Justice Elena Kagan had a curious comment on Friday when she publicly lamented the loss of a swing justice on the Court in the departure of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kagan said that the loss of a middle would make the Court look too predictable and partisan. What is strange is that Kagan is not lamenting her own consistent vote on the left and unwillingness to take a more centrist position.
Kagan was speaking at a Princeton University conference for women and observed:
“It’s been an extremely important thing for the court that in the last 40 years, starting with Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor and continuing with Justice Kennedy, there has been a person who found the center, where people couldn’t predict in that sort of way. That’s enabled the court to look so it was not all by one side or another and it was indeed impartial and neutral and fair. And it’s not so clear that I think going forward that sort of middle position — it’s not so clear whether we’ll have it.”
If Kagan believes that it is a good thing for the Court to be more centrist, one would expect her to move more to the center on issues. Instead she seems to want to continue to vote in a left block but have another justice keep the Court in the center.
Notably, Sotomayor said she “agreed wholly” with Kagan’s statement and also wanted someone to blunt the voting on the right and her own voting on the left.
Trick question: Name the swing vote or votes named by a Democratic president in the last fifty years.
Merrick Garland.
What trick were you imagining?
Then you should be fine. As Senator Collins pointed out, Garland and Kavanaugh voted alike well over 90% of the time.
Kavanaugh is going to come out swinging.
I doubt that Mrs. Kavanaugh “swings”. So with whom do you suppose her husband swings?
Well, Tabborack is totally enamored of Kavanaugh, but I can’t imagine Kav is interested…..hahahah.
Mind in the gutter?
Congressman Nadler says if the Democrats retake the house, they will investigate Justice Kavanaugh. Go right ahead. This kind of behavior didn’t help the Republicans in the 90’s and it won’t help the Democrats now.
Excerpted from the article linked below:
The new Richard Nixon administration became aware of the Wolfson deal when a Life magazine reporter began investigating the story. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover also mentioned a “tax dodge” Fortas had entered into with other judges, and Nixon concluded Fortas should be “off of there.” When Chief Justice Earl Warren was informed of the incident by the new Attorney General John N. Mitchell, he persuaded Fortas to resign to protect the reputation of the Court and avoid lengthy impeachment proceedings, which were in their preliminary stages. Justice Hugo Black also urged Fortas to resign, but when Fortas said it would “kill” his wife, Black changed his mind and urged Fortas not to resign. Days after impeachment proceedings formally began with a resolution introduced by Rep. H. R. Gross (R-Iowa), Fortas decided resignation would be best for him and for his wife’s legal career, he reportedly told his colleagues. William J. Brennan later said, “We were just stunned.” Fortas later said he “resigned to save Douglas,” another justice who was being investigated for a similar scandal at the same time.
Ind. Bob,
– Trump might welcome the investigation that Nadler promises.
Note how this Kavanaugh confirmation farce knocked the Mueller investigation off the front pages for several weeks.😉
I’ll leave it to speculators like L4B to explain how this was all a brilliantly diabolical plot to impede the Special Counsel investigation.
That sounds like a “premise” she’d like to run with, and run on, and on, and on with.😴😴😴
History is not negligible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Fortas
Excerpted from the article linked above in re the withdrawn nomination of Abe Fortas to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:
Senator Thurmond spent considerably more time raising awareness of the Supreme Court’s overturning of a number of obscenity rulings dealing with pornographic films, which Fortas had consistently voted in favor of on First Amendment grounds. Thurmond obtained some of the films in question and played them in the Senate building while the hearings were out of session, eventually admitting them to the official record. He was lampooned in the press as a pornographer himself for these tactics—the showings became the “Fortas Film Festival”—but the association of Fortas with some of the films’ strip-teases and especially the rape or homosexual sex depicted in one called Flaming Creatures was effective. Many, including Nixon adviser Pat Buchanan, credit Thurmond’s efforts for ruining Fortas’s nomination.
Right? Left? Where are you on say: The Bill of Rights? What does a Right Winger think about the First Amendment? Can a corporation have the same First Amendment Rights as a person? Can a person have the same Equal Rights as a rich corporation?
What is the Center? If there are 9 communists then the one in the center would probably oppose the ones on the left who prefer abortion over any more children.
Now, with new guy. Kagan will be on the Left. Roberts in the Center.
Kennedy came from The Kennedy Center.
JFK was a Right winger who opposed The Civil Rights Act which was passed by LBJ after JFK got killed.
Clinton was a Centrist who chose Monica over some gay pal.
Trump is a Moderate who put two moderate Centrists on the Supreme Court.
The next person to be nominated should be a rape survivor, Holocaust survivor and to the right of Attila the Hun. Release the Kraken!!! Bring us an abortion case to overturn!!!
Unleash The Sperm Whales:
http://theconversation.com/the-real-life-origins-of-the-legendary-kraken-52058
Excerpted from the article linked above in re The Giant Squid [Architeuthis] as the source of The Kraken Myth:
Despite its size and speed, Architeuthis has a predator: the sperm whale. The battles between these titans must be frequent, since it is common to find scars on whales’ skins left by the squids’ tentacles and arms, which have suckers lined with sharp chitinous tooth-like structures. But Architeuthis doesn’t have the muscles in its tentacles to use them to constrict prey and it can never overcome a sperm whale in a “duel”. Its only option is to flee, covering its escape with the usual cephalopod ink cloud.
