(DIR) Return Create A Forum - Home --------------------------------------------------------- True Left (HTM) https://trueleft.createaforum.com --------------------------------------------------------- ***************************************************** (DIR) Return to: News ***************************************************** #Post#: 22-------------------------------------------------- Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 30, 2020, 11:30 pm --------------------------------------------------------- OLD CONTENT Here is a good set of in-depth articles from over the last few months: www.currentaffairs.org/2018/08/why-everyone-should-oppose-brett- kavanaughs-confirmation www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/why-the-kavanaugh-allegation-is-s o-important www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying www.currentaffairs.org/2018/10/if-the-rule-of-law-means-anything -kavanaugh-must-be-impeached From the last article: [quote]I think Democrats are handling this whole thing rather badly. They are focusing a lot on the weakness of the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh. And the investigation is a complete travesty. Deborah Ramirez submitted 20 names of potential corroborating witnesses to the agency, and hardly any of them seem to have been contacted (a respected theologian who went to Yale with Ramirez also says he is “100 percent” certain he heard about it at the time). But I do not think a focus on the investigation is especially compelling. Democrats said they wanted a delay and an investigation, Republicans gave them a delay and an investigation, now Democrats say they didn’t mean a brief and shoddy investigation. Arguing about the investigation’s scope obscures the clear message Democrats should be pushing to the public: Kavanaugh lied under oath about important factual matters related to a serious allegation. His nomination must be withdrawn, and he must be impeached. Republicans can muddy an argument about the FBI investigation; you say it’s shoddy, we say it’s thorough. It is far more difficult for them to respond to the very clear evidence of Kavanaugh’s false and misleading testimony. [/quote] --- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0gwBY3xTrc --- This proves there is no rule of law in the US: (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdTVLOlP25M But I disagree that "there is nothing we can do". This is the exact kind of scenario the Second Amendment was designed for. --- I told you nominating Kavanaugh was just the beginning: civilrights.org/2019/02/08/monster-markup-magnifies-republican-p artisan-court-takeover/ [quote]“Today’s ‘Monster Markup’ in the Senate Judiciary Committee disturbingly exemplifies the joint Senate Republican-Trump administration effort to distort our federal judiciary and roll back our civil and human rights. The chairman defied the committee rules and basic fairness in jamming through more than 40 nominees for lifetime appointments, many of whom have a demonstrated hostility to our rights.[/quote] --- The consequences continue: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6826997/U-S-Supreme-Court-hands -Trump-victory-immigration-detention.html [quote]Supreme Court hands Trump an immigration victory in 5-4 ruling that ICE can arrest criminal illegals ANY time after their prison sentences are over ... The court ruled 5-4 along ideological lines, with its conservative justices in the majority and its liberal justices dissenting, that federal authorities could pick up such immigrants and place them into indefinite detention anytime ... Cecilia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the newly decided case for the challengers, said that in both rulings 'the Supreme Court has endorsed the most extreme interpretation of immigration detention statutes, allowing mass incarceration of people without any hearing, simply because they are defending themselves against a deportation charge.'[/quote] And the situation is just getting worse: www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-judicial-nominees-young-ideologues_ n_5c7d698be4b0a6fcad23be3e [quote] WASHINGTON ― Senate Republicans voted Monday night to advance the nomination of Allison Jones Rushing, yet another of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees who is troubling for a number of reasons. Rushing worked for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian organization that has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. She has argued that there were “moral and practical” reasons for banning same-sex marriage. But it’s her age that may be most notable: She is 36. If she gets confirmed this week, as expected, she will be the youngest federal judge in the country. ... Rushing, who is a partner at the D.C.-based law firm Williams & Connolly, is not the only exceptionally young judicial nominee getting a Senate vote this week. McConnell has teed up votes for U.S. circuit court nominees Eric Murphy and Chad Readler, who are 39 and 46, respectively. All three have the ideological bent that Trump is looking for in his court picks. ... To some observers, the age of these nominees is part of a bigger problem of Republicans not taking the review process seriously and blowing through Senate customs to confirm as many of Trump’s circuit court nominees as possible. Circuit courts are often the last word in federal court cases. The Supreme Court hears only about 100 to 150 appeals of the more than 7,000 cases that come before the nation’s 13 circuit courts each year. “[This week’s nominees] may lack life experience and will be serving many years after Trump … enjoying life tenure on the ‘Supreme Courts’ for their regions because the Supreme Court hears so few cases,” said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor and an expert in judicial nominations. ... Rushing didn’t even have a real confirmation