U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

miss you Nino

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Qzg-Ub3L--/mfxzbhxkwyzn7vyijjag.jpg

Still shaking my head at those 4 conservative justices that would have allowed the NC voting changes.

http://images.onionstatic.com/clickhole/3282/8/16x9/640.jpg

http://www.clickhole.com/article/political-crisis-antonin-scalias-vacant-supreme-co-4774

^ Onion-level

definitely onion-level

Thomas is not having it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/inside-the-republican-creation-of-the-north-carolina-voting-bill-dubbed-the-monster-law/2016/09/01/79162398-6adf-11e6-8225-fbb8a6fc65bc_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_northcarolinavote-950am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

4 Justices in denial or able to rationalize anything.

Thomas is not having it.

he's just jealous

easy to imagine Clarence keeping a 5x7 framed photo of that making out couple on his desk.

asking his law clerks if they are hot or not

It's based on an anecdote in one of Toobin's books: Thomas kept a photo of the lesbian clerk and her partner.

ew

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-band-idUSKCN11Z1UN

lol crazy

http://abovethelaw.com/2016/09/could-a-legal-love-triangle-scuttle-scotus-hopes-for-this-leading-jurist/

juicy goodwin liu drama!

still want that guy to be president someday

michele obama going in rn

https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/786607670170161152
https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/786607809613950980

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colin-kaepernick-rbg_us_57ff56ade4b0e8c198a62512

RBG needs to stop doing interviews

That doesn't at all shock me.

really couldn't care less about the RBG thing

a lot of it is people wanting an old lady for a meme

You think that's bad, you should ask JPS what he thinks about flag burning.

I mentioned that on a friend's FB post on Tuesday.

I saw JPS and my first thought was you were making some esoteric existentialism joke.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kaepernick-ginsburg-walks-back-criticism

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg walked back Friday her criticisms of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand during the national anthem.

"Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh," she said in a statement via the Supreme Court public information office. "I should have declined to respond.”

she should decline to respond, period

*burns Notorious RBG jersey*

now the possible are outcomes are 1) GOP folds before the election and we get a relatively older justice that even fox admits that Garland is the most conservative nominee from a democratic president in the modern era, or 2) GOP folds after Clinton wins and appoints Garland in the lame duck session, which effectively grants them an extra decision point that they normally wouldn't have, or 3) GOP wins the election and blood flows from our tear ducts. Those are all weak outcomes imo.

― Karl Malone, Thursday, March 17, 2016 10:12 AM (seven months ago)

now that options 1 and 3 are pretty much off the table, looks like option 2 is becoming more likely:

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has long been signaling that Senate Republicans should confirm Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, in the lame duck session if Hillary Clinton wins the election, and on Thursday he confirmed his position.

"I said if we were in a position like we were in in '96 and we pretty much knew the outcome that we ought to move forward. But I think we passed that awhile ago," Flake told Politico. "If Hillary Clinton is president-elect then we should move forward with hearings in the lame duck. That's what I'm encouraging my colleagues to do."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/flake-confirm-garland-if-clinton-wins

although there is an option 4 - dems take the senate and HRC nominates a more liberal, younger candidate - which i didn't consider at the time

what does "extra decision point" mean?

heh, i was confused by that too, looking back. the context was that obama had just nominated garland, even after there were clear indications from the GOP that they weren't going to consider ANY nominee. i think at the time i was arguing that obama should have nominated a more liberal nominee in the first place: forcing them to decide between a relatively liberal, non-Garland candidate in March, or possibly a different, even more liberal candidate in Jan 2017, after HRC was inaugurated, if the democrats took over the senate. the "extra decision point" i was referring to was during the lame duck session, giving the republicans the option to wait until then to confirm Garland. Nominating Garland effectively gave the GOP the option to do nothing, wait around, and then go with Garland if that was the best option available. and that's what has happened: if there are enough republicans like Flake, they'll confirm Garland during the lame duck. but if obama would have nominated someone more liberal in the first place and forced their hand, they would currently be choosing between the more liberal candidate at hand or an even more liberal candidate under a HRC presidency.

ok so it's not that clear, sorry.

idk not really seeing them moving on garland. it does deny clinton a move but also means that the next court vacancy is clinton's first nom. she gets garland for free, no fight, no "political capital" expended. not that he's some great liberal prize, but versus scalia it's a huge change. tho otoh I doubt these bozos can think that far ahead.

If Garland got confirmed in a walk over the lame duck session, it would be quite a hoot to hear Turtle Man explain why he was wrong to tell the world incessantly how it Would Not be Fair to the American People not to let the Next President Fill the Vacancy.

