Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Coronavirus News (277)

Amy Barrett: A New Conservatism  and her Catholic parish in South Bend, Ind. ......... an outsider of unbending conviction on social issues. .......... “We now affectionately call her Judge Dogma” ........ Mr. Trump, who in 2016 promised to appoint justices who would overturn the federal right to an abortion .............  Judge Barrett is from the South and Midwest. Her career has been largely spent teaching while raising seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and one with Down syndrome, and living according to her faith. She has made no secret of her beliefs on divisive social issues such as abortion. A deeply religious woman, her roots are in a populist movement of charismatic Catholicism. ...........   the ecstatic traditions of charismatic Christianity, like speaking in tongues ......... To Judge Barrett’s critics, she represents the antithesis of the progressive values embodied in Justice Ginsburg, her life spent in a cocoon of like-minded thinking that in many areas runs counter to the views of a majority of Americans. .......... She has made clear she believes that life begins at conception, and has served in leadership roles for People of Praise, and her children’s school has said in its handbook that marriage is between a man and a woman. Her judicial opinions indicate broad support for gun rights and an expanded role for religion in public life. ..........   and if she is confirmed, as seems all but certain, she could have an effect as early as next month, when the court will hear cases on the Affordable Care Act and a clash between claims of religious freedom and gay rights. She will represent a rising conservatism subtly different from what the court’s five other Republican appointees embody. ........   For Judge Barrett, 48, that vision comes from a deep sense of calling, one rooted in family and faith, and one that began before she was born. ........... Seeking to emulate the close-knit community of the Twelve Apostles, Mr. Coney and his wife, who had six girls and a boy after Amy, joined People of Praise, based in South Bend, and were a grounding force for the group’s New Orleans community................    and then, like her grandmother, mother, aunts and sisters, went to high school at St. Mary’s Dominican, an all-girls Catholic school. .......... In a course on social justice her junior year, the girls read papal encyclicals about economic inequality, nuclear disarmament and the rights of workers, even as they learned about the church’s stance against contraception and abortion. Their teacher, Royann Avegno, 70, spoke often of her eight children, seven of whom she had adopted, most with congenital conditions or special needs; three died. She brought one child to visit the class — he could not stand or talk, and she spoke with the students about the dignity of human life, even when it was frail. .......................  When Ms. Barrett applied to law schools, Ms. Brady said faculty members “spent hours” arguing for her to consider Harvard over Notre Dame, which was generally not highly ranked among the nation’s top law schools. Friends said Ms. Barrett later told them that while she had been accepted at the University of Chicago, Notre Dame had offered her a scholarship. ................. “I’m a Catholic, and I always grew up loving Notre Dame,” Judge Barrett said in 2019. “What Catholic doesn’t?” ............ Despite being urged to consider Harvard, Judge Barrett chose to attend law school at Notre Dame. .. .....  the nation’s elite conservative law school ...............  She graduated at the top of her class and received an award for the highest academic achievement. .............. hired her without even an interview, after Mr. Kelley had insisted she would have been the top student at Harvard, too, the judge said. ......... had appreciated Judge Barrett’s analytical skills and clear writing .......... “Amy Coney is the best student I ever had.” ........   respected her ability to simplify some of the court’s more complex cases. ..............  “It was not something I would have thought to do in the middle of my clerkship, to go serve the dying with the nuns.” ............ Returning as a 30-year-old professor, Ms. Barrett was not much older than her students. She deliberately wore glasses, “to try to look very imposing,” she later said. Organized, a good speaker and caring toward her students, she was repeatedly voted teacher of the year. ................  making clear her conviction that life began at conception, according to a campus magazine. But she also said the core right to abortion established in Roe appeared secure ......... “The fundamental element, that the woman has a right to choose abortion, will probably stand,” she said. .......... In a 2006 commencement address, she gave her students three pieces of advice: Pray before accepting a new job. Give away 10 percent of what you earn to church, charity or friends in need. Choose a parish with an active community and commit yourself to cultivating relationships there. .............. “When your life is placed firmly within a web of relationships, it is much easier to keep your career in its proper place.”  .......  she recalled walking to campus and sitting on a cemetery bench contemplating a household with five children younger than 10. “I just thought, OK, well, if life’s really hard, at least it’s short,” she said, laughing. “But I thought, what greater thing can you do than raise children?” ........ When her youngest son was born with Down syndrome, on oxygen in the intensive care unit ............ The family had a significant support system. Mr. Barrett’s aunt helped take care of their children for years, allowing both parents to pursue their professional ambitions. .............  “Between church, God, a supportive community, you end up thinking, why is welfare important, we can have support from our community and God.” ......... She served from 2015 to 2017 on the board of Trinity School, the private school of 250 students in South Bend that some of her children attend and that was started by and remains closely linked to the People of Praise. ............... Mr. Trump gave an early signal of what he had in mind just a few months after she joined the appeals court. “I’m saving her for Ginsburg,” he told people .............   “Her opinions in death penalty-related cases certainly are not in line with church teaching” ............ she understands the oath she gives as a jurist is to apply the law before her whether or not that coincides with her personal moral or other beliefs.” .............. Judge Barrett has acknowledged that judges using Justice Scalia’s methods do not always agree .......   While the Notre Dame law faculty and her former fellow Supreme Court clerks generally supported her for the appeals court, some have said they will not line up behind her this time. ........... Judge Barrett suggested she would try to bridge the bitter divides, invoking the friendship between Justice Ginsburg and Justice Scalia, who had “disagreed fiercely in print without rancor in person”  


Doctors Are Warning That Trump Could Experience The Worst COVID Symptoms In The Next Week “For the next few days, I’d want him 50 feet away from an ICU, not a helicopter ride,” one leading doctor said. ...............  the disease sometimes flares up dangerously in the second week of symptoms, even in patients who had seemed to be doing well. ........... On Sunday, Conley confirmed that Trump has been given a steroid, dexamethasone, that is normally only recommended for patients with severe cases of COVID-19 who are having serious trouble breathing. The drug damps down the body’s immune system, which can jump into overdrive and damage the lungs and other organs. .............  But even after being given dexamethasone, patients who required oxygen still had a mortality rate of about 20%. “These are not miracle drugs” ........... To require oxygen and to be put on remdesivir and dexamethasone so quickly after becoming infected suggests that Trump’s illness was fairly severe, though it is unlikely that a typical COVID-19 patient with the same symptoms would have been given such intensive treatment. ..............  We do know that Trump was given a lung scan, which Conley said delivered “expected findings.” .......... That timeline is important, because the second week of COVID-19 can be the most dangerous. ............. Doctors warned that patients in the second week of the disease can suddenly get much more seriously ill. “Week two is the worst because of the fact that you have the inflammatory response to the virus”  



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