ct judic capt takeover

bit belated

see stack

imperial prez need ctr-bal by congress and increasingly courts?

see Courts 2 & 3 on saving our asses, and trump almost always losing eg Muslim ban, also on environment?

But Rove went after state level courts hard, staring in Texas, and recently big fights/losses in state scotus, eg WI, that affect gerry and voting.

at start of djt all sorts of obviously unequal brown nosing bloggers got screened out by ABA? but them more serious fedsoc leo l phase?

Now McConnell on jihad with window closing? it's the only action he can take, but also in wake of SCOTUS wins on gorsuch and brett k, placed there seemingly as abortion culture warriors, but will deliver big for true patrons oligarch/corps.

he flipped 9th and 11th?! see district appeal

-----

===

slate

no lnx

On Wednesday, Sen. Mitch McConnell announced that he will not seek another term as leader of the Senate Republicans, stepping down from the post (though not his seat) in January 2025. McConnell will leave a legacy of extreme obstruction, having pioneered new ways to paralyze the upper chamber in an effort to stymie Democratic legislation. He also regularly kowtowed to Donald Trump, even voting to acquit the former president following his impeachment trial over the Jan. 6 insurrection. But McConnell’s most indelible mark on history is likely to be his fixation on stacking the courts with far-right ideologues, thus fundamentally refashioning the federal judiciary in the image of the modern Republican Party.

On a new episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the wrecking ball that McConnell took to the independent federal judiciary and its enduring impact on American democracy and civil rights. Their conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Dahlia Lithwick: Can we talk about Mitch McConnell for a minute? He announced that he’s stepping down as the leader of Senate Republicans in the near future.

Mark Joseph Stern: What was your first reaction when you heard the news?

My first reaction was that I hate this timeline so much. It’s the timeline where we have to miss Rep. Kevin McCarthy because the person who followed him was, as sure as night follows day, vastly crazier. That’s how I feel about McConnell. This is the person who singlehandedly did more to destroy Senate norms of comity and respect, to help Donald Trump evade accountability, and to steal and pack the Supreme Court with people who should not be sitting on the court. And still, in this moment, we’re going to have to thank him for respecting the vestigial norms that he did and not being an utter sociopath each and every day. Because the person who follows him will be worse.

I’ll add that, in my view, no one has done more to destroy the federal judiciary than Mitch McConnell. This is the guy who, under Obama, decided to block as many judicial nominations as possible, for no reason other than to leave the seats open so Trump could come in and fill them. This is the guy who violated every known norm to hold open Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, ostensibly because it came open in an election year, only to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat when people were already voting in the 2020 election. I think he made a lot of Americans wake up and realize that this was all Calvinball, that he had no principles to begin with.

But even more than that, Mitch McConnell was the guy who realized you don’t need to win elections to enact Republican policy. You don’t need to change hearts and minds. You don’t need to push ballot initiatives or win over the views of the people. All you have to do is stack the courts. You only need 51 votes in the Senate to stack the courts with far-right partisan activists like Aileen Cannon and Matthew Kacsmaryk. And they will enact Republican policies under the guise of judicial review, policies that could never pass through the democratic process. And those policies will be bulletproof, because they will be called “law,” and Democrats will need at least a century to win back the courts.

Anyone who believes in an independent judiciary with any integrity should loathe McConnell to their bones.

I want to add that McConnell, for so many reasons, stands out as somebody who knew exactly who Donald Trump was, exactly what happened on Jan. 6, exactly what his responsibility was in that moment. And he didn’t do it. He normalized the idea that you can mumble stuff and do nothing. Then we all live with the consequences. He made it easier for whoever follows him to do even less. And now he’s being praised as some elder statesman? Really? He’s totally morally bankrupt. The only silver lining, Mark, is that whoever follows him will not be as good as him at this crap.

Related From Slate

Jim Newell

Why Mitch McConnell Is Really Stepping Down in November

I agree. Under Trump, McConnell built the most impressive and efficient judicial confirmation machine ever seen. He really helped to keep the broader Republican Party and conservative movement behind Trump by saying, “don’t worry, we’re still getting all the right judges!” He pushed them through at a record clip. Aileen Cannon, the judge thwarting Trump’s trial over the Mar-a-Lago documents, was confirmed after the 2020 election, when Trump had already lost! This went on right up until the end. And I don’t think his successor will match those heights, even if he or she isn’t quite as loony as we’re speculating. Think about how much Joe Biden and his team have struggled to match the number of confirmations that Trump and McConnell achieved. They can’t do it. We may have passed peak efficiency for judicial confirmations under any president.

But is that anything to celebrate? McConnell’s successor will still scrape and strive to get crazy people on the bench. And sure, they might get 20 percent fewer judges through, because they won’t have the same ruthless efficiency. But Republicans will take that deal, because it only takes one insane district court judge to thwart an entire presidency.

---

an 1024

In his first term, former President Donald Trump leaned on the conservative establishment to help him vet federal judges. But in a potential second term, that job would likely go to a far-right media personality who would prioritize loyalty to the MAGA agenda.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that attorney-turned-pundit Mike Davis is positioning himself to be Trump's go-to authority on who to appoint to vacant Article III judgeships. That marks a sharply rightward shift from Trump's previous dependence on the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo, who helped elevate alumni like Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Davis — who once clerked for Gorsuch — is a regular on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast who has now become "a key adviser on legal issues and judicial selection," according to the Post. The former president has described Davis as "tough as hell" and promised he would serve "in a very high capacity" in a second Trump White House.

As a lawyer who worked for former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Davis helped move hundreds of Trump's hand-picked federal judges through the U.S. Senate to various district and circuit-level positions. And after Leo and the Federalist Society put Trump at arms' length in the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Davis has positioned himself at the head of the ex-president's judicial vetting operation.

“A broad spectrum of conservatives were pleased with judicial selection in Trump’s first term, but I don’t think we can have faith that his nominees in a second term will live up to that standard, especially if he’s more likely to listen to a faction that wants a more aggressively right-wing judiciary,” Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, told the Post. “I do worry that in a second administration, Trump and his allies will be more willing to apply personal or political loyalty tests.”

Davis' most high-profile role was being the lead counsel to oversee Kavanaugh's controversial nomination in 2018. The conservative jurist's appointment was nearly derailed after Christine Blasey Ford went under oath before the committee to describe her sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh (the Post recently reported that the Trump White House made sure the FBI investigation he authorized into the allegations went nowhere). Davis told the Post that he was undeterred by Blasey Ford's testimony.

"There was no way in hell I was going to let Kavanaugh fail, even if the allegations were true," he said.

Michael Zona, who served as Grassley's communications director during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, said Davis "simply didn't sleep" as he battled to get Kavanaugh across the finish line.

"He would update allies, reporters, and other offices so many times a day with everything from talking points to data and analysis that it was tough to keep up — or manage," he said. "By the end of the Kavanaugh confirmation, there was no china left for Mike to break."

If he wins the November election, Trump may get to appoint two new Supreme Court justices in a second term, as both Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are well into their seventies. If Trump replaces them, he would have appointed five of nine justices on the High Court.

Click here to read the Post's full article (subscription required).

READ MORE:['The real villain': How the Supreme Court is quietly working to keep Trump out of jail

---

not only case? how much comfort shd we take in kraken lawsuits being tossed?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/pence-election/

---

— Morbidly rich billionaires in America haven’t just been buying Supreme Court justices — they’ve also purchased over 100 federal judges... Lever News is reporting on research that discovered over 100 federal judges have been getting lavish vacations and trips around the world, fully paid for by some of America’s most politically aggressive billionaires and their companies and foundations. We thought the corruption was limited to Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett but now it appears the rot is much deeper.

The story is truly grotesque and explains why so many Americans are losing faith in our nation’s institutions. When five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized political bribery with Citizens United in 2010, they apparently also legalized the bribery of judges up and down the line, including themselves.

Never ones to miss an opportunity, several billionaires and their foundations have stepped forward to pick up their very own federal judges while they’re still going for cheap. Invest a few million in luxury vacations, make billions when the regulatory or tax laws are struck down or changed by the judges who took the vacations: buying judges and politicians is the best investment available in America today.

