The Senator revealed to us that he wrote his book “on his couch” in March after his self imposed COVID 19 quarantine. Never did he imagine just six months later the relevance of this book after the recent passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Did you know these important cases were decided by a 5-4 vote?
- Religious Liberty and Van Orden v. Perry
- School Choice and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
- Gun Rights and District of Columbia v. Heller
- Sovereignty and Medellín v. Texas
- Abortion and Gonzales v. Carhart
- Free Speech and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
- Crime, Law and Order, Capital Punishment, and Kennedy v. Louisiana
In our interview, we touched on these cases and discussed the Democrats’ plans of “packing the Supreme Court” and adding Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as states to solidify their power for years.
The Democrats are promising to contest next month’s election if they come up short. Failed 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton has declared that Biden should not concede if the election is close. The stakes have never been higher.
As Americans head to the polls, One Vote Away reminds voters that in casting their ballot this November, they are selecting the leader whose appointments could build a Court that preserves freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms, or irrevocably changes the future of the nation for decades to come.
REPORTER: “Sir, don’t the voters deserve to know” your position on court packing?
BIDEN: “No, they don’t deserve” to know.
Matt Walsh
@MattWalshBlog
Biden: voters deserve to know about the president’s personal finances which have no effect on anyone but not his policies which could reshape the country for generations to come
Jennifer Epstein
@jeneps
Biden is again asked why voters don’t deserve to know his views on court packing. He responds: “The only court packing going on right now is going on with Republicans packing the court right now ... I’m going to stay focused on it so we don’t take our eyes off the ball here."
Chris Wallace Calls Out Biden for Dodging on Court-Packing: 'Foolish' and 'Impossible' for Him Not To Go on Record Before Election
Of course, we all know the answer that Biden won’t provide. If he had no intentions of packing the court, he’d just say so. There’s no risk to him making moderates like him even more, and we all know the rabid Democrat base will show up to vote against Trump anyway. That Biden refuses to answer such a simple question provides all the context we need to ascertain what he really thinks.
Newt Gingrich
@newtgingrich
The openness of a basement campaign: “Well, sir, don't the voters deserve to know?" DiMattei asked before Biden cut him off.
"No, they don't," Biden said. "
Every Democratic candidate for House or Senate should be challenged: yes or no on Court Packing
Michael Beschloss
@BeschlossDC
Harris is correct that when Roger Taney died in October 1864, Abraham Lincoln deferred a Supreme Court appointment until after election so that next President, with a new mandate, could do it.
9:12 PM · Oct 7, 2020
Kevin Daley 🏛
·
Oct 7, 2020
The facts are complicated. Lincoln's reelection was not in doubt after Sherman took Atlanta in Sept. Lincoln ran on a war-time unity ticket, but his preferred choice, Salmon Chase, was the favorite son of radical Republicans. Naming Chase early would have undermined his pitch.
Kevin Daley 🏛
@KevinDaleyDC
And the other side of this precedent isn't helpful for Biden-Harris. Lincoln nominated Chase as soon as the Senate returned for the December lameduck. Chase was confirmed that same day.
9:55 PM · Oct 7, 2020
Barrett’s authored opinions give no reason to believe she automatically accepts or rejects a government agency’s interpretation of the law. //
The executive branch of George Washington’s presidency was but a pale image of what we have today. The 91 members of the first Congress outnumbered the executive branch officials empowered to implement congressional acts and presidential orders. Since Congress chartered the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887, however, the number, reach, and power of executive officials have grown exponentially, creating our contemporary Leviathan administrative state.
A major criticism of the administrative state is that it consists of unelected officials with the power to govern virtually every aspect of modern life without serious oversight by the federal courts. //
The opinions Barrett wrote or joined are reasoned analyses of the relevant statutory provisions, the applicable case law, and the pertinent aspects of the administrative record. These cases suggest Barrett is prepared to do the hard work of statutory interpretation and not simply declare that a statute or regulation is ambiguous and, therefore, the court should defer to the applicable agency’s interpretation.
