U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

At night, he dons a crimson body stocking and fights crime. Under the name FISTS OF JUSTICE.

Thomas speaks:

WASHINGTON – Justice Clarence Thomas said Wednesday that the Supreme Court confirmation process is an example of how the nation's capital is "broken in some ways."

Thomas reflected on his 25 years as a justice while speaking at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank where his wife once worked.

The 68-year-old Thomas went through a very contentious confirmation in 1991, when he faced allegations that he sexually harassed Anita Hill when they were colleagues in the federal government.

At the time, Thomas, who would become the second African-American to serve on the court, called televised Senate hearings about Hill's claim a "high-tech lynching."

Looking back, he said Wednesday that "I think we have decided that rather than confront disagreements, we'll just simply annihilate the person who disagrees with me. I don't think that's going to work in a republic, in a civil society."

He did not mention the stalled Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. President Barack Obama nominated Garland in March to take the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Thomas defended his willingness to question Supreme Court rulings more often than anyone else on the court. He said justices often are selective about what they want to preserve.

"When people get what they want, then they start yelling stare decisis," he said, using the Latin term for respecting precedents.

He delivered one barbed quip about Obama's health care law, which Thomas voted to strike down in 2012. He said the title of the law, the Affordable Care Act, "seems like kind of a misnomer considering all the things that are going on." The administration this week announced rate increases for health insurance plans under the law.

Thomas fondly recalled Scalia as someone he could trust, even when they disagreed. Their disagreements often could be about cultural issues.

Scalia, a hunter from the North, teased the Georgia-born Thomas about his dislike of hunting. "I told him no good comes from being in the woods," Thomas said.

Then there was opera, a passion of Scalia's. Using Scalia's nickname, Thomas related that he would tell his friend: "Nino, I like opera. I just don't want to be around the people who like opera."

Then there was opera, a passion of Scalia's. Using Scalia's nickname, Thomas related that he would tell his friend: "Nino, I like opera. I just don't want to be around the people who like opera."

― Οὖτις

opera is the jandek of the ruling elite

Scalia, a hunter from the North, teased the Georgia-born Thomas about his dislike of hunting. "I told him no good comes from being in the woods," Thomas said.

I'm trying to imagine these two starring in a production of Waiting For Godot.

"I am Antonin Scalia, hunter from the North.>"

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/starherald.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/4b/54b997be-62dd-54c0-8f2a-9074b7d12507/56c649704f689.image.jpg?resize=300%2C400

The North forgot.

oh and also

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/alaska-lawyer-says-justice-clarence-thomas-groped-her-at-a-party-in-1999/2016/10/27/5aecf37a-9c52-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html

well the new Trump/Ailes network probably needs a legal analyst

this would require him to speak

96 year-old retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in the news for attending the World Series this year, and in 1929 and 1932

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-cubs-justice-stevens-called-shot-met-20161026-story.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/legal-experts-fear-gop-threats-to-blcok-scotus-noms-under-clinton

seems increasingly likely to happen, gop blocks any hearings on nominees and argues that "there is historical precedent for a smaller court"

Which given the tilt of a lot of the Appeals Courts these days may not exactly be their ideal scenario.

I'm sure they've gamed it out vs the risk of having a liberal majority for another couple decades.

Really wish I could have made some kind of predictwise-type bet on this happening back in June when I called it.

if the dems win the senate it won't matter, they can just do away with the filibuster

yeah but tradition

Senate doesn't seem to give much of a fuck about tradition these days

just naked partisan warfre

warfare

Today the court hears oral argument in National Labor Relations Board v. SW General, Inc., a case that involves the president’s power to make temporary appointments to Senate-confirmed executive branch positions.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/11/monday-round-up-325/#more-248389

rip Nino :(

i can't even handle reminding myself that scalia died in FEBRUARY and gop got away w/ this shit

fuckin a

Does Roberts watch or read about the news and think about how his Shelby 5to 4 opinion has impacted voting rights in a negative, seemingly unconstitutional way?

