Thursday, May 19, 2016

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.



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.

19 comments:

Anthony said...

*Shrugs* Sounds like Trump accepted the list somebody handed to him.

Be interesting to see if he sticks with that list or if other people catch his fancy.

AndrewPrice said...

I agree with Anthony. I think it's a very respectable list, which is the point. Trump now wants to appear serious, credible and respectable. This list is part of that strategy. If he'd done this two months ago, I think the list would have been full of weirdos:

Glenn Beck
Cousin It Trump
That angry sheriff guy in Arizona
That court guy from My Cousin Vinny
My good friend Mike Tyson
I'll appoint myself and do both jobs

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I can't wait to hear about your vacation! :)

BevfromNYC said...

Anthony and Andrew - Considering that Trump qualified the list in a new "exclaim/reverse" mouth-to-media Olympic speed record, I wouldn't put it passed him to actually go with Andrew's list eventually. Though now I can't WAIT for his VP pick...how long do you think that will last? An hour?

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, My money is on Cousin It Trump.

To be fair, by the way, I do think Trump's plan for the convention is very smart and is something the GOP should have realized long ago. If you want people to watch, and this is a fantastic advertisement opportunity, then it needs to be entertainment.

BevfromNYC said...

If you want people to watch, and this is a fantastic advertisement opportunity, then it needs to be entertainment.

I actually think Bernie has caught and is now trying the same tactics to make the Dem convention entertainment with his "We Will Bern You" Sander-nistas.

BevfromNYC said...

I'm going with "I'll appoint myself and do both jobs"...;-)

EPorvaznik said...

"Sander-nistas"? Love it, Bev, and this morning's dose of The Clash, my second favorite batch of commie rockers, gets a cross-country dedication to you. Rigga-digga-dig-dang-dang!

To the "Do I date 'em, do I hate 'em?" prospective nominees, again, please wake me on November 8 so I can go fill in some dots ...

Kit said...

Why would Trump nominate Glenn Beck? Glenn Back has been harshly critical of him from the beginning.

AndrewPrice said...

Why wouldn't he, Kit? Trump does not equal consistency.

AndrewPrice said...

Eric, Who is your favorite commie band?

BevfromNYC said...

Kit - So has Don Willett, but Trump still put Willett on his "list" of potential SC nominee-like personages. Okay, maybe Willett hasn't been "harsh". but he has been critical in his own humorous way.

AndrewPrice said...

Speaking of Trump, he's 5% ahead of Hillary according to Rasmussen. That continues a trend with Trump gaining a couple points a week on her. It really does spell disaster for her.

EPorvaznik said...

Fave bunch o' commies = Midnight Oil. As much as I love them, though, so glad their repeated early shared pub day attempts to turn INXS into a political band failed miserably.

Anthony said...

OT but Canada's Prime Minister is a crazy SOB.

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Yet the prime minister got all hot and bothered by this situation. Why? Maybe he was tired. Maybe he wanted to get things moving in an orderly fashion. Maybe he thought the opposition parties were stalling the vote on purpose. Whatever the reason, Mr. Trudeau then acted in a reprehensible fashion more befitting a petulant child than of a national leader. His short fuse, which many of us have heard about over the years in private (and thought was gone), was suddenly on public display. First, he jumped out of his seat and marched toward the opposition benches. Second, he grabbed Mr. Brown by the arm to get him past the mini-mob. Third, he reportedly told some New Democrats to “get the f*** out of the way.” Fourth, as he was dragging the Conservative whip against his will, he elbowed a NDP MP, Ruth Ellen Brosseau, and went back to the government side amid wild cheering from Liberal MPs.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435617/justin-trudeau-elbow-canada-house-commons-gord-brown-conservative-party-ndp

Allena-C said...

Well, if Trump keeps his word (yeah right) then this isn't a bad list. Unfortunately, I doubt he will. I wonder who produced the list? I know Trump didn't.

Bef, that is hilarious! Sandernistas, lol.

Allena-C said...

Oops, didn't see the update. I am shocked! Shocked, I say, that Trumplestiltskin is already backtracking. Again. LOL!

BevfromNYC said...

Trumplestiltskin is HYYYYYLARIOUS! I am stealing that!

Allena-C said...

By all means, Bev, lol.

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