puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com By Ed Sessa ©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 10/07/20 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis 10/07/20 ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: Release Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 ACROSS 1 Something to pay 5 “Nothing’s broken” 9 Lawn game 14 Fir fellers 15 Cool off in a shallow stream, say 16 Weasley family owl 17 Substantial return 20 Popeye’s nemesis 21 Zagreb native 22 Salon creations 23 NCR product 24 “You betcha” 26 Mohel’s rite 28 Color named for a dancer 34 Dodger who befriended Jackie Robinson 35 Peter of “The Maltese Falcon” 36 Word of regret 39 Sudden burst 42 9/11 Commission chair Tom 43 Star transports 45 Emulated Van Winkle, after 20 years 47 Bleeping 51 Toni Morrison novel 52 Reluctantly absorb, as a loss 53 Little bite 56 Admiral’s rear 59 Toon duck triplet 61 “Fame” singer Cara 63 Making a killing in Vegas ... or what happens in 17-, 28- and 47-Across 66 Do the Thanksgiving honors 67 Start to scope 68 __ fixe 69 Pulled a fast one on 70 Beef bourguignonne, for one 71 Old geopolitical states: Abbr. DOWN 1 Flintstone word 2 Hold in awe 3 Anesthetize 4 Air Force NCO 5 __ Jima 6 Italian noblewoman 7 Dump feature 8 Jedi Master Obi-Wan __ 9 Brutish 10 Uranus, for one 11 Scummy deposit 12 Gabrielle Chanel, familiarly 13 Fraternal order 18 British detective played by Michael Kitchen 19 Deserve 25 Lager alternatives 27 Like many addresses 29 Incendiary acts 30 Race for four, commonly 31 Dander 32 Gun lobby org. 33 “Jeopardy!” whiz Jennings 36 Priest’s white garment 37 Unlike Abner, really 38 Geriatrician’s gp. 40 Bug on the road? 41 Dancing girl in “Return of the Jedi” 44 Moved stealthily 46 Journalist Couric 48 Wells’ sci-fi race 49 Bully’s array 50 Works with dough 54 Word with tube or circle 55 Some toys, briefly 56 It’s sung to the same tune as “Twinkle, twinkle” 57 Lady of the Haus 58 Md. athlete 60 “__ a Kick Out of You”: Porter song 62 Slugger’s stats 64 Latin greeting 65 Fell, as firs SUDOKU “60 characters. Bare your soul. Get featured in the Daily!” WHISPER Introducing the WHISPER “I’ve made my peace with college, it is what it is.” “I’m in love with Lucás.” 09/30/20 ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 9 Fabled slowpoke 23 Pasta preference 26 Warming periods 27 Source of pliable 30 Relatively risqué 35 Big tin exporter I n the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing last week, the national discussion has pivoted from the pandemic to the Supreme Court, and the moves Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump are making to fill the vacancy on the high court. Democrats are absolutely correct in calling out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for reversing his position from 2016, and Republicans are absolutely correct arguing that filling the Court’s vacancy is the constitutional obligation of the president and the Senate. However, while these two positions occupy the vast majority of headlines, the most vital lesson to be learned is that of prudence, of restraint and of the harm of nearsightedness. Yet before launching into the present day, it is important to consult the annals of history. Article III of the Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the federal government to consist of “one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Critically, the Constitution does not mandate a set number of justices to preside over the Court. The first Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, which established the federal judiciary and set forth specific rules for the Court. Notably, it declared that “the supreme court of the United States shall consist of a chief justice and five associate justices, any four of whom shall be a quorum.” Only after the Judiciary Act of 1869 did the Court adopt the current distribution of judges –– one chief justice and eight associate justices. While the Supreme Court is the least political branch of the government, both in theory and in practice, it certainly has not remained impervious to influence. In the 1930s, amid the Great Depression and President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Court faced a difficult position. After rulings against the constitutionality of various sections of F.D.R.’s New Deal, the President proposed the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, more famously known as “the court-packing plan.” The bill ultimately did not succeed, thanks to then- Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Henry F. Ashurst, but it introduced the possibility that the executive might forgo prudence and enact sweeping changes to the most stable branch of government. No president since has attempted such a radical move, but recent moves by the Senate have dramatically destabilized, and subsequently politicized, the appointment process for judges and justices. In 2013, during former President Obama’s second term, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., enacted something many labeled “the nuclear option.” Under Reid, the Democratic Senate approved changes to the rules in which the Senate, as an institution, dealt with judicial nominations. These changes prohibited the filibuster from being deployed as a means to delay confirmations, as well as reducing the number of votes needed to confirm a judicial nomination from a supermajority to simple majority –– from 60 votes, down to 51. However, this rule change did not affect Supreme Court nominations, only cabinet