hearing. The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman at the time, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), scheduled her hearing last fall when the Senate was out of session and few senators were in town. Not a single Democrat could attend. Just two Republicans attended, and neither asked tough questions. McConnell has made judicial confirmations a top priority and has already helped Trump dramatically reshape the federal courts. To date, Trump has gotten 31 circuit judges, 53 district judges and two Supreme Court justices confirmed. That’s so many circuit judges ― more than any other president confirmed by this point in his first term ― that 1 in 6 seats on the U.S. circuit courts is filled by a judge nominated by Trump. ... There’s not much Democrats can do about any of this, beyond winning control of the Senate in 2020. The minority typically has some tools for affecting judicial confirmations; it is a Senate custom, for example, to wait for both senators representing a nominee’s home state to turn in so-called blue slips before that nominee can move forward. But Republicans have been bypassing the blue slip rule in their effort to fill up courts with Trump’s nominees. “The GOP majority has eviscerated nearly all Senate rules and customs, such as consultation and blue slips, that protect the minority party’s prerogatives in the nomination and confirmation processes,” said Tobias.[/quote] I repeat: this is exactly the kind of scenario that the Second Amendment was designed to solve. --- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldrBTZE1Qb4 --- The screw that keeps on screwing: news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-lets-trump-223553207.html [quote]WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday handed President Donald Trump a victory by letting his administration redirect $2.5 billion in money approved by Congress for the Pentagon to help build his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border even though lawmakers refused to provide funding. The conservative-majority court on a 5-4 vote with the court's liberals in dissent blocked in full a ruling by a federal judge in California barring the Republican president from spending the money on the basis that Congress did not specifically authorize the funds to be spent on the wall project fiercely opposed by Democrats and Mexico's government. "Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!" Trump tweeted just minutes after the court acted.[/quote] --- (HTM) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nyt-reporters-uncover-new-sexual-misconduct-claim-kavanaugh_n_5d7d7ccde4b077dcbd5f6e7c (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc1_8xX1JYo --- (HTM) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/17/ayanna-pressley-bring-impeachment-articles-against-kavanaugh/2349623001/ news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-impeachment-inquiry-brett-kavanaugh -141144467.html --- Supreme Court supports gerrymandering: news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-tosses-challenge-144630994.html [quote]WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out a challenge to Republican-drawn congressional districts in Ohio that Democrats said were drawn to unlawfully diminish their political clout, a move that follows a major ruling by the justices in June that foreclosed such lawsuits. The court's action in the case involving a practice known as partisan gerrymandering means that 16 U.S. House of Representatives districts will no longer be reconfigured, as a three-judge panel had ordered in May. The Supreme Court had put the panel's ruling on hold ahead of its rulings, issued the next month, in two major gerrymandering cases from Maryland and North Carolina. The justices in June dealt a major blow to election reformers by saying in its June 27 ruling that federal courts have no role to play in reining in electoral map manipulation by politicians aimed at entrenching one party in power. The ruling gave the Ohio challengers little option but to concede defeat. A similar case from Michigan, in which a lower court invalidated nine Republican-drawn U.S. House districts and 25 state legislative districts, was also put on hold by the Supreme Court in May. An appeal in that case remains pending and would be expected to be dealt with the same way as the Ohio dispute. The June high court ruling did allow partisan gerrymandering to be challenged in lawsuits based on violations of a state constitution. On Sept. 3, a state court in North Carolina struck down the Republican-drawn state legislative electoral map as an unlawful example of partisan gerrymandering under the state constitution. In partisan gerrymandering, one political party draws legislative districts to marginalize voters who tend to support the other party. The lines are typically redrawn once a decade after the U.S. census, and in many states the party in power controls the decision-making. Included in the 2012 Ohio electoral map drawn by Republicans at issue in the case was the "Snake on the Lake," which the judges called "a bizarre, elongated sliver of a district that severed numerous counties," referring to the state's 9th district that runs along Lake Erie. The electoral map consistently led to a lopsided advantage for Republicans in U.S. House races. The League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union sued to challenge the legality of the map.