Tag: Judges

Rot At SCOTUS

The recent events around the dealings of Justice Thomas and his closeness with some billionaire who seems to be paying the bills for Thomas.

I read a piece written by Bill Astore that sums up what is happening within our Supreme Court……a good piece and should be read…..

A big part of the American experiment is the idea we are a nation of laws as defined by the U.S. Constitution. The law is supposed to apply equally to all, and disinterested, impartial, justices are supposed to make rulings that are unaffected by money or race or religion or any other factor other than the law itself and what’s right and what isn’t.

That doesn’t describe today’s Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS).

Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted all kinds of undeclared gifts from a billionaire supporter, including tuition for his great-nephew at private boarding schools. Justice Neil Gorsuch profited from a real estate transaction with a rich law firm CEO with extensive business before the court. Apparently, SCOTUS polices itself here, and so far the SCOTUS cop on watch is asleep.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh gained his seat under a storm of controversy. I wrote in September 2018 that he should withdraw his name from consideration, based on the demeanor he showed at his Senate hearing, but of course he didn’t. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was specifically “saved” by President Trump to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg; everyone knew she was a conservative Catholic opposed to abortion with a clear record of being pro-business to boot.

You’d think the #1 criterion for a SCOTUS justice would be unassailable integrity, but today it seems to be predictable partisan positions (both political parties are guilty here, though Republicans are more blatant). Allegiance to moneyed interests is a big plus. The latter point is why these justices see no problem with accepting “gifts,” otherwise known as bribes (for that is what they are, in plain speak).

https://bracingviews.substack.com/p/rot-at-the-supreme-court

Integrity in the court has left the building many years ago…..the rot within the court is all pervasive….the only for sure about the court is it is as corruptible as the rest of DC and our elected officials….the only difference is these political hacks have a lifetime to have their palms greased.

It is beyond time to make some much needed SCOTUS reforms…..like term limits, mandatory retirement and stop allowing political hacks on the highest court in the land.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Thomas: Corroding Public Trust

For years I have been writing about Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, for years and the antics of his wife and her endorsements of far right ideas.

Just yesterday a more damning report of Thomas and his billionaire benefactor……

Clarence Thomas has a very, very rich friend. This friend, billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow, has for two decades let the Supreme Court justice and his wife travel around the world to exotic locales at his expense, reports ProPublica. The story by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski notes that Thomas has never reported these vacation flights on financial disclosures, which “appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress, and federal officials to disclose most gifts.” The ethics law experts they interview also say Thomas should have reported his multiple trips on Crow’s superyacht. However, the legalities are murky because the story also points out that the Supreme Court “is left almost entirely to police itself” on such matters. Regardless, “the extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history” of the court, per the story.

“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” says Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who has served in the administrations of both parties. “Quite frankly, it makes my heart sink.” Crow tells the outlet the two never discuss cases, and the story makes clear that Thomas has never ruled on a case in which Crow’s company was involved. However, the court does hear cases that affect the real estate industry in general, and Thomas meets other prominent conservatives and business executives on the trips. The vacations—including one to Indonesia in 2019 that would have cost Thomas about $500,000 had he paid himself— appear to stand in contrast to comments the justice once made in a documentary (financed by Crow) about how he likes to travel. “I prefer the RV parks,” he said. “I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that.”

Read the full story.

Let’s look at this situation a bit deeper….

either Clarence Thomas himself nor the Supreme Court has responded to ProPublica’s report detailing how the justice has received lavish vacations and gifts from a prominent GOP donor for 20 years without disclosing them. Democrats, on the other hand, have plenty to stay about Thomas’ relationship with real estate magnate Harlan Crow:

  • AOC: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Thomas to be impeached. “This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of corruption is shocking—almost cartoonish,” she wrote. Attached to the tweet is an image from the story, a painting (based on a real-life photo) of Thomas at Crow’s Adirondack resort smoking a cigar while with Crow with three other prominent conservatives.
  • Durbin: Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin said his panel “will act” in the wake of the report, per the Hill. “The highest court in the land shouldn’t have the lowest ethical standards,” he said in a statement. “Today’s Pro Publica report reveals that Justice Thomas has for years accepted luxury travel on private yachts and jets and a litany of other gifts that he failed to disclose. This behavior is simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court.”
  • Sen. Whitehouse: “This cries out for the kind of independent investigation that the Supreme Court—and only the Supreme Court, across the entire government—refuses to perform,” wrote Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
  • Others: Semafor rounds up the reaction of other angry Democrats here.
  • The rules: Here is how the AP lays things out: Supreme Court justices must file an annual financial disclosure report listing gifts they have received, and it’s unclear why Thomas failed to do so. Under a judiciary policy guide seen by the AP, “food, lodging or entertainment received as ‘personal hospitality of any individual’ does not need to be reported if it is at the personal residence of that individual or their family. That said, the exception to reporting is not supposed to cover ‘transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation’ and properties owned by an entity.” Thomas traveled on Crow’s superyacht and on his private aircraft. As ProPublica notes, the Supreme Court largely polices itself on such matters, something critics say must change.
  • Crow’s statement: ProPublica has provided Crow’s full statement, in which he says nothing improper transpired. He said he has extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years” but that the couple “never asked for any of this hospitality.” He said they did not discuss matters before the court. “We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue,” Crow said. “More generally, I am unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case, and I would never invite anyone who I believe had any intention of doing that. These are gatherings of friends.”

This is just another nail in the case for doing some reform…..these so-called ‘Associates” have had their hands out for decades which flies in the face of proper justice from the “referees” of our democracy.

Impeach and Reform Now!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Of Today

I have made my thoughts on the modern SCOTUS….I think they are nothing more than political hacks that are a slave to party politics not the rule of law…..

With said let’s look at the SCOTUS of today…..

The Robert’s court has been concerned about the ethical lapses that the court has been plagued with recently…..

There have been ethical lapses by federal judges, Chief Justice John Roberts has conceded. And as a workplace, the court system has not been free of discrimination and harassment, the Washington Post reports. But he cited the principle of judicial independence in arguing that courts should be left alone to police themselves. “The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government,” Roberts said. The chief justice made the case in his year-end report on the judiciary.

Roberts referred to “topics that have been flagged by Congress and the press over the past year”—not problems the judiciary spotted on its own. Wall Street Journal reports, which he addressed, found judges’ actions “inconsistent” with a statute requiring them to recuse themselves in cases in which they have a financial stake. “Between 2010 and 2018, 131 federal judges participated in a total of 685 matters involving companies in which they or their families owned shares of stock,” Roberts wrote. Although he said that’s a “99.97% compliance rate,” Roberts said that the judiciary takes the issue seriously and that those 131 judges “violated an ethics rule.”

Ethics training for judges will be stepped up, Roberts said, and computer software might be used to spot potential conflicts of interest. He also mentioned steps being taken to protect judiciary employees, per the Post. Legislation has been introduced that would, among other things, set up whistleblower protections for staff members. Again, Roberts said the judiciary has it under control, adding, “I appreciate that Members of Congress have expressed ongoing concerns on this important matter.” Roberts is working from a position of strength: A recent poll found the chief justice has the highest popularity rating of 11 federal officials. On the other hand, per Axios, a September poll found the Supreme Court’s approval rating down to 40%.

Seriously?

“Independent”?

That is about as a stupid statement….they are political hacks…that is how they get nominated.

Nothing about the court smells of independence…..the court no longer works for the country but rather for the political corporate machine….

In 2008, Linda Greenhouse, a New York Times reporter who had covered the Supreme Court for almost 30 years, assessed the court’s place in the nation in an essay. “The court is in Americans’ collective hands,” she wrote. “We shape it; it reflects us. At any given time, we may not have the Supreme Court we want. We may not have the court we need. But we have, most likely, the Supreme Court we deserve.” Greenhouse’s views have changed since then, she writes in a new opinion piece in the Times, as has the court. Now, she writes, the country deserves better.

The justices don’t represent the views of the majority of Americans because they weren’t chosen by a majority of Americans. Six justices were picked by Republican presidents, only three of whom received a majority of the popular vote when they were elected. The GOP leanings of small states and realities of the Electoral College mean that the three justices named by former President Donald Trump were confirmed in close votes by senators representing less than half of the US population, Greenhouse notes.

