Posted on 06/28/2021 10:33:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
” Those Justices that President Trump nominated were at or near the Top of the List of The Heritage Foundations List of Conservative judges. What Heritages methodology is for listing Conservative judges I do not know.”
All of the Supreme Court justices are educated at elite private schools, almost all at Ivy League Schools. The curriculum at these law schools is biased towards the concept of the “living Constitution” which can always be interpreted by the omnipotent courts to reflect current progressive thinking pertaining to law and society. Scalia believed in orginal intent - the courts were to rule based on the meaning of the statute or Constitutional amendment at the time it was adopted. Those who favor original intent assume if the meaning needs to be changed to reflect modernity, there is an amendment process in the Constitution which allows the people, the states, and Congress to adopt through the legislative process changes to the Constitution or laws.
Part of the problem with Supreme Court is limiting the selection of jurists to a few schools which do not teach original intent. If this nation is so hell bent on diversity, how about some diversity of doctrine, as well as educational environment on the court? When you appoint elitists to an elite institution you will get groupthink.
The Federalist Society is terrible.
The GOP surrendered on the culture wars more than 20 years ago. They have literally no interest in refighting them and take near every opportunity they can to stab us in the back. If we want genuinely conservative SCOtUS judges we need a new party because they will never be confirmed by the GOP.
The GOP donor class has exactly zero interest in social issues. They only care about a pro corporate agenda: Open borders, unfair trade, health care off employer books etc.
My biggest criticism of President Trump is that he made some horrendous appointments including the Supremes, Barr, Sessions, Tillerson, Bolton, Scaramucci and Haley.
Some people are just really good out hiding their true self. I’ve known many, and they always seemed to be the ones that advanced for doing nothing, beecaue they always said the right things that people wanted to hear.
Recall in order for Trump to garner Yurtles support in 2016 he had to supply a list of Judges that met Yurtles requirements, mainly they be Federalist Society Judges.
All were required to be Federalist Society. Yurtle made Trump make a list of (Federalist Society) judges he’d promise to pick from in order to garner Yurtle’s support.
Trump did himself no favors by frequently boasting about them by name, instead of simply referring to having exercised his Presidential prerogative to appoint Justices. He promoted them like they were boxers at a Don King event.
Human beings can be quite perverse. "I'll show him he can't make me a poster child for MAGA!"
Neil and Bob
“I think they all had a decent track record. However, threats, pressure, and money have all tainted the Trump justices.”
That just means they were pygmies in character from the beginning. They have their reward.
I did as well. We were shouted down the "any judge who claims their judicial phiosophy is 'orignalist' will magically be awesome and vote just like Scalia" crowd.
Hope they're enjoying their faux 'originalists', the rest of us are stuck with those crappy judges for decades.
I agree that narrowing the list so 90% of the judges under consideration are ivy leaguers was a bad idea, but even worse was running on "Drain the swamp" and then using a "list" were 90% of the judges are career federal judges who have spent decades working for "the swamp" on the federal payroll. They were tainted by the beltway insiders. There were PLENTY of well qualified people who have never spent a day of their life as a federal judge.
In any case, the much vaulted "list" was a dud and was filled with lots of establishment hacks.
“In any case, the much vaulted “list” was a dud and was filled with lots of establishment hacks.”
Four years demonstrated that identifying, and putting committed competent people into senior government positions was not a core competency of Donald J. Trump. Given his choice of Michael Cohen as his personal attorney one might question his competence for even vetting a personal attorney. I would think a billionaire businessman would have a top level, competent, and honest attorney working for him, not a scumbag.
I think history has already proven I was right to question how "good" the judges on his "list" were.
IMO, Trump's supreme court appointees will end up around the level of how "good" Eisenhower and Nixon's appointees were (similar to Trump, Nixon loudly campaigned on a pledge to reverse the liberal activism of past courts and appoint "only strict constructionsts" to SCOTUS, but did very poorly at that. In Nixon's defense, UNLIKE Trump, Nixon at least TRIED to name outspoken hardcore conservatives several times, only to see the Senate torpedo those nominations)
Gerald Ford has the overall "worst" track record of any GOP for SCOTUS judges (he named John Paul Stevens, who "evolved" into a horrible marxist that made RBG blush), but again, Ford only got one shot at it. Trump, Nixon, and Ike gave us multiple duds.
