☠️⚰️ALTERNATE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMAN RIGHTS, HUMAN DIGNITY, & DUE PROCESS DON’T MATTER —Trumpist USDJ Shafts Asylum Seekers Of Color By Reinstating “Let ‘Em Die In Mexico” (a/k/a MPP) Directed Against Asylum Seekers Of Color!

“Floaters” — “Floaters — How The World’s Richest Country Responds To Asylum Seekers” — Some Life-tenured Federal Judges abuse their privileged positions to insure that this is what “due process” will look like for asylum seekers of color!
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Mart??nez Ram??rez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter Valeria lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2019, after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez’ wife, Tania told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. (AP Photo/Julia Le Duc)

Here’s the decision from U.S. District Judge MATTHEW J. KACSMARYK in Texas v. Biden:

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Judge Kacsmaryk was appointed to the bench by Trump & McConnell in 2019. He is a former Federal prosecutor, deputy general counsel of a right wing religious group, and member of the Federalist Society. His nomination was (obviously unsuccessfully) opposed by more than 200 prominent civil rights, religious tolerance, and human rights groups.

Here’s an excerpt from their letter in opposition addressed to the Senate:

On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national organizations committed to promoting and protecting the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States, I write in strong opposition to the confirmation of Matthew Kacsmaryk to be a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas.

Nominees to the federal courts must be committed to respecting the law, Constitution, and core American values of justice, fairness, and inclusivity. Mr. Kacsmaryk does not meet this standard. He is an anti-LGBT activist and culture warrior who does not respect the equal dignity of all people. His record reveals a hostility to LGBT equality and to women’s health, and he would not be able to rule fairly and impartially in cases involving those issues.

https://civilrights.org/resource/oppose-confirmation-matthew-kacsmaryk-u-s-district-court-northern-district-texas/

Interestingly, the letter was signed by none other than Vanita S. Gupta, then President & CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and currently the Associate Attorney General of the U.S.

Gupta and her colleagues had Judge K “pegged” as an unqualified righty bigot then! But, with the lineup currently in place at the 5th and the Supremes, it remains to be seen whether there is any effective short-term remedy for his grotesque abuses of power and human rights.

Judicial appointments are important! Maybe it’s time for Gupta and others at DOJ to treat Immigration Judge and BIA appointments as such!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Better Federal Judges for a better America!

PWS

03-14-21

SURPRISE? — AFTER 4 YEARS OF SLAVISH DEVOTION TO FASCIST, ANTI-AMERICAN 🏴‍☠️ AGENDA, M. MITCH MAKES STUNNING DISCOVERY — TREASON & INSURRECTION CAN BE POLITICAL LIABILITIES! — As Defeated Regime Slinks Out Of Town, MM Lashes Out In Senate At Fascist/Clown/Traitor 🤡🥷🏻🏴‍☠️He Supported & Enabled!

🐢

Fear the turtle! Fight treason! Reject racism and White Nationalism! Hold the GOP accountable for attacking democracy!

Never forget the GOP cruelty, racism, corruption, lies, dehumanization, anti-Americanism, and treachery of the last four years and who supported and enabled the Traitor 🦹🏿‍♂️🤮 in his attack🥷🏻 on American Democracy and human decency, not to mention truth, science, and our world’s environment!

Don’t be fooled by “fake Kumbiya moments,” bogus calls for “unity” and “healing,” and pleas for “due process” for traitors who illegally denied it to those most vulnerable. They are really just pathetic attempts to escape accountability for their treason and the horrors they have inflicted on our nation and humanity!

PWS

01-19-20

🤮NO PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARD MEN (WOMEN, OR ESPECIALLY CHILDREN) FROM REGIME OF “BAD SANTAS” 🦹🏿‍♂️🎅🏻— Illegally Separated Families Continue To Suffer Irreparable Trauma, 😰 Volunteer Groups 😇🗽⚖️ Left To Pick Up Pieces — A Reminder That Defeated Regime Has Mocked, Disparaged, & Trashed Christ’s Values & Assaulted Humanity Over Four Christmases!🏴‍☠️🤮☠️⚰️👎🏻

Jacob Soboroff reports for NBC News:

Inside the effort to provide mental health care to migrant families

SHARE THIS –

COPIED

Seneca Family of Agencies provides mental health care to migrant families separated by the Trump administration. NBC News’ Jacob Soboroff reports on the obstacles faced by the nonprofit in locating families.

Dec. 22, 2020

Watch Jacob’s report here.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/inside-the-effort-to-provide-mental-health-care-to-migrant-families-98295877800

*********************

Jacob and his terrific NBC News colleague Julia Edwards Ainsley have been at the forefront of exposing the irreparable human carnage and lasting trauma caused by the regime’s unlawful, racist, White Nationalist immigration policies (some of which were unconscionably “greenlighted” by an immoral and irresponsible Supremes GOP majority that views themselves and their rotten to the core, inhumane, right-wing ideology as above the needless human suffering they further and encourage).

The “perps” like,”Gonzo” Sessions, Grauleiter Miller, Kirstjen Nielsen, “Big Mac With Lies” McAleenan, Noel Francisco, Rod Rosenstein, et al, walk free while the victims continue to suffer and others, like the Christ-like folks at Seneca Family of Agencies, are left to pick up the pieces! How is this “justice?”

Our national policies have truly abandoned Christ’s values of self-sacrifice, mercy, generosity in spirit and deed, courage in the face of oppression, human compassion, justice, and assistance for the most vulnerable among us under the perverted and immoral “leadership” of a man and his party without humane values or respect for truth who stand for absolutely nothing that is decent in the world.

As Americans suffer and die from the pandemic he mocked, downplayed, and mishandled; unemployed Americans are dissed and shortchanged by his party of underachieving, out of touch fat cats, liars, cowards, and truth deniers; asylum seekers needlessly suffer in squalid camps in Mexico; refugees scorned, unlawfully and immorally abandoned and abused by the world’s richest country face persecution, torture, despair, and death; and non-criminals rot in DHS’s “New American Gulag,” the immoral Grifter-in-Chief lives it up at taxpayer expense for one last Christmas at his Florida resort; fumes about a fair and square election that he lost big time; savors a rash of holiday executions; delays bipartisan COVID relief; ferments treason against our republic; and pardons a wide range of scumbags, felons, war criminals, family members, cronies, fraudsters, and other totally undeserving characters.

But, there is hope for our world at Christmas: 27 days and counting to the end of the kakistocracy, expulsion of the unqualified con-man and his motley crew of criminals and cronies, and the ascension of a real President and Vice President, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, to lead us, and perhaps our world, out of the current mess to a kinder, brighter future. That might be the best present of all this Christmas.

Due Process Forever!⚖️🗽👍🏼

PWS🎅🏻🎄😎

12-24-20

BESS LEVIN @ VANITY FAIR: AS AMERICANS DIE ⚰️ IN RECORD NUMBERS & PUTIN HACKS OUR NATIONAL SECURITY🏴‍☠️, THE WORLD’S MOST EVIL CLOWN 🤡🤮 FLUSHES IT ALL DOWN THE TOILET!🚽

https://mailchi.mp/de1485f0a479/levin-report-trumps-heart-bursting-with-sympathy-for-his-buddy-bob-kraft-2904842?e=adce5e3390

Hey, you know that massive, scary, very likely Russian hack that reportedly breached multiple U.S. government agencies in what may have been the biggest government hack in history? The one that Trump’s former Homeland Security adviser estimates could have affected 18,000 organizations, including most federal government unclassified networks and a number of Fortune 500 companies? The magnitude of which, he says, cannot be overstated? The same one that Donald Trump has said nothing about? Well, no biggie, but apparently hackers also reportedly accessed the networks of the Energy Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Which, as you might have guessed, maintain the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile.

