The Supremes

[Satchel 6908]

55 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Fair point.

I have zero problem with Biden nominating a black woman, or assembling a slate of all black women.

I find it troubling that he announces it in advance.  I would find it also troubling if he said he was going to nominate a Hindu, or a Muslim, or an _______________________ before actually doing so.  

I would be untroubled if he announced KBJ as an eminently qualified jurist, listing her bona fides, and concluded by saying, "and, being the first female African-American nominated to the Court, brings a vitally needed perspective to an important American institution."

It's not "talking about race" that I object to.  It's just announcing it in advance of doing it.  Among other things, it's pandering.

At the very least, it opens him to a lot of flak from the usual suspects.  Just shut the fuck up and do it, Joe.

And here’s what I like to understand. What do you find objectionable about announcing the nomination of a black woman in advance? And it what way is such an announcement materially different from Reagan’s and Trump’s promises to make gender specific picks. I find this forced distinction stupefying.

[henrygandorf 29174]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Fair point.

I have zero problem with Biden nominating a black woman, or assembling a slate of all black women.

I find it troubling that he announces it in advance.  I would find it also troubling if he said he was going to nominate a Hindu, or a Muslim, or an _______________________ before actually doing so.  

I would be untroubled if he announced KBJ as an eminently qualified jurist, listing her bona fides, and concluded by saying, "and, being the first female African-American nominated to the Court, brings a vitally needed perspective to an important American institution."

It's not "talking about race" that I object to.  It's just announcing it in advance of doing it.  Among other things, it's pandering.

At the very least, it opens him to a lot of flak from the usual suspects.  Just shut the fuck up and do it, Joe.

black women are not hindu or whatever other groups they’re not. they got him elected and deserve representation and have had no representation, ever. it’s the only group he could announce beforehand and have it make any sense. 

and you can’t worry about how the other side will react, they’ll clutch their pearls regardless. fuck em. 

call your shot, take your shot. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

15 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

For anyone paying attention, the Republicans have already telegraphed their attack strategy here.  They won't attack the nominee's resume (because they won't be able to) so they'll just say they cannot approve a nomination where Biden based the decision on race.  It will give those that previously voted to approve these women to other positions the out that they need to vote no this time.

Of course they will. They can always play to this country's pathological antipathy towards black people.  All the while displaying a collective amnesia for anything that happened 10 seconds before hand. 

Trump on Supreme Court nominee: 'It will be a woman'

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/19/politics/trump-ruth-bader-ginsburg-vacant-seat-fill/index.html

(CNN)President Donald Trump said Saturday evening that he will choose a candidate to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat next week and his candidate will be a woman.

"I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman," Trump said during a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Trump told rallygoers that Ginsburg's "landmark rulings, fierce devotion to justice and her courageous battle against cancer inspire all Americans," offering prayers to the justice's family.

The President also noted her friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, saying it's "a powerful reminder we can disagree on fundamental issues, while treating each other with decency, dignity and respect."

Edited February 1, 2022 by Catdaddyhorn

[TwiceHorn 31184]

5 hours ago, Satchel said:

And here’s what I like to understand. What do you find objectionable about announcing the nomination of a black woman in advance? And it what way is such an announcement materially different from Reagan’s and Trump’s promises to make gender specific picks. I find this forced distinction stupefying.

I don't recall either of them doing that, but if they did, I disapprove.  ETA:  I see that it is shown that Reagan did, and I disapprove of that and Trump also, and I disapprove of that.  I was too callow a youth to have thoughts on the matter during the Reagan administration, and, I didn't pay much attention to what Trump said about nominees because I knew it was garbage whatever it was.

The first thought expressed in my post was discomfort with pre-ordained "female seats" and the like.  Reagan did create the "female seat,' but I don't recall him saying in advance that he would do so.  But that was a long time ago.

This is not a Biden-specific complaint, other than Biden is currently doing it.  And it has nothing to do with the fact that the announcement is of a black woman.  I'd feel the same if he said it will be a Jewish man.

5 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

black women are not hindu or whatever other groups they’re not. they got him elected and deserve representation and have had no representation, ever. it’s the only group he could announce beforehand and have it make any sense. 

 

And this hints at my problem with it. While I have no issue with efforts to diversify the court, and in fact applaud them, it is not a "representative body."  Like I said, it's pandering.

We all know that appointments are driven largely or entirely by partisan politics and enhancement of chances for election.  In a pollyannish way, I wish that weren't so and I dislike things that make it so blatantly obvious.

I don't like that the GOP is, aside from being the GOP, totally reliant on the FedSoc for vetting potential nominees, either, for similar reasons.  It is also exceptionally shocking that the FedSoc has put forth a string of Opus Dei type Catholics and succeeded in getting them appointed.

