Congress, Supreme Court

The Barrett Confirmation: Questions and Answers (Day 2)

I will be continuing to blog on the hearing and occasionally tweak highlights.  As noted earlier, I will step away for a speech at the Brookings Institution around 11 am.

9:25 — Sen. Feinstein asked Barrett about severability. This is the first real recognition that two conservative justices have indicated that they would uphold an Act like the ACA even if a provision is found unconstitutional.  There is no reason to believe that Barrett would vote differently from the expected votes of Roberts and Kavanaugh. Ironically, without a ninth vote, the case could tie which would result in the entire Act being struck down.

9:40 — Barrett is again discussing precedent. She put herself in the middle on stare decision that it is not absolute or meaningless.  She noted that reliance interests must be considered.

9:45 — Grassley is up. Primarily a critique of the Dems.

9:55 —  Barrett just said that she would be open to cameras in the courtroom. I have long advocated for the inclusion and some justices have been demonstrably opposed.

9:56 — Barrett strongly indicated that she does not agree with the use of international law as controlling in U.S. cases – a position similar to Scalia.

10:06 — Leahy is making a good point that Barrett should have said clearly that the Supreme Court’s decisions are final on both lower courts and presidents. Barrett said she was referring to Federalist 78 and that Court lacks the ability to force its will. It is the final word but relies on the other branches to enforce. Barrett did a good job in using Brown to show how the national guard was needed to enforce the ruling.

10:09 — Leahy legitimately pushed the question and asked about a president who refused to adhere to an order. Barrett again noted that other presidents have defied the law but the ruling is the final work on the law.

10:11 — Leahy is pushing on whether a president can pardon himself and Barrett refused to answer pursuant to the Ginsburg rule. Leahy said her answers were incompatible. Not sure I know what that is based on. He is pushing her on emoluments clause which again is still in litigation.  She could not and did not answer as Leahy clearly knew would happen.

10:16 — Barrett just nailed the precedent question by noting that Lawrence and Brown overruled cases. The Democrats have cited those cases, correctly, as celebrated moments.

10:24 — Sen. Cornyn is using Ginsburg’s prior article to say that the decision was “breathtaking” in Roe and questioning whether Roe was a good idea.

10:37 — Durbin is up. He had a very successful day yesterday with a rare substantive exchange with Barrett. Durbin had another strong examination. He is pushing Barrett on why she cannot answer questions that are expressly addressed in the Constitution. He asked a question under the 15th Amendment. Again, these have been very effective framing.  Barrett is holding her own. It is another moment of substance — an island in a sea of puffery.

Barrett just landed a haymaker.  Durbin said that her answer “stains originalism:  Barrett responded that it would “strain the canons of [judicial] conduct . . . it would strain Article III” to answer. Durbin was again connected with well-crafted questions but that was a great counterpunch. Barrett has reach . . . as they say in boxing.

10:45 — Durbin is returning the decisions on taking away guns versus taking away votes for ex-felons.  Barrett is again noting that there is a distinction between rights that are individual rights (as in the Second Amendment) and rights going to society like voting. Durbin was very effective in response.  These exchanges are the highlights of the hearing between two able debaters. Durbin shows how substantive questions can yield more benefits than the cheap sensational attacks of his colleagues.

10:50 — I have to run to give my speech at the even at Brookings.  I will be back on around 12.

12:35 — I’m back. Sen. Klobuchar is grilling Barrett on being the “polar opposite” of Ginsburg and says that that is a serious problem.

12:39 — Barrett just pushed back on Klobuchar on the insinuation of her questioning of bias.  I do not blame her. This is a silly line of questions that Barrett legitimately called a suggestion of a type of letter to President Trump.

12:41 — Klobuchar is seriously arguing that Barrett wrote an article before the election as a signaling to Trump. It is an incredibly low-grade attack particularly after the substantive exchange between Durbin and Barrett.

12:45 — Klobuchar just laughed at Barrett for declining to answer under the Ginsburg rule. She then turned to the irrelevant question of whether Barrett or her family have voted by mail.

12:46 — Klobuchar is dripping with sarcasm in what is becoming an openly insulting series of questions. Rather than ask like Hirono is she has committed sexual assault, Klobuchar is asking if she is a political shill.