Per Politico:

On Thursday, DOE and NNSA officials began coordinating notifications about the breach to their congressional oversight bodies after being briefed by Rocky Campione, the chief information officer at DOE. They found suspicious activity in networks belonging to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Secure Transportation at NNSA, and the Richland Field Office of the DOE. The hackers have been able to do more damage at FERC than the other agencies, and officials there have evidence of highly malicious activity, the officials said, but did not elaborate.

The attack on DOE is the clearest sign yet that the hackers were able to access the networks belonging to a core part of the U.S. national security enterprise. The hackers are believed to have gained access to the federal agencies’ networks by compromising the software company SolarWinds, which sells IT management products to hundreds of government and private-sector clients…. NNSA is responsible for managing the nation’s nuclear weapons, and while it gets the least attention, it takes up the vast majority of DOE’s budget. Similarly, the Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs conduct atomic research related to both civil nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The Office of Secure Transportation is tasked with moving enriched uranium and other materials critical for maintaining the nuclear stockpile.

While Joe Biden commented on the issue Thursday, saying “Our adversaries should know that, as president, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation,” Trump has remained curiously silent, or at least it would be curious had he not made it explicitly clear the last four years that Vladimir Putin, and really, any of his favorite dictators, can often do whatever they want. (The Russian embassy said on Sunday that it had nothing to do with the hack, though experts believe it almost certainly came from a Russian intelligence agency.)

But hey! There may be an entirely reasonable explanation for why Trump hasn’t bothered to address the issue, and it’s that he’s been extremely busy working on much more important issues. No, not fruitlessly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, though that does take up a decent amount of his time. In this case, it’s something even bigger:

The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday finalized a pair of new rules rolling back water efficiency standards on showerheads and other consumer appliances, punctuating President Donald Trump’s long-documented water flow grievances in the final weeks of his administration. The new showerhead rule goes after the two-and-a-half-gallon-per-minute maximum flow rate set by Congress in the 1990s. Under current federal law, each showerhead in a fixture counts toward that limit collectively—but the Energy Department’s new rule means each showerhead individually can reach the limit set by Congress.

The slate of recent changes align with Trump’s larger dismantling of environmental regulations, and, more specifically, his open disdain for poor water flow. Trump claimed late last year that Americans are flushing their toilets “10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once” and are having difficulty washing their hands. “We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on—and in areas where there’s tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don’t get any water,” the president said last December during a roundtable with small business leaders about deregulatory actions. “You turn on the faucet and you don’t get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. Just dripping out, very quietly dripping out,“ the president continued, lowering his voice as he spoke about the drips.

“Today the Trump Administration affirmed its commitment to reducing regulatory burdens and safeguarding consumer choice,” Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette proudly declared in a statement. “With these rule changes, Americans can choose products that are best suited to meet their individual needs and the needs of their families.” The rollbacks were chastised not only by environmental groups but consumer organizations as well, with Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, saying, “Changing the rules to address one of President Trump’s pet peeves is simply silly. Thousands of showerhead models on the market today meet the standards that Congress set way back in 1992 and provide a great shower.”

In related news, to date it remains unclear why it takes Trump 15 flushes to clear a toilet.

. . . .

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Red the rest of the “Levin Report” at the link.

While Trump has famously been reported not to bother reading his “daily intelligence briefings” (after all, they are pretty boring, related to work, which has never been a priority, and reportedly written in complete sentences, which are not within his comfort zone), we can be sure that Vladimir Putin and his buddies in the Kremlin are reading them.

In the meantime, Putin could not ask for a more outrageously tone-deaf, indolent, performance by the Chief Clown 🤡 , Moscow 🇷🇺 Mitch, the GOP, and their cronies and enablers in the period of total national disorder and decay leading into the swearing in of the first real President America has had in four years on January 20, 2021.

32 days and counting left in the kakistocracy. How many more Americans will needlessly die and suffer before we finally get relief from the deadliest Clown Show 🤡☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻?

PWS

12-19-20

NON-NEWS OF THE DAY: FIVE+ WEEKS AFTER JOE BIDEN’S VCTORY WAS CLEAR, M. MITCH 🤮 FINALLY RECOGNIZES IT!

Look, M. Mitch might be slimy, devious, and intellectually dishonest. But, unlike some in his party, he’s no fool.

He’s enough of a student of history to have known that with a large majority of the popular vote and an insurmountable lead in the Electoral College, well-established within a week of the November 3 election, that Biden would be the next President.

Yet, rather than using his position and his influence to combat Trump & company’s false claims and bogus narratives of voter fraud, designed specifically to destabilize our democracy and create unrest, McConnell continued to mouth platitudes. This was even after Trump and his followers actually threatened the safety, welfare, and political futures of members of the GOP who had to guts to stand up and do their jobs.

The voters of Georgia actually have a final shot at removing Mitch’s pernicious power and getting rid of two of the worst Senators in the process. We can always hope that they come through for the rest of us and for our nation.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-15-20

UNADULTERATED BS — CONEY BARRETT’S CLAIM OF “IMPARTIAL JUSTICE” FLUNKS “STRAIGHT FACE TEST” — “Amy Coney Barrett’s originalism does not work as a method of safeguarding democracy against an activist, ideologically motivated judiciary. It does, however, function quite well as a means of obscuring a far-right movement’s efforts to impose its unpopular agenda by judicial fiat.”

Judge Amy Coney Barrett — Supreme Court Nominee by Bob Englehart, PoliticalCartoons.com
Published under license

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/amy-coney-barrett-confirmation-hearing-originalism.html

Eric Levitz reports for NY Magazine:

. . . .

Even Republicans don’t have the stomach to outsource judgment on all modern constitutional questions to the slaveholding elite of a preindustrial, post-colonial backwater. As Dean of Berkeley Law Erwin Chemerinsky has observed, a ruthless adherence to text and history would require forfeiting judicial protection of “liberties such as the right to marry, the right to procreate, the right to custody of one’s children, the right to keep the family together, the right of parents to control the upbringing of their children, the right to purchase and use contraceptives, the right to abortion, [and] the right to refuse medical care,” none of which are guaranteed by the Constitution.

Amy Coney Barrett herself has acknowledged the undesirability of applying originalism indiscriminately, noting in 2016, “Adherence to originalism arguably requires, for example, the dismantling of the administrative state, the invalidation of paper money, and the reversal of Brown v. Board of Education,” and other institutions that “no serious person would propose to undo,” even if they lack constitutional grounding. Barrett’s proposed solution to this conundrum is for courts to simply avoid ruling on cases where originalism would dictate socially unthinkable overturnings of precedent; she wrote in 2017 that “discretionary jurisdiction generally permits [the Court] to choose which questions it wants to answer.”

But this expedient degrades originalism’s claim to neutrality. If an originalist Supreme Court can apply its doctrine opportunistically — taking only those cases in which its “neutral” juridical method will yield outcomes acceptable to a “serious” person (as they define that adjective) — then originalism isn’t much of a binding restriction on judicial discretion.