---

May 2, 2024 rww

Evan Vorpahl @ True North: True North Issues New Research Report Detailing Who Is Targeting State Courts to Limit Freedoms

True North is issuing a new research report shining a light on those men–Leonard Leo, Dick Uihlein, Charles Koch, and Jeff Yass–and right-wing groups targeting state courts and other levers of power to change the rules and limit our freedoms. This new report also documents how Leo used the Federalist Society to target state supreme courts and the judicial selection process in order to advance his agenda, and more.

---

fascism? legis ~ courts

3 23

https://www.alternet.org/brian-kemp-republicans/

FL desantis , GA legis law to remove DA's ?! spkr? sponsor fake elector scheme??!

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_district_court_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump

United States district court judges appointed by Donald Trump

The following 175 pages are in this category, out of 175 total. This list may not reflect recent changes

cf rudofsky ~ voter naacp

---

an 2 22

As President Joe Biden weighs his options for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, far-right MAGA Republicans are running ads claiming that Biden is up to something sinister.Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, in an op-ed published by the Washington Post on February 17, finds those fearmongering ads to be an example of projection — as GOP dark money has helped Republicans obtain the 6-3 hard-right majority they presently enjoy on the High Court.

“When Supreme Court vacancies occur, a Republican dark-money operation swings into action,” the Democratic senator explains. “Now, an anonymously funded right-wing group is airing an ad aimed at the yet-to-be-picked nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer. The group alleges that liberal dark-money interests will guide President Biden’s choice. The music is ominous, the central claim false, and the hypocrisy thick.”

The group that Whitehouse is referring to calls itself the Judicial Crisis Network. And its anti-Biden ad, Whitehouse writes, is total hypocrisy in light of all the Republican dark money that has been spent on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The ad, launched by the same right-wing donor interests that captured our Supreme Court under President Donald Trump, is an effort to distract from their own dark-money operation,” Whitehouse notes. “Their accusations of dark-money corruption are a bizarre reimagining of the very strategy that they, themselves, hatched and executed.”

The Judicial Crisis Network and other “dark money groups,” according to Whitehouse, are “linked to Leonard Leo, Federalist Society co-chairman and former executive vice president.”

“Leo has been a force behind dark-money court-capture dating back to the George W. Bush Administration,” Whitehouse notes. “When Trump was elected, this operation ramped up: The network selected reliable right-wing judicial nominees, its trusted advisers shepherded nominees through the Senate, and millions in dark-money PR campaigns and ads propelled nominees’ toward confirmation. Thus, today The Court That Dark Money Built reliably hands down decisions favorable to the donors.”

The Judicial Crisis Network, according to Whitehouse, is accusing Democrats of the very thing that it is doing: spending dark money to influence the federal judiciary.

“It’s an old propaganda technique: Accuse your adversary of the exact wrong you are committing,” Whitehouse writes. “Russian President Vladimir Putin uses it regularly.”

---

jane mayer che

...More controversial still were Law and Economics seminars that the Olin foundation funded for judges. The seminars were initiated by Henry Manne, who had become dean of the George Mason University School of Law, which he was trying to transform into a hub of libertarian jurisprudence. The seminars treated judges to two-week-long, all-expenses-paid immersion training in Law and Economics, usually in luxurious settings like the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Fla. They soon became popular free vacations for the judges, a cross between Maoist cultural re-education camps and Club Med. After a few hours of learning why environmental and labor laws were anathema, or why, as Manne argued, insider-trading laws did more harm than good, the judges broke for golf, swimming, and delightful dinners with their hosts. Within a few years, 660 judges had gone on these junkets, some, like the U.S. Court of Appeals judge and unconfirmed Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg, many times. By one count, 40 percent of the federal judiciary had participated, including the future Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas.

A variety of major corporations eagerly joined Olin and other conservative foundations in footing the bills. A study by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity found that between 2008 and 2012 close to 185 federal judges attended judicial seminars sponsored by conservative interests, several of which had cases before the courts.The lead underwriters were the Charles Koch Foundation, the Searle Freedom Trust, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, and State Farm, the insurance company. Topics ranged from "The Moral Foundations of Capitalism" to "Terrorism, Climate, and Central Planning: Challenges to Liberty and the Rule of Law."

Simultaneously, the Olin foundation provided crucial start-up funds for the Federalist Society, an organization for conservative law students founded in 1982. With $5.5 million from the Olin foundation, as well as large donations from foundations tied to Scaife, the Kochs, and other conservative legacies, the Federalist Society grew from a pipe dream shared by three ragtag law students into a powerful professional network of 42,000 right-leaning lawyers, with 150 law-school campus chapters and about 75 lawyers' groups nationally. All of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court are members, as are former vice presidentDick Cheney,the former attorneys general Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft, and numerous members of the federal bench. Its president, Eugene B. Meyer, son of a founding editor of National Review, acknowledged that without Olin funding "it possibly wouldn't exist at all." Looking back, the Olin foundation's staff described it as "one of the best investments" the foundation ever made.

The Olin foundation also backed what came to be known as the Collegiate Network, privately financing a string of right-wing newspapers on America's college campuses. Among them was The Dartmouth Review, which infamously published an editorial in Ebonics proclaiming, "Now we be cornin' to Dartmut' and be up over our 'fros in studies, but we still be not graduatin' Phi Beta Kappa." The paper hosted a feast of lobster and champagne to mock a student fast against global hunger, sledge-hammered shantytowns erected by students protesting apartheid in South Africa, and published a transcript of a secretly taped meeting of students belonging to Dartmouth's gay student association. The Dartmouth Review became an incubator for right-wing media figures like D'Souza and the future conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. Its counterpart at Vassar, meanwhile, gave starts in journalism to the ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl and Marc Thiessen, an online columnist at The Washington Post best known for his defense of the Bush administration's use of torture....

---

omg

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/mcconnell-judges/

raw

on Wednesday, The Daily Beast examined the "dangerous" record of 33-year-old Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, one of the final judicial nominees to be forced through by Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans — and her complete lack of qualifications for the job, beyond her high-powered conservative connections.

"One of five judicial nominees waved through by the lame duck Senate in a final vote before lawmakers left town for Thanksgiving, Mizelle's confirmation is the most galling," wrote Eleanor Clift. "Mizelle is only eight years out of law school (University of Florida), and the ABA's standard for a lifetime seat is 12 years of legal experience. She has had four distinguished clerkships, including one for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but her only trial experience is as an intern before she graduated from law school. She will take her seat on the Eleventh Circuit for the Middle District of Florida having never tried a case — civil or criminal — as a lead attorney or co-counsel."

Very few judges are ever confirmed to the federal bench in their early 30s, noted Clift. "Mizelle joins that exclusive club because she is a well-connected Washington lawyer with conservative cred who travels in the right circles. At Jones Day, President Trump's favorite law firm, where she has been an associate since last year, Mizelle's profile page highlighted her successful representation of the Chamber of Commerce in fending off a demand from the AFL-CIO for greater worker protections during the COVID crisis."

"She is married to Chad Mizelle, who faced similar questions about his youth and inexperience last year when his friend and ally at the White House, Stephen Miller, smoothed the way for him to become the acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, leading DHS' legal office of 2,500 attorneys just six years after graduating from law school," wrote Clift. "Apart from her skimpy experience, concerns about Kathryn Mizelle's ideology are at the core of Democratic opposition, and they originate with her tenure at the Justice Department in 2017 and 2018 supervising litigation handled by the Civil Rights Division. It was a time when many voting rights and LGBT protections were being rolled back."

Moreover, concluded Clift, since 1896, only one judicial nominee was ever advanced during a lame duck session of a defeated president.

