now is not the time to shrink from Constitutional Duty, confessed to God, because of the specter of Soros-sponsored street mobs. As History instructs, those that seek to dominate by violence, proceed from Riot to Rule.
The people that pay taxes, raise families, and defend the Country in uniform are sending you a message: This is an assault on America and an attack on the Republic; a war on Freedom. “Be Strong and of Good Courage.” Defend the Constitution. And the “One Nation Under God,” without which the Constitution cannot exist.
Have you read the 154-page lawsuit filed against the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia? I have. I am NO Constitutional expert, but the fundamental premise of the suit seems elementary to me. Let me break it down in layman’s terms:
Individual states are required by the Constitution (Article II) to choose those who will serve for each state in casting the votes for those citizens in the electoral college for President.
Each state’s lawmaking body — or “legislature” — determines in passed laws the processes for choosing those electors.
The legislatures are required — in the same Article II — to set the details of how elections are to be structured. Any changes in each election system can only be changed by amending previously passed laws. No governor or other state official has the legal authority to alter the election process enshrined in state law.
The Supreme Court is to resolve disputes between states. That gives the Court the sole responsibility to resolve this lawsuit between Texas and the four other states.
What Are the Potential Actions by SCOTUS?
The Court will view the states’ responses due by 3:00 PM Thursday and decide to push forward with the lawsuit or to simply refuse to get involved.
As we see it, the option to hear the case and oral arguments would be to determine ONLY whether any or all of these four states violated the provision of the U.S. Constitution in Article II. This section set the requirement of states’ lawmaking bodies to set the election process.
If the Court decides to NOT take the case, that would remand the case back to Texas. That would mean the election results as certified by those four states’ governors would stand and the electors as chosen by those states would participate in the electoral college process. That, in essence, would result in a Joe Biden presidency.
The Dangers of Each Choice of the SCOTUS
Let’s assume the Court takes the case, hears it, and decides to remedy the unconstitutional actions of these states. That approach leaves them few options.
One would be to instruct the applicable states to take actions legislatively to select electors outside their previous process. That ruling would mean the votes tallied and included in the certified results previously would have to be revised. That may NOT be possible because of the constitutional mandate for the inauguration of a President on January 20th. State legislatures might themselves select electors.
It is possible but unlikely, a legislature could identify each of the ballots that were cast, counted, or both that were NOT done so legally. If so, invalidating those illegal votes and recounting using only the legally cast votes might be an option. It is doubtful this would work.
A Few “Experts” Opinion
The above was the TruthNewsNetwork opinion. No one here is an attorney and certainly not a Constitutional expert. But there ARE plenty of “experts” who have weighed-in on this historical matter.
“It looks like we have a new leader in the ‘craziest lawsuit filed to purportedly challenge the election’ category,” said Steve Vladeck, professor at the University of Texas Law School.
“Although the Supreme Court has ‘exclusive’ jurisdiction over disputes between states, it does not automatically hear all such cases,” Vladeck said. “Rather, states have to receive ‘leave to file,’ which usually requires showing that there’s no other forum in which these issues can be resolved.”
Vladeck called the filing “insane” and noted that Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins isn’t named in the suit.
“Anyway, it takes five votes to grant a motion for leave to file — which isn’t going to happen,” Vladeck said. “And it’ll take some time. So chalk this up as mostly a stunt — a dangerous, offensive, and wasteful one, but a stunt nonetheless.”
Rick Hasen, professor of Law and Political Science at UC Irvine and a CNN Election Law Analyst, was equally dismissive of the case, writing a brief article on his blog describing the suit as “dangerous garbage.”
“The Texas case is not serious. Far from it. It’s a publicity stunt masquerading as a lawsuit. AG Paxton should be sanctioned for it. It goes against the will of millions of voters,” Hasen wrote on Twitter.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who’s recently come to national attention for his efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the county, said that Paxton had provided no evidence to back up his request that the election results in four states be thrown out.
“Texas Sues Four States in Supreme Court Over Results in 2020 Presidential Race. This is a publicity stunt. One state has no standing to complain about how another state(s) choose their presidential electors. Plus @KenPaxtonTX fails to cite any evidence of fraud,” Jenkins tweeted on Monday.
Laurence Tribe, a legal scholar, and professor at Harvard Law School, also suggested that Texas may not have standing to bring the case, and therefore the court may decide not to hear it.
“This is truly ridiculous,” Tribe said. “If the 50 sister States could sue one another to overturn each other’s election results, there’d be a mind-blowing cascade of at least 50! (ie 50 x 49 x 48 x … x3 x2) intra-family Electoral College megasuits. Endless!”
Democratic Congressman Colin Allred of Texas’ 32nd district, a former civil rights attorney, echoed much of the criticism from legal experts about the case being a publicity stunt.
“Deeply embarrassing that TX’s AG is wasting our tax dollars trying to subvert an election,” Allred tweeted. “This stunt will not distract from Mr. Paxton’s scandals and will not change the result of this election, it will only hurt our democracy and waste your money.”
What Experts Confirm the Validity of the Texas SCOTUS Case?
Quite honestly, we have yet to find any Constitutional expert who has publicly commented favorably on the 154-page lawsuit filed by the Texas Attorney General. It is obvious, however, that the Attorneys General of the 17 states that have joined Texas in the lawsuit believe the case is legitimate and constitutionally necessary.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz was asked by Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Kelly to represent him in the Supreme Court case filed last week asking for the Court to invalidate Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolfe’s election results certification. (The SCOTUS denied that emergency action by Kelly) And President Trump has asked Cruz to represent him in the Texas case, which President Trump joined on Wednesday.
Summary
It is disheartening that the 2020 election has devolved into this. It’s nauseating to see any elected state officials who would even consider throwing-out a provision in the U.S. Constitution and replacing it with their “personal” preferences to change their state’s election law WITHOUT legislative action. The audacity of the leaders of these four states is more obvious now as are their attacks on the Rule of Law.
Further, the fact that few, if any, Constitutional experts have joined in the cry for justice through Constitutional requirement for how states are to set their own election structures, is concerning.
Could it be that this happening is a signal that many officials at both state and federal levels have turned their backs on the Rule of Law? Is it that they despise Donald Trump and the current wave of populism in the nation so much that they are willing to do anything necessary to bring down the President and this wave of Populism among the people?
Are they willing to turn their backs on American Democracy and our representative republic form of government?
Make no mistake: there is NO option to allow these unconstitutional actions by the leaders in these to stand AND preserve our current government structure! The two ideals cannot mutually exist.
However, the Supreme Court decides this case will determine the future of the United States of America. We will either continue to be the freest and most powerful nation in World history, or we will send a message to the World that we as a nation prefer to be an “also-ran” nation that functions exactly like numerous other countries: in either socialist or totalitarian structure and laws.
On Monday, just before midnight, the State of Texas filed a lawsuit that is far more important than all of the others surrounding the presidential election of November 3rd.
Texas brought a suit against four states that did something they cannot legally do: they violated the U.S. Constitution in their conduct of the presidential election.And this violation occurred regardless of the amount of election fraud that may have resulted.The four defendant states are Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Texas filed the suit directly in the Supreme Court.Article III of the Constitution lists a small number of categories of cases in which the Supreme Court has “original jurisdiction.”One of those categories concerns “Controversies between two or more states.”Texas’s suit is exactly that.The Supreme Court has opined in the past that it may decline to accept such cases, at its discretion.But it is incumbent upon the high court to take this case, especially when it presents a such a cut-and-dried question of constitutional law, and when it could indirectly decide who is sworn in as President on January 20, 2021.
The Texas suit is clear, and it presents a compelling case.The four offending states each violated the U.S. Constitution in two ways.
First, they violated the Electors Clause of Article II of the Constitution when executive or judicial officials in the states changed the rules of the election without going through the state legislatures.The Electors Clause requires that each State “shall appoint” its presidential electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.”
In the early years of the Republic, most state legislatures appointed their presidential electors directly, without holding a popular election for President.That would change during the early decades of the nineteenth century.But the constitutional principle remained the same.Regardless of whether a state appoints its electors by a vote in the legislature or by a vote of the people, it is the state legislature — andonly the state legislature — that sets the rules.
Thus, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended by three days the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots, contrary to the law passed by the state legislature, the state court changed the rules in violation of the Electors Clause.Similarly, when Georgia’s Secretary of State responded to a lawsuit by entering into a Compromise Settlement Agreement and Release (i.e. a consent decree) with the Democratic Party of Georgia, and modified the signature verification requirements spelled out by Georgia law, that changing of the rules violated the Electors Clause.
