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Author Topic:   Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's dead. The maneuvering begins!
jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 31 of 122 (778039)
02-14-2016 10:56 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by anglagard
02-14-2016 10:46 PM


You can only be President for at most 8 years but you can be a Justice for Life. And while there are checks on what a President can do, there are almost no checks on a Justice.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 32 of 122 (778040)
02-15-2016 1:15 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by Percy
02-14-2016 9:23 PM


Seemed like pretty high praise to me.
Yes it did seem like that. But the truth is that the Justices were not learning from Scalia, they were complaining about his hypocrisy. Again, Scalia did not invent the idea of the original intent. For most Justices original intent is one of many tools of resolving a Constitutional question.
I think what the Times article meant was that even Justices who didn't embrace original intent were forced to take it into consideration
I have agreed that they said that. But it simply is not true. The actually truth, at least with respect to DC v Heller is pretty condemning. And this is not just my idea. I am sure I cited an article expressing this same opinion the last time you and I discussed Scalia.
In summary, if this is the best example of Justices being influenced by Scalia, then Scalia is pretty pathetic. The fact of the matter is that an origionalist interpretation of the the 2nd amendment does not get the result Scalia wanted.
You're interpreting it as a backhanded compliment. To me it seemed genuinely complementary about his ability to imbue his ideas with force and power.
Not exactly.
I'm willing to assume that the Times meant it as a compliment. In fact, I said I agreed with your interpretation. If so, then they the Times writer would have been better served to have picked a different example, because the one they picked makes an idiot of the man. I see some much better handling of Scalia in various articles on the CNN web page.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Percy, posted 02-14-2016 9:23 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 33 of 122 (778042)
02-15-2016 6:28 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by subbie
02-14-2016 5:25 PM


Re: The Republican Dilemma
subbie writes:
According to this article, Bork was unanimously confirmed to the U.S.C.A. for D.C. by a voice vote; nobody even asked for a roll call vote.
Well, if true then Bork is an example of a judge unanimously confirmed to a circuit court but denied the Supreme Court. I'm not familiar with Sri Srinivasan. Does he have any views that might be considered extreme from a conservative perspective?
--Percy

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Replies to this message:
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subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 34 of 122 (778043)
02-15-2016 6:37 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Percy
02-15-2016 6:28 AM


Re: The Republican Dilemma
I'm not familiar with him either. But given that today "conservative" includes teabaggers, the mere fact that Obama has mentioned his name is probably enough for him to be labeled extreme.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate
Howling about evidence is a conversation stopper, and it never stops to think if the claim could possibly be true -- foreveryoung

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 35 of 122 (778044)
02-15-2016 7:03 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by NoNukes
02-15-2016 1:15 AM


NoNukes writes:
But the truth is that the Justices were not learning from Scalia,...
Rather than law or legal principles, I think what they were learning from Scalia was that he was a powerful force to be reckoned with, conservative, consistent, determined, and often able to build a majority consensus around his opinions. Other justices found their legal tussles being increasingly fought on his turf, like original intent.
But I'm coming around to your point of view. Mentioning original intent in the context of DC v Heller is coming to seem less like respectful acknowledgement of the power of his ideas and more like an ironic jab.
My own personal opinion of Scalia is that "the power of his ideas" derived not from any inherent power that they possessed but from the fact that he was a kind of bully with a vote on the Supreme Court and he was there for a long time. The dissents he wrote over the years eventually influenced legal strategy and opinion and in a way provided roadmaps for how to bring conservative issues before the court.
--Percy

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 Message 39 by NoNukes, posted 02-15-2016 1:21 PM Percy has replied

  
subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 36 of 122 (778045)
02-15-2016 7:52 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by NoNukes
02-13-2016 11:23 PM


Waiting for the next president leaves the court short handed for more than a year. The next president won't be inaugurated until Jan 20, and it seems inconceivable that the nomination process would take less than 30 days.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate
Howling about evidence is a conversation stopper, and it never stops to think if the claim could possibly be true -- foreveryoung

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Diomedes
Member
Posts: 995
From: Central Florida, USA
Joined: 09-13-2013


Message 37 of 122 (778049)
02-15-2016 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by subbie
02-15-2016 7:52 AM


Waiting for the next president leaves the court short handed for more than a year. The next president won't be inaugurated until Jan 20, and it seems inconceivable that the nomination process would take less than 30 days.
Personally, I think the Republicans are just grandstanding. The very notion that they are going to simply not consider a nominee regardless is so blatantly partisan, that they even mentioned it on Fox News.
If Obama is smart (and I believe he is), he will nominate a minority or a female justice. The two leading candidates are an Indian-American and a women, both of whom received a unanimous approval from the senate for their current appointments. If Obama puts one of those names forward and the senate simply dismisses it out of hand, the Democrats will beat them over the head with it for the remainder of the election.

