The death of Ginsburg: chaos
My first reaction to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a groan, “Oh, no!” Without even thinking it through, I felt that it would almost certainly increase the chaos in an already chaotic election situation. I still feel that way, and I don’t see that as good.
I’m not going to take a lot of time right now discussing all the possibilities and suggestions and analyses and predictions. That’s been done – for example here, here, here, and here.
As time goes on, the picture may shape up more clearly. Right now, there’s a lot of static.
The brave and wonderful Michelle Malkin has posted on Twitter a very short video of a young leftist woman screaming hysterically and dementedly about the death of RBG, while Reza Aslan (employed by the University of California) wrote on his account that, if the Republicans try to do what they have every right to do, leftists should burn down the whole system. The level of insanity on the left is truly beyond all parody and satire.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-republicans-have-obligation-to-fill-ginsburg-vacancy-without-delay/?
The Left’s mental health in 2020 is all askew. I sorta feel sorry for them. Sorta.
It’s kind of like working out all the possible scenarios for which teams are going to make it out of the group stage at the World Cup. It can be quite fun to puzzle out all the possible bracket arrangements.
The Left’s mental health in 2020 is all askew. I sorta feel sorry for them. Sorta.
I see you caught sight of this girl.
https://twitter.com/jtLOL/status/1307374696929857540
https://the-american-catholic.com/2020/09/19/schadenfreude-13/
With the sound.
What does that remind me of?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3shye8r5GFs
This doesn’t come as a surprise.
“Given the proximity of the presidential election … I do not believe that the Senate should vote on the nominee prior to the election. In fairness to the American people, who will either be re-electing the President or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the President who is elected in November 3.” Susan Collins
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/susan-collins-says-republicans-should-wait-to-vote-on-supreme-court-replacement-until-after-election/?
I’m curious about the open calls for Democrats to pack the Court and nullify the Trump picks ASAP. Do they not notice conservatives are listening?
They are also calling to end the Senate filibuster — apparently they’ve forgotten how well that worked the last time they pressed the nuclear option button.
Of course, they always feel aggrieved as though theirs is a fully justified retaliation in the face of indisputable Republican outrages, while forgetting all their contributions to escalation, going back at least to Bork.
I don’t think there is any pleasing today’s Democrats — exactly like there is no pleasing the current crop of rioters.
huxley (6:28) pm said: “I’m curious about the open calls for Democrats to pack the Court and nullify the Trump picks ASAP. Do they not notice conservatives are listening?”
It seems to me the Democrats don’t give a hoo-hah if conservatives are listening. These Democrats are no longer shy about their real intentions (yes, reversing a decades-long determination to *not* let the mask slip off).
Once they gain control of the U.S. Senate [they’re figuring], the conservatives can listen all they want, and can listen to their hateful, racist hearts’ desires — because the Democrats can then get to pack the Court, and even if Trump gets his upcoming nominee confirmed by the outgoing Senate, there’ll soon be maybe a half dozen or so western-culture-hating leftists champing at the bit to join the newly expanded U.S. Supreme Court to complete Obama’ fundamental transformation of USA.
“Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
When you cannot win at the ballot box, or through the legislative process, you go to the courts. That’s what progressives do, RINOs and elitist conservatives go along with it every time.
The left is having a meltdown right now because they may have to actually defend their positions, positions many people reject.
It seems to me the Democrats don’t give a hoo-hah if conservatives are listening.
M J R: I’m sure. However, my Game Theory thought is that if you tell your opponent your next move, he might choose to preempt it.
What if Trump is re-elected and he says, well, the Democrats say they are going to pack the Court, so I’m going to do it first. Then, the Dems get their shot or not.
Maybe that’s a happy ending. Instapundit has argued that the Supreme Court should be made substantially larger so that the death or retirement of a single member wouldn’t be such a big frickin’ deal that either side feels obliged to go all in to get their way.
The left is having a meltdown right now because they may have to actually defend their positions, positions many people reject.
Josh: Exactly.
And speaking as an ex-leftist or ex-liberal, I am disappointed. There was a time back in the 60s and 70s, when the left was more than happy to take on the right in public debate, but no more.
As I see it, leftists realized they couldn’t make the case for climate change, single-sex-marriage, systemic racism etc. to ordinary voters, so they shifted to making excuses that Americans were too stupid, homophobic and racist to reach the proper conclusions. Therefore, for the left to meet in open debate would only validate stupidity and bigotry. Therefore, they refused to debate and relied instead upon laws, courts and bureaucracy to enforce their agenda.
