Neil Gorsuch’s Confirmation Hearings

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “There were no confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court of the United States until 1932, not one.  So how were all the judges confirmed, became Supreme Court justices?  Very simply.  The president nominates them.  The members of the committee or Senate review or analyze the judge’s record or what it is that he has written previously or how he’s ruled, etc., etc., and they vote.  There’s no keelhauling in front of the senators.  There’s no embarrassing.” Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Go ahead, play it.  Let’s get a little flavor of this.

[start audio file]

Sen. Grassley: Let’s go to kind of a more controversial issue but along the same lines I’ve been asking you. I think the case that most people are thinking about right now and the case that every nominee gets asked about, Roe v. Wade, can you tell me whether Roe was decided correctly?

[end audio file]

Mike:  Pause the digital media file.  We’ve got to get the monks in here.  Hold on.  [monks chanting]  We’re about to talk about sacred holy writ here, stare decisis.

[start audio file]

Neil Gorsuch: Senator, again, I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there. And all the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the United States Supreme Court, worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.

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Mike:  What the hell does that mean?  What does that mean?

Christopher:  We’ve got four more minutes of video to find out.

Mike:  Wait a minute, Mitter Christopher.  We need to go to the dictionary.  Get me Webster’s Dictionary and tell me what precedent of Roe v. Wade means.  What does that mean?  Mitter Church, obviously that means that he is not going to vote to overturn Roe.  No, this is a silly, stupid game of: I may not say anything that’s going to anger Senator Feinstein. [sound clip from Billy Madison] “What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.”

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Christopher:  Noun, law, a legal decision to form a proceeding serving as an authoritative rule or pattern in future, similar, or analogous cases. Any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification of subsequent situations. Synonyms: exemplar, model, pattern, standard.

Mike:  Can’t we just say that it’s holy scripture according to the American constitutional law system?

Christopher:  Sure.

Mike:  Let us go to the Abbey of Stare Decisis.  Let’s hear some more, shall we?

[start audio file]

Sen. Grassley: What about Griswold, which was decided a few years before Roe, a case where the Court found constitutional right to privacy? Can you tell me your views on Griswold?

Gorsuch: Senator, it’s a precedent that’s now 50 years old. Griswold involved the right of married couples to use contraceptive devices in the privacy of their own home. It’s 50 years old. The reliance interests are obvious. It’s been repeatedly reaffirmed. All very important factors, again, in analyzing precedent.

Sen. Grassley: Well, I think I’m going to stop questions, but I’ll kind of sum up what you and I just talked about in regard to precedent so everybody understands the principles that are at stake here. There are two reasons why you can’t give your opinion on these cases. One, I believe, is independence, and the other one is fairness to future litigants. Is that the way you see it?

Gorsuch: It is, Senator. If I were to start telling you which are my favorite precedents or which are my least favorite precedents, or if I view precedent in that fashion, I would be tipping my hand and suggesting to litigants that I’ve already made up my mind about their cases. That’s not a fair judge. I didn’t want that kind of judge when I was a lawyer, and I don’t want to be that kind of judge now. I made a vow to myself I wouldn’t be. That’s the fairness problem. Then the independence problem. If it looks like I’m giving hints or previews or intimations about how I might rule, I think that’s the beginning of the end of the independent judiciary if judges have to make effectively campaign promises for confirmation. Respectfully, Senator, I haven’t done that in this process and I’m not about to start.

Grassley: Thank you. I’ll yield back.

[end audio file]

Christopher:  Up next is Feinstein.

Mike:  I was just typing in the chatroom, the abbot of the Stare Decisis Monastery has spoken.  This is so ridiculous.  Let me give you a little bit of analysis here.  A couple things.  Go back to Senator Grassley: What the judge is saying there is that there may not be occasion there for him to tell the Court to tell us how it is that he might rule in these decisions because we may have litigants out there that might question his independence.  If that were to happen . . . I am being intentionally buffoonish because it sounds like a couple of buffoons that are saying things that either they don’t believe or aren’t saying anything that is actually based in reality.  In other words – this is how sad this is.  Professor Gutzman and I have talked about this on yesterday’s Constitution Hour.  He and I have been talking about it for ten years.

There were no confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court of the United States until 1932, not one.  So how were all the judges confirmed, became Supreme Court justices?  Very simply.  The president nominates them.  The members of the committee or Senate review or analyze the judge’s record or what it is that he has written previously or how he’s ruled, etc., etc., and they vote.  There’s no keelhauling in front of the senators.  There’s no embarrassing.  There’s no knocking door to door and getting to know.  There’s no hugging and smooching with wives that are sitting behind you, none of this nonsense.  Just what are his rulings?  What do his writings say about his view of how the U.S. Constitution ought to be applied in cases that either have come before the court or likely will come before the court?  Of course, the ultimate guide is what?  What does he think about the Constitution?  Now, what does stare decisis or precedent or any of this other mishmash trash, what does it have to do with the Constitution?  We all know, there’s not a person alive that doesn’t know –

Christopher:  I have Amy Klobuchar.

