There was no fight over this seat. The seat was stolen and the Gorsuch appt is not legitimate. It is tgd byproduct if an illegitimate election and a corrupt republican senate.
The current court is not legitimate and I hope they know that and do their best to reclaim any respect they have lost
14
Going to be interesting to see if the right-leaning court wears their GOP team robes, or actually pay homage to law. Wish I was optimistic, but I kinda think I am going to get an ulcer instead.
9
Citizens, corporations and foreign nations alike have shown their preference for, and confidence in, the stability and predictability of policies, actions and laws of the U.S. government. Change, while inevitable, has historically been gradual and deliberate. We typically see it coming well in advance, and we can adjust our behavior accordingly.
For perhaps the first time in our history we have an administration that thrives on unpredictability. Positions, and the justifications for them, change overnight, with little warning and less evidence of serious thought.
Even worse, government by tweet results in the inability of even the highest ranking members of his administration to know what the president’s position is at any given moment, much less to know how it is evolving.
In the early years of the 20th century, “anarchists” acted to disrupt, and reduce confidence in, our government, without necessarily promoting a better plan. How many voters in 2016 knew we were electing an anarchist to the presidency?
4
Once again, the dead hand of history has the upper position. 2 out of three recent Presidents representing snarling reaction have lost the popular vote, and underhanded dirty pool has given us an oligarchy-friendly SCOTUS. The plutocrats call the tune for the angry white base that they have been sucking dry since the early 70s. It is pointless to try to discuss solutions. The great American Experiment is over.
4
"As in the Ohio case on voter rolls, the federal government has switched sides in the arbitration cases. The Obama administration had supported the workers; the Trump administration will argue on behalf of the employers."
Okay you Trump voters. We clearly see who has your interests at heart. Yet some of you are posting on social media that Trump will win re-election in a landslide in 2020.
6
There is this right for people to peacefully assemble and we should assemble on the steps of the Supreme Court. We have to let them know they are not infallible and have always been infallible. Resist for all of our sakes.
1
Will Justice Gorsuch follow in the footsteps of Justice Scalia? Scalia was an originalist and a textualist who paid little to no attention to the changes in the meanings of many important words during the 230 years since the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787.
3
SCOTUS has a lot of important work to do. Now with Neil Gorsuch firmly entrenched as the third conservative vote, expect a wave of roll backs on liberal invented constitutional rights, i.e. abortion, gay rights, and Obamacare.
Look for Kennedy and Ginsberg to retire soon. Ginsberg can't stay awake and is frequently caught napping, (remember State of the Union...embarrassing) and insiders say Kennedy wants to move to warner climates.
1
The fact that Gorsuch accepted his nomination tells you everything you need to know about his views on legality and Constitution.
11
To anyone who thinks SCOTUS will do the right thing on redistributing, you’re crazy
1
8 legitimate justices.
1 illegitimate justice.
I guess we can pretend this is "full strength". Sort of like your favorite pro football team being quarterbacked by Trump, and coached by McConnell. Would you bet on them?
No? Maybe you don't care for a team selected by some lowly rats in the FBI.
7
When the Court hears a case it is in essence acting much like a jury in a civil trial whose members are not supposed to have prejudged the outcome. Yet how often does a case arise where we don't know beforehand exactly how the 4 right-wing jurists will come down in the end (and to be honest, often the 4 left-wing jurists, too)?
Justice Kennedy may not be the greatest intellectual the Court has seen; perhaps the criticism that some of his decisions have been fuzzy is justified. At least he appears to hear each case with an open mind. When I contemplate him being replaced by another Gorsuch, I want to retch.
7
With Gorsuch occupying the seat that should have rightfully belonged to Merrick Garland, I am expecting a stream of majority votes that will set civil liberties (the travel ban is just the tip of the iceberg) and common sense voting principles back to the Civil War era. This will be a bleak year for our system of justice, and if Bader or Breyer retire, it will be a bleak decade.
12
I have to wonder about the common sense behind the religious discrimination case. If someone didn't want to make me an expensive wedding cake, the last thing I'd do is take him to court so he had to make it for me. Why would I want to give my business to a creep rather than finding someone else? And if he's making the cake under protest, I'd suspect he wouldn't give it his best effort.
