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Rygar201 posted:McConnell ruled out any movement on Garland during the Lame Duck session, citing NRA opposition to Garland. Can they indefinitely not confirm a president's nomination? Say they hold to this promise, Hillary gets elected, and picks some ultra libtard that's a million times "worse" than Garland. What happens then?
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:44 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 06:15 |
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FAUXTON posted:In 20 years, we are going to see replacements for Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kennedy. Probably Thomas as well. Kennedy is turning 80 this year, Breyer is 78, and Thomas is hitting 68 this year. RBG is 83 as of last week. It isn't like there's no other opportunity to lock in progress on the court within the lifetime of Garland if he's confirmed. As you can guess from their ages, most of those being replaced are probably going to be replaced within the next 10-15 years and that's being generous. Garland's main blemish is his "tough on crime" record, and having the most reformist of CJ reformists isn't going to swing the court with one pick. His biggest benefits seem to be his views on campaign finance and the intersection of 1A and public welfare, which are going to be a big fight as more and more political campaigns become multi-year affairs, and more and more damage is done by climate change (big tobacco-style suits against companies stalling carbon mitigation efforts). We are likely to see replacements for at least two of those three in the next 8 years. If you get a younger Garland and replace all three of those with young moderate to liberal justices, you've locked down the court until most of us are old. But if Kennedy can hold on to 2024, the risk of losing the court starts to become realistic with Garland in there. I mean, the odds are still pretty good - but this is the Supreme Court and it matters and so you want to stack the deck in every conceivable way. I mean, Scalia's death effectively saved abortion nationwide (still might be dead in the 5th Circuit, but that can get fixed later on), saved public unions, will probably block any effort to really rewrite immigration law based on the review of Obama's immigration actions, may save the planet - and that's all just based off him dying this year. Sure, it probably won't matter: but this is important and so "probably" isn't good enough.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:45 |
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So a completely non-lawyery question: if money = speech, and the government is not allowed to promote any particular religious speech, how do school vouchers that can be used on private religious schooling work, exactly, since that is tax money being spent on supporting a religion? Has this even been approached in the courts in this manner?
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:45 |
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PuTTY riot posted:Can they indefinitely not confirm a president's nomination? Say they hold to this promise, Hillary gets elected, and picks some ultra libtard that's a million times "worse" than Garland. What happens then? At a certain point the President is going to start using the recess nomination power, but aside from that, yes. Oracle posted:So a completely non-lawyery question: if money = speech, and the government is not allowed to promote any particular religious speech, how do school vouchers that can be used on private religious schooling work, exactly, since that is tax money being spent on supporting a religion? Has this even been approached in the courts in this manner? The rationalization is that if you banned money from going to religious institutions with school vouchers, you would be disadvantaging religion compared to other schooling methods and that's a first amendment violation! The conservatives have used this logic to rewrite 1st amendment law from "no, you can't fund religion" to "why, not funding religious groups can actually violate the 1st amendment!".
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:45 |
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PuTTY riot posted:Can they indefinitely not confirm a president's nomination? Say they hold to this promise, Hillary gets elected, and picks some ultra libtard that's a million times "worse" than Garland. What happens then? I picture a court slowly shrinking such that there are only four justices by 2025. Starve the beast and all that. It'd be a very conservative majority btw.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:47 |
I doubt that there would be a period where the President and Senate aren't controlled by the same party but it would be pretty hard to respect the system when the court shrinks to like six members and then suddenly the day after inauguration three are sworn in after years of "well we have to let the American people decide BUT NOT QUITE YET" because the Senate suddenly doesn't want to jam up the works anymore. If the Senate refuses to even hear Hillary's nominee I think it's going to be a big black eye in the respectability of the institution but so many people are poisoned from the very idea of working with Democrats on anything I'm not sure if that matters anymore. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Mar 21, 2016 |
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:50 |
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I feel silly even asking that question but after listening to Turtle Guy on CNN yesterday I realized that it very well may be a real possibility. I'd assume some of these guys have "more republicaner" threats that are as real, if not more real, than a democrat taking their spot. And man, doing something for Hillary, well, that's potentially worse than saying Obamacare is good.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:57 |
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They say the first person that will live to 150 years old is alive today. Can you imagine someone serving 80 years? And what if we find a way to keep people alive forever!
