#and oversaw the overturning of roe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

arpov-blog-blog · 3 years ago

Text

..."It’s hard to believe, given how poorly things have been going for Democrats this year. But the midterm election landscape is suddenly looking a lot less grim.

Democrats recently inched ahead of Republicans on the generic ballot, a leading indicator of midterm performance. Kansas demonstrated the salience of Roe v. Wade. And on Tuesday night, a Minnesota special election became the second consecutive contest to suggest Democratic candidates may be better positioned to compete in November than once expected.

“In general, I’m feeling a lot different about Democratic prospects today, on Aug. 10, than I was on May 1,” John Anzalone, the longtime Biden pollster, told Nightly.

In the Minnesota House race,Republican Brad Finstad beat his Democratic opponent in a Republican-leaning district by about 4 percentage points — less than half the margin that Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by in the district in 2020. The Democratic overperformance mirrored the outcome in a Nebraska special election in June.

And that’s not the only promising sign for Democrats. There’s the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe, which prompted a surge in turnout in Kansas and the rejection of an anti-abortion measure last week. Biden is poised to sign a major tax, health care and climate change bill. Gas prices are falling, and inflation — though still high — appeared today to be cooling off.

Then there’s the help Democrats keep getting from Trump. For his own political future, the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago on Monday will almost certainly go down as a positive. Republicans who had been considering challenging Trump for the presidential nomination in 2024 are now having serious second thoughts — or hanging it up altogether.

But for Democrats running in the midterm elections, especially in swing districts and states Trump lost in 2020, the renewed focus on the former president is good news.

“Anything that takes away from the focus on what’s going on in Washington with the Democrats and Joe Biden over the next few months is not going to be helpful to Republican causes,” said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist in Wisconsin who oversaw George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign in the state."

1 note · View note

sarcasticcynic · 6 years ago

Link

You might remember Georgia’s governor, Republican Brian Kemp, because he was previously Georgia’s Secretary of State; as Secretary of State, refused to recuse himself and oversaw his own election; also as Secretary of State, systematically suppressed tens of thousands of minority votes; falsely accused Democrats of trying to “hack” the election; falsely accused his African-American opponent, Stacy Abrams, of trying to “steal” the election; and ultimately declared victory over Abrams with a narrow margin of about 1.4%.

Georgia now joins South Carolina, Ohio, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Kentucky in enacting draconian anti-abortion laws they know are unconstitutional, with the specific intent of getting the issue before Trump’s newly conservative U.S. Supreme Court, overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and outlawing abortion nationwide. The new Georgia law specifically “exposes the mother to criminal prosecution,” not just the doctor.

Don’t for a moment imagine this is “the will of the people”:

“Seven of 10 Georgia voters say they oppose overturning the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that guaranteed the right to an abortion. ... Nearly 50% of Republicans, 83% of independents and 88% of Democrats in Georgia said the decision shouldn’t be overturned.”

0 notes

newsintodays-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Trump's Supreme Court nominee on track as Senate hearing ends

New Post has been published on https://newsintoday.info/2018/09/07/trumps-supreme-court-nominee-on-track-as-senate-hearing-ends/

Trump's Supreme Court nominee on track as Senate hearing ends

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court pick, on Friday appeared on track for Senate confirmation after a contentious four-day hearing in which he avoided any major stumbles even as Democrats tried to derail his nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, asked by conservative host Hugh Hewitt in an MSNBC interview if he had any doubts about Kavanaugh’s confirmation, replied: “None whatsoever.”

McConnell predicted that Kavanaugh, the conservative federal appeals court judge picked by Trump for a lifetime job on the top U.S. judicial body, would be on the Supreme Court when it opens its new term on Oct. 1.

Trump’s fellow Republicans control the Senate by a narrow margin. With no sign of any Republicans planning to vote against Kavanaugh, he seemed poised to win confirmation despite Democratic opposition.

“I think he made a very compelling case that he is one of the most qualified nominees, if not the most qualified, that we’ve seen for the Supreme Court of the United States, and I think I’ve seen 15 of them,” said Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who oversaw the hearing and has served in the Senate since 1981.

Kavanaugh completed two days of lengthy questioning by senators on Thursday night, keeping his composure under intense questioning by Democrats. Kavanaugh is likely to push the conservative-leaning court further to the right, if confirmed.

The hearing ended on Friday after the committee heard from outside witnesses testifying for and against the nomination, with anti-Kavanaugh protesters again interrupting the proceedings.

Among those testifying were two representatives of the American Bar Association, the leading U.S. professional group for lawyers, who said a panel that rates judicial nominees gave Kavanaugh a “well qualified” rating, the highest possible.

FILE PHOTO: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh looks on during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

Trump picked Kavanaugh, 53, to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement in June. After the committee votes on the nomination in the coming weeks, a final Senate vote is expected later in the month.

GENIAL DEMEANOR

During his grueling testimony, Kavanaugh maintained a genial demeanor, blunting some of the most aggressive questioning from Democrats seeking to unsettle him. He trod a careful line when it came to Trump. He refused to be drawn into political controversies and avoided comment on matters such as whether a president can pardon himself or must respond to a subpoena or whether he would recuse himself from cases involving Trump.

Democratic senators expressed concern about what they saw as Kavanaugh’s expansive view of president powers.

John Dean, the former White House counsel who was a key figure in the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation, told the committee Kavanaugh’s past writings and remarks indicate his confirmation would create “the most pro-presidential powers Supreme Court in the modern era.”

On divisive issues that could reach the court such as abortion and gun rights, Kavanaugh declined to offer personal views, restricting himself to reciting Supreme Court precedent.

