Reaping What They Sowed

He's now "a full-blown Trumper" in the words of Steve M., who directs us to an August 2016 article in the Huffington Post in which S.A. Goodman wrote

Jill Stein’s platform and value system correlate directly to the ideals Bernie Sanders championed in 2016. For Americans who refuse to abide by the political “extortion” of voting for Clinton because Trump is frightening (even though Bill Clinton likely urged Trump to run), Ajamu Baraka and Dr. Stein represent a viable option. Regardless of Bernie’s endorsement, a great many progressives around the country feel the Democratic Primary was rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton...

Ultimately, Trump’s major policies would never get passed Congress. Specifically, Trump’s border wall, widespread deportations, and immigrant ban won’t achieve the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster by Democrats...

Will Donald Trump’s major policies get 60 votes in the Senate? Will a border wall, mass deportations, or a ban on Muslim immigrants get any votes from Democratic Senators, or even the votes needed from every Republican Senator?

Of course not.

There’s a greater likelihood of Debbie Wasserman Shultz leaving her current job working for Hillary Clinton and joining Jill Stein on the campaign trail.

None of Donald Trump’s major policy objectives­, at least the ones that frighten progressives the most, will get passed the Senate, even if they possibly get through (and even this is a stretch) the House of Representatives....

Therefore, the scare tactic regarding Trump ruling the nation with an iron fist, deporting families at will and banning immigrants, is nothing more than cheap propaganda. Trump will not be able to impose his will upon the American people, and most of his major policy ideas can be blocked by either Congress or the Supreme Court.

Voting for Jill Stein won’t allow Trump to destroy the nation, because on war and Wall Street (the two biggest topics few people in the media have seriously addressed this election), Clinton and Trump have similar policies.

It's a safe bet that a President Hillary Clinton would not have put in charge of Elizabeth Warren's brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney or anyone else who had promised to abolish the CFPB. Nor would she have signed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which (Vox explains) "raises the threshold at which banks are subject to certain federal oversight" and is but one means by which the GOP Congress is humping President Trump's effort to emasculate Dodd-Frank.

And oh, the Supreme Court, which Goodman assured voters horrified at the prospect of a Clinton presidency would block President Trump's "major policy ideas" that Congress would not.

Congress itself has proven itself to be a rubber stamp, of which Trump may have been thinking when he boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in NYC and not lose any votes.

The President's travel ban was upheld on Tuesday by the Court because it wasn't directed against Muslims, though Trump once boasted he was "calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," fashioned a ban against only Muslim-majority nations, then added two non-Muslim nations in what he said was an extension of the earlier ban. The New York
Times reports

The restrictions on Venezuelans apply only to a narrow category of government officials deemed responsible for failing to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security in identifying visa seekers who are security risks.

While the restrictions on North Koreans apply to all, there are hardly any who are allowed by their government to come to the United States.

The travel ban was upheld by a 5-4 decision, with Justice Gorsuch obviously in the majority. So, too, did Gorsuch join the majority in its expected 5-4 (Janus v. AFSCME) vote overturning agency fees public-sector unions have been able to charge their members in return for representing them. It was a victory for free riders, who now will choose not to join their union, thereby encouraging others to do the same, and undermining the bargaining power of workers.





Stagnating wages have been a huge problem in the USA ever since, oh, 1981, when President Reagan broke the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union.  Workers join immigrants as casualties of the Trump Court.

But that wasn't all.  By yet another 5-4 opinion including Justice Gorsuch, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability,Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act (FACT Act), which required medical facilities (such as Crisis Pregnancy Centers) to post information advising pregnant women where they "might obtain help, including financial help, with comprehensive family planning services, prenatal care, and abortion."

This may have far-reaching, devastating effects beyond reproductive freedom. Information mandated by the Act, according to the majority,  is "content based" and thus requires strict scrutiny to comport with the First Amendment. However, as Justice Breyer explained for the minority

This constitutional approach threatens to create serious problems. Because much, perhaps most, human behavior takes place through speech and because much, perhaps most, law regulates that speech in terms of its content, the majority’s approach at the least threatens considerable litigation over the constitutional validity of much, perhaps most, government regulation. Virtually every disclosure law could be considered “content based,” for virtually every disclosure law requires individuals “to speak a particular message"....

Thus, the majority’s view, if taken literally, could radically change prior law, perhaps placing much securities law or consumer protection law at constitutional risk, depending on how broadly its exceptions are interpreted. 

Radical escalation of signature strikes in the Middle East, undermining the Trans-Atlantic alliance, Wall Street deregulation, ripping children from their parents at the border, and other policies are all doing their damage. And on one day there were three decisions handed down by the US Supreme Court made possible only by a Justice nominated by President Trump.

"Come home, America" was once the rallying cry of the late George McGovern. Individuals who voted for Jill Stein or sat out the presidential race can come home in November, install a Democratic Congress (or at least, House), and start to undo some of the damage they chose not to prevent.




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Mainstream Wannabe

"Conservative presidents,"argued  host of GOP News Sunday Chris Wallace, "are going to nominate conservative jusges and liberal presidents are going to nominate liberal judges, as long as they are in the judicial mainstream. Isn't that what an election is for?"

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer countered

Well, both The New York Times and Washington Post hired independent experts to rate where Gorsuch would be. The Times said he would be to the right of every judge but Thomas, the most conservative judge we’ve had in history, and The Post analysis said he’d be to the right of that. So, this is not a mainstream judge.