[/quote] --- news.yahoo.com/elizabeth-warren-plan-brett-kavanaugh-130000893.h tml [quote]Warren’s plan includes closing a loophole that allows federal judges to escape investigations for misconduct when they resign from office or are elevated to the Supreme Court ― a loophole that Warren has railed against in the past. “My plan extends the authority of the Judicial Conference to former judges so that individuals under investigation cannot simply resign from the bench to avoid accountability,” Warren said. “This provision would allow the judiciary to reopen the investigations into Alex Kozinski, Maryanne Trump-Barry, Brett Kavanaugh, and any other judge who benefited from this loophole.” Kozinski was a judge on the federal 9th Circuit accused in 2017 by at least 15 law clerks of sexual misconduct. But, as Warren noted, the investigation into Kozinski’s behavior was dropped when he retired. Trump-Barry, President Donald Trump’s sister, resigned as a federal appellate judge in April, ending a probe into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in the Trump family’s alleged tax fraud schemes. When Kavanaugh rose to the Supreme Court, sexual assault and perjury complaints against him were dismissed. “The basic premise of our legal system is that every person is treated equally in the eyes of the law ― including judges,” Warren said on Monday. “Our judiciary only functions properly when it lives up to this promise, and it risks eroding its legitimacy when the American people lose faith that judges are ethical and fair-minded.” ... Warren cited the 83 ethics complaints lodged against Kavanaugh that were dismissed upon his confirmation to the Supreme Court, as well as the lack of action after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose payments his wife received from a conservative judicial activist group. “Because the Supreme Court is not covered by a Code of Conduct, no procedure exists to file new complaints” against Kavanaugh, Warren said. She added that “questions are often raised about the behavior of Supreme Court Justices, such as Justice Thomas’s 13 years of financial disclosures that failed to list $690,000 in payments to his wife from the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing judicial activist group ― but these actions are beyond the scope of current rules.” Such lack of oversight, Warren said, has gone on for long enough. “These changes will not only allow us to ensure accountability for bad actors, including reopening inquiries into the conduct of offenders like Brett Kavanaugh,” she wrote. “They will also hold the vast majority of judges who act in good faith to the highest ethical standards, and in the process, begin to restore accountability and trust in a fair and impartial federal judiciary.”[/quote] --- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMPVwAxPmfI --- It never fails: news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-blocks-trump-financial-233735724.ht ml [quote]The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a setback to the House Democrats' impeachment probe by blocking a lower court decision that had granted them immediate access to President Donald Trump’s financial records. At least five justices agreed to the unsigned, one-paragraph order putting the pause on a lower court ruling that had favored a Democratic subpoena for the materials from one of Trump’s accounting firms. No justice publicly noted any opposition to the stay. The ruling will prevent Democrats from swiftly obtaining Trump's tax information as they start to prepare articles of impeachment against Trump. Lawmakers are expected to decide in the coming weeks whether to broaden out their case beyond the swirling Ukraine scandal to include allegations that Trump abused his position for personal financial gain.[/quote] It doesn't matter how overwhelming our side of the case is; they will just use the Supreme Court to block everything they dislike. Still think this can be solved without the Second Amendment? --- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toBb4zAAB7o --- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPm6vj7Q4hw --- www.yahoo.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-laughs-stopping-obama-1627501 24.html [quote]Mitch McConnell laughs about stopping Obama hiring judges, allowing Trump to fill courts with conservatives Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell boasted about blocking former president Barack Obama's judicial appointments, a two-year effort that allowed Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled congress to stack courts with conservative judges and create a conservative majority on the nation's high court. Fox host Sean Hannity told the Kentucky senator that he was shocked that the Obama administration "left so many vacancies and didn't try to fill those positions". "I'll tell you why," Mr McConnell said, laughing. "I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration." Mr Hannity said: "I will give you full credit for that, and by the way, take a bow." When he took office, the president inherited more than 100 vacancies, many of them lifetime appointments. More than a quarter of all active judges sitting on appeals courts were nominated by Mr Trump. In the last two years of Mr Obama's term, only 28.6 percent of his judicial nominees were confirmed. Mr Trump has selected nearly as many federal appeals judges in his three years in office than Mr Obama did in his entire two-term presidency — Mr Trump's 48 compared to Mr Obama's 52. Mr McConnell most famously blocked Mr Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland — the former president's pick to fill the seat left open by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016 — from even receiving a confirmation hearing. The senator issued a statement on the day of Mr Scalia's death that the Senate would not consider any of Mr Obama's nominees from that point on, an unprecedented blockade that Mr McConnell said would be lifted by the next president After a 263-day vacancy on the high court, the seat eventually was filled by Mr Trump's pick Neil Gorsuch. "The most important decision I made in my entire political career was not to fulfil a Supreme Court vacancy" following the death of Mr Scalia, Mr McConnell said on Fox. Mr McConnell also criticised judges who have empathy for people who appear in their courts while promoting his book, The Long Game, which includes a forward by the president, on the network.