House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Sunday went after President Trump for being in a “hurry” to confirm his conservative Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett in order to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, given how the court is set to hear a case on the ACA just days after the November presidential election.
Continue reading “Pelosi Jabs Trump For His ‘Hurry’ To Confirm SCOTUS Pick To Undo ACA”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Sunday appeared undisturbed by President Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the November presidential election to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, because he’s confident that Trump will win re-election. Continue reading “Tom Cotton Predicts There Will Be A Peaceful Transfer Of Power … In 2025”
I don’t know a lot about Amy Coney Barrett. But I know she’s accepting nomination from a President actively trying to subvert a national election and threatening to hold on to power by force, an attack on the constitution unparalleled in American history. Do I need to know more?
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 27, 2020
President Trump has now, unsurprisingly, chosen to nominate the far right Amy Coney Barrett to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. The only sensible approach is for Senate Democrats neither to meet with Barrett nor participate in the confirmation process. Even to do so in a critical posture is to add legitimacy to a process that is illegitimate.
As bad as she may be as a judge or for the future of equal justice in the United States she can never be as bad as the corruption of the process itself. It is that corruption – the court-packing scheme Republicans pushed into overdrive starting in early 2016 – that justifies, indeed requires Democrats to add seats to the Court in 2021. Distracting from that reality with a gauzy-lensed look at Barrett’s personal story and judicial merits is madness. Pure madness.
President Donald Trump on Saturday formally nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a move that if confirmed will significantly tilt the ideological bearings of the Supreme Court for years to come.
“She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution,” Trump said.
“I looked and I studied, and you are very eminently qualified,” Trump added of Barrett as she stood beside him in the Rose Garden.
Barrett, a favorite among right-wing activists and religious conservatives for her views on abortion and health care, will likely be an ideological opposite to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg she is poised to replace.
An ideological heir to the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked in the 1990s, Barrett noted the friendship between the late Ginsburg and Scalia in remarks on Saturday, adding of her mentor: “His judicial philosophy is mine, too.”
Barrett is the third Trump nomination for the hight court, following previous nominations for Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump previously nominated Barrett in 2017 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. At that time, she faced tough questioning about whether her religious convictions would influence her legal decisions.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), grilling Barrett at that time, said that “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.”
A mother of seven and a devoted Roman Catholic, Barrett will likely face rigorous questioning amid her confirmation in the coming weeks about whether she will be able or willing to resist the expectations of her church when it comes to rendering her judgment on the high court.
Barrett would also be the only justice on the current court not to have received her law degree from an Ivy League school. The eight current justices all attended either Harvard or Yale.
The president had previously interviewed Barrett in 2018 for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, but Trump ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh.
If confirmed, Barrett will be the sixth justice of Catholic faith on the Supreme Court’s nine-seat bench. Other notable Catholics who serve on the high court include the liberal Sonia Sotomayor and the staunchly conservative Clarence Thomas.
There has been a majority of Catholic justices on the Supreme Court since Alito joined in 2006. Until that time, the Supreme Court for most its its history had been almost entirely populated by white male Protestants.
Trump and his political allies are itching for another fight over Barrett’s faith, seeing it as a political windfall that would backfire on Democrats. Catholic voters in Pennsylvania, in particular, are viewed as a pivotal demographic in the swing state that Biden, also Catholic, is trying to recapture.
While Democrats appear powerless to stop Barrett’s confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate, they are seeking to use the process to weaken Trump’s reelection chances.
Barrett’s nomination could become a reckoning over abortion, an issue that has divided many Americans so bitterly for almost half a century. The idea of overturning or gutting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, has animated activists in both parties for decades. Now, with the seemingly decisive shift in the court’s ideological makeup, Democrats hope their voters will turn out in droves because of their frustration with the Barrett pick.
Trump has also increasingly embraced the high court — which he will have had an outsized hand in reshaping -– as an insurance policy in a close election.