What’s more, Barrett’s concession tacitly betrays awareness of a critical fact that originalists love to elide when speaking for a lay audience: Amending the Constitution has become so phenomenally difficult it’s not at all clear that the American people could promptly replace an overturned Brown v. Board of Education with an amendment forbidding school segregation, despite overwhelming popular support for that Supreme Court decision. Originalists like to portray their judicial approach as highly democratic, since they purport to defer to the letter of a democratically enacted Constitution. But once one stipulates that the demos is manifestly no longer capable of passing constitutional amendments with regularity, it becomes clear that the originalist practice of striking down democratically elected laws in deference to the letter of a centuries-old document is profoundly anti-democratic.

Of course, in real life, “originalist” Supreme Court justices haven’t just applied their method opportunistically by selecting cases in which originalism will produce a favored outcome; they’ve also simply declined to abide by their method when they feel like it. On Monday, Barrett named Antonin Scalia as her guiding light on judicial philosophy. But as Georgia State University Law professor Eric J. Segall notes, Scalia voted “for broad rules limiting congressional power to enact campaign finance reform, to commandeer state legislatures and executives to help implement federal law, and to allow lawsuits against the states for money damages by citizens of other states” without “justifying these broad rules from a textual or historical perspective,” presumably because they have no textual or historical basis.

In sum: Amy Coney Barrett’s originalism does not work as a method of safeguarding democracy against an activist, ideologically motivated judiciary. It does, however, function quite well as a means of obscuring a far-right movement’s efforts to impose its unpopular agenda by judicial fiat.

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Read Eric’s complete article, which is an outstanding debunking of “originalism” — a totally bogus invention of the reactionary right — intended to pervert the law and promote far-right attacks on humanity — at the link.

Just think about it: Supposedly a bunch of guys who risked everything on a never-before-realized long shot of defeating the British King and setting up a republic actually intended that 230 years after the fact the governors of that republic would be so backwards, unimaginative, and intellectually limited that they would still be attempting to divine the “true meaning” of various two-centuries out of date words and concepts that nobody agreed upon in the first place! Preposterous! Not to mention totally intellectually dishonest!

Obviously, if the GOP Senators actually believed that Coney Barrett would be an unbiased judge with an open mind to progressive, liberal, humane, common sense interpretations of law and committed to implementing the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection and due process under the law for all persons, they would be apoplectic. They would be outraged at Trump for foisting such an unreliable and unpredictable jurist on them!

I’m not necessarily saying that Coney Barrett couldn’t educate herself and “get smarter” on the bench — abandoning her false dogma and actually showing some empathy, courage, independence, and commitment to equal justice for all. She wouldn’t be the first GOP-appointed Judge or Justice to move left on the bench. After all, spending a lifetime mired on the wrong side of history screwing up the lives of your fellow humans can get old, even for well-trained right-wing ideologues.

Also, she will have the benefit of the only current Justice who actually appears up to the job and consistently understands the proper role of a High Court in a democratic republic — Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor actually “gets it right” in an amazing number of cases and usually explains her reasoning in coherent, non-legalistic terms that most folks can understand.

But, sadly, I find relatively little in Coney Barrett’s career to predict that type of self-awareness, intellectual honesty, moral courage, and capacity for human growth. Her family situation shows some capacity for empathy and human understanding.

But, sadly, to date, she evidently has been unable to “connect the dots” between her kids’ lives and futures and the future of humanity. To understand that but for the grace of God, the refugee she is expelling based on BS non-defects could be someone she actually loves or regards as human. That the benefits that neo-Nazi Stephen Miller is unethically and illegally stripping from deserving immigrants could be the lifeline that, but for life’s quirks, would allow her, her family, or other loved ones to survive and achieve their full human potential. The capacity to function as a real jurist certainly is there, but the will and perspective seem to be largely lacking.

In a way, Coney Barrett’s squandered potential to achieve good is her own human tragedy. But, one for which those “other than Coney Barrett” are likely to pay the ultimate price.

PWS

10-14-20

GOOD YUCKS! 😀 MOSCOW MITCH LAUGHS AS AMERICANS SUFFER! 🤮 – MM Lets Sick, Dying, Unemployed Americans Suffer W/O Economic Aid So That GOP Can “Steamroll” Barrett Appointment Opposed By Majority!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/13/mitch-mcconnell-laughs-covid-relief-amy-mcgrath-kentucky-senate-debate?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Martin Pengelly writes in New York:

Criticised by challenger Amy McGrath in a debate on Monday night for blocking a new coronavirus relief bill, Mitch McConnell laughed.

“Trying to figure out what he is laughing about,” tweeted Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic senator from Missouri who now works for NBC News.

Nearly 7.8m coronavirus cases and almost 215,000 deaths have been recorded in the US. Amid devastating economic fallout, Congress has not passed a relief package since May, when the Democratic-held House passed a $3tn bill the Republican Senate did not take up. Donald Trump recently dynamited negotiations, which he then tried to restart.

McGrath and McConnell met to debate in Lexington during a rise in cases in Kentucky. The Democrat has raised impressive sums and stayed in touch in the polls – though victory remains unlikely.

“The House passed a bill in May and this Senate went on vacation,” McGrath said.

As McConnell chuckled, she continued: “I mean, you just don’t do that. You negotiate. Senator, it is a national crisis, you knew that the coronavirus wasn’t gonna end at the end of July. We knew that.”

As McConnell tried to interrupt, still chuckling, McGrath said: “If you want to call yourself a leader … you got to get things done and those of us who served in the marines, we don’t just point fingers at the other side. We get the job done.”

McConnell blamed the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, saying: “Look, I know how to make deals. I made three major deals with Joe Biden during the Obama era. What the problem is here is the unwillingness of the speaker to make a deal.”

On Tuesday, after Trump tweeted “STIMULUS! Go big or go home!!!”, McConnell said the Senate would soon vote on a “skinny” bill, meant to tap into unused funds from previous legislation, a course Pelosi has already rejected.

. . . .

************************************

Nothing funnier in times of extreme national distress than a Republican showing you where the party’s real priorities lie. HINT: It’s NOT with “We the People.”

Vote ‘em out, vote. ‘em out!

PWS

10-12-20

⚖️HON. SHIRA SCHEINDLIN👩🏻‍⚖️ @ THE GUARDIAN: Barrett Nomination Part & Parcel Of GOP Destruction Of American Democracy! 🏴‍☠️ – The Continued Erosion Of The Supremes & The Federal Judiciary Is Destroying Our Nation!👎

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/29/supreme-court-conservatives-trump-amy-coney-barrett?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

. . . .

This is no longer the case. Public confidence and public perception that the courts are non-partisan has eroded. The Republican boycott of Garland, together with Trump’s unprecedented nomination of Barrett and her likely confirmation, will seal the Republican theft of two supreme court seats, at least in the eyes of more than half the electorate, and will ensure conservative control of the court for decades to come.

If Barrett’s record is any indication, the court will soon turn its back on its most treasured precedents and turn America into a more regressive country. Before joining the bench just three years ago, she served as a law clerk to Scalia, whose judicial philosophy she has fully embraced. She has also been a longtime member of the rightwing Federalist Society.

Public confidence and public perception that the courts are non-partisan has eroded

Her short judicial record, together with her scholarly writings, reveal that she is a rock-solid conservative jurist. Like Scalia, she defines herself as an originalist and textualist, which means that the constitution must be viewed as of the time it was written. From that perspective, there is nothing in the constitution that would explicitly support abortion rights, gay marriage, mandatory school desegregation, or the right to suppress evidence that is illegally seized. By contrast, in one of her most famous opinions, United States v Virginia (1996), Ginsburg wrote that “a prime part of the history of our constitution … is the story of the extension of constitutional rights and protections to people once ignored or excluded.”

