Expectations for this thread
1. This is not the general politics or lol this party sucks thread.
2. This is a thread about the US Supreme Court, if it doesn't have anything to do with SCOTUS, it doesn't belong here.
3. Not all things about SCOTUS belong here. Some cases dealing with certain issues, already have a thread or their own gosh darn separate thread that is more appropriate to discuss a certain SCOTUS rulings or cases.
4. In the event that a tangent regarding something involving SCOTUS has it's own thread created after the discussion starts in this thread, then move the discussion over to the new thread. (Also appreciated if people link to the new thread to help others out).
5. In the event that we get a SCOTUS vacancy in the lifetime of this thread, this would probably be the best place to discuss such an appointment given how low traffic this thread is likely to be. (leaving this for posterity and lols - SIG)
5a. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett are seated. My feelings on the matter can be found
here. I don't know if there's much ground for meaningful discussion in screaming into the void at the injustice of it all, or having the same multi-page arguments with the few posters who do approve of the Federalist Society Robots. Probably for the best to stick to just the facts, and discuss new things going forward.
Posts
Anyways, as Hedgie mentioned, legitimacy of the court is important to the smarter garbage republicans because they understand that court legitimacy gets them some things. The big one is they don't want the left viewing the court as partisan because once that happens, being able to get seats filled by non-republicans becomes a much larger driver for the left to turn out in elections. Another large issue for them is that if the courts get viewed as illegitimate, that will result in a push reform the courts and purge them of individuals that are considered too partisan. Also if you're hitting this point, you're probably also losing the centrist vote as well.
Really where things break down and what shitheads like Roberts and Barrett care about in regards to court legitimacy, is how it allows their side to continue to have power and not have any disadvantages in elections that jeopardizes that power. If the court loses it's legitimacy, it becomes a huge liability for the right to maintain it's power.
(Because, well, it's true.)
Anyways, Barrett strikes me as the typical shitty conservative that believes they are entitled to everything. So they get major butthurt if you ever point out that they didn't earn something; especially, if you insinuate that it was stolen. IMO there is a very good argument to be made that Barrett is sitting in a stolen seat.
That's kind of the point of the Federalist Society. To cultivate a school of thinking.
They both are, Gorsuch because they didn't let Obama seat his pick, and Barret for ignoring their own rules to ramrod a replacement in before the president lost the election.
pleasepaypreacher.net
ThisPartisanHackT-Shirt.meme
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Man watching him act/be pissed during his hearing was embarrassing to witness in a grown adult.
What was worse is he didn't need to and was going to get on SCOTUS no matter what anyone said. So it was permformative for Trump and Trump loved it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Even more embarrassing was that conservatives loved it. This is how they view manhood. A manchild screaming in rage.
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The Limbaugh strain is all about fighting back against others that would hold white men accountable in myriad ways for myriad sins and undeserved privileges
Hence why that fucker made such a huge point about smoking during his shows after smoking bans in public places started being implemented, contributing directly to his presumably horrible but awesome death
No one is going to convince me he wasn't coked out of his gourd during that sad showing. I will never understand why Kennedy hand picked Kavanaugh as his successor, or why so many in Yale Law circles circled the wagons around him. Brett was such a known creep that Amy Chua (of Tiger Mom infamy) and her husband were reported to have groomed female applicants for Kavanaugh clerkships by telling them to dress sexy for interviews, because Brett was known to hire a certain "type."
Everywhere you look in Brett's background it's massive red flag after massive red flag. And it's been proven that he lied to congress. Yet somehow he was THE GUY to be put on the court.
On the one hand... why not help someone you have leverage over get power, I guess? It isn't any use having leverage over the general manager at the Taco Bell. Although maybe getting them a lifetime appointment is a bit much for that idea, since leverage is only useful if you can use it to ruin them, and I'm not sure what it'd take to get him to resign in shame.
Simple: They don't want people looking for their skeletons after they unearthed Kavanaugh's, plus some argle-bargle about prestige and comity that's just more of the elites protecting the elites from any sort of accountability or meritocracy, despite their claims to the contrary.
We could find out his gambling debts were actually loans to ISIS and he would never resign, and every GOP politician and TV pundit would make excuse after excuse for why this one time it's actually ok. The truth is though that Kavanaugh is still a neophyte when it comes to corruption. Alito, Thomas, and the late Scalia are/were masters of it. (Though in truth basically all of the justices enjoy a spread of questionably ethical job perks.)
The Yale Law peeps circling the wagon is easy to understand.
That's the thing. We don't know what the debt was for because the White House in conjunction with the Senate decided that the one page summary of Kavanaugh's fiances was enough. There was no further investigation over it.
This is one of the many things the current head of the FBI has been facing political hot water over. Since the FBI was supposed be doing the background checks independent of both the White House and Senate, but appear have not done that.