The second constitutional violation occurred when individual counties in each of the four states changed the way that they would receive, evaluate, or treat the ballots.Twenty years ago, in the landmark case of Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court held that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when one Florida county treated ballots one way, and another Florida county treated ballots a different way.Voters had the constitutional right to have their ballots treated equally from county to county.
So when election officials in Wayne County, Michigan, ignored the requirements of Michigan law and denied poll watchers access to vote counting, while other counties in Michigan followed the law, that violated the Equal Protection Clause.Similarly, in Wisconsin, when the Administrator of the City of Milwaukee Elections Commission ignored the requirements of Wisconsin law and directed election workers to write in the addresses of witnesses on the envelopes containing mail-in ballots, while ballots without witness addresses were deemed invalid elsewhere, that resulted in the unequal treatment of ballots in the state.
Importantly, the Texas lawsuit presents a pure question of law.It is not dependent upon disputed facts.Although these unconstitutional changes to the election rules could have facilitated voter fraud, the State of Texas doesn’t need to prove a single case of fraud to win.It is enough that the four states violated the Constitution.
The lawsuit asks the Supreme Court to remand the appointment of electors in the four states back to the state legislatures.As the Supreme Court said in 1892 in the case of McPherson v. Blacker, “Whatever provisions may be made by statute, or by the state constitution, to choose electors by the people, there is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time…”.
What should and what could possibly result from the Supreme Court case that has been accepted by the Supreme Court? Here with a brief breakdown of the case and what’s involved is Jay Sekulow:
If Texas prevails, the four state legislatures could follow any number of courses in appointing their presidential electors.They could assess the election results and try to exclude those ballots that were counted in violation of state law in order to determine a winner, or they could divide their Electoral College votes between the two candidates, or they could follow a different path.But they have to follow the Constitution in whatever they do.
In the rest of country, the states followed the constitutional rules in appointing presidential electors.The offending states cannot be allowed to violate those same rules.It’s not just a matter of constitutional law. It’s a matter of basic fairness.
A Catholic girl from Metairie, Louisiana who attended a girls’ school and then Notre Dame is now the ninth Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In spite of her amazing qualifications as the World saw during three days of exhaustive attacks by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barrett — who will be known now as “ACB” — shocked many of the experts by staring down those Senators who sought desperately to find reason to disqualify her. They failed miserably. Last night, Amy Coney Barrett assumed the seat of former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
There is not yet much to say about ACB, but you can be in just a few days there will be MUCH said about her sitting on the SCOTUS. Consideration of a challenge to Obamacare will be heard by the new Court. Many on the Left swear she’ll be the swing vote to kill Obamacare even though she reminded Senators the challenge is on just one provision of the law and “Severability” could easily determine that one part unconstitutional but allowing the law to survive. Never mind, this is election year and Democrats need fodder to feed their minions to convince voters to vote Left.
The other pending law being challenged is Roe v. Wade. This law too is NOT being challenged in its entirety, but several parts of the law. And Barrett three years ago in Judiciary Committee hearings when asked stated she sees Roe v. Wade as possibly NEVER being overturned.
What we absolutely know is certain is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would, if still with us, be pleased to know that her replacement is probably as close as a judge can be to Ginsburg herself in the understand of the Law with a similar commitment to view every case without political prejudice and rule soley based on law. That may not be good enough for Democrats, but it certainly will prove to be good for the Rule of Law and protect for years to come the U.S. Constitution.
Amy Coney Barrett stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park, a homerun for the American people!
The Strikeout King: Dr. Anthony Fauci
The Washington Post has been a joke for a long time, at least since the days when it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for a story about a child heroin addict who turned out not to exist. The paper is now filled every day with poison pen “analysis,” backed by phony “fact-checkers,” criticizing almost anything President Trump says or does. Somehow, basic facts that may impact the coronavirus story, such as the federal record of failure in the development of an HIV/AIDS vaccine, escape mention.
President Clinton in May 1997 had announced a “comprehensive AIDS vaccine research initiative” that has failed. To repeat: 23 years later, the project has failed. To emphasize this fact is not to denigrate the efforts that were made. Instead, it is appropriate information that might help us understand if the current push for a coronavirus vaccine, strongly backed by the United Nations, makes any medical sense at all. Perhaps money for a coronavirus vaccine can be spent more effectively somewhere else. Perhaps vitamin therapy, nutritional supplements, and other alternative treatments such as Hydroxychloroquine should be used on a massive scale immediately. In a major breakthrough about this, Governor Kristi Noem announced that South Dakota will become the first state to conduct a full clinical trial on hydroxychloroquine, to understand its role in treating and potentially preventing coronavirus.
In the same way that HIV/AIDS may have been misunderstood by the “experts,” the jury is still out on the nature of the China virus. But such information is critical to understanding whether a vaccine is even possible and whether fast-tracking a risky vaccine is wise. In addition to the failure of the HIV/AIDS vaccine experiment, the swine flu vaccine scandal of the 1970s confirms how government vaccination programs can go horribly wrong.
The Post ran a story about Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, who specialized in HIV/AIDS vaccine research, referring to them as having “worked together at the dawn of the AIDS crisis.” It said Birx and Fauci are still “on a continuing search for a cure and vaccine,” a backdoor way of acknowledging that the vaccine project has failed. But the paper won’t say that in a direct or factual way.
Fauci and Birx are clearly knowledgeable but they are not infallible. Their records are not above reproach. But because they carry the label of doctors and “scientists,” they seem to be immune from serious criticism. It’s time for that to change. More and more it seems — at least as it pertains to COVID-19 — our “experts” are not very “expert” at giving us accurate information that, each time they do, they tell us they are “facts.” Too often they are NOT.
The paper is defending Fauci’s record as an “infectious disease specialist” but his comments about the nature of the China virus have varied, depending on which program he has been on. And there have been a lot of such programs. On one show in January, Fauci said, “But this is not a major threat for the people of the United States. And this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.” This followed the WHO’s claim on January 14 that coronavirus could not be spread person to person. It cited China as the source of that information.
Fauci told the NBC Today show as late as February 29 that “there is no need to change anything that you are doing on a day-by-day basis.”
One thing we do know is that Fauci has been a reliable contact of the U.N.’s World Health Organization, having signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the WHO’s Dr. Tedros in 2018. The “understanding” seemed to be that Fauci would rely on the WHO, a China front, or China itself, for information on virus outbreaks and pandemics originating in China. That was a big mistake.
Ignoring his pattern of misleading statements, the Post claims that Fauci “developed a reputation as a skilled public health expert while combating the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.” He was certainly “skilled” in public relations. But in fact, the federal government’s HIV/AIDS vaccine initiative has been a failure. The American people have a right to know that these “experts” can be wrong and often ARE wrong.
As recently as 2014, Fauci was writing scientific papers about how an HIV/AIDS vaccine “remains essential” and that “recent advances in vaccinology offer new promise for an effective HIV vaccine.” But HIV/AIDS vaccines have repeatedly failed. The latest failure was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The $100 million experiment was 10 years in the making.
Fauci has served as director of the NIAID at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1984, the year scientists claim to have identified and isolated HIV. Controversy continues to surround this “discovery.” Recently, during a daily White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, Fauci talked about alleged “health disparities,” in terms of the numbers and backgrounds of people getting sick and dying from the coronavirus, and asserted he saw something similar when HIV/AIDS struck LGBTQ people.
“During that time, there was extraordinary stigma, particularly against the gay community,” Fauci said. “And it was only when the world realized how the gay community responded to this outbreak with incredible courage and dignity and strength and activism — I think that really changed some of the stigma against the gay community, very much so.”
His comments ignore the fact that life-threatening and deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS emerged in the gay community because of the manner in which they have sex. To this day, male homosexuals are still far more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. The book, The Health Hazards of Homosexuality, speaks about the power of the LGBTQ lobby and “unprecedented censorship” in the medical profession and scientific establishment about how the gay lifestyle spreads the disease.
This is still a taboo subject for many but the story needs to be told. Fauci won’t tell it, apparently because he thinks it somehow contributes to the “stigma.” Yet, smokers are regularly shamed into quitting because they use tobacco, rather than marijuana. Indeed, the government funds programs to discourage smoking but not gay sex.
Other so-called “disparities” consist of federal funding that has favored AIDS over other diseases. Indeed, a group called the FAIR Foundation was formed in order to point out that AIDS was getting a greater share of the federal research budget, even though it is killing a fraction of Americans each year when compared with diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Typically, the flu kills far more people than AIDS.
