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Supremes Demand Unanimous Verdicts for Convictions

April 21, 2020 by GregC

Listen to “Supremes Demand Unanimous Verdicts for Convictions” on Spreaker.

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday ruled that criminal jury verdicts must be unanimous to result in convictions, a decision addressing laws in Oregon and Louisiana that allowed convictions even with two jurors voting to acquit.

“Wherever we might look to determine what the term ‘trial by an impartial jury trial’ meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment’s adoption—whether it’s the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in an opinion. “A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict.”

So how did Louisiana and Oregon wind up with laws not requiring unanimous verdicts for convictions and why did three justices rule in favor of the existing laws?

We ask Andrew C. McCarthy, former chief assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. We also discuss the push to release prisoners in many parts of the country to mitigate the spread of coronavirus and the inexplicable surprise by some local officials when the freed inmates commit more crimes.

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Filed Under: Constitution, Crime, Health Care, law, News & Politics Tagged With: coronavirus, Gorsuch, juries, news, prisoners, SCOTUS

Kennedy Responsible for Some ‘Real Horrible Decisions’

June 28, 2018 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/6-28-staver-blog.mp3

As Washington gears up for one of the most contentious Supreme Court nominations in recent memory, many political figures and pundits are applauding the tenure of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, but Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says Kennedy leaves a dark legacy on the moral fabric of America.

Shortly after the news of Kennedy’s retirement was announced, President Trump lavished praise on Kennedy.

“He’s been a great justice of the Supreme Court,” said Trump.  “He is a man who has displayed great vision.  He’s displayed tremendous vision and tremendous heart.”

And Staver admits that Kennedy has been a key voice and a vital vote on critical issues, including this month’s rulings in favor of Christian cake baker Jack Phillips and crisis pregnancy centers in California.  Kennedy also authored a stinging dissent against the decision from Chief Justice John Roberts that saved Obamacare.

“Certainly, he was on the right side of many cases and even the most recent cases that came out of the U.S. Supreme Court.  He was a fifth vote in that particular case or cases and made a huge difference,” said Staver.

But he says the cases where Kennedy got things badly wrong leave a lasting impact.

“I’m going to remember Justice Kennedy for some of the real horrible decisions that he ultimately inflicted because they have caused significant harm and even death,” said Staver.  “Between the LGBT agenda, culminating in the marriage decision, and particularly the abortion decisions, that really is the legacy of Justice Kennedy.”

On abortion, Kennedy ruled both for and against federal bans on partial-birth abortions, striking down the legislation in 2000 but upholding it in 2007.  However, it’s Kennedy’s role in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that deeply distresses Staver.

That case gave justices the opportunity to solidify or reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions that legalized abortion nationwide.  Staver says Kennedy was initially part of a majority that would have reversed those rulings.

“For thirty days, (then-Chief Justice William) Rehnquist was writing the opinion and Kennedy was right there with him.  But he succumbed to lobbying pressure from Justices (Sandra Day) O’Connor, and (David) Souter.  After 30 days, he changed his mind,” said Staver.

“He flipped from the five in the majority to overrule the abortion case to flipping it and the minority became the majority.  Five individuals ultimately voted to uphold the abortion decisions, albeit somewhat modified,” said Staver.

He says Kennedy bears significant responsibility for the abortions since that day.

“The babies who have lost their lives since 1992, Justice Kennedy is the reason for that.  He is the reason for the people who have lost their lives and all the families that have been broken,” said Staver.

Kennedy also took the lead in multiple decisions related to the LGBT agenda.  He authored the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision striking down state sodomy laws and the 2013 United States v. Windsor ruling which struck down key portions of the Defense of Marriage Act.  His majority opinion two years later in Obergefell v Hodges declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

“In June 2015, he authored a horrible decision that has no basis in the Constitution, no basis in the court’s precedents – just an imposition of his will – in which he overturned marriage laws that understood the natural definition and order of marriage being between two people of opposite sex.  He struck it down and ushered in so-called same-sex marriage,” said Staver.