Increases in mail, absentee and early voting brought about by the coronavirus pandemic have already led to a flurry of election litigation, and both Trump and Biden have assembled armies of lawyers to continue the fight once vote-counting begins. Trump has been open about tying his push to name a third justice to the court to a potentially drawn-out court fight to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021.
“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” Trump said Wednesday of the election, adding, “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.”
Meanwhile, outside conservative groups are planning to spend more than $25 million to support Trump and his nominee. The Judicial Crisis Network has organized a coalition that includes American First Policies, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Club for Growth and the group Catholic Vote to help confirm Barrett, and Trump’s campaign is expected to include the nomination in upcoming advertising.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called out President Donald Trump’s penchant for spreading misinformation on Saturday, comparing Trump’s tendency to mislead to Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda.
Biden made the Goebbels comparison when asked by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle about Trump’s assertion that Biden is pushing a socialist agenda during an interview that aired Saturday.
“I’m not sure anybody that hadn’t already made up their mind they’re for Trump will believe it,” Biden said. “But who knows. He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough — keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it — it becomes common knowledge.”
Biden also appeared to dismiss Trump’s suggestion earlier this week that he may refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the case of electoral defeat in November, calling it “a typical Trump distraction.”
“He’ll leave,” Biden said.
Biden had previously responded to Trump’s comments late Wednesday, by facetiously asking a reporter, “What country are we in?”– implying that the President’s remarks did not represent those of a leader committed to ruling by the democratic tradition established in the United States.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to begin a confirmation hearing on Oct. 12 for President Donald Trump’s pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, according to a report from The Hill.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is expected to announce the committee’s schedule later Saturday, once Trump formally nominates his replacement.
Sources familiar with the process told Bloomberg News the plan could lead to a final vote by the Senate by the week of Oct. 26.
Trump is expected to be formally announce Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee on Saturday, according to multiple reports. Barrett was previously nominated by Trump to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. A devout Roman Catholic, she is and a favorite among religious conservatives.
Trump told reporters following his arrival in Maryland yesterday that Barrett was “outstanding.”
The Hill noted that Trump’s former nominees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, had roughly two months between their formal nominations and the first day of their hearings.
If Graham advances as quickly as expected, Barrett will likely have just over two weeks between her nomination Saturday and the beginning of her hearing on Oct. 12.
Graham said that he would swiftly hold the committee’s hearing telling Fox News on Monday that the GOP has the votes to fill Ginsburg’s seat before Nov. 3.
“We’re going to move forward in the committee,” Gram said, “We’re going to report the nomination out of the committee to the floor of the United States Senate so we can vote before the election.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) a Democrat on the committee, criticized Republicans earlier this week for jamming through a confirmation.
“This entire process is a charade,” she said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg News. “This president shouldn’t even be nominating a replacement to Justice Ginsburg’s seat so close to an election. Republicans are only compounding that mistake by rushing the process.”
Per The Hill, a source said that Barrett’s confirmation hearings are expected to follow a similar four-days schedule, allotting time for opening statements, two days for questioning, and a final day inviting outside experts.
Former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence Olivia Troye said Friday night that she and other White House staffers had discussed the possibility that President Donald Trump could refuse to leave the White House after potentially losing the November presidential election, long before he made the remarks during a briefing on Wednesday.
When asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday if Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that he loses the upcoming election surprised her, Troye said, “It does not.”
Troye, who left the White House in August and has since endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden, told CNN that she had engaged in closed-door conversations with White House staffers and other government officials including members of the intelligence community who discussed possible scenarios of Trump refusing to leave office.
Troye warned on Friday that Trump’s comments should be taken seriously, even if they’re disguised as jokes.
“The president when he’s joking, if he says that he’s joking, he’s telling you a half truth,” Troye said. “And in there is something fairly frightening and scary.”
“What you see is what you get,” she added. “You should trust that. He doesn’t hide it.”
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that Trump “will accept the results of a free and fair election.”