I don’t have words for the contempt and betrayal I feel for my erstwhile comrades.
Returning to my Trump-pack-the-Court idea — Trump doesn’t even have to mean it. He just has to say it like he’s serious, then, when Democrats go wild with “How dare you? Have you no sense of decency, sir?” jazz, they are stuck with opposing Court-packing.
Kind of like the brilliant reversal Betsy DeVos pulled on Princeton, when its president sucked up to the radicals about how racist Princeton was, and DeVos challenged, well, if Princeton is truly racist, no more funding for you.
I do not revel in the death of RBG; on the other hand her departure from the court is long over due. It has been clear for quite awhile that she was unable to exercise her responsibilities. Unfortunately, Roberts and company went along with the charade, and let her Clerks function as de facto Justices.
I frankly gag on some of the praise heaped on her by Conservatives. But, I guess it is obligatory, and suppose I can live with it; although in my mind she was never more than a guaranteed Left Wing Vote. She may have been personally brilliant, she may have been collegial once the voting was done; but, to me she was simply a fake Justice. Just like the rest of the lock step left wing bloc. Goodbye Ms Ginsberg.
I have long marveled at the ability of the Democrats to enforce party unity. I presume that whatever weapons they use to do so are also available to McConnell.
It is essential now that Mitch ruthlessly wield whatever power he has to close this out before the election. I do not care how messy it is. I don’t care how loudly the Democrats and their media accomplices squeal. Get it done.
John on September 19, 2020 at 6:27 pm said:
This doesn’t come as a surprise.
“Given the proximity of the presidential election … I do not believe that the Senate should vote on the nominee prior to the election. In fairness to the American people, who will either be re-electing the President or selecting a new one, the decision on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be made by the President who is elected in November 3.” Susan Collins
* * *
What’s wrong with letting the decision be made by the President who was elected in November 2016?
Either of them will be a president with a 4-year term making a lifetime appointment to the Court.
I think that Ginsburg should have been forced off the Supreme Court the day after she said that she much prefers the constitution of South Africa, an 800 page wish list, to the Constitution of the United States. She’s free to have such an opinion as a private person, but a Justice’s job is to uphold the US Constitution. By saying that, she showed a massive disrespect for the laws and very founding of our nation. She made herself unfit to be on the Supreme Court the instant she said that.
Unless RBG was caught by surprise when she died, it would seem she reneged on her promise:
I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that.
I rather doubt she was working full steam up until a few days ago. One wonders how long and to what degree she has been impaired, how it affected the Court and how it was covered up.
Paul in Boston: RBG’s South Africa constitution remark annoyed me greatly as well.
huxley:
The left thinks 1984 is a users manual, so as always, whatever they say or do today you will accept and obey. I don’t know if RBG had any problem with that.
The reason their is chaos is partly because or Mitch McConnell‘s hypocrisy. He denied a Senate vote for Obama’s pick Merrick Garland in 2016 because it was an election year. But now – in an election year and because it’s Trump’s pick – he will allow it. And not only allow it but fast track it. The Supreme court in 2016-17 sat empty for 422 days! This one may be 42 days. If you set a precedent that is to your advantage but then break that precedent also because it is to your advantage it’s pure hypocrisy and dirty pool.
My view is consistent. There should have been an opportunity for a vote for Obama’s pick and there should be an opportunity for a vote for Trump’s pick. But many Republican Senators in the past have agreed with the original McConnell view.
2016, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”
2018, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”
2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): “I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term – I would say that if it was a Republican president.”
2016, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Col.): “I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.”
They won’t now. All’s fair in love and war I guess. Wait till the worm turns…
The reason their is chaos is partly because or Mitch McConnell‘s hypocrisy. He denied a Senate vote for Obama’s pick Merrick Garland in 2016 because it was an election year. But now – in an election year and because it’s Trump’s pick – he will allow it. And not only allow it but fast track it. The Supreme court in 2016-17 sat empty for 422 days! This one may be 42 days. If you set a precedent that is to your advantage but then break that precedent also because it is to your advantage it’s pure hypocrisy and dirty pool.
The Senate ignored Obama’s nomination of Garland, which is their prerogative. Garland was treated with courtesy and left in peace, something the Democratic Senate caucus doesn’t usually manage in re Republican nominations. Piss off.
Paul in Boston: RBG’s South Africa constitution remark annoyed me greatly as well.