As the Senate braces for a monumental political fight over Kennedy’s successor, Kennedy’s place on the high court also resulted from a nasty political fight.  In 1987, President Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, but the nomination went down to defeat after a fierce Democratic opposition led by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

Kennedy was ultimately Reagan’s third choice.  Staver says history would be much different if Bork had been confirmed.

“What a big difference the decisions would have been if Robert Bork had been confirmed instead of Kennedy,” said Staver.  “If you would have had Bork on the bench in 1992, you wouldn’t have abortion from 1992 to the present.  You wouldn’t have same-sex marriage from 2015 to the present,” said Staver.

President Trump will likely announce a nominee within the next few weeks and says it will come from his public list of 25 possible choices.  While Staver says the list is generally strong, some are preferable to others.

“No, I’m not mostly fine with whoever the president chooses.  Each one of these have to be individually vetted.  Not everybody is at the same level as (Justice Neil) Gorsuch,” said Staver.  “We need to have another person just like that, who has that commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution.”

Staver would not name any preferences for the nomination but he did single out one name he would be very disappointed to see in appeals court judge William Pryor.

“Pryor’s on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.  He had some bad decisions with regards to the LGBT agenda, where he injected an activist viewpoint on his particular decision,” said Staver.

He says Trump and Senate Republicans have to get this pick right, as a litany of critical issues could come before the court in the coming years.

“If they do, abortion will become history.  We will stop the bloodshed of innocent children.  We need to make sure we have the right person with that judicial philosophy,” said Staver.  “The clash between the LGBT agenda and religious freedom and free speech, all these different things, plus more.  The second amendment, so many other things.  Our basic freedoms are on the line,” said Staver.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: abortion, Anthony Kennedy, gay marriage, Gorsuch, List, news, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Trump

‘A Tremendous Day for Freedom’

June 26, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/6-26-staver-blog.mp3 http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/6-26-waggoner-blog.mp3

Religious liberty activists are celebrating Monday, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled decisively in favor of a Missouri church that sued the state, alleging it was wrongfully denied state grant money for a playground upgrade in violation of the free exercise clause of the first amendment.

The 7-2 decision in favor of the church included liberal justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer joining with the four conservative justices and moderate Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John  Roberts.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a stinging dissent that was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Trinity Lutheran Church applied for state funds being offered by the state to upgrade the surface of playgrounds to rubber made from shredded tires.  The request was denied by Missouri officials, suggesting the money would constitute state endorsement of of a particular religion or denomination.

Chief Justice Roberts says Missouri held Trinity Lutheran Church to an unconstitutional standard.

“The State in this case expressly requires Trinity Lutheran to renounce its religious character in order to participate in an otherwise generally available public benefit program, for which it is fully qualified. Our cases make clear that such a condition imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that must be subjected to the “most rigorous” scrutiny,” wrote Roberts.

“The State has pursued its preferred policy to the point of expressly denying a qualified religious entity a public benefit solely because of its religious character. Under our precedents, that goes too far. The Department’s policy violates the Free Exercise Clause,” he added.

” [T]he exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” concluded Roberts

The Alliance Defending Freedom worked with Trinity Lutheran on this case.  Senior Vice President of U.S. Legal Advocacy Kristen Waggoner says this was a huge verdict for the cause of religious freedom.

“I think today’s decision is a tremendous day for freedom.  The court ruled very clearly that discrimination against people of faith and religious groups is unconstitutional,” said Waggoner.

Waggoner says this was discrimination pure and simple.

“In the text of the law, the state was discriminating against this church because of who it was.  The government can’t do that.  Neither the establishment clause nor the free exercise clause permit class-based discrimination against people of faith and that’s exactly what this was,” said Waggoner, noting that the state’s argument could be extended to deny fire and police protection from churches.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew Staver says this decision is even more pivotal than that.  He says a decision in favor of Missouri would have massive consequences in arenas ranging from education to health care.

“That would mean that vouchers – when parents provide vouchers to a school of their own choice – could be blocked across the country,” said Staver.

“It also could mean that, in fact, hospitals that are religiously affiliated, particularly those that are affiliated with churches…could be disqualified from treating Medicaid and Medicare patients for the same reason,” said Staver.  “The good news is that’s not the direction the court went.”

