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Anthony Kennedy is retiring
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tryinghard




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jun 27 2018, 7:35 pm
SixOfWands wrote:
May I suggest that if you want to discuss something completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, you start a new thread.

While 30 years ago, Supreme Court justices were somewhat unpredictable, that's no longer the case. There isn't going to be another Earl Warren. No one on Trump's list is going to surprise anyone by being a moderate. They're all too well known and vetted. And too beholden to their positions and beliefs.


John Roberts surprised most of us on his Obamacare ruling.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jun 27 2018, 7:58 pm
icebreaker wrote:
This has been a very interesting (for lack of better words) week in politics for sure, and it's only going to get more interesting.


There is an ancient Chinese curse, so I've heard: "May you* live in interesting times."

* Not you you, of course.
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anon for this




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jun 27 2018, 8:22 pm
SixOfWands wrote:
While 30 years ago, Supreme Court justices were somewhat unpredictable, that's no longer the case. There isn't going to be another Earl Warren. No one on Trump's list is going to surprise anyone by being a moderate. They're all too well known and vetted. And too beholden to their positions and beliefs.

Honest, if the Republicans believed that justices are not pretty much going to rule as anticipated, they wouldn't have stonewalled Merrick Garland, who actually IS a moderate. I mean, he was considered "superbly qualified," and Republicans said they'd confirm him if Clinton won (to stop her from appointing someone more liberal), but they still refused to hold hearings.


Right.

Gorsuch is considered by many to be at least as far right as Scalia, who was nakedly partisan.
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jun 27 2018, 9:08 pm
SixOfWands wrote:
While 30 years ago, Supreme Court justices were somewhat unpredictable, that's no longer the case. There isn't going to be another Earl Warren. No one on Trump's list is going to surprise anyone by being a moderate. They're all too well known and vetted. And too beholden to their positions and beliefs.

I respectfully disagree. Kennedy himself was appointed by President Reagan, and while he sided with conservative justices a majority of the time, the cases in which he sided with liberal justices and even wrote some of the majority opinions were by far more famous and had more impact.

He wrote the court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. He narrowed the application of the death penalty in several rulings, and he reaffirmed Roe v. Wade in 1992 2016 cases. None of those high-profile cases were at all consistent with Reagan's platform.

At the same time, he voted to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortions and angered some of the same people who had praised him for Obergefell v. Hodges with his opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

In other words, his judicial behavior couldn't necessarily be predicted based on his presumed ideology or political orientation.
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Jeanette




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jun 27 2018, 9:13 pm
naturalmom5 wrote:
Joy, I'm sorry you feel its all bad Sad

I actually found tremendous Chizuk in this ...

Now, Trump can hopefully put in someone very conservative, that will restore America to have values more inline with the Torah..

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 85, ... I don't cv"s, wish her ill. But possibly will Trump will have to replace her with someone conservative..

Because, England and WEurope are becoming more and more hostile to Jews..
Israel is in the process of of legislation that might hurt numerous frum Jews..

Lets davern and hope America is the current benevolent place for frum Jews..

It would also seem that we have a complete buffoon at times to be leader of the free world. Hashem is showing us that we don't need a very distinguished gentleman like Ronald Reagan or Abe Lincoln to massively steer America back on course. Even D Trump will do.

BECAUSE HASHEM YIMLOCH LAOLOM VAED... and

LEV MELOCHIM BYAD HASHEM..


Explain once more how Christian conservatism=Torah.

are you imagining America as the refuge for people fleeing the treife medina?

You think the most perverse immoral president in history (yes, eclipsing Bill Clinton and JFK) will be the one to usher in an era of morality and fear of Heaven?

And by the way, the legislation in Israel that hurts frum Jews is the dismantling of a welfare state that benefits Kolel families. But aren't you cheering on the dismantling of the welfare state in America?
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Jeanette




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jun 27 2018, 9:26 pm
if you look at this purely strategically, Trump and McConnell really have nothing to gain from quickly confirming a new justice. Democrats can make noise but don't really have any leverage to stop them. The left will be outraged, driving more turnout to the polls, while the Rs already have their seat, losing a potent rallying point for their base.