"In 1980, a lame duck Senate confirmed Stephen Breyer to the Court of Appeals," wrote Clift. "Nominated by President Jimmy Carter, who had just lost reelection, Democrat Ted Kennedy and Republican Strom Thurmond saw Breyer's confirmation as a fitting reward for the work he had done as chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee, which they had led. More than a decade later, President Clinton elevated Breyer to the Supreme Court. Kathryn Mizell, I'm tempted to say, is no Stephen Breyer."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

McConnell's latest agenda is to make sure the GOP continues to trample democracy even if they lose the Senate

Meaghan Ellis

October 31, 2020

Instead of focusing on a viable stimulus plan to help the American people and the country's flailing small businesses, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is focused on doing the one thing he and his Republican colleagues said Democrats would do: pack...

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/mcconnell-is-betting-democrats-dont-have-the-will-to-fight-fire-with-fire-biden-should-prove-them-wrong

...Back in 2013, then-CongressmanTom Cotton introduced a bill in the House called the "Stop Court-Packing Act" which would haveeliminated three seats on the D.C. Court of Appeals. That seems like a strange title, but it gives away the game. He was trying to stop President Obama from being able to fill those three empty seats. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, agreed, writing a piece in the National Review called "Don't let the Democrats pack the DC Circuit." Keep in mind that these were legitimate vacancies.

As it happens, McConnell kept those and many other seats open so that a Republicans could fill them, so they needn't have worried. And he's very proud of it:

...

---

jig up wht pwr

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-supreme-court-is-finished-republicans-have-killed-it/

...They've turned the courts into a kennel for right-wing puppies, willing to sit there with floppy ears and their tongues out, panting and waiting to decide cases in favor of the billionaires who put them there. That's why there is a cottage industry of right-wing legal groups like Judicial Watch, Alliance Defending Freedom, Claremont Institute and the Center for Individual Rights,all of them funded by tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions in right-wing money. They make no bones about the fact that their job is to go out looking for plaintiffs to sue on behalf of big business and right-wing political interests to overturn laws they don't like. They have been behind the challenges to the Affordable Care Act and every anti-abortion lawsuit ever filed, not to mention suits against immigrant rights, civil rights, LGBT rights — you name it. And waiting in federal courthouses all over the country are Trump and Mitch McConnell's judicial poodles....

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-mitch-mcconnell-carried-out-his-sinister-plot-to-take-over-the-federal-courts/

amanda b rekonwith

ever since Donald Trump’s oversized suit-clad carcass first befouled the Oval Office, there’s been talk in the media about if and when he would cause a constitutional crisis. The assumption underlying this discourse is that a constitutional crisis would hit us like a thunderbolt and we would collectively realize, all at once, that the very fate of our democracy was on the line. Instead, there’s been a series of mini-constitutional crises, from Trump stomping all over our laws against foreign emoluments (an old-timey phrase for being bribed by foreign leaders), obstructing justice during Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s role in Russian election interference, blackmailing the Ukrainian president to extract dishonest election assistance and about a dozen other instances it would be tedious to list.

The result has been a steady erosion of the political norms and laws that protect our democracy, culminating in Trump’s last big push to steal or corrupt the 2020 presidential election.

If Trump successfully does that, it could well be the killing blow for our tattered democracy. But it’s important to understand that the credit for orchestrating the demise of our once-great nation should largely go to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a man possessed by the same lust for power and moral turpitude as Trump, but not hobbled by Trump’s stupidity or short-sightedness.

It was McConnell who recognized long ago that he could leverage the undemocratic power of the Senate as a weapon to invade and conquer the federal courts, and then use the latter to vacate any effort by the voters to exert real influence on how this country is governed. During Barack Obama’s presidency, McConnell deliberately slow-walked the confirmations of Obama’s nominations to the federal bench, leaving dozens of seats empty. When Trump was elected, McConnell hit the gas, packing the courts at record speed with an assembly line of nearly identical conserva-bots whose main attributes were youth and a willingness to forgo any intellectual rigor to rubber-stamp the right-wing agenda.

with the death of the Supreme Court’s liberal lion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell has a real opportunity to complete his mission of crushing democracy completely. Sure, there will still be elections and Democrats may win lots of them, especially this year with so many liberals fired up to throw Trump out of office.But with a possible 6-3 conservative majority on the court, McConnell knows that conservatives can nullify most efforts by those elected officials to pass progressive legislation. McConnell can even stop worrying about Chief Justice John Roberts, who occasionally has a bout of conscience and votes with the liberals to uphold precedent or follow constitutional law.

That commanding court majority won’t just serve as a firewall against new laws passed by a Democratic House and Senate. It will also give Republicans an opportunity to undo decades of progress in human rights. McConnell stole dozens of federal court appointments that legally belonged to Obama, but his crowning jewel, of course, was the theft of the seat left open when Justice Antonin Scalia died in early 2016. Using the laughably thin pretext that you shouldn’t seat a Supreme Court justice during an election year, McConnell refused even to hold hearings for Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” were McConnell’s exact words. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Right now, Democrats are understandably up in arms about McConnell inventing this “not during an election year” rule and then dropping it the second he had a chance to seat a judge during not just an election year, but right in the thick of a presidential campaign.

But in truth, McConnell’s blatant hypocrisy was visible long before that, when he first filled the seat that he stole with Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch. The American people most certainly did not want Trump to fill that seat. The American people picked Barack Obama to fill that seat, when they elected him in 2012. They then chose Hillary Clinton, by a margin of nearly 3 million votes over Trump, to fill that seat.

Consider also that the American people picked Al Gore over George W. Bush in the 2000 election — by about 500,000 votes. If it were up to the American people, it’s arguable that seven of the nine current Supreme Court would be Democratic appointees.

We also know from polling that 62% of Americans believe that the person who fills Ginsburg’s seatshould be the person who wins the election.

Trump is a notorious, pathological liar, but we can’t let that get in the way of seeing that McConnell is just as rotten, and much craftier about being evil, to boot. McConnell loves to resort to high-minded rhetoric about democracy, but he’s clearly laughing up his sleeve the entire time. If Americans had a real democracy, McConnell wouldn’t even hold his leadership position: A majority of Americans have been voting for Democrats in Senate races for years, but Republicans control the upper chamber of Congress because the Constitution gives disproportionate power to rural states with small but overwhelmingly conservative populations.

Even this unfair stranglehold on power isn’t enough for McConnell, however, which is why he has lied, cheated and stolen his way to control the federal judiciary. He intends to use that same judiciary to steal even more power for Republicans at the ballot box, because conservative judges are only too happy to hand down rulings on voting rights and gerrymandering that allow Republicans to further eviscerate Americans’ ability to choose their own leaders.

The ugly, hard truth is that the constitutional crisis has been going on for years, and the architect of our demise isn’t Donald Trump. He’s just a loudmouth bully Republicans can hide behind to get what they’ve always wanted — to hold onto power without being accountable to the voters.

Sure, this presidential election is important, but getting rid of Trump isn’t enough to save us. If Democrats can pull off this election, we will need drastic reform — starting with packing the courts and major voting-rights legislation — simply to begin to undo all the damage done by McConnell and his crew. Not because that’s good for the Democrats, although that would be a likely side effect. But because our democracy is taking its last breaths, and without major intervention it will be lost to us for good.

---

McConnell rams through six Trump judges in 30 hours after blocking coronavirus aid for months

Igor Derysh / SalonSeptember 18, 2020

The Republican-led Senate confirmed six of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees to lifetime appointments over two days this week, even though it has delayed crucial coronavirus relief since May. The Senate filled…

---

yikes

rbg

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mitch-mcconnell-accelerating-plan-to-place-at-least-one-more-justice-on-supreme-court-before-the-election-report/

barasso

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/donald-trump-says-ted-cruz-yes-that-ted-cruz-is-on-his-list-of-potential-second-term-supreme-court-picks

Patrick Svitek, The Texas Tribune

Sept. 9, 2020

“Donald Trump says Ted Cruz is on his list of potential second-term Supreme Court picks” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

p Donald Trump on Wednesday named U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as a potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump included Cruz among 20 possible picks for the high court if Trump wins a second term in November and a seat later becomes open. The 20 new names come in addition to a group of prospective justices that Trump named during the 2016 campaign — and has since drawn from to fill two vacancies on the court.