12:58 — Sen. Sasse just gave a strong argument against the cameras in the courtroom.  Grassley is right on this issue, in my view.  The Framers loved science and new technology.  Cameras would allow all citizens to see these arguments not just people who stand in line for a small number of seats.

1:03 — Sasse just asked Barrett to list the five freedoms of the first amendment.  It is tough question for someone under the glare of television lights after hours of grilling. Barrett got four and then Sasse asked another question on why they are in the same amendment. It is rare to see such odd throws to a nominee by the sponsoring party. Not sure the majority will like the line of questioning but Sasse is very smart and was making a valid and interesting point.  Yet, it puts the nominee in an uncomfortable position since Sasse clearly wanted to lay the foundation for his own point later. I think she was relieved when he went to baseball and attacking the Houston Astros.

1:08 — wow that was a long way around to go from Houston Astros to go to judicial philosophy.

1:15 — Sen. Coons asked a good question about Griswald.  Barrett responded that Griswald is “very very very very unlikely to go anywhere.” Barrett gave another nuanced answer tied to Roe by saying that it is the foundation of a question to get a peek on a Roe decision.

1:29 — Coons is again attacking Barrett on the Texas article. Barrett has not dismissed the hold of precedent but he seems to suggest that the Court should never revisit precedent. It is an incomprehensible position and Barrett hit Coons on cases like Lawrence.  Coons said those were “grievously wrong cases.” He then said she should look at precedent through a “Ginsburg lens” rather than a Scalia lens.”

1:34 — …Coons sounded like he was trying to talk himself into voting on the basis not of qualifications but the expected votes of a nominee. He succeeded. He just announced he would vote against Barrett.

1:37 — Sen. Hawley is asking Barrett if she knows of any anyone who have challenged Griswald in decades.  The question is ill-considered.  That could be used to push Barrett on answering the question on Griswald since it is unlikely to come before her. That was the reason Roberts answered the question. Barrett immediately saw the problem and told him that it could still come up indirectly as the basis for Roe.

1:40 — Hawley is now asking about Section 230 and a new opinion by Thomas in the denial of cert.  Obviously, she will not speak to such a case. He is asking about the dangers of rewriting a statute like this one. Barrett left her answer confined to subverting Congress and what is a classic “countermajoritanian difficulty” answer.

1:54 — Blumenthal is up but the mike has failed. Some will celebrate.

2:46 — Blumenthal is back and asking the same series of questions that Barrett has declined previously answer.  Barrett just said Blumenthal is pushing her to violate the code of judicial ethics. I would be more sympathetic with the questioning (as someone who have criticized the scope of the Ginsburg rule) if the Democrats, including Blumenthal, supporting nominees like Kagan in not answering such questions.

2:50 — Blumenthal is now detailing President Trump’s debt and his tax issues.  He pivoted to emoluments — an area that she again had repeatedly refused to answer. Few would argue that she should given the pending litigation. Yet, Blumenthal is pushing again for an answer.

2:52 — Blumenthal just discussed his lawsuit on emoluments which was just denied on cert yesterday and rejected in the court of appeals. I happen to agree on standing as a long advocate for legislative standing. However, I have always been skeptical of the emoluments lawsuits.

2:54 — Blumenthal is now pushing Barrett on her views of Global Warming. As Hirono would say “what the heck?”

2:57 — Blumenthal objected that he suspects Barrett is a judicial activist just after trying to influence her to vote to protect ACA based on the personal stories and appeal to her judgment on policy grounds. He also just asked her about her view of global warming as if that were relevant to the nomination. The mike thankfully then cut off again.

3:21 — Barrett just revealed that her son Liam became very upset with some of the questioning of his mother.

3:32 — Sen. Hirono is up.  Hirono just said that Barrett would destroy the “fair and balanced” court that we value.

3:36 — Hirono is again trying to get Barrett to say that she will rule based on how she views the better results for individuals under the health care law.  Barrett has said impacts are considered. Hirono however seems to be inviting Barrett to “do the right thing” by these individuals as opposed to what she believes the law or Constitution demands.

3:43 — Hirono just said that Barrett “went out of your way to send a signal” in prior cases.  Nothing could be more insulting to a jurist.

3:51: Hirono is now asking Barrett if she thinks the Administration is protecting voting rights.

