Posted on 01/24/2024 2:49:38 PM PST by CFW
... Would he decide that the term “sex” found in legislation passed in 1964 actually covered sexual orientation and gender identity - which no lawmaker in 1964 would have ever countenanced - and enshrine the LBGT movement’s dearest wishes into law?
Of course not. Not only were these questions not asked, they were not even entertained. They were unthinkable. Gorsuch was considered one of the golden boys of the Federalist Society. Underneath all of that Textualism and Originalism, we were assured that there was plenty of Conservatism, and even some Christianity. We were guaranteed that there was bedrock common sense hiding under that Harvard law degree. We were told the Federalist Society existed so that a mistake like David Souter - the infamous George H.W. Bush pick who became a turncoat and voted liberal for decades - would never happen again.
So you can imagine the astonishment, and the anger, now that Gorsuch has actually turned out to be another Souter. How could that happen? And what else has the Federalist Society got wrong? Let’s see: there’s John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh and even Amy Coney Barrett is not looking very good these days. So Leonard Leo at least got Samuel Alito right. That’s batting .200 on Supreme Court picks - which means the Federalist Society should be benched.
You don’t need to fund an entire legal movement to strike out so many times.
It turns out there’s no discernible legal philosophy among the Federalist Society’s handpicked “stars” either. Just read the dissents. Roberts and Alito and Kavanaugh have no idea what Gorsuch is thinking in McGirt v Oklahoma. Alito and Kavanaugh have no idea what Roberts and Gorsuch are doing in Bostock. None of them know why Roberts got it so wrong in the Louisiana abortion case. It’s like a dark comedy show where the liberals keep winning even though they’re outnumbered, and no one can figure out why.
It turns out that a lot of judges pretending to be conservatives are not conservative at all. Roberts will ignore precedent if it hurts the liberals, and cite precedent if it hurts the conservatives. It’s his only consistent trait. Meanwhile, Gorsuch is so hyper literal that he doesn’t care about any precedent - and has partitioned the state of Oklahoma to prove it.
Is this Textualism or Originalism? No, it’s chaos.
Like I said: just read the dissents.
Did Gorsuch know that he was going to destroy the Federalist Society’s good name with his caprices? It must have occurred to him that no one wanted a Textualist argument for turning Tulsa over to a tribal council while ruling that the rapist of a 4 year old girl should get a re-trial because he got caught by state troopers rather than federal police. What imbecile could rule that way? (It usually takes a Harvard law degree to have so little common sense.) Trump voters wanted fidelity to the Constitution and instead they got incoherent 5-4 decisions - with Gorsuch and Roberts competing with each other to write the majority “liberal” opinion.
The real problem is that President Trump didn’t know who these judges were, and neither did we.
Conservatives should not only ditch the Federalist Society but they should go a step further and ditch all the established judges. We should start picking people who are social conservatives and not lawyers. (As one of my journalist friends explained to me: “The American legal community breeds choirboy sissies like Kavanaugh in the same way that Ireland breeds drunks.”) In hindsight, President Trump should have dismissed the establishment entirely and nominated Mark Levin or Dan Bongino: someone who would have irritated the Supreme Court club members for the rest of their lives. Maybe the amateurs will care to uphold the law, rather than subvert it.
Don’t tell me that we have to pick people who are more qualified. The qualified people just toppled the conservative legal movement from the inside.
You are never going to get a court that is just a rubber stamp for some ideology or other, but when you put libertarians and lawyers together you are bound to get a lot of strange cases brought for someone’s idea of rights — or just for money.
It’s Russian roulette with every case thanks to Roberts and Barrett. What a system.
Wait til they get to assault weapons bans...that will tell the tale.
“Textualism is a method of statutory interpretation that asserts that a statute should be interpreted according to its plain meaning...”
But that presumes an iota of common sense, wisdom and street smarts. Some of these tools get wrapped around the axle and act too clever by half in their contorted decisions.
The essential problem is that once the Federalist Society became a recognized force when Republicans pick judges, it was overwhelmed by careerist lawyers and judges who were not genuine conservatives. Sadly, the Trump I Administration missed this problem. We can hope that the Trump II Administration will address it effectively.
“They will do ANYTHING to keep the States from showing any independence from Fed.gov.”
Same problem as Union government in 1861. Human nature does not change.
“It wasn’t Trump’s fault. He had done his part and turned over the process of selection to the conservative legal movement...”
uh no. i disagree. the ‘buck’ stops at exactly one desk, and that was Trump’s.
So what will Trump’s process be for replacing Clarence Thomas during his second term, since the Federalist Society can’t be trusted to identify solid conservatives?
I understand her frustration; however, there is a world of difference even between Levin and Bongino. And these popularist guys would never get confirmed. That is the problem. Puritan conservatives and RINOs in Congress have fought Trump every step of the way, carelessly throwing away any temporary majority.
We have a trilateral system with checks and balances; not a king.
p
Exactly! I gave a donation to The Federalist Society one year, but then cancelled the next when they picked Gorsuch who was a Boulder Colorado Republican, i.e. RINO.
not what it claims to do or what you think it ought to do.
One thing I hope is that he will not look at anyone from the Ivy League. Perhaps he can find someone from Hillsdale undergrad and a state college for law school. Here is an interesting list from a law blog:
“Per Princeton Review, these are the law schools where you can wear your MAGA hats with pride, otherwise known as the law schools with the most conservative students:1. Ave Maria School of Law
2. Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School
3. George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School
4. Faulkner University, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law
5. Texas Tech School of Law
6. University of Alabama School of Law
7. Louisiana State University, Paul M. Hebert Law Center
8. Mississippi College School of Law
9. University of Idaho School of Law
10. University of Mississippi School of Law
Thank you for identifying the root of the problem. The Federalist Society is another victim of one of Conquest's Laws:
All institutions that aren't explicitly conservative will eventually become liberal.
Or as Curtis Yarvin said: Cthulhu always swims left.
The abortion issue has been a real winner for the left. I’m glad that Roe v Wade was abolished, but every silver lining has its cloud.
I would pick a divorce lawyer (who tended to side with the husband) living in some small town or suburb.
It would bring some commonsense to an otherwise airy-fairy analysis that seems to be going on these days with the Supremes.
oh. well agreed, he’s not a king, he’s an executive, a president.
ok, given that he’s an executive, not a king, were those Judges his nominees, or not? is he responsible for them or not?
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