[/quote] --- www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-push-weaken-court-caught-11005202 5.html [quote]Republicans push to weaken court that caught them rigging elections Two years ago, Pennsylvania’s supreme court dealt a blow to state Republicans when it said they had unconstitutionally rigged congressional elections in the state. Republicans fumed and threatened to impeach four of the justices, but the map was redrawn, and voters elected an even split of Democrats and Republicans to Congress in 2018. Now, Republicans are weaponizing a new tactic – a move that seems designed to increase their power on the state’s highest court. The Republican proposal overhauls the way that court justices are elected in a state that can swing both red and blue. The justices on the court, where Democrats hold a 5-2 majority, are currently appointed through statewide elections, but the new plan would make it so the justices are elected from districts throughout the state. The change would probably hurt Democratic candidates – four of the current justices are from the Pittsburgh area and one is from Philadelphia, both urban areas that tend to skew blue. If the proposal is successful, it could offer a roadmap for Republicans elsewhere to undermine state courts. That’s significant after last year’s supreme court decision that determined federal courts couldn’t stop gerrymandering – the partisan redistricting of state maps – but that nothing stopped state courts from acting. State courts responded swiftly: a state court in North Carolina followed Pennsylvania and struck down electoral districts as unconstitutional gerrymanders there. And a slew of gerrymandering lawsuits are expected when districts are next redrawn in 2021. “With the Pennsylvania supreme court having struck down the general assembly’s gerrymandering, the general assembly is now clearly trying to gerrymander the Pennsylvania supreme court itself,” said Daniel Jacobson, an attorney who helped represent the plaintiffs in the gerrymandering case. “It only goes to show the lengths that the general assembly leaders will go when they feel that their grip on power is threatened.”[/quote] #Post#: 23-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 30, 2020, 11:43 pm --------------------------------------------------------- OLD CONTENT contd. --- www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/immigration-judges-admit-trump-reason-11 4533279.html [quote]Immigration judges are reaching their breaking point with this administration’s racist policies This is a perilous time for a fair and passionate judge to leave the bench. By doing so, they risk having Donald Trump appoint their replacement, and considering Trump’s policies and beliefs, that new appointee is pretty likely to have a harsh anti-immigration stance. But dozens of immigration judges have reported that despite their efforts to stick out the presidency, they’ve just reached their breaking points. The Los Angeles Times spoke with dozens of judges who are quitting or taking early retirement because they simply cannot stomach having to enforce Trump administration policies on immigrants. ... According to former San Francisco immigration judge Ilyce Shugall, Trump is “using the court as a weapon against immigrants,” and her post became a “nearly impossible job.” “There are many of us who just feel we can’t be part of a system that’s just so fundamentally unfair,” she told the Times about why she quit her job as a judge last March. “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”[/quote] The second paragraph says it all. It was probably Trump's intention all along with his ostentatiously cruel policies to make the fair judges quit so that he can fill the vacancies with his own picks. --- The condition of the courts today: thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/481993-appeals-court-rules- democrats-cant-sue-trump-over-emoluments-claims [quote]A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., threw out a lawsuit accusingPresident Trump of illegally profiting off his private businesses whilein office, ruling that the Democratic lawmakers who brought the suit lack legal standing. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday did not rule on whether the president was violating the Constitution by profiting off foreign governments' spending at his hotels. The judges unanimously said in a brief 12-page decision that the dispute centering around the Constitution's emolumentsclauses has no place in the court system. ... "The Framers included the Foreign Emoluments Clause in the Constitution as the Constitution’s chief bulwark against the foreign corruption of America’sleaders, and for more than half of his term, President Trump has been violating this critical anti-corruption provision, accepting benefits from foreign governments without first obtaining Congress’s affirmative consent," said Elizabeth Wydra, the president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, who is representing the Democrats in the case, ina statement.[/quote] And next: (HTM) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRF7Y62KU40 --- One point I keep emphasizing: [quote]In saying this they expose only their own disregard for the fundamental principle of law that the only people obliged to abide by any given law of any country are those who receive protection from the same law in return. For example, we are obliged to not steal because in return the state will protect our property. We are obliged to not run red lights because in return we get to use the safer roads that result from trafficlights. And so on. This principle breaks down when it comes to immigration, because those who abide by a so-called “law” that prohibits them from entering are not in any way protected by this same so-called “law”. On the contrary, they are simply left outside where thestate need not care about them at all (and can even bomb them)! Thus so-called “laws” prohibiting immigration are not really laws at all, but tyranny.