Townhall Review | Commentaries

What happens now? President Trump made history by nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. That is fantastic news. But now the scene shifts to the United States Senate. The rules of the Senate call for hearings before the Judiciary Committee. Watch for those in coming weeks—and expect a political blockbuster.

Then, the committee votes to move the nomination to the floor of the Senate. That, too, will be a fight. Then Senate debate and the big event—the vote. It will be a battle at every turn, and Democrats will try their best to slow it down. Republicans must keep up the heat, and see it through to the end—the future of the Supreme Court is at stake.

We need Judge Barrett on the Supreme Court now.

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Democrats and the media are attacking Republicans for pushing ahead with a new Supreme Court nominee while, allegedly, dragging their feet on a coronavirus relief bill.

There’s just one problem: the coronavirus bill put forward by Democrats is a dangerous expansion of the federal government that puts our economy at even more risk of fiscal collapse.

Though we don’t hear about it much anymore, the United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio has increased dramatically in the 21st century. When George W. Bush took office, we had a debt ratio of under 60 percent. Today, we have a debt ratio of over 100 percent—107 percent to be precise.

In simple English, that means our government owes more than our entire economy produces in a year. America simply cannot afford more of these immense spending bills.

Republicans are right to reject the Democrat’s short-sighted, ridiculous proposal. Imagine the spending binge if Democrats gain the presidency too.

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President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the next justice of the United States Supreme Court is very good news for conservatives, and for the entire nation.

Judge Barrett is exactly what we need on the nation’s highest court—a judge committed to and originalist reading of the text of the United States Constitution. Judge Barrett is a constitutional scholar of the first rank, and President Trump was wise to appoint her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

The news of her elevation to the Supreme Court will make history. Judge Barrett understands the sanctity of human life, the majesty of the law, and the rightful role of a judge.

She belongs on the Supreme Court.

It’s going to be a fight in the Senate. It’s up to Republicans in the upper chamber to get the job done—and get it done now.

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This is Michael Medved at michaelmedved.com for Townhall.

In their furious reaction to confirmation plans for a successor to the late Justice Ginsburg, Democrats insist it’s all about timing. But even if she’d passed, or resigned, two years earlier, would Democrats offer more cooperation in approving a successor? Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were both appointed years ahead of any presidential contest but still drew near-unanimous Democratic opposition.

Meanwhile, Republicans made no similar attempts to destroy Democratic nominees, giving bi-partisan support to Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and, yes, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Why the contrast?

Democrats view the judiciary as a political branch of government—for enacting progressive reforms that lack popular support for legislative action. Their resulting politicization of the confirmation process makes the judiciary the target of narrow and destructive partisanship.

I’m Michael Medved.

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To those who saw her as a feminist icon of liberal causes, she was the notorious RBG. To conservatives, she was a formidable foe, the leader of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought incredibly hard against several cancers, but she lost her battle Friday evening in Washington, DC. She was 87 years old and had served on the nation’s highest court for 27 years.

Justice Ginsburg’s legacy is one of the main debates and dividing lines between the cultural left and the right in the United States on issues, including abortion. And her death sets up an epic battle for the future of the Supreme Court, and right as the presidential election was already hitting fever pitch. Both sides know that this will be a battle to define the court for a generation or more November 3rd, now looms even larger.

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Voters who do not want to be ruled by unelected judges want President Trump to nominate and the Republican Senate to confirm the next Supreme Court justice.

If Democrats deploy outrageous delaying tactics such as conducting a sham impeachment—as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has hinted at, the Republican Senate majority should simply dispense with hearings and hold a vote.

The history on this is clear: Presidents have a long record of filling such slots when their party controls the Senate. The fact that Democrats are upset that Trump gets to make another appointment to the court doesn’t change history or amend the Constitution.

All the nominees we’ve seen put forward are highly qualified.

The GOP should not be intimidated by the Manhattan-Beltway media elites into failing to meet this challenge. Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham are ready.

Yes: Expect fireworks—but also expect a confirmation.

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This is no time for indecision. The battle for the future of the Supreme Court means that Republicans cannot fumble their responsibility to win confirmation of a new justice before Election Day.

President Donald Trump has pledged to nominate a new justice quickly, and he indicated that he will appoint a woman to fill the seat left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has proven his ability to get President Trump’s nominees through the confirmation process.

Many will be calling on senators to wait until after the election, but Republican senators have better remember that voters will hold them accountable if they fail at this stewardship.

Brace yourselves for an epic political battle, then tell Republican senators that you will never forget how they handle this challenge

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The signing of the Abraham Peace Accords at the White House, presided over by President Donald Trump, on September 15 greatly enhances the prospects for a general peace in the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-joined by the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain-were welcomed for the signing ceremony that is the crowning diplomatic achievement of the Trump presidency.

The President has also overseen the destruction of ISIS and the dispatching of the Iranian terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani. But giving Trump the credit he deserves is too painful for many in the blue-bubble media.

Nevertheless, the treaty President Trump midwifed between the UAE and Israel, followed by one between Bahrain and Israel, collectively called the Abraham Accords, will fill a large room in a future Trump presidential library. Oman, Sudan even Saudi Arabia may follow in a second Trump term.

A Biden presidency could shatter this momentum, reverting to the appeasement of Iran that marked the Obama-Biden era.

For now, though, the signing agreement at the White House is a cause for great celebration.

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If you’re on a college campus today—or have a child on campus—there’s a solid chance you’ll hear this: “All white people are racist.” You might hear this, too: “America is founded on white supremacy.”

These two sentences are not mere overheated emotion. They express an ideology called Critical Race Theory—or CRT—which argues that race is a social construct made by white people. Just as race was once used to enslave and terrorize, so it is used today to keep America unequal, unfair, and hostile to minorities.

The Trump administration just took symbolic and courageous action against CRT. It issued a memo to federal agencies calling for the end of the government’s CRT “racial sensitivity trainings,” terming them “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”

Does America have real issues in its past? Yes.

Have we made real progress that we must guard carefully? Also yes.

The White House has led well here.

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Can religious foster care and adoption agencies remain in their ministry while continuing to hold to their convictions?

That’s going to be decided in the case before the Supreme Court known as Fulton v. Philadelphia and the implications for the future of religious liberty are massive.

The city had told Catholic Social Services that, unless they stopped discriminating on the basis of the entire LGBTQ array of issues, they could not continue to provide those services in the city.

Essentially, the agencies were told they could remain Catholic, or they could remain in the ministry of adoption and foster care. But they couldn’t do both.

The Supreme Court is revisiting its own precedent on the issue— that’s the 1990 Smith decision and it’s going to be hard to overestimate how important this case is for the future of religious liberty.

And, to make the point clear, oral arguments are going to be held at the Supreme Court the day after the upcoming presidential election—as if Supreme Court has told us, “By the way, take note!”

Judges matter. Elections matter.

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