Edited February 1, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4965]

I think it's a good thing to have a black woman on the court, and like Twice I believe they should have experience in  criminal justice. However there is a difference between announcing you are going to nominate a black woman and campaigning on it, particularly when using it to distract from past actions that negatively impacted the black community.

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

27 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I don't recall either of them doing that, but if they did, I disapprove.  ETA:  I see that it is shown that Reagan did, and I disapprove of that and Trump also, and I disapprove of that.  I was too callow a youth to have thoughts on the matter during the Reagan administration, and, I didn't pay much attention to what Trump said about nominees because I knew it was garbage whatever it was.

The first thought expressed in my post was discomfort with pre-ordained "female seats" and the like.  Reagan did create the "female seat,' but I don't recall him saying in advance that he would do so.  But that was a long time ago.

This is not a Biden-specific complaint, other than Biden is currently doing it.  And it has nothing to do with the fact that the announcement is of a black woman.  I'd feel the same if he said it will be a Jewish man.

And this hints at my problem with it. While I have no issue with efforts to diversify the court, and in fact applaud them, it is not a "representative body."  Like I said, it's pandering.

We all know that appointments are driven largely or entirely by partisan politics and enhancement of chances for election.  In a pollyannish way, I wish that weren't so and I dislike things that make it so blatantly obvious.

I don't like that the GOP is, aside from being the GOP, totally reliant on the FedSoc for vetting potential nominees, either, for similar reasons.  It is also exceptionally shocking that the FedSoc has put forth a string of Opus Dei type Catholics and succeeded in getting them appointed.

You don't recall it because this country doesn't have the same  collective reflex to be appalled by it in the same manner that we do when it's done with black people. There's something pathological in this regard with respect to black people. I don't know if it's a collective guilt or what, but from my eyes it's similar to when something traumatic happens within a family unit and the issue gets buried under a rug for years and is never discussed or resolved until something brings it to the surface years later.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Catdaddyhorn

[TwiceHorn 31184]

8 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

You don't recall it because this country doesn't have the same  collective reflex to be appalled by it in the same manner that we do when it's done with black people. There's something pathological in this regard with respect to black people. I don't know if it's a collective guilt or what, but from my eyes it's similar to when something traumatic happens within a family unit and the issue gets buried under a rug for years and is never discussed or resolved until something brings it to the surface years later.

Maybe so.  But, I had already figured that Ketanji Brown Jackson would be the nominee, and I like her for it and have for quite some time.  I will be disappointed if it's not her.

So, you'd think if my reasoning for the objection was some kind of subconscious discomfort with a black female nominee, that I would object to the black femaie nominee.

I don't recall Reagan doing it because it was 40 years ago and I was 15.  And, as mentioned, I didn't pay any attention to Trump's verbal diarrhea concerning judicial appointments, I just waited to see what fresh hell the actual appointment would be.

 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Maybe so.  But, I had already figured that Ketanji Brown Jackson would be the nominee, and I like her for it and have for quite some time.  I will be disappointed if it's not her.

So, you'd think if my reasoning for the objection was some kind of subconscious discomfort with a black female nominee, that I would object to the black femaie nominee.

I don't recall Reagan doing it because it was 40 years ago and I was 15.  And, as mentioned, I didn't pay any attention to Trump's verbal diarrhea concerning judicial appointments, I just waited to see what fresh hell the actual appointment would be.

 

I wasn't necessarily speaking to you specifically. It was more or less directed towards the fact that it was never made an issue in the prior cases, because there's no momentum within society to make an issue of someone saying the "next pick will be a woman." Outside of the initial announcement I doubt there were follow up articles drumming up disdain about the fact that Reagan or Trump weren't widening their search beyond women. There simply isn't an audience for that. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

We were at no risk of Ted Cruz giving an interview discussing Trump's need to widen the search beyond women. Nor would anyone have objected on these grounds had Clinton, Biden, or Obama done the same thing in announcing a woman would be the choice. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Catdaddyhorn

[wildcat09 29187]

The GOP absolutely would've objected had Clinton or Obama announced that they would nominate a woman. They object to everything Dems do.

[TwiceHorn 31184]

20 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I wasn't necessarily speaking to you specifically. It was more or less directed towards the fact that it was never made an issue in the prior cases, because there's no momentum within society to make an issue of someone saying the "next pick will be a woman." Outside of the initial announcement I doubt there were follow up articles drumming up disdain about the fact that Reagan or Trump weren't widening their search beyond women. There simply isn't an audience for that. 

That's fair.  I mean, I am an older white guy and former (maybe still in a lot of senses conservative), and I don't even realize some of the baggage I bring to this.