Based on this article, probably not

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/colorblind-justice-john-roberts-voting-rights-north-carolina

Seems like Trump's election is a new era. Not saying it requires a new thread, but if I were writing a history the post-Scalia and the post-trump would have their own chapters.

The 4-4 post-Scalia split feels like a fleeting european republic, and the Trump era the dictatorship that followed

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/dem-senator-supreme-court-seat-being-stolen?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

As recently as Tuesday – literally, the morning of Election Day – Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) became the latest Republican senator to raise the prospect of confirming Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland during the lame-duck session. This was not an uncommon posture within the GOP: Wicker and others believed Hillary Clinton would win the election, so confirming President Obama’s compromise choice would be preferable to whomever Clinton picked in 2017.

Except, of course, these same Senate Republicans were as surprised as everyone else to discover that Americans had actually elected Donald Trump. The lame-duck confirmation plan wouldn’t be necessary after all – because the GOP’s Supreme Court blockade scheme, once thought to be a historic mistake, had worked like a charm.

Sen. Jeff Merkley’s (D-Ore.) outrage is well-grounded – and perhaps too rare given the circumstances.
A Democratic senator accused the GOP of “theft” for blocking President Barack Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court so it can be filled by the Trump administration.

“We really have to pay attention to the Supreme Court seat. The seat that is sitting empty is being stolen,” Sen. Jeff Merkley told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Thursday night. “It’s being stolen from the Obama administration and the construct of our Constitution. And it’s being delivered to an administration that has no right to fill it.”

The Oregon Democrat added, “There’s no legitimacy to a Supreme Court justice in a seat that’s been stolen from one administration and handed to another. We need to do everything we possibly can to block it … it won’t be DOA unless the American people understand that this is the theft of the court.”

it is a total catastrophe, and it's likely to be relatively forgotten by the public, if nothing else due to the insane number of other catastrophes going on. also due to how few people really understood the theft that was taking place in the first place, after republicans refused to appoint a successor back on fucking FEBRUARY 12

Fuck yes, more Merkleys please.

Obama should recess appoint Garland asap

can he actually do that? because if so he absolutely should

yeah i'm of the mind that he should, but i'm just not sure it's his nature to do so

it's a nice wish but will never happen

I think the only obstacle is when/whether the senate is in recess...?

if he "signals" he's going to do it, the Senate will stay in session somehow. McConnell's wily. He knows parliamentary tricks.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/is-a-recess-appointment-to-the-court-an-option/

short version: not unless the GOP completely fucks up and allows the Senate to spend more than three days at recess, doing nothing at all.

Goddammit

I mean if they do take a recess for the holidays and McConnell sticks Jeff Flake with the Christmas shift, then maybe

"Whoops, I let my work phone battery die! Sorry about that Mitch"

What can we do to make this happen

Grasping at straws here

wait until holiday recess starts, surround the capitol in an unbroken loop of armlocked bodies, and relieve each other in shifts for a minimum of 73 hours, nobody gets in

I like this idea lets make it happen

I never have xmas plans anyway

He can say the Senate has waived its opportunity to provide advice and consent and just appoint him. Let the Republicans sue and let the courts decide if it's constitutional.

It looks like the streets around the capitol (Independence, 1st NE, Constitution, 1st NW) would be about 7200 feet, people are about 2.5 feet wide, let's say just two shifts, so around 6000 people is all you would need

I'll lay down on those train tracks! Win-win situation, imo.

6000 seems like a v doable number tbh

Grasping at straws here

― Οὖτις, Saturday, November 12, 2016

Put Nino back on the Court imo

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/appoint-garland-now-senate-has-waived-its-rights

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-can-appoint-merrick-garland-to-the-supreme-court-if-the-senate-does-nothing/2016/04/08/4a696700-fcf1-11e5-886f-a037dba38301_story.html