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from the elections-have-long-term-consequences dept.
Covered pretty much everywhere (front page of CNN/FOX/younameit).
With the main swing vote in the U.S. Supreme Court leaving, and a replacement nominated by President Trump, the right wing of the court should become clearly dominant, allowing Roe v. Wade opponents, and other right-wing causes, a new chance at victory.
takyon: SCOTUSblog has a round-up of coverage:
Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement today, effective July 31, 2018. Amy Howe covered the news for this blog; her coverage first appeared at Howe on the Court. Other early coverage comes from Richard Wolf of USA Today, Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; Bill Mears of Fox News; Robert Barnes of The Washington Post; Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire.News; Nina Totenberg of NPR; Lawrence Hurley of Reuters; Greg Stohr of Bloomberg; and Pete Williams of NBC News. Analysis of Justice Kennedy's legacy comes from Noah Feldman of Bloomberg; Wolf of USA Today; Mears of Fox News; and Reuters staff. Coverage of the reaction from Congress and the President comes from Carl Hulse of The New York Times; Alex Pappas and Mears of Fox News; Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post; and Alex Seitz-Wald and Rebecca Shabad of NBC News. Patrick Gregory of Bloomberg has a piece looking at potential replacements for Kennedy.
Early commentary comes from Jill Lawrence for USA Today; Bill Blum in The Progressive; Emily Bazelon for The New York Times; Elizabeth Slattery for The Daily Signal; Garrett Epps for The Atlantic; Richard Hasen for Slate; Ian Millhiser of Think Progress; and Joshua Matz for The Washington Post. Another piece in the Post comes from Philip Bump, who focuses on control of the Senate. More commentary comes from Scott Lemieux for NBC News and Matt Ford for The New Republic. Andrew Cohen writes for TNR, and he also has a piece in Rolling Stone. Commentary from Vox comes from Dylan Matthews, Andrew Prokop and Matt Yglesias. Pieklo and Imani Gandy released an emergency podcast reacting to the news. Various law professors give their analysis for Stanford Law School Blog.
Anthony Kennedy was sworn in on February 18, 1988.
(Score: -1, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday June 28 2018, @12:25AM (38 children)
Rewriting a previous bogus decision is perfectly fine. The current fetish for precedent is improper beyond very narrow bounds. Rewriting laws and the Constitution is not ok. A court packed with Strict Constructionists would spend the first few years tossing a lot of bullcrap the previous courts have imposed on the country along with some obviously unconstitutional crap from Congress and the Executive. But it would all be utterly predictable and one could make plans with a reasonable certainty as to what the courts would and would not be deciding.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday June 28 2018, @12:42AM (16 children)
A few points:
- "Strict Constructionists" : Are you paying any attention to the highly partisan nomination process ?
- "tossing a lot of bullcrap the previous courts have imposed on the country" : That's what the Legislative branch is for. If the law is ambiguous and you don't like the interpretation from the judges, write a clear law, and get it voted by the People's elected Congress.
- "The current fetish for precedent is improper" : Wouldn't fetish for precedent be expected from conservative judges? Ever heard of Scalia ?
- "a reasonable certainty as to what the courts would and would not be deciding" : you don't seem to know what the SCOTUS is for. They mostly don't take clear cases. Your case has no chance of coming to their attention unless a whole bunch of lower courts have ruled in inconsistent ways (rare exceptions exist).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:10AM (11 children)
And, that shouldn't happen often. It certainly shouldn't be routine.
I don't know how much I'll like Trump's nominee(s) for Supreme Court: I haven't like many of his other nominees or appointees. But, it will be a relief for America if the various courts begin to rule according to law, instead of politics. Maybe we can see some activist judges disbarred.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:17AM (9 children)
Aren't exactly what the precedents are good for?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:04AM (8 children)
Precedents are bad for SCOTUS, they are the ultimate authority and should not be bound by past poor decision making. Fetishism over precedent is, one will note, not something Progs worry in the slightest about. Conservatism does because it is devoted to preserving past Progressive victories and the media is all too happy to rub their noses in their 'duty' to cuck.. As a Reactionary I want those past victories smashed into rubble.