But late Friday Trump appeared to double down on his potential refusal to commit to a peaceful departure if he loses. During a campaign rally in Newport News, Virginia the President suggested that he would only lose the upcoming election if Democrats cheated, adding: “we’re not going to stand for it.”
“I want a smooth, beautiful transition,” Trump claimed, adding: “But it’s got to be an honest vote.”
In a continuous effort by the President to undermine mail-in voting which he has repeatedly claimed will yield fraudulent results, he said the election was a “disaster waiting to happen.”
“I could be leading, and then they’ll just keep getting ballots and ballots and ballots and ballots,” Trump complained of anticipated delays related to mailed votes, adding: “So if we’re waiting for one state, does that mean the whole nation, the whole world is going to wait for one state?”
Trump said that amid an expansion of mail-in voting, mailed ballots were“very hard to watch,” adding that “the only way” he would lose is “if there’s mischief.”
The President at one point even talked on Friday of canceling the election altogether. First suggesting that his popularity would be much higher if his achievements hadn’t been overshadowed by reports speculating that he had ties with Russia, Trump went on to say that in such a scenario Democrats would be prone to conceding to a continuation of his presidency without contest realizing they “have no chance.”
President Donald Trump on Friday patted himself on the back for his administration’s bungled effort at curbing the coronavirus which has now killed more than 204,000 people in the United States.
“I’d give us an A to an A+,” the President said at a campaign rally in Newport News, Virginia, maintaining that when the first coronavirus cases appeared in the United States his administration “launched the largest national mobilization since WWII.”
“You look at the ventilators — you look at all we’ve done.” Trump said.
The President has repeatedly touted ventilators when he speaks about how he’s handled the pandemic. A recent ProPublica report prompted congressional investigation that in August found “evidence of fraud, waste and abuse” in the government’s acquisition of Philips ventilators.
Trump insisted on Friday that the White House has worked hard to support governors in securing the equipment they need.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany regarded the grim milestone of 200,000 deaths on Tuesday as a “testament” to the President’s bold leadership amid projections of a potentially much higher death toll.
“We were looking at the prospect of 2 million people potentially perishing from the coronavirus in this country,” McEnany told reporters during a press briefing. “We grieve when even one life is lost — the fact that we have come nowhere near that number is a testament to this president taking immediate action.”
The comments from Trump and the White House broadly, reflect a broader effort by the Trump administration to rewrite history.
Last month, during the Republican National Convention, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, described the COVID-19 pandemic in the past tense.
Earlier this month, Trump suggested that the nation had “rounded the final turn” of the health crisis. Meanwhile, top health experts like the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director, Dr. Anthony Fauci have countered those claims, warning in recent weeks, that COVID-19 data was “disturbing” and that Americans needed to “hunker down” in the colder months amid new cases that were plateauing at an unsatisfactorily high rate.
While giving himself high marks, President Trump has repeatedly sought to undermine the efforts of health officials in his own administration.
On Wednesday, President Trump intensified pressure to politicize the vaccine by suggesting that he wouldn’t approve stricter FDA guidelines for a coronavirus vaccine
“That has to be approved by the White House,” Trump said of the FDA standards when addressing reporters at a White House briefing. “That sounds like a political move.”
The following day, Trump offered a vague and unsupported theory suggesting that unnamed officials were conspiring to slow the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, with the explicit intention of hurting his reelection bid.
“The only thing we did badly on was public relations, because we were working so hard,” Trump insisted on Friday to a tightly packed crowd — a majority in attendance did not wear masks.
“We’ve done a hell of a job,” the President said, repeating his remarks about botched optics by saying, “except on public relations and that’s explaining it to people.”
But optics have been perhaps the only concern of a president who some have accused of being fixated on his media presence.
A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye, who was involved in the White House’s task force on the coronavirus before leaving the administration in August, told NBC News earlier this week that the President was frequently more concerned about his “public image” than he was with protecting Americans.
“He was really focused on public image, messaging,” Troye said, adding that for Trump, it was more about his “personal agenda” than the agenda identified by the task force which was “how are we going to save and protect Americans.”