[/quote] now has a perfect example to accompany it thanks to Kavanaugh & Co.: www.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-denies-mexican-familys-15231998 9.html [quote]WASHINGTON – A deeply divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the family of a Mexican teen shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent cannot seek damages because of the border that was between them. The justices ruled 5-4 that Sergio Adrian Hernández Guereca, 15, lacked constitutional protection against the use of excessive force because he was in Mexico. Had he been in Texas with Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa,his family would have had a claim.[/quote] In that case, by the same argument it should be OK for Mexicans to start shooting CBP agents from their side of the border. Don't expect Kavanaugh & Co. to agree, though. --- www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trump-mcgahn-lawsuit-house-democrats-2154 17364.html [quote]Devastating Court Ruling Allows White House To Block Testimony From Former Counsel Don McGahn ... The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed McGahn in 2019 as part of its investigation into Trump’s potential obstruction of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. McGahn previously told Mueller’s grand jury that Trump ordered him to direct the Department of Justice tofire Mueller in 2017 in order to end the probe. He did not carry out the order. This incident appeared as one of 10 potentially obstructive acts committed by Trump in Mueller’s final report. Democrats sought to bring McGahn before the committee to get his testimony on thisalleged obstruction. But the White House declared that the president and his direct aides had an “absolute immunity” from congressional investigation and ordered McGahn not to honor the subpoena. The administration never made a formal declaration of executive privilege over McGahn’s testimony. The court said Democrats will just have to find some other way to force the administration to comply with their demands.[/quote] At what point does "some other way" start to involve the Second Amendment? --- www.yahoo.com/news/u-supreme-court-conservatives-lean-175347537. html [quote]WASHINGTON(Reuters) - Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared sympathetic on Monday toward a bid by President Donald Trump's administration to buttress its power to quickly deport illegal immigrants without court interference in a politically charged election-year case concerning one of Trump's signature issues. The justices heard arguments in the administration's appeal of a lower court ruling that a Sri Lankan asylum seeker - a farmer named Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam - had a right under the U.S. Constitution to have his case reviewed by a federal court. Conservative justices signaled support for the administration. Liberal justices appeared to back Thuraissigiam. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority including two justices appointed by Trump. ... The American Civil Liberties Union, representing Thuraissigiam, said the administration's arguments, if accepted by the court, could be used to deport millions of other illegal immigrants without meaningful judicial review.[/quote] Remember, Kavanaugh & Co. are appointed for life. Are we really going to let them stay in control for decades to come? --- finance.yahoo.com/news/u-supreme-court-lets-states-152838602.htm l [quote]WASHINGTON,March 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday widened the ability of states to use criminal laws against illegal immigrants and other people who do not have work authorization in the United States in aruling involving identity theft prosecutions in Kansas. ... The justices overturned a 2017 Kansas Supreme Court decision that had voidedthe convictions of the three restaurant workers, finding that a 1986 federal law called the Immigration Reform and Control Act did not prevent states from pursuing such prosecutions. ... Immigrant rights groups have said that giving states power to prosecute employmentfraud would let them take immigration policy into their own hands. Thethree men - Ramiro Garcia, Donaldo Morales and Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara - were not authorized to work in the United States and provided their employers Social Security numbers that were not their own. A Social Security number is used to identify people for employment and taxpurposes. People who enter the country illegally do not get assigned Social Security numbers, which are given by the U.S. government to all legal residents.[/quote] To prohibit people from working is the initiated violence. Anyone prohibited from working who gives a fake Social Security number (which they hence do not benefit from) in order to work is calculably contributing more to the country, and hence have a stronger claimto being American, than an equivalent worker who uses their own Social Security number. But you think Kavanaugh & Co. care? And then there's this: finance.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-obamacares-constitutionalit y-223148053.html [quote]The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal case on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, that could potentially invalidate the entire law. ... “There could be essentially total chaos,” Cynthia Cox, director for the Program on the Affordable Care Actat the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Yahoo Finance. “There’s no replacement plan that is ready to go and so essentially what would happen next is possibly over a short period of time, or possibly immediately, we would start seeing the ACA being unwound. And the immediate effect would be that literally tens of millions of people could lose coverage and also even more people could have other changes to their coverage.”