Lakewood, CO. the site of this dispute, has a population of 150,000, with many makers of wedding cakes. Sketchy online information suggests that the cake maker in this case is near the middle in quality. Surely, a creep like this is unlikely to be the best at his trade.
I'm Jewish. If a neo-Nazi carpenter wouldn't make me a custom chair, I'd find somebody else. The gay couple in this case is apparently suing based on principle in the face of all common sense. The Supreme Court takes about 75 cases a year. I hope that most have more common sense facts than this one.
8
So if a black person isn't allowed to sit at a lunch counter, they should just go find another diner probably in the 'black' part of town, right? You have no understanding of the rights that underlie our democracy. We are all to be treated equally - that is the basic principle in the constitution. This baker only has his business because of our democratically built roads, electricity, schools, national parks etc. He cannot check out of our bedrock principle of equality for all, and still be part of our economic system. He can declare himself a church, but I think the church of wedding cakes is a bit of a stretch. No, it's just racism. Or better said, sexism - discrimination based on sex, and it is not allowed. Grow up and learn, @Michjas
17
Wonderfully said. You may have such common sense solutions to over half the upcoming cases, which I hope you'll share on NYT.
3
Grace, the baker would sell them a cake but would not accept a commission to make a custom design wedding cake. That's a different situation, no?
3
Gerrymanders violate the principle of one person, one vote.
5
I'd say Citizens United is more of a danger than gerrymandering.
We've had district borders changed for quite a while but Citizens United is relatively new and has caused an escalation in fund raising that is way out of hand and appears to be a factor in Congress' day to day behavior.
We need to find a way to get Citizen United overturned.
7
I, a retired lawyer who revered the Supreme Court until 2000, now thinks of that panel as just nine political hacks who say little about the law. With its descent into politics, there is now no moral compass guiding my country
11
We were created as a secular nation, and while we tolerate various religions, there is no reason to give them undue respect. Secular laws always should be given precedence. I like the phrase now employed in Ireland. “keep your rosaries off my ovaries.”
7
The privacy ruling is of utter importance and behind similar rights in Europe. There should be illegal to publish people's personal info (age, address, etc) on various websites such as peoplessearch, etc.
5
I add my voice to the chorus that says this Supreme Court is illegitimate.
It is composed of eight justices and one injustice.
We the People ought to vote against ANY Republican who was in the Senate the year craven political hack Mitch McConnell and his minions stole the SCOTUS seat.
We get the government we deserve.
12
I discern from many comments herein, there is simmering great doubt about the integrity of the nation's highest court, and with good reason. Which leaves me to ponder: how long can such a nation last?
When people are ruled by three supposedly equal and separate branches of government and all three have now come under scrutiny, what is left to justify its preservation? The US has already lost two of its branches, the Legislative and in January, the Executive. We are down to one, with the judgement of those who deem to judge all being picked apart to the bone. All that is left is a nation's skeletal frame.
The birth of a nation from 13 sovereign colonies into states was a mistake to begin with. Conceived in compromise, Slavery, the US was borne into a world with a birth defect, one which despite all its cosmetic surgeries remains a blatant symbol of sorrow. Progress has been made, but far from what is required to be a truly great nation. Whether it be Race or a race to return to the past when White America was in charge, the US currently suffers from the same ills it always has. In 2016, a two centuries curse, the Electoral College, once again reared its ugly head. Faced with this arcane and archaic means of electing a leader, with delegates not people being the final arbiters, should one be surprised we've lasted this long? Finally, perhaps that our lucky streak has ended. A house divided cannot stand. How long can one expect a nation to?
DD
Manhattan
8
What a well written comment. I share your belief that we are a "blatant symbol of sorrow." I would add, "of violence," as well. This Supreme Court has put the stamp of approval on every one of our basest instincts; greed, violence, racism, ignorance.
My heart breaks when I look at the picture of these "judges," a majority of whom will continue to break down our "culture" into backward thinking, Bible pounding, gun toting, ignorant men and women, and our country will take yet another step down the ladder of civilization into second world status. We're almost there; just look at the statistics on life expectancy (29th in the world) , poverty (34), levels of education (7), avoidable death (infant mortality is 6 in every 1,00, gun violence (in 2015, 13,286 deaths and 26,819 injuries. The number has skyrocketed since then), drug addiction (7), alcoholism, . And the Supreme Court's rulings have had a lot to do with these numbers. We're the richest country in the WORLD. Or, I should say, 1% of the citizens of the US constitute the population of the richest country in the world. The rest of us don't count, not to this court.
