Accusing SC Justices of partisanship and prejudice. Isn't that hyperbole?

Yes, Trump appointed Supreme Court justices, and yes those justices later were part of the majority vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But I think it’s hyperbole to make it sound like Trump interviewed prospective judges and got their prior pledge to overturn Roe irregardless of the merits. Frankly I don’t think Trump cared enough to be a Pro-Life crusader, and I give the justices more credit for judicial professionalism than that.

There seems to be an attitude on both the left and right ends of the political spectrum that could be expressed as “if the result is exactly the same as if it were done on purpose with an ulterior motive, then as far as we’re concerned it WAS done on purpose with an ulterior motive”. I worry that this attitude is corrosive to the democratic process, encourages win-at-any-cost absolutism, and unfairly demonizes moderates who believe in reason and neutral process.

As far as I can tell, many people simply consider it self-evident that of course abortion is a liberty; and that therefore no judgement otherwise could possibly be the result of a good faith reading of the law. Not upholding abortion was evil according to this standard.

This title is far too vague for P&E. PM me a descriptive title and I will update and reopen the thread. @Lumpy.

I also PM’s you to make replying to me easier.

Fact check me, but didn’t every conservative justice during the confirmation hearings state something to the effect that Roe V Wade was settled case law?

I don’t know, if so I’d be interested in a cite.

Trump didn’t care at all about the justices - he just chose whoever the Heritage Foundation told him to. He’s not a pro-life crusader, he’s not any crusader except a pro-Trump crusader.

The ones chosen by Heritage were definitely and for sure chosen to overturn Roe. Coney-Barrett is definitely softer on other issues from their perspective, but certainly pro-life.

You’re mixing several issues. trump himself didn’t much give a shit which justices were appointed on his watch. He just went right down the list of extremists given to him by McConnell & the Heritage Foundation. he signed the paper to formally nominate them, then went back to eating or watching TV.

You (OP) are welcome to give lots of credits for “professioanlism” to justices who’ve openly accepted bribes, who’ve openly refused to recuse from cases with obvious conflicts of interest with their spouses, and who’ve overturned decades of settled law on little more than a whim and some legal mumbo-jumbo.

I’m not according any such professionalism. Most of them checked that at the door a long time ago.

I don’t. Four of them minimum are naked activist partisan hacks. But let us know how it works out for you.

Here you go Lumpy. Short version per judge, Alito (unsurprisingly) weaseled a bit, but in short said he had already made up his mind PRIOR to the merits, so, judicially a failure given the duty to respect the merits of the law and precedent.

Thomas didn’t weasel, and always hated Roe but was again, a massive hypocrite, from the article:

“I think those of us who have become judges understand that we have to begin to shed the personal opinions that we have. We tend not to express strong opinions so that we are able to, without the burden or without being burdened by those opinions, rule impartially on cases,” he said.

Thomas also said it would be inappropriate for any judge, including himself, to take a case on an issue “in which he or she has such strong views that he or she cannot be impartial.”

“You have to listen. You have to hear the arguments. You have to allow the adversarial process to think. You have to be open. And you have to be willing to work through the problem. I don’t sit on any issues, on any cases that I have prejudged. I think that it would totally undermine and compromise my capacity as a judge,” he said.

Gorsuch, is pretty much a match for the assertation of @China_Guy

“I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed,” he said. “A good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.”

One telling exchange came with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who asked about a book Gorsuch wrote in 2006 advocating against legalizing assisted suicide.

In the exchange, Gorsuch acknowledged that the Supreme Court had held that a fetus is not a person for the purposes of the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, a legal underpinning of Roe v. Wade.

“Do you accept that?” asked Durbin.

“That is the law of the land. I accept the law of the land, senator, yes,” Gorsuch replied.

Same for Kavanaugh:

In particular, much was made of a private meeting between Kavanaugh and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who said the nominee had told her he considered Roe to be “settled law.”

But Kavanaugh stopped short of repeating that line in his hearing, instead focusing on Roe’s status as Supreme Court precedent.