It’s 152 pages long. It screams for someone with a blue pencil
Montage:
From your keyboard, aka “Thoughts of a Worm.” How’s that lock down been treating your wormy existence? Wormy still has the sads from 2016 it seems. Been to the beach lately?
Art Deco
Kavanaugh is on the bench so you won. And you’ll win this one most likely. But it will be fun if the Democrats take control, get two new states and then pack the bench for a generation.
Om
I’m guessing I go out more than you do. I’m back at work in an office with people. I go to a movie theatres, bookstores, restaurants and beaches full of people without masks. Even the zoo. But unlike you I actually care about people other than myself and so called ‘freedoms’. I think about the consequences. It’s simple. I wear a mask for YOU not for me.
Montage:
Worms have ears to keep their masks on? How is the beach full of people without masks? Do you wear your mask there for them? And do they thank you or just say “Hey, there’s a worm over there in a mask!”
I have been working throughout this wormy fiasco. You mention “so called freedoms” just after commenting about what your fellow worms plan to do do to the country if given more power. Worms aren’t known for their intelligence, as you often show us. But you guess alot (Allie Broosh tm).
Montage:
Kavanaugh is on the bench despite all the offal you worms cast upon the floor of the Senate, upon the country, and on Bret Kavanaugh and his family. How much lower can your party go this time around, riots and more assassinations?
The picture is clearing up. Trump will nominate a successor for RBG. The Left will scream bloody murder and generally throw a collective temper tantrum. They will go so far as to threaten to burn the country down if they don’t get their way, making them look even more deranged and dangerous to moderates. The Republican held Senate will push through confirmation process and it will get done.
I would guess that Trump will select a woman this time, to simultaneously satisfy some of the critics and to make the confirmation process easier. Not that I wouldn’t put it past the Dems to dig up a couple of men to claim that she sexually abused them.
Kavanaugh is on the bench so you won.
Kavanaugh replaced Anthony Kennedy, not Antonin Scalia. He’s on the bench for the same reason every one of them is: there was a majority there to confirm him.
What’s interesting about the Democratic Party is the tendency of it’s partisans to project their grossness on others. Over the entire period running from 1914 to 2009, there were four Democratic nominations to the Supreme Court which received pushback from the Republican Senate caucus. They were: Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black, Sherman Minton, and the twin nomination of Abe Fortas and Homer Thornberry. There was a meta-reason to scotch three of these nominations.
1. Brandeis had never served on the bench and was up to his chest in courtroom advocacy in controversial cases. About 1/2 the Republican caucus voted in favor of him.
2. Black’s time on the bench was limited to two years as a justice of the peace; he was also a member of Congress in lock step with the Administration and was nominated on the heels of the failed court packing plan. About 6 of 16 Republicans in the Senate voted in favor of him.
3.The Fortas / Thornberry nomination was consequent to a legally sketchy contingent letter of resignation issued by Earl Warren. Fortas (who had never served on the bench prior to his appointment as associate justice in 1965) had alienated a lot of people over the previous three years. The nut of Warren’s scheme was that you reject Johnson’s choices, you are stuck with him remaining; should a Democrat replace Johnson, we’re good, as the mainline Democrats summed with the dissenting Republicans had such a large majority in the Senate they were unlikely to lose it; should a Republican replace Johnson, you’d still have a that majority who could weigh alternative prospects. Substantively, Fortas was despised, but the whole business was so shady that there was ample reason to reject the scheme without considering that.
4. The Minton nomination was criticised by The New York Times because some people thought it smacked of cronyism. Some Republicans also recalled that he was the point man in the 1937 court-packing plan. Still, the majority of Republicans were willing to cast a ballot for him.
Note that of the last 17 Republican nominations, the Democratic Senate caucus managed to bloc three appointments; there was enough of a media campaign against two others that the President of the time elected to withdraw the nominations; there was a grisly campaign of defamation against two appointments that they couldn’t block. Of the 12 nominees confirmed to the court, there were seven for whom at least half the Democratic caucus refused to assent and four for whom > 80% of the Democratic caucus refused. It was only in 2009 that the Republicans decided you’d get no co-operation, and even so Sotomayor, Kagan, and Garland were treated with far more courtesy than any Republican nominee has been shown in the last 30 years. Piss off.
Art Deco:
Well done sir.
For Montage’s education you might have maned the other justice that his worms tried to destroy: Judge Clarence Thomas. Slow Creepy Joe had his hand in that affair.
huxley (9:00 pm) said: “What if Trump is re-elected and he says, well, the Democrats say they are going to pack the Court, so I’m going to do it first. Then, the Dems get their shot or not.”