Let me make it clear that I am not agreeing with Ted Cruz or just anyone that says Biden's announcement is wrong or whatever they're saying, except to the extent that I am uncomfortable with it for non-political reasons.  It is that it is so political that makes me object to it.

And, I am not appalled by it.  I have used mild words like "discomfort" and "troubled."  It gives me a little pause.  I don't think it's appalling or flat wrong.

Edited February 1, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

3 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The GOP absolutely would've objected had Clinton or Obama announced that they would nominate a woman. They object to everything Dems do.

That's true of Biden and perhaps maybe even Obama, but I doubt it would've happened with Clinton. Repubs hadn't gone full scorched earth at that point yet. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

That's fair.  I mean, I am an older white guy and former (maybe still in a lot of senses conservative), and I don't even realize some of the baggage I bring to this.

Let me make it clear that I am not agreeing with Ted Cruz or just anyone that says Biden's announcement is wrong or whatever they're saying, except to the extent that I am uncomfortable with it for non-political reasons.  It is that it is so political that makes me object to it.

I totally got where you were coming from and agree with you given a more perfect world. My comments were directed towards the difference in societal response to the 2 situations. I just used your post to get on my soap box.

[TwiceHorn 31184]

6 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

That's true of Biden and perhaps maybe even Obama, but I doubt it would've happened with Clinton. Repubs hadn't gone full scorched earth at that point yet. 

It was indeed a more functional time in our government and politics.  It didn't hurt that Clinton was pretty moderate.

But, as I recall, the first of the derangement syndromes was the Clinton variety.

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2056]

The only value I see of doing it this way is to cement it just a Little more as the black woman seat, kind of like the Jewish seat 50 years ago. in a quarter of a century when it’s time to replace her it will be just a touch more awkward because this has been known as the black woman’s seat.

 

I don’t think the political pandering to the base thing is that strong because he announced ahead of time it would be a black woman as VP. No need to do that twice. 

[bolverk 29360]

I, for one, would like to eventually see my religious minority group represented -- not just in the court -- but across all levels of government. We're probably the largest in the US to which only a very few in power will admit belonging due to religious discrimination and are frequently viewed (along with Muslims) as being America's most distrusted/disliked religious minority.

In the meantime, I'm perfectly fine with Biden announcing his selection of a Black woman since I absolutely believe the Court should be representative of this country from which our diverse experiences should be relied on to mete out "justice for all" - regardless of gender, race, economic status, political ideology or religious background.

Right now, we have a SCOTUS that is:

• 6 male, 3 female (66% representing 49%)
• 7 white, 1 Black, 1 Hispanic (78% representing 62%)
• 6 Catholics, 2 Jews, 1 maybe Catholic/maybe Episcopalian (66% representing 23%)

Adding a Black woman to the court helps significantly to balance out the first two bullets. But, given that last bullet, how can I trust this court to make any rulings on matters of religious faith when at least two-thirds of the court are from a religious group that only represents about a quarter of the population?

Hell, isn't KBJ also Catholic, which would give the Court at least 7 Catholics? Now, I don't have anything against Catholics per se, but who the hell represents my (lack of) faith group in matters of secularity and the First Amendment?

[Johnny Sack 8397]

19 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I, for one, would like to eventually see my religious minority group represented -- not just in the court -- but across all levels of government. We're probably the largest in the US to which only a very few in power will admit belonging due to religious discrimination and are frequently viewed (along with Muslims) as being America's most distrusted/disliked religious minority.

In the meantime, I'm perfectly fine with Biden announcing his selection of a Black woman since I absolutely believe the Court should be representative of this country from which our diverse experiences should be relied on to mete out "justice for all" - regardless of gender, race, economic status, political ideology or religious background.

Right now, we have a SCOTUS that is:

• 6 male, 3 female (66% representing 49%)
• 7 white, 1 Black, 1 Hispanic (78% representing 62%)
• 6 Catholics, 2 Jews, 1 maybe Catholic/maybe Episcopalian (66% representing 23%)

Adding a Black woman to the court helps significantly to balance out the first two bullets. But, given that last bullet, how can I trust this court to make any rulings on matters of religious faith when at least two-thirds of the court are from a religious group that only represents about a quarter of the population?

Hell, isn't KBJ also Catholic, which would give the Court at least 7 Catholics? Now, I don't have anything against Catholics per se, but who the hell represents my (lack of) faith group in matters of secularity and the First Amendment?

Aren't the Jews on the court pretty secular?

[Chuckie Finster 22583]

As a Jew, yay representation but it's pretty insane that we made up a third of the Court for a decade.

[bolverk 29360]

1 minute ago, Johnny Sack said:

Aren't the Jews on the court pretty secular?