IF they delay the confirmation till after the election (while loudly blaming democrat intransigence and obstruction) they have a key issue with which to mobilize their base and possibly hold the Senate. The key is to make it look like it's the evil libs' fault.

McConnell is not stupid and neither is Trump, at least when it comes to political survival. Don't be surprised if they slow walk this, while making it look like Democrats are to blame.

(Of course, losing a supreme court seat wasn't enough to mobilize democrats in 2016. But the conservative base is not the democratic base.)
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Raisin




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 6:25 am
Fox wrote:
I respectfully disagree. Kennedy himself was appointed by President Reagan, and while he sided with conservative justices a majority of the time, the cases in which he sided with liberal justices and even wrote some of the majority opinions were by far more famous and had more impact.

He wrote the court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. He narrowed the application of the death penalty in several rulings, and he reaffirmed Roe v. Wade in 1992 2016 cases. None of those high-profile cases were at all consistent with Reagan's platform.

At the same time, he voted to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortions and angered some of the same people who had praised him for Obergefell v. Hodges with his opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

In other words, his judicial behavior couldn't necessarily be predicted based on his presumed ideology or political orientation.


Hmm, a justice who rules based on actual law, not personal politics! I guess there would be a lot less concern in left wing circles if it was a consistently right wing justice who was retiring, simply to be replaced with another.

I can't help but wonder why he is retiring now. Maybe he was persuaded somehow to step down...
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zohar




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 9:22 am
Reading through this thread has made me realize that people don't know what the job of a Justice is. A Justice is supposed to rule what the law is and if that law is constitutional. Not if they like the law or the outcome of it. Paraphrase Justice Gorsuch, a judge who likes all the rulings he's made, is not a good judge. The problem is that liberals like to nominate activist judges, who decide what they want the outcome to be and then make their ruling. Conservatives look for textualists or originalist judges who might make rulings they personally dislike. For example, they may rule that flag burning is protected by the 1st amendment even though they abhor the practice themselves. The "travel ban" has nothing to do with if the judges like it or not. They were ruling if it's in the power of the presidentcy to make such a ban. ( It clearly is.) The reason conservatives like originalist vs activist judges is not totally pure. The reality is that originalist judges will more often rule the way conservatives do because the conservatives ideology is much closer to the founding fathers. Limited central government, protecting individual rights, state rights etc.
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 9:36 am
Fox wrote:
I respectfully disagree. Kennedy himself was appointed by President Reagan, and while he sided with conservative justices a majority of the time, the cases in which he sided with liberal justices and even wrote some of the majority opinions were by far more famous and had more impact.

He wrote the court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. He narrowed the application of the death penalty in several rulings, and he reaffirmed Roe v. Wade in 1992 2016 cases. None of those high-profile cases were at all consistent with Reagan's platform.

At the same time, he voted to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortions and angered some of the same people who had praised him for Obergefell v. Hodges with his opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

In other words, his judicial behavior couldn't necessarily be predicted based on his presumed ideology or political orientation.


I don't want to break it to you, but Kennedy was appointed 30 years ago.

And he was mostly quite predictable.
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jkl




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 10:33 am
SixOfWands wrote:
I don't want to break it to you, but Kennedy was appointed 30 years ago.

And he was mostly quite predictable.


Wasn't Reagan president in 1987, 31 years ago, when Kennedy was appointed?

Fox's is right (as usual). Kennedy was considered to be the most unpredictable one from those leaning to the right.
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 10:40 am
jkl wrote:
Wasn't Reagan president in 1987, 31 years ago, when Kennedy was appointed?

Fox's is right (as usual). Kennedy was considered to be the most unpredictable one from those leaning to the right.


As I said, nowadays, there is extreme vetting of Supreme Court and other judicial candidates, so that they are unlikely to offer any surprises. I also said that it was different 30 years ago. You know, when Kennedy was nominated. So telling me that Kennedy was occasionally a swing vote doesn't change a thing that I said. No one nominated today is likely to offer anyone a whole lot of surprises in terms of how s/he will vote on certain major issues.
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 10:49 am
SixOfWands wrote:
I don't want to break it to you, but Kennedy was appointed 30 years ago.

And he was mostly quite predictable.