The result is a court whose majority view isn’t the nation’s. For example, polls regularly show Americans want to leave Roe v. Wade alone, but the court’s illogical handling of the Texas law suggests that’s not the way it’s headed, writes Greenhouse. “We now have justices apparently untroubled by process and precedent, let alone appearances.” With their life tenure, these justices could “capture the court for the next generation and freeze in place a legacy the American people never chose,” she says. That leads Greenhouse to an updated answer on that rhetorical question from 2008: “Is this the Supreme Court we deserve? It is not.” (Read the full piece here.)

The Supreme Court needs reforming….start with banning political think yanks from having any influence in the nomination process (but that is a pipe dream on my part for the corporations own every part of our government and that includes SCOTUS).

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

“Looters” Not “Victims”

Yesterday the news was a buzz from something a federal judge instructed a jury in the thug Rittenhouse’s trial…..

Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial starts Monday, and you won’t hear the two men he fatally shot during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, referred to as “victims.” The judge in the case has a standard policy barring people from being called “victims” until an actual conviction, USA Today reports, and he said that using the term in this case would be “loaded,” per the Washington Post. However, when prosecutors asked that defense attorneys be prohibited from referring to the two men as “looters, rioters, arsonists or any other pejorative term,” the judge declined to make such an order.

“Let the evidence show what it shows,” was all he said. Prosecutors argued the terms should not be used unless there’s specific evidence Joseph Rosenbaum or Anthony Huber engaged in those activities. Rittenhouse, who was 17 when the shootings took place last year, has pleaded not guilty to homicide in both of their deaths as well as not guilty to attempted homicide of Gaige Grosskreutz, who was shot and wounded. His lawyers are expected to argue he acted in self-defense amid protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Columnist Will Bunch runs down the judge’s controversial history in a Twitter thread (that ultimately calls for his removal) here.

Seriously?

The dead will be put on trial to save the life of a murderer?

This sounds a lot like one of those ‘activist judges’ that conserv are so worried about…..

This should be sound grounds for an appeal to overturn the ruling…..

Does anybody ever heard of judge Hoffman?  Think Chicago 7 trial and the total bigotry of a presiding judge.

Let’s be honest….this is a judge wanting to effect the outcome of the trial….time for this slug to go!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

SCOTUS News

The Supreme Court is making the news almost daily…..many of us are calling for some sort of reform with the Court…..something has to be done to try and control these political hacks that are suppose to be neutral to the political antics of the political parties…..they are not.

One of my concerns is that these judges are not acting in a responsible way and are being unduly influenced by outside players….

In a letter to Roberts, Reuters reported, the Democratic lawmakers questioned whether Roberts had done enough in his role as the presiding officer of the Judicial Conference of the United States to uphold the integrity of the federal judiciary and enforce ethic rules.

Warren and Jayapal cite a Wall Street Journal report that revealed 131 judges failed to recuse themselves from cases involving companies in which they or their family members owned stock—a scope of ethics violations the lawmakers called “stunning.”
 
The letter cites legal precedents from the code of conduct that require judges to recuse themselves from all cases where financial interest is involved, calling the extensive ethic breaches, at least in part, “a direct result of the inadequate processes for judicial accountability.”
 
“These conflicts of interest have affected hundreds of cases and the integrity of the justice system,” the letter reads.
The letter references other instances in which Supreme Court justices similarly did not recuse themselves from cases despite potential financial conflicts, including through ownership of individual stock, as further evidence of a “systemic failure that requires accountability.”
 
Warren and Jayapal argued that their comprehensive ethics legislation—the Anti-Corruption & Public Integrity Act—if passed—would close the large gaps in the U.S. judicial ethics system by requiring public release of disclosure reports, overhauling the recusal system, and barring judges from owning individual stocks.
 
Biden put together a commission to look at the Court and suggest changes that could be made….(really this was a worthless time waste)…..