Schumer pointed out also

The average middle-class person, the only recourse they have is the courts. Gorsuch repeatedly on issue after issue has been far to the right. In one case, he even went against what Thomas and Alito said on education of special kids.





Schumer realizes

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected legal reasoning used by President Donald Trump's high court nominee Neil Gorsuch in his role as an appellate judge, ruling in favor of an autistic student who said he was denied an adequate education.

The 8-0 ruling, authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, was issued at the same time Gorsuch was facing questions during his Senate confirmation hearing about a 2008 case in which he ruled against an autistic child who sought a public education more tailored to his needs.

The Supreme Court ruled that public schools must offer disabled students a special educational program sufficiently ambitious to ensure they make progress.

Democrats called the Supreme Court ruling a rebuke of the Republican president's nominee and suggested Gorsuch was not a mainstream judge.

That's quite a judicial mainstream, in which Judge Gorsuch's view is validated by exactly zero of eight judges.

Nonetheless, that wasn't the only preposterous argument made in favor of Justice Gorsuch, deftly handled by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse during confirmation hearings (below). Wallace contended also

Conservative presidents are going to nominate conservative judges and liberal presidents are going to nominate liberal judges, as long as they are in the judicial mainstream. Isn't that what an election is for?

It's hardly likely that the election was used by voters to decide upon a Supreme Court nominee, given that the high court was not a major election issue.  Additionally, if that is "what an election is for," we need to consider the following numbers:  Evan McMullin, .53%; Dr. Jill Stein, 1.06%; Gary Jonson, 3.2%; Donald Trump, 45.94%; Hillary Clinton, 48.03%.

If that is what "an election is for," a plurality of voters opted for the vision and values of Hillary Clinton, not those of Donald Trump. But of course, Americans do not vote for a Supreme Court Justice when they vote for President.  Just ask Merrick Garland.






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More Than A Misunderstanding

"This article is kind of crazy," remarks a Slate commenter. He/she continues "While the author's arguments are all reasonable, what she's suggesting is that someone with Gorsuch's views, essentially, should be blackballed from the Supreme Court."

Not "blackballed," only viewed realistically.

In June, 2013 Judge Neil Gorsuch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issied a concurring opinion supporting Hobby Lobby in a case pertaining to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Free Exercise Clause (video below from 6/23).   Dahlia Lithwick cogently explains

It’s not just the great deference Gorsuch shows religious adherents that is worrisome. He also believes that the views of religious adherents are beyond factual debate. Again in the Hobby Lobby case, he wrote that companies must pay for “drugs or devices that can have the effect of destroying a fertilized human egg.” That claim is simply false, even with regard to Plan B. It is a religious conclusion, not a medical or legal one. Whether that view is his or he simply declines to probe whether the religious conclusion is accurate, the effect is the same: He has written into a legal opinion a religious “fact” not supported by medical science. 







Far from being narrow-minded, Lithwick is being generous, for Judge Gorsuch had written

All of us face the problem of complicity. All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others. For some, religion provides an essential source of guidance both about what constitutes wrongful conduct and the degree to which those who assist others in committing wrongful conduct themselves bear moral culpability. The Green family members are among those who seek guidance from their faith on these questions. Understanding that is the key to understanding this case. 

As the Greens explain their complaint, the ACA’s mandate requires them to violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong. No one before us disputes that the mandate compels Hobby Lobby and Mardel to underwrite payments for drugs or devices that can have the effect of destroying a fertilized human egg. No one disputes that the Greens’ religion teaches them that the use of such drugs or devices is gravely wrong.

"No one disputes" the claim that contraceptive drugs and devices destroy a fertilized human egg, claims Neil Gorsuch. That destructive impact is either his own view or one which he blithely accepts out of naivete or convenience. The Judge is either grossly ignorant or grossly negligent given that, as this pro-reproductive rights site argues

Implantation is what sets in motion all the signs that pregnancy has begun. On this one point, science, medicine and the law agree: implantation is the moment at which pregnancy starts. The only dissenting group is the pro-life movement, which dismisses this definition. It, instead, would like pregnancy to start at the unknowable moment the sperm fertilizes an egg. Once sperm meets egg, any effort to prevent the egg from implanting in the womb is considered an abortion by the pro-life movement. This is one of the arguments they offer up as justification for the campaigns to keep women from using birth control. Their claim is that most birth control methods prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb, which to them, though not to science, is an abortion. But even that is not true. There is no evidence that birth control methods actually do what pro-life groups claim.

"No one disputes" now appears to be Gorsuch Shorthand for "most dispute."   But this is not an issue of abortion, nor even entirely of reproductive rights. It suggests that a prospective Supreme Court Justice fails to respect the concept of the wall of separation between church and state.   Lithwick concludes

Gorsuch’s defenders point to the fact that he has been an equal-opportunity defender of religious liberties, including in cases that involve plaintiffs from minority faiths. And this is precisely the point. Gorsuch’s own faith is not at issue here. At a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, we should not be talking about the beliefs a nominee may hold in his heart. Instead, we need to focus on whether his accommodation of the beliefs of others overmasters not just scientific fact and neutral civil rights laws, but also the interests and values of people of different faiths and those who reject religion altogether.







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