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:58 |
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Radish posted:If the Senate refuses to even hear Hillary's nominee I think it's going to be a big black eye in the respectability of the institution but so many people are poisoned from the very idea of working with Democrats on anything I'm not sure if that matters anymore. I feel like if it came to that, the Court would speak up and basically demand it. I know they don't really have a procedural way of doing that, but they could raise a big fuss, at least. Actually, hey, is there any chance in hell of the Supreme Court ceasing to hear new cases until this is resolved? What a fun game of chicken THAT would be.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:59 |
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PuTTY riot posted:I feel silly even asking that question but after listening to Turtle Guy on CNN yesterday I realized that it very well may be a real possibility. I'd assume some of these guys have "more republicaner" threats that are as real, if not more real, than a democrat taking their spot. And man, doing something for Hillary, well, that's potentially worse than saying Obamacare is good. That's much less true for senators, since they're not gerrymandered. The Republican majority relies on Republican senators elected in blue or swing states and so you can pressure those guys. They also have 6 year terms so they can have the ones far away from re-election take the hit while letting the guys close to re-election do the popular thing.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 18:59 |
showbiz_liz posted:I feel like if it came to that, the Court would speak up and basically demand it. I know they don't really have a procedural way of doing that, but they could raise a big fuss, at least. If it doesn't hurt their re-election chances I don't think the Senate really cares if the SCOTUS is upset with their actions. Most of their voters are conditioned to see the institution as bad except for like Scalia R.I.P and Thomas so I doubt they are going to care if those Ivy Leaguers are bitching about procedure.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:03 |
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evilweasel posted:At a certain point the President is going to start using the recess nomination power, but aside from that, yes. This resulted in a bit of a kerfuffle in Louisiana when Muslim (and Nation of Islam and friends) got a bunch of voucher money for private schools in the most impoverished parts of the state with the worst public schools. The legislative response was "gosh, when we said people should be empowered to send their kids to religious private schools, we didn't mean those people. " The program is kind of a catastrofuck in results terms but last I checked A) it was still in place and B) nobody had figured out how to exclude non-Christians.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:04 |
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TheAngryDrunk posted:They say the first person that will live to 150 years old is alive today. Claiming rights to the GATTACA reboot.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:12 |
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evilweasel posted:The rationalization is that if you banned money from going to religious institutions with school vouchers, you would be disadvantaging religion compared to other schooling methods and that's a first amendment violation! The conservatives have used this logic to rewrite 1st amendment law from "no, you can't fund religion" to "why, not funding religious groups can actually violate the 1st amendment!".
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:13 |
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Oracle posted:...so having a more liberal Supreme Court should turn this back around then? (please say yes) I would expect they end the "not funding religion is a 1st amendment violation!!!". It's possible that they're not going to insist on defunding religion in general though as that's a sort of culture war fight to pick that's pretty far behind a lot of more important stuff.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:16 |
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maybe they could just find a way to find vouchers themselves unconstitutional?
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:17 |
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GreyjoyBastard posted:This resulted in a bit of a kerfuffle in Louisiana when Muslim (and Nation of Islam and friends) got a bunch of voucher money for private schools in the most impoverished parts of the state with the worst public schools. Most of the vouchers schools tend to collapse pretty often too. Georgia's governor is trying to take money from the Public Education fund by putting Public Schools under the 'guidance' of Charter groups, who then crash the Public Schools in favorite of Christian charter schools.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:18 |
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CommieGIR posted:Most of the vouchers schools tend to collapse pretty often too. Georgia's governor is trying to take money from the Public Education fund by putting Public Schools under the 'guidance' of Charter groups, who then crash the Public Schools in favorite of Christian charter schools. They're doing this literally today in Mississippi. Special committee or some poo poo so it's an up or down "you voted against education" if you vote no vote.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:19 |
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Procedurally, does it make sense to say that the lower courts have to consider this first? I thought state vs. state conflicts were the only ones that went direct to the Supremes? No, this is a textbook case where SCOTUS has original jurisdiction, and that's why the plaintiff states were requesting leave to file an original complaint, which the Supremes denied. They didn't say why, not even "for want of a substantial federal question" or something like that.