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14174dm
Member (Idle past 1108 days)
Posts: 161
From: Cincinnati OH
Joined: 10-12-2015


Message 38 of 122 (778054)
02-15-2016 12:52 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Diomedes
02-15-2016 11:03 AM


I would hope the Senate Republicans would do their job & vote one way or the other on an Obama nomination.
My jaded opinion is that they will stall and just make points with their political base. With a bunch of crap about "it should be the next president's choice" when they really mean "we're stalling for cash and hoping for a Republican president cuz we don't care about doing the public's business"
"Give me money so I can be re-elected to fight the evil liberal nominee."
Two political calculations
What would move an un-decided or lightly decided from one side to the other? Assuming of course that the target audience will actually vote.
What gets me the most campaign money? Or my opponent the least? Just to make it more fun - how extreme do I get for the primary and how centrist for the general election?

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 39 of 122 (778056)
02-15-2016 1:21 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Percy
02-15-2016 7:03 AM


This is an article that I think does a better job of giving Scalia his due:
Scalia will be impossible to replace | CNN
I'd likely disagree with the articles conclusions and with the unbridled praise of Scalia as Justice, but I'm certainly not objective on the subject of Scalia. Nevertheless, the idea that Scalia was the protector of the 4th, 5th and 6th amendment and that he should be 'your Justice' because of that is inane. It would be easy to find a more liberal Justice who would have joined with Scalia on the example decisions cited in the article. In fact in each of those cases, liberal Justices agreed with Scalia; in some cases all of the liberal wing agreed. There is little to no danger that an Obama/Clinton/Sanders appointee would have voted differently on those cases, and some indication that a law and order conservative would have supported the State in at least the cited 4th amendment cases.
The truth is that Scalia's legacy is almost (but not quite) exclusively celebrated by conservatives. This article discusses Scalia in glowing terms. Fine. Let's get the man in the ground so we go back to saying what this man was really about.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Percy, posted 02-15-2016 7:03 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by Percy, posted 02-16-2016 10:06 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 40 of 122 (778057)
02-15-2016 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by 14174dm
02-15-2016 12:52 PM


I would hope the Senate Republicans would do their job & vote one way or the other on an Obama nomination.
It's politics. Republicans have campaigned and won on promising blocking Obama's initiatives since early in his first term. I have difficulty imagining them approving a nominee given any amount of cover.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

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 Message 38 by 14174dm, posted 02-15-2016 12:52 PM 14174dm has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 41 of 122 (778059)
02-15-2016 2:35 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by NoNukes
02-14-2016 6:26 PM


British Supreme Court
We've discussed the separation from politics related to the choosing of justices in a previous thread, and I don't want to rehash that discussion, but given the political nature of the cases that are brought before the court, there are bound to be political implications in the choice. Not sure what to make of the fact that people aren't interested in who the judges are.
The reasons are
Britishness
History
Complex 'constitution'.
First off, we don't have a constitution that can consistently be agreed upon and the like in quite the same way as the US - meaning there are less armchair judges because even smart educated people are bamboozled much of the time. Historically these kinds of issues where dealt with in the House of Lords during the legislative process (who also had a sort of quasi-judicial role) or the Supreme Court. These days, our legislative and judicial branches are less smeared out around the edges, but that's very recent. The Executive is still smeary, but with less consequence.
There were historically 12 Supreme Court Judges, but there was a secondary pool that was used consisting of any senior judge and a tertiary pool that could in theory consist of any suitable retired judge with various conditions. They were obliged to retire at age 70 (this may have moved now I'm not sure), so you can imagine their careers are usually less lengthy than their US counterparts. Furthermore, Supreme Court cases are not heard/reviewed by all 12 judges. Typically a smaller subset between 3 and 9 is chosen. So any individual is less important to the system as a whole.
Also they are less powerful. They aren't the most senior representatives of a separate but equal branch of government. Parliamentary soveriegnty ensures this.
The judiciary selects new appointees (Again its actually complicated and strange) and the government accepts or rejects these. However, the government is only allowed to reject once and they get to ask the selection committee to 'reconsider' once (they can stick to their first choice if they want). After this, an appointee must be named.
Another reason is that they rebooted the system in 2009.
For the record here they are, along with their appointment date:
Lady Hale of Richmond
1 October 2009
Lord Mance
1 October 2009
Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore
1 October 2009
Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony
1 October 2009
Lord Wilson of Culworth
26 May 2011
Lord Sumption
11 January 2012
Lord Reed
6 February 2012
Lord Carnwath of Notting Hill
17 April 2012
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury
1 October 2012
Lord Hughes of Ombersley
9 April 2013
Lord Toulson
9 April 2013
Lord Hodge
1 October 2013
Overall nobody gets the sense that the government in power during an appointment has significant influence over the kinds of decisions that occur, nobody in Britain has spent the last two decades worrying about the fact that one of the judges was appointed by Thatcher because none of them are serving, and the influence any one of them has is so much smaller anyway.

