LIT COMMENTARY
We’ve edited a recent Federalist Society video where Don McGahn and Mitch McConnell were the speakers.
LIT has also included the full video link in this article and suggest you spend the time to watch it fully.
McConnell’s years of experience in politics and government combined with McGahn’s position and assistance, they effectively planned a takeover of the judiciary together – and used the Democrats own legislative changes against them – to appoint record numbers of judges and justices to the courts.
The Republicans went on a quick assault and found the Democrats asleep and when they finally stirred, they reacted emotionally, rather than a well-planned counter-attack and were easily defeated. This sounds familiar…the impeachment of Donald Trump has just ended the same way.
If you’re not smart, you’ll lose a war quickly if you don’t have the right generals in place. Remember, McConnell sleeps with the Chinese by his side – so Trump had an alliance of two sets of intelligence and party schemers as well as McGahn, ready to attack the sleepy and unprepared Democratic opposition. As history confirms, the Democrats were annihilated.
Below we’ve reviewed the McConnell/McGahn strategy by reflecting on their statements and retrieving the all important public judge list which Trump released to replace Justice Scalia (after his death) on the vacant US Supreme Court.
This, according to McConnell, would be the deciding factor which helped Trump win the 2016 election and also provided the vehicle for McConnell to execute his authority in a far more powerful role in government due to the control the Republicans were awarded by this 2016 election triumph.
Donald Trump Releases List of Possible Supreme Court Picks
Originally Published; May 18, 2016 | Republished by LIT; Feb 6, 2020
Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees on Wednesday as part of an effort to quell concerns that he would not select conservative jurists.
The unusual move comes as Mr. Trump is looking to unify the Republican Party behind him and win over critics who remain skeptical about his candidacy. While some Republicans who oppose Mr. Trump have considered supporting Hillary Clinton or sitting out the election, he has regularly reminded them that the future of the Supreme Court is at stake.
After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, critics of Mr. Trump expressed concern about whether he had the judgment to fill vacancies on the court. He had joked about appointing his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal appeals court judge in Philadelphia, before suggesting that he would look for someone in the mold of Justice Scalia and later promising to furnish some prospective candidates.
Mr. Trump said in a statement that his shortlist was “representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value and, as president, I plan to use this list as a guide to nominate our next United States Supreme Court justices.” The Trump campaign did not share how it settled on the names, but Mr. Trump has previously said that he was seeking guidance from conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.
Mr. Trump’s selections consisted of six federal appeals court judges appointed by President George W. Bush and five state supreme court justices appointed by Republican governors. All are white, and eight of the 11 are men.
They include several judges who are favorites of conservative legal scholars, like Dianne S. Sykes, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit who was appointed by President Bush and had been mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee in his second term. Mr. Trump has said that he would consider her for a Supreme Court appointment.
Several of the jurists previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court justices after law school. The federal appeals court judges on the list included Steven M. Colloton of the Eighth Circuit, a former clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and Raymond M. Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit, who clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
The state supreme court justices included Joan Larsen of Michigan, a former clerk to Justice Scalia, and also Allison H. Eid of Colorado, David Stras of Minnesota and Thomas Rex Lee of Utah, all three of whom clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. In addition, Judge Lee’s father, Rex, served as solicitor general in the Reagan administration, and his brother, Mike Lee, is a Republican senator from Utah.
Notably, Justice Willett has repeatedly mocked Mr. Trump and his presidential aspirations on his Twitter account, including a June 2015 posting in which he wrote: “Donald Trump haiku—Who would the Donald/Name to #SCOTUS? The mind reels./ *weeps—can’t finish tweet*”
Several of the judges on Mr. Trump’s list have questioned abortion rights. They included Raymond W. Gruender, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit who led a majority that permitted South Dakota to enforce a law requiring doctors to tell women that abortions “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being.”
They also included William H. Pryor Jr. of the 11th Circuit, whose appointment Senate Democrats had tried to block in part because, in his previous role as Alabama attorney general, he denounced Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion, as having manufactured “a constitutional right to murder an unborn child.”
The next president could end up having to fill several Supreme Court vacancies, including the one left open by Justice Scalia’s death. Mr. Trump has urged the Senate to delay voting on President Obama’s nominee to fill that vacancy, Judge Merrick B. Garland, in hopes that he will have the opportunity to fill the opening.
