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Susan Collins 'had to know this day was coming' when she voted for Kavanaugh and Gorsuch: CNN legal expert
June 25, 2022
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has become a target after the judges she supported brought down women's reproductive rights and healthcare privacy.
Speaking to CNN's Jim Acosta on Saturday, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin explained that it was due to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who stopped former President Barack Obama from being able to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court for almost a year.
"Totally. It's broader than that. The credit or responsibility for the Dobbs decision depending on how you view it goes to Mitch McConnell as much as it goes to Donald Trump. He is the one that prevented Merrick Garland from replacing Anton Scalia. He is the one that pushed through Brett Kavanaugh in spite of the sexual [assault] allegation. He jammed through Amy Coney Barrett in an abbreviated process. Those are the three Trump justices, two if not all three of them wouldn't be on the court but for Mitch McConnell. He is one of the absolutely central figures in the history of the modern Supreme Court."
Acosta brought up Collins as well, showing the video of an interview she did with CNN saying that she believed Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh when they looked her in the eye and said that they believed Roe v. Wade was settled law and legal precedent. Both men lied to the Senate under oath, which could be prosecuted and result in jail time.
"Are you 100 percent certain? Without a doubt that Brett Kavanaugh will not overturn Roe v. Wade?" Dana Bash asked Collins.
"I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh will overturn..." Collins said.
She also released a statement saying the same, that she believed Kavanaugh because he "believes that precedent 'is not just a judicial policy ... it is constitutionally dictated.'"
\u201cRemembering Sen. Susan Collins's statement that she believed Kavanaugh when he said he would uphold the precedent of Roe.\u201d— Sarah Burris \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Sarah Burris \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1656080873
Acosta noted that Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett all gave assurances that they wouldn't overturn such a precedent and yet they did.
"You know, the — it's hard to know where to start," Toobin began. "Susan Collins is nominally an Independent Republican, but who does what Mitch McConnell wants when he needs her. She voted against Amy Coney Barrett because Mitch McConnell didn't need her vote. But he really needed her vote on Brett Kavanaugh. So, I don't know if Susan Collins was really believing Brett Kavanaugh or she was just giving herself a fig leaf to do Mitch McConnell's bidding, as she frequently does in tight circumstances. As for the justices themselves, you know, they were playing a game to get on the Supreme Court. All three of them are lawyers. So, if you parse their words carefully, the way lawyers know how to speak, they did not explicitly promise to uphold Roe v. Wade. They left the impression they would uphold Roe v. Wade, which was enough for Susan Collins. This was a game they were playing, but those of us who studied the reports of Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, the Biden campaign, knew this day was coming. And Susan Collins had to know it too because anyone with any sense had to know it was coming. But it did and here we are."
See the full discussion below:
How Susan Collins helped end reproductive choice and privacy youtu.be
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Trump was 'reluctant' to praise the SCOTUS justices over the Roe ruling because he's still mad at them: report
June 25, 2022
According to a report from Jonathan Swan over the differing ways that Donald Trump and former vice president Mike Pence celebrated the Supreme Court's controversial gutting of Roe v. Wade, the Axios correspondent claimed the former president was muted in his response because he still bears a grudge against conservative members of the court.
When the decision was announced Pence's team was already armed with a video of Trump's former running mate praising the ruling to the high heavens that stripped women of their right to get an abortion based upon where they live. On top of that, Pence made the case that he would like to go even further and see a nationwide ban put in place by a, presumably, Republican Congress.
As for Trump, he initially skipped taking credit for placing three justices on the court who ruled against the rights of women, instead giving credit to "God" in a statement.
As Swan of Axios is reporting, Trump's decision to not brag about his part is related to his ongoing grievance with the Supreme Court which has ruled against him as investigators look into his part in the Jan 6th investigation.
According to the Axios report, "Another reason for Trump's reluctance to praise the Supreme Court is because he's still bitterly angry at the conservative justices for refusing to take up his challenges to President Biden's 2020 election victory, according to a source with direct knowledge," with Swan adding, "Trump feels he was let down when it mattered most by the three justices he appointed."
The report also adds, "Trump is deeply cynical and suspicious of the courts in general and even of the Supreme Court, which he's defined more than any president since Ronald Reagan."
You can read more here.
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Anti-choice Texas lawmaker put on the spot over why he gets to decide when life begins
June 25, 2022
A anti-choice Texas state senator was put on the spot on CNN on Saturday when host Boris Sanchez asked him why he should be allowed to strip women of their right to choose to have an abortion and if he thinks life begins at conception.
Along the way, the CNN host confronted him on the science and what allows him to "decide when life begins."
"Are you saying you believe life begins at conception?" the host asked.
"Life begins at conception," Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-TX) shot back. "If you talk to scientists, if you talk to medical professionals, there are stages of development all the way through the pregnancy. There are stages of development after birth, little newborn babies are not fully grown, but when that human is in the womb, that's the life we want to protect, of course."
"There are scientists and doctors who say life doesn't begin at conception, they don't share that opinion, they believe it's a cluster of cells and through those stages of development, eventually you can define an embryo, a fetus, potentially as life but they don't necessarily agree with your point of view," host Sanchez corrected him. "So I go back to my first question, specifically what is it that allows you to define what life is for women?"
"Each scientist you're referring to would pick a different point in that development, each one would," Hughes replied. "As you know, Democrats in the U.S. Congress support a bill that would allow abortion up to the moment of birth. We know most Americans obviously are not in favor of that and so Roe v. Wade means this question goes back to the states. So the people decide it through the states, people are going to vote. If they don't like the policies in their state they're going to vote with their feet. people have been doing that, they've been leaving states like California and coming to Texas where there's opportunity and liberty and rights. we respect the rights of those little unborn babies as well."
"I understand your point. I do want to clarify that bill that you're referring to that Democrats -- you referred to Democrats supporting a bill that would allow for abortion up until the moment of birth," host Sanchez corrected him again. "I don't believe that that's widely supported by a majority of Democrats. I don't know that that's realistic or that that would pass in any of the 50 states."
Watch below:
CNN 06 25 2022 10 42 33 youtu.be
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