The Supreme Court now has a majority of Paul Weyrich and Leonard Leo chosen Federalist Society theocon Catholic judges. There are more in other federal and state courts.
Paul Weyrich chose judges for Reagan and GHW Bush, Leo for GW Bush and Trump. Catholic activist Weyrich was one of the most influential never elected men in modern history. He founded ALEC, co-founded the Heritage Institute and Moral Majority. He used lies and propaganda about abortion to unite "evangelicals" and "conservative" Catholics, created the coalition of those religious leaders and their wealthy supporters, now the latter led by David and Charles Koch. The first of those were John Olin (Winchester firearms, ammunition and explosives), and Adolph Coors.
Leonard Leo is VP of the Federalist Society, and a member of Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta, as is Trump supporter Steve Bannon.
It's important to note that "evangelicals" are a minority among people who call themselves Christian, and theocon Catholics are a minority of Catholics. They oppose their own Pope. Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are Catholic.
Judges appointed by Reagan and GHW gave the Whitehouse to GW. He lost the popular vote. If those judges hadn’t stopped the Florida recount GW, it's highly likely that he would not have been president. GW started his insane war against "Gog and Magog" based on lies, the planning for which began in 1997 with the creation of PNAC, Project for a New American Century. Fr Richard John Neuhaus wrote a theological justification for "just war" against Islam.
There were no WMDs in Iraq, nor where there any ISIS, Taliban or Al Queda. Thousands of Americans and allies died in Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Muslims, many of them innocent civilians. Puppet governments installed by the U.S. failed. Trump negotiated with the Taliban, agreeing to removing troops from Afghanistan, and forced the puppet government to release more than 5,000 Taliban prisoners.
Those judges call themselves “originalists”, meaning interpreting the Constitution as it was written in the mindset of the authors. In practice it means using selected amendments and precedent decisions to advance their agenda. The hypocrisy is palpable. They ignore the fact that the separation of church and state is enshrined in our Constitution, yet have rewritten the Second Amendment, which was written by James Madison for one reason, to assure slave owning states that they could keep their “well regulated militias“. Catholics were hated in most of the colonies. Millions of people were killed in the Thirty Years Wars and the Inquisition, ending just over 100 years before the Constitution was written. Abortion was legal until "quickening", voting was restricted to property owning taxpaying white men. The founding fathers couldn't have imagined women and former slaves voting.
We know how to reduce abortions, contraceptives and comprehensive sex education. The religious right dominated Republican party opposes both.
The Texas legislature just passed another anti-abortion bill. The result will be the same as earlier legislation, increasing self induced abortions. That legislation and destroying women‘s healthcare programs that only provided well woman care and contraceptives caused an increase in self induced abortions by estimates as high as over 240,000 in just three years. Women with money go elsewhere, or get them quietly done by their gynecologists.
In Colorado, a program funded by Susan Buffett reduced unwanted pregnancies and abortions in the target teen population by 40% in four years. Democrats tried to fund the program when that money ran out, Republicans blocked it. Four Republican women finally joined every Democrat in approving half the money requested, another 20% reduction. It saved the state over $70 million and helped alleviate the social costs of unwanted pregnancies and children.
It's not a coincidence that those judges have allowed unprecedented voter suppression. ALEC written legislation in several states targets not just black Americans, but also women and college students. The latest such legislation in Texas passed in the last session targets Houston, Austin and San Antonio, large black American population and college students.
The Fifth Circuit court is another example, now packed with Federalist Society judges. They overruled lower court decisions that blocked implementation of clearly unconstitutional voter suppression legislation, and recently allowed the absurd Texas anti-abortion legislation, which will have the same affect as one did earlier, increase self-induced abortions.
This headline is incorrect, it wasn’t just Trump.
Senate Republicans blocked confirmation of Merrick Garland, approved of Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. Senator Suzanne Collins and others said that Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett lied in their senate hearings. They certainly were not truthful.
Amy Barrett is a member of what has been described as a "cult".
Update 07/13/2023
There were important decisions on the SCOTUS docket last month. It's not a surprise that the five theocon Catholic majority ruled against affirmative action, more hypocrisy especially from Thomas, who went to Catholic schools and Yale courtesy of affirmative action programs.
No one knows how much money was spent packing our courts, but Leo recently received $1.6 billion from Barre Seid, who's Jewish.
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