Precedents are much more admirable in a lower court, especially precedent established by SCOTUS. They are supposed to take direction from their superiors, each level obeying the rules and precedent laid down by those above them, Nice orderly, structured society. Peaceful. Uneventful. The courts quietly efficient. Occasionally, as would happen if a supermajority of strict constructionalists take the court it would be appropriate to reexamine the assumptions that went into those past precedents and re-litigate some of them to correct past error and injustice.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:18AM
(original context for the question: "a whole bunch of lower courts have ruled in inconsistent ways". But anyhow, I see it addressed in the second part of your reply)
Hang on... who actually decides what past decision were poor?
Or is it this a judgment to be made depending on the (politically based) nomination of the judges?
Now, if SCOTUS is free to change its mind at a whim, where does this leave your "be utterly predictable and one could make plans with a reasonable certainty as to what the courts would and would not be deciding." for the case of lower courts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:39AM (6 children)
Ah, yes! If only we could go back to 1953! A simpler time, that was!
For simpler minds.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:48PM (5 children)
Most of the simplest minds I've witnessed as of late are the angry millennials howling at the moon over they know not what. Egged on by the Maxine Waters types who are even more simple minded; they have all had a very bad week. Normally I would be filled with schadenfreude, but they've been kicked in the sack so many times this week, that even I'm beginning to feel sorry for them. To top things off, their media mouthpieces are now admitting that their big blue wave could be nothing more than a big blue wish.
The Stormy tempest-in-a-teapot sputtered out when it was revealed that her needs-more-attention-than-a-school-girl attorney was a sleaze. Even the hysterical media has been forced to recognize that the FBI is filled with political partisans and liars. - Excuse me, people with lack of candor - The FBI is eating its own at this point. The new little darling of the media, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, despite the fact she hasn't even faced the mid-term election yet, has already been coronated by the MSM a la Clinton and is spouting off that ICE is running "black" sites. The crazy is incredible and the simple minded left are lapping it up.
The left's dire predictions after Trump's election of World War III and martial law have been answered with a booming economy and record low unemployment. It's hard to run on a platform with a single principle of I hate Trump and every time the left doubles down on the crazy, they energize the opposition. It's delicious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @03:19PM
I thought it was black and white, with a little hispanic thrown in for flavoring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @06:52PM (3 children)
You do realize you just outed yourself as a hate mongering piece of crap right? Backed up by bullshit lies, you are the mechanical bull the GOP is letting every corporation get a free ride on and by the time you realize how badly you've been fucked you'll be living in the scrap yard.
Dumbass conservatives fueled solely by hate, dropping all your "morality" for the chance to inflict pain. You ARE the horsemen of the apocalypse and the irony is 100% lost on you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:01PM
This loser is undergoing a meltdown
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:48PM (1 child)
Lefty liberals never pass up an opportunity to inject homosexuality into politics.
I never claimed to be a model of morality and the only pain you suffer is self inflicted. You would understand that if you weren't so blinded by uncontrollable and misplaced fury. In the mean time please rage and howl at the moon. Kick out a few more public servants from restaurants. Send threats to innocent ICE agents and their families. Every event helps increase the voter turnout to suppress schizophrenic and hysterical policies proposed by the left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @05:44PM
And you murderous bastards are gunning down journalists for no reason. Yup, keep trying to ride the high road. Amusing how you get all bent out of shape when someone rants the way you do.
Not a surprise, just more projection and hypocrisy from a hateful pile of shit. You, you are the hate filled pile of shit, just to be extra clear.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:03AM
FTFRunaway. Yet more things he knows nothing about, but cannot resist going on at great length about.