Waggoner sees Monday’s decision as a ray of sunshine after what she sees as a long string of high court rulings against religious and she hopes a new trend is beginning.

“Over the course of the last two years, we’ve seen a number of bad laws and bad lower court rulings that have eroded our freedoms.  Today’s decision, I think, that that pendulum is swing back towards freedom, which benefits everyone,” said Waggoner.

She also says the gravity of this decision can be seen in the intensity of Sotomayor’s dissent.

“This case is about nothing less than the relationship between religious institutions and the civil government—that is, between church and state. The Court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church,” wrote Sotomayor.

“Its decision slights both our precedents and our history, and its reasoning weakens this country’s longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state beneficial to both,” she added.

Staver says Sotomayor has a wrong understanding of history and of the Constitution.

“The intent of the Constitution never ultimately wanted to put this huge separating wall so that you can’t ever have any interaction.  The first amendment is designed to prevent an establishment of religion, a preferential treatment of religion or a religious denomination over another, not equal treatment,” said Staver.

Staver also challenges another assumption Sotomayor made in her dissent.

“Today’s decision discounts centuries of history and jeopardizes the government’s ability to remain secular,” wrote Sotomayor.

Referencing one of the nation’s early justices, Staver says secularism was never understood to be the posture of government in the early days of the republic .

“Justice Joseph Story said that the first amendment was designed to encourage religion, so far as it’s not incompatible with the rights of conscience.  It was designed to prohibit rivalries among denominations …not to remain secular,” said.

Story served on the high court from 1811-1845.  Staver says if that’s not an early enough interpretation of the government’s relationship with religion, the founders themselves were pretty clear as well.

“Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, all the founders, they consistently said that the people had to be religious and moral.  Therefore, people needed to be taught Christian principles even in the public schools, so they would have a moral people, so that our liberty would be preserved,” said Staver.

“It’s frankly shocking (for Sotomayor) to suggest that this is centuries of history that the government is to remain secular.  That’s absolute nonsense,” he added.

Neither Staver nor Waggoner appear concerned about the debate among the more conservative justices about the scope of this ruling.  The majority opinion includes a footnote from Roberts that seems to limit the decision to the present circumstances.

“This case involves express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing. We do not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination,” he wrote.

In a concurring opinion, newly-minted Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged the specifics of the case but argued that the ruling had farther-reaching impact.

“Of course the footnote is entirely correct, but I worry that some might mistakenly read it to suggest that only “playground resurfacing” cases, or only those with some association with children’s safety or health, or perhaps some other social good we find sufficiently worthy, are governed by the legal rules recounted in and faithfully applied by the Court’s opinion,” wrote Gorsuch.

“Such a reading would be unreasonable for our cases are “governed by general principles, rather than ad hoc improvisations,” he wrote.

Waggoner sees the debate over the footnote as a “red herring” offered up by people looking to diminish the decision.  Staver hailed Gorsuch’s approach.

“It is a great opinion by Gorsuch because it shows that he is committed to the original understanding and intent of the Constitution,” said Staver.  “I think it really bodes well for the future that we’ve got a great justice who is precise and will be committed to the original understanding of the Constitution,” said Staver.

Both lawyers were also pleased to see the Supreme Court agree to hear to case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Right Commission.  It’s at the center of the conscience debate that will set a major precedent in determining whether artistic merchants can decline certain projects if those jobs conflict with their closely held personal beliefs.

Christian vendors declining services for same-sex ceremonies are at the heart of this debate at the moment.  Waggoner says that case cuts to the core of freedom in America.

“What we’re finding is that Christians who are in the creative profession are being forced to choose between their professions and their business and their beliefs on marriage,” said Waggoner.

“Every American should be free to choose the art that they create and they shouldn’t fear unjust government punishment for not agreeing with the government’s ideology on any issue, especially marriage between one man and one woman,” said Waggoner.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: Court, Gorsuch, Liberty, Lutheran, Missouri, news, playground, religious, Roberts, Sotomayor, Supreme, Trinity

Lower Courts Await Trump Nominations

April 26, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/4-27-severino-blog.mp3

President Trump received wide acclaim from his supporters for the selection and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, but legal experts are urging Trump to make good selections soon for scores of vacancies on lower federal courts.