In a 2013 article, Barrett repeatedly expressed the view that the supreme court had created, through judicial fiat, a framework of abortion on demand that ignited a national controversy. In an opinion she joined with another judge, she expressed doubt that a law preventing parents from terminating a pregnancy because they did not want a child of a particular sex or one with a disability could be unconstitutional. These writings surely indicate that Barrett will do whatever she can to limit or eliminate abortion rights.

Barrett has also expressed dissatisfaction with the Affordable Care Act and support for a broad interpretation of the second amendment. She has writtenthat Chief Justice John Roberts “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning”. She also quoted Scalia, when he wrote that “the statute known as Obamacare should be renamed ‘Scotuscare’” in “honor of the court’s willingness to ‘rewrite’ the statute in order to keep it afloat”. There is little doubt that Barrett would be inclined to find the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional and thereby deprive millions of Americans of affordable healthcare coverage. Similarly, she wrote a dissenting opinion questioning the constitutionality of a statute that prohibited ex-felons from purchasing guns. Thus, she has demonstrated her fealty to the NRA position that the more guns the better – inevitably leading to more Americans dying from gun violence.

When addressing the legal doctrine known as stare decisis, meaning respect for precedent, Barrett wrote that she “tend[ed] to agree with those who say that a justice’s duty is to the constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the constitution rather than a precedent she thinks is clearly in conflict with it”. In other words, she would overturn landmark decisions such as Brown v Board of Education or Roe v Wade if those decisions did not reflect her best understanding of the constitution.

Amy Coney Barrett: what will she mean for women’s rights?

Read more

Stunningly, in an interview in 2016, when asked whether Congress should confirm Obama’s nominee during an election year, Barrett responded that confirmation should wait until after the election because an immediate replacement would “dramatically flip the balance of power”. Given that answer, she should decline the nomination, as her confirmation would even more dramatically flip the balance of the court, entrenching a 6-3 conservative majority.

Confirming this nominee before the outcome of the national elections – which will determine both the identity of the next president and the composition of a new Senate – is unprecedented, inexcusable and a threat to many rights that the majority of Americans have embraced. This is a tragedy about to happen.

Shira A Scheindlin served as a United States district judge for the southern district of New York for 22 years. She is the co-chair of the board of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a board member of the American Constitution Society

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Read the rest of Judge Scheindlin’s article at the link.

As I have been saying “Better Judges For A Better America!” It starts with electing a President who will nominate them and a Senate that will confirm them. That requires “regime change” and defeat of the GOP Anti-Democracy Party at all levels.

Dems need to stop sputtering about Barrett, whom they don’t appear able to stop anyway, and get out the vote to insure that she will be the last GOP far right shill on Supremes for many years! Rebuilding and improving American democracy starts NOW, with THIS ELECTION. As Willie Nelson says: “Vote ‘Em Out, Vote ‘Em Out!”

BTW, “Moscow Mitch” and his GOP toadies have plenty of time to race through the Barrett confirmation during an election, but no time to help Americans thrown out of work or losing their health insurance because of the pandemic!🤮⚰️

PWS

10-01-20

WE ALWAYS KNEW THE GOP SENATE 🤮 WAS A HAVEN FOR SLEAZE-BALLS — So Why Be Surprised When They Act The Part? — The Solution Is Simple — Vote ‘Em Out! — Start Rebuilding Our Democratic Republic Before It’s Too Late!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1933-2020
Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Photographer: Steve Petteway
Public Realm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/20/senate-republicans-are-showing-us-why-they-should-lose-their-majority/

Karen Tumulty in WashPost:

. . . .

In fact, McConnell’s actions are totally in keeping with the opportunism with which he has led the Senate. Given a chance, he will always abuse his power. Branding McConnell a hypocrite misses the point. Hypocrisy — coupled with an utter lack of shame — is not a character fault in his eyes. It is a management style, a means to an end.

[Obituary: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice and legal pioneer for gender equality, dies at 87]

And would we have expected anything different from Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), the shape-shifting chairman of the Judiciary Committee?

Back in the days when he pretended to care about something more than sucking up to power, Graham used to say Republicans would have to live with what they had done to Obama’s 2016 nominee, Merrick Garland. In October 2018, shortly before taking the gavel of the committee that will consider Trump’s nomination, Graham promised: “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait till the next election.”

Now — surprise! — Graham has promised, via Twitter: “I will support President @realDonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.” His rationale, if you can dignify it by calling it that, is that Democrats did things that offended him. So it’s payback time.

Oh, and let’s consider the sanctimonious and pseudointellectual Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), whom Trump has said he would consider for future openings on the court. When running for president in early 2016, he loftily declared to NBC’s Chuck Todd: “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year. And what this means, Chuck, is we ought to make the 2016 election a referendum on the Supreme Court.”

What Cruz said wasn’t true, as is so often the case. There had indeed been instances of presidential nominees being confirmed during election years. In February 1988, a Democratic-led Senate voted 97-0 to put Ronald Reagan’s pick, Anthony M. Kennedy, on the court.

But this was only the beginning for Cruz. When it still appeared that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016, he also suggested that the court could get along just fine with only eight members indefinitely. Now — surprise! — Cruz is warning that having an even number of justices constitutes a “grave danger.”

. . . .

******************

Read Karen’s complete op-ed at the link at the link.

As political sage Willie Nelson would say: “Vote ‘Em Out, Vote ‘Em Out!”

The best, perhaps only, way to honor RGB’s legacy and life work is to remove from office the party of inhumanity, inequality, and unbridled corruption who would spit and stomp on her legacy, NOW! Think about the “cultists” running around in “Fill Her Seat” shirts! Do you want these “princes and princesses of darkness, ignorance, bias, racism, and institutionalized inequality” to be running YOUR nation and determining the future of YOUR children and grandchildren? Pull out all the stops, open your wallets, and tell all your family, friends, and neighbors to register and vote for Joe and Kamala. It’s clearly “the last stand” for American democracy and human decency as we envision it (but also a great opportunity to make America better by voting for Biden/Harris)!

PWS

09-22-20

MOSCOW MITCH: TO HELL WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S SUFFERING, GIMMIE SOME MORE RIGHTY JUDGES! “A common thread among his court picks is that many are young, white, male and hold extreme ideological views on abortion, LGBTQ rights and other civil rights.” PLUS, PWS MINI-ESSAY: “Why The Private Sector Immigration Bar Holds The Key To A Better Article III Judiciary For America“

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senate-republicans-trump-judges-mitch-mcconnell_n_5f590738c5b67602f5ff84e1

Jennifer Bendery reports for HuffPost:

Hundreds of Americans are dying every day from COVID-19. Unemployment is at 8.4%. Everything is fine.

By Jennifer Bendery

WASHINGTON ― The Senate is back in session after a month of recess and Republicans’ first order of business isn’t a comprehensive coronavirus relief bill. Or emergency stimulus in response to high unemployment. Or legislation addressing nationwide unrest over police violence targeting Black Americans.

It’s confirming more judges.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has long said his top priority is getting President Donald Trump’s nominees settled into lifetime federal court seats, didn’t disappoint on Wednesday. At a time when nearly 190,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and unemployment is at 8.4%, the Senate kicked off its first full day of business with a vote to confirm a district court judge, procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees, another vote to confirm one of those nominees, and two more procedural votes to advance two more district court nominees.