Cruz’s name has come up before as a potential Supreme Court appointee, and he has said he isn’t interested. In a statement released moments after Trump’s announcement, Cruz was noncommittal and seemed to suggest he was satisfied with serving in the Senate.

“It’s humbling and an immense honor to be considered for the Supreme Court,” Cruz said. “In the Senate, I have been blessed to lead the fight to preserve our constitutional liberties —every day, to defend the rights of 29 million Texans — and I look forward to continuing to do so for many years to come.”

Trump also added a second Texan, James Ho, to his list of potential Supreme Court picks. Ho is a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and former Texas solicitor general.

Since Trump locked down the GOP nomination in 2016, Cruz has occasionally fielded questions about the possibility of serving on the Supreme Court, given his background in constitutional law. He usually denies interest and says he is more interested in shaping the court as a U.S. senator and politician.

Four years ago, Trump’s commitment to naming the justices he could appoint to the court was one of the reasons that Cruz endorsed him after their bitter primary battle.

Ho, who succeeded Cruz as Texas solicitor general, has earned a reputation as one of Trump’s most hard-line picks for the federal appellate courts.

Ho has been pivotal in inching the 5th Circuit, already one of the country’s most conservative federal appellate courts, further right. He wrote that the Second Amendment has been treated as a “‘second-class’ right.”

In his very first writing for the court, Ho panned campaign donation limits, writing, “if there is too much money in politics, it’s because there’s too much government.” He suggested a long-serving federal judge had shown bias in allowing a subpoena of a religious group in a lawsuit over the handling fetal remains, decrying “the moral tragedy of abortion.” In March 2019, he misgendered a transgender plaintiff.

Another 5th Circuit judge with Texas ties, Kyle Duncan, is also on the list. Duncan, who is from Louisiana, is a former assistant Texas solicitor general.

Emma Platoff contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/09/ted-cruz-supreme-court-donald-trump/.

---

OMFG

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/mcconnell-quietly-rams-through-more-lifetime-trump-judges-while-blocking-19-relief-everyone-in-america-should-be-outraged/

no lnx twt ari berman jake j

as Covid-19 relief for jobless and hungry Americans, collapsing small businesses, and state and local governments languishes in the Senate GOP’s legislative graveyard, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday further advanced his years-long project of dragging U.S. federal courts to the right by ramming through three more of President Donald Trump’s lifetime judicial nominees and teed up votes on several others.

Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, noted on Twitter that the latest confirmations came four months to the day after the Democrat-controlled House passed the Heroes Act, a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package that McConnell dismissed as an “unserious liberal wish list” and blocked from receiving a vote in the Senate.

“Everyone in America should be outraged that this is how Mitch McConnell is spending the Senate’s time amid a pandemic,” tweeted Gupta.

In a separate tweet Wednesday morning, Gupta urged the U.S. public to “pay attention” as McConnell and Trump’s court takeover proceeds apace amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis and resulting economic collapse—to which Senate Republicans have responded by putting forth legislation decried as piecemeal and wholly inadequate.

"As McConnell blocks the Heroes Act, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, election funding, and dozens of civil rights bills, his priority today (amid the pandemic) will be confirming three more Trump judges after confirming three yesterday,” said Gupta. “It’s an outrage.”

While Senate Democrats don’t have the numbers to block Trump’s judicial nominees, few even bothered to object Wednesday to the confirmations of John Holcomb, Stanley Blumenfeld, and Mark Scarsi to lifetime positions on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Just 12 Democratic senators voted against Holcomb and Scarsi, and only four voted against Blumenfeld.

The confirmations came days after major court decisions laid bare the real-world consequences of Trump and McConnell’s takeover of the U.S. judiciary, which will impact key areas of American society—from climate policy to voting rights—for decades to come.

Last Friday, as Common Dreams reported, the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a Florida requirement that state residents with past felony convictions pay off all court fines and fees before they are allowed to register to vote—a ruling made possible by Trump’s appointees.

:{:{}:

“The only reason it was upheld was because Donald Trump flipped the 11th Circuit with five Trump judges,” Mother Jones journalist Ari Berman told Democracy Now! on Tuesday. “And this is why Mitch McConnell in the Republican Senate is so intent on confirming judges and doing nothing else. This week, McConnell is going to confirmeight more judges to the federal bench, but they’re not doing anything else to help the American people.”

Late Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—which Trump also flipped with right-wing judges—upheld the White House’s push to end “temporary protected status” (TPS)for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan.

“Without Congressional action, this will lead to devastating moral and economic consequences not just for TPS holders but for their families, communities, and for the entire country,” Peniel Ibe, policy engagement coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, warned in response to the ruling.

THIS WEEK, Mitch McConnell is bringing the Senate back in session ... no, it's not to pass emergency coronavirus relief ... it's to ram through the confirmation of some of Trump's most unfit judicial nominees yet!

Justin Walker -- a Brett Kavanaugh protégé who not only is a right-wing extremist, but also severely lacks experience and has been rated "not qualified" by the American Bar Association (ABA) -- will be considered by the Judiciary Committee in a matter of days for his nomination to the powerful DC Circuit Court of Appeals. ALL senators need to know that Americans are paying attention and we REJECT Trump and McConnell's efforts to rubber-stamp unfit judges, especially during the current crisis.

---

420

20,000 PFAW members have signed our petition urging the Senate to reject far right judicial nominee, Cory Wilson who has been nominated for a lifetime seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yet another judicial nominee who would jeopardize the health care of millions of across the country, it's egregious that Republicans are STILL trying to fill the courts with completely unqualified, partisan nominees who would rubberstamp their extreme agenda.

---

https://lawandcrime.com/judiciary/senate-dems-investigating-former-federalist-society-leaders-influence-over-trump-admins-judicial-nominees/

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are seeking information on the role former Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo played in in choosing the jurists President Donald Trump has nominated to lifetime appointments as federal judges. In letters sent to Attorney General William Barr and White House counsel Pat Cipollone on Wednesday, the senators said they were specifically looking into the potential conflicts of interest presented by Leo’s advising the president on judicial selections while leading a group that is anonymously funded, “likely from entities that have interests before the federal courts.”

“Mr. Leo’s prominent role in the Trump Administration’s judicial selection and nominations process while maintaining a financial interest in advocacy efforts related to this process has raised questions regarding his potential status as a federal employee and compliance with accompanying laws and regulations,” the letter to Barr stated.

The senators emphasized that by advising the Trump administration on its selection of federal judges, Leo’s conduct raised significant questions as to whether he was performing the duties of a federal government employee without proper authority, thereby violating federal ethics law.

“By outward appearances, Mr. Leo may have engaged in the performance of a federal function that must be conducted by government employees authorized to act on behalf of the United States by leading the Administration’s efforts to identify and select judicial nominees, and press for their confirmation,” they wrote. “As a federal employee, Mr. Leo would have been responsible for complying with federal records retention and financial disclosure requirements, as well as the criminal financial conflict of interest statute.”

Led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the Democratic senators who signed the letters were attempting to shed light on the process that has allowed the Trump White House and GOP-led Senate to confirm an unprecedented number of judges (nearly 200) in just over three years.

The senators assert that knowing the specifics of Leo’s involvement in the selection process is vital to ensuring the process remains untainted.

“Mr. Leo’s personal financial interest in advocacy efforts related to the judicial selection and nominations process raises serious concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest and the independence of the federal judiciary, given Mr. Leo’s leadership role in the Trump Administration’s work on the issue,” they wrote, before listing a number of questions relating to Leo’s role in the selection process.

As previously reported by Law&Crime, Leo stepped away from the Federalist Society earlier this year to helm a massive effort aimed at securing Trump’s re-election by highlighting the 45th president’s record on appointing conservative judges.

See below for the full letter sent to AG Barr:

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/trump-has-laid-waste-to-the-federal-courts-can-any-of-the-democratic-candidates-fix-it/

220 1 in 4

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/trumps-latest-judicial-nominee-wants-to-abolish-social-security/

220

no lnx

Trump’s latest judicial nominee wants to abolish social security

Written by Joan McCarter / Daily Kos February 26, 2020

There’s another deplorable nominee on Mitch McConnell’s conveyor belt: Stephen Schwartz, nominated to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and pending in the Judiciary Committee. This is impeached president Donald Trump’s second go at having Schwartz appointed to this court, which hears claims against the federal government. Trump wants Schwartz there because he’s argued that Social Security should be abolished because being elderly and disabled “is a natural aspect of the human condition” so those people shouldn’t get any assistance.