Big “IF”.
I’m not sure the Republicans have the cojones to pack the court. Schumer and ilk certainly do. And if I’m wrong about the Republicans (I’m not), and then “the Dems get their shot,” it becomes a circus — which it already is. Score one for huxley!
huxley (10:17 pm) said: “Returning to my Trump-pack-the-Court idea — Trump doesn’t even have to mean it. He just has to say it like he’s serious, then, when Democrats go wild with ‘How dare you? Have you no sense of decency, sir?’ jazz, they are stuck with opposing Court-packing.”
It must be taken into account that the Democrats, as an aggregate, have no sense of shame or embarrassment. They will oppose Court-packing when it is convenient to oppose Court-packing, and they will accede to Court-packing when it is convenient to accede to Court-packing, possibly in the very next week.
Consistency never was their strong suit. Score one for M J R? [grin]
Alternate universe:
It’s September 20, 2020. Hillary Clinton was elected President in an unexpectedly close contest in 2016, and the Democrats are in control of the U.S. Senate, albeit by only a vote or two. The November presidential election is up for grabs, as is the Senate.
A sitting conservative Supreme Court Justice has just died. What do the Democrats do? Wait to see who wins the November election, and then wait to see whether President Clinton’s nominee can make it through the Senate? Or do the Democrats seize the opportunity as it exists right now?
The question practically answers itself.
Garland should have gotten a hearing and a vote. Not doing so was just Congress abdicating yet another of its Constitutional responsibilities. That’s the major reason the Supreme Court now often functions as a Super Legislature.
Having said that, the Democrats and the Left are clearly the worst actor in this. For over 30 years, they have talked and acted as if the Supreme Court BELONGS to them and Republicans and the Right will NEVER be allowed to have majority control of it. That is ultimately an intolerable position to hold in a functioning democracy.
And as many others have pointed out, Democrats and the Left are the ones who REALLY won’t like what happens if our democratic order breaks down.
Mike
That’s the major reason the Supreme Court now often functions as a Super Legislature.
Congress being crooked and incompetent clowns is not why we have Wickard, Roe, Romer, Obergefell, &c. It’s not why the court had the audacity to tell the Secretary of Commerce that he had to explain himself to a judge before putting a banal question on the Census forms.
Mr Bunge:
“Garland should have gotten a hearing and a vote. Not doing so was just Congress abdicating yet another of its Constitutional responsibilities. That’s the major reason the Supreme Court now often functions as a Super Legislature.”
Because, ….., they are trustworthy principled believers in the Constitution as shown by their actions and their words? No? So why trust them to act in ways they cast off decades ago? When they say they plan to do evil, assume they will do it if allowed. History has it’s uses.
Mr Bunge:
The left is all in with the Chevron doctrine and the Robert’s rules of legislation. Garland not getting his vote had nothing to do with that process.
Did lung cancer cause you to take up smoking?
You might want to look back about 100 years to consider the role of the Court and the role of the Congress. There was an instance of threatened court packing IIRC.
Consider the process of “regulatory capture” by which administrative agencies willingly allow themselves to be directed by NGOs and “stakeholder” bodies by use of the legal processes. “Agency was sued and had to change or implement policy because Judge SoandSo said so…” Funny how that works.
“Congress being crooked and incompetent clowns is not why we have Wickard, Roe, Romer, Obergefell, &c. It’s not why the court had the audacity to tell the Secretary of Commerce that he had to explain himself to a judge before putting a banal question on the Census forms.”
Yes it is. The Legislature is the branch given the power to “check” the Judiciary in the Constitution. Having such power, even when it isn’t used, means Congress is also the one properly able to challenge the Courts (both publicly and privately) and restrain any abuses of authority. That you, a fairly well-informed dude, don’t understand this is evidence of how degenerate our political process has become.
Mike
MBunge:
It is mindboggling that you think the Garland ruckus is why “the Supreme Court now often functions as a Super Legislature.” The Supreme Court has been functioning that way for a long time, most of my lifetime actually. I would date the beginning of it sometime during the Warren court and certainly Roe, which was decided by the Burger court, was a prime example of legislating from the bench. The proper way to make abortion legal would be either state-by-state (which was already happening) and/or an amendment. But instead, it was done from the bench. That was in 1973.
Another turning point that led to the present situation was the Bork hearing, where SCOTUS nomination approval hearings became highly politicized.
“Because, ….., they are trustworthy principled believers in the Constitution as shown by their actions and their words?”