posts and federal judgeships. That alteration to the rules came in 2017, after Republicans had successfully halted Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination, taken back the White House and a Senate majority. Current Senate Majority Leader McConnell deployed the nuclear option to remove the supermajority requirement for Supreme Court nominations, successfully appointing Justice Neil Gorsuch to the bench. By virtue of timing, Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed under the same rules, and now we arrive at the predicament today. Nearsightedness and the temptation to tip the scales in favor of current partisan objectives has run rampant through the Senate in the last decade. The nuclear option, so-called for its previously unthinkable ramifications, has been enacted twice in the last seven years, resulting in countless judgeship confirmations as well as two Supreme Court confirmations. Such destabilizing actions would’ve been inconceivable a half-century ago. Yet now, we may be on the verge of again neglecting history’s valuable lesson. Both the president and the Senate are fulfilling their constitutional duties in nominating Judge Amy Coney Barret –– on this point, there is no debate, “Biden rule” or otherwise. However, consider the present situation had Democrats not unleashed the nuclear option in 2013, and Republicans not extended it in 2017. Judge Barret would be nominated, yet since the Republicans do not have a super-majority –– and very few, if any, Democratic senators would be in favor –– Barret would not be confirmed. Problem solved for the left. Ultimately, this results in a painfully obvious conclusion: Rash changes to the fundamental operating procedures of the Senate, in pursuit of short-term partisan goals, greatly endanger the stability of our institutions. To assume Democrats expected they’d be the only party to reap the benefits of their rule changes is hysterically foolish. However, to expect the same naivety from Republicans, this time regarding Supreme Court nominations, is similarly absurd. I am confident, however, that the Senate will right the ship. I believe the Senate rules will be changed back in the interest of stability, though under which party’s leadership I don’t know. There remains, however, the possibility of a future rife with instability beyond the Senate, which would be guaranteed if the Democrats, upon sweeping in November, look to F.D.R. for inspiration. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said recently that “nothing is off the table” if the GOP fills Justice Ginsburg’s seat. The allusion to court packing is clear as day, though its ramifications have apparently gone out the window. Understand, the tumult resulting from the nuclear option’s evocations resides solely in the process for nominating and confirming judges and justices. It would be appallingly naive to fundamentally alter the constitution of the Supreme Court to directly benefit short- term political ambitions. The Supreme Court should embody stability. Set apart from the political tidings of the legislative branch and the campaigning of the executive branch, the judicial branch ensures the rights of the citizenry persist. Inscribed in the stone facade of our own University’s law school is the phrase, “The Supreme Court: Preserver of the Constitution; Guardian of our Liberties; Greatest of all Tribunals.” For our current leaders to presume such superior motives as to justify the modification of the judiciary’s fundamental rules is as The Supreme Court: locked and loaded by the Senate DAVID LISBONNE | COLUMN David Lisbonne can be reached at lisbonne@umich.edu. T his is not about religion. This is about oppression. On Oct. 11, 2019, the crowd gave a standing ovation for their famous — some might say infamous — guest from Washington, D.C. The mostly Catholic law students of Notre Dame sat back down as Attorney General Bill Barr began by thanking his hosts. However, his actual speech was anything but gracious. For the next half hour, Barr — sounding more like a Fox News host caught in the breakroom on a hot mic than the leader of the Department of Justice — painted a fundamentally inaccurate and detached portrait of this country. The attorney general raved about the “steady erosion of our traditional Judeo-Christian moral system,” which he claimed was under siege by militant secularists on a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order.” He cited examples of our “moral upheaval” ranging from the rise of illegitimate births to record levels of mental illness to the opioid epidemic. Now it’s easy to dismiss these comments as the views of one singular right-wing nut, but dismissing Barr’s beliefs out-of-hand allows speeches such as that one to go ignored, all while the Republican Party has undergone a seismic shift that now imperils the country. Before we go any further, let me make this crystal clear. As a practicing Catholic myself, I have no issues with religion or the Church. I have an issue with the false grievance politics present in modern conservatism, which are poised to drive the installation of an unqualified religious zealot on the Supreme Court, despite there being plenty of more qualified and equally, if not more, conservative judges on appeals courts across the country. This is not about religion or conservative ideals, this is about the Republican Party’s strategy of characterizing white Christians as oppressed and preying on the group’s fear of being replaced in order to win elections, erode our democratic