Yes, but he was still voting and writing opinions until yesterday. Are you saying that 30 years ago, Kennedy was more independent than he is now?

As for being "mostly quite predictable," that's exactly what I said. He voted with the conservative justices 4/5 of the time, but on some of the most important cases, unexpectedly sided with the liberal wing.

My point is that the Reagan administration would not have expected Kennedy to affirm abortion rights, legalize gay marriage, or place additional restrictions on the death penalty. In fact, pro-choice activists were unhappy at the time with Kennedy's appointment because they assumed, as a Roman Catholic and Reagan appointee, he would attempt to roll back Roe v. Wade. But that's not what happened.

I would argue that "mostly quite predictable" over the course of a Justice's SCOTUS career still allows for plenty of opportunities to slip off the ideological leash of the people who appointed him or her, as it did with Justice Kennedy.
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jkl




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 10:52 am
SixOfWands wrote:
As I said, nowadays, there is extreme vetting of Supreme Court and other judicial candidates, so that they are unlikely to offer any surprises. I also said that it was different 30 years ago. You know, when Kennedy was nominated. So telling me that Kennedy was occasionally a swing vote doesn't change a thing that I said. No one nominated today is likely to offer anyone a whole lot of surprises in terms of how s/he will vote on certain major issues.


Kennedy wasn't the occasional swing vote - he was the most frequent swing vote on the panel. The fact that the Democrats are freaking out over his retirement is evident of that. With the panel otherwise being split 4-4, the democrats heavily relied on him as their hope to override the conservatives. If he were just the 'occasional' swing vote, then the thought of replacing him with another strong conservative wouldn't have the democrats throwing the hissy fit they threw yesterday.
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 10:59 am
jkl wrote:
Kennedy wasn't the occasionally swing vote - he was the most frequent swing vote on the panel. The fact that the Democrats are freaking out over his retirement is evident of that. With the panel otherwise being split 4-4, the democrats heavily relied on him as their hope to override the conservatives. If he were just the 'occasional' swing vote, then the thought of replacing him with another strong conservative wouldn't have the democrats throwing the hissy fit they through yesterday.


What hissy fit? You mean throwing the Republicans' words back in their faces? The thing that Republicans are most proud of is refusing to vote on a qualified candidate. Its only a bad thing if the Democrats (who don't control Congress) suggest maybe they can do it too.

The Republicans are scared that they're going to lose control of Congress, which would require them to nominate a moderate. So they're going to push this through fast, before the will of the people potentially stops them. Which is exactly what they said was wrong to do with Merrick Garland.

And with a Supreme Court Justice, we're talking about an impact of potentially decades.
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Jeanette




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 11:08 am
Holding the seat open till November makes it much, much more likely that Republicans hold the Senate. The key, as I said before, is making it look like it's the democrats fault. Nobody even needs to overtly oppose the justice. All they have to do is hem, haw and delay while shrieking about Dem interference. Dem Senate seats in IN and ND are very fragile at this point.

Honestly the dems don't have many good moves at this point. They have to defend 3 Senate seats in very red states. A Supreme Court seat up for grabs is just what Rs need to drive their base to the polls.

Many people on the right hate Trump and would gladly vote against him or stay home. A Supreme Court seat on the line changes the whole calculus.
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jkl




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 11:19 am
SixOfWands wrote:
What hissy fit? You mean throwing the Republicans' words back in their faces? The thing that Republicans are most proud of is refusing to vote on a qualified candidate. Its only a bad thing if the Democrats (who don't control Congress) suggest maybe they can do it too.

The Republicans are scared that they're going to lose control of Congress, which would require them to nominate a moderate. So they're going to push this through fast, before the will of the people potentially stops them. Which is exactly what they said was wrong to do with Merrick Garland.

And with a Supreme Court Justice, we're talking about an impact of potentially decades.


The hissy fit in all the news yesterday, which followed the democrats' defeat in the Tuesday's election. It was a bad week for the democrats, and it provided strong backing for the Republicans. I don't think they're too worried about losing control of anything at the moment, though I wouldn't go so far as to say its not a factor at all.

The democrats played many loose games of their own, while the Republicans stood by and did nothing or acquiesced. It's about time the Republicans show some backbone of their own and do what it takes to shore up this country, according to their ideology.

