New SCOTUS Pick Imminent

[Ryan Ruck]

Word is the pick will be announced at 8pm ET tomorrow night.

[Ryan Ruck]

Just announced the pick is Neil Gorsuch.

Probably one of the most conservative and originalist picks Trump could have made!

Nice job Trump!

[Ryan Ruck]

Trump Announces His SCOTUS Nominee Pick, And Scalia Would Be Proud

January 31, 2017

After much anticipation, President Donald Trump has officially announced his administrations pick to fill the vacant seat left by the late Justice Anton Scalia on the Supreme Court.

His name is Neil Gorsuch, a Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Short of putting in Scalia’s ghost in the vacant seat, conservatives will find that Gorsuch is more than worthy of taking his place. According to sources, Gorsuch is a textualist and originalist in the same vein as his predecessor.

In fact, as Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review points out in an excellent expose, Gorsuch himself wrote a tribute to Scalia where he endorsed Scalia’s style on the bench.

“Judges should instead strive (if humanly and so imperfectly) to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be — not to decide cases based on their own moral convictions or the policy consequences they believe might serve society best. As Justice Scalia put it, “if you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

According to Politico, his stances on religious liberties are very solid as well.

Other rulings give conservatives confidence that Gorsuch is a strong supporter of religious freedom rights. Last September, he joined a dissent arguing that requirements for contraception coverage in Obamacare ran roughshod over the rights of religious non-profits.

Gorsuch also wrote a 2000 law journal article and a 2006 book arguing strongly against assisted-suicide laws. The practice of allowing the terminally ill to end their lives is now legal in six states and is on the verge of being legalized in Washington, D.C.

All in all, Trump could not have picked a more suitable nominee to take Scalia’s place.

[vector7]

The Left are going nuts…

http://www.democraticunderground.com...latest_threads

[Ryan Ruck]

5 Things You Need to Know About Potential SCOTUS Pick Neil Gorsuch

January 31, 2017

President Donald Trump will announce his pick to fill the vacancy in the Supreme Court of the United States in a few moments, and word has it that it will be 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch. Here are five important facts about Gorsuch:

1. He Detests Judicial Activism

In a 2005 essay for National Review, Gorsuch wrote:

"American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education. This overweening addiction to the courtroom as the place to debate social policy is bad for the country and bad for the judiciary...

the politicization of the judiciary undermines the only real asset it has–its independence. Judges come to be seen as politicians and their confirmations become just another avenue of political warfare."

Gorsuch goes on to decry the politicization of the court system, writing that Supreme Court confirmation hearings have become death-matches at which both Republicans and Democrats arrive armed to the teeth for "political warfare."

Gorsuch adds that SCOTUS Justices are now seen as "politicians with robes," even though their role should truly be apolitical.

2. He's a Textualist

After Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February 2016, Gorsuch praised the late jurist, adding:

"Judges should instead strive, if humanly and so imperfectly, to apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be..."

Examining just one case in which Gorsuch was involved while on the 10th Circuit, his textualism is made abundantly clear.

After the case of United States v. Games-Perez was decided, Miguel Games-Perez petitioned for rehearing en banc. The court ultimately declined. While Gorsuch concurred because of precedent, he also added a lengthy dissent in which he brutally criticized the way in which the law was interpreted in the case.

The case pertained to Miguel Games-Perez owning a gun after having been convicted of a felony, which is against federal law. Gorsuch argued that because the law, as written, is unambiguous in that it requires the defendant to knowingly possess a firearm and also know that one is a felon, Games-Perez should get a fair hearing:

"People sit in prison because our circuit's case law allows the government to put them there without proving a statutorily specified element of the charged crime."

Gorsuch argued that while Games-Perez was "prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. 924(a)(2) for 'knowingly violat[ing]' 922(g), a statute that in turn prohibits (1) a convicted felon (2) from possessing a firearm (3) in interstate commerce...to win a conviction under our governing panel precedent in United States v. Capps...the government had to prove only that Mr. Games-Perez knew he possessed a firearm, not that he also knew he was a convicted felon."

Gorsuch wrote that a "state court judge repeatedly (if mistakenly) represented to him [Games-Perez] that the state court deferred judgment on which his current conviction hinges did not constitute a felony conviction...Given these repeated misstatements from the court itself, Mr. Games-Perez surely has a triable claim he didn't know his state court deferred judgment amounted to a felony conviction."