The first word from President Biden’s commission charged with exploring changes to the Supreme Court was mostly about what the panel hasn’t done. “The Commission did not attempt to discern whether the Court is beset by a crisis of legitimacy today, nor do we take a position on whether the Court’s independence is at risk or whether it has become too anti-democratic,” said a draft document released before a meeting Friday. The panel was asked to consider specific changes, but its final report, to be presented to Biden in mid-November, won’t included actionable recommendations, CNN reports.

That was more or less the plan, but the cautious, hesitant approach evident in the drafts still irritated people, mostly Democrats. “This was not even close to being worth the wait,” said Brian Fallon of Demand Justice, who criticized the “the paralysis-by-analysis” approach, per the New York Times. On one major proposal, adding members to the court, the drafts show members seem to agree that would be legal but not on whether it “would be wise,” per MSNBC. The documents cited polls showing the idea is unpopular. The commission is focusing too much on the politics of expansion and not enough on potential benefits, said Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP.

Many Republicans don’t want to see the panel doing anything more, saying expansion would upend norms and already has received too much attention, per the Washington Post. “Far-left progressives are clearly trying to expand their political power under the guise of ‘court reform,'” said Kelly Shackelford of First Liberty Institute. Two conservatives quit Friday, leaving 36 members on the panel. Although the commission sidestepped the legitimacy question, a Gallup Poll in September found the Supreme Court’s approval rating down to 40%.

There’s more support for imposing 18-year term limits on justices. But members aren’t sure how that could be done. It might take a constitutional amendment, or maybe just a statute. Some members don’t want to do anything that could “encounter so many constitutional problems.” Biden threw cold water on that idea anyway on Friday night when he was asked if he supports term limits. “No” was his answer. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law expert on the panel, isn’t sure about term limits, either. But he worries about the effects of rejecting every potential improvement because of possible risks. “Many people, and I include myself in this, believe we are indeed in a ‘break-the-glass’ moment,” he said.

Did you really think that there was going to be any help by this Commission?  If so, then you have been asleep for the last 40 years.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

A Change For SCOTUS?

The referee of this republic is the Supreme Court…..they interpret and set laws for the nation. As it is today it is where ideologues go to push a certain set of principles….no longer are these 9 judges an independent and impartial umpire for the laws of this country.

There has been a movement for the expansion of the court from 9 judges to 13. The Dems are offering up this bill…but will it ever see the light of day?

President Biden signed an executive order to set up a commission dedicated to studying possible reforms to the Supreme Court, including an increase in the number of justices on the bench. Congressional Democrats, however, aren’t waiting for the results of the panel’s report due out in six months, instead moving to introduce legislation Thursday on expansion of the court. The bill, led by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Jerry Nadler, proposes upping the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to 13—a move that can only be carried out via an act of Congress. The legislation is a reaction to what NBC News calls “an undercurrent of progressive fury” after then-President Obama nominated Merrick Garland in March 2016 to fill Antonin Scalia’s spot after the latter had died, and Mitch McConnell, then the GOP Senate majority leader, denied a vote on Garland.

McConnell’s reasoning: It was an election year, and he felt the incoming president should be the one to fill Scalia’s slot, which Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch eventually took. Democrats’ anger was further stoked when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September and the GOP swept Amy Coney Barrett onto the bench just days before the 2020 election. “This bill marks a new era where Democrats finally stop conceding the Supreme Court to Republicans,” political activist Brian Fallon says, per NBC News. The Intercept notes that the number of seats on the court bounced around earlier on in US history, going up to 10 before falling back to nine in 1869, where it’s stayed since. NBC and Vox note the bill is unlikely to become law in the near future, with the GOP pushing back hard against it as a radical move. Biden himself has wavered on fully supporting such an expansion, though he hopes to receive some clarity from his newly formed commission.

Personally I do not see how the rise to 13 would change anything at all on the court.  And yes I have an idea on this as well and I let my thoughts be known here on IST……https://lobotero.com/2020/09/25/i-have-lots-to-say-about-scotus/

But none of these changes will occur,,,,the Senate will make sure that nothing is done to change the make-up of the Supreme Court.

While change needs to happen with SCOTUS but this bill will not change anything but the number of judges…..the partisan BS will continue.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

To Make SCOTUS Better?

