The assumption there is that the public isn't rewarding you for it. Polling is an imperfect science, but is there any suggestion about how much influence it has on presidential selection?
Anecdotal, but I voted for Obama in large part because of how he campaigned for pragmatic reasonable solutions. How much of the backlash against the Republican party was because of Rove and their realpolitik nature over the past decade?
I tend to think "It's the economy, stupid" explains most things.
I think the objection is to that second part, as I understand it. It's more rage against something that will never change, but I understand the desire in a perfect world for the Supreme Court to just be the rules lawyers of the group, who sit down and run through the books to determine who really won initiative and how across all the addendum being used this game. And occasionally cry foul when two directly conflict, or any conflict with the constitution's ground rules.
Right, but even assuming that every Justice is motivated purely by the desire to get the law right and to set all personal biases aside - other than the tiny fraction of cases where SCOTUS has original jurisdiction, cases don't get cert unless there is some non-obvious point or major conflict of laws. And where it's not clear whether "initiative" is defined by D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder or whether you should to back to the originalist definition as set forth by Gary Gygax. You're still going to get different interpretations.
Now add on top of that justices who do have personal biases or whose clerks want to play intellectual games with the opinion and it's a mess.
mythago on
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I'm getting rather tired of the senators interrupting Kagan's answers before she gets two words out in order to smile and say, "Gotcha!"
And when she gives the answer in very clear terms (not even using legalese and hidden language) they say her answer should be the terribly damning one they cooked up for her to give in their heads earlier.
If you don't want to hear the response don't ask the question.
Americans don't want their country to be reinvented, expanded and transformed by a "living" Constitution. They're demanding a return to constitutional, limited government. Yet, Washington still isn't listening to the majority of voters who want less government. Mr. Obama has nominated a Supreme Court justice who will probably give them more. In the end, it's up to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution when their elected officials and courts won't. This November, they're going to elect some new Republicans who will.
I'm getting rather tired of the senators interrupting Kagan's answers before she gets two words out in order to smile and say, "Gotcha!"
And when she gives the answer in very clear terms (not even using legalese and hidden language) they say her answer should be the terribly damning one they cooked up for her to give in their heads earlier.
If you don't want to hear the response don't ask the question.
Americans don't want their country to be reinvented, expanded and transformed by a "living" Constitution. They're demanding a return to constitutional, limited government. Yet, Washington still isn't listening to the majority of voters who want less government. Mr. Obama has nominated a Supreme Court justice who will probably give them more. In the end, it's up to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution when their elected officials and courts won't. This November, they're going to elect some new Republicans who will.
And while we're on it, 10 Amendments was good enough for our forefathers!
And while we're on it, 10 Amendments was good enough for our forefathers!
And Judicial Review was invented by Liberal Activist Judges in the 20th century, not during the first years of US government!
Jephery on
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
And while we're on it, 10 Amendments was good enough for our forefathers!
And Judicial Review was invented by Liberal Activist Judges in the 20th century, not during the first years of US government!
Believe it or not, I actually have heard a couple of conservative legal scholars argue that Marbury v. Madison (which established judicial review) was overreaching by an activist court and that judicial review is improper.
mythago on
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The assumption there is that the public isn't rewarding you for it. Polling is an imperfect science, but is there any suggestion about how much influence it has on presidential selection?
Anecdotal, but I voted for Obama in large part because of how he campaigned for pragmatic reasonable solutions. How much of the backlash against the Republican party was because of Rove and their realpolitik nature over the past decade?
I tend to think "It's the economy, stupid" explains most things.
Yes and because Obama hasn't used is magical wand to fix the fucked up economy in 2 years people will be pissed at him this time around.
On an unrelated note I think "Judicial Activism" is the dumbest term ever.
CommunistCow on
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HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
And while we're on it, 10 Amendments was good enough for our forefathers!
And Judicial Review was invented by Liberal Activist Judges in the 20th century, not during the first years of US government!
Believe it or not, I actually have heard a couple of conservative legal scholars argue that Marbury v. Madison (which established judicial review) was overreaching by an activist court and that judicial review is improper.
To be perfectly honest, this isn't super crazy. The basic argument against judicial review, and some by liberal thinkers, is that it's fundamentally undemocratic.
personally I think the fact that there's no enforcement power tempers this anyway...we like to praise decisions like Brown v Board of Ed but we all knew how long that took to even get started
The difference is that conservatives assume their pet interpretation is the only valid one, so anyone who rules otherwise is obviously engaging in legislation from the bench.
Not that those on the left don't hold similar views, it's just that they tend to be less obnoxious about it.