Those are recent views from the too-young Schwartz, who wrote them 15 years ago in the student newspaper at Yale. When he was an undergraduate. He also “wrote that the departments of Transportation, Agriculture and Education lack a ‘constitutional basis,’ and that Social Security benefits were intended to prevent ‘outright starvation’ but had become a ‘standard component of most retirement programs.'” Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you lollygagging 80 year olds.

Of course that’s not all. Schwartz has also been in on legal efforts to disenfranchise African American voters in North Carolina and in Virginia’s public bathroom wars, trying to make transgender students’ bladders explode. As a pet attorney for the Koch network in its Cause of Action institute, he has sued the federal government multiple times. “There are lots of circumstances today in America where agencies of the federal government exercise their discretion in ways that are terrible for personal liberty, for economic freedoms,” he said in an interview during one of those suits.

Because personal liberty and economic freedom mean having to find a job when you’re in your 70s or 80s or 90s so you can eat. “Schwartz is another example of Trump’s ideal nominee for the bench: a conservative ideologue who is determined to undermine civil rights and federal agencies,” Vanita Gupta, who headed the Obama Justice Department’s civil rights division, told The Washington Post.

Schwartz faced stiff opposition in 2017 from a variety of quarters, and his nomination eventually languished as the committee and Mitch McConnell focused on more critical seats. This appointment needs to be squelched again.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/trump-and-mcconnell-just-took-over-the-nations-most-liberal-court-report/

no lnx omfg

Trump and McConnell just took over the nation’s most liberal court: report

Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story December 22, 2019

Lost in all of the attention being paid to the impeachment of Donald Trump has been the packing the courts with conservative justices by the president with the full support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Worst of all, reports Politico, the Republican majority has taken over the traditionally liberal 9th Circuit, long a bastion of fending off conservative initiatives

The report states, “The Senate confirmation of Lawrence VanDyke and Patrick Bumatay to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this month brought to nine the number of appointments President Donald Trump has made to the 29-member bench that serves as the last stop for nearly all legal complaints lodged in nine Western states. Democratic-appointed judges now hold a three-seat majority, compared with 11 at the start of Trump’s presidency.”

According to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the transition to a conservative majority court could have devastating consequences for liberal initiatives — including health care reform.

“The 9th Circuit is a very important circuit, and the presence of more conservative judges puts in peril all of American health care reform,” the state attorney general explained.

“If the trend continues, it represents a major shift in the liberal wing of the judiciary, meaning lawsuits for progressive causes won’t find a friendly ear as easily as they have. The circuit has been the go-to venue for activist state attorneys eager to freeze Trump policies on health care, immigration and other social issues. It ruled against Trump’s weakening of Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate, as well as multiple versions of his travel ban,” Politico reports before adding, “Trump has called the 9th Circuit ‘a complete and total disaster’ and a ‘big thorn in our side,’ and some congressional Republicans still threaten to break up its jurisdiction. But its changing ideological makeup could wind up giving states like California less legal elbow room to challenge Trump policies and go their own way in areas like reproductive rights and LGBTQ issues.”

The report also notes, “The 9th Circuit isn’t the only court whose makeup has changed through Trump’s conservative nominees and McConnell’s singular focus on confirming judges. The 1st Circuit in Boston and 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia now have Republican-appointed majorities. But the 9th has outside importance as the biggest circuit in the country and a jurisdiction with more than 60 million people.”

You can read more here.

---

someone said case pushed down to prevent scotus in 2020 election

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/the-warped-and-twisted-logic-republicans-are-trying-to-use-to-rip-health-care-away-from-millions/

no lnx

The warped and twisted logic Republicans are trying to use to rip health care away from millions

Written by Cody Fenwick December 19, 2019

To understand the stakes and debates around the current fight to tear down the Affordable Care Act — otherwise known as Obamacare — you must be able to wrap your head around the twisted the logic that Republicans are using in court.

At the center of the legal battle is the infamous “individual mandate,” the piece of Obamacare that required Americans to purchase health insurance. Advocates for the law backed this provision because of a collective action problem. They feared that without the mandate, too many people would opt to go without health insurance and make the system worse for everyone.

Some claimed this provision was unconstitutional. But in the Supreme Court case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded in an opinion for the majority that the mandate was a permissible application of Congress’ taxing power. If you didn’t get insurance under Obamacare, you had to pay several hundred dollars extra in your taxes — that’s how the mandate was enforced. Roberts decided this was legitimate.

If the question has been settled by the Supreme Court, why is it back at the center of a new lawsuit? That’s where things get really warped.

In 2017, the Republican-led Congress was unable to get the votes to repeal either all of Obamacare or the mandate itself. However, because of technical rules in the Senate, they were able to set the penalty for not complying with the mandate to zero. On Roberts’ understanding of the mandate, it has been effectively repealed. If the federal government passed a lot setting all income taxes to zero, no one would argue that there was a still an income tax.

Legal scholar Eric Segall, a professor at Georgia State University, told me simply that the 2017 change “makes the Constitutionality of the mandate/tax irrelevant. Since that Congress didn’t repeal the rest of [Obamacare], neither should the Court.”

But Republicans argue the opposite. They say that since the law still requires Americans to buy insurance without a penalty, it can no longer be considered a tax. Therefore, to their minds, since it can no longer be upheld as constitutional under Congress’s taxing power, and it should be struck down.

It gets even worse and more bizarre.

The Republican state attorneys general who brought the case, as well as the Justice Department, have argued that the mandate should be struck down — and the rest of the Obamacare should fall with it. Judge Reed O’Connor, a federal judge in Texas, agreed and did just that, sending the case to the Fifth Circuit. His ruling stunned even many conservative legal commentators.

Obamacare is a vast and complex law, and knocking it down would be monumentally disruptive. Tens of millions of people get their health care through its provisions — largely through its expansion of Medicaid and through the private health insurance marketplaces the law set up. Knock down the law, and many people could find themselves without coverage. Even for those who retain coverage, the consequences to the change in the law would be unpredictable, because there’s no telling how insurers would react to the shift.

On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit upheld O’Connor’s finding that the mandate is unconstitutional — but it sent the case back to him to re-examine the question about whether the mandate could be “severed” from the rest of Obamacare. If he determined that the mandate could be severed, he would be able to strike the mandate from the books, but it would have few if any practical implications.

Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, warned that observers shouldn’t be reassured by the court’s new ruling.

“Yes, the court remanded without deciding how much of the ACA had to go. Yes, the court said it’s possible that the mandate could be fully severed,” he said in a tweet. “But don’t buy it. The writing is on the wall.”

He continued: “The court could easily have said that the mandate is fully severable, if it thought it was. But it didn’t. The court could have announced that only community rating and guaranteed issue have to go. But it didn’t.”

His conclusion? The circuit court is “perfectly OK if Judge O’Connor strikes down the most significant parts of the ACA.”

Of course, if that happens, the Supreme Court will almost certainly take up the case eventually. There’s one benefit for Republicans, though, of the case being sent back down to the O’Connor. It stretches out the timetable for coming to a resolution. That may mean the final decision isn’t made — and the disruption of the health care markets doesn’t emerge — until after the 2020 election. If, for example, the Supreme Court were to knock down all of the ACA in the summer of 2020, it would likely be a devastating blow to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. The disruption in health are would almost certainly be blamed on Republicans. If the decision can be put off, Trump stands a better chance of retaining power.

It’s not certain, though, that even if the circuit court and O’Connor decide to strike down much of the law that the Supreme Court will concur. While four of the conservatives on the high court might be inclined to gut Obamacare, Roberts has repeatedly been willing to save it before. It would be surprising, then, if he took this opportunity to throw the law out, especially when such a ruling would be in obvious tension with his previous conclusions about the validity of the mandate. And the justification needed to strike down the rest of Obamacare requires some additional and extreme mental gymnastics.

