Amy Coney Barrett (photo-
2017 via ND Law School)
JRH 9/29/20
Your generosity is always appreciated - various credit,
check
& debit cards are accepted by my PayPal
account:
Or support by getting in the
Coffee from home business –
OR just buy some
FEEL GOOD coffee, that includes immune boosting products.
******************************
Amy Coney Barrett Loves Liberty and America
Amy Coney Barrett May Reshape [Save] America's
Society
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 9/26/2020 10:39 PM
Judge Amy Coney Barrett was officially nominated by
President Donald J Trump on September 26th 2020 (4:06 PM CST), to fill the
vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court, a
move that was anticipated days in advance by both critics on the left and the
right of the political spectrum. Whatever the criticisms, she isn't a
"John Roberts" in skirts or a "statist" as portrayed by
some of her conservative critics. More conservative than Roberts or Kavanaugh
either one, a Catholic and a mother of seven children, Coney Barrett is an Originalist and a Textualist when it comes to reading
the U.S. Constitution, and she will be a staunch defender of individual
liberty, from this position on the highest court in the land, once she is
confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
[Blog Editor: Originalism and Textualism in the Scalia/Barrett
perspective:
o Justice Scalia and the Proper Role of a Judge;
By Enrique Schaerer; The
Federalist Society; 3/7/16
o Amy Coney Barrett speaks on originalism, constitutional
interpretations; By Natalie Weber; The Observer; 9/13/18
President Trump offered this glowing nomination, [JOS]
stating: "Today it is my honor to
nominate one of our nation's most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the
Supreme Court. She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect,
sterling credentials, and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution, Judge Amy
Coney Barrett." As Ms. Barrett stood at his side, in the Rose Garden,
classy and poised, he also offered, "I looked and I studied, and you are
very eminently qualified."
Wasn't it poignant to witness Amy Coney Barrett (ACB)
nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court on the 34th anniversary of her mentor
Justice Antonin Scalia's swearing in ceremony to the Supreme Court? It was
wonderful and beautiful to see Maureen Scalia in the company of the gathered
guests, for this momentous occasion.
In October 2017, Amy Barrett's nomination to the federal
court was confirmed by a vote of 55 to 43 to the 7th Circuit Court.
Her confirmation actually received the affirmative support of Democratic
Senators Joe Manchin (WVA), Tim Kaine (VA) and former senator Joe Donnelly
(IN), but now, with so important an opening at stake, the Democrats have once
more found a reason to become unreasonable to the point of being unhinged on
this matter, since they are trying to force Senator Mitch McConnell to wait
until after the election, offering every disingenuous and falsely premised excuse
under the sun.
Does anybody really believe if the situation was reversed
that Democrats would refrain from seating the nominee of their choice, for any
reason they chose? I think not.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett thanked the President and accepted
the nomination with these words: "I am deeply honored by the confidence
you have placed in me. I fully understand that this is a momentous decision for
a President and if the Senate does me the honor of confirming me, I pledge to
discharge the responsibility of this job to the best of my ability. I love the
United States and I love the United States Constitution. I am truly humbled by
the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court."
That's music to our ears. Finally, someone in a high
government position says "I love the United States" out loud and
unashamedly.
Ms. Barrett added: "I clerked for Justice Scalia more
than twenty years ago but the lessons I learned still resonate. His judicial
philosophy is mine too. A judge must be resolute and setting aside any policy
views they might hold."
On September 23rd, Representative Mike Johnson (LA) wrote an
opinion piece for Fox News, that stated, in part: "Amy has been
respected her whole life as a person of the highest moral integrity, and she
has all the qualities that America needs and deserves in a Supreme Court Justice.
She is brilliant, principled, hardworking, strong, and gracious. She reveres
the Constitution, adheres to an originalist philosophy, and teaches and
practices the importance of judicial restraint."
No one can pretend that most of the hostility America
currently sees aimed at Coney Barrett comes from the anti-American, anti-God,
anti-Life Socialists and Marxists of the Democratic Party, who are intent on
making certain the Supreme Court continues to stray from its proper
constitutional role and also in making Barrett's confirmation as incendiary an
event as possible, because at the heart of this fight lies Roe v. Wade
and the conjured and non-existent abortion "right". These leftists
want another Ginsburg type judicial activist, the sort that initially swept
away the laws of fifty states in 1973 and trampled on the most basic
fundamental human right, without any justification in the text, original
understanding, logic or historical precedent within the Constitution. And, as
the bottom line for the Democratic Party, especially its current presidential
nominee, Joe Biden, any Supreme Court nominee must pledge fealty to this
unconstitutional ruling.