It's Vox, so there's probably a bunch of things wrong with it, but I found this to be really interesting: http://www.vox.com/2016/8/22/12484000/supreme-court-liberal-clinton It goes into detail on the ways that a more liberal SC could change US politics, including for instance how voting rights restrictions would become almost impossible if the court began looking at them using a 'strict scrutiny' rather than 'undue burden' framework - since under strict scrutiny, the states would have to prove that voting fraud is a compelling problem, which every statistic shows it isn't, but the courts simply sidestep that issue atm.

The more I think about it, why wouldn't Republicans hold out for the next justice to drop or retire? Two of the three oldest are liberal and the other is Kennedy.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Thursday, June 16, 2016 3:40 PM (four months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good shot at a conservative majority 7-justice court. What do they have to lose?

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Thursday, June 16, 2016 3:41 PM (four months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think that type of inaction would make them look extremely bad worse and might lead to some backlash, but maybe i overestimate the distaste that would engender.

― nomar, Thursday, June 16, 2016 3:56 PM (four months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess maybe finding rhetorical cover for it would be too challenging? But "Republicans will never be able to find rhetorical cover for this" sounds like famous last words.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Thursday, June 16, 2016 3:56 PM (four months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Surprised this hasn't come up yet, totally vindicating my prediction:

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/17/498328520/sen-mccain-says-republicans-will-block-all-court-nominations-if-clinton-wins

yes, they are going to do what they've been doing

Posted it upthread, man alive

wait really? Missing it somehow.

Dem senate wld pull nuclear option on the filibuster so fast to get SCOTUS noms through IMO

wait really? Missing it somehow.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive),

Sorry – it's in the politics thread.

What's changed since June is that the Dems now look to have a better chance of actually having a majority of the Senate, which at least makes that an option I guess. Need to brush up on the details of the nuclear option and related procedure though.

Not that this is exactly what we're talking about (re: obstructionism) but Kennedy being replaced by a Clinton nom would be A-OK with me btw. He's written some really powerful decisions (Lawrence and Obergefell obv.) but he's been a rightward tether on abortion and defendants' rights, not to mention gun control and, infamously, Bush v. Gore (though I'd like to think he winces at that one). Alito and Thomas seem like they're going to be around til the end of time - would be great if they were deprived of a "swing justice" on that stuff.

So like, that has nothing to do with getting past the Senate blockade - just saying that if "all" she's able to get is replacements for Scalia and, say, Ginsburg and Kennedy - especially if they are closer to Kagan's age when she joined the bench than Merrick Garland is - that's a major long-term win. I seriously doubt she can put on someone as reliably 'left' as Ginsburg, but that slate would probably mean, e.g., a final end to the decades of nickel-and-diming bullshit that's been happening to Roe v. Wade since Casey. I think Hellerstedt makes that pretty clear.

I doubt you'll find much love for Tony K, despite Obergefell, Romer, and Lawrence.

Not that this is exactly what we're talking about (re: obstructionism) but Kennedy being replaced by a Clinton nom would be A-OK with me btw. He's written some really powerful decisions (Lawrence and Obergefell obv.) but he's been a rightward tether on abortion and defendants' rights, not to mention gun control and, infamously, Bush v. Gore (though I'd like to think he winces at that one). Alito and Thomas seem like they're going to be around til the end of time - would be great if they were deprived of a "swing justice" on that stuff.

― DOCTOR CAISNO, BYCREATIVELABBUS (Doctor Casino), Monday, October 24, 2016 11:16 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, and actually if Kennedy is the first to croak or retire you still get a majority liberal court. But the bigger picture is that the GOP wants to hold out and hope for a midterm anti-Clinton backlash in the Senate and a hopeful GOP president in 2021. Same logic of not having much to lose and a lot to gain but obstructing seems to apply. Any political damage is hard to quantify and intangible, but probably they consider a court majority for years to come to be more valuable than any fallout is harmful.

fwiw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

three-fifths votes still needed to override filibusters and confirm SC nominees. Dems will be able to do this with a majority (with a VP as the presiding officer), dunno if they will though.

Dems can get rid of filibuster for Supreme Court nominations by a majority vote. Here's an article about the possibility of using the nuclear option and there being no filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. Article is from back in March

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/liberals-supreme-court-filibuster-220806

To be clear they could get rid of the filibuster entirely w a majority vote

I'd just as much say an opposing party refusing to put a president's SC pick through the process is as "nuclear" as anything else.

We haven't run one of these in a while:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/01/04/us/01scotus-web1/01scotus-web1-master768.jpg

Yes. The majority controls the rules of the Senate. It is by tradition and courtesy that the filibuster is maintained as an 'inviolable' rule. A cloture vote used to require 66 votes, but within my lifetime the rule was changed to 60 votes. The filibuster could be abolished at any time and replaced by a simple majority rule.