No, because that’s how the system is supposed to work. The President nominates someone. They hold hearings. Then there’s an up-or-down vote.
Mike
“It is mindboggling that you think the Garland ruckus is why “the Supreme Court now often functions as a Super Legislature.””
Jiminy H. Christmas. DID YOU NOT SEE THE MIDDLE SENTENCE OF THAT PARAGRAPH? I think it’s pretty clear I’m not referring to Garland specifically but to Congress’ general abdication of its responsibilities under the Constitution.
Mike
“Garland not getting his vote had nothing to do with that process.”
Garland not getting his vote had nothing to do with the Constitution. It mostly had to do with Mitch McConnell trying to help some vulnerable GOP Senators avoid having to take a tough vote to approve or reject Obama’s Supreme Court pick.
Mike
Mr Bunge:
Are you pitch hitting for Montage? Who controls the actions of the Senate? Who sets the day to day rules for the Senates? Think lang and hard about that. The answer has been in the press lately, something about a philly or fillie rule (young female horse)? Elections have consequences I’ve heard.
All caps don’t help bro. 🙂
Mr Bunge:
LOL, LOL, Weak. at 5:16 PM, essentially saying ‘you are intelligent when you agree with me.’
Too much for this Sunday.
Time to put on the respirator and sand some drywall. 😉
MBunge:
Your message was not as clear as you think. It was ambiguous. You wrote:
The word “that’s,” which begins the third sentence, could refer to the subject you are discussing, the lack of a senate hearing/vote, rather than the past abdications. You say, “Not doing so was just Congess abdicating another of its Constitutional responsibilities,” but the subject of that sentence the lack of a vote for Garland (“Not doing so”). In your third sentence, “that” could refer to that same topic, the lack of a vote for Garland.
Was that actually an abdication of a Constitutional responsibility? The Constitution says the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint….judges of the Supreme Court…”
The Senate has the power to do that – to give advice and consent. But the Constitution is silent on how quickly it must do it, or whether it can decide that it doesn’t want to consent to a particular appointment by not voting on it (which is what happened with Garland). The message of the Senate in 2016 was clear: this Senate is not approving that nomination.
The Constitution is (unfortunately, I think) silent even on how many justices SCOTUS should have, which apparently paves the way for the possibility of packing the Court.
And the rest of my comment contains the heart of what I wanted to say, which is that SCOTUS was legislating from the bench before Congress was “abdicating” responsibilities. The leftward drift of the Court is what led it to take on the attitude that the “living Constitution” allowed it to expand the law as it saw fit, and to find “penumbras” of the basic rights that would allow the Court to expand those rights and have them go where they hadn’t gone before.
MBunge:
And by the way, how would you propose Congress overrule the Court? If the Court says, for example, that it is unconstitutional to ban gay marriage, if the Congress passed a law doing that then the Court would just say it’s unconstitutional again. As far as I can tell, only two possible remedies would exist, and they are both very difficult. They first is to impeach justices, but to do that requires the kind of majorities in Congress that are unrealistic, and it’s hard to see what the reason to impeach would be other than political disagreement. But anyway, impeachment has a very high bar to surmount. The other remedy is a Constitutional amendment (in the example I gave, an amendment banning gay marriage). That is another very high bar, beginning in Congress but then involving the states. There has to be overwhelming agreement to pass an amendment.
It must be taken into account that the Democrats, as an aggregate, have no sense of shame or embarrassment. They will oppose Court-packing when it is convenient to oppose Court-packing, and they will accede to Court-packing when it is convenient to accede to Court-packing, possibly in the very next week.
M J R: Democrats, lack of shame, etc., granted.
However, they do have some sense of self-preservation, which can kick in when their poll numbers drop — as we saw when Don Lemon and Biden were suddenly concerned about the riots.
I’m all in favor of Trump tweaking the Dems into talking more about court-packing and burning-it-all-down. I don’t believe that level of radicalism plays well with independents and even some Democrat voters.
neo, Aricle 3 Section 2 of the US Constitution reads as follows:
“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;–to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;–to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;–to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;–to Controversies between two or more States;– between a State and Citizens of another State,–between Citizens of different States,–between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Note the last clause regarding the appelate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court: “… with such exceptions … as the Congress shall make”. Doesn’t that open the door for Congress to control the decision-making of the Court? Has this ever been used? Though it probably cannot be made retroactive to overturn decisions already made.