The conservatives on the court are unquestionably engaged in judicial activism. The Schiavo case, the reaching in the Citizen's United case, etc. The problem in my mind is when people are willing to accept it as par for the course and give up any ability to argue from the moral high ground.
You can't blame the other side for actively pursuing a partisan court if you're doing the same thing. Even if some of the progressives get pissed off, I think Obama, respectful of the role that a separation of powers has in a democratic system, has made a careful decision not to select a judge to try and swing the court in favor of his policies.
edit: As far as the Schiavo case, I'm referring to how the Republicans reacted to the findings by Judge Greer.
lazegamer on
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
The conservatives on the court are unquestionably engaged in judicial activism. The Schiavo case, the reaching in the Citizen's United case, etc. The problem in my mind is when people are willing to accept it as par for the course and give up any ability to argue from the moral high ground.
You can't blame the other side for actively pursuing a partisan court if you're doing the same thing.
I don't begrudge Republicans for appointing partisan justices. I begrudge Republicans for having awful policies.
Even if some of the progressives get pissed off, I think Obama, respectful of the role that a separation of powers has in a democratic system, has made a careful decision not to select a judge to try and swing the court in favor of his policies.
If that is the case then Obama is being a bad president. The Supreme Court is a political body. It always has been. Asking a president to not appoint justices that agree with him politically is absurd.
The conservatives on the court are unquestionably engaged in judicial activism. The Schiavo case, the reaching in the Citizen's United case, etc. The problem in my mind is when people are willing to accept it as par for the course and give up any ability to argue from the moral high ground.
You can't blame the other side for actively pursuing a partisan court if you're doing the same thing. Even if some of the progressives get pissed off, I think Obama, respectful of the role that a separation of powers has in a democratic system, has made a careful decision not to select a judge to try and swing the court in favor of his policies.
If that is the case then Obama is being a bad president. The Supreme Court is a political body. It always has been. Asking a president to not appoint justices that agree with him politically is absurd.
That agree with him in interpretation maybe, not in what the laws should be.
lazegamer on
I would download a car.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
The conservatives on the court are unquestionably engaged in judicial activism. The Schiavo case, the reaching in the Citizen's United case, etc. The problem in my mind is when people are willing to accept it as par for the course and give up any ability to argue from the moral high ground.
You can't blame the other side for actively pursuing a partisan court if you're doing the same thing. Even if some of the progressives get pissed off, I think Obama, respectful of the role that a separation of powers has in a democratic system, has made a careful decision not to select a judge to try and swing the court in favor of his policies.
If that is the case then Obama is being a bad president. The Supreme Court is a political body. It always has been. Asking a president to not appoint justices that agree with him politically is absurd.
That agree with him in interpretation maybe, not in what the laws should be.
Again, this view is incredibly naive. There are so many possible interpretations of the constitution that interpretation is necessarily law creation.
The conservatives on the court are unquestionably engaged in judicial activism. The Schiavo case, the reaching in the Citizen's United case, etc. The problem in my mind is when people are willing to accept it as par for the course and give up any ability to argue from the moral high ground.
You can't blame the other side for actively pursuing a partisan court if you're doing the same thing. Even if some of the progressives get pissed off, I think Obama, respectful of the role that a separation of powers has in a democratic system, has made a careful decision not to select a judge to try and swing the court in favor of his policies.
If that is the case then Obama is being a bad president. The Supreme Court is a political body. It always has been. Asking a president to not appoint justices that agree with him politically is absurd.
That agree with him in interpretation maybe, not in what the laws should be.
Again, this view is incredibly naive. There are so many possible interpretations of the constitution that interpretation is necessarily law creation.
If you actively select somebody because they agree with your policies, you aren't even trying though. Of course law makers are human beings and as such there is no such thing as complete clarity; if the laws were perfectly clear we wouldn't need human beings to interpret them. That doesn't mean that there isn't actual constraints on how a law can be reasonably interpreted.
The conservatives on the court are unquestionably engaged in judicial activism. The Schiavo case, the reaching in the Citizen's United case, etc. The problem in my mind is when people are willing to accept it as par for the course and give up any ability to argue from the moral high ground.
You can't blame the other side for actively pursuing a partisan court if you're doing the same thing. Even if some of the progressives get pissed off, I think Obama, respectful of the role that a separation of powers has in a democratic system, has made a careful decision not to select a judge to try and swing the court in favor of his policies.
If that is the case then Obama is being a bad president. The Supreme Court is a political body. It always has been. Asking a president to not appoint justices that agree with him politically is absurd.
That agree with him in interpretation maybe, not in what the laws should be.