I have written my thoughts on how I believe SCOTUS could be improved after the death of Ginsburg and the fight that is about to erupt……https://lobotero.com/2020/09/23/dems-need-to-buck-up/ and my plan for the court…..https://lobotero.com/2020/09/25/i-have-lots-to-say-about-scotus/

The Dems are thinking ahead and have apparently been reading IST (JK) for they will offer a new plan for the highest court this week……

Under a bill House Democrats are preparing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have had to retire in 2011—and William O. Douglas, the longest-serving justice in Supreme Court history, would have stepped down in 1957 instead of 1975. The bill, which Democrats plan to introduce next week, limits the terms of Supreme Court justices to 18 years. It excludes those currently on the court, who were appointed to lifetime terms, Reuters reports. Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna says it “would save the country a lot of agony and help lower the temperature over fights for the court that go to the fault lines of cultural issues.” Recent polls have shown large majorities in favor of introducing term limits, which are already required on the Supreme Courts of every state except Rhode Island.

The bill would allow each president to nominate two justices per four-year term. After their terms expired, justice would became “senior” and would be allowed to return to service on lower courts, as numerous former SCOTUS justices have done, including David Souter. This would allow term limits to be introduced without changing the Constitution, writes Gabe Roth In a USA Today op-ed. Roth is executive director of the nonpartisan Fix the Court group. While Democrats probably won’t be able to stop President Trump nominating a replacement for Ginsburg, “they can join with their conservative colleagues who have long embraced the concept of term limits and ensure that never again will a superannuated bench determine the direction of our country,” he writes.

Rep. Khanna has a bill that could do the trick….

“No justice should feel the weight of an entire country on their shoulders,” Khanna added. “No president should be able to shift the ideology of our highest judicial body by mere chance. Most importantly, our country’s top constitutional questions shouldn’t be decided by a panel of jurists who are biding their time until a president of their choice is elected. It’s time to standardize and democratize the Supreme Court.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/25/time-standardize-and-democratize-supreme-court-ro-khanna-introduces-bill-justice

I like the idea that the Constitution does not needed amending…that process takes so long that my grandchildren will have grandchildren before it is decided…..look at the Equal Rights Amendment written in 1972 and still has not been ratified a half a century later.

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“lego ergo scribo”

I Have Lots To Say About SCOTUS

There are a few things I would like to say before the nomination and hearing process starts…..before the circus and comedy tale begins.

We are having a knockdown and dragged out fight between the parties over the choices for the Supreme Court.

I have told the readers what I think of the most recent fight involving the replacement of Judge Ginsburg….but in case are are ill informed…..https://lobotero.com/2020/09/23/dems-need-to-buck-up/

But that is not where I will stop…there is so much more I need to say….if for no other reason that to get it off my chest.

My biggest question is…..why are they appointed for life?  No one else in the scheme of things in the government has a job for life…why the justices?  They can only lose their gig through misadventure (and that is a hard thing to prove)……

Did you know that since it’s beginning the Supreme Court has had only 17 chief justices?  244 years and that is all the chief justices we have had…..and they have in the past overruled their own rulings…..like Plessey v Ferguson(1896) gave us the law of segregation…..whereas the idea of  ‘separate but equal’ facilities….Brown v Board of Education (1954) overturned it.

By stacking the court with ideologues any progress can be overturned…now you see why their political ideology is so important these….once again it is not so much about the law but rather the political agenda.

There is more……if this is truly important then maybe learning about the branch would be wise.   http://supremecourthistory.org/

Picking a judge should be about the Constitution and seeing it is upheld at every turn….not about some political ideology agenda as it is today.

No one should have a government job for life.

It is the 21st century time for the US to move out of the shadow of the 19th century and update the Constitution to reflect society of the present.

Some changes to the federal judge positions…..all judges to include SCOTUS….they should be limited to 2 5 year terms…and the chief justice is based on seniority not favor from the president…..if the branch is suppose to be independent then make it so.

Then there has been floated the idea that SCOTUS judges should be elected as in the states.  I disagree!  That opens up justice to the influence of money and power more so than today.

Qualifications should be for SCOTUS…..20 years experience as a trial judge.  For federal judges there should be at least 10 years of experience….with no political affiliations.

