U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

Saw it suggested that the Dems should demand a conclusion to the Mueller investigation before appointing another justice

given that the GOP is champing at the bit for the Mueller investigation to end (see: yesterday's hearing) I really don't think this is a good idea

It's hilarious that they want to rush the investigation because he's not indicting enough people already?

xpost that's the Catch-22 of it though isn't it? What happens if the Mueller investigation concludes in a year, or two years, or after Trump's reelection, and only then do we find out all the horrible stuff behind his 2016 election. What then?

I’ve been wondering if all of this will provide an incentive for Mueller to wrap things up sooner than he wants to. That’s what trump and the GOP (and everyone else - it is truly a national nightmare) want too, of course, but the sooner he brings real charges to the trump family (fingers crossed) the harder it will be for him to nominate a total stooge to the SC

didn't he imply or someone close to him imply that the investigation will conclude in stages, with one of the stages being the summer?

wasn't obstruction of justice the first conclusion expected?

I’m not sure. tbh after the one billionth tweet I saw regarding an incremental development, they’ve all started to blend together into an amorphous blob of possibility

there's also the issue of Mueller-related findings making their way to the supreme court

Solid Ian Millhiser piece about how the badness of Kennedy's writing could weaken his liberal decisions in the future.

It would’ve been nice if Obergeffel had contained some more thorough legal reasoning about the equal protection clause and less goofy posturing

"Goofy posturing" is a terrific description (Nino, ugh, otm).

stfu crut

no offense

research when & why she stopped going by "Rodham" maybe

STOP. TALKING. ABOUT. HILLARY. CLINTON.

anyway there have been no additions to Trump's Big Boy List of SC Nominees since the campaign?

not to be captain save a hillary but that's like textbook misogyny?

― cr.ht (crüt), 29. juni 2018 15:49 (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup. FP'd him for that.

this is ominous

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/supreme-court-double-jeopardy-clause/index.html

it could make it more difficult for a state to try someone who has been pardoned by the federal government if trial proceedings had already begun for the federal offense

gosh I can't imagine what would be appealing about this

if you're Donald Trump and the NY courts are gonna prosecute you, it's quite appealing!

sarcasm is dead ;)

if only ******* was

naw I caught it!

oh I know, just goofin around this morning

this is ominous

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/supreme-court-double-jeopardy-clause/index.html

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Friday, June 29, 2018 9:45 AM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wait, but if they're hearing it in the fall, isn't there a decent chance it will be a 4-4 court still? How does that work? What if the new justice is confirmed after oral argument but before the opinion is out?

yeah, a lot can happen, that's why I said "ominous" rather than "oh god we're even more fucked"

interpretive jiggery-pokery imo

At this point, I am just operating under the assumption that Trump will skate through prosecution one way or the other, regardless of how airtight Mueller's case winds up being. He's led an absolutely charmed life and I have no expectation of that changing.

Skate through, skate past, whatever.

Oh, and then once he's been definitively cleared of wrongdoing by means underhanded or otherwise, he will just as surely find a way to somehow be eternally butthurt about it.

He'll die one day, relatively soon.

That's really all I got.

some more details about kennedy's son and trump:

When I first read the Times story I wasn’t sure whether the younger Kennedy, whose title was Managing Director and Global Head of Real Estate Capital Markets, would have been someone to actually make loans to someone like Trump as opposed to overseeing more complex or synthetic efforts like mortgage backed securities and such. But it turns out he definitely was. The FT says Kennedy was “one of Mr Trump’s most trusted associates over a 12-year spell at Deutsche.” A review of Kennedy’s bio suggests those twelve years were 1997 through 2009 – key years for Trump.

Kennedy was one of the few bankers to accurately predict the 2007/08 mortgage backed securities meltdown and made an astonishing amount of money for Deutsche Bank by shorting mortgages starting in 2006. As Crain’s New York put in 2010, “in just the first half of 2007, [Kennedy’s group’s] bet generated as much as $540 million in revenue for Deutsche Bank as subprime mortgages fell apart, according to Bloomberg News, and the wager proved even more lucrative as the rot spread.”

Kennedy left Deutsche Bank at the end of 2009, apparently because post-financial crisis regs on over-risky bets by banks were making it difficult for him to operate. He left to found LNR Property LLC with partner Toby Cobb, which would become a big player in the distressed-commercial-property space.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/say-hello-to-your-boy-a-special-guy

justin kennedy, a really special guy

Wait ... another Cobb?

He'll die one day, relatively soon

I used to be sure of this until I learned of Warren Buffet's age and diet.

Saw it suggested that the Dems should demand a conclusion to the Mueller investigation before appointing another justice

They can demand whatever they want until they turn blue in the face and it won't make any difference. McConnell killed the filibuster against SC nominees for Gorsuch and therefore killed all hope of the Democrats exercising some kind of power over the process. Making demands would do nothing but emphasize their impotence.

all demands made will be specifically designed to attract the support of GOP Senators (ie Murkowski and/or Collins, maybe Flake)

That would be more in the nature of suggestions.

Anything they say now should be seen more as paving the way for future action. I mean obviously if there's a way to get a couple gop senators on board for holding off I'd be thrilled but it seems like a longshot. Whatever they say now, demand or suggestion or whatever, is the "dissenting opinion" that can be cited in a future "majority opinion" should they get the chance to write one.

Senate maneuverings aren't binding legal opinions, strategic hypocrisy and expedient abandonment of precedent are the rules of the game.

Dissents aren't binding legal opinions either

Of course you should be strategically hypocritical but you also need cover. Stuff like "stolen seat" and "the american people should have a say" are cover. That's exactly how McConnell did it. He could hypothetically have done it anyway but you at least need a fig leaf imo.

anyway, it doesn't matter a whole lot, bottom line is the senate must be retaken.

Meanwhile:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/korematsu-supreme-court-ruling.html

Anyone else disturbed by the "solely and explicitly" language here? “The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of presidential authority.”

Isn't that pretty narrow? Doesn't that leave open detention solely but not explicitly because of race?

yes, they're called prisons

Ponnoru strikes!

I don’t begrudge liberals their anger, being expressed afresh this week, about the Senate Republicans’ refusal to take up President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. I’m sure conservatives would have reacted similarly if the shoe were on the other foot, especially since the chief Republican argument for inaction on Garland—let’s wait until after the presidential election—had a distinctly made-for-the-occasion feel. But I don’t think the complaint that the seat was “stolen” from Garland, or from Obama, has much merit.

The complaint has to mean one of two things. In version one of the complaint, the Senate owed Obama a vote on his nominee, even if it ended up being a no vote. But this argument attempts, implausibly, to make the difference between active and passive Senate rejection of a nominee into a major point of principle. (The Founders seem to have deliberately chosen a system that allows for passive rejection of nominees.) It also fails to justify the “stolen” label, since it concedes that the Senate would have been within its rights to reject Garland if it had followed the proper procedure.

Version two of the complaint holds that Obama’s pick deserved deference, and so the proper thing for the Senate to do was to confirm Garland even though the vast majority of Senate Republicans objected to his legal philosophy and the results it would likely have if he were on the Supreme Court. I don’t think that presidents deserve this degree of deference on their Supreme Court nominations.

The fly in Ponnuru's argument is that, had the Senate rejected Garland, Obama would have been free to nominate another person for the Senate's consideration, or a third, had the second been rejected. Such a series of rejections and nominations has happened before.

This occasion was remarkable in that it essentially said NO nominee of Obama was acceptable, based ONLY on the fact that Obama had nominated them. This was a complete rejection of the President's prerogative to nominate, as opposed to a rejection of his nominees. That was not just unprecedented, but Constitutionally indefensible.

It also excludes the possibility that Garland could have been confirmed, which I thought was the whole point of Mitch's bullshit - keep it from coming to a floor vote because at least a couple of GOP senators might have broken rank and voted on the merits (or just out of fear of who Clinton might nominate instead, or whatever).

remember when Orrin Hatch was caught gums flapping? When Obama nominated Kagan or Sotomayor he said, "Why couldn't he nominate someone moderate and acceptable like Merrick Garland?!"

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/big-business-keeps-winning-at-the-supreme-court/564260/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20180702&silverid-ref=NDQzMzg5OTk4NDM5S0

"And while this term’s decisions on immigrants, gerrymanders, and wedding cakes are prompting many on the left to lament Gorsuch’s “stolen” Supreme Court seat, it is not just the conservative justices who tend to side with business. Six of the nine cases won by the Chamber this year were decided by margins of 7-2 or 9-0. Indeed, with the exception of Elena Kagan, the Chamber has endorsed the nomination of every current member of the Supreme Court."

Man, the latest raft of decisions is really hitting me hard. I hate saying it, but we are so FUCKED with this court. It's only going to get worse.

Yup