Well, after Breyer retires, Kagan will be the only Jewish person on the court, and I don't know whether she's secular or not. Even if she were, she'd only be 11 percent of the SCOTUS vote representing a rapidly growing 29 percent of the population on matters that directly influence religious rights in this country.

[henrygandorf 29174]

3 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

The GOP absolutely would've objected had Clinton or Obama announced that they would nominate a woman. They object to everything Dems do.

if biden said he was going to nominate a human, the gop would claim he was ignoring martians.  and goldfish.  play past it. 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33825]

3 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

The GOP absolutely would've objected had Clinton or Obama announced that they would nominate a woman. They object to everything Dems do.

it's pretty much their only platform

[jimmyjazz 45513]

3 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I wasn't necessarily speaking to you specifically. It was more or less directed towards the fact that it was never made an issue in the prior cases, because there's no momentum within society to make an issue of someone saying the "next pick will be a woman." Outside of the initial announcement I doubt there were follow up articles drumming up disdain about the fact that Reagan or Trump weren't widening their search beyond women. There simply isn't an audience for that. 

. . . no doubt largely due to the fact that this country is 51% women, and only 13% black.  There are a lot fewer people to get offended by "I will nominate a woman".  (Not that either statement should be offensive, but here we are.)

[fattyflattie 4636]

16 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

. . . no doubt largely due to the fact that this country is 51% women, and only 13% black.  There are a lot fewer people to get offended by "I will nominate a woman".  (Not that either statement should be offensive, but here we are.)

Also, he was replacing a woman with a woman.  Had it gone in any other direction, it would have caused headlines. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

Who gives one flying fuck what the GQP thinks. They’d find a reason to somehow bitch if Biden nominated trump to the Supreme Court thinking it was some sort of nefarious trap. Fuck them. Nominate someone qualified and ram it through. Stat. 

[yoladu 4065]

i can't remember who mentioned it, but i love the idea of Biden releasing a list of 30 candidates (29 being black women and 1 being a white man) saying he would pick from that list.

makes me giggle just thinking about the heads exploding on the right.

[safe sex 11659]

I found this Op-Ed the Times today pretty educational and eye-opening.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/opinion/biden-breyer-supreme-court.html

Quote

A new vacancy on the Supreme Court means a new round of political theater over the beliefs and qualifications of the president’s eventual nominee.

 

But what does it mean for a Supreme Court justice to be “qualified”? The Constitution is silent on the question, and there’s not much to take from the framers either. To the extent that “qualified” means anything to most people, it’s that the nominee has ample experience on the bench, a standard in keeping with the idea that the court is the final rung on the meritocratic ladder for judges and other legal elites.

 

If significant experience as a judge is what it means to be qualified for the Supreme Court, however, then most iterations of the court have been patently unqualified. Of the 108 men (and two women) to have served on the court before 2007, according to the legal historian Henry J. Abraham in his history of Supreme Court appointments, 26 had 10 or more years of experience on any court, state or federal. Thirty-eight justices had no judicial experience, and the remaining 46 had only token experience adjudicating disputes from the bench.

 

Abraham notes that “many of the most illustrious members of the court were judicially inexperienced,” among them eight of the 16 chief justices (leaving the interim chief John Rutledge out of it): John Marshall, Salmon P. Chase, Morrison R. Waite, Melville W. Fuller, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan F. Stone, Earl Warren and William H. Rehnquist.

On this point, the extensive judicial experience of the current court makes it unusual compared with its predecessors. Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement last week, had been a federal judge for 14 years before he was nominated for the Supreme Court in 1994. Samuel Alito was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for nearly 16 years before being nominated in 2005. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor gave 11, 12 and 17 years to the federal judiciary. Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett spent little time on the bench before their nominations to the court, while Elena Kagan never served as a judge.

By contrast, of the 12 people who served with Warren Burger during his 17 years as chief justice, only one — Harry Blackmun — had more than a decade of judicial experience. Burger, for his part, had been a judge on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit 13 years before he was nominated to be chief justice by President Richard Nixon in 1969.

A qualified nominee, in other words, is not necessarily a judicially experienced nominee. Looking at the entire history of the court, you could almost say that judicial experience is incidental to the making of a Supreme Court justice.

The Supreme Court, then, isn’t necessarily the capstone where you finish your illustrious legal career. It is, instead, just another political institution — insulated from the vicissitudes of ordinary politics, yes, but still operating within the boundaries of political life. And if the court is political, even sometimes partisan, then so too is the nomination process.

In choosing his nominees, George Washington looked for, among other things, men who would support his Federalist philosophy of government. His first appointment, John Jay of New York, was an ardent supporter of the Constitution and a steadfast defender of Washington himself. When Thomas Jefferson had his chance to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, in 1804, he made it clear that he would nominate only loyal Democratic-Republicans. His first nominee, William Johnson, was a 32-year-old South Carolina lawyer working in private practice. He was confirmed by voice vote.