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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


(1)
Message 42 of 122 (778062)
02-15-2016 3:41 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Modulous
02-15-2016 2:35 PM


Re: British Supreme Court
The only requirement seems to be to have a funny name.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 43 of 122 (778064)
02-15-2016 4:05 PM


I bet gun sales skyrocket...
This whole thing really makes me lose confidence in the Supreme Court. So the republicans are going to try to stall the nomination so that Obama doesn't get to pick them? Because they think the judge would be too liberal?
Shouldn't the judgement of the laws be blind to politics? Doesn't the fact that this is an issue cause doubt in the whole system?
The fact that which president decides who the judge is going to be is such a huge deal to everyone shows that the Supreme Court is just another political entity. And that sucks.
I thought the system was better than that. This is just another reason for me to turtle-up and continue to stay out of the whole politics thing.
I'll happily pay my taxes, otherwise as long as government is leaving me alone then I'm fine and I won't participate. I just can't bring myself to be a part of such a huge farce.
More reason to keep ignoring the whole thing and just go about my day. Please just keep leaving me alone. I don't want to play this game.
As long as I don't have to be a part of it, I'll continue being happy not being a part of it.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 44 of 122 (778075)
02-15-2016 6:52 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by New Cat's Eye
02-15-2016 4:05 PM


These are not so far from my own sentiments. Anyone charging, "How naive can you be?" is equally vulnerable to the same charge. People go to the polls every year believing their candidate will make a significant and positive difference, but after more than two hundred years of presidential elections how often has this been true? Twice? 1860 and 1932? Sure, there are long term trends, but rarely are those trends displayed in any one election. For the most part it's a tiny jog to right, then a tiny nudge to the left. The only long term trend I see is that the greater the wealth of the country and the more even its distribution, the more compassionate the electorate. We're definitely becoming a meaner country as our wealth declines.
The losers in recent presidential campaigns were Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kerry, Al Gore, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale. Would the country really have been any worse off in the long run had any of them won, especially given the mixed record of all the winners? I think not, and in the case of Al Gore I'd argue the country would have been much better off.
It's all sound and fury, usually signifying very little, especially the negative campaigning. I'm staying home, too. The only candidate who could get me out of the house is Trump. If he wins the Republican nomination then it will definitely feel pivotal and I will definitely vote.
--Percy

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Replies to this message:
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Diomedes
Member
Posts: 995
From: Central Florida, USA
Joined: 09-13-2013


(5)
Message 45 of 122 (778076)
02-15-2016 8:32 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Percy
02-15-2016 6:52 PM


People go to the polls every year believing their candidate will make a significant and positive difference, but after more than two hundred years of presidential elections how often has this been true? Twice? 1860 and 1932? Sure, there are long term trends, but rarely are those trends displayed in any one election. For the most part it's a tiny jog to right, then a tiny nudge to the left.
Which is why myself (and most people quite frankly) often consider their vote to simply be against 'the other guy'. Or gal. When I am voting for an individual, I am rarely doing so because they inspired me. I am merely looking at my options and choosing the lesser of two evils.
Now in certain cases, the potential damage that a particular president can cause warrants my cynicism. Bush/Gore for example personifies to me why it is important to vote even if I am not overly enthused by the candidate. Al Gore wasn't renowned for his charisma. But the unmitigated disaster that was the Bush presidency makes me appreciate the fact that it would have made a huge difference had he not been elected. Not necessarily that Gore would have been the next Lincoln. But when I look at the outcome: the Bush tax cuts that exploded our debt and increased the disconnect between rich and poor. The Iraq war and its aftermath, destabilizing the entire Middle East. The response to hurricane Katrina. And a myriad of bad decisions culminating in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. When I list off the litany of things that occurred during the Bush presidency, even I am sometimes stunned by how many things come to mind.
So in the end, politics is not pretty. Most of the candidates are egomaniacs with unfounded notions regarding their place in the universe. And frankly, most are not going to accomplish much of anything of note in their years in office. But the best way to frame it is look at the consequences of being complacent and having another Dubya become president. That is what keeps me going to the polls.

This message is a reply to:
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