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NANCY ALTMAN, via Linda Benesch, lbenesch@socialsecurityworks.org, @ssworks
President of Social Security Works, Altman is author of The Battle for Social Security and The Truth About Social Security: Exploding Five Destructive Myths.

She just wrote the piece “Is Social Security Safe from the Courts?” which states: “Because of Social Security’s overwhelming popularity among even self-described Tea Partiers, conservative politicians generally say that they love Social Security. But at candid moments, they make clear that they would like the courts to do what they have been seeking (so far unsuccessfully) to do sneakily, behind closed doors and by ‘starving the beast’: End Social Security.

“Former Republican presidential candidate and former Trump Secretary of Energy Rick Perry has said and written that he believes Social Security is unconstitutional. Former Trump Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney even voted, when serving in the South Carolina General Assembly, in favor of an amendment, which declared Social Security unconstitutional. …

“Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have been systematically stacking the courts with young, extremist judges” and Supreme Court members for the last four years. “The courts on which they likely will sit for decades have the power to end Social Security.”

“It is important to remember that when Social Security became law, most thought it would be struck down as unconstitutional. There was good reason for their concern. At the start of President Franklin Roosevelt’s first term, the Supreme Court,” led by four conservatives “colloquially known as the ‘Four Horsemen of Reaction,’ systematically struck down New Deal laws. …

“Out of concern for Social Security as well as other key legislation pending before the court, Roosevelt put forward his so-called court packing plan. Though the plan failed, the court held Social Security constitutional in what was coined ‘the switch in time that saved the nine.’ [The Supreme Court largely reoriented when faced with Roosevelt’s threat of court packing.]

“Today’s court is more conservative than any court since 1937.” Judge Amy Coney Barrett, “who is just 48 years old, shares the same conservative views as the Four Horsemen of Reaction. If it were 1937 and Social Security were a new question in front of the Supreme Court, how would she have ruled? How would she rule if the issue were before her at some point in the future, once she has a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court?

“Revealingly, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked Barrett to comment on the constitutionality of Social Security and Medicare during her confirmation hearings, Barrett refused to answer.”

The New York Times reports in “Ardeth Platte, Dominican Nun and Antinuclear Activist, Dies at 84” that “Sister Ardeth spent years behind bars for her beliefs and was the inspiration for a character on the Netflix hit ‘Orange Is the New Black.'”

On Thursday and Friday, sentencing will take place for Fr. Steven Kelly, a Jesuit priest, and his co-defendant Patrick O’Neill, who co-founded a Catholic Worker house in Garner, North Carolina. Kelly has been in jail for the last two and a half years. They are part of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, Catholic Worker activists who entered the largest U.S. nuclear weapons facility in Georgia on April 4, 2018, exactly 50 years after Martin Luther King’s assasination. See KingsBayPlowshares7.org for background and @kingsbayplow7 for up-to-date information, including how to listen to the sentencing.

Plowshares activists follow the biblical edict to “beat swords into plowshares.” (See O’Neill’s oral arguments on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, an act championed by William Barr and Mike Pence — and mentioned by Ted Cruz during Barrett’s hearings — but prohibited by the court in this case.)

PAUL MAGNO, pmagno56@gmail.com
Magno is with Jonah House, an activist spiritual community in Baltimore, where many of the 100 Plowshares actions originated. It was founded by the late Philip Barrigan and Liz McAlister (see below) where Sister Ardeth lived for many years. He is currently in Brunswick, Georgia where the sentencing for Fr. Kelly and O’Neill will take place.

He said today: “It is a shame that Amy Coney Barrett didn’t pursue college or law school locally in her native New Orleans. If she had, she might have met and been mentored by a great lawyer, Bill Quigley, who is also a Catholic driven by his faith. He understands that social justice needs to be an intrinsic component of law in order to make justice a widely available resource for poor and marginalized constituencies in U.S society.

“Quigley has trained and mentored a host of advocacy-focused attorneys over the years from his place as professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, defended peace activists as part of the SOA Watch legal collective for over 30 years and the faith-based disarmament activists of the Plowshares movement. Notably he won an appeal for the three Transform Now Plowshares activists convicted in Tennessee after gaining entry to the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons complex in July of 2012. Their sabotage conviction was overturned and they were released from prison after serving two years apiece of much longer sentences imposed after their trial in Knoxville in the Spring of 2013. This week two other clients of his will face sentencing in Brunswick Georgia for their Kings Bay Plowshares incursion onto a Trident submarine base in April of 2018.”

Instead, said Magno, Barrett “has advanced professionally under the aegis of the Federalist Society and the influence of figures such as the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. With her opening remarks, ‘courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life,’ she embraces the notion of judicial indifference to social injustice and a judiciary that makes a virtue of that helplessness.