Political considerations abounded in the nomination battles of the late 19th century. For example, to fill a vacancy left in 1887, President Grover Cleveland chose his secretary of the interior, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a Mississippi native and former Confederate soldier whose nomination was a reward to the Democratic Party’s loyal supporters in the white South.

All of this was true in the 20th century as well, when justices were chosen for who and what they represented to the president and his political coalition as much as they were for any particular skill or legal acumen. William Howard Taft was, before the 1912 presidential election, worried that he would lose the Republican nomination to a restless Theodore Roosevelt. In October 1911, when the death of Justice John Marshall Harlan left a vacancy on the court, Taft made his choice with the next election in mind. His nominee, Mahlon Pitney, was a prominent New Jersey Republican and state judge with a career of loyal service to the party. “Whether or not the selection of Pitney was decisive,” Henry Abraham writes, “New Jersey’s Republican delegation did cast its votes for Taft in the National Convention of 1912.” (Taft, it’s worth mentioning, would lose that election and then go on to serve on the Supreme Court himself.)

There are many more examples to pull from, but the larger point should be clear: To be “qualified” for the Supreme Court is simply to be the right person for the political needs of the moment. Sometimes, the right person has ample judicial experience. More often, he or she does not. What that person does have, however, is wide experience in public life. For most of the history of the United States, the path to the Supreme Court involved political work, a stint in public office or a prominent position in public affairs, as well as some legal experience.

The Supreme Court is not and has never been a place where peerless legal experts plug disputes into the Constitution and use their powers of mind to produce “correct” answers. “If the materials on which judicial judgments must be based could be fed into a machine as to produce ineluctable answers, if such were the nature of the problems that come before the Supreme Court and such were the answers expected, we would have IBM machines doing the work instead of judges,” Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in a 1954 essay for The New York Times Magazine.

For Frankfurter, who at the time had served on the court for 15 years, the challenge of being a justice was the challenge of self-doubt and self-awareness. “Of course a judge is not free from preferences or, if you will, biases,” he wrote. “But he may deprive a bias of its meretricious authority by stripping it of the uncritical assumption that it is founded on compelling reason or the coercive power of a syllogism.” He continues: “He will be alert to detect that though a conclusion has a logical form, it, in fact, represents a choice of competing considerations of policy, one of which for the time has won the day.”

If there’s anything that might cultivate that attitude — this sense of trade-offs, compromises and the limits of one’s own perception — it is politics, public service and public office. (Frankfurter, for his part, served in the Taft administration, participated in the founding of the American Jewish Congress and was one of the founders of the A.C.L.U.) There is also something admirably democratic about choosing to interpret the Constitution people who have, at one point in their lives, been responsive to or responsible for the mass of ordinary citizens.

It is something we’ve lost in our current norms regarding the court, where members come from a handful of the same law schools, have some of the same kinds of experience and largely avoid any public-facing political work before donning the robes of a Supreme Court justice.

This might serve the vision of the court as a place where highly trained elites act as umpires calling “balls and strikes” — a vision, incidentally, that serves those who would use the court to impose a partisan and ideological agenda under the guise of “restraint” — but it doesn’t serve the public or, for that matter, our constitutional order.

Whoever President Biden nominates to fill the vacancy left by Justice Breyer will be qualified according to our current standards for education and experience. She will also fit the traditional standard of a person who meets the needs of the president and his coalition. And to the extent that Biden has been open about the politics and political optics of this nomination, I think he’s done a service to the public.

The Supreme Court does not exist outside of ordinary politics, and the justices aren’t members of a secular priesthood. Anything that makes this clear, anything that helps bring the court back down to earth where it belongs, is worthy of our support

Sorry if i fucked up any formating 

[Satchel 6908]

5 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

I think it's a good thing to have a black woman on the court, and like Twice I believe they should have experience in  criminal justice. However there is a difference between announcing you are going to nominate a black woman and campaigning on it, particularly when using it to distract from past actions that negatively impacted the black community.

What is the difference? Reagan did it and Trump made it clear he would nominate white people to the Court when he released his list of candidates during his campaign. Biden made the commitment to nominate a black woman because Clyburn prevailed upon him to do so and because he agreed the time was right to make such an appointment. 

[Willfully Horn 7913]

As long as the justice is capable, (anything else ought be a non starter,) I’m fine with deciding what other qualifications will filter the candidates. It would be best if another non-starter would be the lack of integrity and honesty. 

It is now obvious that cons don’t care one whit about these qualities. Bunch of R picked SCOTUS members lied through their teeth before Congress, when they gave oily lip service to Roe v Wade being settled law. The proof of the pudding is in the taste. And allowing the Texas abortion abortion to stand pending tastes foul.