The reason the plan to fill Ginsburg’s seat was announced the same night as her death was never a mystery: The president explained several times over the last week that the new justice’s nomination and confirmation needed to happen in the same amount of time Barack Obama allowed the nation to mourn before even naming a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016 because Trump needs her to weigh in on any election-related controversy on his behalf. As he put it to reporters on Monday: “We need nine justices,” he said. “You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they’re sending.” He explained that because of his (farcical, proofless) claim that mail-in ballots will be a source of rampant fraud, this ninth justice must be seated before an election challenge is mounted. That pronouncement came just prior to his claim that he could not commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election. Again: The reason a ninth justice is needed to be seated in advance of the election in which voting is already taking place is to decide whatever lawsuit is coming in his favor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, on Saturday Trump did not overtly ask Barrett to rule in his favor next month while detailing her biography on the White House lawn.
Trump has similarly announced on multiple occasions that he needs this vacant seat filled because Roe v. Wade cannot be allowed to stand and that any nominee of his would “automatically” overturn it. Indeed, several GOP senators are on the record saying they would refuse to vote for Judge Barrett unless she openly promises to do so.
For the last 30 years, Republican nominations for the Supreme Court have faced personal, ugly, defamatory attacks from Democrats. //
Every time a Republican president has nominated someone to the Supreme Court in the last 30 years, with one notable exception, Democrats have responded by smearing the nominee with accusations of ideological extremism, racism, misogyny, sexual harassment, plagiarism, and, most infamously in Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s case, gang rape. //
But the Kavanaugh hearings were not a break with the Democrats’ norms, they were merely an extreme manifestation of a 30-year tradition that began with Robert Bork, President Reagan’s nominee in 1987, whose confirmation hearing was the most divisive and partisan in Supreme Court history up to that point.
Ben Shapiro
@benshapiro
Democrats' radically nuclear response to the SCOTUS vacancy is a real threat to Joe Biden's candidacy. Up until now, Biden has been able to run as the "take a breath" candidate. Things have been crazy; here's an empathetic elderly gentleman who will restore normalcy.
11:03 AM · Sep 21, 2020
All of that goes by the wayside when Dems threaten to kill the filibuster, ram through new states, pack the court, and impeach people just to delay Supreme Court hearings. Now the election becomes a referendum on the new, far more threatening batch of crazy Dems are proposing.
And it IS crazy. If Democrats were to kill the filibuster, add states, and pack the court, the fundamental nature of the federal government would be completely rewritten. Essentially, a bare majority of Democrats would be able to, unchecked, rewrite the Constitution.
States would correctly resist. Imagine a 53-vote Democratic majority (adding four Dem Senators from DC and Puerto Rico, e.g.) ramming through a gun confiscation package. Imagine a 13-member packed SCOTUS greenlighting that measure. You think TX, MS, GA, FL stand for that?
Checks and balances were designed to require overwhelming consent to major political changes. Democrats have long objected to those checks and balances, but have refrained from utterly abolishing them. That's because the consequences of abolishing them is national dissolution.
“After the treatment of Justice Kavanaugh I now have a different view of the judicial-confirmation process,” Graham said. “Compare the treatment of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh to that of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, and it’s clear that there is already one set of rules for a Republican president and one set of rules for a Democrat president. I therefor think it is important that we proceed expeditiously to process any nomination made by President Trump to fill this vacancy. I am certain if the shoe was on the other foot, you would do the same.”
Finally, McConnell hit Democrats directly, quoting Chuck Schumer in 2018 proclaiming that election to be a referendum on the handling of the Supreme Court. Well, in 2018 the American people handed Republicans an even bigger majority. The Majority Leader then ended by saying that “we are going to keep our world” in regards to the promises made to voters over the Supreme Court.
We have become insanely driven by the idea that the other side is the enemy and that they must be defeated in court for a victory to have any real meaning.