3:53: Hirono just said that “the fact that you wouldn’t even bring forth the recusal process says to me that voters may decided there is an appearance of conflict.” What?

4:09 — Sen. Booker is asking whether Barrett thinks that it is wrong to separate a child from a parent to send a message.  Barrett correctly stated that he is trying to get her to enter the public debate over the Administration’s policies. No nominee could ethically engage in such a discussion.

4:27 — Booker just told Barrett the “fix is in”.

4:30 — Barrett just responded to Booker stating that she does not appear to have tried to understand racial injustice and seemed insensitive to it. She noted that she has two Haitian children and obviously both personal and legal commitment to racial justice and equality.

4:49 — Sen. Harris is up. She is again giving a speech unconnected to the nomination.

139 thoughts on “The Barrett Confirmation: Questions and Answers (Day 2)”

  1. It’s also delicious to watch Sen. Kennedy’s questioning immediately following the idiot Kamala Harris.

  3. Why isn’t Sen. Harris IN the room? She’s IN the building. How absurd she is.

  4. These hearings are a farce. Shut them down. Dems have lost what tiny bit of integrity they had left.

    1. Seriously? You just asked that?
      _________________________

      “The end justifies the means.”

      – Sergey Nechayev, Russian Revolutionary Terrorist
      _________________________________________

      “A revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion – the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose – to destroy it.”

      – Sergey Nechayev, Catechism of a Revolutionary
      _______________________________________

      “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

      – Barack Obama, Son of An African Anti-Colonialist and Anti-American Revolutionary

  6. Blumenthal’s hands have been shaking all week. Parkinson’s, or “the shakes”?
    Oh, wait……probably the result of old war wounds he suffered in Viet Nam……🤣

        3. Hey ace………..Trump never falsely claimed to voters that he fought in Viet Nam!

    1. Furthermore; if constituents actually went to C-Span and listened to the people they choose to represent them in Congress I think a lot would vote the idiots out of office.

      1. He’s not a hack at all. He gave up a 7 figure salary at Jones, Day to be in Congress. He’d had public sector positions in the past, but every one of them incorporated the practice of law. He was consistently employed in law for 17 years.

        Mazie Hirono was admitted to the bar in 1978 and elected to the Hawaii legislature two years later. Many state legislators have regular trades and professions. As early as 1983, the Polk directory for Honolulu has no listing for any law firm under her name. Her contributions to the candidates listed in the FEC database maintained by OpenSecrets do not, during the period between 2002 and 2007, list any employer. Sometimes she’s listed as ‘attorney’ and sometimes as ‘not employed’. So, she’s held public office for 35 of the last 39 years, her status at the Bar in Hawaii is ‘inactive-voluntary’ Ii.e. she cannot practice), and there’s no indication she’s actually earned a living in law for 40 years. Yet somehow Ted Cruz is the ‘hack’.

  8. “Sending a signal” is more like how liberals operate. Conservatives are more forthright.

  9. Why does Hirono get so many turns at the mic? Can’t we limit this to 2x each and then end the hearing?

    On a related note – the committee votes tomorrow, right? We’re ending this circus soon?

  11. Mr. Turkey, I would like to hear your comments about an important illustration of the difference between the approach to judicial decision-making used by conservative textualist judges/justices and those members of the judiciary who are lured into the resolution of a judicial question or issue using “social justice” as their compass. Senator Durban discussed the “result” of analyzing the 2nd Amendment to reach a result whereby a non-violent felon could have his right to possess a firearm upheld or vindicated as “constitutional” versus the “result” of the same person losing his right to vote for being a convicted felon. Senator Durban thought that since the right to vote is so fundamental to our democracy it should be vaunted as high as the right to bear arms! He suggested that any other result was “wrong!” But his thinking is a prime example of why a result-oriented jurisprudence, whereby the use or manipulation of a legal doctrine to obtain a given result, is a threat to democracy, as it cheats or short-circuits the legislative process by giving a policy result that isn’t clearly stated in the law. Textualists would say let’s analyze the law before us, apply the facts, and see what the result is. Senator Durban implies that he would begin the judicial analysis by declaring that voting rights must be as important as owning a firearm and therefore let’s figure out a way to achieve a result where these important public interests both receive the same solemnization.

