Trump's Surprising Supreme Court Short List

UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long. Less than 18 hours after publishing the below list, Trump is now doing what he always does in his interview with Hannity. He backtracks or completely reverses himself as if no one will notice.

"I thought what I would do is put this forward and this would be the list that I would either choose from or pick people very close in terms of the spirit and the meaning of what they represent...[w]e're either going to choose from this list or people very close to it...[a]t a minimum, we will keep people from this general realm."

So, do ya' think maybe he and his people floated this list FOR the much publicized Hannity interview, or what? Yeah, I thought as much. Ergo...nevermind. Go about your business as if nothing has happened.

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I was going to regale you with my recent trip to the UK and Ireland, but then this came up and I couldn't resist. Trump released his short list of potential Supreme Court picks which has been described as solid list of outstanding conservative jurists by former Bush Administration attorney John Yoo.

From NYT Donald Trump Releases List of Possible Supreme Court Picks By Alan Rappeport and Charlie Savage and right off the bat they are described this way -"...All are white, and eight of the 11 are men."

Here's the list broken down from the NYT article:

1. Dianne S. Sykes, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit who was appointed by President Bush
2. Steven M. Colloton of the Eighth Circuit, a former clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
3. Raymond M. Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit, who clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

The state supreme court justices included
4. Joan Larsen of Michigan, a former clerk to Justice Scalia
5. Allison H. Eid of Colorado
6. David Stras of Minnesota
7. Thomas Rex Lee of Utah, all 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.

8. Don Willett of Texas Supreme Court, previously worked for the Bush White House’s office of faith-based initiatives and later in Texas government, where he pushed to keep a monument of the Ten Commandments on public property and the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, issues he has promoted on his Facebook page.

On a personal note: Judge Willet is also famously the "Twitter Laureate of Texas" and a darn funny guy. I follow him on Twitter and he has spent many a tweet mocking Trump... One Of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court Picks Has Spent A Year Trolling Him On Twitter.

Donald Trump haiku—

Who would the Donald
Name to #SCOTUS? The mind reels.
*weeps—can't finish tweet* pic.twitter.com/a326AP0mN1

— Justice Don Willett (@JusticeWillett) June 16, 2015

9. 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.”

10. 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.”

11. Thomas M. Hardiman of the Third Circuit,federal appeals court judge appointed by President Bush.

So there they are. If Trump is to believed, this does a appear to be a very solid list of candidates. I remain skeptical.

Anyway, let's discuss.

I will get to how unbelievably beautiful Ireland is next time...and of course, why Charles I, the Reformation, the Restoration, and Charles II are all the rage.