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Supreme Court Short List
One week after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation from the Supreme Court, the President has a short list of 25 potential appointees, four of which he met with on Monday. Although the White House refused to disclose the names of whom the president met with, sources have told the New York Times that Trump met one-on-one with the following four federal appeals court judges:
- Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit
- Brett M. Kavanaugh of the District of Columbia Circuit
- Raymond M. Kethledge of the 6th Circuit
- Amul R. Thapar of the 6th Circuit
Some facts about the judges:
- Judge Thapar as Mr. Trump’s first nominee to an appeals court in 2017. A former district court judge from Kentucky with a conservative track record, Thapar was among those the president considered as a replacement for Justice Scalia when he died in 2016
- Judge Kavanaugh, an appointee of President George W. Bush, clerked at the Supreme Court for Justice Kennedy. He was also a prosecutor under independent counsel Ken Starr, who investigated President Bill Clinton.
- Judge Kethledge also clerked for Justice Kennedy, and has the support of some conservative activists. A graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, Judge Kethledge does not have an Ivy League pedigree (and Trump has told associates he would like to see the next Justice come from the Ivy League)
- Judge Barrett is a favorite of religious conservatives – a former law clerk for Justice Scalia, she once argued that Catholic judges should sometimes recuse themselves from sentencing in death penalty cases.
As the only woman on the short list, you would think Barrett wouldn’t face much opposition from the left; however, she is said to be the one on the list that poses the greatest threat to abortion rights. (This appears to be based solely on the fact that she’s a devout Catholic and has 7 kids.)
The efforts to keep Barrett out of federal courts started last year during her confirmation hearings for the 6th Circuit, when Dianne Feinstein told her, “The dogma lives loudly within you.” Ed alert: “My gut is that the President won’t pick her now, because she’s going to get the most push back. My guess is that Trump will have another bite at the apple later because Ruth Bader Ginsburg will retire or die during Trump’s term, and that’s when he’ll bring Judge Barrett in.”
Abolishing ICE as a Campaign Strategy
Democrats who are determined to see a “blue wave” happen in November seem to think their winning strategy is to campaign on the idea of abolishing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It seems like the Democrats who are pushing this idea all seem to be the ones considering a run for President in 2020: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand. You’ll hear all their cries for abolishing ICE on this week’s show. Ed alert on Kamala Harris: “I want to run for President so I need to sound like I’m a new-idea-comer-upper-with, because I don’t have anything else.”
President Trump has one message for Democrats who are campaigning on abolishing ICE: Keep it up, because he thinks it will bring on a red wave in November.
#Walkaway Campaign – A Movement that Matters
Finally, there’s a good story regarding Facebook. The #Walkaway Campaign is a public Facebook group with over 85,000 members as of Friday. It’s a movement dedicated to “sharing the stories of people who can no longer accept the current ideology of liberalism and what the Democratic Party has become.” These are people who have left the Democrat party and liberalism (some recently, some not so recently), and are now conservatives or Trump supporters. Their videos and written testimonials are compelling, and you’ll hear some of them on this week’s show. Check out this movement at facebook.com/groups/OFFICIALWalkAwayCampaign/.
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