[/quote] How much longer are we going to tolerate rightist control over the Supreme Court? --- Every extra day Kavanaugh & Co. remain alive, they will allow more violence to be initiated: www.yahoo.com/news/justices-allow-remain-mexico-asylum-180427788 .html [quote]WASHINGTON(AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would allow the Trump administration to continue enforcing a policy that makes asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for U.S. court hearings, despite lower court rulings thatthe policy probably is illegal. ... The high court action is the latest instance of the justices siding with the administration to allow Trump's immigration policies to continue after lower courts had moved tohalt them. Other cases include the travel ban on visitors from some largely Muslim countries, construction of the border wall, and the “wealth test" for people seeking green cards. ... “Asylum-seekers face grave danger and irreversible harm every day this depraved policy remains in effect.”[/quote] www.yahoo.com/huffpost/coronavirus-outbreak-mexican-border-20380 6431.html [quote]The U.S. government has advised Americans to wash their hands obsessively, avoid close contact with others and stay home as much as possible to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 1,000 people in the country. But thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the United States can’t follow these instructions since the Trump administration has forced themto wait for their court dates in overcrowded and unsanitary camps and shelters near the border. Without the government’s help, volunteer doctors in Mexican border towns told HuffPost they are scrambling to take preventative measures to stave off a coronavirus outbreak. But if the disease enters these congested environments, it could “spread like wildfire” and lead to deaths, said Helen Perry, the executive director of the nonprofit Global Response Management who has been coordinating medical efforts in Matamoros. “The potential for a devastating outbreak in those circumstances is really great,” saidDr. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University, adding that these migrants face a perfect storm of factors. “They’re marginalized, they have no access to care and they’re so vulnerable. People can absolutely die.”[/quote] --- It never stops: www.vox.com/2020/3/25/21192320/supreme-court-comcast-decision-ci vil-rights-mixed-motive-lawsuits [quote]Like most of the country, the Supreme Court is in coronavirus lockdown, closing its building to the public and postponing oral arguments until some future date. Yet even as the justices seek shelter from a pandemic, they still managed to hand down five opinions on Monday. One of them, in the case Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American Media, is a blow for the civil rights community — and a potential harbinger for civil rights cases to come. The case involves a dispute between the cable TV company Comcast and a business that alleged the telecommunications conglomerate refused to carry its channels because it disfavored “100% African American-owned media companies.” ... The thrust of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion in Comcast is that discrimination plaintiffs typically have the burden of proving that they would not have experienced adverse consequences if thedefendant were not motivated by racism or some other impermissible motive. Indeed, Gorsuch goes even further than that, arguing that all plaintiffs typically must “establish causation” in order to prevail. As ageneral rule, “a plaintiff must first plead and then prove that its injury would not have occurred ‘but for’ the defendant’s unlawful conduct.” ... What’s different about the current Supreme Court is that it is especially likely to overrule past decisions — and in narrow partisan votes — for ideological reasons. According to Washington University political scientist James Spriggs, “about 71% of overulings are 5-4 under [Chief Justice John] Roberts, compared with about 31% under [Chief Justice William] Rehnquist,” Roberts’s predecessor. The trend is likely to accelerate now that the relatively moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy’s been replaced by the staunchly conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.[/quote] --- Trump threatens to adjourn U.S. Congress [quote]President Donald Trump threatened to use his authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress in order to pave the way for recess appointments of his nominees for federal judgeships and other government positions.[/quote] (HTM) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYplv_K0f20 --- www.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-eases-path-deport-141514006.htm l [quote](Reuters)- The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday made it easier for federal authorities to deport certain immigrants who have committed crimes in a victory for President Donald Trump's administration. The court ruled 5-4 to uphold a lower court decision that found a legal permanent resident from Jamaica named Andre Martello Barton ineligible to have hisdeportation canceled under a U.S. law that lets some longtime legal residents avoid expulsion. The conservative justices were in the majority, with the liberal justices dissenting. Barton, a 42-year-old car repair shop manager and father of four, was targeted fordeportation after criminal convictions in Georgia for drug and gun crimes. The decision could affect thousands of immigrants with criminal convictions - many for minor offenses - who reside legally in the United States. There are more than 13 million legal U.S. permanent residents, also known as "green card" holders, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Glenn Fogle, an attorney for Barton, called the ruling "extremely disappointing" and expressed concern for his client, who has already been sent back to Jamaica. "My heart goes out to Mr. Barton and his family as he is now effectively barred from ever rejoining them in the United States," Fogle said.