If only we could Huckabee him.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:18AM
Technically you are of course correct. In a sane world most decisions of SCOTUS would still be 5-4 but instead of ground breaking rulings deciding fundamental social questions they would be unimportant rulings on minutia in corner cases of laws the lower courts were unclear on. And nobody would notice.
Nope. The courts made a lot of these messes itself so it should fix them. It enabled a lot of the overreach of the other branches too by not just remaining silent but encouraging them to overreach as well. Way more than half of what Congress passes in a year doesn't pass the 9th or 10th Amendment test. Most of what the Executive does doesn't pass muster either. Everyone has simply been ignoring that because they really wanted to be doing those things yet they knew there was no way in Hell an Amendment legalizing it could pass.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @03:29PM (2 children)
At one point, the Supreme Court approved of Japanese internment camps, despite it being blatantly unconstitutional. That sort of precedent needs to be overturned, as well as many others like it. There's no reason to worship precedent or "stability".
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 28 2018, @04:19PM (1 child)
You're replying to the wrong part of the comment. The point was, quite explicitly, that Congress can make new laws when they don't like SCOTUS decisions. That's pretty much the way it was designed to work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:03PM
You can't logic with people who only see red. Their minds are clouded by raging hate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @12:43AM (19 children)
Yes, judges who say things like the founding farmers and the courts of old could not have envisioned the current situation, so the laws should be reinterpreted to match it are clearly activists new laws in a power grab and should be stopped. If the people really wanted something, they should just amend the constitution.
Oh, wait... [soylentnews.org]
Honest question to both you and the GP... You don't even need to reply to this, just think about it. Do you really want a literally strict constructionist? As an example, you are okay with warrantless wiretaps, unlimited surveillance cameras on you everywhere by the government, the government has the ability to freeze your electric account in a bank at a whim, and countless other things [wikipedia.org]? Is that what you really want?
If it is, okay. If it is not, then what exactly are you fighting against when you complain about activist judges?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday June 28 2018, @12:55AM (17 children)
Hey, I went on record in that thread that I thought the minority opinion was the right one in the sales tax debacle. I gotta make the time to wade through the actual text of the decision before I'd be willing to get into a long debate over just how they managed to f*ck that one up.
And why wouldn't we expect Strict Constructionists to be able to read the clear text of the 5th Amendment?
But yes, in general I want a DEAD CONSTITUTION. DEAD. DEAD. DEAD. If you don't like what it says, as interpreted by what the words meant when they were written, you pass an Amendment. Period. It is supposed to be hard, to resist change.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:02AM (15 children)
So, not something that would seamlessly adapt to changes in its environment, but instead something which requires specific step changes by an external intelligent designer?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:07AM (14 children)
Exactly. Changes would have to come from We the People instead of nine, usually senile, old fools in robes. Rule of Law requires one to know what the Law is, and in our current system that isn't possible because the current system requires you break the law, take a case to SCOTUS and see if they will rewrite the law to make what you did legal. Which if you think about it is on its face unconstitutional because the law they will write is by definition an ex-post facto law.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:32AM
The bar is too high to make amendments to the constitution.
(Too lazy to link to the process. Google it.)
As a result, you have a constitution that we amend over time in practice but not by changing the written word. Were it easier to amend, then we could follow it more literally. But you still have the problem that you cannot exhaustively write a rule for everything. JUDGEMENT will always be needed, and this requires interpretation. No way around that ever.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:14AM (12 children)
My Gawd, and bless my sole, jmorris is an honest to God Fundamentalist! Goes along with the conservative inability to reason, and read, I guess. But I did not see the European preference for something like the Code Justinian coming from jmorris, and his total throwing overboard of the entire Anglo-American-Germanic Common Law approach! I am shocked, shocked, I say. But I guess it is in line with the paranoid conservative mind-set: the one thing they fear is change, change and uncertainty, change and uncertainty and ambiguity, all that, and social justice. So they desire a GOTT IN HIMMEL, and a DEAD Constitution, A Heavens that Does not change, an Earth that, if not FLAT, at least does not move and is the center of the universe.
