The ACB illusion is officially dead—and we called it years ago...

Four years ago, when conservatives were celebrating Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, we weren’t cheering. We were warning. The GOP establishment had lined up behind her, touting her as the second coming of Justice Scalia (who, yes, she did clerk for), but we saw through it. We knew she had the credentials, but we also knew she lacked the backbone. Barrett was a safe pick—a judge who would toe the line on abortion but wouldn’t have the fire to challenge the system when it really mattered. That’s why we pushed for Judge Bridget Bade instead—because we needed a fighter, not a rubber stamp for the establishment.

And right on cue, ACB just proved us right. We recently published a piece, reminding our readers that we tried to warn everyone about ACB. That piece came right after Amy and Justice Robert sided with the left and ruled against President Trump in the Trump v. New York case.

Revolver:

In what many conservatives are calling an outright slap in the face, Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts dealt a blow to President Trump and the US Constitution. They got political, sided with the progressives, and ruled against Trump in the Trump v. New York case.

Thanks to Roberts and Coney Barrett, Trump was dragged through the lawfare circus in New York City and sentenced by deep state lapdog Judge Merchan.

As we’ve said before, Roberts is practically a liberal masquerading in a black robe. Many believe there’s something hanging over him, which might explain why he’s always handing the left their key victories. But Amy Coney Barrett was supposed to be different—a powerhouse for the conservative movement, a beacon of hope. Meh. Instead, she’s turned out to be another weak-kneed RINO. It’s like having a “Susan Collins” type on the Supreme Court bench.

At Revolver, we’ve never been ones to blindly follow the crowd. While others rushed to crown Amy Coney Barrett as the next Justice Scalia, we called it like we saw it. And now, once again, she’s proving us right—this time with an outrageous betrayal that sides with the left.

BASED ACB ruling that we need to keep woke foreign aid. Worst “conservative” on the high court pic.twitter.com/qH56GCEOxa

— Scott Greer 6’2” IQ 187 (@ScottMGreer) March 5, 2025

In a razor-thin 5-4 ruling, Barrett (and Justice Roberts) sided with the left and backed a federal activist judge’s power to force President Trump to hand over $2 billion to USAID contractors. By helping reject Trump’s emergency appeal, she and Roberts delivered yet another blow to the America First agenda.

NBC News:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday backed a federal judge’s power to order the Trump administration to pay $2 billion to U.S. Agency for International Development contractors but did not require immediate payment.

In doing so, the court on a 5-4 vote rejected an emergency application filed by the Justice Department after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued a series of rulings demanding the government unfreeze funds that President Donald Trump put on hold with an executive order.

[…]

Four conservative justices dissented from the denial of the application, with Justice Samuel Alito writing that Ali did not have “unchecked power to compel the government to pay out … 2 billion taxpayer dollars.”

“I am stunned,” Alito added.

The other dissenters were Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Justice Alito’s dissent was absolutely scathing.

Alito’s dissent to the lawless Supreme Court power grab today is blistering. He blasts the court for “hubris” and “self-aggrandizement” in what he calls a stunning and “extreme” refusal by the Supreme Court to obey the law and its own precedents. pic.twitter.com/q59yY8xU08

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 5, 2025

Here’s a closeup of the images:

At this point, it’s no longer a fluke—Amy’s established a pattern. Barrett has repeatedly shown that when the stakes are high, she folds like a cheap establishment suit.

And as a result, every level of our court system has gone completely rogue.

When the federal judiciary loses its legitimacy, it must lose its funding.

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) March 5, 2025

ACB was sold as a conservative powerhouse, but she’s turning out to be just another GOP establishment pick—predictable on abortion but weak where it truly matters. With every ruling like this, she proves what we said all along: she was the wrong choice.

That’s why we urged President Trump to go with Judge Bridget Bade instead—because we knew this moment in history called for a bold fighter, not a safe pick.

At the time, Judge Bade wasn’t even on the mainstream media’s radar—it was the ACB show from start to finish. But we knew better.

Revolver:

Fox News isn’t even including Judge Bridget Shelton Bade’s photograph in their frequent on-air lineups of the supposed frontrunners to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That’s a terrible oversight, because Judge Bade is not only in the running and rapidly amassing support, she is the best choice President Trump could make.

This pick is about more than simply getting one of the many strong options from President Trump’s shortlist on the Court. There is, notably, a powerful current of conservative enthusiasm behind Judge Amy Coney Barrett. As we’ve written here at Revolver, Judge Barrett is an extraordinary woman and exemplary conservative jurist. She would make a great Supreme Court Justice, but she is simply not the ideal nominee for this political moment. Amy Coney Barrett may appear to promise the shock we all know the system deserves, but her nomination risks reframing the precarious Trump reelection effort from a winning battle over law and order, immigration, and left-wing political violence to a messy and poorly timed slog through well-worn battles that would be better and more effectively fought after Trump wins re-election.

Everything we wrote about Judge Bade highlights exactly what Amy Coney Barrett isn’t—and why we firmly believed Bade was the right choice. Our piece goes on:

Judge Bade is not a compromise choice. She’s not some softie “establishment GOP type” liable to go the way of David Souter or John Paul Stevens after a few trips to opera at the Kennedy Center. While extraordinarily well qualified — cum laude from Arizona State Law, clerk for eminent Reagan-appointed Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit, DOJ Honors during Bill Barr’s first stint as Attorney General, and elected member of the prestigious American Law Institute — she’s no ivory tower academic. Bade is not another “conservative legal movement” darling, haunting the pages of law reviews with elegant solutions to novel questions of administrative law. She’s not even a member of the Federalist Society.

What Judge Bade is is nothing but the genuine article: a no-nonsense, read-it-how-its-written, law and order jurist in the proudest tradition of the old Southwest, and in the very same spirit of President Trump’s America First campaign.

It’s been four years since we wrote this piece, but it’s still extremely relevant, if only to remind us to never make this mistake again. You can read the entire piece below:

The Case for Judge Bridget Bade

Sadly now, as Barrett continues to disappoint, we’re watching our concerns play out in real time, and it’s anybody’s guess what America Last moves she’ll make next.

https://twitter.com/jlippincott_/status/1897337251044188185

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