[/quote] This happened not because of gun crime, but because of Second Amendment passivity. #Post#: 24-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 30, 2020, 11:43 pm --------------------------------------------------------- OLD CONTENT contd. us.yahoo.com/news/mcconnell-move-quickly-confirming-38-225025282 .html [quote]When the U.S. Senate returns from a lengthy absence next week, one of its first orders of business will be advancing the nomination of a 38-year-old ally of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the second highest court in the land. According to two Democratic aides, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is expected toschedule a committee hearing for May 6 for Justin Walker, a federal judge in Kentucky whom President Trump has nominated to the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. McConnellannounced on Monday that the Senate would return to session on May 4 for its first full week of legislative business after the CARES Act passed in late March. And he has not been shy about his desire to start confirming judges as soon as his chamber is back in session. “I haven’t seen anything that would discourage me from doing that. And as soon as we get back in session, we’ll start confirming judges again,” hetold Hugh Hewitt in a recent interview. ... Walker is a McConnellprotégé who has close ties to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh andplayed a high-profile role defending him during his contentious confirmation hearings. ... Walker’s lack of experience and partisan background has earned him “not qualified” ratings from the American Bar Association and the opposition of Democrats, who see his nomination as a thinly veiled attempt to place young ideological allies in key judicial positions. “If Graham/McConnell go forward with this, it would show that Senate Rs are rushing the Senate back to confirm an unqualified, anti-health care judge instead of responding to the pandemic and conducting oversight,” said a Senate Democratic aide. McConnelland Kavanaugh attended Walker’s swearing-in on March 13 in Louisville. There, the majority leader and Walker, his former intern, praised each other effusively in public remarks.[/quote] --- www.yahoo.com/news/were-going-fill-republicans-ready-083044204.h tml [quote]'We're going to fill it': Republicans ready for any Supreme Court vacancy ... Whileno one says they expect a Supreme Court vacancy, GOP senators also acknowledge it’s plausible that Trump could find himself with a third nominee. And one thing is clear: Most Republicans have no qualms about approving a Supreme Court pick from a president in their own party, evenif it is an election year. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader MitchMcConnell (R-Ky.) said voters should decide in the election which president should choose the next Supreme Court justice because the Senate and White House were controlled by different parties. And in the Trump era, he’s repeatedly asserted that he would fill a vacancy in 2020. McConnell and his allies argue the situation is different because Republicans control both the White House and the Senate. They say that makes the situation far different than when Obama was presidentand McConnell refused to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland. Democratsacknowledge they could get run over in the next eight months. Supreme Court nominees can now be confirmed by a bare majority after McConnell changed the rules in 2017 to overcome a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch, Antonin Scalia’s successor. “They’re not troubled by inconsistencies,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “It would be completely inconsistent with everything that was said [in 2016]. But we knew when they were saying it they didn’t mean it. We knew that was a situational answer.”[/quote] --- (HTM) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BpT5Hhlaco --- us.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-oks-governments-quick-151005465. html [quote]Supreme Court OKs government's quick removal of immigrants who cross border illegally The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the government's power to arrest, question and quickly remove immigrants who are caught crossing the border illegally. In a victory for the Trump administration, the justices rejected the claim that immigrants who seek asylum have a rightto a full federal court review through a writ of habeas corpus, even iftheir claims are judged to be not credible. ... "Today's decisionhandcuffs the judiciary’s ability to perform its constitutional duty tosafeguard individual liberty and dismantles a critical component of theseparation of powers. It will leave significant exercises of executive discretion unchecked [and] increases the risk of erroneous immigration decisions that contravene governing statutes and treaties," Sotomayor wrote. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the case, said he was disappointed. “Thisruling fails to live up to the Constitution’s bedrock principle that individuals deprived of their liberty have their day in court, and this includes asylum seekers. This decision means that some people facing flawed deportation orders can be forcibly removed with no judicial oversight, putting their lives in grave danger," he said.