U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

the toyota camry of supreme court justice nominees

does it seem like right wing media isn't talking a lot about this whole thing? like when it does the GOP talking points are obviously parroted but it also seems like they are quieter on this than some of the more left-leaning media. trump & the primaries obviously sucking way more energy but also perhaps maybe because mcconnell's argument is trash and people know it? idk i could be majorly off -- i don't have cable for example so i don't know what fox news or others are saying, they could be talking about "the american people should have a voice" all the time. but NRO Corner has only had just a couple of columns about this, one by john yoo lol, my local right wing AM radio is has not mentioned it all week

GOP knows they don't have majority public opinion behind them, they prefer to bury this

right that's kind of what i figured

plus SCOTUS followers are basically us and the Beltway.

yeah i always find dubious the claims that nominees should be selected in part by their ability to rally certain voters

these groups are into trying to rally voters

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-plan-push-to-force-hearings-on-supreme-court-nomination/2016/03/17/97983d40-ec5b-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_garland-hill-920pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

That has given outside groups a central role in the coming fight, especially on the Republican side. Most prominent among them is the Judicial Crisis Network, which has coordinated the conservative response to the Scalia vacancy and has pledged to run millions of dollars in television ads to derail Obama’s nominee.

The group issued talking points Tuesday that said Garland would support “a laundry list of extreme liberal priorities, like gutting the Second Amendment, legalizing partial-birth abortion, and unleashing unaccountable bureaucratic agencies like the EPA and the IRS.”

America Rising Squared, a GOP-aligned opposition research organization, had been working with the Judicial Crisis Network and the Republican National Committee to investigate potential nominees. Brian Rogers, the firm’s executive director, said Wednesday that he now had about a dozen researchers digging into Garland’s background; some will be deployed across the country to vet the judge.

“The White House is planning a big coordinated effort, and we need to, too,” Rogers said.

The president’s mobilization call Thursday was organized by the Constitutional Responsibility Project, a nonprofit group formed by several former top Obama staffer. The group includes Stephanie Cutter, Julianna Smoot, Anita Dunn and Amy Brundage, all of whom worked both on his campaign team and in the White House.

The new tax-exempt organization, which is aimed at providing a platform for hundreds of groups to share information, has planned a series of events over the congressional recess, including a MoveOn Day of Action on Monday, with more than 50 grass-roots events outside senators’ offices, and a robust social-media campaign.

In Ohio, teachers will aim to put pressure on Sen. Rob Portman (R) with “Do Your Job Learn-ins” in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Lima. In Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, nurses, firefighters and union members will call on Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R) to meet with Garland and hold a hearing on his nomination

America Rising Squared

America Rising Prime was already taken?

http://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/84/ed/23/84ed2366ea80475c58edf760e9e5b0ba.jpg

http://statici.behindthevoiceactors.com/behindthevoiceactors/_img/chars/char_533.jpg

Hill Rodhimus Prime

some Dem counter op should just name itself America Rising Cubed

sinking ship: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/03/18/mark-kirk-is-first-republican-senator-to-call-for-vote-on-garland/

Further complicating matters for Kirk is that Garland grew up in Illinois, in a Chicago suburb only a few miles from the border of the congressional district Kirk used to represent.

lol that's a good out. "Well, I just figgered, him bein' a home-town feller and all, well, a man oughta give him a fair shake and such."

Sam Nunn : Clarence Thomas

Not surprised with Kirk, thought he would give in pretty easily. He's going to have a hell of a fight against Duckworth in November, he's didn't need this held against him.

Yeah, ever since his stroke Kirk has been the first to kave.

Nina Tottenberg sez "zero chance" Obama withdraws nomination after/if HRC wins.

this was a dumb hill to die on, i look forward to shameful joy in seeing this resistance atomize as people realize they're gonna look moronic to their constituency

kirk is running for senate in a liberal state, he's also a centrist (one of the few) by disposition, so this isn't surprising in the least. but it gives a few other GOP senators some wiggle room, i think.

Senator Franken admirably bangs his head against a wall (the wall being Orrin Hatch):

https://www.facebook.com/senatoralfranken/videos/972614816157734/?fref=nf

Curious to know what freaked out Klobuchar so much that Franken had to reassure her mid-scold.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/21/us/politics/merrick-garland-supreme-court-mitch-mcconnell.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

sounds good to me!

ha, they've boxed themselves into a corner.

Vituperative jiggery pokery

“I can’t imagine that a Republican majority Senate, even if it were assumed to be a minority, would want to confirm a judge that would move the court dramatically to the left,” he added.

imagine how horrific a judge would have to be to replace Antonin Scalia and not move the court dramatically to the left

they'd have to appoint grover norquist or something

so punchable

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/20/mcconnell_says_republicans_won_t_vote_for_supreme_court_nominee_after_election/514347028-senate-majority-leader-sen-mitch-mcconnell-speaks-as.jpg.CROP.promo-xlarge2.jpg

he looks like his face is already half-punched-in

Last month, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. delivered some blunt remarks about the Supreme Court confirmation process. The Senate should ensure that nominees are qualified, he said, and leave politics out of it.

The chief justice spoke 10 days before Justice Antonin Scalia died, and he could not have known how timely and telling his comments would turn out to be. They now amount to a stern, if abstract, rebuke to the Republican senators who refuse to hold hearings on President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland.

Some people are hoping that the chief justice will speak out again, and more directly, addressing the actual nomination of an actual nominee.