Mike:  I heard her: You know, judge, I’m already opposed to you because I know your position on certain things.  Let me finish this little harangue and then you can play me some Klobuchar.  I saw it yesterday.  It’s ridiculous.  What is the principle of a precedent?  How does a precedent get set?  A precedent, in this instance, gets set by a rogue, out-of-control court that has handpicked a case that has already been decided by legislative process.  Can I make this point one more time?  I’ll give you the prime, perfect example.  At the time of Roe v. Wade, there were only six states, either six or seven, six states that had laws on their books that permitted women to go into clinics, doctors’ offices, wherever, and legally murder their soon-to-be-born, or legally cause to be murdered their soon-to-be-born children.  Many states had laws on their books that specifically prohibited the ghastly practice of infanticide.  That’s what it amounts to.

Let’s do the math.  1973, 50 states in the union, 44.  The legislative process had yielded bans on abortion.  If you wanted one – you could go – I can’t remember the name of the movie.  There are several films that you could go watch pre-Roe v. Wade where the libs were already starting to push their agendas in films.  Some of the characters in films were instructed, during the course of the movie: You can get that taken care of in California.  You’re going to have to go all the way to New York to get that taken care of.

Let’s review, again.  The legislative process, as it’s supposed to work, people send their representatives to state governments.  State governments yield legislative decisions.  Governors sign them, or state legislators grab ballot initiatives and then by large enough majorities put them on the ballot so they can become referendum.  The point is, legislatures have already ruled.  Same with the Griswold case.  Judge Gorsuch said mumbo jumbo about precedent.  Again, had legislatures and legislators in those legislatures, had they already ruled?  Yes, they had.  The legislature of Connecticut, if you can believe it Connecticut, had laws on their books that forbade the sale of abortifacients, which today we call contraceptives.  In those two precedents, was there a legislative rule?  Yes.  In setting the precedent, what did the court do?  It legislated.  It didn’t refer to the Constitution.  It used the 14^th Amendment, which, by the way, was never constitutionally ratified, it used the 14^th Amendment to invent and to write the law.  It wrote the statute.  It’s still hallowed ground today, hallowed text today.  It wrote a statute.  That’s not what a court is supposed to do.

So let’s be clear about this precious precedent that these orcs and the rest of those criminal class from Middle Earth are debating and arguing about in the Neil Gorsuch confirmation hearing.  The precedents are legislative acts.  There is no other way to describe them.  They are acts that legislated.

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They legislated where the people, through their representatives, had already legislated.  There’s no point in even debating this.  If I had an audience, if there were any libs out there that I could cherry pick and debate, there’s nothing to debate here.  We’re talking about facts.  Not my opinion.  That’s what the historical record says.  So the precedent that they’re talking about is not a precedent at all.  It is the court acting as a super-legislative body, of which it is not.  It’s tyranny.  The great Raoul Berger, the historian, wrote Government by Judiciary.  That’s what it is, government by judiciary.  The fact that Trump has to send a nominee up there – it wouldn’t matter if Ron Paul was president.  President Paul would have to send a nominee up there and they’d have to go through this charade.

If you know nuts and bolts terminology that’s being discuss here, then you can get to what’s really happening.  We have nine unelected men and women who make social policy and law for 320 million others.  They were never granted the right.  No one ever voted to give them the right, yet they have it.  So what to do about this?  No one knows what Neil Gorsuch is going to do.  He’s going to be confirmed.  No one knows what he’s going to do if another abortion case, say Lawrence v. Texas – or maybe Lawrence has already been smacked down by the eight all-seeing mystics.  No one knows how Gorsuch is going to vote until the case actually goes there.

You’re going to have to take it on President Trump’s word that he asked him the question in privacy and said, [mocking Trump] “Look, Judge Gorsuch, you’re gonna make the Supreme Court great again.  It’s gonna be great.  Believe me, with you on it, it’s gonna be great.  I have to ask you, given the chance Roe v. Wade or a case like it comes before you, you gonna vote yes or no?”  What kind of an answer did President Trump get from them pre-nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch.  None of what we heard yesterday – all that gibberish and psychobabble and talk that is meant to obfuscate and confuse people, or to assuage others, none of that matters.  It is not going to matter.  All that is going to matter is, after h e’s confirmed and the case goes to the court, what’s his vote going to be?  You’re not going to divine anything out of these hearings.  You and I, therefore, have to take it as an article of confidence.  Notice I didn’t say faith.  An article of confidence that President Trump asked him that question and he answered in the affirmative.

End Mike Church Show Transcript