Kavanaugh signaled respect for the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion nationwide, calling it an important legal precedent that had been reaffirmed by the justices over the decades.

Democrats painted Kavanaugh as a threat to abortion rights. Under questioning by Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, New York University School of Law professor Melissa Murray said that even if he does not back overturning Roe, if Kavanaugh joins fellow conservatives on the high court in upholding a succession of restrictive state laws it could mean “death by a thousand cuts” to a woman’s right to an abortion.

In refusing to engage on Trump, Kavanaugh declined even to condemn the president’s persistent criticism of the federal judiciary.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh holds his pocket size United States Constitution during the third day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 6, 2018. REUTERS/Alex Wroblewski

The president’s first appointee to the high court, Neil Gorsuch, last year told senators Trump’s remarks on the judiciary were “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” The Washington Post reported in December that Gorsuch’s comments had angered Trump and that he had privately considered yanking the nomination.

Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Amanda Becker; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source link

0 notes

blogwonderwebsites · 6 years ago

Text

Business Booker releases Kavanaugh documents but GOP insists they were already cleared

Business Booker releases Kavanaugh documents but GOP insists they were already cleared Business Booker releases Kavanaugh documents but GOP insists they were already cleared http://www.nature-business.com/business-booker-releases-kavanaugh-documents-but-gop-insists-they-were-already-cleared/

Business

Washington (CNN)New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker said Thursday he was ready to risk expulsion from the Senate for making public documents pertinent to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but the GOP mocked him for grandstanding ahead of a possible 2020 run — saying it had already cleared the emails for release.

The showdown dominated questioning of Kavanaugh in the Senate Judiciary Committee on a ill-tempered day that raised new questions about whether President Donald Trump’s pick views the right to abortion as “settled law” but did not appear to contain major errors that could thwart his likely confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate.

In a striking political gambit, Booker, backed up by Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, released emails — which had been designated as “committee confidential” — that reference Kavanaugh’s position on racial profiling and thoughts on Roe v. Wade dating from his time as a White House official under President George W. Bush.

Booker, who as a potential 2020 presidential candidate has an incentive to make a splash in the hearing, said he took the action as an act of “civil disobedience.”

“I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate. … I openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that email right now,” Booker said.

“This is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment,” he added.

Republican Sen John Cornyn warned Booker that releasing documents marked “committee confidential” would break Senate rules.

“Running for president is not an excuse for violating the rules of the Senate,” the Texas Republican said.

Later Thursday, Bill Burck, a lawyer who oversaw the process of providing Bush administration documents, undercut Booker’s grand gesture, saying that the material in question had been cleared on Wednesday night at the request of the senator’s staff.

“We were surprised to learn about Senator Booker’s histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public,” Burck said in a statement.

The office of Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, also said that senators, including Booker, were notified “before they spoke today” that the restrictions on the documents had been waived.

Booker, however, insisted he was in the right, saying he read from the documents aloud in the hearing on Wednesday night long before they were cleared at around 4 a.m. Democrats have repeatedly complained that the White House is withholding tens of thousands of documents relevant to the nomination and wants many more that have been provided released to the public.

The New Jersey senator also said he doubted Cornyn would follow through through on his threats to enforce Senate discipline against him.

“I think he’s like a lot of bullies are: a lot of talk, no action,” Booker said.

The schoolyard taunts underlined how the hearing, ahead of what appears to be Kavanaugh’s likely confirmation, has become another battlefield in the vicious partisanship and complete lack of trust between the parties that is wracking Washington at a critical moment of the Trump era

Booker’s intervention followed a set of glowing headlines for another potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who late Wednesday night appeared to discomfort Kavanaugh with a series of questions designed to find out with whom he had discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

2003 email shows Kavanaugh discussing Roe

In another flashpoint development, a previously unreleased 2003 email from Kavanaugh, while he was an official in the Bush White House, shows him raising the point of whether Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right to an abortion, was settled law of the land.

In the internal White House email, obtained by CNN, Kavanaugh wrote: “I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe v. Wade as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.”

“The point there is in the inferior court point,” Kavanaugh wrote, responding to a draft op-ed that had been circulated for edits between lawmakers and White House staff.

The draft, meant to be submitted under the name of “high-profile, pro-choice” women in support of a Bush judicial nominee, had said that “it is widely understood accepted by legal scholars across the board that Roe v. Wade and its progeny are the settled law of the land.”

During the confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Kavanaugh said: “As a general proposition I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade.”

Trump said during his campaign that he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe. In recent years, Supreme Court nominees have gotten through their confirmation hearings by refusing to say how they would rule on what they say is a hypothetical future case on the issue.

The New York Times first reported the email.

Throughout the contentious hearing, now in its third day, Kavanaugh has tried to give political questions — especially those related to Trump and his potential legal woes — a wide berth.

On Wednesday he insisted that “no one is above the law” but declined to say whether a sitting president must respond to a subpoena.

Senate Democrats have suggested that Kavanaugh could be biased in favor of the President and worry that his views on the primacy of executive power could help Trump evade legal scrutiny.

Booker warned that given Trump’s frequent attacks on the Justice Department there was a “shadow over the independence of the judiciary” and said it was understandable for some Americans to wonder whether a nominee picked by the President would owe loyalty to him or had been nominated to shield him from a criminal investigation.

“My only loyalty is to the Constitution,” Kavanaugh responded. “I have made that clear, I am an independent judge.”

CNN’s David Shortell and Ariane de Vogue contributed to this report.