BTW, if the Republicans think they can stuff the court and reverse Roe v. Wade, or Brown v. Board of Education, they really might want to rethink that. https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/heres-gop-going-roe-v-wade-lgbt-civil-rights-really-bad-idea/ [rawstory.com] REALLY, Really, really bad idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:24AM (1 child)
Fear change? God-forbid. Please, pass an amendment or fuck on off. The courts are not the place to enact your preferred legislation.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:40AM
So you do not understand what common law is, and the role of precedent and bench-made law? No legal scholar are you!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:27AM
TFL(inked)A
Doesn't matter to them, the conservative mind is "Fuck off, I got mine, don't touch it".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 28 2018, @05:07AM (8 children)
Let them do it. I, at this point, am fully in "let it burn" mode. Let them do it, and let them be mobbed and torn from the benches and literally ripped apart limb from limb. The entire system is corrupt. Let it end.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday June 28 2018, @05:31AM (3 children)
Well, no, the conservatives are right here. If they attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, Americans will pass at least legislation, if not a constitutional amendment, affirming a woman's choice, and more, affirming the right to privacy, which is the controversial basis of Roe v. Wade. Once these things are in law, the conservatives have no leg to stand upon. It will be Ireland all over again, and for Runaway, in spades! The court can no more enforce a cultural standard than presidential executive orders can. And the real problem here, as everywhere, is that he conservatives, whether TMB style libertariantard alt-right sympathizers or the really profoundly ignorant evangelicals, do not understand that they have lost the culture wars. You go against gays, or immigrants, especially children immigrants, you will lose. You go against pot, you will lose. You go against the working class, with tax cuts for the rich and tariffs that cause the next great depression, you will lose. Is Donald tired of losing, yet?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 28 2018, @05:57AM (2 children)
Are you fucking serious? They haven't "lost the culture wars," they've *won* them as soon as another Gorsuchite "justice" is placed, and if it looks like they're going to lose them, they'll do the equivalent of detonating every nuke they have over the homeland so there won't BE a culture to go to war for any longer. You're much too optimistic.
Read J-Mo's posts. Imagine the look in his eyes. Multiply that by millions. We are dealing with the political equivalent of Muslim suicide bomber fanatics here, do you understand this? It's *over." We've passed the tipping point. This isn't going to get better until we're all dead, when these idiots wake up in Hell and realize they've been had.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 28 2018, @06:55AM
One word: millennials. (and those after them).
If they indeed accept the bullshit pushed on their throat, then yes, everything freezes in the "conservative"** culture and they worth their faith.
---
** there's actually no such a thing as unitary "conservative culture" - just look at the current congress, they can't agree what to replace the Obamacare with.
The diehard conservatives (the ones that feel sure on "fuck you, I got mine") want it replaced with nothing/the law of the jungle.
The ones that still want to be reelected for same tens of years ahead think what is the minimum [vox.com] still required for their reelection [newsweek.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:11PM
Eh, while I think we definitely need to remain vigilant for Nazi 2.0 I think the rabid RWNJs are not even close to a large enough group. A good portion of Trump supporters are people like TMB, and while his moral compass is pretty fixated on himself I don't think he's stand idly by as people like jmorris start executing people. I do believe that we'll be able to roll back the worst shit Trump does pretty quickly as the country winds down from this political temper tantrum.
The worst case scenario is the most likely one to come about, full dictatorship. However, as I said above people like TMB and possibly even Runaway might finally come to their senses and see how batshit insane the RWNJs are.
Don't worry boys, we liberals see how batshit crazy the PC brigade can be. I watched a comedy show and started cringing at how much they were struggling to insert racism and offense into dialogues. Come join us in reality and stop supporting the crazies just because you can get your rage-on against the "elitist libruhls".