institutions and retain power, despite representing a slowly shrinking minority of the population. Amy Coney Barrett was born in 1972 in New Orleans, La. The eldest daughter of a lawyer for the Shell Oil Corporation, Barrett grew up comfortably before obtaining a B.A. from Rhodes College and a J.D. from Notre Dame Law School. From there, she went to clerk for a circuit court judge from 1997 to 1998 and “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” opponent Antonin Scalia from 1998 to 1999. Then, following a brief stint in private practice, Barrett settled in law school in 2002, developing a breadth of controversial scholarship. After Barrett, a lifelong member of the conservative Federalist Society, was nominated by Donald Trump to sit on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, this scholarship formed the basis of several legitimate claims opposing her nomination. These claims were specifically amplified through a contentious exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., which instantly made Barrett a conservative media sensation. When questioned about one of her own law review articles, which argued that Catholic judges should recuse themselves in cases regarding the death penalty, Barrett claimed that her views had evolved. The two sparred for a couple more minutes as Feinstein probed further into Barrett’s religious beliefs, and the exchange ended with Feinstein saying, “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.” The statement — a de facto insinuation that one cannot be both a Catholic and an impartial judge — incensed right-wing media, going viral on Twitter and being plastered across Fox News and other conservative outlets. However, this outrage was completely manufactured and, at its core, untruthful. Feinstein, who, herself, went to Catholic school, has voted to confirm hundreds of Catholic judges to the courts and had never shown an anti-Catholic bias in her five terms before then. Similarly, Catholic Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., questioned Barrett during her confirmation about her self-identification as an “orthodox Catholic,” identifying as Catholic himself. However, those comments received next to no coverage by conservative outlets. Why? Well, simply put, that question from a fellow Catholic does not fit with the narrative that those networks and the party they support would like to portray. Fox and other conservative media outlets wanted to portray the hearing as the powerful, scary, elderly Jewish senator attacking the young Catholic judge because of religious hatred, despite this narrative clashing violently with reality. However, the conservative audience, which loves to see themselves as victims, did not examine the coverage closely, instead succumbing to confirmation bias and rallying around Barrett. This popularity made Barrett the apple of Trump’s eye, and, on Sept. 26, Scalia’s golden child — despite having next to no experience in the judiciary and next to no belief in voting rights — was announced to replace the notorious RBG. Normally, in the profile of a political figure, this is when I would talk about Barrett’s draconian judicial philosophy — which we should all examine more closely — or maybe poke fun of her Karen-esque persona, but that’s not really the point. The point of this article is much larger than just Barrett. It is about the system that put her in a position of power. It is not the Federalist Society or her clerkship with Scalia. It is not her short stint in the federal judiciary or her conservative credentials as a judge. It is about the false grievances of the few white Christians who feel threatened by the societal advancements made by minorities and other “untraditional” groups. Sadly, these increasingly disconnected people have corrupted the ranks of the Trump administration from top to bottom. The current vice president is a far-right conservative who supports conversion therapy and opposes “Mulan.” The secretary of state is a climate change denier who believes that Trump was sent by God to save the Jews from “the Iranian menace.” Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director — a scientist — doubts the efficacy of condoms in slowing the spread of AIDS. These radicals have led executive agencies to embrace conspiracy theories, reject science and wage a protracted war against the progress marginalized groups have made in this country over the last 50 years in order to benefit the racist, nativist and white supremacist portion of their base. Next time Trump emboldens the Proud Boys, remember the people surrounding him. This administration is the result of a decades-long concerted effort by conservatives to transform the federal judiciary and degrade our democratic institutions through constant attacks on voting rights. The crowning achievement of this movement will be in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 12, and likely on the Supreme Court by Nov. 3. Though she did not earn this seat, much like her counterpart Justice Brett Kavanaugh, conservatives think she’s entitled to it. Now, we all must ask ourselves what she would be willing to do to keep it. The Notorious ABC: Unqualified, undemocratic and full of grievance KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMN The point of this article is much larger than just Barrett. It is about the system that put her in a position of power. Keith Johnstone can be reached at keithja@umich.edu. 10 — Wednesday, October 7, 2020 Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com