Amy Coney Barrett

[Eric]

I think there's reason to be concerned that all of the Republicans who attended the rose garden nomination won't all test, mainly because the more who end up positive, the less who can show up for the confirmation hearing. They're already down 3 and can't afford any more.

 

[SuperMatt]

Fintan O'Toole (in today's Irish Times) has a fascinating article addressing that very point and stressing that Mr Trump (despite his unsavoury personal life) has managed to unite the 'conservative' branch of US Catholicism and Evangelicals, whereas Mr Biden, who is a practicing Catholic (and would probably take the JFK view on Catholics imposing their religious principles on others, or via legislation, while holding high office, as he clearly did as VP serving under President Obama), seems more representative of a more 'liberal' and progressive expression of Catholicism in public life, as is seen in parts of the east coast, among a 'liberal' Catholic elite.

It’s not about religion, it’s about a culture war. That’s why Protestants and Catholics fought in the UK too. It didn’t have to do with minor differences in the way they observed communion.

 

[lizkat]

While Senators on the Judiciary Committee make their opening statements in the hearing on Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a reminder of how dreadful it can be to need to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy gone wrong and not have access:

A sitting US Senator, a Democrat from Michigan, has shared the story of the abortion he and his wife sought when her water broke at 4 months into the pregnancy and the fetus was nonviable but a natural miscarriage did not occur, a heartbeat was detected and the hospital she was in refused to perform a termination despite the growing risk his wife would end up needing a hysterectomy. The only reason an emergency abortion was arranged in time to save her uterus was because the couple were friends with the administrator of another hospital.

'The Mental Anguish Is Intense': Gary Peters Becomes First Sitting Senator to Share Abortion Experience

“It's a story of how gut-wrenching and complicated decisions can be related to reproductive health."

www.elle.com

 

[JayMysteri0]

Some of the basic dishonesty involved in the positions of some republicans, when it comes to issues related to this nomination.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1315708027865952256/

The story behind the doctor

The Case of Dr. Eugene Gu and Vanderbilt University Medical Center

BY HANK REICHMAN In the AAUP report “National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom” issued last month readers will find the following: Dr. Eugene Gu is a surgical resi…

academeblog.org

 

[lizkat]

It’s not about religion, it’s about a culture war. That’s why Protestants and Catholics fought in the UK too. It didn’t have to do with minor differences in the way they obse, rved communion.

Same with Anglicans and Episcopalians in the USA, earlier it was about female bishops, now it's primarily over recognition of same sex marriage or married gay clergy. Entire parishes have gone into schism in recent years and taken each other to court over the real estate, it's an unholy parody of much of Christian teaching. All in the name of God, of course.

On Barrett: to me it's not about her Roman Catholicism, it's about her relative inexperience on the bench, her clear adulation of the thinking of the late Justice Scalia, and that covenant-requiring group People of Praise that she has has hung out with (not all of them are RC but it's not so much about religion per se, more about allegiance to a belief system taken up with an oath before the God of her belief).

Some are trying now to make that bunch sound like no more than a fraternity or sorority, or maybe a bunch of folks who all buy Amway products or etc. Well but some who have left the group (and been shunned?) say that's not exactly what it's like. Long piece in Politico about it was illuminating on some of those points.

Opinion | Why Amy Coney Barrett’s Religious Beliefs Aren’t Off Limits

Putting a member of a “covenant” community on the high court would raise a whole new set of questions about religion and the Constitution.

www.politico.com

 

[SuperMatt]

Same with Anglicans and Episcopalians in the USA, earlier it was about female bishops, now it's primarily over recognition of same sex marriage or married gay clergy. Entire parishes have gone into schism in recent years and taken each other to court over the real estate, it's an unholy parody of much of Christian teaching. All in the name of God, of course.

On Barrett: to me it's not about her Roman Catholicism, it's about her relative inexperience on the bench, her clear adulation of the thinking of the late Justice Scalia, and that covenant-requiring group People of Praise that she has has hung out with (not all of them are RC but it's not so much about religion per se, more about allegiance to a belief system taken up with an oath before the God of her belief).

Some are trying now to make that bunch sound like no more than a fraternity or sorority, or maybe a bunch of folks who all buy Amway products or etc. Well but some who have left the group (and been shunned?) say that's not exactly what it's like. Long piece in Politico about it was illuminating on some of those points.

Opinion | Why Amy Coney Barrett’s Religious Beliefs Aren’t Off Limits

Putting a member of a “covenant” community on the high court would raise a whole new set of questions about religion and the Constitution.

www.politico.com

When Republicans run for office, they tout their “faith” as a reason to vote for them. But if faith is used in a negative light, it’s off limits?

These are the people who called Obama a Muslim as if that was an insult, while simultaneously attacking him for attending the wrong Christian church. They attack Muslims in Congress. But if you say one bad thing about a religious extremist’s views and how they might affect their decisions on the court, now YOU are the bad guy? What a load of malarkey.

 

[SuperMatt]

An interesting perspective: what if the SCOTUS pick was a Muslim?

Opinion | If Amy Coney Barrett Were Muslim

It’s not hard to imagine how conservatives would smear her religious beliefs.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Scepticalscribe]

It’s not about religion, it’s about a culture war. That’s why Protestants and Catholics fought in the UK too. It didn’t have to do with minor differences in the way they observed communion.

Of course it is a culture war, (O'Toole made that very argument in his piece), with religion as a cultural signifier.

 

[SuperMatt]

Barrett refused to answer whether armed people at voting places violate the law for intimidating voters. That alone should disqualify her.

 

[Eric]

This is taking up the entire news cycle on all the networks, even my normal shows are consumed by it. This is surely going to help Trump's tanking numbers come back.