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday June 28 2018, @04:28PM (3 children)
The problem with "Let them do it", is that part of their plan is to deny a vote to as many people as possible that might disagree with them, and, failing an outright denial of voting rights, to make those votes not effective.
The Supreme Court appears to be ready to go along with partisan gerrymandering.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 28 2018, @04:55PM (2 children)
And we can't stop it. It's going to get worse before it gets better. We're past the tipping point now, don't you get it? Whatever happens, we're committed to at least a 50-year cleanup of this mess, and that's assuming we start in 2018, *and* we don't end up in a permanent depression, *and* WWIII doesn't break out, *and* we don't get invaded and taken over by some other country, *and* climate change doesn't go faster than we thought *and* no freak disaster happens.
Look, I'm not afraid to die. I should have died almost a decade ago; in a very real sense I *did* die then and my body just hasn't gotten the message yet. If these idiots succeed, the world they create will be one in which the living envy the dead. I'd rather not see it come to that, but you know, I'm one poor woman with no backup and no support system, teetering on the edge, just waiting for one piece of bad luck to push me over...and bad luck I have in spades, to the point my life story reads like a rejected sitcom script. Things are looking grim, and they look grimmest for the ones at the most disadvantage. I'm white and not too disabled and not sick and can pass for straight because I "present femme," so that gives me a *little* survivability, but that may not count for much just due to how much of this is going to be economic...
When this is all over I am personally going to visit Hell with the express intent of finding all the traitorous sons of bitches like J-Mo and Entropy and spend some time torturing them myself.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:22PM (1 child)
I am one of your advocates around here, and I get that we all spew some hateful rhetoric around here, but "When this is all over I am personally going to visit Hell with the express intent of finding all the traitorous sons of bitches like J-Mo and Entropy and spend some time torturing them myself." is really not a great statement. Don't sully your own soul getting on to their level, because fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to sufferrrringgggg. *cough auuuuuugh lite-fwoooosh*
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 01 2018, @02:13AM
Her brain is full of spiders, she's got cobwebs in her soul.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jelizondo on Thursday June 28 2018, @01:34AM
Every law, everywhere is interpreted by judges. No law is ever crystal clear. Take the above snippet from the 5th, which you claim is very clear.
What constitutes public use? Suppose some property will be used for a secret US base and is taken from its rightful owner, can the government claim is not for public use and therefore the amendment doesn’t apply? Is it public use only if the general public can actually use it?
Or it applies to anything the government takes, whatever use it will be? If yes, when the government takes a drug dealer’s van and turns it into a police car, should the drug dealer be compensated?
What about just compensation? Exactly what constitutes just compensation?
See how hard is interpret “crystal clear” laws?
That is why precedent is very important. It guides current judges on interpreting the law is a manner consistent with previous judgments, giving certainty to the people.
As some else pointed out, the SCOTUS comes into play when different judges rule differently on similar cases, to settle what should be the proper interpretation going forward. And that is why the SCOTUS will never be, and has never been, unimportant.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 28 2018, @03:02PM
What the heck? "Are you okay with these things that this Amendment I'm citing explicitly forbids?" Uh, no...
The Man being willing to sign a warrant for anything is a separate issue. So yes, I want somebody who believes in the Fourth Amendment as written, which would be a strict constructionist.
Or is this some kind of weird-ass argument that a strict constructionist only respects the original Constitution, and for some reason is ignoring the Bill of Rights? I don't even.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @02:33AM
Since we're going for predictability, let's remove all the conservative justices from the supreme court and replace them with with the most hard-left socialist liberals we can find. Their actions will still be completely predictable, so that's 100% OK with you, right? You'll still be happy because everything is predictable, and I'll be happy because the country won't be run off a cliff by a bunch of conservatives and the new justices will quickly work to undo the damage the conservatives have done in the past two years. Win-win, Right?
Or did you mean to say it's not predictability you want to see, but rather a bunch of fucked up decisions by a bunch of fucked in the head conservatards that will further fuck up this already fucked up country?