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# ? Mar 21, 2016 19:28 |
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PuTTY riot posted:maybe they could just find a way to find vouchers themselves unconstitutional? There's not really any grounds to find the concept of school vouchers unconstitutional, only that they way they are implemented is unconstitutional, likely for violating equal protection
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 02:34 |
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Radish posted:If it doesn't hurt their re-election chances I don't think the Senate really cares if the SCOTUS is upset with their actions. Most of their voters are conditioned to see the institution as bad except for like Scalia R.I.P and Thomas so I doubt they are going to care if those Ivy Leaguers are bitching about procedure. This is what worries me: the modern Republican party has gone Confederate and is dedicated to making sure the federal government doesn't work at all, and it's showing the weakness of a system of checks and balances which was designed with chokepoints that allow a good-faith actor to put the brakes on another branch that tries to overstep its bounds and didn't contemplate elected officials intentionally sabotaging the government to get what they want politically or to spite a president they don't like. I'm almost starting to think the rash Southern dash to secede might have actually saved the country in the 1860s because it allowed the Republicans to actually get things done. Think of the damage they could have done instead if they'd decided the best way to make Lincoln a one-term president was to show up and refuse to vote on anything until they got a new president.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 03:04 |
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VitalSigns posted:I'm almost starting to think the rash Southern dash to secede might have actually saved the country in the 1860s because it allowed the Republicans to actually get things done. Think of the damage they could have done instead if they'd decided the best way to make Lincoln a one-term president was to show up and refuse to vote on anything until they got a new president. Oh that's undisputed, the only reason we got the Civil War Amendments passed was because A) The Democrats were mostly ineligible to legislate and B) the secession (and assassination) led to amazing levels of support for Radical Republicans. That's why when Reconstruction ended, it was because a Northern state with a large amount of votes (New York) voted for the Democrats, forcing the question of the Presidency into the House.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 03:18 |
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TheAngryDrunk posted:They say the first person that will live to 150 years old is alive today. It wouldn't have been in the framer's minds here in Australia that people would live to that age, but our High Court (analogous to the US Supreme Court) has a hard and fast age limit for justices - 70 years, at which point you must retire. And it's not as if a political party could change that on a whim, as it's codified in our Constitution s72. That seems far more sensible to me. Currently the longest serving member of our HC is Justice Kiefel, who was appointed in 2007.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 03:47 |
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Quorum posted:No, this is a textbook case where SCOTUS has original jurisdiction, and that's why the plaintiff states were requesting leave to file an original complaint, which the Supremes denied. They didn't say why, not even "for want of a substantial federal question" or something like that. Funny thing is, is that the Court will never be forced to say that it does not have the discretion to take an original jurisdiction case. Every time it doesn't want to take a case, it relies upon discretion. Every time it does want to take a case, it doesn't need to decide the issue of discretion. And no five Justices are going to want to bind themselves or the Court in the future from exercising the discretion to reach out and answer the issue anyways. Total Bullshit, is what that is.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 04:22 |
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Radish posted:I doubt that there would be a period where the President and Senate aren't controlled by the same party but it would be pretty hard to respect the system when the court shrinks to like six members and then suddenly the day after inauguration three are sworn in after years of "well we have to let the American people decide BUT NOT QUITE YET" because the Senate suddenly doesn't want to jam up the works anymore. Aside from her just recess appointing a justice, given that there's a law that makes the SCOTUS 9 people total the executive could and likely would need to sue the Senate if they simply refuse to do their duty in defiance of that law and their constitutional responsibility. Even if the SCOTUS had to rule that total silence and inaction on the part of the senate is to be taken as them having no objection to the justice nominated by the POTUS. That kind of ruling would still suck but it would at least force the senate to actively deny nominees.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 05:48 |
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So is there absolutely nothing that can force McConnell to yeild?