At least the Handmaiden was upfront. But, fuck her. Were she honorable, she’d have declined the shoehorn nomination, which, post-Garland, stripped away the veneer of political detachment and cast SCOTUS into the realm of perceived hacks.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Willfully Horn
Claro

[Satchel 6908]

2 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

As long as the justice is capable, (anything else ought be a non starter,) I’m fine with deciding what other qualifications will filter the candidates. It would be best if another non-starter would be integrity and honesty. 

It is now obvious that cons don’t care one whit about these qualities. Bunch of R picked SCOTUS members lied through their teeth before Congress, when they gave oily lip service to Roe v Wade being settled law. The proof of the pudding is in the taste. And allowing the Texas abortion abortion to stand pending tastes foul.

At least the Handmaiden was upfront. But, fuck her. Were she honorable, she’d have declined the shoehorn nomination, which, post-Garland, stripped away the veneer of political detachment and cast SCOTUS into the realm of perceived hacks.

Gorsuch should do likewise.

[Willfully Horn 7913]

36 minutes ago, Satchel said:

Gorsuch should do likewise.

That dude is twice damned. He said Roe was settled law, and then allowed the rights of Texas women to be denied, before a ‘final’ judgement. As well as the whole political power play pawn thing.

Getting back to predetermined filters, I find value in such discussion. Besides the overdue black woman’s voice, we ought debate the value of other’s having a say in the “ultimate” legal record.

As Twicehorn, I think, said, there is a lot of interpretation going on at SCOTUS. If the Constitution were clear on a matter, it probably isn’t going to SCOTUS. Hell, stare decisis is not the last word, apparently. We’ve moved on to super stare decisis, er, precedent. Next up is super duper decisis, then we can look forward to double secret stare. Hopefully, triple dog decisis will halt that unfortunate progression.

Fuck, who am I kidding? The Constitution is likely kaput.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Willfully Horn
Edit

[DDD Dad 14167]

On 1/30/2022 at 2:24 PM, Cacti said:

So you’re saying that my granddaughter would stand a good chance of getting into U.T. if she legally changed her name to Fatima Gomez Thunderhawk?

Bucky Goldstein.

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

My state embarrasses me all the time but choosing that jug eared moron of a football coach over such a quality man ranks up there.

[Bama Chick 28596]

bUt a BLaCk WomAn!!!

[Satchel 6908]

2 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

My state embarrasses me all the time but choosing that jug eared moron of a football coach over such a quality man ranks up there.
 

His time in the Senate alone, however short, puts Alabama ahead of anything Texas has done in a quarter century. Tuberville, however, is another story.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Satchel

[Ghost of LL 15348]

9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

That's fair.  I mean, I am an older white guy and former (maybe still in a lot of senses conservative), and I don't even realize some of the baggage I bring to this.

Let me make it clear that I am not agreeing with Ted Cruz or just anyone that says Biden's announcement is wrong or whatever they're saying, except to the extent that I am uncomfortable with it for non-political reasons.  It is that it is so political that makes me object to it.

And, I am not appalled by it.  I have used mild words like "discomfort" and "troubled."  It gives me a little pause.  I don't think it's appalling or flat wrong.

I think you could only rationally be discomforted or troubled is if you believe that there are only a very small number of people who would be qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.  In that event, it would be possible that none of them would be a black woman, and Biden's promise would therefore be tantamount to a promise to nominate an unqualified person (or, at least one whose qualifications were far below those of other candidates).

I personally don't share this view.  I think there are literally thousands of people out there who are roughly equally qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.  One may prefer some over others based on their judicial experience (some think appellate-court experience is a requirement; I do not), legal background (as noted, some of us would favor someone with criminal-defense experience) or political leanings.  But they're all qualified and are pretty much interchangeable.

And within that group of thousands of people, there are plenty of Black women.  That's particularly true when you weed out those who would be unacceptable to the Administration because of those political views.  So I don't see any problem saying at the outset that you're going to pick a Black woman, because whoever you pick is going to be every bit as qualified as any other person you could nominate.

[DDD Dad 14167]

4 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I think you could only rationally be discomforted or troubled is if you believe that there are only a very small number of people who would be qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.  In that event, it would be possible that none of them would be a black woman, and Biden's promise would therefore be tantamount to a promise to nominate an unqualified person (or, at least one whose qualifications were far below those of other candidates).

I personally don't share this view.  I think there are literally thousands of people out there who are roughly equally qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.  One may prefer some over others based on their judicial experience (some think appellate-court experience is a requirement; I do not), legal background (as noted, some of us would favor someone with criminal-defense experience) or political leanings.  But they're all qualified and are pretty much interchangeable.