More than three months into his administration, Trump has sent just one nominee for a federal appeals court opening.  There are 18 others to fill.  He also has the opportunity to nominate more than 100 federal district court judges, but has yet to act.

Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel and Policy Director Carrie Severino says it is vital to get strong defenders of the Constitution on these courts as soon as possible.

“They’re incredibly important,” she said.  “All of these are lifetime seats on the federal courts.  Remember, the Supreme Court takes less than one percent of the cases appealed to it every year.  That means well upward of 99 percent of cases are decided at the lower courts.”

“Many of those district court cases don’t even get up to the appellate level.  They might end there.  So it’s a huge, huge impact on American law,” said Severino.

Severino says we can just look to the Obama years to see how much impact a president can have on the judiciary.

“Normally, a two-term president can turn over two-thirds of the judiciary.  Barack Obama certainly did that.  When he came into office, one out of the thirteen courts of appeal had a Democratically nominated majority of judges.  When he left, nine of thirteen did,” said Severino.

During the campaign, Trump rolled out a list of 21 possible choices for the Supreme Court vacancy.  The list included Gorsuch.  While Trump may not have a formal list for all these other vacancies, Severino fully expects the same careful vetting to pick quality judges.

“[Gorsuch] has been one of the signature accomplishments of his first hundred days in office.  I can’t imagine why the president would want to diverge from an incredibly successful strategy so far and frankly, some of the people on that list could be candidates,” said Severino, noting that District Judge Amul R. Thapar, who was on Trump’s list, is now nominated to serve on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A big reason for Severino’s confidence in the Trump administration to get these picks right stems from what she observed in the Gorsuch process.

“Candidate Trump always said, ‘I’m going to ask the smartest people and get all the experts.’  When it came to judges, boy, he really did.  He didn’t come up with a list for the Supreme Court by himself.  He knew the right people to ask and I think they know the right people to ask for these spots as well,” said Severino.

She says what they should be looking for is simple and should be familiar to Trump by now.

“You want someone who is going to be faithful to the text of the law, faithful to the original understanding of the Constitution, putting the law before one’s political instinct on where they want the case to come out.  We want people who are going to be judges first.  I think that’s what we got with Gorsuch.  I think it’s going to be the same type of vetting process,” said Severino.

With so many politically charged cases now coming before courts, Severino says it is vital to get judges whose character can withstand the firestorm.

“You don’t know what the next issue is going to be.  We couldn’t have seen all these issues coming when the people currently on the bench were nominated.  That’s why it’s so important to have a vetting process that doesn’t just say, ‘Here’s some topics.  How do you feel about free speech?  How do you feel about immigration or this and that?'” said Severino.

“We don’t need to know what their politics or policy preferences are in these things.  You need someone who actually understands the judicial philosophy here, because that’s what’s going to help them get the next question down the road – that we haven’t even seen yet – correct,” said Severino.

But while Obama, succeeded in steering the federal judiciary to the left, Severino says Trump can have a huge impact in the opposite direction.

“A two-term president gets to replace two-thirds of the judges.  Currently, our president is Donald Trump and it looks like he’s going to make some great picks for those slots,” she said.

Severino says Trump’s influence on the bench may actually be bigger.

“He may have more front-loaded opportunities than most presidents do, because this does seem like a very large number of vacancies.  There are a lot more, I think upwards of half the federal appellate judges who are either retired or eligible to take senior status.  So there could be many more coming,” said Severino.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: courts, federal, Gorsuch, judges, news, philosophy, Trump

‘A Tremendous Victory for America’s Gun Owners’

April 11, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/4-11-keene-blog.mp3

Former National Rifle Association President David Keene says the second amendment dodged a major bullet when the vacant seat on the Supreme Court was filled by Neil Gorsuch, but he warns the threat to gun ownership is far from over.

Keene gives credit to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for refusing to advance President Obama’s choice of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and for doing what was necessary to get Gorsuch confirmed.