Democrats and Republicans are in a standoff over coronavirus relief legislation. The House passed a sweeping $3 trillion package in May that has gone nowhere in the Senate, where Democrats are ready to pass the House bill but Republicans don’t even agree with each other on what to do. Some prefer no action at all on another coronavirus package because it would add to the growing federal deficit.

McConnell will try to pass a narrowly focused COVID-19 relief bill this week, but it’s purely a political exercise ― an effort to give vulnerable Republicans something to run on ahead of the November elections. It includes funding for small businesses and schools and enhanced $300-a-week unemployment benefits. It leaves out another round of stimulus checks, which Republicans previously supported, and does not include rental assistance or aid to cities and states, which Democrats have insisted on. And it’s not even clear if a majority of Republicans will support the bill.

The Senate Judiciary Committee also met Wednesday for the first time in more than a month. The panel, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has jurisdiction over a number of issues related to the health and economic fallout from COVID-19. Graham could, for example, hold hearings that looked at the needs of state and local law enforcement on the front lines of the pandemic. He could hold hearings on the health and safety of corrections staff and incarcerated people. He could hold hearings on changes in immigration policy tied to the pandemic.

Instead, the committee held a hearing to advance five more of Trump’s judicial nominees.

One of those nominees isn’t even qualified to be a federal judge, according to the American Bar Association. Just as the hearing got underway, the ABA released an embarrassing “not qualified” rating for Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, Trump’s nominee for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

“The nominee presently does not meet the requisite minimum standard of experience necessary to perform the responsibilities required by the high office of a federal trial judge,” reads the ABA’s review of Mizelle’s nomination.

. . . .

Mizelle, 33, is eight years out of law school and has practiced law for four years. She has participated in a total of two trials (as a law student) and has not tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel.

. . . .

“This nominee has been put forward not only because she is an ultraconservative ideologue, but also because she is a Trump loyalist, having worked in the Trump Justice Department to dismantle many critical civil rights protections,” reads a Tuesday letter to senators from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 220 national civil rights groups. “The Senate must reject her nomination.”

Trump’s most lasting legacy will arguably be his judges, who will sit on the nation’s courts for decades after he’s left the White House. He has had confirmed a total of 204 Article III judges, including two Supreme Court justices, 53 appeals court judges and 147 district court judges. A common thread among his court picks is that many are young, white, male and hold extreme ideological views on abortion, LGBTQ rights and other civil rights.

*******************

Read the complete article at the link.

Why The Private Sector Immigration Bar Holds The Key To A Better Article III Judiciary For America

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Sept. 10, 2020

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, the Trump regime🏴‍☠️ has got to go!

And that includes Moscow Mitch and every GOP Senator on the ballot this Fall. The serious long-term damage they have inflicted on our nation is already catastrophic! Let’s not let it become fatal!

Our sinking “Ship of State,” including the failing Federal Judiciary that is largely unrepresentative of our diverse nation, too often lacks engagement with the “human face” of our justice system, and sometimes demeans our best humane national values, can still be saved and put the on the correct course.

It won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight, particularly with the life-tenured judiciary. But, it must start in November. Remember, the law is about humanity, fairness, and equatable human relations, as embodied in the due process and equal protection clauses of our Constitution.

It’s not the dusty, musty, wooden, racially tone deaf, sometimes intentionally unfair, anti-civil-rights, anti-human rights, and often contrived “anti-social ideologies of the right” that blind a disproportionate number of Trump-Mitch appointees and enable lawless, fundamentally anti-American tyrants like Trump and his cult of sycophants to run roughshod over our country, our national values, and human decency.

Yesterday, Courtside highlighted the monumental achievements of a real American legal heroine and superstar, Attorney Sarah Owings of Atlanta, Georgia. She could have done other things with her skills and her career. Instead, she devoted herself to “working in the trenches of the law,” laboriously making an intentionally unfair and dysfunctional system fairer, and preserving the rights and saving the lives of some of the most vulnerable among us.

That’s what a real lawyer does. Disgracefully, these are the folks now largely missing from our elitist, out of touch with humanity Federal Bench.

Compare her “real life” qualifications, contributions, and courage with those of a strikingly unqualified, lightweight right wing dilettante like Mizelle. That’s one reason why our nation and our judiciary are in failure right now. Lack of leadership and lack of moral courage and human values. It’s literally killing individuals across our nation, a disproportionate number of them people of color. It must stop. Social justice can no longer be demeaned and demolished by those in charge!

It’s past time to stop “undervaluing and ignoring” the outstanding ”practical scholarship” (see, “Law You Can Use”), great courage to speak truth to power, energy, dedication, “retail level litigation skills,” and creative problem solving abilities of the private sector immigration bar, many serving in pro bono, low bono, clinical, or NGO capacities, in Federal Judicial Selection.

As tell law students, “if you can win an asylum case in today’s conditions, everything else you do in law will be a piece of cake.” There are good reasons why some of the largest law firms in America have found pro bono Immigration Court work to be some of the greatest “real life legal training” out there! Also, good reasons why some of the best legal minds and legal strategists in America are working pro bono on amicus briefs for our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges!

A new, independent, Article I Immigration Court with a “merit-based” judicial selection system should be the ideal training ground and future selection pool for a better, fairer, more efficient, more diverse, more representative, and more effective Article III Judiciary. One that would have an unswerving commitment to Constitutionally required “equal justice under law.” A judiciary that would fairly and efficiently solve problems rather than avoiding and often aggravating them! An Article III Judiciary that would actually understand and appreciate immigration and human rights laws and their fundamental connection to the goal of equal justice for all!

The talent necessary to stop the bleeding and vastly improve the American justice system is out there. What’s lacking right now is the leadership and political power to make a better future a reality, for all Americans.

We must take back our nation, before it’s too late for humanity!

Better Federal Judges for a better America!⚖️🗽

Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-10-20

🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🤮👎🏻🤡HOW THE GOP SOLD OUT AMERICA TO RACISM & MALICIOUS INCOMPETENCE: “Trump’s incoherence, his temper, his impulsiveness, his breathtaking ignorance — all of it was well-known among the top tiers of the Republican machinery. But for them, it was simply a challenge to overcome, another hurdle that fate had placed between them and their holy grail of judges and tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks. Not once did I ever hear any concern that just maybe they were working to install a useful idiot who truly was an idiot, with absolutely zero leadership qualities one ordinarily looks for in someone aspiring to become the chief executive of the world’s remaining superpower.”

Trump Clown — Donald J. Trump
Famous American Clown
(Officially titled “Ass Clown”)
Artist: Scott Scheidly
Orlando, FL
Reproduced by permission

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-useful-idiot-book_n_5f4bf594c5b697186e379058

The following is excerpted from “The Useful Idiot: How Donald Trump Killed the Republican Party with Racism and the Rest of Us with Coronavirus,” by S.V. Dáte.

A pandemic never occurred to them. The idea that Donald Trump would ever be required to sit still, pay attention and make rational decisions that would determine whether hundreds of thousands of Americans would live or die not once crossed the minds of those who put him into the Oval Office.

Oh, they all had their various reasons for wanting him there. For white evangelical Christians, he had explicitly promised to appoint the federal judges they had so longed for to turn back the nation’s cultural clock. For Mitch McConnell, a Trump win — as unlikely as it seemed — was the only real path to making sure Republicans retained control of the Senate and he himself remained majority leader. And for Vladimir Putin, having Trump in the White House — as unlikely as it seemed — would be a dream come true, an opportunity to wreak havoc on his longtime adversary and weaken its historic alliance with Western Europe.