But this is, in many ways, the conservative vision. The reason they care so much about stacking the courts with conservative judges and justices is so they can knock down laws that Republicans hate, even if they’re popular with voters. And it’s even better if, as may be happening now, they can time the most significant rulings to avoid an extreme electoral backlash for the GOP.

---

dn 1219

McConnell Pushes Through 11 Federal Judge Nominations

---

https://www.prwatch.org/news/2019/11/13503/who-capturing-our-courts-wisconsin-edition

jrnl fail

Cable news outlets MSNBC and CNN largely let Fox News shape the narrative around the most recent anti-LGBTQ judicial nominee, Lawrence VanDyke, who was confirmed on December 11.Fox covered the nomination more than twice as much as major broadcast and cable TV news networks combined and whitewashed his extreme record.

VanDyke has been identified as an allied attorney with extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF), and has attacked the rights of LGBTQ people for years. He is the eighth federal judicial nominee with ties to ADF, and the extreme anti-LGBTQ group Family Research Council strongly supported his nomination. Further, in advance of his nomination hearing, the American Bar Association (ABA) issued a rare "Not Qualified" rating, in part due to his anti-LGBTQ positions.

The many anti-LGBTQ judges that have been confirmed by this Senate may hurt queer and trans people for decades to come. It is crucial that the media vigorously and meticulously report on Trump judicial nominees' extreme positions and not allow Fox News to continue to shape public opinion around their nominations.

---

1219

forced sonogram, must view

Supreme Court’s newest move on abortion approves torture for pregnant people Common Dreams

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/one-in-five-federal-judges-now-a-trump-appointee-imperiling-progressive-change-for-as-long-as-we-live/

no lnx

One in five federal judges now a Trump appointee — Imperiling progressive change ‘for as long as we live’

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams December 6, 2019

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rammed through eight of President Donald Trump’s lifetime judicial picks in just three days this week, accelerating the far-right court takeover that one commentator warned is “absolutely going to hamstring efforts to make the U.S. into a responsible, civilized country, for as long as we live.”

The latest slew of confirmations, according to Bloomberg‘s Sahil Kapur, means that Trump and his Federalist Society allies have now hand-picked “about one in every five American federal judges,” or 170 judges total.

“Nearly all are in their 40s or 50s with lifetime appointments and positioned to shape American law for generations,” Kapur noted on Twitter. “It gets a tiny fraction of attention compared to other stuff he does but this is the Trump legacy that’ll echo for generations after he’s gone.”

This is absolutely going to hamstring efforts to make the US into a responsible, civilized country, for as long as we live. And all I’ve heard any liberal do is point to it and lament. Is there any remedy on the table, even theoretically? https://t.co/8DtDd9xYzb

— David Roberts (@drvox) December 5, 2019

The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed one lifetime judicial nominee Tuesday, five Wednesday, and two Thursday. The rapid confirmation of Trump nominees was made possible by McConnell’s decision earlier this year to invoke the so-called “nuclear option,” which slashed debate time on judicial nominees from 30 hours to just two.

“We’re appalled,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights tweeted Thursday in response to the latest confirmations.

Progressive advocacy groups and legal experts have warned that these right-wing judges will have the power to shape U.S. law on climate, reproductive rights, and other major areas for decades to come. At a rally in Kentucky last month, McConnell bragged that he and Trump are “changing the federal courts forever.”

In addition to being overwhelmingly young and far-right, a number of Trump’s judicial appointments have also received a “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. One such judge, Federalist Society member Sarah Pitlyk, was condemned as particularly horrifying by rights groups following her confirmation Wednesday.

“Sarah Pitlyk’s confirmation to the district court in Missouri is a dream come true for the anti-choice movement and a profound danger to women and families in the state,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. “Putting judges like Pitlyk on the bench who will spend their lifetime appointments working to roll back reproductive freedom is further proof that Donald Trump is paying back his debts and then some to the anti-choice movement that got him elected.”

In the face of the ongoing right-wing takeover of the federal judiciary, advocacy groups are pressuring 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to explain how they would work to reform the nation’s court system in order to enact progressive policy changes.

“Without a meaningful plan for court reform any presidential attempts to make needed change will simply by blocked by the courts,” said Emma Janger, co-director of the People’s Parity Project, a nationwide network of progressive attorneys and law students.

As Common Dreams reported in October, advocacy group Demand Justice launched a campaign urging Democratic presidential contenders to emphasize the importance of the federal courts and tell the public how they plan to break the right’s stranglehold on the judiciary.

“The GOP has hijacked our nation’s courts,” said Demand Justice, “and voters need to hear plans to fight back.”

---

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paula-whites-one-voice-prayer-movement-praises-god-for-trump-judges-republican-courts/

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/trump-allies-want-conservative-legal-activists-to-fight-impeachment-as-payment-for-stacking-the-courts-with-right-wingers

...Trump’s allies want conservative legal activists to show their gratitude by defending him against impeachment.

The White House has been playing up the president’s policy work — including his stacking of the judiciary with conservative judges — to counter Trump’s apparent consumption with impeachment, but his allies want some more help, reported Politico.

In particular, Trump allies want Federal Society executive director Leonard Leo — who was deeply involved in efforts to nominate and confirm Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — to take on more responsibility for defending the president.

“Leonard Leo has gotten everything he wanted from the Trump administration, and he has not lifted a finger to help when it matters most,” said one Republican close to the administration.

A spokesman for Leo disputed that criticism, saying the conservative activist has been working behind the scenes to defend

...

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/mitch-mcconnell-brags-he-and-trump-are-changing-the-federal-courts-forever-with-extreme-right-wing-judges/

https://www.mediamatters.org/msnbc/media-are-ignoring-far-right-white-house-lawyer-steven-menashis-judicial-nomination

All major broadcast and cable TV news networks aside from MSNBC have failed to cover President Donald Trump’s far-right judicial nominee Steven Menashi since his confirmation hearing on September 11. Menashi, a special assistant and associate counsel to the president who previously worked as acting general counsel at the Department of Education under Betsy DeVos, has published inflammatory comments about women, LGBTQ people, and people of color. The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on October 31 to determine whether his nomination for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit will be considered by the full Senate.

During his September 11 confirmation hearing, Menashi “refused to answer most questions related to his work at the White House, specifically when asked if he had a role in the administration’s policy of separating migrant parents and children at the border and limiting the number of refugees allowed in the country.” Members on both sides of the aisle expressed frustration with his refusal to be forthcoming about his past work. Menashi and his backers in the White House have continued to stonewall in the wake of his hearing, notably against inquiries about whether he was involved in White House efforts to hide the explosive transcript of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

After Menashi’s hearing, broadcast news outlets CBS, ABC, and NBC did not have a single mention of him in their coverage. MSNBC was the only major cable network to cover him, reporting on the hearing for around 10 minutes and 30 seconds across three shows. But Fox News and CNN apparently did not find Menashi’s extreme views and stonewalling during his hearing notable enough to cover.

According to HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery, who has written extensively about the nomination, the Trump-Pence White House and Senate Republicans are attempting to push through Menashi’s nomination at “an incredibly fast turn-around,” noting that “it’s no mistake that the Republican-led [Senate Judiciary] committee kept its agenda empty until the last minute” when scheduling his September 11 hearing.

Bendery noted that the expedited process “helped to stave off prolonged protests by progressive groups,” which may have also contributed to the scant media coverage prior to the nomination.

Major advocacy organizations have continued to oppose Menashi’s confirmation. On October 22, The NAACP sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee noting that he “has a vile, offensive record of attacking communities of color and opposing civil rights protections.” Leading LGBTQ organizations have also asserted that he “has clearly and consistently expressed his animosity towards the LGBT people and people living with HIV through his personal writings.” He has made comments skeptical of open LGBTQ service in the military and criticized the Human Rights Campaign’s advocacy for hate crime legislation, among other positions. Additionally, CNN’s investigative journalism project KFILE reported on his other inflammatory writings regarding race and advocacy around sexual assault prevention:

Steven Menashi, a Stanford-trained lawyer who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, wrote dozens of editorials and blog posts in the late 1990s and early 2000s for a number of college and professional publications decrying “leftist multiculturalism” and “PC orthodoxy.” He complained about “gynocentrists,” wrote that the Human Rights Campaign “incessantly exploited the slaying of Matthew Shepard for both financial and political benefit” and argued that a Dartmouth fraternity that held a “ghetto party” wasn't being racist.