Yes it is. The Legislature is the branch given the power to “check” the Judiciary in the Constitution. Having such power, even when it isn’t used, means Congress is also the one properly able to challenge the Courts (both publicly and privately) and restrain any abuses of authority. That you, a fairly well-informed dude, don’t understand this is evidence of how degenerate our political process has become.
Congress can harass the judiciary in various ways. It cannot directly excise the four judicial decisions in question.
Montage: That’s a nice set of GOP quotes but they are clearly opinions, not constitutional law, and in a more perfect world of political civility those opinions might make sense.
But in our less than perfect world of 2020 we have now been through almost four years of non-stop Democrat efforts to oust Trump “by any means necessary” which came to nothing and revealed what sure looks like illegal Democrat skullduggery at the highest levels.
Furthermore there was the Kavanaugh horror nomination. Now Democrats stand by, and in some cases cheer, while BLM and Antifa — Democrat shock troops IMO — burn cities down. And we are now hearing from Democrats that there should be more burning, if Trump replaces RBG.
Democrats conveniently forget all the vicious crap they have pulled and keep pulling and pretend as though they’ve been innocent lambs all this time, while the big bad Republican wolves have taken advantage of them.
Really, Montage, even you must know that, if positions were reversed, Democrats wouldn’t blink for a millisecond to ram through a young progressive Supreme.
We’re in a knife fight.
__________________________________________________________
Butch Cassidy: [Walks back, and Harvey tenses to begin the fight] No, no, not yet. Not until me and Harvey get the rules straightened out.
Harvey Logan: Rules? In a knife fight? No rules.
[Butch throws dirt in Harvey’s eyes and kicks him in the groin, who falls to his knees]
Butch Cassidy: Well, if there aint’t going to be any rules, let’s get the fight started. Someone count. 1,2,3 go.
Sundance Kid: [quickly] 1,2,3, go.
[Butch knocks Harvey out]
–“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – Knife Fight”
https://youtu.be/w9KBOhPXhds</i.
Kevin Williamson’s remarks are an effective rejoinder to the tendentious selective quoting by Montage and many others:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/supreme-court-nomnation-hypocrisy/
huxley (6:44 pm) said:
“However, [Democrats] do have some sense of self-preservation, which can kick in when their poll numbers drop — as we saw when Don Lemon and Biden were suddenly concerned about the riots.”
Yes.
“I’m all in favor of Trump tweaking the Dems into talking more about court-packing and burning-it-all-down. I don’t believe that level of radicalism plays well with independents and even some Democrat voters.”
A problem is differentiating between radicalism talk and radicalism actions. I fear that many “independents and even some Democrat voters” are not distinguishing between the talk and the actions, in that at some level, the actions all are confined to what they see on tee vee, and (I conjecture) it’s just not really *real* to them.
They’re okay with the radicalism talk; heck, it enhances one’s standing in the more-leftie-than-thou group to talk radical, especially if there’s no centrist or conservative to call them on their imbecilities. They’re okay with others doing the dirty work, while their hands stay clean.
My point this time: some centrist or conservative stepping up to be the adult in the group, I fear, is happening less and less as we grow more and more bitterly divided, and as it becomes more and more chic to talk radical. The independents and some Democrats (of whom huxley writes) thus become enablers of the leftie thugs.
FOAF:
That’s an area of law that seems exceedingly murky and complex, and certainly not something on which I am the least bit expert. See this. Much more can be found here.
The power certainly doesn’t seem to be exercised often, either, nor broadly.
The right of SCOTUS judicial review – which I believe is primarily what we’re talking about here – is based on case law rather than something explicitly in the Constitution.
Given my realization a few weeks ago that a significant function of the Senate these days in the real existing constitutional paradigm is to act as an Electoral College for the Supreme Court, which is the real legislature as in final de facto legislative authority in this country today, it would be irresponsible for the current sitting Senate not to fill the seat as soon as possible. After all, the Court still has cases to hear, no? Those don’t stop just because a Justice has expired. Life goes on. In this view, a GOP vote to fill the seat before Nov. 3 is nothing more than a bow to this political reality.
I would love to see just one Dem senator be fully honest on camera and admit that their noise about leaving it until after the election is purely about them hoping to get what they want without any attempt to dress it up with some kind of supposed principles.
Was RBG a White Supremacist? OK, that’s a tease but if she was held to the same standards that SHE HELD EVERYONE ELSE TO, then the idea would gain traction.
https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/is-ruth-bader-ginsburg-a-white-supremacist/
Way back in 1993, as a Senate Judiciary Committee staffer to Orrin
Hatch, I prepared him for Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing. As part of
her submissions, Ginsburg sent in a form that revealed that over the
course of her 13 years on the D.C. Circuit she had never had a single
black law clerk, intern, or secretary. Out of 57 employees, zero blacks.