In 2017, for example, 5,698 people died of AIDS. But 55,000 died of the flu. It was number eight on the list of leading causes of death. The figures show that HIV disease has not been among the 15 leading causes of death since 1997.
Strangely, the biography of Dr. Birx says she “helped lead one of the most influential HIV vaccine trials in history (known as RV 144 or the “Thai trial”), which provided the first supporting evidence of any vaccine’s potential effectiveness in preventing HIV infection.” But that was 10 years ago and note the use of the word “potential.” At this date, there is still no HIV/AIDS vaccine.
A history of failed HIV/ADS vaccine efforts notes, “Factors that led the U.S. government to take action included vocal activism by people infected with HIV and their allies as well as persistent efforts by advocates in the scientific world.” In other words, the gay community and people like Fauci and Birx rushed into development of an HIV/AIDS vaccine.
Some might review this failed project and nevertheless conclude that at least they tried to help people. But the fact is that the gay community lobbied for a quick-fix vaccine that failed to materialize when it can be argued that the “Medical Deep State” should have been spending their time (and our money) on projects to solve other health problems affecting many more people, such as the flu.
Consider that while billions were wasted on an HIV/AIDS vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says current flu vaccines reduce the risk of getting the flu by only 40% and 60% among the overall population “during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine.” This caveat means that effectiveness also depends on the nature of the flu and which vaccine was produced for which year.
All of this proves that the scientific “authorities” need oversight and fact-checkers. The American people should not leave their health in the hands of bureaucratic “experts” who have wasted billions on failed vaccine experiments and played politics with disease.
Americans deserve to hear the REAL things about Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and NOT just the prognostication of Democrats that she will destroy the World by throwing out Obamacare and Roe v. Wade. How about a look into her work as a federal judge? Wouldn’t that shed some light on how she things regarding judicial matters and cases? Instead of sitting in a Senate hearing and pontificating about Obamacare’s certain demise if she is confirmed and womens’ healthcare being hijacked because she’ll destroy the god of Abortion, why not look into her case history. They won’t, so we will. What follows are the summaries of multiple cases heard by Judge Amy Coney Barrett and her actions in deciding these cases.
Facts Matter!
A Look at Judge Amy Coney Barrett
Judge Amy Coney Barrett is expected to face a tense confirmation hearing later this month. Her experience as a judge and her opinions and votes during her short tenure on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is likely to be placed under a microscope and questioned as part of the confirmation fight.
If Barrett is confirmed, she would be considered as one with the least courtroom experience—with only three years experience as a federal judge—but one whose record and personal qualities endear her to conservatives and some libertarians.
“I think she’s an epitome of what a jurist should be,” Thomas Brejcha, president and founder of the conservative pro-Life law firm Thomas More Society, said. “She is not a person who simply goes along with her political inclinations.”
“She is a person who believes that in her judicial role, she must follow the law as she interprets it. … There is a sense of judicial self-restraint and discipline that I think speaks very well of her conservative nature,” he added.
Liberals, on the other hand, are likely to continue to oppose her confirmation to the bench while strongly expressing concern over the future of abortion and the Affordable Care Act.
“Amy Coney Barrett is a threat to our reproductive rights and health care. Nominating Barrett is an insult to [Ruth Bader Ginsburg]’s legacy and everything she spent her life fighting for. This is the people’s court, the people’s seat,” the Planned Parenthood Action Fund said in a statement on Twitter.
While on the bench of the 7th Circuit Court, Barrett participated in some noteworthy and possibly controversial cases ranging in due process and abortion. Here is a look at some of her notable opinions and votes.
Abortion
Barrett has grappled with some abortion regulation cases while on the 7th Circuit bench and cast votes that signaled opposition to rulings that struck down abortion-related restrictions.
In 2018, Barrett voted to rehear a case “en banc” — to have the three-judge panel decision reviewed by the full court — involving an Indiana law that required fetal remains to be buried or cremated after an abortion. The trial and appeals court judges found that the law violated the Constitution. Ultimately, Barrett was outnumbered and the 7th Circuit ruled to deny the rehearing and reinstated an original opinion that blocked the law from being enforced.
At the time, she joined in a dissenting opinion authored by Judge Frank Easterbrook. The dissent addressed another portion of the law that had been struck down but was not at issue in the rehearing proceedings, which Easterbrook described as the “the eugenics statute.” That portion of the law bans abortions for sex, race, and disability reasons.
Easterbrook argued that the Supreme Court had never ruled on such a law and would be the only authority to rule on the issue.
“Using abortion to promote eugenic goals is morally and prudentially debatable on grounds different from those that underlay the statutes [Planned Parenthood v.] Casey considered,” the dissent reads. “None of the Court’s abortion decisions holds that states are powerless to prevent abortions designed to choose the sex, race, and other attributes of children.”
The Supreme Court later reinstated the Indiana law on the disposal of fetal remains.
In 2019, Barrett voted to rehear a ruling by a three-judge 7th Circuit panel that upheld a challenge to another Indiana abortion law. That state measure would require the parents of a girl under 18 seeking an abortion be notified, even in situations when she had already asked a court to give consent instead of her parents.
The 7th circuit eventually denied the hearing. Barrett joined a dissent for denying the rehearing authored by Judge Michael Kanne, who said, “Preventing a state statute from taking effect is a judicial act of extraordinary gravity in our federal structure.”
Also in 2019, Barrett joined an opinion on a First Amendment case involving a Chicago ordinance that barred pro-life sidewalk counselors from approaching and talking to women who entered an abortion clinic, also known as the “bubble zone” law. That ordinance was modeled after a Colorado law that was upheld by the Supreme Court in a case, Hill v. Colorado, in 2000. Judge Diane Sykes wrote in the opinion that the appeals court had no choice but to follow the top court’s precedent.
“The road the plaintiffs urge is not open to us in our hierarchical system. Chicago’s bubble-zone ordinance is materially identical to — indeed, is narrower than — the law upheld in Hill v. Colorado,” she wrote. “While the Supreme Court has deeply unsettled Hill v. Colorado, it has not overruled the decision. So it remains binding on us. The plaintiffs must seek relief in the High Court.”
Thomas More Society was one of the law firms that represented the challengers in the Chicago case. Brejcha noted that although Skyes, who was joined by Barrett, found that subsequent cases had shaken the foundations of Hill v. Colorado, as a circuit court they did not have the authority to overrule the Supreme Court precedent.
He said this demonstrates Barrett’s judicial discipline and self-restraint as a jurist. “Her methodology is very limited and disciplined,” Brejcha said.
Ilya Shapiro, the director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that Barrett’s votes and opinions in the abortion regulation cases show that she might not necessarily vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Instead, what they show is that she would take each regulation as it comes and best apply the government standards, he added.
Due Process
Barrett authored the majority opinion in a due process case brought by a male Purdue University student who had been accused of sexual improprieties. As a result of the accusation, the male student, who was referred to as John Doe, was suspended from the school which then led to his expulsion from the Navy ROTC program and loss of his scholarship. He had maintained his innocence during the allegations.
John sued school officials claiming that the school’s discipline process was deficient. He argued that the school had violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Title IX by imposing a punishment based on gender bias. Title IX is a federal law that protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs.
The university, in a report, allegedly “falsely claimed that [John] had confessed to Jane’s allegations” and had left out information about Jane’s emotional state from John’s testimony, according to Barrett’s opinion. The female student was referred to Jane Doe in the case.
John was also not given an opportunity to present witnesses, the panel members had not read the report — indicating that they based their judgment on accusations rather than evidence — and John was unable to address evidence because he had not seen it during the school’s discipline program. The school also did not receive a written statement from Jane about the accusations.
He was later found guilty “by a preponderance of the evidence of sexual violence.”
The district court dismissed the male student’s due process claims, but the appeals court panel disagreed with the ruling and reinstated the lawsuit. The court said John should have been allowed to pursue his claims.
“Purdue’s process fell short of what even a high school must provide to a student facing a days-long suspension,” Barrett wrote in the case cited as Doe. v. Purdue.
The court also found John’s Title IX claims plausible but added that he “may face problems of proof, and the factfinder might not buy the inferences that he’s selling.”
Shapiro, who is also the publisher of “Cato Supreme Court Review,” said this case is important because it shows Barrett places importance on individual rights and due process protections under the Constitution.
Gun Rights
Barrett indicated her support for gun rights in her dissent in Kanter v. Barr, a 2019 case that challenged a federal law that took gun rights away from nonviolent felons. A businessman who had pleaded guilty to mail fraud argued that the law violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The 2–1 majority, both judges who were appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, said the federal law and a similar Wisconsin one were constitutional.