Again, this view is incredibly naive. There are so many possible interpretations of the constitution that interpretation is necessarily law creation.
If you actively select somebody because they agree with your policies, you aren't even trying though. Of course law makers are human beings and as such there is no such thing as complete clarity; if the laws were perfectly clear we wouldn't need human beings to interpret them. That doesn't mean that there isn't actual constraints on how a law can be reasonably interpreted.
You more try to aim for people who agree with your interpretation of the Constitution. In his case, he's looking for people who view the various interpretative parts of the Constitution as giving a mandate for government(s) to do more. Unlike Republicans who have a very Jacksonian view of government. Which is gross.
The funniest thing is that of the three "great" Republican Presidents (by their standards, by mine there have been two) Lincoln and TR heavily intervened in the economy and expanded the role of government.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Studying law and practicing law at the appellate level are similar.
Litigation is a whole other kind of beast.
But I think that for a SCOTUS nom, legal scholarship ought to be enough. Curiously, however, we don't seen to have much of it from Kagan.
What bothers me about her is her very obvious careerist bent, and what appears to be a glowing fealty to Clinton era political cronies, who are becoming about as bad as the reaganites these days.
Still, she doesn't strike me as even a quarter as pompous as the italian stallion, so that's a good thing. Who knows, maybe if she gets confirmed she can finally drop the ambitious neutrality and actually render an opinion, but I still have a hard time believing she's going to be willing to play the bad guy when it comes to rendering decisions that affect old school democrats. I much would have rather they chose the judge from Montana.
The funniest thing is that of the three "great" Republican Presidents (by their standards, by mine there have been two) Lincoln and TR heavily intervened in the economy and expanded the role of government.
Any modern day conservative trying to claim that Theodore Roosevelt was in their camp is a silly goose. He wasn't a conservative by any stretch of the imagination; Woodrow Wilson was way to the right of the Bull Party when he defeated them.
Still, she doesn't strike me as even a quarter as pompous as the italian stallion, so that's a good thing. Who knows, maybe if she gets confirmed she can finally drop the ambitious neutrality and actually render an opinion, but I still have a hard time believing she's going to be willing to play the bad guy when it comes to rendering decisions that affect old school democrats. I much would have rather they chose the judge from Montana.
"Justice Stevens' reign of terror is over! And today begins my reign of terrr..-iffic legal interpretation!"
Who knows, maybe if she gets confirmed she can finally drop the ambitious neutrality and actually render an opinion, but I still have a hard time believing she's going to be willing to play the bad guy when it comes to rendering decisions that affect old school democrats. I much would have rather they chose the judge from Montana.
This is what puzzles me. Even as an academic in law you should be occasionally writing essays or opinions on legal cases but her career is oddly devoid of such writings.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
The funniest thing is that of the three "great" Republican Presidents (by their standards, by mine there have been two) Lincoln and TR heavily intervened in the economy and expanded the role of government.
Any modern day conservative trying to claim that Theodore Roosevelt was in their camp is a silly goose. He wasn't a conservative by any stretch of the imagination; Woodrow Wilson was way to the right of the Bull Party when he defeated them.
Which is why I said Republican. Also Wilson didn't so much defeat TR as the Republican implosion TR caused won for Wilson.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
The funniest thing is that of the three "great" Republican Presidents (by their standards, by mine there have been two) Lincoln and TR heavily intervened in the economy and expanded the role of government.
Any modern day conservative trying to claim that Theodore Roosevelt was in their camp is a silly goose. He wasn't a conservative by any stretch of the imagination; Woodrow Wilson was way to the right of the Bull Party when he defeated them.
Which is why I said Republican. Also Wilson didn't so much defeat TR as the Republican implosion TR caused won for Wilson.
It's funny that there are absolutely zero great conservative American presidents.
I disagree that either of those men were conservatives (though Jefferson would be close), but imma stop derailing your topic.
By which you obviously mean Diane Wood from Chicago. Who based on how the last nomination process went is the next person on the bench.
Uh. There's not going to be an empty slot to seat Diane at, though, is there?
538 did an analysis, and it turns out that Kagen would have to be to the right of Kennedy for her longer life expectancy to not make her a better choice than Wood.
Edit: I must say, it's hilarious hearing Sessions bitch about her decision that certain groups aren't exempt from anti-discrimination statutes when the Supreme Court agreed with her YESTERDAY.
I disagree that either of those men were conservatives (though Jefferson would be close), but imma stop derailing your topic.
By which you obviously mean Diane Wood from Chicago. Who based on how the last nomination process went is the next person on the bench.
Uh. There's not going to be an empty slot to seat Diane at, though, is there?
538 did an analysis, and it turns out that Kagen would have to be to the right of Kennedy for her longer life expectancy to not make her a better choice than Wood.
Edit: I must say, it's hilarious hearing Sessions bitch about her decision that certain groups aren't exempt from anti-discrimination statutes when the Supreme Court agreed with her YESTERDAY.
...and as 538 pointed out they did not comment on health of the candidates when doing that analysis. So Diane Wood could certainly out live Kagan. I would rather have someone who is older and we know where they stand and ISN'T from Harvard or Yale than this wild card.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
If he wins a second term, six years is a long time. And Ginsburg is 77 and not in the best of health.
Second term? lolwut.
If I had money to bet, I'd put it all in against Obama getting a second term. He threw his career in the garbage after disenfranchising the only people who'd vote for him in order to seem 'centrist'.
The Ender on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
...and as 538 pointed out they did not comment on health of the candidates when doing that analysis. So Diane Wood could certainly out live Kagan. I would rather have someone who is older and we know where they stand and ISN'T from Harvard or Yale than this wild card.
The race towards younger and younger candidates strikes me as essentially terrible, and I don't think it's the sort of thing we should be salivating at the prospect of.
I think two years out is far too early to say Obama is sunk.
And how did he disenfranchise the only people who'd vote for him? Last I checked, he won a whole bunch of demographics who still have access to ballots.
If he wins a second term, six years is a long time. And Ginsburg is 77 and not in the best of health.
Second term? lolwut.
If I had money to bet, I'd put it all in against Obama getting a second term. He threw his career in the garbage after disenfranchising the only people who'd vote for him in order to seem 'centrist'.
doesn't he have like an 80% approval rate within the democratic party?
If I had money to bet, I'd put it all in against Obama getting a second term. He threw his career in the garbage after disenfranchising the only people who'd vote for him in order to seem 'centrist'.
Liberals, minorities, females, the mythical actual centrists?
"Our numbers are in a slight slump coming up on a midterm, Mr. President. Oh woe is us. Whatever shall we do."
As sad as it is, everybody on the Dem side of our political state gets that nobody better is going to show up on the other side come 2012. Obama will pull in the same demos he did this time, probably losing some percentage points in strongholds because of apathy. Odds of him getting reelected are still pretty high, considering the hell we as a country have been through.
I think two years out is far too early to say Obama is sunk.
And how did he disenfranchise the only people who'd vote for him? Last I checked, he won a whole bunch of demographics who still have access to ballots.
Anecdotally speaking I know a lot of younger people who are pissed that there hasn't been a ton of "Hope" and "Change" because they don't seem to understand how the government/congress works. Then again the younger vote didn't come out in much larger percentages than previous presidential elections so who knows if they'll stay home in 2 years.
Then again Clinton's '94 approval rating is roughly the same as Obama's is right now.
CommunistCow on
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Posts
That made me think of this chart:
Right, but even assuming that every Justice is motivated purely by the desire to get the law right and to set all personal biases aside - other than the tiny fraction of cases where SCOTUS has original jurisdiction, cases don't get cert unless there is some non-obvious point or major conflict of laws. And where it's not clear whether "initiative" is defined by D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder or whether you should to back to the originalist definition as set forth by Gary Gygax. You're still going to get different interpretations.
Now add on top of that justices who do have personal biases or whose clerks want to play intellectual games with the opinion and it's a mess.
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And when she gives the answer in very clear terms (not even using legalese and hidden language) they say her answer should be the terribly damning one they cooked up for her to give in their heads earlier.
If you don't want to hear the response don't ask the question.
Edit: Yay for agendas!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/29/the-constitution-is-the-precedent/
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I think it just includes the expenditures that actually get tracked with the budget, but I haven't looked into it.
And while we're on it, 10 Amendments was good enough for our forefathers!
And Judicial Review was invented by Liberal Activist Judges in the 20th century, not during the first years of US government!
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Believe it or not, I actually have heard a couple of conservative legal scholars argue that Marbury v. Madison (which established judicial review) was overreaching by an activist court and that judicial review is improper.
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Yes and because Obama hasn't used is magical wand to fix the fucked up economy in 2 years people will be pissed at him this time around.
On an unrelated note I think "Judicial Activism" is the dumbest term ever.
To be perfectly honest, this isn't super crazy. The basic argument against judicial review, and some by liberal thinkers, is that it's fundamentally undemocratic.
personally I think the fact that there's no enforcement power tempers this anyway...we like to praise decisions like Brown v Board of Ed but we all knew how long that took to even get started
NNID: Hakkekage
judicial activism is actually overturning a legislature's laws. So to conservatives, basically what Carrot said.