Russia’s dictator, of course, was not remotely interested in what Trump’s ascension might mean for Americans in the event of an actual calamity. If they were dumb enough to vote for him, well, they deserved whatever they got. In any event, it was not his problem.

As for Trump’s American supporters, perhaps so much time had passed since Sept. 11, 2001, that the idea of a genuine national emergency was but a faded memory. Perhaps the quiet competence that President Barack Obama’s team had employed with the 2009 flu pandemic and later with the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak had diminished the perceived threat that a simple virus could present.

For whatever reason, even as they watched the noise and chaos and nonsense generated by candidate Trump for a full year and a half, the consequences of a real crisis requiring real leadership actually happening on the watch of a President Trump had never really dawned on them.

True, there existed then — and continues to exist today — a significant cadre of Republican voters who genuinely believed that the Trump they watched on “The Apprentice” was the real Donald Trump. That he was a real billionaire, based on his own efforts and smarts. That he was capable of making rational, quality decisions based on the facts presented to him.

That excuse, though, does not work for those Republicans from McConnell on down to the congressional candidates who had occasion to speak with Trump in person. As one top Republican National Committee member told me after his first face-to-face encounter with Trump two months before the 2016 election: “OK. Our guy is insane.”

His was not a minority view, by the way. Trump’s incoherence, his temper, his impulsiveness, his breathtaking ignorance — all of it was well-known among the top tiers of the Republican machinery. But for them, it was simply a challenge to overcome, another hurdle that fate had placed between them and their holy grail of judges and tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks. Not once did I ever hear any concern that just maybe they were working to install a useful idiot who truly was an idiot, with absolutely zero leadership qualities one ordinarily looks for in someone aspiring to become the chief executive of the world’s remaining superpower.

It was an abject failure of the Republican Party’s responsibility to the country. In our two-party system, both have a duty to weed out candidates who fail the threshold test of commander-in-chief and, relatedly, emergency-manager-in-chief. Through the summer and fall of 2015 and then the early nominating contests of 2016, it was clear as day that Trump was not credible in those roles, and yet neither the remaining candidates nor the party leadership made a serious effort to ensure his defeat.

True, there were some who voiced warnings. Jeb Bush called Trump a “chaos candidate” who would bring us a “chaos presidency.” But there was also Ted Cruz, who literally praised Trump for the better part of a year, refusing to criticize him in the hopes of one day inheriting his voters. By the time Cruz did unload on him, it was seen as sour grapes. Such was the cynicism and game-playing that put us where we are.

. . . .

****************
Read the full article at the link.

It’s what happens when immoral and unprincipled GOP politicos can’t tell the difference between a “useful idiot” and a “total blithering (racist) idiot.”

“It was an abject failure of the Republican Party’s responsibility to the country.” As usual, it’s left for the Dems and the majority of us to clean up the the GOP’s disgraceful (and fundamentally un-American) mess! That’s why in addition to expelling the “Clown Prince” it’s essential to remove the GOP and “Moscow Mitch” from their abusive and destructive control of the Senate!

Check out this page from “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson:

“Caste” Isabel Wilkerson — “Caste”
By Isabel Wilkerson
Random House

Sound familiar? It should! Trumpism and Nazism share a common “core strategy:” Racism based on “dehumanization” of “the other” before the law — otherwise known as “Dred Scottification.” It’s in full operation by the Trump regime. And, most shockingly, a majority of our Supremes have “gone along to get along!” Very similar to the cowardly, complicit, and ultimately disastrous and deadly performance of the German judiciary in the face of Hitler’s racism!

There is no excuse for Trump, and there is no way that our our democratic republic can withstand another four years of his lies, bias, racism, “breathtaking ignorance,” corruption, cowardice, bullying, and “malicious incompetence!”

This November, vote like your life and future of the world depend on it! Because they do!

PWS

09-06-20

WACKO-IN-CHIEF’S FINAL DESTRUCTION OF LEGAL IMMIGRATION SYSTEM BARS WORK VISAS FOR THOSE NEEDED FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY — Xenophobic Move So Dumb & Counterproductive That Even Trump Tool L. Graham Forced to Feebly Dissent!

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/503985-graham-trump-visa-order-will-have-a-chilling-effect-on-our-economic-recovery

Rebecca Klar reports for The Hill:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday that the order President Trump signed earlier in the day suspending, with some exceptions for health care and other “essential workers,” certain temporary work visas through the end of the year will have a “chilling effect” on the nation’s economic recovery amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“This decision, in my view, will have a chilling effect on our economic recovery at a time we should be doing all we can to restore the economy,” Graham said in a series of tweets.

. . . .

************************

Read Rebecca’s full article at the above link.

Of course, if Graham, Mitch, and their GOP buddies in the Senate and House really wanted to rein in Trump they could. Just get together with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and pass by veto-proof margins legislation countermanding or amending Trump’s order.

But, that would require action, not just babbling.

In the meantime, Trump has succeeded in totally destroying the U.S. legal immigration and refugee system that has taken decades to build. And, the institutions that could and should have stopped him failed.

PWS

06-23-22

NICOLE NAREA @ VOX: Sen. Booker Introduces Bill to Aid Migrant Health Care

https://apple.news/A-RCQm3FvRseAEFDQaZ6_Ug

Nicole writes:

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said he is planning to introduce legislation on Wednesday that would expand legal immigrants’ access to health care subsidy programs and allow unauthorized immigrants to buy health plans from federal insurance marketplaces.

The bill, known as the HEAL for Immigrant Women and Families Act, would permit legal immigrants to enroll in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), provided that they meet the programs’ income requirements. Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced the bill in the House in October 2019, but it would be the first time that the Senate would consider the legislation.

The bill isn’t likely to advance in a Republican-controlled Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already rejected relief for unauthorized immigrants. But it’s the latest effort by Democrats to rectify inequalities in access to health care laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic.

Only a fraction of immigrants is eligible for Medicaid and CHIP: naturalized citizens, green card holders who have lived in the US for at least five years, immigrants who come to the US on humanitarian grounds (such as receiving asylum), members of the military and their families, and, in certain states, children and pregnant women with lawful immigration status. But many other categories of immigrants — including temporary visa holders and young immigrants who have been allowed to live and work in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — would become eligible under Booker’s bill.

“Covid-19 has shined a punishing light on the unjust health care inequities that exist for communities of color broadly, and immigrant communities in particular,” Booker told Vox. “While we should always be working to expand access to health care for everyone, the dire current situation highlights the urgency of addressing these gaps in health care coverage. Health care is a right, and it shouldn’t depend on immigration status. We’re never going to be able to slow and stop the spread of the virus be if we continue to deny entire communities access to testing, treatment, or care.”

The bill also contains provisions expanding health care options for unauthorized immigrants, who are often uninsured and have so far been largely left out of Congress’s coronavirus relief efforts. Booker’s bill would allow them to buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, from which they’re currently barred. It would also allow unauthorized immigrants to become eligible for health care subsidies if they have purchased such an insurance plan and meet other criteria, including minimum income requirements.

. . . .

******************************

Read the rest of Nicole’s always outstanding and accessible analysis at the above link.

Good luck with getting this through the Senate with Moscow Mitch and the GOP in charge! Not going to happen. And, Booker knows it!