In her dissent, Barrett said that since the country’s founding, legislatures have taken gun rights away from people who were considered dangerous.
“History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns,” she wrote. “But that power extends only to people who are dangerous.”
She added that while the federal and state governments have a strong interest in protecting the public from gun violence, they had failed to show that the business owner owning a gun would pose a risk.
“The Second Amendment confers an individual right, intimately connected with the natural right of self-defense, and not limited to civic participation,” she said.
Shapiro said the Kanter case is important because “it shows that she takes the text structure and history of the Second Amendment seriously as well as looking at understandings of the bar on felons possessing firearms and looked at what that meant historically.”
“Her dissent was longer than the majority opinion. It’s a very well reasoned scholarly piece of writing,” he said.
Immigration
Barrett ruled on several immigration cases and sided with the Trump administration for the most part. She dissented from a majority decision that upheld a lower court’s block on the administration “public charge” immigration rule in Illinois. The rule restricted the eligibility of new immigrants who are deemed likely to rely on public assistance.
She did not agree with the challengers characterizing their arguments as a “disagreement with” a “policy choice.” She added, “litigation is not the vehicle for resolving policy disputes.”
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court lifted the injunction upheld by the 7th Circuit Court.
Barrett also authored the majority opinion in another case, cited as Yafai v. Pompeo, where she agreed with a State Department decision to deny a visa to the wife of an American citizen on the ground that she attempted to smuggle two children into the United States, even though the parents said the children had died in an accident. Her application was reconsidered but was denied.
The majority upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case relying on a doctrine known as consular nonreviewability, which prevents courts from reviewing visa decisions made by consular officials abroad.
Barrett also found that the plaintiff did not show that the consular officer acted in bad faith, saying that decision to deny the visa application was facially legitimate and bona fide. She said the officer had asked for additional documents, which “suggests a desire to get it right,” and that the embassy had sent an email to the plaintiff’s lawyer, which “reveals good-faith reasons for rejecting the plaintiffs’ response to the smuggling charge.”
Criminal
Shapiro said Barrett has shown that she is “not reflexively pro-law enforcement, nor pro-criminal defendants” in the way that she has ruled in criminal-related cases.
She has denied qualified immunity to law enforcement officers who have abused their powers and violated constitutional rights, while in other cases she has ruled for the government against criminal defendants.
“She’s very methodical about how she approaches things,” Shapiro said.
In the case, Rainsberger v. Benner, she wrote the majority opinion to deny qualified immunity, legal protection that shields public officers from civil liability to a detective who had submitted falsified information for a probable cause affidavit.
“The unlawfulness of using deliberately falsified allegations to establish probable cause could not be clearer,” she wrote in the opinion.
In 2019, she vacated a conviction that was obtained in part after Drug Enforcement Agency agents searched a suspect’s apartment. The agents obtained consent to search the apartment from a woman who did not live there.
“Is it reasonable for officers to assume that a woman who answers the door in a bathrobe has authority to consent to a search of a male suspect’s residence?” Barrett wrote for the majority.
“The officers could reasonably assume that the woman had spent the night at the apartment, but that’s about as far as a bathrobe could take them. Without more, it was unreasonable for them to conclude that she and the suspect shared access to or control over the property,” she added.
In another 2019 decision, she dissented in a case granting habeas corpus to a criminal defendant who argued that his due process rights were violated because the state withheld evidence favorable to his case.
Barrett said she dissented because the majority opinion “fails to give the Indiana Court of Appeals the deference” required under federal law. She said even though she believes the withholding of evidence constitutes a violation of due process under a 1963 Supreme Court decision, “it was neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law for the Indiana Court of Appeals to conclude otherwise.”
Other Cases
In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Autozone, the commission asked the court to review a decision en banc that had ruled for a store, AutoZone, that was using race as a defining characteristic for transferring employees into separate facilities. The federal government had argued that the store violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which makes it unlawful for employers from segregating or classifying employees based on race.
Barrett, who had just taken the bench, joined four of her colleagues to deny a rehearing of the case en banc. Barrett was not on the three-judge panel that ruled in the appeals case.
Summary
Sadly, the above case history will probably not be referenced Tuesday and through the week as Senators question Judge Barrett. Isn’t it ironic that in this confirmation hearing, personal feelings and emotional haranguing should be checked at the door of the Senate Chamber. The only things that should guide Judiciary Committee members and their questions is Judge Barrett’s judicial history, her written opinions, and matters of jurisprudence. Her personal feelings about anything should be irrelevant.
Instead of working to maintain the Rule of Law by verifying this nominee meets the qualifications for a Supreme Court Justice, Judiciary Committee Democrats showed in Monday’s hearing they care little for any of the case history detailed above. They care only about how they appear on television when they drill the nominee, making her look as bad as possible. Yet this nominee is probably more qualified than several serving Justices.
Americans deserve better: not better than Judge Amy Coney Barrett — better than the Democrat Senators on that committee who are showing the world they are little more than political hats that are in the tank to impress voters and donors sufficient to keep their jobs.
To hell with the American people! What matters to the government balance of power doesn’t matter. All that matters is keeping Republicans from getting a leg up on the Democrats. They sadly show that all they care about is political might.
Amy Coney Barrett deserves better than that, and so do the American People.
Hundreds of cars, trucks, and SUVs descended on Michigan’s state capital Wednesday afternoon as part of a noisy protest against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s social-distancing restrictions that critics say have gone too far.
Dubbed “Operation Gridlock” and organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, the protest did just that – creating bumper-to-bumper traffic throughout downtown Lansing as demonstrators blasted their horns, waved Americans flags and hoisted placards deriding Whitmer’s orders and demanding that she reopen the state’s economy.
The lockdown measures are meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, but Whitmer has gone further than some other governors — and the backlash in Michigan is among the most heated in the country.
Has Michigan’s governor violated the Constitutional rights of Michigan citizens?
When In Doubt, Check the Law
Benjamin Franklin once said that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” But what would Franklin have given up to secure a lot of permanent safety – to stop a highly lethal virus that has already killed thousands of people? Like so much else in our world, his statement now faces a severe test from the coronavirus.
To save lives, all but eight states have already imposed aggressive measures rarely utilized outside wartime. As the death toll climbs, more severe measures may be on the way. Several prominent voices have now advocated the imposition of a nationwide lockdown. A well-known legal academic even suggested a national lockdown should be immune from judicial oversight. And the Justice Department has proposed that Congress grant it oppressive emergency powers.
While the coronavirus is undoubtedly frightening, so too is massive state power used in the name of emergency. We should all be thankful we live in the United States for many reasons, but especially now. We COULD be stuck in Sri Lanka. The government in Sri Lanka responded to coronavirus by imposing a military curfew. Authorities arrested several thousand people for merely leaving their homes during that curfew. Residents worried about whether they had enough food to last until the curfew lifted. Finding oneself in a situation like that in the United States is, at best, a frightening thought. Add to that the fact that if such a thing happens here, it will be the government of the freest country on Earth that has taken away a slew of the most fundamental rights that have for 250 years been solely the right and responsibility of American citizens and NOT Big Brother.
In this country, we are taught to pause when asked to trade liberty for security. So we should take a moment to think about the legal restrictions governing potential lockdowns inside the United States. Could the federal government or a state impose a Sri Lankan-style lockdown to stop the pandemic? Could the courts be excluded from overseeing such emergency action?
What About the Constitution?
Constitutional law provides substantial guidance for understanding the government’s authority to respond to the pandemic. While court cases involving quarantines to control infectious diseases are (thankfully) sparse, “lockdown” in its various forms is a creature of preventive detention: a restriction on physical liberty without a finding of guilt after a criminal trial. Although the Supreme Court has stated that “in our society liberty is the norm and detention, without trial, is the carefully limited exception,” our constitutional system has long recognized several forms of preventive detention as lawful. Most relevant, the state may preventively detain individuals who have a serious mental disorder and present a danger to themselves or others.
In general, any use of preventive detention authority raises three basic constitutional questions. First, does the state have substantive authority in this pandemic to detain someone or some people without a criminal trial? Second, is the state’s exercise of that authority reasonable about its purpose – i.e., are the length and conditions of confinement necessary to address the harm at issue? Third, has the state provided adequate procedures to ensure the detailed plans for the exercise of that authority are met for the particular individual(s) involved?