6
I find it astonishing how many progressives are still pouting about Garland. That fight is over. The Senate did nothing improper. Top democrats like Biden and Schumer have acknowledged in the past that they would have done the same thing.
Get over it progressives and go out and try to win some elections.
6
Given the divisiveness and partisanship of the US today, the photo of the justices of the Supreme Court which accompanies this article shows a remarkably different US.
The Supreme Court has now joined the fracas of what ails the United States. Americans of all political persuasions are becoming more aware that even judges on the nation's highest court are biased. On the most critical issues of facing US, one can predict with a fair degree of accuracy how each Justice will decide.
What does that say about US? Well, for one it shows how fragile we are, how deeply flawed a nation we are. When Justices to the Court are picked specifically for their political biases our once honored Judicial system is exposed for the travesty it is. The entire structure that for over two centuries plus Americans have had faith in is shown to be a complete farce, a house of cards ready to collapse at any moment.
Pick a judge, a president, a political party, it's a stacked deck ready to act by instinct, not reason or logic. Is that any way to run a country? Are some still deluded into believing in American Exceptionalism? With now all three branches of the US government filled with self-fulfilling prophets why should any American believe the lies that country tells when it says, "with equal justice for all"? You'd have to be a bloody fool to buy that bile.
The Founders pessimism rang out clearly, when Franklin replied, "we have given you a republic, if you can keep it". From the looks of it, the time for keeping it seems to have run out.
DD
Manhattan
6
Both SCOTUS judges lifetime appointment and electoral college are out of date and undemocratic.
6
Whereas "gerrymandering" is an American word, it is not unique to USA, it happens in parliamentary democracies too.
Exactly how does the electoral commission draw or re-draw voting districts that is "fair" to the extent that the numerical majority votes will carry the day?
Unless the mathematic is resolved, we will always have the odd cases where the "winner" has less popular votes than the "loser".
1
Am I living in the same world as WMK, who claims that the SCOTUS was swinging too much to the left? Really? It was George W. Bush, with his selection of Alito and Roberts that pushed this court further to the right.
I vote that we give the justices term limits. After all, rather than being guided by the principle of leaving their politics at the door, they are behaving more like partisan members of Congress.
Leave Anthony Kennedy alone. He's a middle-of-the road justice who seems to be more on the side of those treated unfairly in this supposedly 'fair' country.
1
Now we will see the full force of the disastrous Trump administration with ultra-ultra right Gorsuch on the court (the justice with the big asterisk). This year we are about to see voting rights curtailed, civil liberties destroyed and social progress set back decades. This court is going to make us as a nation very, very unhappy. The only remedy will be to vote Republicans out of Congress so that we can undo the damage by passing legislation that will restore sanity to our laws and policies.
2
Now that the majority of the Supreme Court Justices are conservative leaning, I would say that most of the decisions will be because just like politicians, they will side with money and power. They most always do. The best example was the "Citizen's United" decision that not many agree with.
Additionally, the government positions will most likely prevail because the governments have far more resources to strategize and finance their legal positions.
2
When the supreme court was at 8 they were forced to compromise and find common ground. In a way it made the rulings better. Now that they're even we're back to majority rules which doesn't inspire compromise. Also a lot of Americans will always view Neil Gorsuch as a fraudulent justice.
Hopefully the justices will remember that they serve the American people. Their job is to be fair and balanced something we can really use at the moment. This term is going to show us if they are here for politics and money or if they serve the American people.
1
Mitch said he delayed the hearings because it was "right thing to" give the unelected, next president the opportunity to nominate rather than the current president. Delaying a remedy that a full court can provide shows a lack of compassion and a love of power. This court will educate a few of the poor souls, like Mitch, that have sown the seeds of a compassionless life. Happiness thru compassion is way better than power and money. They will know the truth on their deathbed.
1
A third of California voters now favor secession. The movement is growing in other states as well. It would certainly be an option if this Supreme Court becomes so partisan that it loses all credibility with the citizens it is supposed to serve and the constitution that we hold so dear. Some of their rulings, like Citizens United, are beyond bad, they are threatening the very basis of our democracy.