And within that group of thousands of people, there are plenty of Black women.  That's particularly true when you weed out those who would be unacceptable to the Administration because of those political views.  So I don't see any problem saying at the outset that you're going to pick a Black woman, because whoever you pick is going to be every bit as qualified as any other person you could nominate.

I'm reminded of a pearl of wisdom the judge I clerked for once told me.  He said there are no higher or lower courts.  Only courts of subsequent review.  The Supreme Court, and its judiciary, just get the last word.

[TwiceHorn 31184]

6 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

I think you could only rationally be discomforted or troubled is if you believe that there are only a very small number of people who would be qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.  In that event, it would be possible that none of them would be a black woman, and Biden's promise would therefore be tantamount to a promise to nominate an unqualified person (or, at least one whose qualifications were far below those of other candidates).

I personally don't share this view.  I think there are literally thousands of people out there who are roughly equally qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.  One may prefer some over others based on their judicial experience (some think appellate-court experience is a requirement; I do not), legal background (as noted, some of us would favor someone with criminal-defense experience) or political leanings.  But they're all qualified and are pretty much interchangeable.

And within that group of thousands of people, there are plenty of Black women.  That's particularly true when you weed out those who would be unacceptable to the Administration because of those political views.  So I don't see any problem saying at the outset that you're going to pick a Black woman, because whoever you pick is going to be every bit as qualified as any other person you could nominate.

Sure are a lot of people telling me what I think.

[Ghost of LL 15348]

Just now, TwiceHorn said:

Sure are a lot of people telling me what I think.

I didn't tell you what you think.  

I told you what I think.

As far as what you think, I only observed that if you are "troubled" and you think there are more than just a very tiny number of people qualified to sit on the Court, then your troublement is irrational.

But I have no opinion as to whether you adhere to that irrational position.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Why didn’t people get all het up about Biden saying he would nominate a Black woman when he actually said it?

He said it while campaigning.

America voted for him.

That’s it.

I actually like that he put it out there when he was campaigning, not after he won.

[Gil Bang 25865]

 

[ChiTownDoc 21091]

9 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

if biden said he was going to nominate a human, the gop would claim he was ignoring martians.  and goldfish.  play past it. 

Well, they're subhuman pieces of shit so I could see why they'd be riled up.  

[TwiceHorn 31184]

3 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

I didn't tell you what you think.  

I told you what I think.

As far as what you think, I only observed that if you are "troubled" and you think there are more than just a very tiny number of people qualified to sit on the Court, then your troublement is irrational.

But I have no opinion as to whether you adhere to that irrational position.

That hadn't really occurred to me as a rationale for it.

But I just kind of dislike that "this is a foreordained conclusion" aspect of it.  And the purpose of it is political.  Not so much political as to who is the nominee, but political as to the appointER.

Basically, I bemoan the political aspects of the Court and the nominations to the Court, while simultaneously acknowledging the reality of it.  I think everything about the Court is more political than it has ever been.  It won't ever be as apolitical as some people believe or would have you believe that it is or should be, but it's in extremis currently.

And, while it isn't political, per se, I have always had something of a distaste for "the woman's seat" or the "Jewish seat" on the court.  Part of that is that I don't think it is a representative body, or should be.  And I am in favor of professional and academic diversity over demographic or cultural diversity, although that surely has a role, too.  And, to some degree that plays into what you say.  Not so much that saying the nominee must be a woman, Jew, black, Catholic etc. reduces the pool of qualified applicants, but more that it focuses on what I think may be the wrong thing. 

In fact, it occurs to me that the "black woman" category of nominee is somewhat more likely to produce a nominee that has some of the "diverse" qualifications that I really do value beyond race and sex:  criminal defense or public interest work, some non-corporate and non-governmental legal work, etc. simply because black women are somewhat less likely to cycle in and out of Main Justice, judgeships, and Kirkland & Ellis or similar.

Also, the converse of a "Jewish seat" is that once you appoint one, are you done with Jews, or whatever group you're favoring or representing? Or do we have arguments about there being too many Jews on the Court, or black women, or Catholics or whatever.  And, yes, I would currently argue that there are too many Catholics of a certain persuasion on the Court right now, but that has less to do with them being Catholic than other aspects of their beliefs or politics or background.

Edited February 2, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[henrygandorf 29174]

9 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

That hadn't really occurred to me as a rationale for it.

But I just kind of dislike that "this is a foreordained conclusion" aspect of it.  And the purpose of it is political.  Not so much political as to who is the nominee, but political as to the appointER.