For a moment, let’s just “suppose” the federal government orders a nationwide lockdown. If that happens, you can bet there will be thousands if not hundreds of thousands of suits and temporary restraining orders filed against all the authorities involved in the lockdown process. If someone were to challenge a lockdown order issued by the government, courts would apply the three principles described above to decide the case. Because a lockdown order restrains physical liberty, the writ of habeas corpus gives courts the final authority to determine its legality. Almost everyone has heard the term “habeas corpus” used often. But few know its meaning. “Habeus Corpus” is a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, chiefly to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention. In other words, a person cannot be held for any alleged illegal activity or acts committed indefinitely. That person has a right to appear before a judge or in some court to determine whether being held without a speedy trial should be happening.
Some have suggested Congress should try to exclude the courts from even considering the lawfulness of any lockdown order. That would be a big mistake for both practical and legal reasons. Practically, there is little risk that the judiciary – including the Supreme Court, which has already postponed oral arguments due to the pandemic — will underestimate the threat posed by a coronavirus. Courts have a vital role to play both in ensuring any lockdown preserves our freedom to the greatest extent possible and in reviewing alleged abuses on a case-by-case basis.
Excluding the courts would also be an assault on our most basic constitutional values that could harm our nation for years to come. As awful as it is, the coronavirus pandemic will likely be over in a year or two, but a decision upholding the law permitting the government to imprison anyonewithout any court oversight based on the state’s claims that the public health requires it could be with us far longer. The Constitution allows Congress to suspend habeas corpus in some instances of “rebellion or invasion,” but the coronavirus is NOT an “invasion.” Though people sometimes speak of a virus “invading” the body, the courts read the Suspension Clause in light of what the Constitution’s Framers believed it meant in 1789. The Framers intended to refer to “invasions” by people, not diseases, as Justice Scalia once made clear in a description of the historical precedents. And while he suggested there that the courts should choose a reasonable legislative judgment about when an invasion has occurred, that precedent Scalia made clear still stands. Remember: long before coronavirus, President Trump repeatedly called caravans of Central American refugees as an “invasion.” If the government tried to close the courts based on claims like that, the judiciary would undoubtedly step in quickly with their authority to prevent that radical step.
How Should We Handle a Lockdown if one Happens?
First, our legislators should right now come to a consensus on what events must be present to justify a national lockdown. They should draft legislation to clarify existing laws as they pertain to this and other future pandemics that might result in a need for a lockdown to save the lives of people. In doing that, Congress should act quickly and as diligently and just speedily as Congress drafted those Articles of Impeachment and tried the President, they should lock themselves away with Constitutional scholars, put aside petty political partisanship, and draft legislation so specific and so detailed that NO court would find any loopholes in what was written and passed. The point often stated that “every bill signed into law is always subject to subjective interpretation” needs to be abandoned in such a process. For once, Congress MUST lay aside agendas of all but one kind: to protect the American people, and not just our health through a lockdown. Undoubtedly, doing so is a necessity, finding political advantages if not. Members of Congress — ALL members of Congress — need to lay aside political party and personal agendas to pass legislation to protect from this and other pandemics while, at the same time, guaranteeing Americans that the rights of ALL citizens will NOT be infringed by such legislation.
Can they do that? I believe they can. I’m not sure how many attorneys serve as members of the House and Senate today. But I know it is certainly a majority. Don’t you think all those lawyers, if committed to writing legislation void of partisanship, could get the job done quickly — IF they want to?
Of course, in the group reading this, some will put another “IF” in an added question. It would then read like this: “IF the pandemic was a trick of nature and not an effort by someone to create chaos and pandemonium during this election year to guarantee there will not be a second Trump term in office.”
I don’t care about any of that! Let’s get coronavirus licked and do it without unnecessarily giving up any Constitutional rights — PERIOD!
I never thought we in America would ever be discussing the dismantling of our country. Some of us have feared it as being something that might happen — “eventually” — but not in our lifetimes! I think the “eventually” may be upon us.
As quickly as a shooting star, the oppressiveness of totalitarianism that for a century has been secluded to “those countries far away” is creeping today into our political system. There have been warning signs for a good while, but almost all Americans while seeing them, brush them off as being impossible. Impossible is what they should be — but they’re not. Let’s take a look.
A group of U.S. Senators sent a warning to the Supreme Court telling the Court that it better change the way it operates — or else. The following was reported about the alert to SCOTUS today: “The ominous and unusual warning was delivered as part of a brief filed Monday in a case related to a New York City gun law. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., referenced rulings by the court’s conservative majority in claiming it is suffering from some sort of affliction which must be remedied.‘The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it,” the brief said. “Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it is ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.'”
As shocking as this notice was, it’s not unexpected. Think about it: we have been living in an atmosphere for some time in which politicians have been giving us signs that inexorably point to not just their desires, but to their intentions to push the U.S., not just further to the left, but to the far left.
This control spirit existed in the shadows for several decades. Fortunately, champions of freedom like Ronald Reagan kicked the consuming monster of mass control out of sight long enough for a generation of Americans to bask in the light of real freedoms across the board, for a decade or more. But since, steadily and stealthily it has slipped back into everyday U.S. life.
And then Barack Obama promised in 2008 that he would famously lead “the fundamental change of the United States.” And he made good on his promise.
His first term was somewhat limited without control of the entire Congress for a couple of years. But when Democrats gained control, the “transformation” that he promised took off. It was obvious what his fundamental change was planned to look like:
To fundamentally transform America from a society where the majority of people live by the sweat of their brows to one where the majority live off the labors of a shrinking productive class.
To fundamentally transform America from one where the American dream is a job, home, and family to one where the dream is food stamps, welfare, Obama-phones, and government dependency.
To fundamentally transform America from a society that strives, however imperfectly, for color-blind equality to one where race matters in everything from enforcement of voter protection laws to college admissions, to hiring, to school grades and discipline.
To fundamentally transform America from a nation that is a beacon for freedom and democracy to one that leads from behind in the world.
To fundamentally transform America from a country that believes in entrepreneurial efforts and free markets to a controlled economy where central planners make economic decisions for you.
To fundamentally transform America from a country that rewards success and hard work to one where those who disagree still believe they are entitled to a “fair share” of what those who do have earned.
To fundamentally transform America from a country that believes in rugged individualism to a caricature of a European socialist dependency, where citizens all belong to interest groups ever demanding more largess from the government.
To fundamentally transform America from a country where our grandkids have a brighter future to one where they will live in poverty and destitution under the yoke of unpayable debts to fund ever-larger vote-buying schemes from leftist interest groups.
To fundamentally transform America from a land of plenty to one where the poor cannot drive, heat their homes, or feed their families as they are crushed by energy costs to please environmental interest groups and green crony contributors — like the “Green New Deal” hopers.
To fundamentally transform America from a society that strives to eliminate class to one of four classes: wealthy elite liberals, government union bureaucrats, the growing dependent poor, and the shrinking pool of working, productive folk employed in the private sector who are expected to support the other three classes.
To fundamentally transform America from a society that believes in and defends our culture and values to one where multiculturalism declares equal respect and value for cultures that hang gay people, mutilate the genitals of young girls, stone women for adultery, execute “witches,” murder apostates, prohibit education of girls, riot violently against free speech if someone offends them, and murder female relatives over trivial affronts to the family’s “honor.”
To fundamentally transform America from one where there exists a balance of power between the states and the federal government, and between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government, to one in which an all-powerful elitist class rules everything with virtually unlimited power.
Let’s don’t forget this one: To fundamentally transform America from one that believed in a life to one where babies are routinely aborted because of their gender or disabilities or just for inconvenience.
Summary
We’ve seen it happen for years. The insistence and embedded practice of ignoring laws at the federal level. Folks, drug possession and recreational use have been illegal — criminal law violations — for years. Yet during the Obama Administration Attorney General Eric Holder instructed federal law enforcement to ignore “minor” drug offenses and its offenders. Illegals continue their journeys to our southern border and their numbers are now in the millions. Yet, it is a federal crime for one — anyone — to cross into the United States without having expressed permission. Yet for decades, federal authorities have — at least in part — turned blind eyes on many of these illegals who do so. And the list of allowed lawlessness goes on and on.
What is the reasoning of federal authorities for doing this? After all, the United States is a “nation of laws.” I could play you videos of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, numerous Senate and House leaders through all of these administrations make speeches confirming the importance and the necessity of the “rule of law.” Yet it’s almost as if they think Americans don’t look-in on how our government acts. Certainly, many Americans don’t pay attention and many don’t care. Maybe it’s because they’re out there working, trying to make good livings for their families. And in doing so, they pay taxes — billions in taxes — that our leaders in Washington who supposedly represent all those Americans find ways to spend not just the taxes we pay, but borrow more and more to spend on additional “necessary” programs. All this while trillions are flushed at the hands of purveyors of special interests that have nothing to do with the support of the American people.