“If Garland had won confirmation, that would have reversed the majority favoring the second amendment as defined by the founders and as ratified by the Supreme Court in the Heller decision some years ago as an individual right to keep and bear arms,” said Keene.

“Preventing the Garland confirmation and replacing Antonin Scalia with Justice Gorsuch is a tremendous victory for America’s gun owners, for believers in freedom and for the second amendment,” said Keene.

Keene, who is now opinion editor at The Washington Times and co-author of “Shall Not be Infringed,” firmly believes that the gun issue and the Supreme Court vacancy was a big reason for President Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton and for winning over voters in swing states who had supported Democrats in the past.

But Keene is quick to warn second amendment supporters that the fight is not over.

“It does not mean that gun owners can be comfortable in terms of what might happen during the course of the next year or so at the Supreme Court level because it simply re-establishes the majority that existed with Scalia on the court, a very shaky majority,” said Keene.

Another major threat, he says, comes from Obama’s handiwork in signing on to the United Nations Small Arms Treaty.  Even without Senate ratification, Keene says the agreement puts pressure on the U.S. to violate its own Constitution.

“Even if it’s not ratified, under international law, a nation is supposedly prohibited from acting contrary to the spirit and letter of a treaty, even though it has not been ratified through processes within the country itself,” said Keene.

The U.S. can ignore the treaty, but Keene is urging decisive action against it.

“It really needs to be killed.  There are two ways to do that.  One, the President of the United States has the authority to withdraw this nation’s signature from the treaty.  I hope that President Trump will consider doing that.  The other way to handle it is for the Senate to bring it up and put a stake through it’s heart,” said Keene.

Keene says the treaty is just an international version of the gun restrictions that many Democrats want to impose here in the U.S.

“They want bans on so-called assault weapons that are in fact semi-automatic weapons rather than real assault weapons.  They want limits on magazines.  They want all the things that Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wanted here,” said Keene.

Despite the wind being at the back of gun rights advocates, Keene says his side must realize that gun control supporters are never going to to give up.

“They actually believe that if they snap their fingers and if firearms would disappear, there’d no longer be burglaries.  There’d no longer be robberies.  We’d all live in peace and I assume unicorns would dance across the horizon.  It’s almost a religious fervor with which they go after firearms ownership,” said Keene.

And Keene says pro-second amendment Americans must be equally relentless in protecting their constitutional rights.

“Like most freedoms, this is a freedom that if you don’t stand up for it and if you aren’t wiling to defend it and if you’re not vigilant, it’s liable to disappear on you,” said Keene.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: arms, Court, Gorsuch, guns, news, small, Supreme, treaty, UN

Gorsuch Seated, ISIS Attacks Christians, Hillary’s Blame Game

April 10, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/3-Martini-Lunch-4-10-17.mp3

David French of National Review and Greg Corombos welcome Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and reflect on the election year gamble that paid off for the GOP, while David points out Democrats would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed.  They also recoil at the pair of terrorist church bombings in Egypt, apparently carried out by ISIS.  And they get a kick out of Hillary Clinton having a long list of reasons she lost in 2016, but doesn’t blame herself at all.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: blame, Coptic, Court, Gorsuch, Hillary, ISIS, Martini, National, Review, Supreme, Terrorism

Trump Pounds Syria, Terrorism in Sweden, White House Shuffle?

April 7, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/3-Martini-Lunch-4-7-17.mp3

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to President Trump ordering missile strikes against a Syrian airfield in retaliation for Syria’s use of chemical weapons.  They also discuss another terrorist attack involving a truck, this time in Stockholm.  They’re stunned to see reports that Trump may be considering replacing his top two advisers.  And they welcome Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: Bannon, Gorsuch, Martini, National, Priebus, Review, Sweden, Syria, Terrorism, Trump

Tea Party Cheers Nuking of Unprecedented “Partisan Filibuster”

April 6, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/4-6-martin-blog.mp3

Senate Republicans voted to end the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees Thursday after Democrats refused to advance the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to a final vote, a move grassroots conservatives say had to happen out of respect for the Constitution.

