Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island challenged Amy Coney Barrett to act without regard to the billionaires who are funding the campaign to put her on the Supreme Court.
Senator Whitehouse is keenly aware of the Dark Money that wants to deregulate business, overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminate the Affordable Care Act, and reverse gay marriage.
Will Justice Barrett ignore his pleas?
Follow the money.
Meanwhile, John Cassidy of the New Yorker described the hearings as a sham, since the Republicans have the 51 votes to confirm her. She can punt on every question and give evasive answers, and the Democrats sputter with rage, hopelessly.
Cassidy writes:
If Supreme Court nomination hearings are thought of as quasi-judicial proceedings to determine whether someone deserves to spend decades on the nation’s highest legal bench, it was clear well before Tuesday morning, when Amy Coney Barrett started taking questions from the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that this hearing would be a “sham”—the term that Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, used to describe it on Monday. In this era of permanent political warfare, loyalty to party and President long ago trumped the “advice and consent” clause in Article II of the Constitution, which granted the U.S. Senate the exclusive right to approve or reject treaties and judicial nominations.
Absent some sensational new revelation, such as the allegations of sexual assault that Christine Blasey Ford levelled at Brett Kavanaugh, in October, 2018, nomination hearings these days tend to be bloodless affairs. Citing the need to preserve their independence and maintain an open mind, the nominees point-blank refuse to say anything about the most consequential cases that they are likely to be called upon to decide, and the senators, robbed of any real judicial function, resort to giving political speeches. Some of Tuesday’s hearing fell into this depressing pattern. And with Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, seemingly having the fifty-one votes needed for Barrett’s confirmation in his pocket, it was robbed of political tension. Make no mistake, the rushing through of Barrett’s nomination four years after McConnell denied even a hearing to Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland is an antidemocratic heist of historic dimensions—a point I emphasizedwhen the news of her nomination broke. But this is a crime that the cops—McConnell and his Republican colleagues—aren’t merely in on: they are planning and executing it. Success is virtually guaranteed.
This being so, the main point of interest on Tuesday was Barrett’s performance, and whether she would be able to maintain the convenient fiction that, if elevated to the Supreme Court, she will behave like a baseball umpire, calling balls and strikes without any regard to her personal feelings. “The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the People. The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try,” she said in her opening statement on Monday. If the former Notre Dame law professor had donned a black polo shirt and M.L.B. hat, the messaging couldn’t have been more plain.
She adopted the same stance on Tuesday morning. “Let me be clear, I have made no commitment to anyone—not in this Senate, not over at the White House—about how I would decide any case,” she told Senator Patrick Leahy, the octogenarian Democratic warhorse of Vermont, who had the temerity to suggest that Donald Trump would be counting on her vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act in a case that is scheduled to come before the Court a week after the election. During a cordial back-and-forth, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, asked Barrett if she agreed with the late Antonin Scalia, whom she clerked for and has cited as her role model, that good judges, in their faithfulness to the letter of the law and its original intent, sometimes reach decisions that they don’t like. “I do agree with that,” Barrett replied. “That has been my experience on the Seventh Circuit so far.”
Despite Barrett’s evasiveness, her Democratic interlocutors did highlight some of the prior associations and expressions of belief that she was so keen to downplay. Leahy got her to acknowledge that, in 2006, she signed a public letter from St. Joseph County Right to Life, an Indiana anti-abortion group, which, in some of its other literature, had taken the position that in-vitro fertilization is equivalent to manslaughter. Barrett said that she signed the letter, which she had failed to disclose in the materials she sent to the committee, “almost fifteen years ago quickly on my way out of church” and hadn’t been aware of the group’s other materials, a point she repeated later in the hearing. Leahy also quizzed Barrett about a lecture she gave to the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a Christian program run by an ultraconservative organization called Alliance Defending Freedom. “Were you aware of the A.D.F.’s decades-long efforts to recriminalize homosexuality?” Leahy asked. Barrett replied, “I am not aware of those efforts, no.” These expressions of ignorance were jarringly at odds with the voluminous knowledge and instant recall she displayed in many of her other answers.
Cassidy goes on to describe how Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois caught ACB in a contradiction, but you will have to read the rest of the article to learn about how he did it.
The Senate Republican majority refused to hold a hearing or vote on Garland Merrick’s nomination made during the last year of Obama’s presidency. They insisted that the next elected president should fill the vacancy.
Do we really want to take the U.S. back decades?
Demolishing ACA, destruction of women having any say in the bodies with elimination of Roe vs. Wade and our lives being ruled by corporations who don’t want to pay decent salaries or clean up their pollution will thrive.
Why shouldn’t gays, trans and lesbians have the rights that everyone else has? Why should public schools continue to suffer more when religious schools and charters will be able to take tax-payer money? Our country doesn’t have enough money to support 2-3 school systems. Why should ACA be eliminated when the GOP has no idea of how to give healthcare to its citizens? “Thoughts and prayers” is not a substitute for good healthcare.
Kamala Harris called climate change an “existential threat” but Barrett doesn’t have any firm views on the subject.
Amy Barrett refuses to say whether or not she will recuse herself if Trump’s wailing about fraudulent mail-in ballots has to go to the Supreme Court. He picked her with the idea of having support from a majority of 9 Supreme Court Justices. She refuses to say whether or not Trump should commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
This confirmation hearing is a farce.
Her silence on matters as substantive as Trump’s subversions of democracy speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
Textualist: Article IV, Section 1, of the Constitution says that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” So, states are required to base their interpretations of the laws of other states on religious faith and money (credit).