[/quote] #Post#: 25-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 30, 2020, 11:44 pm --------------------------------------------------------- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoqBSvJgGYM Also: (HTM) https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-supreme-court-spurns-environmental-134639974.html [quote]WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by four environmental groups to the authority of President Donald Trump's administration to build his promised wall along the border with Mexico. The justices turned away an appeal by the groups of a federal judge's ruling that rejected their claims that the administration had unlawfully undertaken border wall projects in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas harmful to plant and animal life. The groups had argued that the 1996 law under which the administration is building the wall gave too much power to the executive branch in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The groups that sued are the Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife and the Southwest Environmental Center. They said the wall construction efforts would harm plants, wildlife habitats and endangered species including the jaguar, Mexican gray wolf and bighorn sheep.[/quote] #Post#: 268-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: July 12, 2020, 12:25 am --------------------------------------------------------- (HTM) https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-supreme-court-just-set-a-time-bomb-to-explode-under-president-biden [quote]The court’s majority in Trump v. Mazars granted the judiciary broad new leeway to decide whether congressional subpoenas against the president will be enforced. The court’s majority found that rigorous judicial oversight is required to ensure that Congress does not harass or overburden presidents with politically motivated demands for information. The result may be a time bomb set to go off under a President Biden, as a judiciary packed with Trump appointees now has broad new discretion to involve itself in fights between future presidents and Congress, potentially undermining effective congressional oversight of the executive branch.[/quote] But at least more leftists are paying attention to the importance of the courts: (HTM) https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-conservatives-hijacked-supreme-court-071503191.html #Post#: 633-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: August 1, 2020, 1:31 pm --------------------------------------------------------- (HTM) https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-denies-request-to-halt-construction-of-the-border-wall [quote]The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote has denied a request to halt construction of President Trump’s border wall over environmental concerns. A number of groups, including the ACLU and Sierra Club, had asked the high court to get involved again after the justices last year cleared the way for the administration to use military funds for construction while the case played out in the courts. A federal appeals court had ruled against the administration last month, but the justices, for now, have given another temporary victory to the administration.[/quote] Still no application of Second Amendment..... #Post#: 1149-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: September 13, 2020, 11:21 pm --------------------------------------------------------- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYkeoOitar8 #Post#: 1214-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: September 18, 2020, 11:14 pm --------------------------------------------------------- As if we didn't have enough drama already: (HTM) https://news.yahoo.com/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-has-died-supreme-court-says-234042604.html [quote]Trump will now have the opportunity to nominate his third Supreme Court Justice. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made clear he intended for the Senate to fill Ginsburg’s seat while Trump was still president. “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” McConnell said in a statement Friday. In February, McConnell vowed that if a Supreme Court seat opened up this year, “we would fill it.” In 2016, McConnell refused to bring up President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, for a vote to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, with the justification that “this nomination ought to be made by the president we’re in the process of electing this year.” ... In a speech in 2018, McConnell recounted that “one of my proudest moments was when I looked Barack Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy.’”[/quote] Hypocrisy at its finest. This is the enemy we are dealing with. Still think we can deal with them without using firearms? At least in Hong Kong the courts are improving: (HTM) https://www.yahoo.com/news/foreign-judge-quits-hong-kongs-074731867.html [quote]HONG KONG/SYDNEY, Sept 18 (Reuters) - One of the 14 foreign judges on Hong Kong's highest court said he had resigned due to concerns over a sweeping new national security law imposed by Beijing on the former British colony, Australia's national broadcaster reported on Friday. The office of the city's leader Carrie Lam confirmed the resignation of Australian judge James Spigelman but did not give a reason. Spigelman, the former Chief Justice of New South Wales, is the first senior judge to resign and publicly criticise the law, passed by China's parliament. The Polish-born jurist told the ABC that he resigned for reasons "related to the content of the national security legislation" but did not elaborate further. Spigelman did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.[/quote] #Post#: 1231-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: September 20, 2020, 2:00 am --------------------------------------------------------- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTJ4nBZIec #Post#: 1251-------------------------------------------------- Re: Court packing By: 90sRetroFan Date: September 21, 2020, 11:00 pm --------------------------------------------------------- (HTM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYH0-ncaTwE ***************************************************** (DIR) Next Page