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 07:03 |
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Uncle Wemus posted:So is there absolutely nothing that can force McConnell to yeild? None of the GOP senators want Obama's nominee confirmed. Right now their strategy of making it look like McConnell is the only thing holding back senators like Kirk and etc is working. "I really want to do the right thing but my hands are tied", providing good cover in their home states. Every time they claim they want to have a vote they generate a lot of national positive coverage for themselves. Mitt Romney fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Mar 22, 2016 |
# ? Mar 22, 2016 07:19 |
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evilweasel posted:I mean, Scalia's death effectively saved abortion nationwide (still might be dead in the 5th Circuit, but that can get fixed later on), saved public unions, will probably block any effort to really rewrite immigration law based on the review of Obama's immigration actions, may save the planet - and that's all just based off him dying this year. Sure, it probably won't matter: but this is important and so "probably" isn't good enough. So what you're saying is that the greatest thing Scalia ever did on the court was die
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 08:40 |
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chyaroh posted:It wouldn't have been in the framer's minds here in Australia that people would live to that age, but our High Court (analogous to the US Supreme Court) has a hard and fast age limit for justices - 70 years, at which point you must retire. And it's not as if a political party could change that on a whim, as it's codified in our Constitution s72. That seems far more sensible to me. There's also a very fair criticism that it's kicking the most qualified people off the court while they are still on top of their game. Plenty of former justices are very capable. The federal and state governments regularly ask former high court justices to head up inquiries of some sort.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 09:56 |
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Uncle Wemus posted:So is there absolutely nothing that can force McConnell to yeild? This is why we have elections, and the outcomes matter. Vote the Republicans out of office and the problem is solved. If people won't do that, then they are implicitly saying they don't want SC justices confirmed.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 15:40 |
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Tyson Foods features a rarity. Alito concurred with both the majority and dissent.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 15:46 |
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Deteriorata posted:This is why we have elections, and the outcomes matter. Vote the Republicans out of office and the problem is solved. If people won't do that, then they are implicitly saying they don't want SC justices confirmed. also why gerrymandering and "Voter ID" laws exist
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 15:56 |
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ayn rand hand job posted:Tyson Foods features a rarity. Alito concurred with both the majority and dissent. Err, could you elaborate on that? How does that even work?
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:13 |
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OddObserver posted:Err, could you elaborate on that? How does that even work? Alito joins Roberts's partial concurrence with Kennedy, fully joins Thomas's dissent. 8th Circuit is affirmed by the divided court.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:19 |
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OddObserver posted:Err, could you elaborate on that? How does that even work? He joined a concurrence, not the majority opinion. The Supreme Court sent a question down to the district court to decide in the first instance after doing the substantive ruling that class certification and the evidence used was proper, and Roberts wrote a concurrence that he agreed it should be decided by the district court but he thought it was impossible. Alito agreed with that part, but opposed the class certification and the admission of the evidence.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:19 |
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Eighth Circuit affirmed thrice today, 9th circuit gets vacated by a unanimous court for those keeping score.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:28 |
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Rygar201 posted:Eighth Circuit affirmed thrice today, 9th circuit gets vacated by a unanimous court for those keeping score. Hovercraft guy won?
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:29 |
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RZApublican posted:So what you're saying is that the greatest thing Scalia ever did on the court was die Second greatest, he also provided in Lawrence v Texas a very compelling argument for gay marriage that was then repeatedly cited in lower courts.
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:32 |
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ayn rand hand job posted:Hovercraft guy won? Yup
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:33 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 06:15 |
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I think we also got the first tie vote today, upholding the lower court decision 4-4 on this case: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hawkins-v-community-bank-of-raymore/
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# ? Mar 22, 2016 16:34 |