Which means that all the public knows is some investigative reporters did a bit of digging and found around two hundred-thousand dollars was "donated anonymously" right before he was put forth as a candidate. We do not have any of that information verified, nor do we have a complete picture as to what the state of Kav's fiances were before his appointment. Right now, getting the FBI to do any of what they should have done is...difficult. There are some who probably want to, but getting the green light to do so is a massive challenge. Not the least of which is the Beltway insiders who have largely moved on and don't want to disrupt the status quo. Or make the court have a lower standing in public. Or put more egg on Robert's face. Or give the progressive caucus more ammunition for packing the court.
You can see where all of those things might be a problem for people who are deeply invested in the status quo.
Absolutely rules that we get our choice of being ruled by either evil or stupid people.
Tweeter is a Scotus reporter for Washington Post.
This is probably why Barrett is out here trying to damage control, Scotus has their lowest approval and that's with them just shadow docketing crap. God knows what will happen when they start having to answer arguments and we can see their bad reasoning.
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Edit: Some may remember that 2020 was the year Alito gave a straight up political stump speech to the federalist society where he bitched and moaned about same sex marriages, pandemic shut downs, the morning after pill, and the fact that 5 Democratic Senators had the audacity to call the court partisan. I'm starting to really suspect that Alito is mostly responsible for these shadow docket shenanigans and is basically now running the court as a king.
It kind of pissed me off Breyer was doing that shit too. Like if the reasoning is shit and it is, how is it not nakedly political? Why damage control your broken institution?
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Because if there were a problem, then he would be partially responsible.
That's not true at all though. Like just because he's on SCOTUS doesn't mean its his fault the conservatives have gone "ehh fuck it rules don't matter to us." This is the dumb meme of an argument "you say people are bad yet you are people." Like Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor have absolutely nothing to do with the current bullshit going on with SCOTUS and trying to say its not partisan just gives them cover to be more partisan.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I kind of get it with someone like Breyer who's basically devoted his life to the institution, and as an elderly, white male, will never have to experience the fallout from such disastrous policy making as the court is now doing. Of course someone like that would be tempted to play it safe and tell people its all fine, trust the process. At least Kagan gets it and she's ringing every alarm bell she can.
But the TX law tears at the very foundation of American law. It blows up the idea of standing and offloads justice to the whims of a vigilante mob. It's a national embarrassment that they hide behind an unsigned memo, and at a minimum, the liberal justices (or even better, Roberts) should be pointing out exactly who wrote that garbage so they have to fucking own it.
He's protecting his own personal power and prestige. Like, if Biden or a Dem Congress goes all in on a revision to SCOTUS that may or may not involve court packing, he's just going to see as a liability, an old man just holding to power until he dies. After the RBG saga, no way that he doesn't get heavily pressured to leave. So, to protect his ego, he's out there pretending that everything is normal.
At least term limits would put a measure of control on these kind of egocentric games.
The problem isn't that Breyer would be responsible for current situation, it's that admitting there's a problem with SCOTUS means he's got a responsibility to try and fix things. And the only real moves he can take then are 1) retire now so the balance of power doesn't get any worse 2) give interviews going after the institution and people he's spent decades working with/for.
I was mostly going for this, yeah
The fact that the GOP violated its own made up rules makes them hypocrites, but it doesn't make both seats illegitimate.
This.
There's a valid argument to be made that filing a court seat a few weeks before a presidential election is sketchy as hell and that claiming that nine months is just too close to an election to fill a seat is utter bullshit.
Yep, it's been impressive how powerful thisisfine.jpg is and how many people are willing to invoke it to get through the day.
I'd also like to pitch One [SCOTUS] to Rule Them All, and in the Shadow Docket Bind Them as a possible thread title. It's been gnawing at me.
Stealing this, thanks. :whistle:
I am slightly encouraged by new polling showing people disapproving of the Court. It is depressing how many people still think of it as basically non-partisan and necessary instead of an even less representative and more conservative legislative arm than the Senate already is. I don't hold out a lot of hope for significant changes to the court to make it less destructive, but if there are going to be any it'll require getting the public to stop seeing them as inherently worthy of respect.
If the court is political, Breyer has no excuse to not resign, because his excuse has been "that would be political"
TBH the Democrats should more or less run with the narrative that SCOTUS more or less did the Texas law, voter support for taking a wrecking ball to the court should be a priority
Left dems need to use this to point out Roe is effectively killed
Centrist dems need to point out that now, nothing stops a leftist state from passing a bounty law whenever anyone purchases a semi-automatic handgun
He might very well die in office because he considers himself to be doing important work in a venerable institution. He’s the last person I’d expect to agree with the idea that SCOTUS is full of partisan hacks, or say it out loud if he did.