Category Archives: Courts

A Newly Conservative Court?

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Jess Bravin, writing in The Wall Street Journal, thought so.

When Justice Brett Kavanaugh takes the bench Tuesday, it will mark the culmination of the Republican Party’s 50-year drive to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

At the least, he argued,

[A] five-justice majority more sensitive to regulatory and litigation costs on business should tip more outcomes toward industry and employers, imposing higher bars for workers, consumers and environmentalists, according to legal experts who have studied the court and Justice Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence. At the same time, the new majority is likely to show more sympathy for social conservatives resisting the encroachment of gay rights and access to contraceptives, as well as greater tolerance for state initiatives to curb the availability of abortion.

This is a preview of A Newly Conservative Court?. Read the full post (256 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Roberts’ Court

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Aside from the misnomer of the title, which is implied by the thrust of a piece in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal centered on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation and the hoo-raw surrounding that, Chief Justice John Roberts has a problem with the perception of the Supreme Court—according to Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin, the authors of the piece.

“We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans, and I think it’s a very unfortunate perception that the public might get from the confirmation process,” CJ Roberts…2016.

The Court can’t worry about perceptions, though.  It can—should—only rule on what the Constitution or law actually says.

This is a preview of Roberts’ Court. Read the full post (265 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

Partisanship

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Chris Wallace interviewed Senator Ben Cardin (D, MD) on his Fox News Sunday program last Sunday.

Here are some of the claims Cardin made.

The change that Senator McConnell made to the rules on the Supreme Court really caused us to be much more partisan in this[.]

And

I don’t believe that Justice Kavanaugh’s in the mainstream of judicial thought.

And

Kavanaugh’s confirmation puts at risk “the progress we’ve made on health care issues, on women’s Constitutional rights, and on protecting the Mueller investigation.”

Not quite, although this is America, and Cardin is entitled [sic] to his spin.

This is a preview of Partisanship. Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

The Supreme Court

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As I write this (Saturday morning), Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh has not been confirmed; although, that seems more likely than I had thought Friday morning before the cloture vote.  Nevertheless, here’s why we need another textualist Justice on the Court—from the words of another Supreme Court Justice.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said Friday she fears the high court may lack a justice going forward who would serve as a swing-vote on cases….

And

Kagan said at a conference for women at Princeton University that over the past three decades…there was a figure on the bench “who found the center or people couldn’t predict in that sort of way.”

This is a preview of The Supreme Court. Read the full post (384 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

A Response

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Recall Senator Richard Blumenthal’s (D, CT) sly innuendo about Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh during last Thursday’s (has it been only a week?) Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to receive testimony from Dr Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh:

As a federal judge, you’re aware of the jury instruction falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus [false in one thing, false in everything], are you not? You’re aware of that jury instruction.

Where Blumenthal was being legally pedantic, Victor Davis Hanson has an idea of an entirely appropriate response by Judge Kavanaugh, a broader, literary one, from Horace:

This is a preview of A Response. Read the full post (148 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

An FBI Investigation

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Senator Jeff Flake (R, AZ) sold his Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh confirmation floor vote for a week-long FBI investigation into Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Kavanaugh.  Ostensibly this was a deal he made with his BFF, Senator Chris Coons (D, DE), in return for the Senate’s Progressive-Democrats dropping their complaints that six prior FBI background checks of Kavanaugh didn’t turn up enough dirt to suit them.

This is a preview of An FBI Investigation. Read the full post (455 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Unitary Executive

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Senator Ben Sasse (R, NE), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that held hearings last week on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, had an op-ed in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal that opened with this.

Brett Kavanaugh has been accused of hating women, hating children, hating clean air, wanting dirty water. He’s been declared an existential threat to the nation.

He’s also accused of favoring a unitary Executive and thereby ceding dangerously broad power to the President.

This is a preview of Unitary Executive. Read the full post (216 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)

Connections

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One in particular stands out for me: that between Senator Amy Klobuchar (D, MN) and the truth.  Charles Hurt, in the Washington Times, has the sordid story.

[Klobuchar] claims to have read 148,000 documents that reveal Judge Kavanaugh to be so heinous as to be unfit for the high court.

OK, let’s say Ms. Klobuchar spent two minutes reading each document. That would be 296,000 minutes—or 205 days—reading these documents. Which is pretty remarkable considering Judge Kavanaugh was nominated 55 days ago.

This is a preview of Connections. Read the full post (285 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

Kavanaugh and Precedents

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Brent Kendall, in a piece in Monday’s The Wall Street Journal, wrote about the importance of judicial precedence and how willing Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh would be to overturn them.

Liberals warn that key rulings on abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights could be weakened or reversed by a court that leans further to the right. Many conservatives, on the other hand, hope those precedents will be limited by future rulings and eventually crumble, even if Judge Kavanaugh moves carefully rather than tearing through established doctrine.

This is a preview of Kavanaugh and Precedents. Read the full post (560 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Facts-s-s-s

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It burns-s-s-s….

Brown University has come under fire after censoring its own study on transgender youth, which found that social media and friends can influence teenagers to change their gender identity.

After all, the study’s findings might invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community.  Can’t have the narrative contradicted.

Here are examples of what its study found, according to the study’s author, Lisa Littman, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown, physician, and author of the study:

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