Basically, I bemoan the political aspects of the Court and the nominations to the Court, while simultaneously acknowledging the reality of it.  I think everything about the Court is more political than it has ever been.  It won't ever be as apolitical as some people believe or would have you believe that it is or should be, but it's in extremis currently.

after the mcconnell/garland/acb situation, i could give a shit if things look political. 

voting rights, climate, science, public health are all political already.  what's one more thing?

[TwiceHorn 31184]

1 minute ago, henrygandorf said:

after the mcconnell/garland/acb situation, i could give a shit if things look political. 

voting rights, climate, science, public health are all political already.  what's one more thing?

Yeah, that's the rub.  Fight fire with fire?  Or at some point try to return to some sort of normalcy.  I fully admit that my feelings on it are pollyannaish.

[henrygandorf 29174]

Just now, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, that's the rub.  Fight fire with fire?  Or at some point try to return to some sort of normalcy.  I fully admit that my feelings on it are pollyannaish.

you can be scared of setting bad precedents or you can bitch that somebody else did it first.  we're doing too much of one and not enough of the other.

[TwiceHorn 31184]

4 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

you can be scared of setting bad precedents or you can bitch that somebody else did it first.  we're doing too much of one and not enough of the other.

I'm a chill dude, generally, so my personal preference is for "normalcy" and always will be.  But, for now at least, I agree that it's fight fire with fire, but without crossing the ethical and legal lines that the opposition crosses.

[Bama Chick 28596]

That hadn't really occurred to me as a rationale for it.
But I just kind of dislike that "this is a foreordained conclusion" aspect of it.  And the purpose of it is political.  Not so much political as to who is the nominee, but political as to the appointER.
Basically, I bemoan the political aspects of the Court and the nominations to the Court, while simultaneously acknowledging the reality of it.  I think everything about the Court is more political than it has ever been.  It won't ever be as apolitical as some people believe or would have you believe that it is or should be, but it's in extremis currently.
And, while it isn't political, per se, I have always had something of a distaste for "the woman's seat" or the "Jewish seat" on the court.  Part of that is that I don't think it is a representative body, or should be.  And I am in favor of professional and academic diversity over demographic or cultural diversity, although that surely has a role, too.  And, to some degree that plays into what you say.  Not so much that saying the nominee must be a woman, Jew, black, Catholic etc. reduces the pool of qualified applicants, but more that it focuses on what I think may be the wrong thing. 
In fact, it occurs to me that the "black woman" category of nominee is somewhat more likely to produce a nominee that has some of the "diverse" qualifications that I really do value beyond race and sex:  criminal defense or public interest work, some non-corporate and non-governmental legal work, etc. simply because black women are somewhat less likely to cycle in and out of Main Justice, judgeships, and Kirkland & Ellis or similar.
Also, the converse of a "Jewish seat" is that once you appoint one, are you done with Jews, or whatever group you're favoring or representing? Or do we have arguments about there being too many Jews on the Court, or black women, or Catholics or whatever.  And, yes, I would currently argue that there are too many Catholics of a certain persuasion on the Court right now, but that has less to do with them being Catholic than other aspects of their beliefs or politics or background.

This is not a jab at you but more the idea I’ve seen about feeling weird about a “woman’s seat” or a “Jewish seat” etc.

How come no one ever worried about the “White seat” or the “man’s seat”?

Because it just seems to be taken for granted that those are just the default.

And it will continue to be that way until it’s deliberately and repeatedly forced to not be.

[Brisketexan 104465]

I'm a chill dude, generally, so my personal preference is for "normalcy" and always will be.  But, for now at least, I agree that it's fight fire with fire, but without crossing the ethical and legal lines that the opposition crosses.

Psssst. There are no lines anymore. And once they’re gone, they’re never coming back.

[TwiceHorn 31184]

21 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

This is not a jab at you but more the idea I’ve seen about feeling weird about a “woman’s seat” or a “Jewish seat” etc.

How come no one ever worried about the “White seat” or the “man’s seat”?

Because it just seems to be taken for granted that those are just the default.

And it will continue to be that way until it’s deliberately and repeatedly forced to not be.

True enough.  It's kind of like affirmative action.  You have to do something to break the white male stranglehold, but once you do, things get a little weird in some of the ways I have touched on.  How many X is enough?  When is it too many?  What about Asian justices and are they going to be 7/9 before you know it?

[TwiceHorn 31184]

9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Psssst. There are no lines anymore. And once they’re gone, they’re never coming back.

Well, a great example would be this:  Lets say Trump runs in 2024, and due to voter suppression measures, loses the popular vote, but wins a narrow electoral victory (I'm about to puke typing this).  Should Kamala steal the election?

If she did, I would agree that the lines are obliterated and it's a free-for-all.  I'm not quite sure what happens if she didn't, but I think it would be preferable for the good guys to remain good guys.