We have to keep this bizarre, unfit Trump nominee off our federal court

We already know that President Trump holds our nation’s courts in contempt and thinks anyone, even judges, who cannot pledge loyalty to him has no place in his administration. Look no further than his tweetstorms, targeting judges who refuse to take his side. That’s why Americans need to view each Trump pick for the courts with a healthy dose of skepticism and ask: Will this person advance the constitutional rights of everyday Americans, or just advance Donald Trump and Mike Pence’s worldview?

After our opposition to Neil Gorsuch, NARAL Pro-Choice America is looking toward a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The man Trump and Pence picked for the job is John Bush, a lawyer in Kentucky with a past that likely pleases Trump and Pence’s most extreme base, but who should alarm the vast majority of Americans who support legal abortion.

John Bush was clearly chosen to fill a vacancy on the Sixth Circuit because he will advance Trump and Pence’s worldview. Once again, the Trump administration has shown it’s not afraid to use every branch of government to attack our rights.

The Sixth Circuit hears cases from states where reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights are already under attack. With Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, it matters more than ever that we have judges at the federal level who will look out for, not fight against, our basic rights.

In John Bush, the Trump administration has once again found the worst person for the job. Just check out his shady anonymous blog posts!

This nomination continues Trump’s record of giving people jobs they are uniquely unqualified to do: Noted healthcare opponent Tom Price, for example, is the leader of our nation’s top health agency, and Jeff Sessions, who was once considered too racist by a Republican-controlled Senate to serve as a federal judge, is now our attorney general.

John Bush’s extreme views and noted lack of judgement and impulse control are proof that he is unfit to be a federal judge.

We know Bush is an impulsive man who isn’t afraid to fire off his gut reaction to the news in the middle of the night thanks to blog posts he published under a pseudonym on “Elephants in the Bluegrass.”

The fact that he felt he had to hide behind a computer and use a fake name to fire off his opinions late into the evening is troubling in itself. But Bush’s blog posts raise some serious questions about his ability to consider all sides of an argument before coming to a decision.

John Bush will roll back progress for Americans.

In his shady blog posts, Bush lays out where he stands on a serious issues he might consider if he makes it to the bench.

Spoiler alert: It’s not with the majority of Americans.

If he makes it to the bench, Bush will work with President Trump and Vice President Pence to roll back hard-won progress on issues from women’s rights to campaign finance reform. With anti-Roe justices like Neil Gorsuch already on the bench of the Supreme Court, this could spell disaster for generations of Americans.

Here’s what he’s been pushing from his blog:

His blogs show that Bush doesn’t believe women should have the same right to control their bodies and futures as men:

• Bush thinks that abortion and slavery are “[t]he two greatest tragedies in our country.”
• Bush opposes life-saving stem cell research, calling research into “alternatives” for embryonic stem-cell research a “recent liberal pet peeve” and even claiming that “[p]rogress on this front would, of course, take away the false Democratic talking point that the sick are being denied new medical cures because the Republicans keep insisting on protecting embryonic life.”
• Bush claimed programs that make it easier for women and children to afford groceries and protect themselves from violence are wasteful

Bush’s blogging shows he doesn’t think LGBTQ Americans deserve the same rights as everyone else and it disparages people of color:

• Bush applauded Mike Huckabee for saying that he “strongly disagree[s] with the idea of same-sex marriage”
• Bush criticized the State Department when it changed the “mother” and “father” fields on passport application forms to “Mother or Parent 1” and “Father or Parent 2”
• Bush wrote about the 2016 election that that Democrats were just trying to “substitute woman for Black”

Bush is a staunch opponent of our nation’s healthcare law, wants to open the flood gates for outside money in elections, and disparaged efforts to protect the environment:

• Bush declared “the witch is dead” when he thought the Affordable Care Act might not be enacted.
• Bush asks in one blog post, “shouldn’t more money, not less, be spent on political speech, given how much is spent by advertising and commercial speech?”
• Bush criticized a campaign encouraging businesses and households to reduce energy consumption: “‘Saving’ the world from ‘climate change’ will just have to wait until we go to bed victorious after the U of L-North Carolina game.”

And don’t forget some of Bush’s general conservative musings…

• He picked a fight with Ted Cruz during the 2016 election, saying Cruz had “exercised remarkably poor judgment” when he didn’t endorse Trump
• He applauded Sen. Mitch McConnell’s obstruction of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland because “the decision of who will replace Justice Scalia….is the top reason why the choice between Trump and Hillary is a no brainer”
• He showcased a bizarre threat to Obama supporters with a lovely sign (“take that!”):

John Bush’s own blog posts are all the proof we need that Donald Trump and Mike Pence see him as a nominee who will represent the narrow interests of a very few extreme American politicians. But when he powers down the laptop, he’s also promoting an anti-choice worldview:

• Bush wrote a brief advocating for Virginia Military Institute to keep excluding women from admission
• Bush wrote an amicus brief supporting the case of the Susan B. Anthony List, one of the most anti-choice political organizations in the country

It’s clear John Bush is on the side of Trump and Pence, not the rights and freedoms of everyday Americans.

We must tell our representatives that we won’t stand for this brazen attempt to use the courts to enact a dangerous worldview. Call your Senator and tell them that if they truly support women and our ability to access reproductive healthcare, including abortion, they will vote against John Bush.