    2. It’s the judicial branch, not the interpretation branch.

      The Constitution does not establish an interpretation branch.

      Of course, all Americans can read the plain and simple English language, many disagree with the plain and simple English language they read, but all Americans can read it and know it.

      If the court cannot read, comprehend and proceed, if it rests on the precipice of interpretation, the court must send it back to the legislative branch – and then resign or be impeached.

      – manifest – clear, obvious, apparent

      – tenor – meaning, intent, character
      _____________________________

      “…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”

      “[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”

      – Alexander Hamilton

  12. Barrett is a political shill, polite questions or not and Klobuchar is highlighting that record, starting with the fact, that like 2 others now SC justices, were part of the GOP legal team in Florida on Bush v Gore. This is not about high principle, as Turley wants to pretend, this is about pure political power, exercised by a hypocritical majority in a hurry because they are about to lose that majority along with their president. Barrett was selected because she is a person who writes critically against the ACA, works to get the ;loser W in office in 2000, advocated for the Senate not advising and consenting on Garland, teaching law seminars for an organization opposed to LGBT rights, and for voicing consistent positions against Roe v Wade.

    Turlet should cut the s..t , smell the sweat, and just call hit and misses. That’s all this is about.

    1. Wow, quite a rant, Joe. Between that and the objective legal observations of Turley on this blog, it’s a real struggle to know which to take more seriously… 🙂

    2. Barrett is a political shill,

      She actually highly accomplished. You keep projecting.

      1. She is cunning and evasive. She craves power and what she perceives as the glory of a SCOTUS seat. The American people do not approve of this process prior to an election. She doesn’t care. She knows she is being used for political purposes. She doesn’t care. She knows what Trump said about the reason for pushing her confirmation ahead of the election–because he knows he’s going to lose, and he thinks the SCOTUS will save him, like it saved Bush. She doesn’t care.

        If her religious beliefs are so strong and genuine, why doesn’t she own up to her writings about how to overturn Roe, her membership in a vitriolic anti-abortion group, the anti-abortion speeches she has given and her anti ACA writings? Because this would hurt Republicans and she craves power and glory. The demure, polite demeanor is an act. Her previous writings give her away, and while she likes to pretend to be neutral or noncommittal, she is denying her religion for political reasons. Therefore, she is also a hypocrite.

        1. She’s handsome, smart, well-mannered, and has an ample family life. She’s also accomplished professionally. Suck it up, fatso.

        2. Polls show that the more we hear ACB speak, the higher her likeability and approval numbers are with the public. Whereas the very opposite is true for phony Kamala – the more we see and hear from Kamala, the more unlikeable she becomes. That’s why Kammy bombed out in the Dem primaries. ACB will be confirmed before the election. Suck it up and cope.

  14. Someone was singing this song outside the hearing in the hallway.

    Hello mudda. Hello Fadda.
    Here I am in…Camp Grenada!
    You remember…Earnest Flemming?
    He got tomine poisoning after dinner.

  15. Turley doesn’t know if the letter was written before the election – even Barrett did not make that claim though she said it was likely.

  16. Still waiting for Feinstein’s “October surprise.” My wild speculation: An ancient email from Barrett to a student who felt offended by its tone. Pathetic soul (aka “pajama boy/girl”) is trotted out to reveal years of therapy to combat abusive email. “Judicial temperament” now in play. Angry demands for pause in hearings, as American Psychology Association empanels blue ribbon committee to opine on Barrett’s emotional stability.

    1. I’m going to wager the first time she ever sent an e-mail was around the time she finished up at Rhodes College.

      Around the time Amy Coney Barrett was in law school, I chanced upon a piece of social survey research (conducted by Edward Laumann’s group IIRC) which indicated that about 25% of the adult population over a certain age claimed fewer than four ‘partners’ in their lifetime. It wouldn’t surprise me given that her family-of-origin is vigorously Catholic and she’s retained that into adult life that she’s one of the 25%, even though as an attractive young woman she had to actually turn people down.

