A Short History Lesson

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is being hailed as the first black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court. That’s nice. In recent history we also had the first black president. We saw how that worked out (the problems created had nothing to do with the color of his skin–the problems created had to do with his ideas). But about that first black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court thing–there needs to be an asterisk next to that statement.

A Washington Times article of February 1, 2022, reminds us of the following:

President Biden wasn’t always a supporter of Black women on the federal bench.

While serving in the Senate, Mr. Biden filibustered the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — twice — before she was finally approved in 2005 after a two-year fight.

His staunch opposition to Judge Brown, the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, prompted allegations of hypocrisy after he reiterated last week his vow to nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court following Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement announcement.

…A former California Supreme Court justice, Judge Brown was nominated by President George W. Bush and retired from the court in 2017. She was seen as a potential Supreme Court pick for the 2005 opening that was ultimately filled by Justice Samuel Alito.

On Wednesday, Breitbart listed five takaways from Tuesday’s hearing on the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

These are the five points, please follow the link to read the entire article:

1. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) nailed Jackson on the “1619 Project,” Critical Race Theory, and her sentencing record.

2. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) exposed the fallacy of Jackson’s professed commitment to “originalism.” 

3. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) fought Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) over terror detainees. 

4. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) showed that Judge Jackson is unwilling to state what a “woman” is.

5. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned Jackson closely about her record on sex offenders.

These are all valid questions that the American people deserve answered.

Good News For Religious Freedom

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about a recent decision by a divided three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The ruling states that forcing business owners to fund and facilitate contraception and sterilization services against the tenets of their faith encroaches on their free exercise of religious belief, and that the government’s argument that protecting womens’ health trumped that right was absurd.

The article reports:

…What Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote in her decision was that corporations themselves, whether for-profit or non-profit, do not have First Amendment standing for religious exercise.  However, those who own or run them do, and even though the Gilardis’ businesses are corporations, the net effect of the HHS mandate is to penalize the Gilardis individually for living their faith.

The argument the Obama Administration has made for the requirement that companies provide contraception and abortion services is that these services need to be covered in order to protect women’s health. The Court seems to be saying that providing insurance for these services does not necessarily protect a woman’s health and should not override the religious freedom granted in the First Amendment.

This case or a similar case will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court.

Enhanced by Zemanta