[Blog Editor: From a rule of law perspective (AND
there is a Will of God perspective), Roe v. Wade was an egregious
use of Judicial Activism creating law that according to the Constitution is the
job of Congress:
o The three fundamental problems with Roe v. Wade;
By Paul Stark; Minnesota Citizens
Concerned for Life (MCCL.org);
1/20/17
o Controversial “Roe v. Wade” Movie Reveals Truth About
Infamous Supreme Court Case; By Lisa Shaw; The New American; 11/4/18
Virtually every objection from the Leftist Democrats of
Congress center on Amy Coney Barrett's Catholic faith and the fact that she is
the mother of seven children who holds the view that abortion is "always
immoral", and she has a clear anti-abortion record, from her three years
on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, having already ruled to restrict access to
abortions in two separate cases. Along with her expressed openness to severely
limiting, or perhaps even ending, Roe v. Wade, if confirmed, Judge
Barrett will consolidate the conservative majority and shift the balance of
power on the court decisively towards a more conservative trend, shaping the
American society for decades to come.
In October 2015, Judge Barrett signed a joint 'Letter
to Synod Fathers From Catholic Women', in which [JOS] she affirmed "the dignity of
the human person and the value of human life from conception to natural
death", and in January 2013, [JOS] she spoke of her own conviction that
"life begins at conception." It's not hard to imagine her helping
create a majority on the Court that eventually will overturn Roe v. Wade,
possibly through an expanded view of what may legally constitute a
"person" and all the rights that are associated with it.
During the September 6th 2017 Senate confirmation hearing
for Amy Coney Barrett, despite Article VI of the Constitution
forbidding the disqualification of anyone due to their religious convictions,
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, dove right
in with a vicious attempt to impugn Ms. Barrett, as she told Barrett that "the
dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern ... ."
Barrett pointedly and firmly responded:
"I see no conflict between having a sincerely held faith and duties as a
judge. I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the
law."
In an email to CBS News, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of
the Susan B. Anthony List -- an anti-abortion group, gave high praise to Judge
Barrett, stating: "She is the perfect
combination of brilliant jurist and a woman who brings the argument to the
court that is potentially the contrary to the views of the sitting women
justices." [Blog Editor: Breitbart found the quote to the NYT. After
finding that, I didn’t look for the CBS sourcing.]
Ultimately, having graduated magnum cum laude from Rhodes
College in Tennessee and summa cum laude from Notre Dame Law School, with the
highest honors, she is extraordinarily qualified given the record of her
career. She has litigated constitutional, commercial and criminal cases in both
trial and appellate courts, as an associate at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca
& Lewin in D.C., and she has taught law at the University of Notre Dame Law
School, since 2002. Her appeal and standing as a woman of highly great
intellect who is well qualified to assume a seat on the Supreme Court is
further bolstered by the fact that she also clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia,
one of the most conservative Justices on the Supreme Court before his
death.
In 2017, Barrett described Chief Justice
John Roberts' ruling on the Affordable Care Act as something that went beyond
its plausible meaning, differentiating it as a "tax" rather than a
penalty, in order to save it. Barrett has also written that Supreme Court
precedents aren't sacrosanct, and the Marxist illiberal Democrats have taken
that as a threat to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that gave legitimacy
to abortion "laws" nationwide.
In June 2020, Judge Barrett was the only dissenter regarding the ruling that blocked federal
enforcement of President Trump's public charge immigration law in Illinois.
Immigrants were prevented by this law from gaining legal residency in the U.S.,
if they relied on the welfare system, i.e. food stamps and housing vouchers,
and it changed who was considered a "public charge" under the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
By and large, once one fully assesses and analyzes Judge Amy
Coney Barrett's decisions and rulings, one finds that she isn't quite the
government shill some would portray her as being. Just look at U.S v. Dimitris Terry (Feb 14th
2019), U.S. v David Watson (Aug 17th
2018), U.S. v Mandy L. Hagen (Jan 2nd
2019), U.S. v. Dandre Moody (Feb 7th
2019), and Alondous Briggs (Mar 27th 2019). These are cases where Barrett was
skeptical of the government's arguments, as it tried to put individuals in
prison, but her record does present a mixed-bag of sorts, since at times, she
has also rejected claims by defendants and prisoners that her colleagues found
credible; in other words, she does the best she can to give the most accurate
and true ruling possible, based on her own experience and wealth of legal
knowledge.
