President Trump nominates Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court

In what CNN called a “Supreme Court pick for the ages,” President Trump has nominated DC Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court.

Judge Kavanaugh is a graduate of Yale Law School and clerked for Anthony Kennedy. He also served as a lawyer for White House Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and as staff secretary for President George W. Bush.

Mr. Kavanaugh and his wife, Ashley, have two daughters. An active Roman Catholic, he volunteers for the meals program at Catholic Charities and has tutored at the Washington Jesuit Academy. He continues to coach girls basketball teams and has completed the Boston Marathon twice. In accepting the president’s nomination, Judge Kavanaugh stated, “A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law.”

Given his significance to the ideological balance of the Court, the New York Times predicts an “epic confirmation battle” ahead. Opponents are already running ads in the states of key senators and planning procedural delays.

“Now is the time for hardball,” according to one liberal activist.

Rulings that changed the nation

The Supreme Court of the United States produces nothing but words. It doesn’t manufacture products, or build homes, or heal the sick. Its nine justices communicate ideas conveyed in rulings.

But these rulings can change the nation.

The Supreme Court infamously declared that blacks were not and could never become citizens of the US (the Dred Scott case of 1857). Conversely, it abolished segregation in public schools in 1954. It protected an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with military service. It upheld the right of corporations to spend money on political campaigns.

It declared laws prohibiting sodomy to be unconstitutional and legalized same-sex marriage. It legalized abortion in 1973, resulting in the deaths of more than sixty million babies. And it determined that the original Florida voting results in the 2000…