(Note: she did eventually hire one black American. One.)
ps. I love how Sen Hatch asked her the baited question and she did not get it at all.
JimNorCal:
They better take the RBG shawl off that defiant girl statue on Wall Street. Also she served on the same court with those evil conservatives. How long until they start the purging of her memory (per 1984); she was not a BIPOC nor one of the Alphabet tribes. All must be torn down or destroyed for true justice to flourish? It’s a systemic system after all. 🙂
The BabylonBee has taken control of RedState.com
That was one of the signs that Yammer warned us about.
https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2020/09/20/hillary-clinton-meet-the-press-supreme-court-ginsburg-trump-lust-for-power/
The rumor people floated to me was that HRC would take Biden’s slot. That can’t be right… right?
Re: the “balance” of the court:
Whether we currently have a 50%/50% court, or a slightly-left-of-center court, is yet to be seen. For any SCOTUS Justice nominated by a Republican president, there seems to be about a 60% chance of political realignment leftward sometime after he is seated. But I know of no comparably examples of rightward political realignment of Justices nominated by a Democrat.
It’s important to note that the odds of a GOP-nominated Justice realigning leftward drop as the years pass; after only 5 years a rightward Justice still might drift, but after 15 years a rightward Justice seems pretty fixed. Nobody thinks Justice Thomas might suddenly transform into Anthony Kennedy, let alone David Souter.
Moreover, on a 1-5 scale of “rightwardness,” the leftward transformation of a GOP-nominated Justice is usually not 4 points, from 5-to-1. I’d guess it’s 1, 2, or 3 points (33% chance of each).
Given this historical track-record, if you have a 9-person court, wherein all 9 Justices have been seated for less than a year, if 5 Justices were nominated by GOP presidents and 4 Justices nominated by Democrats, this should be understood as a left-leaning court. The reason: Of the 5 Justices nominated by GOP presidents, an average of 3 (60%) will shift leftward, and they didn’t all start at 5-out-of-5 “rightwardness,” anyway.
A newly-seated court with 6 Justices nominated by GOP presidents and 3 Justices nominated by Democrats is plausibly “right-leaning” and even that court is more likely to play out as “balanced” or “slightly-left-of-center” than as “right-leaning.”
Now, actual courts don’t get seated 9 at a time. It’s precisely because Thomas and Alito are solidly right-leaning (and have been there long enough that drift is now unlikely) that the current court is plausibly centrist.
But it isn’t remotely safe to think of it as a “rightward” court, what with Roberts already showing all the weathercock-like changeability of Anthony Kennedy, and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh being untested noobs.
Well, President Trump has said he will probably announce his nominee on Friday or Saturday after RBGs funeral, but given RBG’s importance I “think” that her remains should first be respectfully made available for viewing in all 50 states. It could possibly delay the filling of the vacancy on the court. Just trying to help. 😉
Hmmm, om, what with the 6 foot “distancing” and all, the time needed for people to respectfully file past the remains could take … well, quite a long time. It might be simpler to just permanently fall back to 8 seats on the Court? 🙂 🙂
Well the peaceful protest public heath precedent covers that contingency unless of course the Republicans and the dread President Trump (inconceivable) win the
election. If that were to happen the viewing period would be extended; 8 is a good number as you noted.
om – I didn’t know you wrote for the Bee!
AesopFan:
They are a true inspiration! 😉
re: om….
Was anyone else creeped out by the near-Soviet celebration of John Lewis’s and George Floyd’s remains? Apparently they are Heroes of the Great Patriotic War against Racism or something.
OK, Lewis and Floyd aren’t my brand of vodka, but they weren’t presidents or anywhere near the stature of MLK either.
huxley, I thought the fuss over Lewis not exactly creepy, but deeply puzzling. To me, and I don’t exactly consider myself uninformed about history (though not a pro, either), the name John Lewis honestly meant basically nothing to me until he passed, I have to say. Then suddenly, oh my lord, VERILY A GOD AMONG US, hallelujah. I really just felt like shrugging my shoulders. Sad to see anyone die, but no more so than any other decent person. Maybe I really am that ignorant about the civil rights era, but seriously? I dunno, I knew MLK, Malcolm and a couple of the other standard marker points and names, and thought that was generally enough to go on. It was baffling to me that this man had been so crucial to the history of the known universe and I’d somehow missed it.