With a Fourth Amendment violation at the heart of U.S. v.
David Watson, Barrett concluded that an anonymous tip did not provide
reasonable suspicion for police to stop a car driven by a man with a felony
record in possession of a firearm. She noted: "The anonymous tip did not
justify an immediate stop because the caller's report was not sufficiently
reliable. The caller used a borrowed phone, which would make it difficult to
find him, and his sighting of guns did not describe a likely emergency or crime
-- he reported gun possession, which is lawful."
However -- as I mention that I'm no lawyer but I do tend to
research several layers deeper than most and I'm extremely conservative
-- many other conservatives have taken a fallacious understanding of
Barrett's recent ruling and mischaracterized her act of joining the majority in
[JOS] Illinois Republican Party et al. v. J.B. Pritzker,
Governor of Illinois, regarding the size of crowds allowed at political functions
at the time, as "(allowing) Democrats to rip up the Constitution under the
guise of safety". I would urge everybody to read the full text of the
actual ruling, while noting that Kavanaugh rejected the Illinois Republican
Party's argument first. Judge Barrett did take the disappointing maneuver of
erroneously (in my opinion), hiding behind the Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)
ruling, but as she notes, basically, the Illinois Republican Party made a
flawed and erroneous argument of their own and have no one to blame but their
own legal team. But, one might also note, that recently, Western District of
Pennsylvania Judge William Stickman rejected Jacobson as any argument
for upholding the lockdown orders of Governor Wolf.
Daniel Suhr of the Liberty Justice Center argued the
party should receive the same exemption as religious groups, because religious
and political speech rights "live at the heart of the First Amendment."
Judge Barrett stated that it might be different, they had
argued that the governor didn't have the authority to make the order, but in
this narrow scope, if the governor's group-size limits exempted movements such
as Black Lives Matter protests that have been conducted over the duration of
his executive order, "you're talking apples to apples, you're talking
political speech to political speech, and it's the same right at issue. But
here, the exception that's been carved out for churches isn't just speech to
speech, it's not apples to apples. It's speech plus free exercise against
speech." She further noted that the First Amendment somewhat treats free
speech and free religious exercise "a little bit as apples and
oranges", since they're separated into two distinct categories.
U.S. Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve concurred with Barrett, as
she noted that the Republican Party's argument left the court wondering where
it would draw a line distinguishing First Amendment rights about political
speech from First Amendment rights "about some other cause."
Professor
Stephen Yelderman, a longtime friend and colleague at
Notre Dame, recently noted: "... people are
reducing Amy to an ideological category instead of taking her for who she is --
an intelligent, thoughtful, open-minded person."
In her closing statement as she accepted the nomination,
Judge Amy Coney Barrett gently and humbly offered: "It is important at a
moment like this to acknowledge family and friends. But this evening, I also
want to acknowledge you, my fellow Americans. The President has nominated me to
serve on the United States Supreme Court, and that institution belongs to all
of us.
If confirmed, I would not assume that role for the sake of
those in my own circle, and certainly not for my own sake. I would assume this
role to serve you. I would discharge the judicial oath, which requires me to
administer justice without respect to persons, do equal right to the poor and
rich, and faithfully and impartially discharge my duties under the United
States Constitution."
Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a true American who loves our
country, just as much, if not more, than most Americans, and she has carried
herself as an impeccable, honorable and consummate professional. Her love of
liberty for all Americans, along with her body of work offer the proof that she
will absolutely rule on cases based on the text of the Constitution as written,
and in the process, she won't hesitate to hold the government and its officials'
feet to the constitutional fire, as a serious jurist and a superb Supreme Court
Justice. Not since the day Justice Antonin Scalia was sworn into the Supreme
Court on September 26th 1986 has there been a Justice of such a high caliber
presented to the Court, and no American should doubt that she is qualified, as
most who have followed her career rest assured that she will bring a much
needed refreshing esteem and renewed sense of honor to the U.S. Supreme
Court.
By Justin O. Smith
________________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Text embraced by brackets are
by the Editor. Except where indicated by “JOS”, embedded links are by the
Editor.
© Justin O. Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment