U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

Have at it.

I nominate AOC

i nominate tom cotton, a good guy with a gun

get in here, goons

Can Trump nominate himself?

and continuing the SCOTUS term limit discussion, reposting the explainer
https://fixthecourt.com/2019/11/myth-facts-scotus-term-limits/

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/09/ted-cruz-supreme-court-donald-trump/

No idea if these proposed changes are ideal or if they could ever plausibly come to pass, but I like that they are being put out there. It's a good step to start getting people used to the idea of major changes to the court.

Bryant Johnson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal trainer, does push-ups as Justice Ginsburg lies in state in the U.S. Capitol.

Full video: https://t.co/vri1sJcUV6 pic.twitter.com/C11uVFeQlQ

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 25, 2020

He isn’t stupid so wtf is he thinking https://t.co/uyEcGDZRIy

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) September 25, 2020

I'm very sorry but if the pushup video is real it's extremely funny

CNN reporting that it's Barrett:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court/index.html

South Bend is really knocking it out of the park this year.

Whoever Trump was going to pick was going to be a horror story, so I expect soon to be reading about the many horrors of Ms. Barrett, which no doubt will be many and hair-raising. Lindsey Graham will love her.

democrats will have grave concerns and strongly worded appeals to decency

democratic fundraising will go through the roof, blood will boil, the election will be won (eventually) by democrats. and at the end, it'll be a 6-3 conservative court for the forseeable future, and possible a 5-4 majority for another 20-30 years, unless the golden boy or gorsuch unexpectedly croak, which would be a tragedy

those are impressive lifespans you're projecting for thomas and alito imo

They get magic life drugs injected in their butts

haha, well it also builds in known unknowns, like republicans preserving a seat in a future GOP presidency. let's role play it

2020 (the present. you are in hell)
barrett is confirmed before election. fuck you liberals
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 65
thomas is 72
alito is 70
gorsuch is 53
the golden boy is 55
barrett is 48

breyer is 82
sotomayor is 66
kagan is 60

2021 (biden is elected. you are in tartarus)
biden wins. breyer tags out for a younger replacement. i will create SC justice names using this thread Fighting Baseball for Super Famicom: A League of Fake Americans POLL
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 66
thomas is 73
alito is 71
gorsuch is 54
the golden boy is 56
barrett is 49

sotomayor is 67
kagan is 61
willie dustice is 50

EVENT
2024 election. The democrat has a 70% chance of victory (same as clinton v trump), due to me running this simulation. RNG: no joke, i rolled a random number from 1 to 10, with 1-7 being democratic victory and 8-10 being republican, and i rolled an 8. REPUBLICANS WIN

2025 (tom cotton is the president of the united states. you have killed 2 people now and haven't talked in weeks.)
tom cotton casts Executive Righteousness on thomas, 77 years old, who is replaced by Sleve McDichael
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 70
alito is 75
the golden boy is 60
barrett is 53
sleve mcdichael is 50

sotomayor is 71
kagan is 65
gorsuch is 58
willie dustice is 54

EVENT
World War III, totally started by tom cotton. 2028 election. The democrat has a 80% chance of victory, due to me running this simulation. RNG: 3, democratic victory

2029 (first influencers on mars)
AOC is the president of the united states of america, fuck yeah. sotomayor, the second oldest justice at 75, taps out. bobsun dugnutt is the new junior united states supreme court justice.
6-3 conservative majority

roberts is 74
alito is 79
gorsuch is 62
the golden boy is 64
barrett is 57
sleve mcdichael is 54

kagan is 69
willie dustice is 58
bobsun dognutt is 50

EVENT
in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

2031 (VR sex surpasses videogames in revenue generation)
brett kavanaugh fucking dies out of nowhere, best thing that's happened in a generation. president AOC appoints a justice so left-leaning that she's impeached by sergeant ivanka trump, leader of the paramilitary republican subcommittee known as Gold Team. Onson Sweemey, the first justice with a normal name in 11 years, takes the golden boy's spot and shifts the balance toward a near-balance.