As for the Floyd funeral, I didn’t see any of it directly, but what I did see or hear of after the fact put it on a whole different level of “what the….”
Was anyone else creeped out by the near-Soviet celebration of John Lewis’s and George Floyd’s remains? Apparently they are Heroes of the Great Patriotic War against Racism or something.
The celebration of Lewis was somewhat de trop. He was a back bench member of no special distinction who was about a dozen years past his sell-by date. For a modest run of years (1960-66) he was involved in some exciting extraparliamentary politics, in a leadership position for about half that time. Louise Slaughter’s funeral and memorial service were notably briefer and less flamboyant, even though she was more accomplished.
The celebration of Floyd was plain bizarre. He was a private citizen who happened to die shortly after police had placed him under arrest. He did nothing of consequence outside his circle of acquaintances and his life is a cautionary tale of how not to live.
Philip Sells: I mostly remember John Lewis as one of the members of Black Congressional Caucus who lied that the Tea Party used the n-word as the BCC walked through a group of Tea Party demonstrators.
Lewis had his moment when he was attacked at Selma in 1965, but as far as I’m concerned he became just another black race hustler and we have had enough of those.
MBunge on September 20, 2020 at 5:19 pm said:
…No, because that’s how the system is supposed to work. The President nominates someone. They hold hearings. Then there’s an up-or-down vote.
* * *
I remembered seeing over the week-end that hearings are a relatively recent innovation, and Wikipedia confirms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appointment_and_confirmation_to_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States
The table won’t “copy-paste” legibly, but the huge increase in time spent on hearings is mind-boggling.
From 1925 (Harlan F. Stone) to 1975 (John Paul Stevens) there were 0-10 hours of hearings, and no questions until 1975, then only 5 for JPS.
From 1981 (Sandra Day O’Connor) to 1994 (Stephen Breyer) 8-25 hours, 5-20 questions with two notable outliers:
1987 Robert Bork(NC) 30 hours, 15 questions (not confirmed)
1987 Anthony Kennedy 11 hours, 47 questions
But look what happens in the next round of nominations:
2005 John Roberts(CJ) 20 hours, 231 questions;
2017 Neil Gorsuch 20 hours, 324 questions;
2018 Brett Kavanaugh 48 hours, 1,278 questions
*Also ran: 2016 Merrick Garland(NC) 0 0
With the records that are available ahead of the nomination on almost every possible nominee (you KNOW the Democrats have been doing oppo-research since 2016, and started on the new names before the ink on the announcement was dry), and the hard-line positions of the two parties, I say it’s time to go back to the original custom of NO hearings, or at most a prepared statement, including responses to at most 20 previously submitted questions from each party.
That would impose some discipline on the fishing expeditions and totally close out the surprise accusations (which were a complete and total disgrace, but you all know that, including Montage).
I was much taken with this analysis from the earlier thread.
Since both parties agree that this election will be a referendum-and-mandate combined as to who gets control of the court for the next couple of decades*, let’s put everything on the table (h/t Chuck Schumer)**
It also gives the Republicans time to do some oppo-research of their own.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/09/19/romney-murkowski-and-collins-what-about-those-rinos-in-2020/#comment-2515908
* See this very interesting analysis: when the Democrats place a progressive judge, they always get a progressive (or leftist) judge; when the Republicans place a conservative judge, they sometimes get a progressive judge.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/09/19/the-death-of-ginsburg-chaos/#comment-2516031
R.C. on September 21, 2020 at 9:19 am said:
Re: the “balance” of the court:
** Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout that new way of walkin’, but Scott raises some essential counter-points.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/09/questions-on-the-table.php
Both parties have their out-of-date icons, who are more beloved in their absence than in the flesh.
Making the appropriate substitutions for Republicans and John McCain is left as an exercise for the reader.
John McCain is more beloved by the Democrats than by many Republicans for many, many reasons. He was useful to the Dems. Ambition and ego above principles IMO. RIP
This is a relatively fair and simple explanation of the process and the arguments. The note at the end is particularly important, and I haven’t seen it stressed by the conservative blogs, although it might have been mentioned.
McConnell and Trump are certainly aware of it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-vacancy-process-nomination-senate-confirmation/
And what if they Congress can’t get its act together any time soon?
This summarizes most of what I’ve seen discussed, but I like the final graf.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/18/supreme-court-accustomed-working-only-eight-justices/5528909002/
So, despite Ginsburg’s dying wish, that applies to her as well.