 

[SuperMatt]

This is taking up the entire news cycle on all the networks, even my normal shows are consumed by it. This is surely going to help Trump's tanking numbers come back.

They knew this would happen. Anything to distract from Trump's tweets. Somebody needs to make him angry.

 

[lizkat]

Senator Coons certainly had Barrett on the ropes for awhile there discussing her "academic" critique of Roberts' opinion essentially preserving the ACA, in which piece she practically gave the Chief Justice a tongue lashing for having ruled the way he did.

Can't decide whether Judge Barrett was more freaked out that Chief Justice Roberts in retaliation might never assign her, if she is confirmed to SCOTUS, to write a majority opinion on any case in future, or whether it was more upsetting to her in the moment that she'd clearly failed to imagine --at the time she wrote that review-- she'd ever be sitting in a SCOTUS confirmation hearing herself. Or you know, she might have figured it was a relatively safe way to signal how she saw the ACA... for future credibility as a conservative pick.

Anyway I'd agree w/ Coons that Barrett, if confirmed, should at least recuse herself from the upcoming SCOTUS case related to the ACA right a week after the election... but that is a point she has already declined to concede over and over again today, instead citing the need to consider reasons for any potential recusal carefully and consult with the other justices as well.

The judge does seem to have a mind like a steel trap, I'll give her that much. On the other hand I'm comparing her to a bunch of partisan pols some of whom are currently up for re-election and some who are pretty much over the hill and are an advertisement for term limits in the Senate.

 

[Alli]

I don’t know why they’re wasting any time on it at all. It’s a done deal. Nothing that comes out of the hearings will make any difference. The Republican majority will still confirm her.

We should instead be focusing on Covid or Trump’s taxes.

 

[Eric]

I don’t know why they’re wasting any time on it at all. It’s a done deal. Nothing that comes out of the hearings will make any difference. The Republican majority will still confirm her.

We should instead be focusing on Covid or Trump’s taxes.

Couldn't agree more, if nothing else it will educate us all on where she stands but I don't think it's any surprise to anyone. How long do these hearings last, anyone know?

 

[SuperMatt]

Marie Hirono is very good - she has pointed out with many examples and details that Judge Barrett would likely overturn Roe v Wade AND support making gay sex illegal, and dissolve gay marriages due to her professed loyalty to Scalia.

 

[lizkat]

I don’t know why they’re wasting any time on it at all. It’s a done deal. Nothing that comes out of the hearings will make any difference. The Republican majority will still confirm her.

We should instead be focusing on Covid or Trump’s taxes.

Maybe, but the info below had escaped my attention and I only ran into it by bothering to follow along on some commentary about the hearing today as it progressed.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1316015142828556301/

I suppose having knowledge of that case would not matter to a current GOP majority doggedly determined to try to create a 6-3 partisan court good enough to handle the occasional 5-4 "betrayal" of their wish to be able to legislate right wing minority views from the bench, for decades ahead, as their electoral clout shrinks.

Still, I had never thought I'd ever see a high court nominee who could have written so ...dispassionately?... about someone else's use of the n-word in a workplace. Well Barrett has put me past that milestone anyway, regardless of whether she lands on SCOTUS or not. And to think she helps head up a multiracial family. Wow. This post might better sit in the TFG thread except for the fact Barrett's a female.

 

[SuperMatt]

Maybe, but the info below had escaped my attention and I only ran into it by bothering to follow along on some commentary about the hearing today as it progressed.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1316015142828556301/

I suppose having knowledge of that case would not matter to a current GOP majority doggedly determined to try to create a 6-3 partisan court good enough to handle the occasional 5-4 "betrayal" of their wish to be able to legislate right wing minority views from the bench, for decades ahead, as their electoral clout shrinks.

Still, I had never thought I'd ever see a high court nominee who could have written so ...dispassionately?... about someone else's use of the n-word in a workplace. Well Barrett has put me past that milestone anyway, regardless of whether she lands on SCOTUS or not. And to think she helps head up a multiracial family. Wow. This post might better sit in the TFG thread except for the fact Barrett's a female.

I'd love to know how you can call somebody the N-word and it doesn't "create a hostile or abusive working environment." She is an out-of-touch judge, and Marie Hirono laid it out nicely - RBG was a justice who cared about real-world consequences. Ideologues like Scalia and now Barrett only care about their personal ideology. They are narcissistic and caught-up in some theory of law instead of worrying how it affects others... (except fetuses).

 

[lizkat]

Couldn't agree more, if nothing else it will educate us all on where she stands but I don't think it's any surprise to anyone. How long do these hearings last, anyone know?

Tonight is supposed to go to 9pm if following Graham's earlier suggested timetable including the break times. The hearings are to be four days total, so ending on Thursday.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I don’t know why they’re wasting any time on it at all. It’s a done deal. Nothing that comes out of the hearings will make any difference. The Republican majority will still confirm her.

We should instead be focusing on Covid or Trump’s taxes.

It won't make a difference to the outcome (unless yet more GOP senators succumb to the surprisingly contagious Rose Garden ailment), but it will save to put - or place - concerns, reservations, and facts, on the record in advance of this appointment.

In the event of a future reckoning, (or recording of what took place for posterity) such things matter.

 

[SuperMatt]

It won't make a difference to the outcome (unless yet more GOP senators succumb to the surprisingly contagious Rose Garden ailment), but it will save to put - or place - concerns, reservations, and facts, on the record in advance of this appointment.

In the event of a future reckoning, (or recording of what took place for posterity) such things matter.

I think it’s quite clear she will join Alito and Thomas as pure ideologues on the court. 2 is already enough.