Few groups in America have been as screwed over as migrants, regardless of status, in this pandemic. They perform some of the most difficult and essential jobs that have kept us going through this crisis. But, when it comes to safety, stimulus, health care, unemployment and pretty much anything else they are left out in the cold by the GOP nativists.

Get back to work: no PPE, social distancing, hazard pay, testing, unemployment benefits, home computers, or health care for you! This isn’t the “GOP playing Soup Nazi” – it’s the real deal, the 21^st Century version of completely expendable workers and intentional “dehumanization” of the “other.” Already, xenophobic GOP nativists are whining about the very modest economic emergency money that the State of California has provided to their migrant residents, many “essential workers,” regardless of status.

But, Booker’s HEAL bill is a significant “ready for prime-time marker” if we get regime change! Health care and immigration are huge issues in the Hispanic community. Biden needs to get out the Hispanic vote and having legislation like this “ready to roll” on “Day 1” will be key in energizing voters to “work through the obstacles” and vote Trump & the GOP Senators out in the key states to finally get some much needed aid out to the American Hispanic community and others, including folks in rural areas of so-called “Red States,” and disproportionately adversely affected African-American communities in need who are excluded from “Trump’s America” (except, of course, when the chips are down and we need workers for thankless jobs or when Trump needs votes). You can also add in Asian Americans who have been working hard for America but face a barrage of racist-inspired incidents. There’s a “community of interest” there that the Dems’ should be able to attract and build upon with “good government” that furthers the common interests.

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

05-20-20

“NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET” 🪓🔪 — MALE, PALE WHITE, & FAR RIGHT — The Clown Prince 🤡 & Moscow Mitch 👹 Have Put Together An Extreme Bench That Looks, Thinks, and Acts Nothing Like The Real America — Their Evil Specter 🧛‍♂️🧟‍♀️ Will Haunt Our Justice System For Decades To Come 💣! — Judges Should Have Demonstrated Reputations For Fairness, Scholarship, Courage, & Relevant Experience Successfully Interacting With A Broad Base Of Humanity, Not Just Reliable Right-Wing Voting Records!

The Honorable Shira Scheindlin — The Honorable Shira A. Scheindlin
Retired US District Judge
SDNY
Spector8745, 8/6/13, 8:58 AM, 8C, 3000×4000 (0+0), 50%, ten stop S cur, 1/12 s, R38.4, G30.1, B67.6

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/28/trump-judges-giant-step-backward-america?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin writes in The Guardian:

Whether or not he is re-elected, Donald Trump will be revered by conservatives for his judicial appointments. As of March, Trump has appointed 193 judges to the federal bench, with another 39 pending on the floor of the Senate or in the Senate judiciary committee. Those nominations will surely be acted on favorably by the Senate before 20 January 2021, when there may be a new president and a new Senate. There are another 38 district court vacancies awaiting nominations. In one presidential term, Trump may appoint up to 270 federal judges, or 31% of the entire federal judiciary. For perspective, Barack Obama appointed 329 in eight years.

There is no doubt that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, will confirm Trump’s appointments until the very last day of his term. This is of course the same Senate gatekeeper who infamously blocked Obama’s final supreme court nomination, Merrick Garland, for an entire year – on the ground that in the final year of a presidency, the Senate should await “the will of the people” in the upcoming general election. But that was then. The rules have apparently changed. McConnell will pack the courts with “right-thinking” ideologues who will carry out Trump’s agenda long after he has been subjected to the scorn of historical scrutiny.

We now know a lot about Trump’s judicial appointments. Eighty-five per cent are white and 76% are male. This is a significant step backward. Obama’s judicial appointments were 64% white and 58% male. Today, after more than three years of Trump’s appointments, the federal judiciary is 73% white and 66% male, but it will be even more male and pale by the end of his term. Even more troubling is the average age of the Trump judges. According to Brookings, the median age of Trump’s judicial appointments by the beginning of his fourth year in office is 48.2. By the same time in his presidency, the median age of Obama’s appointees was 57.2. This means that Trump judges will serve, on average, for 10 years more than the Obama judges.

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Statistics only tell part of the story. More important is the impact of these statistics on the critical issues that face the courts now and in the future. Courts should reflect the people they serve. I served as a federal district judge for 22 years. The vast majority of criminal defendants (in non-white-collar cases) were either African American or Hispanic, as were their family members. Plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases were overwhelmingly women, minorities or persons with disabilities. The same was true in actions involving prisoner rights, voting rights, housing discrimination and public benefits. Not all cases involve big corporations and business disputes.

Trump’s court takeover

This series examines the historic pace and nature of Trump’s remaking of the federal courts and the conservative agenda it will usher in on a range of issues from voting rights to climate and from healthcare to criminal justice

More from this series

A diverse bench engenders trust and credibility. Many studies have shown that decision-makers reach better decisions when they bring a variety of experiences to their analysis. A 36-year-old lawyer who has never tried a case, has not represented individual clients, and has not spent years facing life’s challenges is not well-positioned to decide on the length of a prison term, the need for access to healthcare, abortion, food stamps, Medicare or housing, or the impact of pollution or discrimination on working people’s quality of life. It is for this reason the American Bar Association’s standing committee on the federal judiciary insists that a candidate for judicial office have at least 12 years of experience practicing law – not talking about it as a speech writer, lobbyist or media star.

When I was appointed to the bench I was 48. I had been a federal prosecutor, a defense lawyer, and had handled many civil cases in trial and appellate courts. That experience was invaluable. I knew both the substance and procedure of federal practice. The same cannot be said of many of Trump’s nominees, whose only qualifications appear to be their consistently rightwing voting records.

Consider the following four Trump judges, all of whom were appointed in their 30s. What they have in common is not their legal experience, but their outspoken support of Trump’s political agenda. All were members of the Federalist Society or other rightwing organizations, clerked for conservative judges, and have written articles or advocated for legal positions that are vastly out of step with most Americans.

Allison Rushing was 36 when she was confirmed to a seat on the fourth circuit court of appeals, 11 years after graduating from law school, and Trump’s youngest nominee to a circuit court judgeship. She clerked for then-circuit judge Neil Gorsuch and for Justice Clarence Thomas. Her law practice during the remaining nine years was limited to representing big corporations at one of the nation’s largest law firms.

Andrew Brasher was 38 when he was confirmed to a seat on the 11th circuit court of appeals, after serving for only nine months on the district court for the middle district of Alabama. In the years just before his appointment he served as Alabama’s solicitor general, often advocating for rightwing causes.

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Justin Walker, best known for his full-throated defense of Brett Kavanaugh (for whom he clerked), was appointed as a district judge in the western district of Kentucky, at 37, just 10 years after graduating law school. He is a protege of Mitch McConnell, who held up debate on a Covid-19 relief bill to attend Walker’s induction ceremony. Less than six months after Walker took the bench, Trump announced that he intended to nominate him for an upcoming vacancy on the DC court of appeals.

Patrick Wyrick was 38 when he was confirmed as a judge for the western district of Oklahoma. Four years after graduating law school he became the solicitor general of Oklahoma. He is a protege of Scott Pruitt, the disgraced former head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

One of these judges could easily end up on the supreme court; two are known to be on the shortlist. All will probably still be on the bench 40 years from now. That alone should make voters think hard about the upcoming presidential election. As the saying goes: elections have consequences.