5-4 conservative majority

roberts is 76
alito is 81
gorsuch is 64
barrett is 59
sleve mcdichael is 56

kagan is 71
willie dustice is 60
bobsun dognutt is 52
onson sweemey is 50

EVENT
2032 Election. there's no more random numbers, it's just me making it up. the democrats win again. AOC is on the wheaties box.

then, near the end of her second term, the unspeakable happens. Samuel Alito, at the age of 85, just fucking dies out of nowhere.
2035
some observers expect the krang-like brain of mitch mcconnell to somehow delay a democratic confirmation in his spot, but AOC casts total victory and again appoints an extremely-left greatest of time justice named Todd Bonzalez.
5-4 liberal majority

roberts is 80
gorsuch is 68
barrett is 63
sleve mcdichael is 60

kagan is 75
willie dustice is 64
bobsun dognutt is 56
onson sweemey is 54
todd bonzalez is 50

EVENT
2036 Election. it's been 8 years of supreme relaxation and greatness. even gum is genuinely _better_. everything's great. something has to change, so somehow it's time for PRESIDENT CHARLIE KIRK

2037
under PRESIDENT CHARLIE KIRK, roberts immediately resigns. the new chief justice of the united states is SCOTT DOURQUE, 50 years old, catholic conservative
5-4 liberal majority

chief justice scott dourque, 50
gorsuch is 70
barrett is 65
sleve mcdichael is 62

kagan is 77
willie dustice is 66
bobsun dognutt is 58
onson sweemey is 56
todd bonzalez is 52

I actually think that’s not a terrible way of gaming things out. The arc of the moral universe is long. We fight the fights that we have today, and we train our young folks. Good post KM.

DOGNUTT

https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--QTcxwhPT--/t_Preview/b_rgb:ffffff,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1495739359/production/designs/1624926_1.jpg

in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

whoa how did he die?!

Shot by one of Dick Cheney's grandkids

Karl, that was perfect (ly horrifying).

Shot by one of Dick Cheney's grandkids

― LaRusso Auto (Neanderthal), Friday, September 25, 2020 6:49 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

At a UB40 reunion concert

in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM

whoa how did he die?!

he dies of doing a kegstand in the kitchen of amy klobuchar's wake

karl this is some excellent scenario running and first rate use of the Fighting Baseball thread and i applaud it

i have a rejoinder percolating but it may take a while to get around to crunching the hard numbers so i just wanted to say that for now

_in 2031, the golden boy brett kavanaugh, just 66 years old, FUCKING DIES OUT OF NOWHERE and it's REALLY EMBARRASSING FOR HIM_

whoa how did he die?!

xp thanks doctor c! your questioning of that was really valid, and i don't think my answer is any sort of proof of anything. i got lazy and didn't project it out to 2045 (my original goal), but even though i ended with a slim 5-4 liberal majority by 2037, i don't think it takes much to keep it at a 5-4 conservative majority either. then again, maybe the republicans will truly never win again (lol) and it will be 6-3 liberal by 2040, who knows

So we get 40 some years of this...from an article Barrett co-wrote as quoted by SCOTUS blog

The article also noted that, when the late Justice William Brennan was asked about potential conflict between his Catholic faith and his duties as a justice, he responded that he would be governed by “the oath I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States”; Barrett and Garvey observed that they did not “defend this position as the proper response for a Catholic judge to take with respect to abortion or the death penalty.”

https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/07/potential-nominee-profile-amy-coney-barrett/

Can't wait for her book, "Jesus is the Speaker of MY House"

@ Karl - okay! you've already gotten there, but yeah basically my rejoinder would be that you didn't actually end up showing "a 6-3 conservative court for the forseeable future, and possible a 5-4 majority for another 20-30 years." but the scenario was worth it anyway. a quibble: you don't game out the Senate, which i respect because that would be even more absurd fanfic work, but it's worth allowing at least dice-roll possibilities that the Dems control the Senate during your Republican admins, AND that they stand firm against prematurely ghoulish ideologues like Sleve McDichael, whose pasty-faced appearance and hot-mic comments during the nominations process turn the public against him. i would not put money on that chance myself, but it's at least possible.

also though, a fair bit hinges on that first d10 roll and some choices about the EVENTS - suppose Biden rolls a 6 in 2024, and is re-elected to a foggy but popular second term, his "Reagan in the late 80s" zone, AND ALSO that during that term, Thomas has a health scare and decides to retire. i don't know that the odds are so heavily stacked against something like that.

obviously in that event, Biden's replacement pick would be the mushy, not-all-that liberal Rey McSriff (48), a former bank-industry lobbyist, seen as a move back in the direction of racial and gender diversity on the court who will at least be a reliable liberal vote in civil-rights and abortion cases.

so in january 2029, we've got:

roberts is 74
alito is 79
gorsuch is 62
the golden boy is 64
barrett is 57

kagan is 69
willie dustice is 58
bobsun dognutt is 50
rey mcsriff is 50

eight years of the biden administration have left many festering wounds unaddressed, but thankfully the republican "gold team" have been mostly braying in the margins without control of either congress or the executive to formally empower them. on the other hand, in the absence of the Cotton presidency, World War III has not happened, but let's say AOC wins in 2028 anyway. why not?!

thus, following B.K.'s horrible death in 2031, AOC's super left-wing appointee is able to remain in office. you didn't name them but it's pretty obvious you had Shown Furcotte in mind. maybe kagan is worried enough about the next election, and spooked by what is by then a Sunday-morning-show conventional wisdom about "the Tragedy of Ginsburg," that she retires too. by this point AOC is not fucking around at all and appoints millennial twitter SJW Raul Chamgerlain, 44. if AOC goes on to win a second term and also grabs the Alito seat, then in 2035 we have:

roberts is 80
gorsuch is 68
barrett is 63

raul chamgerlain is 49
willie dustice is 64
bobsun dognutt is 56
rey mcscriff is 56
shown furcotte is 53
todd bonzalez is 50

... and our biggest problem is that sometimes McSriff aligns with the conservatives to dissent in 5-4 corporate-law decisions, and we see a lot of online left grousing about how Biden wasted a pick on her.

now yes, i admit........... this depends on the democrats winning four straight national elections. IMPOSSIBLE you say? or merely... improbable???! depends how much faith you put in changing demographics etc. but if none of the Dem-appointed justices die in office, they can also afford to lose one of those elections! because it might be that the Republicans can only replace Thomas or Alito with McDichael or Dorque, giving them an edge in age but not a leg up in the balance of the court.

todd bonzalez makes history as the first male latino justice

is there a relevant quote linking Barrett's sect to The Handmaid's Tale?

there must be. ominous lord, truth is stranger than fiction

xp

doc casino, first of all, obviously i had Shown Furcotte in mind. but secondly, the rest of your scenario seems plausible!

obviously gaming it out like that is a goof, but i did actually learn a few things. or maybe not. i feel like just laying out their ages, combined with the fact that they have lifetime appointments, explains 99% of the game:

christmas near-future:

roberts is 65
thomas is 72
alito is 70
gorsuch is 53
the golden boy is 55
barrett is 48

breyer is 82
sotomayor is 66
kagan is 60

that there is a stacked deck, combined with republican weakness (in terms of what we might expect, possibly overoptimistically, from their presidential chances for the next few decades after elevating a white supremacist fascist to the presidency and then ripping the country to shreds in an attempt to keep him there). even with a couple 2-term democratic administrations in a row, through 2036, there is still a decent chance that at least 5 or even all 6 of the conservative majority stays right where they are, their ass-molds worn deep

in unrelated news, just before i fell asleep face down on the couch last night, i ran across a disturbing headline about increasing the maximum human lifespans beyond its current soft limit of 125. apparently the consensus is that it will soon (10 years?) be possible to extend human lifespans using genetic modifiers, physical devices, and secret codes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension jfc

agreed, it's a useful exercise to grasp exactly how much the age advantage of the GWB and DJT appointees presses on into the future. but also, focusing too much on that just takes us into a zone of gloom, so unless it's directly useful for motivating present-day action and the long-term fight, i think it's also useful to bear in mind all the ways that the scenario could suddenly break down. nobody saw Scalia's death coming, for example, even though he was 79. that ended up working out horribly for the cause of justice and freedom, but it could have gone differently. so long as our rights are subject to these bizarre matters of fate and circumstance, we may as well remind ourselves that there are ways the probabilistic parts could break our way.

and the stacked deck there does look better the moment Biden can replace Breyer, which i think we all do need to be praying for (or whatever equivalent practice).

and... all these scenarios also presume a successful barrett confirmation. tbh, i'm pretty doom-and-gloom about that, seems like there's no reason to think it won't happen. but it's still probably not good for my head to already accept her as a solid number until 2049 or w/e. like if i'm driving myself crazy with all the bad things that have already happened, and the ones that could probably happen, and the ones that are near-certainties, that's a lot to do to my head, if i'm not also considering the good equivalents of all of those things.

there's also some non-zero chance that, in the event that a Democrat wins the presidential race four times in a row and this permanent 5-4 Court keeps shutting down every exciting thing the people are turning out to vote for, then a mandate for court-packing develops much much more quickly than we might expect right now.

so long as our rights are subject to these bizarre matters of fate and circumstance, we may as well remind ourselves that there are ways the probabilistic parts could break our way.

otm

i know that's not a convincing or comforting thought for everyone, but to me that really is what gives me hope

NEW: Senate Democrats say they will press President Trump’s SCOTUS nominee to commit to recuse herself if the justices hear a case that could impact the outcome of the fall elections, @mkraju reports.

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) September 25, 2020

That seems a little dumb

I mean it makes sense but they'd still have a 5-3 advantage anyway

"Will you commit to not doing the exact thing you were hired for" is a dumb question

and... all these scenarios also presume a successful barrett confirmation. tbh, i'm pretty doom-and-gloom about that, seems like there's no reason to think it won't happen

i will continue to return to my dumb "we simulate the future and then experience it in real time, somehow diminished, as something that was already familiar" theory, until someone or something convinces me that it's not accurate. in that line of thinking, you can already see the barrett confirmation and how it happens. i already saw a headline, last night, talking about how barrett was confirmed in October. i looked at the calendar and it was september 25th, then re-read the headline and it still said that she was confirmed in October, past tense. i can't remember where i saw it, and i had a socially distanced hangout with a friend last night and got way too drunk. but still, it was there all the same.

that was just a drunken horror, but i woke up today and it's still there. the republicans have the votes. 2 have been allowed to deviate (murkowski and collins), which just so happens to allow exactly enough remaining republicans to unilaterally install barrett. what a coincidence. this outcome has already been focus-grouped on a national scale - it turns out that most republicans think it's a great idea, most democrats think it's a bad idea, and the majority of "independents" think it's a bad idea. it sounds like most ideas these days. so they'll do it, because they can.

we're currently simulating the outraged response, right now. at least, i am. and then, when it happens, it won't be the first time.

---

^i think all of that is a very bad way to go about thinking about life, believe it or not. but that's what i see happening over and over, lately.

xpost they're not asking her to not be a justice, they're saying 'Hey, you were literally just nominated by one of the President candidates in this election 5 minutes before the election, maybe it's a conflict of interest for you ruling on a case challenging his results".

But this is the primary reason they are in such a rush. If she can't guarantee to hand over the election, it's pointless for Trump. Surely he already told her she needs to deliver that vote, or there would be a different pick.

lol of course it's not going to actually happen but would you rather the Democrats not try it first so that they can frame it as "Justice Coney Barrett refused to recuse, she and Trump win, while Americans lose!"

I mean, compared to other things they should be trying, this is VERY low on my list of importance and I wouldn't want it to take the place of promising to pack the fuck out of courts, but we're kinda fucked unless someone has a McCain surprise during the vote.

ooh! Do show!

Oh, no, I meant: you’re right.

They are telegraphing their intentions this far out and yet we can all rest assured that the Dems will not do one fucking thing to stop it. Time to get the fuck out of the country.

It feels almost inevitable that the deciding vote in the House on overturning the popular vote in '24 will come from a far-right firebrand elected in '22 thanks to Democratic support in the primary.

I have great-grandparents who came over on the boat from Finland, maybe it's time to start learning the language and exploring my options.

will Geir take us in

Not that there is any realistic plan for getting the fuck out of Dodge, I'm just completely out of hope after the last two weeks. We've got a rogue SCOTUS completely crippling our democracy for the foreseeable future, the Dems are too busy fundraising to spend on far-right primary candidates to do a fucking thing to stop it and voting rights are being completely gutted. Hard to imagine how anything turns around at this point.

My only option for grandparent-citizenship in Europe is fucking Poland (sorry Poles).

"The left needs to stand down so we can stop fascism!"
*funds fascism*

Back in 2017, I predicted, only partly tongue in cheek, that Trumps' Court would not rest until it had reversed those pesky child labor laws. I really don't think it's out of the question.

I have great-grandparents who came over on the boat from Finland, maybe it's time to start learning the language and exploring my options.

Finnish isn't an actual language; it's something they made up to disorient and terrify the Russians during the war, and then it just kind of stuck.

maybe we'll get lucky and some of these justices will live long enough to perish in one of the future natural disasters they directly caused with their epa decision

or Kavanaugh can get eaten by something

My grandmother spoke it before she spoke English; her parents spoke little English and never learned much in their small community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We hosted a Finnish exchange student about a dozen years ago. I saw an email he wrote to his parents--it looked like long strings of random vowels and consonants with the occasional umlaut thrown in.

Reminds me of a story my grandfather used to tell about the rural Illinois town he grew up in; a Czech guy moved to town and assumed he was learning English from his neighbors, but he was actually learning Swedish.

I feel like this EPA decision could be catastrophic

I feel like this EPA decision could be catastrophic

Honestly, I don't. Big Industry has figured out that there's money to be made in doing things in a cleaner and more efficient manner. They'll make changes on their own (have already been doing so for years) and Republicans (and Joe Manchin) will scrape their knuckles on the ground and mutter "But we got the judges t'say y' didn't hafta!"

Yeah I mean a decade ago this would’ve been really frightening but the entire energy sector does seem to be making a lot of strides right now

I don’t see some numbered industrial chemical company (for example) really caring what people on Instagram think, when they can save a few bucks by dumping their waste directly into the nearest river with zero oversight. It’s only going to take a small number of businesses to totally fuck shit up.

The year is 2024. SCOTUS just voted 5-4 to allow hunting homeless people for sport, with Roberts joining the minority, arguing that only homeless not actively seeking work should be hunted

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 30, 2022

xp it is catastrophic. rolling back the power of federal agencies -- that is, the ones that serve interests other than corporate profits -- is going to be a major goal of this right wing court.

Regarding the EPA decision, the major questions doctrine seems like a legitimate question to ask, following from the separation of powers. Roberts may be guilty of using incrementalism as a magic escape hatch, but I sometimes wonder if he is conscious of the reception of expert opinion. Is he pragmatic, institutionally grandiose, aware of anti-intellectualism in the 21st C., ... ?

But doesn't the investment in new sectors delay benefits, and would decision makers expect to be around to reap the benefits and to profit personally?

Government subsidies could provide the bridge to reduce the cost (and the delayed gratification) of the investment, so it is still plausible that Big Business could switch if anyone is still in touch with reality.

Have you read Kagan's dissent? It makes it clear how aggressive and results-oriented the application of this supposed doctrine is in this case. In the section of the law in question, Congress gave the agency the power to make these calls. The Court is, by fiat, deciding "ehhh.... no it didn't."

I should read the dissent because the parts that were quoted in the NYT were memorable. Thanks.

I agree that it seems to have been a misapplication (if the doctrine itself is valid and worth retaining now and in the future, based on the little that I know of legal theory) and that the most likely interpretation is that Roberts made his decision based on outcome. (I still wonder about his motives and his rationale.)

His motives and his rationale are continuing to fatten the wallets of the Koch brothers and their brethren.

