Trump Announces SCOTUS Nominee, Brett Kavanaugh
Brett M. Kavanaugh, the federal judge nominated by President Trump on Monday to the Supreme Court, has endorsed robust views of the powers of the president, consistently siding with arguments in favor of broad executive authority during his 12 years on the bench in Washington.
Kavanaugh’s record suggests that if he is confirmed, he would be more to the right than the man he would replace, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, for whom he clerked. Kavanaugh has proven that he abides by the law rather than political ideology in cases involving gun rights, abortion and the separation of powers.
Still, in the run-up to his nomination on Monday, Kavanaugh fielded criticism from some social conservatives who objected to language he used in connection with the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, and to his opinion in a case involving an immigrant teen seeking an abortion. Some of Trump’s core backers also expressed concerns about his ties to the Bush family and GOP establishment.
Where Judge Brett Kavanaugh Stands on Key Issues:
Abortion:
In October 2017: Kavanaugh’s dissent of a ruling of the DC Circuit that an undocumented immigrant teen in detention was entitled to seek an abortion. The case involved a pregnant immigrant teenager who was taken into federal custody. Kavanaugh wrote that the majority, which ruled to allow the teenager to get an abortion, had “badly erred” and opened the door to “abortion on demand” for unaccompanied immigrant minors.
Kavanaugh stopped short of a taking a position held by some conservatives, including fellow judge Karen Henderson, who wrote that the immigrant minor did not have the right to an abortion in the first place.
Kavanaugh has not expressed outright opposition to Roe v. Wade.
2nd Amendment/Gun Control
In 2011, Kavanaugh dissented from a majority opinion of the DC Circuit that upheld a ban that applied to semiautomatic rifles in the District of Columbia. In his dissent, he wrote that the Supreme Court had previously "held that handguns -- the vast majority of which today are semi-automatic -- are constitutionally protected because they have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens."
Citing a previous high court ruling, Kavanaugh went on to say, "It follows from Heller's protection of semi-automatic handguns that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that DC's ban on them is unconstitutional."
NSA Surveillance
In 2015, Kavanaugh ruled in favor of the NSA's extensive surveillance operation. Kavanaugh wrote that the surveillance collection did not constitute a “search” under the Fourth Amendment. He added that even if it was a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, the government was allowed to take the records because it had a “special need” in preventing terrorism, overriding the privacy interests of people whose records were taken without a warrant.
Kavanaugh and Bill Clinton:
In a 2009 law review article, Kavanaugh said his experience in the White House persuaded him that "the job of president is far more difficult than any other civilian position in government" and that presidents should be exempt from civil lawsuits and criminal investigations or prosecutions while in office. Kavanaugh said such probes are too distracting considering the seriousness of the issues facing the president.
Trump’s European Trip Begins
The first stop on the trip will be Brussels, the headquarters of the North Atlantic alliance and the site of President Trump’s second NATO summit. In Brussels, Trump will meet with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg before participating in high-level sessions with the 28 allies on Wednesday.
The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said the meetings would focus on NATO’s mission of countering Russia. NATO summits also provide a venue for discussions with Georgia and Ukraine, who are not NATO members but have sought its protection from Russia and with leaders of Afghanistan about the NATO strategy to defeat the Taliban there.
Ahead of the NATO summit, Trump tweeted, “Getting ready to leave for Europe. First meeting-NATO. The U.S. is spending many times more than any other country in order to protect them. Not fair to the U.S. taxpayer. On top of that we lose $151 Billion on Trade with European Union. Charge us big Tariffs (& Barriers)!”
Trump went on to tweet, “NATO countries must pay MORE, the United States must pay LESS. Very unfair!”
Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, responded to President Trump on Twitter saying, “Dear @realDonaldTrump, US doesn’t have and won’t have a better ally than EU. We spend on defense much more than Russia and as much as China. I hope you have no doubt this is an investment in our security, which cannot be said with confidence about Russia & Chinese spending :-)”
PRRI Study Shows Mass Exodus from the Church
The American religious landscape has undergone substantial changes in recent years. However, one of the most consequential shifts in American religion has been the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans. This trend emerged in the early 1990s. In 1991, only six percent of Americans identified their religious affiliation as “none,” and that number had not moved much since the early 1970s. By the end of the 1990s, 14% of the public claimed no religious affiliation. The rate of religious change accelerated further during the late 2000s and early 2010s, reaching 20% by 2012. Today, one-quarter (25%) of Americans claim no formal religious identity, making this group the single largest “religious group” in the U.S.
Today, nearly four in ten (39%) young adults (ages 18-29) are religiously unaffiliated—three times the unaffiliated rate (13%) among seniors (ages 65 and older). While previous generations were also more likely to be religiously unaffiliated in their twenties, young adults today are nearly four times as likely as young adults a generation ago to identify as religiously unaffiliated. In 1986, for example, only 10% of young adults claimed no religious affiliation.
Lisa Page to Appear on Capitol Hill for Interview with House Judiciary & Oversight Committees
Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer who exchanged anti-Trump text messages with FBI agent Peter Strzok, has been subpoenaed for a closed-door interview this week with the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, according to two congressional sources.
Lisa Page will testify one day before former bureau colleague and lover Peter Strzok is set to testify publicly about the start of the Russia investigation. Peter Strzok will return to Capitol Hill on Thursday July 12, 2018.
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, subpoenaed Page to attend a deposition on Wednesday, the sources said. It has been reported that the judiciary committee issued a subpoena to Lisa Page on Monday. Lisa Page's attorney Amy Jeffress said in a statement to CNN that she has been working with the committee staff to arrange for her client's "voluntary appearance."
House Republicans have suggested the FBI was conspiring against Trump during and after he was elected President, and the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees are investigating the agency’s actions.
University of Wyoming profs protest ‘Cowboys’ slogan
The University of Wyoming has come under fire for its new slogan, “The World Needs More Cowboys,” with opponents complaining that the word “cowboy” is sexist and non-inclusive.
The marketing campaign, set to launch in September, was designed to increase enrollment and attract new out-of-state students, but according to The Laramie Boomerang, the UW Committee on Women and People of Color wrote a letter to university officials demanding that they “shelve” the slogan in favor of a new one that “represents the diversity of the people and cultures” at UW.
“I am not the only person for whom the word ‘cowboy’ invokes a white, macho, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, U.S.-born person,” associate professor of kinesiology and health Christine Porter told the Boomerang. “The history of cowboys, of course, is much more diverse than that racially, and presumably also for sexual orientation,” she conceded. “But the image—what the word ‘cowboy’ means off the top of almost everybody’s head in the U.S.—is the white, heterosexual male.”
The university, however, is undaunted by the criticism, emphasizing that the term is intended to evoke “the spirit of the cowboy that we all kind of share in.”
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