He added that because of the precedent set in Capps, the government never had to prove Games-Perez knew he was a felon. Gorsuch decried such a precedent because it stands in contradiction to the written text of the law:

"Just stating Capp's holding makes the problem clear enough: it's interpretation--reading Congress's mens rea requirement as leapfrogging over the first statutorily specified element and touching down only at the second listed element--defies grammatical gravity and linguistic logic."

Eighteen pages later, Gorsuch concluded: "Respectfully, I submit, this is a case where we should follow the Court's lead, enforce the law as Congress wrote it, and grant Mr. Games-Perez the day in court the law guarantees him."

3. He Dislikes Federal Overreach

In August 2016, Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion for a case in which he scorched the "Chevron doctrine." According to The Washington Post, "Chevron" is "the doctrine that provides that courts must defer to permissible agency interpretations of ambiguous statutory language."
Gorsuch wrote:

"There’s an elephant in the room with us today. We have studiously attempted to work our way around it and even left it unremarked. But the fact is Chevron and Brand X permit executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers’ design. Maybe the time has come to face the behemoth...

the framers sought to ensure that judicial judgments “may not lawfully be revised, overturned or refused faith and credit by” the elected branches of government...Yet this deliberate design, this separation of functions aimed to ensure a neutral decisionmaker for the people’s disputes, faces more than a little pressure from Brand X. Under Brand X’s terms, after all, courts are required to overrule their own declarations about the meaning of existing law in favor of interpretations dictated by executive agencies...

Whatever the agency may be doing under Chevron, the problem remains that courts are not fulfilling their duty to interpret the law and declare invalid agency actions inconsistent with those interpretations in the cases and controversies that come before them...That’s a problem for the judiciary. And it is a problem for the people whose liberties may now be impaired not by an independent decisionmaker seeking to declare the law’s meaning as fairly as possible — the decisionmaker promised to them by law — but by an avowedly politicized administrative agent seeking to pursue whatever policy whim may rule the day."

In his whipping of federal overreach, Gorsuch even quoted Justice Frankfurter: "'...The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions' imposed by the Constitution."

Gorsuch exhibits clear disdain for the accumulation and consolidation of power in the federal government, and for conservatives, that's a win.

4. He's a Staunch Supporter of Religious Freedom

As reported by Eric Citron of SCOTUS Blog:

Followers of the Supreme Court will recognize two recent cases in which Gorsuch participated on the 10th Circuit, Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius and Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell. In Hobby Lobby, Gorsuch wrote a concurrence in the en banc 10th Circuit that sided with the company and its owners. He stressed the need to accept these parties’ own conceptions regarding the requirements of their faith, and held (among other things) that they were likely to prevail on claims that the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act substantially burdened their religious exercise in violation of RFRA. This position was largely vindicated in the subsequent decision by the Supreme Court.

Citron goes on to note several other cases which Gorsuch covered, one of which involved a Ten Commandments display:

In Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, in 2007, Gorsuch joined a dissent from denial of rehearing en banc in a case in which the 10th Circuit had limited the ability of the government to display a donated Ten Commandments monument in a public park without accepting all other offers of donated monuments.

Gorsuch has a sterling record of defending religious liberty, especially as it pertains to organizations defending themselves from federal government overreach.

5. He was Easily Confirmed in 2006

The Denver Post writes that when Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006, his "nomination was approved on a voice vote" in the Senate. No official tally was taken because Gorsuch's nomination "wasn’t deemed controversial."

Considering his smooth confirmation a decade ago, his appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States should be equally uncontroversial. However, as Gorsuch wrote in his essay for National Review, SCOTUS nomination hearings have become a political war zone. Moreover, after Republicans stalled Obama nominee Merrick Garland for ten months following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, expect a contentious process.

BONUS! He Likes the Outdoors

According to Politico, Gorsuch, 49, "is an outdoorsman who fishes, hunts, and skis." A man who hunts is going to be a friend to the Second Amendment.

Conclusion

There are always reasons to be cautious about allegedly conservative, textualist SCOTUS nominees. Conservatives have been burned in the past--most recently by Chief Justice John Roberts, who twice rewrote the law to accommodate the Affordable Care Act. However, after an examination of Judge Neil Gorsuch's legal record, it appears that he's not only eminently qualified for a seat on the bench, but also a meticulous jurist who will stick to the letter of the law, regardless of his own opinions.

As Gorsuch himself said: "If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong."

[Ryan Ruck]

From Ted Cruz on Facebook:

Last year, after the unexpected passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Senate Republicans drew a line in the sand on the behalf of the American people. Exercising our constitutional authority, we advised President Obama that we would not consent to a Supreme Court nominee until We the People, in the presidential election, were able to choose between an originalist and a progressive vision of the Constitution.