Personally, I'm so glad Trump is the one to receive this opportunity. I shudder to think what kind of replacement Hillary would have selected. The cherry on the cake will be if Ruth Bader Ginsburg follows suit (I'm allowed to dream, aren't I?).


Last edited by jkl on Thu, Jun 28 2018, 11:20 am; edited 1 time in total
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anon for this




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 11:19 am
SixOfWands wrote:
What hissy fit? You mean throwing the Republicans' words back in their faces? The thing that Republicans are most proud of is refusing to vote on a qualified candidate. Its only a bad thing if the Democrats (who don't control Congress) suggest maybe they can do it too.

The Republicans are scared that they're going to lose control of Congress, which would require them to nominate a moderate. So they're going to push this through fast, before the will of the people potentially stops them. Which is exactly what they said was wrong to do with Merrick Garland.

And with a Supreme Court Justice, we're talking about an impact of potentially decades.


Right. Scalia died February 2016, so the Supreme Court was missing a justice for more than 11 months before Trump's inauguration. Kennedy is retiring at the end of July, about 5 months before the new Senate term begins.

A lot of things were different when Reagan was president. For one thing, he welcomed immigrants and didn't consider Russia a friend.
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jkl




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 11:21 am
anon for this wrote:
Right. Scalia died February 2016, so the Supreme Court was missing a justice for more than 11 months before Trump's inauguration. Kennedy is retiring at the end of July, about 5 months before the new Senate term begins.

A lot of things were different when Reagan was president. For one thing, he welcomed immigrants and didn't consider Russia a friend.


Reagan welcomed illegal immigrants and allowed for open borders?
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 11:37 am
SixOfWands wrote:
As I said, nowadays, there is extreme vetting of Supreme Court and other judicial candidates, so that they are unlikely to offer any surprises. I also said that it was different 30 years ago. You know, when Kennedy was nominated. So telling me that Kennedy was occasionally a swing vote doesn't change a thing that I said. No one nominated today is likely to offer anyone a whole lot of surprises in terms of how s/he will vote on certain major issues.

On the contrary, Kennedy faced one of the most extreme vettings and demanding confirmation hearings in memory, at the time. President Reagan had already had Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg rejected, and Kennedy was selected largely because he tended to apply the law very narrowly and therefore had fewer controversial opinions to defend.

I agree that we can probably predict how a given Justice might lean on a general issue shortly after his/her appointment, but the length of tenure means that the issues or at least the context may change.

When Kennedy joined the court in 1988, no one could have imagined the court considering gay marriage, let alone how individual Justices might frame the issue in terms of law.

Nor can we predict precisely how cases come before the court. The Masterpiece Cakeshop case, for example, is so narrowly written that it could potentially be more important with regard to putting up an eruv than establishing right of accommodation -- it hinged in part on the hostility to religious expression evidenced by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The concurring opinions specifically addressed the anti-religious animus of the Commission.

Appointing Supreme Court Justices is like the old joke about the rabbi who agrees to teach the king's monkey to talk, but asks for five years in which to do it. When pressed, he explains, "In five years, the king could be dead; the monkey could be dead; or I could be dead. Who knows? Maybe I can even teach the monkey how to talk!"

In other words, there are a lot of variables that can go into how Justices rule on controversial issues, and general political ideology is only one among many.
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jun 28 2018, 11:39 am
jkl wrote:
Reagan welcomed illegal immigrants and allowed for open borders?


Trump wants to murder every undocumented alien with his bare hands and then drink their blood?

That's about as accurate as stating that most Democrats want "open borders." Obama's immigration policy, for example, called for the expulsion of huge numbers of undocumented aliens. (I didn't particularly care for Obama's immigration policy.)

In any case, you are aware that Reagan's Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided amnesty for 3 million undocumented immigrants. He also proposed a “North American accord” in which commerce & people would move freely across the borders of Canada & Mexico, although he obviously never acted on that.

Reagan stated, "Our nation is a nation of immigrants. More than any other country, our strength comes from our own immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome those from other lands. No free and prosperous nation can by itself accommodate all those who seek a better life or flee persecution. We must share this responsibility with other countries." He did not use the incendiary rhetoric that Trump uses.
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