He attacked academic multiculturalism as “thoroughly bankrupt” and, in 2002, defended then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi amid a worldwide controversy over comments asserting the superiority of Western civilization over Islamic culture -- for which Berlusconi himself ultimately apologized.

The Trump administration is dramatically reshaping the judiciary, installing “a historic number of federal appeals court judges for this point of a presidency,” and it has selected unusually partisan nominees. Those judges are predominantly white and male and include several who are tied to extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom. Additionally, several nominees have been withdrawn for being unqualified or extreme.

The effects of the Trump administration judiciary will be felt long after the end of his presidency, so it’s time that media prioritized covering the extreme background of many of Trump’s nominees before they start their lifetime appointments.

Methodology

Media Matters searched Nexis and SnapStream transcripts for cable and broadcast TV coverage appearing in original programming on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC between September 11 and noon on October 30 for mentions of the words “Menashi” or “Second Circuit.”

FAIL ...

Petersen has served as FEC commissioner since President George W. Bush appointed him in 2008, beyond his six-year tenure. After serving as chairman in 2010 and 2016, he almost left the panel when Trump nominated him to the federal judiciary in 2017.

But he withdrew from consideration after struggling to answer questions about legal procedure during his confirmation hearing.before the Senate Judiciary Committee

Without Petersen, the six-member panel is left with just three commissioners — one Republican, one Democrat and one independent — who are all serving expired terms. The seats formerly held by Democratic appointee Ann Ravel and Republican appointee Lee Goodman have remained vacant for years.

Trump has nominated Steven Menashi for a lifetime seat on the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.Despite already having a deeply troubling record, during Senate questioning Menashi refused to provide answers to basic questions regarding his involvement in helping to shape policy in the Trump administration.

Perhaps most troubling, Menashi is now also refusing to answer questions regarding any involvement he may have had in the events around Trump's attempts to pressure Ukraine (and other governments) into investigating his political opponents.

Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia,dissented from her colleagues when she ruled that the president’s accounting firm should not have to comply with a subpoena of his financial records.

:{:{}:

In a case involving a Congressional Oversight Committee subpoena of the president’s financial records, the court’s majority affirmed a lower court ruling that denied Trump attorneys’ request for a permanent injunction against a the subpoena.

Judge Rao, however, wrote a dissenting opinion that Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern is describing as “deeply embarrassing,” as he believes it shows the entire goal of her ruling is to protect the president.

“The thrust of Rao’s dissent is that the House has to invoke its *impeachment power* to investigate the president,” Stern writes on Twitter. “It cannot investigate him pursuant to its legislative authority. Which is just not true! Congress passes legislation governing the executive branch all the time!”

He then goes on to argue that the ramifications of Rao’s ruling would be to essentially render presidents almost completely unaccountable to any authority.

“If taken seriously, Rao’s argument would insulate the president from congressional investigations into his illegal conduct *unless* (1) the House invoked impeachment and (2) the courts found the allegations to be within ‘the scope of impeachable offenses,'” he writes. “What?!”

Read the whole thread below.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/trump-appointed-a-judicial-nominee-whos-so-bad-even-republicans-hate-him/

no lnx

Trump appointed a judicial nominee who’s so bad even Republicans hate him

Written by Joan McCarter / Daily Kos September 19, 2019

Steven Menashi, a current Trump White House legal adviser who works with Stephen Miller’s immigration working group and is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ right-hand man, seemed to be a shoo-in for a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary. Because the Republican Senate would confirm a ham sandwich.

Unfortunately for Menashi, he’s not a ham sandwich. He’s an arrogant asshole who refused to answer even Republican members’ questions in his confirmation hearing last week. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, Trump’s wannabe BFF, had issues with Menashi’s refusal to answer questions, jumping in during questioning by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin to try to make Menashi answer whether he worked on “the administration’s decision to end deferred deportation for undocumented immigrants who are receiving treatment for life-threatening illnesses.” Graham told Menashi “That’s not an unfair question. […] It’s a specific question. Did you give legal advice on the subject matter?”

Menashi finally conceded he “may” have worked on it, but couldn’t recall. It got to a point where he was chided by Republican senators for refusing to cooperate. “This isn’t supposed to be a game,” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told him. “We’re supposed to try to understand not how you’re going to rule but how you’re going to think.”

Now Kennedy is saying it’s “doubtful” he’ll vote for Menashi when/if he comes up for a committee vote. Saying he was “very annoyed” by Menashi’s performance, Kennedy told HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery “I don’t know enough about him to be able to say he’d be a good judge. And that was the whole point of having a hearing. […] I’m tired of it. He should answer the questions.”

This defection would be a really good excuse for Graham to convince the White House to pull the nomination. Menashi is so bad that even Susan Collins would have a really hard time voting for him. He’s got a history of publishing rabidly sexist and anti-gay writings and statements, and has defended racists and spread Islamaphobic myths. So it might be easier all around if the nomination just goes away. But it’s worth noting that all of these nightmarish things he’s done and said aren’t about to disqualify him in Republicans’ minds; it’s because he wasn’t adequately deferential to them in his hearing. Whatever it takes.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/here-are-the-most-extreme-far-right-judges-pushed-through-by-the-trump-administration/

no lnx

Here are the most extreme far-right judges pushed through by the Trump administration

Written by Alex Henderson September 18, 2019

President Donald Trump has not only appointed two justices to the U.S. Supreme Court — Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 — he has also appointed a long list of federal appeals court and district court judges. And Jennifer Bendery, in an in-depth report for HuffPost, outlines who some of the worst ones are.

In addition to his U.S. Supreme Court appointments, Bendery notes, Trump has nominated“a record-breaking 43 appeals court judges and 99 district court judges” — and he clearly has a preference for those on the far right.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, explained to HuffPost why these nominations are so consequential: “It is important for the public to appreciate that appeals court appointees serve on courts that are the courts of last resort for 99.9% of cases in their regions of the U.S. on issues like capital punishment, abortion, same-sex marriage, immigration, etc. The key is: they resolve 50,000 cases per year, and the Supreme Court resolves 100.”

In her article, Bendery cites some Trump-appointed judges who “have records of being anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion” or “anti-voting rights.” One of them is Judge Leonard Steven Grasz, who thanks to Trump, now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit and has a “record of opposing LGBTQ and abortion rights.” Other Trump-appointed extremists Bendery discusses in her piece include, among many others, Judge Jonathan Kobes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, Judge Neomi Rao on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Judge Eric Murphy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, and Judge John Bush on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

Bush, Bendery notes, has compared abortion to slavery, while Rao has criticized “special treatment for minority students.” Barrett, who was mentioned as a possible U.S. Supreme Court nominee in 2018 before Trump decided to nominate Kavanaugh, has been with an extreme Christianist group called People of Praise and described the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit as an “attack on religious liberty.”

Another extremist Bendery discusses is Judge Kyle Duncan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Duncan, she observes, has been avigorous defender of voter suppression.And Judge Kenneth Lee, a Trump nominee who now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, has described multiculturalism as a “malodorous sickness” and asserted that gays are more promiscuous than heterosexuals.

Bendery’s article not only makes a strong case for voting Trump out of office in 2020 but also, for Democrats retaking the U.S. Senate: she stresses that Senate Republicans voted in lockstep to confirm the extremist judges Trump nominated.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/trump-administration-promotes-judge-who-once-threatened-to-turn-an-attack-dog-loose-on-a-2-year-old-guatemalan-boy/

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/heres-the-staggering-reality-of-mcconnells-massively-successful-effort-to-stack-federal-courts-with-conservative-judges/

no lnx

If there is any Republican who, next to President Donald Trump, Democrats would most like to see voted out office in 2020, it is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But unfortunately for Democrats, McConnell is up for reelection in a very Republican state: Kentucky. And one of the main reasons Democrats would love to see McConnell unseated is his effect on the federal judiciary. McConnell has been stacking the federal courts with hard-right judges, and as Laura Litvan reports in Bloomberg News, he’s very good at it.