      Her husband arrived at Notre Dame in 1992 and had all seven years of his schooling there. She arrived there in 1994 and cadged a law degree there. They married after he finished his degree, so they likely met around 1995 or 1996, when she was about 24. It wouldn’t surprise me if her past consists of two guys who won’t talk. So, they’re going to have to go the Blasey Ford route and conjure up an accusation about a fabricated event. Note, of all the characters who offered accusations over the phone to the FBI in re Kavanaugh, there were just three the Democratc Party / media complex elected to use. One of them was facially incredible and another was facially trivial, so they were left with Blasey Ford. Since a man showing up and making analogous claims would look ridiculous, I’m expecting they’ll try to conjure up a lesbian relationship.

        1. Who did they come up with to slam Kavanaugh?: (1) a woman who said she had a lousy date with him ca. 1995; (2) Deborah Ramirez, who said that helped along by my support network and thinking about it for a week, I think that I saw his exposed genitals at a party in 1983; I was pretty drunk; (3) Julia Swetnick, who offered lurid tales of gang rape but no evidence that she ever met the two men she’d accused or an explanation of why as a community college student she’d have been keeping company with a couple of gruesome high school students who lived nowhere near her: (4) Christine Blasey Ford, whose tale was contradicted at every turn by the five people she offered as witnesses and who also presented no evidence she’d ever met the two men she accused. The media also gin up a man from Frisco who shared a dorm suite with BK and two other men between Sept.1983 and January 1984, who, with all that water under the bridge, is still cheesed at BK over interpersonal disputes for which he himself was partly responsible. I speculate they’ll be scraping, scraping, scraping to find someone to trash ACB.

      2. I agree with Art on that even though I do not know why we should be speculating on the topic at all.

        I have more than a little experience with Catholic universities in the midwest and the ladies who attend them.
        I would suggest it’s highly probable that Amy was a virgin when she was married.

        yes, such do yet exist even today

        1. I agree with Art on that even though I do not know why we should be speculating on the topic at all.

          The subtopic under discussion is what sort of rabbit Dianne Feinstein will be pulling out of her hat this time. The point of the speculation is to present an argument that there will not be a conventional charge of sexual misconduct and that fabricated charges like Blasey’s will require a new twist.

          1. I think they made fools of themselves with Kav. and won’t go down that road again without a better drama to stage than that.

            1. Of course they made fools of themselves, but people who can see that seldom vote Democratic. To see the essential foolishness of it all, you have to recognize procedural principles and realms of life not subordinate to political bickering, and that they do not do. I’ve yet to encounter a partisan Democrat who was willing to admit that the whole exercise was repulsive. It might cost them some swing voters, but recall that swing voters are low-information and are the least likely to register a judicial confirmation battle. The odious behavior of the whole nexus around the Democratic Party seems to have harmed them electorally not one bit.

              Susan Collins is facing an uphill re-election battle after having voted for his confirmation, after sailing to re-election on three previous occasions. Of course, there could be other factors at work.

      3. Female students of law like Amy are known for spending a lot of time studying and often will not have the time nor patience for “dating.”

        In fact most students of law spend a lot of time studying and have little time for dating.
        The amount of “homework” you get in law school dwarfs that of most undergrad programs.

        1. That was my problem with the movie “The Paper Chase”. No law student has enough time to screw around as much as those characters did.

  17. Today the NY Post revealed:

    -Joe Biden knew everything about burisma and was specifically looped in

    -Hunter was hired by burisma to get to joe

    -There is a Hunter Biden crack smoking sex tape

    BLACKOUT from media…

    Censorship/suppression of NY Post article by Facebook

    Where are the articles from Biden embed reporters taking Biden to task for something?

    Why do the Biden reporters lob softballs at his press conferences?

    Why are most of the critical questions Biden ever faces asked by local reporters?

    Biden camp called a ‘lid’ on reporters at 9am today

    Liberal media bias is real

    https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/

    “Biden has been the least-scrutinized presidential candidate in modern history at great disservice to the voters, but the press still has time to rectify that.”

    Will they?

    2. Select responses:

      I’m not going to repeat what Russian intelligence has fed @RudyGiuliani but i will say this. Rudy is a traitor to the United States for trafficking in anti-American propaganda and any reporter who does the same is a tool.

      an email story in October of an election year that is produced by Giuliani and Bannon and promoted by a Murdoch tabloid. Because the disaster of media’s handling of 2016 was apparently not disastrous enough.