Originalist: When the Constitution refers to “people,” it means white, male citizens.
LMAO. These idiots imagine that a) one can read without interpreting and b) that the world doesn’t change. I don’t think the founders envisioned a world in which 15 year olds have access to AR-15s.
A question I would ask her: In your view, are African Americans only 3/5 of a citizen? That was in the original Constitution.
nice summation
Pres. Kennedy welcomed questions about the role religion would play in his decisions. Americans listened to him, believed him and voted for him.
Amy Barrett gave an opening statement about religion. The people’s Democratic representatives steered clear of the topic on the advice of the self-serving, with fear of tribalist backlash likely winning as the reason.
The opportunity for the public to believe or not believe what cultist, Barrett might have testified to was lost because Dems didn’t ask. The public is left in the position of reading between the lines from a media that skews toward money and representatives that skew toward silence, if they want to know what religious leaders and their faithful like Barrett, Leo and Barr will and won’t allow as implemented through the legislative, executive and judicial branches.
Pres Kennedy welcomed questions about his religion because at the time, being Catholic was deemed a bad thing. Catholics were considered “those people”. His honesty and openness about his religion helped people accept Catholics as just another Christian religion.
A Catholic writer explained that the Catholic shift in voting from Democratic to GOP came when the demographic became the “haves” instead of the “have nots”.
The observation sheds light on Jefferson’s warning about despots.
It didn’t take but a few decades for the bishops to find Charles Koch and for Koch to advance his agenda through them.
“Kamala Harris called climate change an “existential threat” but Barrett doesn’t have any firm views on the subject.”
Oh, she has firm views on it all right.
She just won’t say what they are.
Not even sure why because it certainly would make no difference to her confirmation if she just came right out and said “I think climate change is a hoax”.
She might as well have said as much. She called it “debatable”.
Barrett’s father was a lawyer for Shell oil, and her nomination is being funded by oil, gas and the Kochs. She’s got views alright.
Thanks so much, I hope you’re safe out there?
Unlike Sen. Whitehouse’s analysis of the opponents of ACA, he didn’t explain the motivation for nor, the source of interest in overturning Roe v. Wade and the same sex marriage ruling.
If Trump’s base supports him and they have no religious intent in doing so, it would explain Sen. Whitehouse’ omission. Pundits seem to view the situation differently.
Sad to say the Amy Barrett nominations will be concluded shortly. For much more on the money that has enabled this travesty and others, go to the following link and look around at this and other entries. You will find donors listed and no surprise, some are also hell-bent on defunding and privatizing public schools https://www.prwatch.org/news/2020/10/13635/senator-whitehouse-calls-out-dark-money-networks-behind-amy-coney-barrett’s
400 wealthy families govern the U.S.
even more specific: 400 wealthy families govern those who govern the USA
Yes, Linda, Ciedie. Exactly.
SENATOR: Blah, blah, blah, blah?
JUDGE BARRETT: This is a matter of personal opinion, and I really can’t go into it except to say that a justice must rule on the law as it is written, and his or her opinions are beside the point.
SENATOR: Blah, blah, blah, blah?
JUDGE BARRETT: Since this is a question that might come before the court, I really can’t go into it.
SENATOR: Well, what can you comment on, Judge Barrett?
JUDGE BARRETT: It is not the job of the judiciary to weigh in about questions before the Congress, nor would I presume to tell the esteemed Senator what to do, but we could talk about the weather.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) asked whether it is morally wrong for government to take immigrant children away from their parents to try deterring immigration, as the Trump administration has done. “That’s a matter of hot political debate in which I can’t express a view or be drawn into as a judge,” Amy Barrett said.
Barrett was a stalwart evader during the three days of hearing. Democrats managed to unearth some of their concerns about Barrett’s past actions and decisions, but the hearings were largely political theater. The only option left for all of us is to vote as though our lives depends on it as they very well might.
Senator Whitehouse mapped out the very swamp itself for all to see.
Too bad no one asked her this question:
Do you agree with Vice President Biden, a Catholic that does not believe in abortion, but that he will not force his beliefs on the nation and would not support any laws making abortion illegal?
“Let me be clear, I have made no commitment to anyone—not in this Senate, not over at the White House—about how I would decide any case,” she told Senator Patrick Leahy,
Interesting the way she put that.
She has almost certainly made a commitment to her God, which is far more absolute for extreme religious types than any commitment to their fellow man.
Senator Leahy questioned her about whether she was aware that ADF was advocating the recriminalization of homosexuality (among other things). She was paid to give presentation during their training program of young lawyers who supported their positions. When Sen. Leahy questioned her she claimed to not be aware of ADF’s position on homosexuality. Sen Al Franken’s questioning of her during her 2017 confirmation hearing clearly establishes her awareness. SHE LIED and no one cares. You Tube has video of the original questioning by Al Franken.
It’s become standard practice for Republican Supreme Court nominees to lie.
It’s a good bet that the only thing Brett K. said that was not a lie was his name, at the swearing in.
Oh, and that he likes beer, which he undoubtedly does.
ADF+Alliance Defending Freedom
Watch Franken and Leahy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JRAh1oiSk
Listen also to what Al Franken would ask her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBvYZH6xo0
Thanks for sharing this clip. I listened to his podcast regularly when traveling, but have lapsed lately. The Senate is a poorer place (as if that is even imaginable) without him.
Here’s a link to the full 30 minutes of Whitehouse’s remarks, which includes the Friedricks case, which morphed into Janus. Whitehouse is explict about the desire to lose Friedricks so as to move the case to SCOTUS.
https://t.co/M0YQopSmZZ?amp=1