Litvan notes that when President Barack Obama was still in office, McConnell held up Obama’s court nominees and left “86 district court vacancies and 17 circuit court vacancies for Trump to fill when he took office in January 2017.” And McConnell’s most infamous move of all came in 2016, when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died and Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland for the seat; McConnell wouldn’t even bring the nomination up for a vote in the Senate, but he did everything he could to ram through the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 after Trump was sworn in as president.

One of the reasons why McConnell has been so effective in getting right-wing judges confirmed by the Senate, Litvan observes, is “a rule change under former Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, who unilaterally reduced the number of votes needed to advance appellate and district court nominees to 51 votes instead of 60.” And in 2017, Litvan adds, Republicans “lowered the threshold for Supreme Court nominees to 51— and in April, they cut debate time for district court judges from 30 hours to just two.”

During Obama’s eight years in office, Litvan points out, a total of 55 appellate court judges were confirmed; 43 have been confirmed under Trump thanks, in part, to McConnell. “Trump-appointed judges,” according to Litvan, “now make up almost a quarter of the 179 full-time federal appeals court slots.”

According to Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Institution scholar, McConnell has also helped to make the federal judiciary whiter. Litvan, citing data from Wheeler, notes that “fewer than half of the judges confirmed under Obama were white males” — whereas “about 70% of” Trump’s circuit court nominees have been white males.

ag firing scandal? back in the day, but also djt preet B?

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/grave-warnings-as-mitch-mcconnell-accelerates-right-wing-takeover-of-us-court

no lnx

Grave warnings as Mitch McConnell accelerates right-wing takeover of US courts

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams August 1, 2019

The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed 13 of President Donald Trump’s lifetime judicial nominees this week, a major victory in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s years-long effort to reshape the nation’s courts and drag them further to the right for decades to come.

The breakneck speed with which McConnell has ushered young—and often unqualified—right-wing judges through the Senate confirmation process “should send shockwaves across the nation,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights tweeted Wednesday.

But the rapid confirmation of Trump’s judicial picks this week has largely flown under the radar as America’s cable networks and newspapers have been dominated by coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential debates.

Kristine Lucius, executive vice president for policy and government affairs at the Leadership Conference, issued a statement singling out Texas district court nominees Jeffrey Brown and Brantley Starr, who she said are “hostile to voting rights, LGBTQ equality, reproductive rights, and immigrant rights.”

“Additionally, neither one would even state that the bedrock civil rights decision Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided,” said Lucius, referring to the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled racial segregation of public schools unconstitutional.

Brown and Starr were just two of seven Trump judicial picks confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday.

“Senate Republicans will stop at nothing to stack the courts with partisan judges who will push their radical agenda through at any cost,” Lucius said. “In doing so, they are not only degrading our courts, but also endangering our democracy.”

It is unclear whether McConnell will succeed in pushing through all 19 of the judges he set out to confirm before the Senate breaks for recess at the end of the week, but progressives said the Kentucky Republican nevertheless did a lot of damage in just a few days—without much resistance from the Democratic Party.

Christopher Kang

@cdkang76

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed one of these lifetime judicial picks who wouldn't say #BrownvBoard was correctly decided 87-1. (Thanks @SenBlumenthal!)

Today, Democrats let another be confirmed by voice vote--not even bothering to insist on a roll-call vote.

Where is the floor? https://twitter.com/NAACP_LDF/status/1156307354608111617 …

Legal Defense Fund

@NAACP_LDF

Replying to @NAACP_LDF

Disturbingly, 11 of the nominees being advanced failed to acknowledge the landmark Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision. Read our letter: http://bit.ly/2K6wO8Y

Marge Baker, executive vice president of progressive advocacy group People for the American Way, said in a statement Thursday that the “judges confirmed by the Senate this week include a number of alarming, narrow-minded elitists—including but not limited to nine nominees who would not say that they agreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.”

“Republicans are counting on these judges to dismantle reproductive rights, marriage equality, and the separation of church and state,” said Baker, “and also to shred the New Deal and regulations that protect people from corporate power.”

McConnell and Trump’s ongoing transformation of the nation’s judiciary received very little attention during the two Democratic presidential debates this week.

In an interview on MSNBC Thursday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who was on the debate stage in Detroit Wednesday night, accused Senate Democrats of not doing everything in their power to stop Trump’s judicial picks because they want to leave town for August recess.

“They’ve approved his judge selections so they can go on recess,” said Inslee.

“These are lifetime appointments,” Inslee added. “Stopping Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump from putting these conservative judges on the bench is more important than their vacation, frankly.”

Demand Justice

@WeDemandJustice

Gov. Inslee hits Senate Dems for supporting Trump judges: "We have to stop giving him a pass. They've approved his judge selections so they can go on recess. These are lifetime appointments ... It's more important than their vacation, frankly."

Embedded video

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/heres-why-mitch-mcconnells-mark-on-the-federal-judiciary-could-last-for-generations/

In either January 2021 or January 2025—depending on whether he serves one or two terms—Donald Trump’s presidency will become a memory. But his mark on the federal judiciary could last for generations. The Republican who is doing the most to help Trump achieve that is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and in an April 10 report for the Daily Beast, journalist Eleanor Clift explains why the Kentucky senator has been so helpful to Trump when it comes to moving the federal judiciary to the far right.

Clift opens her piece by observing, “What Mitch McConnell lacks in charisma, he more than makes up for with steely discipline”—and McConnell, to be sure, has been amazingly disciplined since becoming Senate majority leader in January 2015.

Clift outlines how much McConnell has done to advance the Republican agenda, writing, “McConnell’s goal is not fairness. He envisions a federal bench firmly on the right to steer the country for generations to come. His record so far: two Supreme Court judges, 37 Court of Appeals judges, and 57 District Court judges, including two confirmed Tuesday.”

The journalist elaborates, “He took extraordinary means to deny President Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland. And in the last two years, he’s taken numerous actions to override the Senate’s role of advise and consent.”

Clift notes that just last week, McConnell “pushed through a change in Senate rules…. to reduce the time for debate on certain judicial nominees and executive branch appointees from 30 hours to just two hours.” And she points to Patrick Wyrick, a 38-year-old District Court nominee from Oklahoma, as a beneficiary: under the new rules, Wyrick was confirmed by the Senate in a 53-47 vote on Tuesday, April 9. The far-right Wyrick is an ally of Scott Pruitt, Trump’s former administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Wyrick, Clift points out, “has only been on the Oklahoma Supreme Court for two years—and now, he’s on his way to a lifetime federal appointment. No wonder McConnell didn’t want anybody talking about Wyrick for 30 hours.”

Clift goes on to explain, “Republicans are now putting nominees forward in groups of four, which restricts senators in their ability to probe any one nominee. Wyrick was part of such a panel, which meant that each senator had just five minutes for questioning.”

McConnell (who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984) is up for reelection in 2020. And given how much of a red state Kentucky is, his chances of winning another term and staying on as Senate majority leader are quite good.

Clift concludes her report by stressing that McConnell has made it more difficult for Democrats in the Senate to vet GOP judicial nominees.

“Progressives need government to work to enact their agenda—Republicans not so much,” Clift observes. “They’ve kept their eye on the prize: the federal judiciary. And with McConnell in place, it’s paid off.”

ct judic capt takeover

United States district court judges appointed by Donald Trump

McConnell's latest agenda is to make sure the GOP continues to trample democracy even if they lose the Senate

McConnell rams through six Trump judges in 30 hours after blocking coronavirus aid for months

Supreme Court’s newest move on abortion approves torture for pregnant peopleCommon Dreams

Supreme Court’s newest move on abortion approves torture for pregnant people Common Dreams