In November, the People spoke, clearly. They elected President Donald Trump, who had repeatedly promised to nominate a justice firmly committed to the following the law and the original understanding of the Constitution. Today, with the nomination of the Honorable Neil Gorsuch from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, President Trump has fulfilled that promise, and the rule of law will be all the better for it.

Like the renowned justice he is set to replace, Judge Gorsuch is brilliant and immensely talented. He has impeccable qualifications, having clerked at the Supreme Court, excelled in private practice, served at the highest levels of the Justice Department, and garnered a stellar reputation over the past decade as an appellate judge. More importantly, though, he also mirrors Justice Scalia in that he has a proven track record of honoring the Constitution, following the text of the law, and refraining from imposing his policy preferences from the bench. As a result of his fidelity to law, he has proven to be a champion of federalism, the constitutional separation of powers, religious liberty, and all of the fundamental liberties enshrined in our Bill of Rights. I couldn’t be happier with his selection.

Indeed, I wholeheartedly applaud President Trump for nominating Judge Gorsuch. Our country desperately needs Supreme Court justices who revere the Constitution and are willing to elevate it over their own personal preferences, and Judge Gorsuch has demonstrated that faithfulness. Eleven years ago, the Senate was so confident in Judge Gorsuch’s abilities that it confirmed him by voice vote. In the time since, he has shown himself worthy of that distinction, and I would hope that my Senate colleagues give him the respect he deserves this time around, as well, and support his confirmation.

[Ryan Ruck]

NRA Applauds Neil Gorsuch's Nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court

January 31, 2017

The National Rifle Association (NRA) applauds the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the United States Supreme Court.

“President Trump has made an outstanding choice in nominating Judge Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court. He has an impressive record that demonstrates his support for the Second Amendment,” said Chris W. Cox, Executive Director, NRA-ILA. “We urge the Senate to swiftly confirm Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, just as it did in confirming him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit by a unanimous voice vote.”

During his tenure on the Tenth Circuit, Gorsuch has demonstrated his belief that the Constitution should be applied as the framers intended. To that end, he has supported the individual right to self-defense. Specifically, he wrote in an opinion that "the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own firearms and may not be infringed lightly."

“On behalf of our five million members, the NRA strongly supports Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. We will be activating our members and tens of millions of supporters throughout the country in support of Judge Gorsuch. He will protect our right to keep and bear arms and is an outstanding choice to fill Justice Scalia's seat,” concluded Cox.

[Ryan Ruck]

Gorsuch is officially confirmed!

Thank God Scalia's seat is safe.

Now if we can just get a few of those other fossilized lefties to kick off...

[American Patriot]

Now, all we have to do is wait for that hag to die. Or quit. She said she'd quit. I didn't believe her then and I don't think she will now.

[Ryan Ruck]

Now, all we have to do is wait for that hag to die. Or quit. She said she'd quit. I didn't believe her then and I don't think she will now.

Politico: Trump White House Is Getting Things Ready For A Second SCOTUS Vacancy

April 7, 2017

This morning Judge Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. For such a non-controversial figure, Gorsuch experienced the full might of the Democratic Party’s attack machine. Still sour at Senate Republicans blocking Merrick Garland, Obama’s first pick to fill the vacancy left by the late Antonin Scalia, through the Biden rule—the Left was determined to stop Gorsuch at all costs. Despite having broad support from across the spectrum in the legal scholar realm—Obama’s former solicitor general supported his nomination—and the highest rating from the American Bar Association, Democrats formed a united front to stop him. They had the votes to block Gorsuch through a procedural hurdle, denying Senate Republicans the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and move to the final confirmation vote. As a result, Senate Republicans nuked the rules, allowing for Gorsuch to be confirmed by a simple majority. Not liking someone because a Republican president nominated him or her isn’t a good enough reason to block a judge. Democrats learned that the hard way.

Now, should a second vacancy occur, a) Republicans will not have as much trouble to confirm this person; and b) the composition of the Court could become more decidedly conservative. This is why it was probably best for the Democrats to keep their powder dry, but we’ve crossed that bridge. Even right now, the Trump White House is preparing to set the groundwork for that second vacancy and to fill as many as 100 vacancies in the federal court system. The rumor is that Justice Anthony Kennedy is set to retire shortly and that Gorsuch’s confirmation would be the signal that his seat would be in good hands. Apparently, both Trump and Kennedy’s children are creating this back channel of communication, as Don. Jr. and Kennedy’s son, Justin, know each other. Politico had more:

The White House has also closely monitored retirement chatter by tapping into the network of former Kennedy clerks, a group that includes Gorsuch himself. Some in the legal world viewed Gorsuch’s selection — he would be the first Supreme Court clerk to serve alongside a former boss — as an olive branch to Kennedy that, should he retire next, his seat would be in reliable presidential hands.