“I thought Rudy Giuliani was Trump’s “personal attorney”? “
Rudolph Giuliani became Trump’s personal attorney after Michael Cohen was accused of various crime (tax evasion and campaign finance violation), pled guilty, and turned on Trump. Trump’s former attorney was sentenced to three years in federal prison in December 2018. Cohen also pled guilty to lying to a Senate committee.
Michael Cohen was Trump’s personal attorney from 2006 to May 2018. He had the title of Vice President in the Trump organization. He was also Co President of Trump Entertainment and a board member of the Eric Trump Foundation.
Here’s a link to a 2017 Washington Post story about Cohen continuing in his role as Trump’s attorney while Trump serves as President. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/19/michael-cohen-special-counsel-to-donald-trump-will-follow-him-to-washington/
Here’s a link to a May 2018 report of Rudolph Giuliani announcing Cohen was no longer Trump’s personal attorney - https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/11/michael-cohen-not-trump-attorney-583902
Trump’s picks for a variety of positions, not just Supreme Court justice, were very poor. This was particularly surprising because Trump was a successful businessman and successful businesses require solid management in key roles. Perhaps Trump had an outstanding head of HR advising him at his companies.
Did Trump simply delegate to Washington insiders the job of selecting his cabinet and other key roles? Was Donald Trump a poor interviewer? There were reports he only met with Rex Tillerson and James Mattis one hour before deciding to hire them. Whatever the reason, his failure to fill key positions, early in his term, with people committed to his agenda made his job much harder and helped his enemies greatly. Imagine how successful he could have been as POTUS if his initial choices for White House Chief of Staff (Priebus), Attorney General (Sessions), Secretary of State (Tillerson), and Secretary of Defense (Mattis) had been outstanding leaders committed to Trump’s agenda.
We finally have some “party-line” 6-3 votes on major cases, upholding the AZ election law and denying illegals who have already been deported a hearing.
Lefties are trying to force the 82 year old Breyer to retire so Biden can replace him with a youngest marxist. IMO it wouldn't even change much, I don't think Biden could appoint someone further left than Breyer even if he sincerely tried. But I suppose there's a slim chance we'd get lucky and Breyer's replacement would be named by a future GOP president after 2024 (which would drive the lefties even more crazy)
The jury is still out on Barrett but its not looking good for her ending up as a "Scalia-like" justice. At the time of her appointment I gave that a 95% chance, after she punted on Biden's steal I dropped the odds down to 80%, looking at her first few months on the court I'd drop it further down to 60%. Still, I keep it at 60% because I still think its pretty clear she'll end up the "most conservative" of Trump's three crappy picks.
Kavanaugh has at least proved to be much more "Anthony Kennedy-like" lately, not "Scalia-like" at all, which doesn't surprise me (given their backgrounds, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch have far more in common with the guy they both clerked for, Anthony Kennedy, than either has with Scalia). Kav may end up to the LEFT of Gorsuch, which DOES surprise me, as it seemed clear Gors had a socially liberal streak that Kav lacked (Kav's biggest problem is he's an establishment hack who doesn't want to overturn any "landmark" ruling, even if he personally thinks it was a horrible decision) Kav joining the commies on this one resulted in a 5-4 leftist victory: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3972107/posts
I said at the time of ACB's appointment, the BEST case scenario we could hope for was an equally divided 3-3-3 court, which most FReepers at the time thought was way too pessimistic (and preferred to drink the 'Trump has accomplished cementing a conservative majority for decades' kool-aid). Unfortunately it seems my "extremely pessisitic" prediction was spot on, and possibily its more of a 4-3-2 divided court (Barrett, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch being right-of-center swing votes, Breyer/Kagan/Sotomayor being hardcore leftists, Alito and Thomas being the only clear across-the-board constitutional conservatives). The FReeper who said "The fix is in. Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kav will rotate to the liberal side as needed for any 'precedent-setting case'" unfortunately was very accurate in that prediction, too.
But, ironically, the unpredictability of the current SCOTUS is actually working in our favor most of the time now.
In any case, FReepers did us no favors by worshiping Trump's mediocre "list" as a brilliant stroke of genius, and blindly loving and cheering on anyone and everyone Trump appointed to a federal judgeship. We're going to be stuck with those decisions long after Trump is gone.
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