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