It was not long ago that qualified nominees coasted onto the court, Chief Justice Roberts said last month. In 1986, Justice Scalia was confirmed by a vote of 98 to 0. In 1993, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3.

These days, Chief Justice Roberts said, “the process is not functioning very well.”

The last three justices should have sailed through, too, he said. He was referring to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., appointed by President George W. Bush, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, appointed by Mr. Obama. Forty-two senators voted against Justice Alito, 31 against Justice Sotomayor and 37 against Justice Kagan.

“Look at my more recent colleagues, all extremely well qualified for the court,” Chief Justice Roberts said, “and the votes were, I think, strictly on party lines for the last three of them, or close to it, and that doesn’t make any sense. That suggests to me that the process is being used for something other than ensuring the qualifications of the nominees.”

If Justices Sotomayor and Kagan were “extremely well qualified for the court,” it is a safe bet that Chief Justice Roberts has a similarly high regard for Judge Garland, with whom he served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

link?

am driving but it's on the NYT's front page

"Antonin Scalia would not return calls requesting comment despite several attempts."

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a conservative challenge to the marijuana legalization laws adopted in Colorado and elsewhere that permit adults to buy, sell or use one ounce of the drug.

By a 6-2 vote, the justices turned away a lawsuit brought by Nebraska and Oklahoma, whose state attorneys complained that illegal marijuana was pouring into their states as a result of Colorado's liberalized laws.

"The state of Colorado authorizes, oversees, protects and profits from a sprawling $100-million-per-month marijuana growing, processing and retailing organization that exported thousands of pounds of marijuana to some 36 states in 2014," they said. "If this entity were based south of our border, the federal government would prosecute it as a drug cartel."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-court-marijuana-states-20160321-story.html

Quad-City Times goes after Grassley:
http://qctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/editorial-majority-s-voice-ignored-in-scotus-stall/article_90b6da66-1f34-57d3-93b4-ea4b12c2fe56.html

who the fuck are these Freedomworks millenials that are into Goldwater:
http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/03/21/us/21court-web02/21court-web02-articleLarge.jpg

in 2016 Goldwater is Henry Wallace, Shakes.

Apparently the kind that think it is cool to put facebook and instagram stickers on our cubicle, not to mention that vest. I revoke their youth.

on *your cubicle

Goldwater, their hero, staunchly stood against both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, but purely on the basis of state's rights, mind you, not because he had a single drop of racist blood in his veins. He was just that principled, you know.

nyt:

"A study of 14 cases showed that Merrick B. Garland, the Supreme Court nominee, favored the police and prosecutors 10 times, bolstering his reputation as a moderate."

tp:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/03/17/3761337/merrick-garland-isnt-especially-liberal-heres-what-that-means-for-how-hell-decide-cases/

Important qualifier: "So a partial explanation for why he’s sided with so few criminal defendants is probably that he hears fewer criminal cases than other judges."

Also: "Nevertheless, Garland is a former prosecutor who, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, is likely to be more conservative on criminal justice issues than an average Democratic appointee."

Sotomayor was a prosecutor too.

Garland is likely to be more conservative than Kagan and Sotomayor based on what we know of his record.

My wife's anecdotal impression of him is that he will align much closer to Kagan than people are assuming, but she is basing this primarily on interactions outside of the courtroom.

being a prosecutor definitely does not automatically mean conservative -- it's a sought-after job for law school grads to work in a DA or US Atty office just because of what it opens up.

Agency deference isn’t one of the sexiest issues that comes before the Supreme Court, but it is one of the most important. Especially as Congress falls into deeper and deeper dysfunction, presidents must turn to their existing authority under federal statutes (and the authority held by agencies within the executive branch) in order to be able to govern. Smart and influential conservative groups are very aware of this fact, and they have very well developed plans to effectively shut down much of President Obama’s power by shrinking executive agencies’ authority and limiting judicial deference to agency actions.

Garland’s confirmation would end many of these plans. It would almost certainly cut off the challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, the administration’s most ambitious effort to fight climate change. And it would most likely add another vote to the Supreme Court who would uphold the administration’s authority to temporarily allow millions of undocumented immigrants to live and work in this country.

these days I'm thinking Garland's a sacrificial lamb, not really gonna waste time worrying about how marginally lefty he is

He is totally a sacrificial lamb but I think the important thing is that he is not a Thomas/Alito in disguise; this fantasy of stacking the court with ultraliberal judges was never going to happen regardless of who the Democratic president was due to the makeup of the Senate anyway so I don't understand why a) people are surprised that Obama nominated a moderate; b) why people thought Obama wouldn't nominate someone that the Republicans held up as a consensus pick in the past; and C) why people are looking for ways to cast Garland himself as anything but a centrist who swings right on some issues and left on others

Also: he's not ugly like last centrist Lewis Powell:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/images/powell_082598ap.jpg

Obama played a good hand here - doesn't lose much if (through some miracle) Garland actually gets confirmed, otherwise provides maximum embarassment/electoral trouble for GOP Senators. He wins either way.

xp

Yeah, exactly. It's semi-amazing to me that people are lamenting a lost hypothetical scenario that was never, ever going to happen, even if Scalia lived past the election and Sanders won.

i'm 100% rooting for him not to get confirmed so 1) it hurts the GOP as much as possible in november (though i do think the influence this is going to have on any elections is wildly overstated) and 2) we get someone better if he gets withdrawn