And what is it that we’re fighting over, here? It’s a broken race for a broken court. We are, as a society, so dependent on lifetime political appointments because we have given up on things like legislating and negotiating. We would rather allow a group of nine people to tell us what is right and what is wrong than fight in the legislative chambers to get the most done for as many people as possible.
The Supreme Court’s job is to tell us what is constitutional and what is not, with the great irony being that the power to do so has no constitutional grounds whatsoever. It was invented by the Court early in its history, and ever since — though particularly in the modern era — we have deferred so much to it that we have created the power it wields. Power the Constitution never originally gave it.
The system, from our political values to our political system, is broken. That, in turn, has broken the branches of government and thrown out the balance of power the Constitution built.
With sincere apologies to William Shakespeare:
Friends, Americans, fellow defenders of liberty, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Ginsburg, not to praise her.
The very little and well-disputed good she has done will be celebrated, living long after her.
The evil she has enabled shouldn’t be ignored by interring it with her bones.
Let that not be so with Ginsburg.
One of my long time Army buddies put it this way (with minor edits for innovative language):
What’s all this RIP stuff coming from Conservatives? How about BIH?
Have y’all even read Lady Creepo’s decisions, or evaluated the Luciferian effects of them on our society? WTH?
Oh! I see; You are trying to show human decency for the opposing team. You are above the fray. Hearts & Minds (how’d that work out in Iraq) Love thine Enemy, etc.
Do you think this “kindness” is really gonna put a dent in the thinking of the Left that is intent on destroying this country?
This is the same mentality that got Bush 1 unelected, got Romney and McCain slaughtered in elections, for their “above it all” attitude—and also why Iraq is now fully in the hands of Iran. //
But when you balance the books, she’s not fit to be viewed as some sort of respected American judicial icon.
For one thing, the philosophy that Ginsburg actively promoted and defended has been and continues to be responsible for the deaths of more Black babies than the Holocaust or Soviet pogroms. Some folks might assert that she never directly ordered the murder, rendering asunder, or later sale of “usable parts” of unborn children. I agree. However, when you review her advocacy and later rulings from the bench, the best thing you could say about her is that she hid behind the artificial construct of Stare Decisis while others did and profited from the dirty work. //
They don’t want Roe versus Wade overturned. That is their single-minded purpose. Pure and simple evil.
Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
On SCOTUS, Dems & GOP are arguing exact opposite of what both sides argued in 2016. Doesn’t that mean both sides are hypocrites?
Actually, no. WATCH this clip to hear the historical FACTS & constitutional checks & balances that MSM ignores.
Learn more: http://onevoteaway.com
RNC Research
@RNCResearch
.@tedcruz: “29 times there has been a vacancy in a presidential election year. Now, presidents have made nominations all 29 times. That's what presidents do. If there's a vacancy, they make a nomination”
https://youtu.be/JuZqomU5EHQ
But he also explained that of those times, when the president and the Senate are of the same party, the nominee has been confirmed 17 out of 19 times. But when the president and the Senate are of different parties, the other 10 times, they’ve only confirmed the nominee twice. //
One of the big reasons that the people voted in Donald Trump, Cruz said, was to ensure “principled Constitutionalists on the court.” For 2014, 2016, and 2018, Cruz said, what people were saying with their Senate votes is that they wanted those Constitutionalists that the GOP would bring/guarantee, that’s why they kept increasing the Republican majority in the Senate. So, the Republican position was not in fact inconsistent, but totally in keeping with history and norms.
Karma: Harry Reid
In November 2013 Harry Reid had rewritten the Senate Rules mid-session in order to confirm appellate court judges he was not able to confirm under the old rules requiring 60 votes to end debate on a judicial nominee. The Senate Democrats had used the same rule to hold up confirmation of appeals court judges while they were in the minority during the Bush 43 Administration. And in the elections the next fall, the Democrats in the Senate paid the price.
The GOP gained 9 seats in the senate in 2015, beating 5 Democrat incumbents //
In the same three elections, the GOP had defeated 8 Democrat incumbent Senators and taken over the seats of 5 others who retired to go from a minority of 41 to a majority of 54. Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate went from a near filibuster proof 59 votes to only44 Democrats and 2 Independents.