Republicans cited the precedent of Democrats from November 2013, when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led a rules change to kill the filibuster for lower court judicial nominees and executive branch personnel requiring confirmation.

The move came after a 55-45 vote to end debate on Gorsuch, five votes short of the 60 votes needed.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell then moved to consider the Gorsuch nomination under the rule change instituted by Democrats.  His motion was denied, but McConnell then appealed the ruling of the chair and the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees was killed in a party line vote.

While Democrats call the move an attack on democracy, Tea Party Patriots Founder Jenny Beth Martin says it’s the Democrats who took an extreme position with their filibuster.

“When it comes to Supreme Court nominees, never in the history of our entire country have we had a partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.  It just hasn’t been done.  What the Democrats are doing right now is breaking the tradition and the practice that we’ve had in this country for over 200 years,” said Martin, whose group has been aligned with the Judicial Crisis Network in pushing for the confirmation of Gorsuch.

The Tea Party Patriots are best known for advocating smaller government and lower taxes, but Martin says the Supreme Court fight is very much in her organization’s interest.

“We understand it is critically important that if we want to have constitutionally-limited government, then we have to have a Supreme Court that upholds the law and judges laws based on the Constitution,” said Martin.

She is convinced the Democrats don’t really have a case against Gorsuch but are still bitter over 2016.

“They are just frustrated that it’s not their person, that they lost the election in November, that it is President Trump who won the election and therefore won the ability to nominate Judge Gorsuch and they are doing all they can to resist what President Trump was elected to do,” said Martin.

Martin says the public is engaged on this issue and overwhelmingly in support of Gorsuch, but she says Democrats aren’t listening to all of their constituents.

“Democrat senators are listening to their base.  They’re not listening to the whole of the American people, but they are listening to their base.  So they are doing what they think their base wants them to do,” said Martin.

She believes the effort to filibuster Gorsuch will backfire on red state Democrats like Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., in 2018.

“She has said that this would be a very political maneuver if they filibustered Gorsuch.  That’s what she’s doing and she’s doing it out of pure politics, not out of what’s best for the country,” said Martin.

“I know that it is a political job and the things the elected officials do they are going to look at things through the prism of politics.  Sometimes you need to do what’s best for the country because you have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution for your country,” said Martin.

And Martin is firmly convinced fidelity to the Constitution will be a hallmark of Gorsuch’s time on the Supreme Court.

“He looks at the law and he respects the law as it’s written.  He doesn’t intend to make law and create law out of whole cloth from the bench with his decisions, and he is going to look at the law through the prism of the Constitution,” said Martin.

With the filibuster nuked, a final Senate vote on Gorsuch is expected Friday evening.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: Court, democrats, filibuster, Garland, Gorsuch, news, nuclear, option, Supreme

VA Boss Fed Up, More Fox News Allegations, Powerless Dems Make Demands

April 4, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/3-Martini-Lunch-4-4-17.mp3

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Veterans Affairs Sec. David Shulkin for demanding broader authority to fire personnel, such as the one recently discovered to be viewing pornography while with a patient.  They also discuss the latest round of sexual harassment allegations aimed at Fox News.  And they get a kick out of powerless Senate Democrats trying to make demands in exchange for allowing Neil Gorsuch to get confirmed.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: democrats, filibuster, Fox, Gorsuch, harassment, Martini, National, news, Review, Shulkin, unions, VA

Dems’ Filibuster Folly, Terrorism in Russia, Rice & Unmasking

April 3, 2017 by GregC

http://dateline.radioamerica.org/podcast/3-Martini-Lunch-4-3-17.mp3

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America point out that even the liberal editorial board at USA Today is telling Democrats that filibustering Neil Gorsuch is a bad idea against an obviously qualified jurist. They also shudder as apparent terrorist attacks kill and injure metro passengers in St. Petersburg, Russia. And they react to former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice reportedly being the one to request the “unmasking” of Trump officials incidentally caught up in government surveillance.

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Filed Under: News & Politics, Podcasts Tagged With: democrats, filibuster, Gorsuch, Martini, National, Review, Rice, russia, Terrorism, Trump, unmasking

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