      Before more journos go peddling this @nypost story, they should do some diligence on the cover story for how Giuliani got the “hard drive.” Giuliani has been conspiring with Russian agents for months, including someone the US says is actively trying to interfere in this election

      If you believe that Giuliani, who is under investigation for his work in Ukraine, somehow obtained a laptop with Hunter’s most secretive Burisma files on it, which he allegedly discarded at a PC repair shop and never picked up, then you are as stupid as Trump thinks you are.

      Things that are sketchy in NYP story on Hunter Biden – why wasn’t this in Ron Johnson report if it’s been in possession for awhile? When did Giuliani acquire it? Giuliani has been everywhere on the but this has been kicking around since late last year and unreleased till now?

      Why would the FBI subpoena the computer? If the store owner could give it to Giuliani, he could give it to the FBI. Makes no sense. And let’s remember, Burisma was hacked last fall by Russia. Do not be complicit in spreading Russian efforts to interfere in the election.

      Reminder that Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian national sanctioned by US Treasury for allegedly acting as a Russian agent to interfere in 2020–and has met w/Giuliani to discuss Biden conspiracies—has been releasing/teasing misleading or edited Biden material for nearly a year.

      1. “Rudy is a traitor to the United States ,,,anti-American propaganda… any reporter who does the same is a tool.”

        This is great! I disagree but let’s get out feelings out there so people can see where this is headed.

        And when it comes to so-called “reporters,” maybe time to kiss the First Amendment goodbye. It only protects big global social media and mass media organizations with the money to swamp their adversaries in courts. Is it really wonderful that the “journalists” of the West are a non-stop neoliberal / Democrat propaganda machine? How fair is it that the Federal Reserve acting on the preposterous theory of MMT can gin up billions of new money with mere keystrokes, that will go immediately into the managerial pockets of Democrat propaganda machines like Apple, Amazon, Google, Twitter, etc. and the rest of us are stuck playing by a 18th century rule book.

        Here’s another pet peeve. The line of cases preventing football players from praying before games? That’s krap, a preposterous overextension of the establishment clause if there ever was one. I was glad to hear Amy say that “there is a tension between the free exercise clause and the establishment clause.” Oh boy there sure is such a tension, and the ACLU has whacked Christians in the nads over it again and again with that establishment clause as if the free exercise clause barely existed at all.

        Maybe it’s time to toss that First Amendment on the dungheap and let some democracy rip. Now, if Democrats think those dice will fall where they like, well, we could give it a roll and find out?

        We got some ideas of our own about who’s a traitor and which reporters are tools. Here’s a gamble for ya. Toss out that moldy First Amendment and find out which will prevail?

        Personally I have grown sick of hearing about an amendment that when it ever comes up only cuts one way. That’s my “good faith argument to change existing law” for the day.

  18. Pingback: Day 3: Running Update Post on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s SCOTUS Confirmation Hearing | The Universal Spectator

  19. I’ve never been a fan of Durbin. He’s been a highlight for me during this hearing. He is actually revealing and challenging ACB. ACB holds her own. It’s fun to watch and hear, even for a non-lawyer like me.

    1. Durbin is very smart and he has a competent staff. That said I reject him and his gun grabber agenda.

  20. Turley observes: “Barrett strongly indicated that she does not agree with the use of international law as controlling in U.S. cases – a position similar to Scalia.”

    And opposite Breyer: https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/3/4/519/791958

    Not as clear is whether Barrett considers the UN Charter and other treaties ratified by the US Senate (e.g., the Non-Proliferation Treaty) as “foreign law,” “international law” or “federal law.”

    1. Turley observes: “Durbin is returning the decisions on taking away guns versus taking away votes for ex-felons. Barrett is again noting that there is a distinction between rights that are individual rights (as in the Second Amendment) and rights going to society like voting.”

      Definitely a substantive exchange. The question of international law, specifically international human rights law, applies here. Which right – the right of a civilian ex-felon to private ownership of a firearm or her right to vote – is more primary under customary international law? To what extent should the enumeration of rights and responsibilities in the Bogota Declaration and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights influence a SCOTUS justice’s reasoning on a case involving gun rights and/or voting rights?

        1. Mr Obama must not have got that case mentioned to him when he put Anwar al-Awlaki on his hit list.

          oh wait that was distinguishable because he didn’t get a trial or a tribunal before a rocket cancelled him. LOL silly me

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