For me, these Democrat Senators have drawn a line in the sand. In effect by doing so they have for political purposes told the U.S. Supreme Court, “You either get your stuff together, start ruling on these controversial cases that come before you in ways that WE think you should, or we’re going to take you to the woodshed.”
That’s Dangerous!
The atmosphere to set up a top-down, bureaucratic, control authority in D.C. to run the nation without the people having any say-so is on the edge of town. And they want it. And they want it desperately.
They’ve been hard at work while good Americans slept doing their busy work as Americans have always done. But these Swamp Rats really don’t care. They smell it, they hunger for it, and their objective is to get power: no matter what it takes.
This is our wakeup call. We need to be vigilant and make ourselves heard. None of us want to be the frog on the stove in a pot of cool water that has the burner turned up very slowly. That frog gets lulled to sleep never thinking he’s in any danger — until it’s too late.
When the water comes to a boil, it’s all over. And in America, these folks have started turning the burner up a little higher every day.
I’m certain you saw or heard that — apparently — the Republicans have sufficient “Yes” votes to confirm the Supreme Court Justice nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Friday at 3:00 PM Eastern, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) gave a passionate (and historical) speech on the floor of the Senate that will not soon be forgotten.
Her speech was extremely important because she, as a Moderate Republican, has been known as holding a crucial vote on all Senate confirmations for pretty much every presidential appointee — and especially on this one. As a Moderate, Collins is pro-choice, fiscally conservative, and has been jealously watchful over Roe v Wade and Obamacare. She also has been non-committal on the Kavanaugh confirmation to everyone — until today.
The speech today was lengthy, well thought-out, well-written, and VERY specific and non-political. It was without question the best U.S. Senate speech I have ever heard from any senator or any other, and will undoubtedly go down as a “forever” reminder of how dangerous American politicization has become and the necessity of abandoning it to help our nation re-engage with the Rule of Law.
It was so appropriate and to-the-point, I am attaching it in its entirety in PDF format below so that you can download and keep it for your reference and that of your children. I will refer in my Summary to that speech as I wrap-up today’s story titled “The BrouHaHa That Should Not Have Happened,” but will spare you from reading her speech in its entirety as part of this story. PLEASE, download it and read it for yourself.
Analysis
At the top of her speech, Senator Collins hit the nail on the head as it pertains to members of the U.S. Senate exercising their right and responsibility regarding the confirmation process of presidential appointees — specifically that of Brett Kavanaugh:
“Now it is up to each individual senator to decide what the Constitution’s advice-and-consent duty means. Informed by Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist 76, I have interpreted this to mean that the president has brought discretion to consider a nominee’s philosophy, whereas my duty as a Senator is to focus on the nominee’s qualifications as long as that nominee’s philosophy is within the mainstream of judicial thought. I have always opposed litmus tests for judicial nominees with respect to their personal views or politics, but I fully expect them to be able to put aside any and all personal preferences in deciding the cases that come before them. I’ve never considered the president’s identity or party when evaluating Supreme Court nominations. As a result, I voted in favor of Justices Roberts and Alito, who were nominated by President Bush, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan nominated by President Obama. And Justice Gorsuch, who was nominated by President Trump. So I began my evaluation of Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination by reviewing his 12-year record on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, including his more than 300 opinions and his many speeches and law review articles. 19 attorneys, including lawyers from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, briefed me many times each week and assisted me in evaluating the judge’s extensive record. I met with Judge Kavanaugh for more than two hours in my office. I listened carefully to the testimony at the committee hearings. I spoke with people who knew him personally, such as Condoleezza Rice and many others. And I talked with Judge Kavanaugh a second time by phone for another hour to ask him very specific additional questions. I also have met with thousands of my constituents, both advocates and many opponents regarding Judge Kavanaugh.”
Here’s what set Senator Collins apart from all those who had embraced the madness that Americans watched play-out in this highly publicized and amazingly partisan war of words over the last two weeks: SHE investigated Judge Kavanaugh’s extensive judicial history, examined his 300 published case opinions, read his numerous speeches and judicial writings, and then interviewed him personally for more than 2.5 hours. She asked him every imaginable question about all those things that are pertinent for any person seeking a seat on any federal court — especially the Supreme Court.
She listened to the opinions of thousands of her constituents who were both in support of Kavanaugh and against him. She spoke to both Democrat and Republican fellow senators at length listening to their thoughts on the nominee. Don’t forget she watched and listened to the many hours of his testimony and responses to questions posed by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and to the same during the second hearing before the Committee in which both Professor Christine Ford and Kavanaugh addressed her 35-year-old allegations of sexual abuse against Judge Kavanaugh.
“Advice and Consent”
In the United States, “advice and consent” is a power of the United States Senate to be consulted on and approve treaties signed and appointments made by the President of the United States to public positions, including Cabinet secretaries, federal judges, United States Attorneys, and ambassadors.
The term “advice and consent” first appears in the United States Constitution in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, referring to the Senate’s role in the signing and ratification of treaties. This term is then used again, to describe the Senate’s role in the appointment of public officials, immediately after describing the president’s duty to nominate officials. Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution states:
[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Needless to say, Senator Collins fulfilled her Senatorial obligation of “advice and consent.”
Summary
Before you read Senator Collins’ speech attached below, I have some final comments regarding the “BrouHaHa” we are discussing today:
Our political process is far too partisan. We as Americans are approaching a tipping point regarding political matters that is tearing our republic apart. Common decency is absent from political conversations. Respect for the opinions of others is not even an afterthought. A disagreement has devolved into first anger and now hatred;
Some point to our forefathers who fought partisanship too. Sometimes their division resulted in physical violence, even among themselves. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr actually had a gun duel! But it has been the better part of two centuries since this type of animus resulted in gun violence — until on a baseball field in suburban D.C. a year ago, Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA) was gunned down by an angry Democrat partisan. Fortunately, Scalise has made a miraculous recovery;
On Thursday, 300 angry protestors who were illegally protesting the pending Kavanaugh confirmation were arrested in Washington D.C. To make that situation worse, it was later revealed that hundreds of protestors (including some of those 300) were actually paid to protest by at least two non-profit organizations funded with several million dollars by liberal global activist George Soros to simply protest this and other conservative speakers, groups, and causes;
We should have known Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination would begin a political battle — especially when minutes after his nomination was announced, before any interviews, witness appearances, committee hearings or testimony was provided to senators, multiple Democrat senators publicly announced they were going to vote “no” on his confirmation. Several protestors carried professionally produced signs that said “I Am Against the President’s Nominee XX.” They did not even take the time to write Kavanaugh’s name on their signs! Obviously, to leftists, it mattered not if the nominee was Kavanaugh or some other conservative under consideration, the leftists would reject any nominee of THIS president. I thought it would have been humorous if President Trump had nominated an African American woman to the Court. Democrats would have probably treated that nominee the same, just because Donald Trump nominated her.
It may seem trivial at this stage for me to say “We need healing.” But we really do.
We’re not Republicans or Democrats or Socialists or Libertarians — WE’RE AMERICANS. The strength we have domestically and internationally comes from that strength.
There’s an age-old battle cry that has been used by many a despot, military leader, and dictator: “Divide and Conquer.” The division in the United States right now is at a fever pitch never before seen — at least not in my lifetime. What is its source? Who initiated it? The most important question we all need to ask is “Can we obliterate it and replace it with unity?”
Senator Collins vividly painted a picture of what SHOULD have happened regarding this justice confirmation and that of every other presidential nominee to any federal position. She is a Republican. But in her speech, she spoke as an American. She challenged all of her fellow Senators and each American to go back to the drawing board, re-visit the ideals our forefathers drew upon when penning our Constitution. Further, we all should consider just how effective that constitution has worked for more than 200 years in crafting, managing, and maintaining the United States as not only the freest country on Earth but the richest — not just financially, but richest in its values regarding everything pertaining to liberty and justice for all and equal justice under the law.
We all need to examine that for ourselves. It’s decision time!
Have you noticed every television anchor and news reporter since two days ago have referred to Christine Blasey Ford as “Professor Ford” or simply “Christine Ford?” I have seen or heard no one refer to her since Tuesday as “Dr. Ford.” I wonder why that is?
Millions looked in as “Dr.” Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding her alleged sexual abuse at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Ms. Ford introduced herself as a “research psychologist:” “My name is Christine Blasey Ford, I am a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine.” Her often stated and written title of “Dr.” has been shown to be incorrect, for Christine Blasey Ford — according to California psychologist databases — is not and never has been a licensed psychologist in California, and apparently in no other state.
