This is an interesting senate election cycle because of all of the reddish states.
6 years ago it flipped the Senate to the Republicans in a mid term election.
6 years before that, it provided a 60 seat filibuster proof Democrat majority in a presidential election.
That 2008 election was a big blue wave as the country crumbled under Bush 2.
This whole 2020 election will show what Americans feel about Trump.
The US passed the UK in per capita cv19 deaths.
Only two peer nations have done worse: Belgium and Spain.
And our cases are picking up again.
That will be in the history books forever.
agip wrote:
Runningart2004 wrote:
Look at the graph. Look at recent SCOTUS decisions.
RvW is NEVER being overturned. Gay marriage will still be a thing. Unless he nominated Clarence Thomas 2.0 the court just moves more to the center.
Abortion:
In December 2018, as a swing vote, Kavanaugh joined Chief Justice Roberts and the court's four more liberal justices to decline hearing cases brought by the states of Louisiana and Kansas, which sought to block women from choosing to receive Medicaid-funded medical care from Planned Parenthood clinics.
LGBT
On June 15, 2020, in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the workplace nondiscrimination protections in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be interpreted as protecting people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Trump Taxes
In July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled, in two 7-2 decisions, that the Manhattan District Attorney could access President Trump's tax records, but that the issue of whether Congress could access the same records needed to be processed through the lower courts, and Kavanaugh ruled against Trump, joining Roberts, Gorsuch, and the court's four Democratic appointees in the majority.[222]
I am not worried. The court is very moderate.
Alan
I'm mostly with Alan on this - I don't get as worked up over the Supreme Court as most politically active people do.
You put qualified people on the court, you will get reasonable decisions. 95% of the time anyway.
This whole freakout about a 'conservative judiciary'...but look at the results...a never-ending growth in civil liberties. Someone would have to convince me that this trend would change for me to get too worried.
Exactly!! This talk about Trump judges is just stupid. Trump judges voted to let Manhattan DA have access to his taxes.
If anything RBG has been on the outside of many decisions hence she has been known as the "power of the dissent". Her real contributions were for women's rights.
Now we are left with Sotomeyer and Thomas on the fringes and perhaps it is best this way.
Alan
Runningart2004 wrote:
agip wrote:
I'm mostly with Alan on this - I don't get as worked up over the Supreme Court as most politically active people do.
You put qualified people on the court, you will get reasonable decisions. 95% of the time anyway.
This whole freakout about a 'conservative judiciary'...but look at the results...a never-ending growth in civil liberties. Someone would have to convince me that this trend would change for me to get too worried.
Exactly!! This talk about Trump judges is just stupid. Trump judges voted to let Manhattan DA have access to his taxes.
If anything RBG has been on the outside of many decisions hence she has been known as the "power of the dissent". Her real contributions were for women's rights.
Now we are left with Sotomeyer and Thomas on the fringes and perhaps it is best this way.
Alan
I'm with Alan and Aqip on the overreaction on both sides to an available SCJ seat.
The Dems would be best served to just, barring a Q-Anon nominee, move the appointee through because if they don't they run the risk of making this the issue for the election which is exactly what Trump would want because it takes attention away from his complete failures.
Seriously, in the interests of preserving democracy and majority rule, DC and maybe PR have to become states.
It's not sustainable to have a minority of the USA run the nation. It's just not how all this is supposed to work. Esp when the ruling minority party is Trumpist.
No reason DC shouldn't be a state. PR...it's up to PR residents. Let them decide.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1307680377209749507?s=20
Runningart2004 wrote:
This talk about Trump judges is just stupid.
They're really McConnell judges and they span the Federal Judiciary, not just the Supreme Court.
Someone up thread posted a Tweet that with this (presumed) appointment we'll have a Supreme Court majority appointed and approved by presidents and senators representing a minority of the electorate. It's hard to look at that and escape the conclusion that American democracy is broken in this regard. It's also hard to see how the Democrats resist the temptation to retaliate when they regain power which probably only widens the divide.
A normal decent person would be totally humiliated by going back on their word. Lindsay is proving to the world that he is actually a lowly lying worm of a man.
Trollminator wrote:
Gina wrote:
“Karma b!tches” - what age are you?
Grow up you crusty old coot.
He is jubilant at the thought of libs being upset - jubilant. Nothing makes Biff happier than others’ misery, he even said it himself.
That's because in addition to being the dumbest person I have ever encountered, he's an a**hole. He's got some explaining to do when it's time to keep himself out of hell.
Trollminator wrote:
Runningart2004 wrote:
Everyone talking about the death of RBG and the eventual Trump appointee like it's some sort of tilling point. You are all idiots.
RvW isn't going to change regardless of the court makeup.
Guess what? Kavanaugh and Roberts are moderates. The current court with RBG is like 4 liberal, 3 moderates, 2 conservatives.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graph_of_Martin-Quinn_Scores_of_Supreme_Court_Justices_1937-Now.pngTake a look at recent court decisions. You don't see many meaningful 5-4 decisions that would be swung the opposite direction.
Alan
To that I would say it takes time. 3 trump appointees will over time tend to shift decisions to the right. There will be more situations with a split decision and you will
consistently have the same one or two trump appointees who are calling it... and that’s the best you can hope for.
I'm really only concerned here with precedent. Obama should have been allowed to get his pick confirmed, but the Republicans said it was too close to the election. We are even closer now to the election. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Dan Kahneman wrote:
The bad news:
(1) We lost a quality supreme court justice.
(2) If (or when) the election results are challenged in the supreme court another supreme court justice with leaning toward Trump will have been added to the mix.