THAT is the factual context surrounding the refusal in 2016 by the GOP in the Senate to grant to Barack Obama the opportunity to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
The voters HAD spoken AGAINST the idea of allowing Barack Obama — leader of a Democrat Party thoroughly and soundly rejected — the make the selection. That was the reason for holding the seat open until the 2016 election when the voters could decide whether it would be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump who would make the choice and whether that choice would be confirmed by a friendly or hostile Senate Majority.
The same dynamic does not exist today.
McConnell relied upon the very checks and balances built into our Constitutional Republic. The people had given the power of the Presidency to the Democrats and the power of the Senate to the Republicans. As a result, the true intentions of the people were clouded. On one hand, had he confirmed Garland, Republicans would have squandered the power with which they had been trusted. With the denial of the confirmation of Garland, McConnell made Democrats angry, but the Democrats’ power in that regard ends at the nomination. The issue is that McConnell’s actions aren’t hypocritical at all. He took his case to the people. Not to delay the vote for the sake of delaying the vote, but rather to clarify with the people, what they wanted to be done with that seat. The people chose Trump, Republicans, and the path to a different nominee. The Republic functioned exactly as it is intended.
Democrats want to make this hypocrisy, but it isn’t, as the people HAVE spoken. There is no longer any question as to the intention of the people. They gave Republicans the control of the Senate and the Presidency. When the people granted that power, they were aware of the potential consequences of that decision. They were aware that that power in the hands of both Trump and McConnell could lead to the confirmation of any judges Republicans deem acceptable. They knew this and yet, they still gave that power. If, as the Democrats want to believe, people are opposed to this move, why would they have given that power to Senate Republicans, not once but twice since 2016?
Democrats simply wanted the Scalia seat filled because it gave them an edge in the court, that’s it. That’s why they had demanded it be filled. Had Schumer made the case to the American people that McConnell is right and that the people needed to vote the power to his party, he may have won that debate and subsequent election. He, instead, cried foul about checks and balances built into the Constitution of the United States. Schumer isn’t mad that the Senate Republicans didn’t hold a vote on Merrick Garland. He is mad that the American people rejected his
Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court in the summer of 2018, at the age of 83. He did so knowing that a Republican President would pick his successor, and the Senate was in control of the Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Democrat Harry Reid was Senate Majority Leader for the first six years of the Obama Presidency. In 2013 and 2014, the last two years in which Reid controlled the Senate Calendar, Ginsburg was 80-81 years old. Had she announced her retirement she likely could have told Obama who she wanted to replace her, and I’m guessing he would have acceded to her request. //
Justice Ginsburg sacrificed that opportunity so she would continue to write dissents on cases of interest to her since she was almost certainly going to remain in the losing minority on most such cases. //
One supposition is simply that she was confident Hillary Clinton would win in 2016, and she wanted the arc of her history as a Justice to be completed by having the first female President of the United States appoint her replacement to the Supreme Court. That would have made a nice ending to the movie “On the Basis of Sex”, which was a biographical account of her efforts as an attorney to extend the protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to women.
FOX & friends
@foxandfriends
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg calls Kaepernick protests 'dumb and disrespectful'
6:01 AM · Oct 11, 2016
If RBG is against flag burning and thinks Colin Kaepernick “dumb,” imagine what she would have thought of rioters and/or people threatening to “burn down” the Supreme Court process that she so honored?
For those Democrats wanting to pack the Court? RBG wasn’t going for that either.
JERRY DUNLEAVY
@JerryDunleavy
RBG: “Bad idea when [FDR] tried to pack the court… If anything would make the court appear partisan it'd be...one side saying, ‘When we’re in power we’re going to enlarge the number of judges so we'll have more ppl who will vote the way we want them to.’"
Everybody should get a hearing and a vote, said Joe Biden, “even in an election year.”
Bottom line? The history is on the side of the President and McConnell.