Justices are chosen, in descending order, first by ideology, confirmability, age, race and gender…..no where is a training in law a requirement only considered because of tradition.

Learn Stuff!

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“lego ergo scribo”

Dems Need To Buck Up

Trump will be naming the successor to Ginsberg soon…..and as usual the Dems are starting their predictable whining and bitching…..they will pull out all their stops to sway the Repubs to not vote until they have all their ducks in a row.

The pre-October surprise death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg worsened the divisive political nightmare of a nation struggling to cope with successive disasters while under minority rule by a president who can’t govern.

Her body wasn’t even cold before heartless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that his followers will vote on her replacement, violating a self-imposed 2016 rule that prohibited confirming a court nominee before a presidential election. He set the stage for an all-out battle between his Republicans and Democrats.

Chaos Galore

All their (Dems) whining will be a moot point if they cannot find a couple of GOP Senators to get aboard with the Dems….the one I am thinking is Mitt and he has crapped on that idea…..

Democrats’ chances of stopping the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee before Election Day all but disappeared on Tuesday with an announcement from Mitt Romney. The Utah Republican says he supports moving forward with President Trump’s soon-to-be-announced nominee, reports Axios. Romney was seen as a possible “no” vote for Democrats, as was Colorado’s Cory Gardner. Both have since fallen in line with Senate Republicans. While two GOP senators say they don’t support confirmation until after Nov. 3—Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins—that’s not enough to stop the process that Mitch McConnell has vowed will take place.

“The historical precedent of election year nominations is that the Senate generally does not confirm an opposing party’s nominee but does confirm a nominee of its own,” Romney said in his statement. “I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the president’s nominee. If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications.” President Trump tweeted Tuesday that he’ll announce his choice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Saturday.

But yet I keep getting emails on how we can stop this nomination going forward until after the election….it is do-do!

Judges are confirmed by the Senate……and the Senate is owned by the GOP….ergo Trump’s nomination will go forward with a little bitching from the Dems so they can get some airtime in the news cycle.

But let’s say that the Dems got a couple of Repubs to get on their ship and the split was 50-50….that would mean that the decision would be made by the Vice President……and Pence is a Trump toadies…ergo…his nomination will win the day.

In short there is no “legal” to stop the nominee from winning confirmation.

Dems need to buck up….there is nothing they can do to prevent the conserv judge from taking her seat on the highest court in the US.

All this political theater is more a circus than a passion play.

Please stop you guys are looking more and more pathetic.

Learn Stuff!

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“lego ergo scribo”

Who’s Who For SCOTUS

By now the country knows and is in mourning for Judge Ginsberg…..that means that the conservs are rubbing their hands in anticipation of putting another conserv on the highest court in the land.

I have heard two names that gives me shudders….Ted Cruz (who says he does not want it) and Tom Cotton that warmonger from Arkansas…..but believe it or not there are other names in the hunt for the replacement….and these are…..

The full list of Trump’s additional picks is as follows:

Bridget Bade of Arizona, judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, that state’s attorney general
Paul Clement of Virginia, former U.S. solicitor general
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas
Stuart Kyle Duncan of Louisiana, judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Steven Engel of the District of Columbia, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice
Noel Francisco, former U.S. solicitor general
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri
James Ho of Texas, judge on the 5th Circuit
Gregory Katsas of Virginia, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Barbara Lagoa, a judge from Florida on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Christopher Landau of Maryland, U.S. ambassador to Mexico
Carlos Muñiz of Florida, justice on the Florida Supreme Court
Martha Pacold of Illinois, judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Peter Phipps of Pennsylvania, judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Sarah Pitlyk of Missouri, judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
Allison Jones Rushing of North Carolina, judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Kate Todd of Virginia, deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president
Lawrence VanDyke of Nevada, judge on the 9th Circuit

An extensive list indeed…..but is there a short list?  (Of course there is for Donald cannot concentrate long enough to read that long list)

The line to succeed the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court likely starts with these federal appeals court judges:

Amy Coney Barrett 

Read On……https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/18/replacing-ruth-bader-ginsburg-list-starts-amy-coney-barrett/2669382002/

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