Repeated for emphasis:
Its only option is to flee, covering its escape with the usual cephalopod ink cloud.
I’m with you, Paul C!! 😎
My liberal friends hate me right now.
I lost all my liberal friends when I supported Trump.
Alma:
The Law of Unintended Benefits!
Kavanaugh getting on the Supreme Court is like having sex. YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!YES!
Are you sure you can remember that long ago, Independent Bob?
There is no “left” on the un-Supreme Court, nor has there ever been. There are 4 good decent people that try to do their job fairly and soon to be 5 right wing Federalists who’s goal is a corporate run US with no freedom for any minority, only the rich and the right wing dominionist. Damn right, impeach any fascist nominated judge anywhere in the land. If they were qualified the turnip wouldn’t have nominated them.
There are posts here which are such that you can never figure out if they’re in earnest or they are parodies.
TTP:
You forgot the third option: ramblings of the mad — in every sense of the word!
Michael A. You’re exactly right. You can’t ignore law. But you can work to change laws.
WITH KAVANAUGH COURT WILL BE TOO CONSERVATIVE FOR COUNTRY
One can see the Millennial Generation is trending liberal. Millennials care about environmental issues, sympathize with universal healthcare, and distrust big corporations. But with Kavanaugh, the court will be trending in the opposite direction, representing mainly the views of older White conservatives at the expense of everyone else. This could lead to a situation where the court is despised and disconnected from mainstream America.
If Trump leaves office prematurely, as a result of the Mueller Probe, there will certainly be calls to remove his picks from the Supreme Court. Whether that effort succeeds or fails, term limits for the court will invariably become a national discussion. The concept of lifelong appointments cannot survive if the court is out of step with popular sentiment.
Ah, what would a thread be without a ‘hurry up and die’ post from a partisan Democrat.
The Millennials will grow older and have family responsibilities. They’ll also have cohorts behind them who will react to them.
Long Live Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
L4Yoga enables David Benson, R. Lien and Marky Mark Mark – you don’t suppose that Ginsburg in her dotage would consider becoming the vaunted swing judge?
Nine minus one equals eight divided by two equals four. Without four votes tied with four opposing votes, there is no “swing vote”.
PH, What you are pointing out is that the court at times acts like a break and prevents stupid people from crashing into one another. It doesn’t stop legislation that is created by Congress. If the Constitution is preventing certain laws from being passed there is the amendment process. A bit slow but a smart way of preventing stupid people from not thinking things out and causing harm.
yet the popular sentiment that provided the electoral victory for Trump is not an indicator of in which direction the nation is moving? I do think there is some delusion on the left in that they believe they are on the vanguard of the nation’s ideological direction when, in fact, their dalliance with socialism is proving to have been very dangerous and ruinous to the United States in many ways and is being rejected.
Instead, more plutocracy …
I just hope these justices just swing towards the constitution.
Maybe we’ll get a swing vote when RBG makes her exit.
She should be next but no we shouldn’t choose another centrist using the definition of the left but one who will return us to the true center of our Constitutional Republic.
There is a great deal of imbalance to correct a leftist balance point won’t do the job. and a rightest will serve only in the end to run the pendulum too far.
Choosing the Constitution which is of course the true center will allow that fine tuning and control. Think about it. In a Representative Constitutional Republic where else could it be.
The only other option as Obama found out is Our military draws a line on each side and uses the too far rule as a target practice area. – so to speak.
As is their sworn duty
Uff Da said, ” . . . we shouldn’t choose another centrist using the definition of the left but one who will return us to the true center of our Constitutional Republic.
[Edit]
The only other option as Obama found out is Our military draws a line on each side and uses the too far rule as a target practice area. – so to speak.”
Do you get to choose Supreme Court nominees for your Constitutional Republic?
Do you get you use your military to conduct target practice on the left?
Do you know where you are right now?
Was President Obama looking for a swing vote when he appointed these 2 women to the Supreme Court. I don’t think so.
Would Merrick Garland have been something other than a swing vote?
Might Kagan have been alluding to Garland?
How does one “swing vote” the Constitution of the United States of America?
It’s called an Amendment. It is not called buying off some District or Circuit Judge t act as a dictator as we have at present.
Or if she’s so impassioned with the notion of a centrist justice, she’s welcome to retire and let Trump pick someone to fill her spot, who may well be the swing justice for whom she yearns. And her fellow prog, female justice can join her. Show of hands … who objects?
Kagan, et al, consider themselves keepers of progressivism (read liberal) and hopefully she’s right! Having five constitutionalists scares Democrats.
Make it six . We need a spare in case one of the five to four has an unexpected stroke or something seven is even better.
It’s like two overweight people who are stuffing their faces with ribs, loaded baked potatoes and bacon, complaining that there is no one around eating healthy. Makes you wonder what they’re thinking!
i already checked the statistics. Chief Justice Roberts will do just fine. Kagan is mourning the loss of a center that is and had been too far to the left.
Now assuming nothing else goes wrong LMAO The next and minimium accepted real step will be the next Justice after Kavanagh needed as a minimum to balance out and re center 105 years or so of too far to the left and get us back to being constitutionally centered.
No more cozy deals with foreigh ideologies
What I would then push and push hard on is a restructuring of the the capabilities of the Circuit and District Courts so One Judge cannot play Dictator to a whole nation. Be different if they sent their ‘opinion’ up the Supreme court but this one man rule stuff has got to go.