An argument has been raised by the Leftist fact-finding website Snopes.com that Ford — even though not a licensed psychologist — is a “research psychologist,” which is not the same as a doctor, and calling herself that is perfectly all right. Snopes.com in their story paints a pretty picture saying (paraphrased), “It’s OK. She doesn’t treat patients and doesn’t have a practice for doing so, so it’s OK to call herself simply a ‘research psychologist.'”
I personally have no factual insight into her practice of psychology, do not know for certain she has a practice at which she sees, counsels, and treats patients. But I DO know she called herself a doctor and — at least during that 4 hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing — never corrected anyone who addressed her as “Dr. Ford.”
That sounds innocent enough — but it apparently breaks California law.
“No person may engage in the practice of psychology, or represent himself or herself to be a psychologist, without a license granted under this chapter, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.” Section 2902(c) states:“ (c) “A person represents himself or herself to be a psychologist when the person holds himself or herself out to the public by any title or description of services incorporating the words ‘psychology,’ ‘psychological,’ ‘psychologist,’ ‘psychology consultation,’ ‘psychology consultant,’ ‘psychometry,’ ‘psychometrics’ or ‘psychometrist,’ ‘psychotherapy,’ ‘psychotherapist,’ ‘psychoanalysis,’ or ‘psychoanalyst,’ or when the person holds himself or herself out to be trained, experienced, or an expert in the field of psychology.”
Hillary Clinton: “What Difference Does It Make?!”
Here’s what difference Ms. Ford’s presenting herself as a doctor makes: she isn’t nor has ever been a doctor. She has a Ph.D. from Southern Cal — an MD from nowhere.
Brett Kavanaugh is in the fight for his life right now. Every all day every day he struggles for his personal, social, professional, and family reputation that apparently (at least according to Democrats) has nothing to do with his professional law career, his last 12 years as a judge on the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., his teaching at Harvard and Yale, longtime charity work with the poor in D.C., or his activity with youth in Washington. According to Democrats, the only thing that matters is his honesty and integrity: which they assault non-stop.
The attacks against Judge Kavanaugh originate in numerous sources. Among those sources, there is one common thread: none of the accusations of any of the dozen or so people who knew him personally in high school in the 80’s has been corroborated by anyone! The New York Times, NBC News, FOX News, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, ABC, CBS — none have been able to corroborate any of the allegations made against Kavanaugh. That inability to corroborate allegations includes those made — every allegation made — by Christine Blasey Ford. Their attacks include attempted rape, sexual assault, illegal drug and alcohol use, verbal abuse, lying, even alcoholism. NONE OF THESE HAVE BEEN VERIFIED BY ANYONE — EVEN THOSE NAMED AS WITNESSES!
“What difference does it make” that Christine Ford claims professionally to be something she is not? It’s because of all of these dozens and dozens of baseless claims made by all these people against Brett Kavanaugh. No, I am not speaking about the criminal justice phrase “innocent until proven guilty.” This is not a criminal investigation, rather (as Senate Democrats say) “a job interview.” However, if the attempted rape claim made by Ford against Kavanaugh is real, he can still be prosecuted under Maryland law: there is NO statute of limitations for sexual assault in Maryland. That’s how serious this mess is.
Here’s the difference: it’s about integrity and character. That’s what is being attacked.
Brett Kavanaugh’s character is being attacked by many on the Left:
Senator Richard Blumenthal. former Attorney General of Connecticut. For more than a decade, Blumenthal claimed that he served in combat in Vietnam. He used that in his campaigns, proudly seeking current and former military members’ votes. He never served in combat in Vietnam or anywhere else;
Senator Dianne Feinstein. the California Senator held for a month the initial Ford letter detailing her allegation rather than as Senate mandatory process dictated turning that letter over to the FBI to investigate the allegations against Kavanaugh. Feinstein made that letter’s existence known only a couple of days before the Senate would vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation — using it as a political ploy. Either Feinstein or a member of her staff allegedly and “conveniently” leaked the contents of that letter to the press even after promising Ford they would keep it confidential;
Senator Cory Booker. the New Jersey Senator never told anyone about the sexual assault he attempted while in college. He later wrote about it — admitting it himself — in a college newspaper;
Hillary Clinton. Oh My God! Yes. She has come out questioning the nominee’s qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court and questioning the veracity of what he said under oath;
This list could go on and on. I’ll spare you the heartburn.
Summary
Here’s what matters — and pretty much is all that matters: Is Brett Kavanaugh qualified to serve as a Supreme Court Justice? Does he have the expertise, knowledge, experience, and temperament to do so? Are there any factual improprieties in his past that should disqualify his confirmation?
The answers to all of those are yes, yes, yes, yes, and no.
J.C. Watts — a famous African American quarterback for the University of Oklahoma — served as a Congressman from Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District from 1995 to 2003. He won each of his elections by a landslide. He left Congress after deciding (with his family) that he should NOT run for Congress again and went into the private sector where he serves today in numerous capacities.
Watts — besides as an OU football star — is best known for giving a speech at the Republican National Convention before Bill Clinton was re-elected for his second term as president. The Monica Lewinsky incident was front and center in Washington and everywhere else in America.
In that speech, Watts defined the word “character” for Bill Clinton: “Mr. President, character is not just being honest and doing the right thing. it’s about doing the right thing when nobody else is looking.” Of course, Congressman Watts was referring to the Lewinsky scandal and President Clinton being caught in a lie — under oath — that resulted in his impeachment for perjury.
Hundreds of personal friends, fellow workers, employees, fellow judges, former professors, politicians, and schoolmates have chimed in during these confirmation investigations confirming Brett Kavanaugh’s character with not a single asterisks included. Even while the darts, bricks, and hand grenades have flown from the Left nonstop since his nomination, Kavanaugh has kept his hand on the plow, weathered death threats against his family and himself watched his home trashed with graffiti and other vandalism, been forced into hiding. The Kavanaugh’s have been attacked in every conceivable manner short of physically. And that not happening has been a shock to me.
Brett Kavanaugh does not deserve that. He certainly does not deserve that from members of the U.S. Senate — especially those on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In fact, Democrat members of that committee to a person have violated their oath of office and their commitment to serve in the U.S. Senate and that committee in which they promised to serve the American people and support the Constitution. They — beginning with their universal commitment to NOT vote for his confirmation within minutes of it being announced and long before any testimony, questions or answers — shows that they have discarded any shred of character they may have possessed and donned the robes of Leftist Partisans with one and only one purpose in this matter: Stop Kavanaugh at all Costs!
In doing so, these Democrats and others have taken their final steps to the abandonment of their Constitutional duties in this matter: advice and consent of the President’s Supreme Court nominee.
Brett Kavanaugh has the education, the experience, the knowledge, and the temperament to serve on the High Court.
That’s all that should matter…PERIOD.
And one more thing: Christine Blasey Ford apparently misrepresented herself as a “psychologist” when she is not nor ever has been. Any way you couch that, it’s a lie.
Here’s a conundrum for me: when someone tells one lie, how do you know which — if any — of the things they subsequently say is true and which is false? What — if anything — Christine Blasey Ford gave as “fact” in that hearing was true and which was false?
Not unexpected that Democrats announced yesterday another demand for the one-week extension in the Kavanaugh confirmation investigation to be extended further to allow inclusion of “further” allegations against the nominee. I am certain Democrats did NOT want it revealed that Professor Ford’s activist attorney Debra Katz (at least an associate of hers) began sending out group/mass emails on Friday stating (paraphrased) “We need for anyone who can shed knowledge on the true meaning of the words used by Kavanaugh in his high school yearbook to step forward immediately. Further, we need all those who will step forward with any and all sexual abuse allegations against Kavanaugh to contact us immediately.”
It’s no shock they are willing to circumvent the confirmation process of Brett Kavanaugh at any cost. Their efforts have nothing to do with his qualifications to serve. Their efforts have nothing to do with the Constitutional process in place for Supreme Court Justice confirmations with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. In fact, these efforts are aimed directly at destroying this legal and historical process for liberal-left political purposes only. (We will not discuss today their political purposes because they are many in number and very well known to all)
The Price
Judge Kavanaugh’s family is paying dearly for this debacle in numerous ways. (See the atrocious cartoon here) One can only imagine the horrors all three — his wife and both daughters — face daily when interacting with their peers. That doesn’t even account for the numerous death threats they continue to receive that have resulted in 24/7 security for them.