Shira A Scheindlin served as a United States district judge for the southern district of New York for 22 years. She is the co-chair of the Board of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a board member of the American Constitution Society

*********************

I’ve been preaching on “Courtside” for some time now about the serious deterioration of America’s Article III Judiciary in the face of Trump’s tyranny. While there are some notable exceptions among appointees of both parties, even some of the “non-Trump appointees” have done a less than heroic job of standing up for Due Process, fundamental fairness, equal justice for all, and human rights, particularly when it comes to vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers, some children, being abused by a system that just no longer cares.

Witness the clearly unconstitutional and essentially unconscionable abuse and open mockery of the American Justice system, the rule of law, and respect for human dignity going on every day in our broken and dysfunctional U.S. Immigration “Courts” that betray and sometimes mock the most fundamental of American values.

Any Article III Judge personally subjected to the kind of intentional dehumanization (a/k/a/ “Dred Scottification”) and disrespect going on daily in Immigration Court would be outraged! But, that outrage seems to disappear when the grotesque abuses are only being inflicted on “the other.” Since, according to Trump and his cronies, the majority of Americans are “the other” — in some way or another — this abdication of judicial integrity has ominous implications far beyond the “world of immigration” — where those mistreated often get deported so their voices can no longer be heard!

While, yes, the Administration frequently gets bashed by some U.S. District Courts and some Circuits, we’re only getting at the “tip of the iceberg” for a system that is allowed to grind out unfair and substandard results and where far too many are simply railroaded out of the country without fair access to lawyers, Article III judicial review, and even time to prepare their cases or understand what they are required to prove to save their lives.

Emboldened by judicial intransigence and fecklessness, the Administration has now “one-upped” the complicit Article IIIs by simply unilaterally, and without legislation, cutting off access to even the Immigration Courts while the “J.R. Five” nods approval like a bunch of “judicial bobbleheads” gracing Stephen Miller’s mantle.

No, we can’t change life tenure. But, we can elect a President and a Senate majority committed to a diverse Federal Judiciary that will put excellence, due process, equal justice, human rights, and human understanding and empathy before far-right ideology. That’s an important start on fighting back and taking the challenge directly to those now on the bench who are committed to dehumanizing, degrading, and ignoring the rights of those who comprise the real America.

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

04-29-20

🏴‍☠️BRING IT ON! – “Moscow Mitch” 🇷🇺 Throws Down The Gauntlet, Challenges Trump For “Vilest Pol In America” 🤮☠️ — Can He Beat A Guy Who Uses The “Bully’s Pulpit” To Encourage Americans To Drink & Inject Poison? ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ — Nobel Prize 🏆 Winning Economist Paul Krugman @ NY Times Tells Us How “MM” Can Go Even Lower: “So yes, McConnell’s position is stupid. But it’s also vile.”

Paul Krugman
American Economist, Columnist, & Nobel Prize Winner

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/opinion/mcconnell-coronavirus-states.html

Krugman writes, in part, in the NYT:

. . . .

So yes, McConnell’s position is stupid. But it’s also vile.

Think of who would be hurt if state and local governments are forced to make drastic cuts. A lot of state money goes to Medicaid, a program that should be expanding, not shrinking, as millions of Americans are losing their health insurance along with their jobs.

As for the state and local government workers who may be either losing their jobs or facing pay cuts, most are employed in education, policing, firefighting and highways. So if McConnell gets his way, America’s de facto policy will be one of bailing out the owners of giant restaurant chains while firing schoolteachers and police officers.

Last but not least, let’s talk about McConnell’s hypocrisy, which like his stupidity comes on multiple levels.

At one level, it’s really something to see a man who helped ram through a giant tax cut for corporations — which they mainly used to buy back their own stock — now pretend to be deeply concerned about borrowing money to help states facing a fiscal crisis that isn’t their fault.

At another level, it’s also really something to see McConnell, whose state is heavily subsidized by the federal government, give lectures on self-reliance to states like New York that pay much more in federal taxes than they get back.

We’re not talking about small numbers here. According to estimates by the Rockefeller Institute, from 2015 to 2018 Kentucky — which pays relatively little in federal taxes, because it’s fairly poor, but gets major benefits from programs like Medicare and Social Security — received net transfers from Washington averaging more than $33,000 per person. That was 18.6 percent of the state’s G.D.P.

True, relatively rich states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut probably should be helping out their poorer neighbors — but those neighbors don’t then get the right to complain about “blue state bailouts” in the face of a national disaster.

Of course, McConnell has an agenda here: He’s hoping to use the pandemic to force afflicted states to shrink their governments. We can only hope both that this shameless exploitation of tragedy fails and that McConnell and his allies pay a heavy political price.

******************************

Read the rest of Krugman’s article at the link.

Have we all just been transported to “Jonestown 1978” ☠︎⚰️☠️⚰️?” Is our “Clown Prince” 🤡 actually the reincarnation of Rev. Jim Jones 🏴‍☠️?

Tired of being in the “Blue Majority” supporting “Red America” while excluded from control of our National Government? Tired of a Government of self-centered grifters — incapable of governing responsibly and in the public interest, but great at lining their pockets and those of their fat cat backers? Tired of an “Amateur Night at the Bijou” foreign policy that diminishes our nation and makes us the laughingstock the world? Tired of dealing with dirty water, polluted air, and crumbling bridges while the “Chief Clown” 🤡 sharpens his golf game? Tired of a kakistocracy that’s also a kelptocracy 💸 and practices nepotism? Tired of expensive health care that too often doesn’t improve the health of our nation? Tired of wages stagnating and benefits disappearing while the stock market goes bonkers and execs and shareholders get big payouts? Tired of lousy, anti-democracy judges 👨‍⚖️ who advance the interests of corporations, guns, and the GOP over the rights and dignity of individuals under our laws? Tired of paying the salaries of Neo-Nazi bigots like Stephen Miller? Tired of funding the “Afternoon Clown Show” 🤡 from the White House every day and dealing with its never-ending stream of dangerous ☠️ lies, misrepresentations, and fabrications?

Vote ‘Em Out, Vote ‘Em Out!

This November, send the “Clown Prince” 🤡, MM 🤮, and the rest of their anti-American party of disunity, incompetence, disorder, cruelty, stupidity, racism, and grift packing! Vote like your life depends on it! Because, it does!

PWS

04-24-20

Here’s the decision from U.S. District Judge MATTHEW J. KACSMARYK in Texas v. Biden:

🇺🇸Due Process Forever! Better Federal Judges for a better America!

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Fear the turtle! Fight treason! Reject racism and White Nationalism! Hold the GOP accountable for attacking democracy!

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Due Process Forever!⚖️🗽👍🏼

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Why The Private Sector Immigration Bar Holds The Key To A Better Article III Judiciary For America

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

Sept. 10, 2020

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, the Trump regime🏴‍☠️ has got to go! And that includes Moscow Mitch and every GOP Senator on the ballot this Fall. The serious long-term damage they have inflicted on our nation is already catastrophic! Let’s not let it become fatal!

Better Federal Judges for a better America!⚖️🗽

Due Process Forever!

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This November, vote like your life and future of the world depend on it! Because they do!

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This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

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This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

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Vote ‘Em Out, Vote ‘Em Out!

This November, send the “Clown Prince” 🤡, MM 🤮, and the rest of their anti-American party of disunity, incompetence, disorder, cruelty, stupidity, racism, and grift packing! Vote like your life depends on it! Because, it does!

PWS

Related posts:

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, the Trump regime🏴‍☠️ has got to go!

And that includes Moscow Mitch and every GOP Senator on the ballot this Fall. The serious long-term damage they have inflicted on our nation is already catastrophic! Let’s not let it become fatal!