Does this work or not anymore if ever -- id : legislative :: ego : executive :: super-ego : judicial ?

Like I know you’re trying to be reasonable but the myth that Roberts is the reasonable one is dangerous. Every single one of the conservatives on the court has no regard for human lives except those of the white, rich, donor class that they serve.

Roberts may not be the case to consider, but I think there has to be a premise of common humanity or everything falls apart.

Roberts looks reasonable b/c the three Trump nominees pushed the Court further right and finally gave Alito and Thomas working majorities.

xp to youn

Roberts may not be the case to consider, but I think there has to be a premise of common humanity or everything falls apart.

I wouldn't worry about the details of the legal basis of these decisions. The result is all that matters to them and they won't hesitate to contradict that basis if they need to for a future result.

I think there has to be a premise of common humanity or everything falls apart.

Oh good, we've got two treeships now.

🖕

You’re such a miserable person it’s incredible to me you even have the energy to post.

Good morning!

I’ve never been a roberts defender or a republican equivocator. I consider this court to be rogue and murderous.

I think I got off on a tangent with Roberts. Regarding the EPA decision, I had hoped to learn more about your thoughts on expert opinion and independent federal agencies and more about the past usage of the major questions doctrine, which seems to have come about as a reaction to the Chevron doctrine. (That these precedents have come about so recently and the question under dispute seem to point to society in which expertise and decision making are increasingly specialized and direct participation and engagement unlikely.)

and direct participation and engagement unlikely

This is probably irrelevant because these are probably not the kinds of decisions everyone needs to make and where it's better to trust an expert, but the major questions doctrine is contesting this based on a mistrust of expert opinion?

this is the exact area where i think Kagan's dissent could clarify things for you. the majority opinion is in effect a major expansion of what counts as a "major question." previously this was described as requiring that the agency went way outside its normal area of operations, and/or would the regulation amount to some enormous change to the structure of the economy --- for example the FDA outlawing cigarettes as a poisonous drug, which (whatever the merits of the idea) is clearly not what Congress empowered the FDA to do, and would also shutter an industry at one blow.

the Clean Power plan doesn't rise to either of these - Congress clearly empowered the EPA to regulate power plant emissions, and the plan's impact would not be remotely earthshaking. as Kagan points out, the plan was in fact blocked by the Trump administration and then the power industry exceeded its goals anyway. so now "major questions" means "regulates something i wish they wouldn't."

Kagan is good on the administrative state and is the libs' best explainer, yeah.

What is even wilder about this case is that it was not an actual case or controversy. The Court intentionally took a matter that was not active to further its agenda of dismantling the regulatory state.

Those Koch dollars are bearing rich fruit.

some are suggesting that the deeper purpose, since the CPP was already kaputt, was to establish that if a regulatory agency, EPA or otherise, drifts into regulating things that 6 conservative justices don't like, they can now declare that the agency is addressing a "big question" (defined as "i know it when my racist piece of shit ass sees it"), they can unilaterally shut it down

that could be true, although I wonder why they wouldn't just do that through a case actually challenging something they want to shut down, i.e. why do that through a challenge to something not active when they could just do it through a challenge to something active? I guess we will find out soon enough anyway.

That seems to be what the decision means. The epa is empowered by congress to protect the environment and regulating emissions is part of that. Their operation is overseen by the executive. The rationale of the majority opinion here is laughable.

I think it's a flex on the part of the Court. Standing is a basic requirement of federal court jurisdiction. They're expanding the rules to suit their agenda.

Plus, as I said, this is Koch money at work. This question is of paramount importance to the fossil fuel industry.

Laughable and yet We. Would. CRY. xp

that could be true, although I wonder why they wouldn't just do that through a case actually challenging something they want to shut down, i.e. why do that through a challenge to something not active when they could just do it through a challenge to something active? I guess we will find out soon enough anyway.

The majority sees that the President and the slim majority in the Senate aren’t passing anything now, and they see that lower courts have held up regs , so they chose to do it this way, because they don’t want to wait. They arrogantly believe they know what’s allowed so why not to them do it this way.