NNID: Hakkekage
Not that those on the left don't hold similar views, it's just that they tend to be less obnoxious about it.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You can't blame the other side for actively pursuing a partisan court if you're doing the same thing. Even if some of the progressives get pissed off, I think Obama, respectful of the role that a separation of powers has in a democratic system, has made a careful decision not to select a judge to try and swing the court in favor of his policies.
edit: As far as the Schiavo case, I'm referring to how the Republicans reacted to the findings by Judge Greer.
I don't begrudge Republicans for appointing partisan justices. I begrudge Republicans for having awful policies.
If that is the case then Obama is being a bad president. The Supreme Court is a political body. It always has been. Asking a president to not appoint justices that agree with him politically is absurd.
That agree with him in interpretation maybe, not in what the laws should be.
Again, this view is incredibly naive. There are so many possible interpretations of the constitution that interpretation is necessarily law creation.
If you actively select somebody because they agree with your policies, you aren't even trying though. Of course law makers are human beings and as such there is no such thing as complete clarity; if the laws were perfectly clear we wouldn't need human beings to interpret them. That doesn't mean that there isn't actual constraints on how a law can be reasonably interpreted.
You more try to aim for people who agree with your interpretation of the Constitution. In his case, he's looking for people who view the various interpretative parts of the Constitution as giving a mandate for government(s) to do more. Unlike Republicans who have a very Jacksonian view of government. Which is gross.
The funniest thing is that of the three "great" Republican Presidents (by their standards, by mine there have been two) Lincoln and TR heavily intervened in the economy and expanded the role of government.
What bothers me about her is her very obvious careerist bent, and what appears to be a glowing fealty to Clinton era political cronies, who are becoming about as bad as the reaganites these days.
Still, she doesn't strike me as even a quarter as pompous as the italian stallion, so that's a good thing. Who knows, maybe if she gets confirmed she can finally drop the ambitious neutrality and actually render an opinion, but I still have a hard time believing she's going to be willing to play the bad guy when it comes to rendering decisions that affect old school democrats. I much would have rather they chose the judge from Montana.
Any modern day conservative trying to claim that Theodore Roosevelt was in their camp is a silly goose. He wasn't a conservative by any stretch of the imagination; Woodrow Wilson was way to the right of the Bull Party when he defeated them.
"Justice Stevens' reign of terror is over! And today begins my reign of terrr..-iffic legal interpretation!"
This is what puzzles me. Even as an academic in law you should be occasionally writing essays or opinions on legal cases but her career is oddly devoid of such writings.
Which is why I said Republican. Also Wilson didn't so much defeat TR as the Republican implosion TR caused won for Wilson.
It's funny that there are absolutely zero great conservative American presidents.
GEE WHIZ I WONDER WHY THAT IS?
Uh. There's not going to be an empty slot to seat Diane at, though, is there?
538 did an analysis, and it turns out that Kagen would have to be to the right of Kennedy for her longer life expectancy to not make her a better choice than Wood.
Edit: I must say, it's hilarious hearing Sessions bitch about her decision that certain groups aren't exempt from anti-discrimination statutes when the Supreme Court agreed with her YESTERDAY.
...and as 538 pointed out they did not comment on health of the candidates when doing that analysis. So Diane Wood could certainly out live Kagan. I would rather have someone who is older and we know where they stand and ISN'T from Harvard or Yale than this wild card.
Second term? lolwut.
If I had money to bet, I'd put it all in against Obama getting a second term. He threw his career in the garbage after disenfranchising the only people who'd vote for him in order to seem 'centrist'.
The race towards younger and younger candidates strikes me as essentially terrible, and I don't think it's the sort of thing we should be salivating at the prospect of.
And how did he disenfranchise the only people who'd vote for him? Last I checked, he won a whole bunch of demographics who still have access to ballots.
Jefferson sucked. Ograbme.
doesn't he have like an 80% approval rate within the democratic party?
As sad as it is, everybody on the Dem side of our political state gets that nobody better is going to show up on the other side come 2012. Obama will pull in the same demos he did this time, probably losing some percentage points in strongholds because of apathy. Odds of him getting reelected are still pretty high, considering the hell we as a country have been through.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Anecdotally speaking I know a lot of younger people who are pissed that there hasn't been a ton of "Hope" and "Change" because they don't seem to understand how the government/congress works. Then again the younger vote didn't come out in much larger percentages than previous presidential elections so who knows if they'll stay home in 2 years.
Then again Clinton's '94 approval rating is roughly the same as Obama's is right now.