The initial reaction to the choices was mixed.
Nan Aron, the president of the liberal Alliance for Justice Action Council, deplored Mr. Trump’s choice of potential justices as “dangerous,” noting that her group had opposed several of the Bush appointees. Her group had not researched some of the state judges yet, she said.
“The list includes some of the most extreme conservatives on the federal bench today,” she said. “Their opinions demonstrate open hostility to Americans’ rights and liberties, including reproductive justice and environmental, consumer and worker protections. They have ruled consistently in favor of the powerful over everyone else. They would move the needle even further to the right on the Supreme Court.”
Ed Whelan, a former clerk to Justice Scalia and a conservative legal commentator, praised several of the names on the list but reserved judgment about whether conservatives should trust Mr. Trump to follow through on what he says he will do.
“It’s a good list of some of the outstanding judges who give ample sign of being faithful to the Constitution,” Mr. Whelan said. “Whether a President Trump could actually be counted on to pick folks like this is a different question.”
Some of Mr. Trump’s most vocal conservative critics remained doubtful despite the credentials of the judges on the list. Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger who has been working to derail his campaign, insisted that Mr. Trump still could not be trusted with the court.
“Like every clause of every sentence uttered in every breath Donald Trump takes, this is all subject to change,” Mr. Erickson said. “He will waffle, he will backtrack, and he simply cannot be believed.”
Possible Trump Supreme Court Pick Has Mocked Him on Twitter
Meet Texas state Supreme Court Justice Don Willett
MotherJones; May 18, 2016
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump released a short list on Wednesday of 11 judges he’d consider appointing to the Supreme Court if elected. Among the contenders: Texas state Supreme Court Justice Don Willett. Willett is a rarity among judges in that he also runs an active—and candid—Twitter account, under the handle @JusticeWillett. And with relative frequency, he’s used his platform to troll Trump himself.
In response to Trump’s comments at a February debate about Justice Samuel Alito “signing” a bill:
Here he is making fun of Trump’s religious outreach:
Here he is making fun of Trump’s higher-education venture:
Here he is making fun of Trump’s signature public-works plan:
Supreme Court Reverses Fifth Circuit and S.D. Texas Court’s Interpretation of “Actual Fraud”
SCOTUS: We interpret actual fraud to encompass fraudulent conveyance schemes, even when those schemes do not involve a false representation.
Roman Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Case: Catholic Judges’ Harmless Error Protects Sexual Predators
As with the Boy Scouts, where practically every judge sends their kids, the Catholic Church is another protected legal community.
Mackie Wolf: Stop Litigation Elder Abuse is the Clear Message to the Wolves in Supreme Court Opinion
LIT founder is suing Mackie Wolf, creditor rights law firm for elder abuse by commencing a wrongful foreclosure against an 85 yr-old widower.
Trump Releases Names of Supreme Court Picks. Subject to Change. Offer May Vary.
By Erick Erickson | May 18, 2016, 03:26pm – REPUBLISHED by LIT due to “server error” when linking to this article at ‘TheFirstTV’ (republishing Resurgent Article)’ on Dec. 4, 2020
Donald Trump has come up with a list of picks for the United States Supreme Court. They include Justice Don Willet of the Texas Supreme Court and Diane Sykes, a noted conservative in Wisconsin. There are a number of others.
The list of conservative federal and state judges includes Steven Colloton of Iowa, Allison Eid of Colorado and Raymond Gruender of Missouri.
Also on the list are: Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, Joan Larsen of Michigan, Thomas Lee of Utah, William Pryor of Alabama, David Stras of Minnesota, Diane Sykes of Wisconsin and Don Willett of Texas. Trump had previously named Pryor and Sykes as examples of kind of justices he would choose.
But of course, like every clause of every sentence uttered in every breath Donald Trump takes, this is all subject to change.
The moment a reporter or a Clinton highlights something potentially controversial, Trump will run from the person he has named. He will waffle, he will backtrack, and he simply cannot be believed.
This list is a limited time offer, subject to change, and may vary from sentence to sentence. Therein lies the ultimate problem with the Trump candidacy. He’s selling a gourmet sandwich and when you unwrap it, it’s just a turd between two slices of white bread.
By the time I arrived at this paragraph, there was already reports circulating that this list is only for Antonin Scalia’s seat and Trump will not be bound by the list for the rest of his term in office, should the American public dare to give him a term.