What about Judge Kavanaugh himself? Until a week ago, an unblemished judicial career replete with glowing recommendations from hundreds of fellow employees, classmates, professional colleagues and professors linked with his stellar record on the bench was all that was necessary for his confirmation. I seriously doubt there are any in the United States that are unaware of this logjam in his SCOTUS confirmation. I doubt any of those have NOT developed their own assessment after the internationally televised “She Said/He Said” hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There’s something important for us all to realize: YOUR opinion, MY opinion, the opinions of ALL the Senators who serve on that committee don’t matter at the end of this. Judge Brett Kavanaugh will either be confirmed to the Supreme Court or he will not be. But none of this other stuff matters in that context. Each person’s life who is looking in on this circus will go on. Each person’s opinion will probably never be factually proven, just as happened in the 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas amid similar claims made by Anita Hill. What really matters is how Brett Kavanaugh processes all this moving forward with his life.
Remember: he is serving as a judge on the First Circuit Court of Appeals in D.C. — a lifetime appointed position — that he will re-assume if his nomination is denied or withdrawn: or will he?
The “Kavanaugh” Opinion
Our opinions or those of even those who are slated to vote on his confirmation — U.S. Senators — are not the important opinions in this matter. Nor or those of Christine Ford, who called herself a doctor until yesterday. She is NOT nor ever has been a licensed psychologist in California as she claims. Now she’s just “Professor Ford.” The only opinion that matters is that of Brett Kavanaugh.
I’ll explain.
The Coat of Many Colors
Joseph was the youngest son of Jacob, and Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son of his 12 boys. Jacob gave Joseph a very elaborate and expensive “coat of many colors,” and his brothers hated him for it. They hated Joseph so much, they plotted to get rid of him. Their plan (which they implemented) was to sell him into slavery. Joseph found himself as a slave working in Egypt. There he was wrongly accused by the wife of his master for sexually attacking her. For that — without proof — Joseph was thrown into prison where he was held for 13 years though completely innocent.
His release came from a miraculous event regarding a dream of Pharoah. None of Pharoah’s palace seers could interpret it. A baker who had been imprisoned with Joseph but was released to work in the palace remembered that Joseph had interpreted a dream of his when they were imprisoned together. He related that story, and Pharoah had Joseph released and summoned to the Palace. When Pharoah told Joseph his dream, Joseph immediately told him what it meant.
To shorten this story, Pharoah made Joseph his “Second in Command” in all of Egypt, and Joseph ruled over the business process of import-export of Egypt’s crops and other goods.
Israel was experiencing severe famine at that time. Joseph’s brothers were sent by their father to Pharoah to seek assistance in the way of food for him, his family, and others. Of course, they ended up before Joseph, who was in charge of that process for Egypt.
His brothers had for all those years assumed Jacob was dead. When they came before him, none recognized their brother, but he immediately knew them. Joseph responded to them immediately:
“How dare you not recognize who I am! You sold me into slavery, let me go innocently to prison for 13 years, and never thought to even search for me. How dare you come here to beg for Egypt’s assistance!”
Of course, that’s not what he said. Joseph immediately confronted his brothers, identified who he was, hugged all (who were shocked and afraid), and the first thing he asked was, “Is our father alive?”
The rest is history: Joseph provided massive amounts of food to the Israeli people to get them through their famine. He reunited with his family and brought them all to live in Egypt.
So?
Hmmm..
You probably are asking “How does the story of Joseph apply to Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation?” There certainly are commonalities between the two. But they may not be what you first think.
Joseph was certainly wronged by his brothers. It was NOT his fault that his father loved him dearly — far more than his 11 brothers — and obviously treated Joseph different from them. I cannot imagine how horrible it must have been for him to find himself one day sitting at the dinner table with his family and the next in chains going to a slave sale in Egypt to be sold. Many Americans have grandparents that related stories of these same things.
The bombshell in this story is the answer to these questions: What did Joseph do when he found himself a slave and then a prisoner in jail for 13 years? Did he quit, did he complain, or lash out to others about how unwarranted his treatment was? Did he threaten others?
No. He quietly waited. He did what he was supposed to do when he found himself in those circumstances. He made himself ready for all the things he faced daily while in slavery, serving his master after being sold and sitting in jail as a sentence for a crime he did not commit.
There’s a BIG lesson in this for all of us. Let’s take a look:
Summary
No doubt Joseph had every right to hold several grudges: against each of his 11 brothers for at first hating him the way they did, then for selling him into slavery, and then for never caring about what happened to him; a grudge against his slave master’s wife for wrongly accusing him of attacking her; against those who held him in prison for more than a decade when he was totally innocent of the charges.
But Joseph bore no grudges. And that saved his life, that of his brothers and his father, and an unknown number of his fellow countrymen whom he was able to feed during a multi-year widespread famine.
How could Joseph do all these positive things after the very ones he helped sold him into slavery and ended up in prison for 13 years?
Obviously, you are trying to figure out where this story is going and how it applies to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. But it doesn’t apply to Kavanaugh’s confirmation: It applies to Brett Kavanaugh as a man, a husband, a father, a judge, a friend, a coach, a professor, and as a mentor before, during and AFTER his confirmation or his NOT being confirmed. How Brett Kavanaugh comes out of this — even if it ends horribly and his reputation is permanently destroyed and he loses his current lifetime appointment to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in addition to his Supreme Court confirmation — is all that really matters.
Joseph figured it out:
People wrong each other all the time;
Life is seldom “fair;”
Bad things often happen to good people for no fault of their own;
Nobody owes us anything.
It’s in that scenario that Bret Kavanaugh finds himself today. He MUST move forward with his life. We all must move forward with OUR lives. No matter who takes advantage of us, who uses us, who hurts us, who lies to or about us, or whatever bad circumstances come our way that seriously alter our “perfect lives,” we must find ways to deal with it all. But most importantly, we MUST deal with the people responsible for the bad stuff that comes our way of no doing of our own. The key? Forgiveness.
Forgiveness in itself is healing. Mental health professionals make clear how important forgiveness of those who wrong us is. Not only does it clear our minds and hearts of anger that feeds unforgiveness, but forgiveness also releases us to love again, enter into healthy relationships again, and be available for new opportunities in our own lives that come our way going forward. Often, unforgiveness blinds us and prevents us from even recognizing good things we simply ignore, mistrust, or just walk by because we cannot see those.
No human will ever be truly successful without relationships with others. Our DNA comes from others and is comprised of all the things that are part of establishing and developing healthy relationships with others. Our lives are all pretty much part of others lives and vice versa.
Because of that and because of the human nature we all share, people often hurt other people. Being hurt is inevitable. Unfortunately, forgiveness should inevitably be meted out by all. But sadly, many hold it tight, refusing to give it away.
How does this relate to the Kavanaugh situation? That’s simple: Judge Kavanaugh has much to get over — much to forgive others for. He and his family members must be drowning in anger and unforgiveness for the thousands of wrongs being perpetrated on them. Even though Judge Kavanaugh and his family members each know deep in their hearts that much of what they are seeing, hearing, and reading is not based on facts but on emotions. Knowing and accepting that are two different things.
Sadly, I believe their lives are forever changed by this. I just hope the four of them and the Judge’s parents can each find a way to work through it and get on the other side of unforgiveness. Forgiveness is the key for them all. Forgiveness will allow them to trash the pent-up anger and hatred they may be experiencing.
But there’s one other big reason forgiveness is necessary: they do not yet know what amazing good things are ahead for them that they might miss if they harbor uncontrolled unforgiveness.
Forgiveness IS for the present. But forgiveness is for the future, too. If Joseph had not found a way to forgive his brothers, his slave master’s wife, or his jailers, he probably would have never been in a mental place to help anyone else as he did with that first dream interpretation. He then would have missed the meeting with Pharoah, not interpreted Pharoah’s dream, and not been appointed V.P. of Egypt. He then would NOT have been able to restore his relationships with his brothers and father AND feed millions of his people for several years through a famine.
You know what else would have NOT happened if Joseph had not forgiven? Today’s twelve tribes of historical Jewish people who comprise all of Israel would have never existed! Each of his brothers and Joseph were the original founders of each tribe. Israel as the world knows it would not exist.
Is all this just a story? If it is, it’s a really good one! One thing is certain: Joseph understood and implemented in his own life a trait we all should seek for ourselves and those we love: Forgiveness.
Forgiveness has so many benefits that each begin with relationship restoration. Why not give it a try?
family is paying dearly for this debacle in numerous ways. (See the atrocious cartoon here) One can only imagine the horrors all three — his wife and both daughters — face daily when interacting with their peers. That doesn’t even account for the numerous death threats they continue to receive that have resulted in 24/7 security for them.