“A saying of medieval Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas is worth remembering. He said: ‘Law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law.'”

Liz Mcalister, who is also one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, and was represented by Quigley, said: “This isn’t the first time that Steve Kelly faces the court of law — not the court of justice. I don’t think he even keeps count of how many times he’s stood before courts, or how long he has spent in jails and prisons. He enters all those spaces with grace and peace, knowing that the work that he can do there is welcome and needed and a gift to all of us. I trust that he will put any additional time in prison to good use, and that it will be a time of deep prayer, oriented toward transforming our world into a more just and peaceful place. We are grateful for his witness and I am called to a deeper commitment to the work for peace and justice by my brother Steve Kelly.”

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu
Boyle is a law professor at the University of Illinois. He said today: “Barrett promises to be Scalia on steroids. She has criticized his ‘faint-hearted’ version of ‘originalism.’

“Scalia himself was the first proponent of ‘originalism’ on the Supreme Court. He got it from Robert Bork and Ed Meese, who controlled judicial nominations during the Reagan administration. It was their litmus test for all judicial appointments and nominations.

“But ‘originalism’ is a farce. Justice [Robert H.]Jackson’s landmark opinion in the Steel Seizure case in 1952 actually debunked it decades earlier.” Jackson wrote: “Just what our forefathers did envision, or would have envisioned had they foreseen modern conditions, must be divined from materials almost as enigmatic as the dreams Joseph was called upon to interpret for Pharaoh. A century and a half of partisan debate and scholarly speculation yields no net result but only supplies more or less apt quotations from respected sources on each side of any question. They largely cancel each other.”

This largely overlooked point was made by Anthony Lewis in 1988 while he was a leading author and The New York Times columnist specializing in legal affairs. See his book review: “Like Interpreting the Dreams of Pharaoh.”

Lewis also noted that Bork began “originalism” in a “law review article that stated conclusions without any detailed historical research. He restated his position many times, making a large political mark, but he never did any real scholarship on what the Framers intended — or whether, indeed, they wanted their intentions to be our guide.” Lewis also wrote that many of those who argue for “originalism” also argue against the clear words of the Constitution when it is convenient for them to do so, for example regarding war powers.

Boyle added: “At the same time, many of the Democrats are obviously not serious about trying to stop this nomination. It’s Kabuki theater to them. It’s part of a long pattern: The Republicans in recent decades have packed the courts with Federalist Society ideologues and the Democrats have let it happen, nominated moderates and in this case didn’t take concrete steps they could have to stop the nomination. The only exception to this was the nomination of Bork himself which was stopped by mass public revulsion and protest.”

Hearings for the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett are scheduled to begin Monday. (See IPA news release of exactly a week ago: “Will Schumer Try to Stop Trump SCOTUS Pick?“)

MARJORIE COHN, marjorielegal@gmail.com, @marjoriecohn
Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, recently wrote, “From a Justice for Gender Equality to a ‘Justice’ for Gender Oppression.”

She writes: “Donald Trump rushed to nominate Barrett and enlisted his consigliere, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), to ram her nomination through the Senate so she can support Trump’s legal challenges to any election results that favor Joe Biden. Trump, who refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, has been conducting a misinformation campaign about (non-existent) voter fraud and signaling that he will lose only if the election is ‘rigged’ against him with expanded mail-in voting.

“During her three years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Barrett demonstrated her racist bona fides when she countenanced what her fellow judge called a ‘separate-but-equal arrangement’ in which a Black American was transferred in order to segregate a workplace. In EEOC v. Autozone, the EEOC claimed Autozone segregated employees based on race by assigning Black employees to work in Latinx neighborhoods. After a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit denied the EEOC’s claim, Barrett voted against the entire 7th Circuit rehearing the case.

“Barrett criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2012 vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act. She wrote in a 2017 law review article that the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the law ‘pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.’

“An avowed opponent of reproductive rights, Barrett called Roe v. Wade a ‘judicial fiat,’ stating, ‘The framework of Roe essentially permitted abortion on demand, and Roe recognizes no state interest in the life of a fetus.’ As a judge on the Court of Appeals, she wanted to rehear a case that could limit the right to a pre-viability abortion, sought to overturn Supreme Court precedent allowing states to regulate protestors who block abortion access, and voted to require that parents of girls under 18 be notified before abortions are performed. She has also opposed access to contraception under the Affordable Care Act as ‘an assault on religious liberty.’

“Barrett has consistently sided with corporations over workers. She voted to restrict enforcement of laws against age discrimination, sought to limit the power of federal agencies to hold accountable companies that lie to consumers, and cut back on the rights of consumers against predatory debt collectors.” Cohn also wrote the piece “Ginsburg’s Legacy Is Vast, But a Trump Appointee Could Overturn Her Best Rulings.”