Those close to Trump’s judicial-selection process stress that they’re not pressuring Kennedy to hang up his robe, only seeking to put him at ease.

But as they wait for a decision they cannot control, White House officials have already set in motion plans to fill the more than 100 lower court vacancies, including more than 10 percent of the crucial seats on various U.S. Courts of Appeals, in a bid to tug America’s courts in a more conservative direction for decades to come.

The Trump playbook for those lower court picks is hidden in plain sight.

Trump took the unusual step on the campaign of producing a public list of 21 possible candidates for the Supreme Court. That pool of judicial talent — in particular, younger judges serving on state supreme courts — are now the front-runners to fill top federal court vacancies, according to three people involved in Trump’s judge-selection process.

[…]

While Democrats do not have the votes to block Trump nominees, they can withhold so-called “blue slips,” the century-old tradition of home-state senators approving judges representing their states. One Trump official said it’s possible that the White House could use holdover Obama appointees as bargaining chips for more speedily confirming Trump picks.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are readying for the biggest fight if and when Kennedy retires.

[…]

One new name percolating at the highest levels of the Trump administration is Brett Kavanaugh, a 52-year-old who has already served a decade on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

That may not be an accident. He, too, is a former clerk of Justice Kennedy.

Democrats had their last tantrum over Gorsuch. There was simply no way that even moderates would allow for the Left to butcher the ascension of a qualified candidate, who is also respected by liberals, to be a victim of partisanship. While the margin for error for the 52-vote Senate Republican majority is slim, they also united to foil this unprecedented filibuster of Gorsuch. It wouldn’t shock me if Democrats bring up Garland again if that second vacancy opens up, but at least we have to votes to invoke cloture and get whoever it may be through the process. Conservatives might have a shot to alter the balance of the court towards a solid 5-4 (maybe 6-3) majority. The only annoying drawback is that the Left might rehash the tired line of The Federalist Society being some sort of secret society. But we’re not snowflakes. We’ll just bear and grin it since, well—we have the votes to ignore the Democrats' whining now.

Although I've heard Ginsburg is planning to stay on until 2020. Word is also that Thomas wanted to retire while Obama was in office but agreed to stay on until he was out. Could potentially be Breyer or Kennedy as well.

All are definite possibilities in the next 8 years.

[American Patriot]

Ding dong, the witch is dead (to me), the Wicked Witch is dead.

Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead lyrics



Munchkins
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
Mayor
As Mayor of the Munchkin City, In the County of the Land of Oz, I welcome you most regally.
Barrister
But we've got to verify it legally, to see
Mayor
To see?
Barrister
If she
Mayor
If she?
Barrister
Is morally, ethic'lly
Father No.1
Spiritually, physically
Father No. 2
Positively, absolutely
Munchkins
Undeniably and reliably Dead
Coroner
As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her.
And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead.
Mayor
Then this is a day of Independence For all the Munchkins and their descendants
Barrister
If any.
Mayor
Yes, let the joyous news be spread The wicked Old Witch at last is dead!

[Ryan Ruck]

Another possible replacement coming up...

Justice Anthony Kennedy To Retire As Early as Monday (Report)

June 23, 2017

President Donald J. Trump impressed conservative by keeping his word and appointing conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Now, NBC News pundit and MSNBC host Christopher Hayes has announced there’s a strong chance Justice Antony Kennedy will retire on Monday. A liberal, Hayes believes the moves is the end of Roe v. Wade, the disasterous pro-abortion Supreme Court Case:

Just a reminder: there's a chance Kennedy announces his retirement on Monday, paving the way for the end of Roe.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 22, 2017

Trump campaign insider Roger Stone confirmed that he’s hearing the rumors, too:

(Sorry for the Alex Jones video, it's in the article)




Liberals on Twitter immediately freaked out. This is hilarious:

Thanks for that cheery thought. I'm running out of nightmare space.

— Ed Kako (@edkako) June 22, 2017

"Lots of talk in conservative circles" aka hope and rumors from a**holes.

— Shawn Peirce (@_silversmith) June 22, 2017

That would be an act of war. I'm serious. I am not a lesser human b'cuz I'm female. Gorsuch is a stolen nom. whose ruling's are void to me.

— Moola (@MooPersists) June 23, 2017

Also no chance at a good decision on redistricting after that

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 22, 2017