(3) The Trump supreme court might last for years.
The good news:
(1) Democrats are very angry and frustrated. Angry frustrated people vote and act.
(2) Biden has raised significant amounts of money since this Republican hypocrisy.
(3) Republicans are been further exposed as lying hypocrites.
(4) This increases the chances of Biden winning and the Senate turning. This might even result in Mitch going down.
We have already seen good news results from Trump being President. His blatant racism has caused a push back. NASCAR has banned the Confederate Battle Flag. That is huge. That would not have happened if Hillary had won. Black Lives Matter has become a force with a ton of white supporters. That would not have happened if Hillary had won. More women have become directly involved in politics, and they overwhelmingly support Democrats. Trump will be seen as the worst President in US history, and Republicans will own that. Ultimately Trump has greatly damaged not just the GOP, but conservatism. That's what you a**holes get for voting for him.
agip wrote:
Seriously, in the interests of preserving democracy and majority rule, DC and maybe PR have to become states.
It's not sustainable to have a minority of the USA run the nation. It's just not how all this is supposed to work. Esp when the ruling minority party is Trumpist.
No reason DC shouldn't be a state. PR...it's up to PR residents. Let them decide.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1307680377209749507?s=20
Puerto Rico becoming a state would be a great thing. Tourism there would make that place a very desirable place to visit and live.
Smorbun wrote:
He's got some explaining to do when it's time to keep himself out of hell.
This is metaphorical, of course. There is no hell (or heaven).
When you're dead, you're done. Try to get it right the first time.
Runningart2004 wrote:
Everyone talking about the death of RBG and the eventual Trump appointee like it's some sort of tilling point. You are all idiots.
I didn't think Kavanugh replacing Kennedy was a big deal. But If Biden can appoint RBG's replacement, and either he or another Democrat can appoint Justices who replace Breyer and Thomas, then the change could be significant.
Then we will have a chance to overturn Citizens United, and Shelby County v. Holder. Robert is a moderate, but not on the voting rights.
Oh well, so much for riddles. I'm still kind of shocked that nobody has figured out what Trump is about to do. It's easy to see if you think like Trump.
His golf clubs are losing money. Many were losing money before COVID. Now every single one probably is. But it's not really about the clubs themselves. It's about making the most money from the hand you are dealt. That's what Trump ALWAYS tries to do. It's ALWAYS about the money.
So he's going to pull a Blago. (Remember I said you should Blag-o-bout it.)
Like Blagojevich, he will sell the supreme court seat to the highest bidder. There are plenty of people in the world ready to buy a Trump property in exchange for getting that one special person on the court.
So don't be surprised if a few choice assets from the Trump organization are sold in early January. If we ever learn the details of the deal, we will find that the buyer paid way above market value and that escrow happened in late September.
Dan Kahneman wrote:
If Republicans don't do the decent thing and honor Ruth's dying wish, they will bring great shame upon themselves. Dishonor is not easily washed off.
Republicans don't understand the concept of shame. They thrive on it. If Dems call them shameful hypocrites, they get even more emboldened.
They are playing the thug ball, and Dems cannot wait for a non-existent referee to blow the whistle.
The only thing they understand is power. The fear of losing their office is the only thing that deters them from acting in malevolence.
L L wrote:
I don’t get this where Democrats will add 2 to 4 more Justices if they win.
If they can do that next year or so, what’s stopping Mitch from doing that right now?
Packing the court would be disastrous for any party that tried it, and Putin's Mitch knows that.
FDR got spanked when he floated the idea. A President Trump or President Biden would be pilloried, even by members of his own party. Not gonna happen.
As others have observed, SCOTUS mostly comes up with good decisions. (It's been breaking the wall of separation between Church and State too much IMO but otherwise has functioned pretty well.) We just notice the Court more nowadays because Congress and especially Mitch's Senate refuse to legislate, placing an undue burden on the judicial system.
One benefit of having more (allegedly) Constitution-bound SCJs is that they are more likely to emphasize the role that Congress should be playing (and so far isn't).
Hey, here's a scenario I haven't seen bruited: Suppose Biden wins and the Senate turns blue. (Big "ifs" there!) So then Clarence Thomas, who's 72 and in his 29th year on SCOTUS, decides to retire immediately after Election Day--which gives DJT and the GOP Senate a few weeks to put yet another conservative justice on the Court for the next X decades.
*That* would put some folks' knickers in a twist.
Fat hurts wrote:
Like Blagojevich, he will sell the supreme court seat to the highest bidder.
Yeah, I understood you meant Blagojevich (it was rawther obvious) but couldn't understand why you brought him up--you know, given that he went to prison for years for selling that Senate seat.
DJT is already looking at the possibility of prison time for other stuff (like the felonies committed by his co-conspirator Michael Cohen, who went to prison for them). Difficult to see why Trump would court more time in stir.
*ahem* wrote:
Smorbun wrote:
He's got some explaining to do when it's time to keep himself out of hell.
This is metaphorical, of course. There is no hell (or heaven).
When you're dead, you're done. Try to get it right the first time.
Well, Biff believes in hell, so that comment was just to him. Any hell that exists in his mind is where he's headed.
Yeah. Maybe if Trump loses, Clarence Thomas resigns and they place Stephen Miller in his place.
Dan Kahneman wrote:
If Republicans don't do the decent thing and honor Ruth's dying wish, they will bring great shame upon themselves. Dishonor is not easily washed off.
Dishonor is a key trait in trump’s party. They thrive on it.