On Saturday The Guardian reported: “Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said: ‘From [Republicans’] perspective, this is the chance of a lifetime to turn the court to the right.

“’If you have a look at the opinions coming down this term, several of them were five to four, waffling on both sides of the issue, but now you’re definitely going to have six to three. So I don’t I think the Republicans will pass this opportunity.'”

NBC reports: “Amy Coney Barrett, a federal appellate court judge, has emerged as one of the front-runners to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, three sources told NBC News.”

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu
The New York Times in “To Conservatives, Barrett Has ‘Perfect Combination’ of Attributes for Supreme Court” quotes Barrett mentor Judge Patrick J. Schiltz: “The question of what we believe as a religious matter has nothing to do with what we believe a written document says.”

Said Boyle: “That’s rubbish. It’s like John Roberts saying that he was just going to be calling balls and strikes. And she was at Notre Dame Law School. When I interviewed with them in the late 1970s, I was told by the dean that law professors took a required pledge that they had to conduct themselves consistent with ‘Catholic values,’ which I took to mean I would not teach, write or advocate in favor of abortion rights. Has Barrett taken any kind of pledge that’s relevant to her being on the Court? She is being positioned for the Supreme Court to do a job and overturning Roe v. Wade will be part of it.”

Barrett is a member of the rightwing Federalist Society and Boyle has been a longtime critic of the group (see “Hijacking Justice” from 1999 in Emerge magazine), which is now widely acknowledged as being remarkably influential in shaping the Federal judiciary.

Since the Kavanaugh nomination, Boyle has advocated that when the Democrats obtain control of the presidency and both Houses of Congress, they should increase the number of members of the Supreme Court, an idea that has recently gained wider attention, see recent episode of “The Katie Halper Show.”

Boyle added: “Biden has come out against packing the Supreme Court. No surprise there. This is not a symmetrical situation. The Republicans have always played hard-ball on judicial appointments. They have been packing the Federal courts with Federalist Society members since Ronald Reagan and his White House Counsel and then Attorney General Edwin Meese, a leader of the Federalist Society. Establishment Democrats don’t care all that much despite what they say.”

Boyle was the lawyer for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war and genocide against them before the International Court of Justice. In that capacity, he represented the 40,000 raped women of Bosnia, argued their case for genocide before the World Court, and won two World Court Orders protecting them.

Monday night, Supreme Court member Clarence Thomas swore in Amy Coney Barrett to the court at the White House.

ReformSCOTUS.org has produced two videos, “Time to Talk about Court Reform” and “Our Democracy Has Been Put to the Test.” 

MARJORIE COHN, marjorielegal@gmail.com, @marjoriecohn
Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, recently wrote, “Ginsburg’s Legacy Is Vast, But a Trump Appointee Could Overturn Her Best Rulings.” She wrote last month: “Democrats must play hard ball. They should pledge that if Joe Biden wins the election and the Democrats assume control of the Senate, they will raise the number of members on the Supreme Court from 9 to 13. The Constitution does not prescribe how many members will sit on the high court so Congress can raise the number.” Cohn also wrote the piece “From a Justice for Gender Equality to a ‘Justice’ for Gender Oppression.”

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu

    Boyle is law professor at the University of Illinois. In September, he was quoted in the Guardian: “From [Republicans’] perspective, this is the chance of a lifetime to turn the court to the right.”

   Boyle has been advocating that the Democrats embrace expanding the court since the Brett Kavanaugh hearing. He said today: “The Federalist Society, with its complete distortion of the Constitution and phony concept of ‘Originalism,’ has been packing the courts since the Reagan administration. The Democratic Party should embrace counterpacking the courts.

    “Contrary to what many claim, FDR’s plan to expand the Supreme Court was a great  success. The court got the message and began to uphold his New Deal legislation after previously striking it down, which prompted his scheme in the first place. So he did not have to pack the court. But these Federalist Society justices are so hard core, it will be needed now.

    “Eliminating life tenure would require a Constitutional amendment, which is a non-starter to begin with and even a waste of time, efforts and money to try. Counterpacking is the best way to deal with this.”

Amy Coney Barrett is expected to be voted in as a member of the Supreme Court today.

Al Jazeera reports: “Treaty banning nuclear weapons to enter into force,” which states: “Fifty countries have ratified an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons, the United Nations has announced, allowing the ‘historic’ text to enter into force in 90 days.

“Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the UN said on Saturday, in a move hailed by anti-nuclear activists but strongly opposed by the United States” and the other nuclear powers.

“UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres commended the 50 states and saluted ‘the instrumental work’ of civil society in facilitating negotiations and pushing for ratification. …

“The UN chief said the treaty’s entry into force on January 22, 2021, crowns a worldwide movement ‘to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons’ and ‘is a tribute to the survivors of nuclear explosions and tests, many of whom advocated for this treaty.’ …

“The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition whose work helped spearhead the nuclear ban treaty, called the development a ‘historic milestone.'”

PATRICK O’NEILL, via Bill Ofenloch, billcpf@aol.com;
Mary Anne Grady Flores, gradyflores08@gmail.com

O’Neill was just sentenced to 14 months in prison for peacefully protesting nuclear weapons. He and the other Kings Bay Plowshares 7 entered a massive Trident nuclear submarine base in Georgia in 2018 and were convicted of trespassing and other crimes. See background on their case and statements by supporters, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu at KingsBayPlowshares7.org and @kingsbayplow7.

    At his recent sentencing hearing, O’Neill said: “While this court disregards the international laws signed by our nation and upheld by our constitution (Article 6, section 2, the Supremacy Clause) which our courts are to uphold above all domestic laws, I, under obligation to these laws and God’s laws, have attempted to uphold these laws and abide by them in our actions at Kings Bay.

    “In fact, our government has violated many vital laws regarding nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty clearly, among many others. But there is also good news. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons any day now WILL Be International Law. As of this week, 47 nations have ratified the treaty. Only three more nations are needed for global ratification that will mean there is NO doubt that we will have this new International Law on the books in the very near future.

“That’s why you, Judge Wood, in perhaps the only time you expressed your personal opinion during the trial, said Trident is probably not unlawful. The United States’ refusal to recognize international law does not make international law irrelevant.” The court refused to hear expert testimony by Prof. Francis Boyle on the illegality of nuclear weapons and by Daniel Ellsberg regarding the necessity defense.

    O’Neill also noted at his sentencing hearing that a court magistrate conceded that their actions were “prophetic, sacramental” and sought “symbolic denuclearization” — but yet, the judge ensured that the “jury never heard any evidence about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” That is, an Act that is touted by Barrett, Attorney General William Barr, Vice President Mike Pence and others was rendered moot in the Plowshares case because of an alleged “compelling interest” of the government regarding its military assets, e.g. the base where nuclear weapons were neither confirmed nor denied by government witnesses on the stand.

Also, see: “Religious Left Catholics on Judge Barrett.”

[The Washington Post reports: “Yes, Senate Republicans could still confirm [Amy Coney] Barrett before the election.” Also see analysis in The Intercept. The vice presidential debate is scheduled for this evening and the issue of the Supreme Court is likely to be discussed.]

MATTHEW FOX, via Dennis Edwards, 33dennis@sbcglobal.net, @RevDrMatthewFox

Fox is a theologian, an Episcopal priest and an activist. He has written 37 books including A Spirituality Named Compassion, The Reinvention of Work, The Order of the Sacred Earth and A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey.

He recently wrote “A Public Letter to Supreme Court Nominee Amy Barrett” which was published by Tikkun magazine. Fox writes: “With the nomination of a new supreme court judge, some are being accused of ‘anti-catholicism’ for posing questions about your religious beliefs. I, however, think questions like the following are important and I am sure that you are open to discussing them with the American public whose job it is [for you] to serve.

1) “Since you are a practicing Catholic, have you studied Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment (‘Laudato Si‘)? What are your positions on environmental justice? On climate change? Are you as passionate about them as you are about opposing abortion? …

2) “Have you studied Pope Francis’ statements on the ‘idolatry of money‘ that dominates so much of our economic system? Where do you stand on that subject and on unbridled Wall Street power? And on tax breaks for the very rich vs. for the poor and middle class? (Revelations on President Trump’s non-taxes being very relevant to the question.)

3) “Where do you stand on the long-standing teaching of the right for unions to organize that are embedded in papal documents dating all the way back to Pope Leo XIII in the nineteenth century?

4) “As for abortion, surely you know the distinction in Catholic philosophy between what makes good law and what makes good morality. They are not always the same. Since women are going to have abortions (and not all American women are Catholic, by the way), isn’t it preferable to make abortion as safe as possible than to make abortion go underground? …

11) “… Speaking anecdotally, in my interactions with charismatics over the years, I have hardly ever met one who considered the struggle for justice for the poor and oppressed as part of their religious consciousness. In fact, it was precisely the charismatic groups in South America who were financed to oppose and replace base communities and liberation theologies, while buttressing right-wing political fanatics.

“My question is this: What does the canonization of Saint Oscar Romero mean to you and your community? How does his struggle on behalf of the poor resonate with your version of Christianity?”