“It is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis,” he said. “The Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case. It has reaffirmed it many times.”

Barrett didn’t make such strong statements, and fully acknowledged that it was up to challenge:

But she added that legal challenges to precedents can make their way through the courts back to the Supreme Court, where major rulings can then be revisited.

Perhaps the most revealing moment for Barrett came as she was being questioned by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who asked if Barrett considered Roe to be a “super-precedent.”

Barrett answered by defining super-precedent as “cases that are so well settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling.”

“And I’m answering a lot of questions about Roe, which I think indicates that Roe doesn’t fall in that category,” she said.

Roe is not a super-precedent because calls for its overruling have never ceased. But that doesn’t mean that Roe should be overruled. It just means that it doesn’t fall in the small handful of cases like Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. Board that no one questions anymore,” she added.

So, no, not all of them rated Roe as settled, but at least two of them did indicate they’d respect the precedent and/or settled law, and Thomas (zero surprise) showed a lack of honesty, dignity, and respect for law that I might have been sickened if we didn’t already have ample proof that he did not care a fig for any such things.

Other than Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson the SCOTUS is a corrupt tool of the heritage foundation, and all the rich control freaks trying to take over the country.

I thought the Federalist Society was the right-wing outfit focused on the courts, including the Supreme Court justices? I didn’t think the Heritage Foundation had much to do with it, at least during Trump’s first term.

NBC News has a supercut.

Probably the best summation is that they were all very mealymouthed about asserting in a confirmation hearing what everyone knew they actually thought about it. They called it “a precedent” (though Barrett asserted it was “not a superprecedent”) and Gorsuch pointed out that SC precedents were binding on judges (but, he was careful not to state, on Justices.)

There’s another video that makes a similar point.

So yeah, the point was to make people think that they said something like Roe v. Wade being “settled case law” without actually saying so.

Definitely. Sorry, replace any references I have from Heritage to Federalist. Good catch. Doesn’t change the point, I think.

You’re both correct.

Anyway, and back to the OP, I think it’s VERY clear that taken by their statements reported, that while Trump personally probably didn’t care about the issue much (I think many of us would agree that Trump doesn’t care about really anything other than himself or have any principles other than “what’s good for Trump”) he was a helpful tool in getting Judges selected for the SCOTUS that were, in the words of the Title VERY partisan and absolutely willing in two cases to be hypocrites in their responses to congress.

So again, NOT Trump specifically, but the political party he empowered? Oh the accusations were absolutely justified in at least two of three Trump appointees and Flying Spaghetti Monster only knows how many other non-SCOTUS federal judges.

Please, let’s not forget how much those other judges have absolutely pushed novel, partisan, and BS interpretations of law such as Mrs. Cannon as an absolutely not randomly chosen example.

They were probably advised and aware that even saying Roe might be up for review would have been a guaranteed rejection. Prospective justices still recall the Bork ordeal.

Bork was a horrendous nomination, and rightly bitch slapped out of the process.

Net net, nominate a justice that one side likes, and the other side can hold their nose over. Don’t ram down the oppositions throat the anti christ.

It’s not just overturning Roe. They also killed Chevron (making it where government agencies can’t stop people who disagree) and made the President effectively immune from prosecution even after they leave office. They said gratuities aren’t bribes. And they signaled to Judge Canon that they’ll overturn the idea of a special prosecutor.

There just isn’t any sign they’re doing any of this based on jurisprudence. There was some hope that they cared about the legacy of the Court, but that seems to have died away, too.

Thomas is bribed and corrupt. He’s fascist scum. Alito is a jackass and a hack and also fascist scum. Roberts is an incompetent who has lost control of things. Kavanaugh is a joke and blatantly lied about everything during his confirmation process. All of these fools should be impeached and thrown out.

Among the “conservatives,” Gorsuch seems to have lied but doesn’t seem to be as bad as the rest. Barrett I don’t like, but she might actually care about the rule of law.

The three Liberal justices seem to be both ethical and competent

Merrick Garland calling on line two…

The final requirement, of course, is “have a Senate majority.”