2
If the US constitution entrusts the Supreme Court with the formidable authority of being an arbiter and the custodian of the constitutional governance it was to help country tide over the crises caused by the breakdown of governance. What's prevailing today in the Trump ruled America is perhaps akin to a constitutional emergency. It's incumbent on the Supreme court today to realise the gravity of the situation, and rise above the partisan considerations while deciding about the crucial issues before it, be it the gerrymandering, religious freedoms, or the working class rights.
1
The Supremes betrayed the country earlier. Don't forget.
Bush v. Gore gave us the illegitimate unelected Bush. Had Bush listened to the Clinton people, 9/11 would likely have been averted. We wouldn't have started two unfunded wars ("go out and shop") on false information, and ISIS wouldn't have had such fertile recruiting ground. The restored economy and economic surplus wouldn't have been used as a political giveaway, and our budget would be much closer to balanced. Our infrastructure would be in better condition, and we'd be well on the way to addressing our need to convert to clean energy. But I dream!
Gore was and is brilliant, a true public servant. I was fascinated in this talk (near the end) to see that he also worked on reducing waste in government.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/climate/al-gore-climate-change-timest...
10
This incarnation of the Supreme Court, with the addition of "Justice" Neil Gorsuch, is completely illegitimate, and none of its decisions arrived at by a 5-4 right-wing majority should be regarded as legitimate.
The seat occupied by Gorsuch belonged to Merrick Garland but for Mitch McConnell's violation of his oath to the Constitution.
The SCOTUS, like the POTUS, is a bad joke in search of a punchline.
18
The author Adam Liptak is clearly mistaken: The Supreme Court is NOT at full strength. If it is ever to regain its proper and legal standing (which may never happen), the poser John Gorsuch must first be removed and a legitimate Justice placed on the Court. Until then, it is simply a holding shell waiting for the country to either implode or explode. What a sad time we live in!
19
Thanks to the republican party/crime family/mob/russian agents, a supreme court seat was stolen from the american people. God knows what evil deeds they intend to foster upon this now formally great country.
14
Formerly.
8
One current Supreme Court justice will forever remain a fraud. The fact that the U.S. Senate would not even consider the judge nominated by President Obama will forever stain this bench and Congress.
26
Unfortunately, given the way Gorsuch was installed, I will not personally be able to accept any Court decision that comes down 5-4 in which he is in the majority. For the first time in my life, I don't see the Court as legitimate.
21
No doubt the court is loosing sleep over your view of them.
4
The Supreme Court should lose sleep over people who have lost respect for it, because Joe is far from the only one who feels that way. A court that does not engender respect is a court with no power, and when you pull one of the legs out of our system of government -- particularly in an era when the president does not respect the law -- you're on the a short cut to dictatorship.
7
That's good.
The proper solution in Carpenter would be to eliminate the third-party doctrine entirely and to replace it with the common-law doctrine of illegal contract. This would have the same effect as circumscribing the third-party doctrine to the area in which it arose: the so-called "secret agent" cases. Such a circumscription would, accordingly, be the next best alternative. My full argument for this is laid out in a 2015 article published in St. John's Law Review.
12
Samantha Bee has a nice short take on the judicial activitists (the Federalist Society) who are using phony "originalism" to steal our courts for the new unembarrassed greedsters and dehumanizers of the dispossessed. I'm using the Slate link because it also provides a description and a link to Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/09/28/samantha_bee_on_the_feder...
11
Actually, her material on the Federalist Society and its takeover of our judicial system (helped by Trump's selfish ignorance and the closed minds of the bought and paid for Republicans in Congress) comes from The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, and is well researched. Here:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-...
I don't recall anyone electing Leonard Leo. Samantha Bee, like John Oliver, presents facts and research from others, often quite thorough, in her comedy routines. It is a sad commentary on our contemporary situation that the comedy shows, as was the case with Jon Stewart, provide us with more accurate and better news than the MSM.
14
Susan Anderson,
Thank you for your response. However, I'm actually no more informed on this Samantha Bee's legal background, studies, writings, or qualifications than I was before reading your response. I'm assuming, from your last line, that you value entertainment, but your assertion that Jon Stewart offers "more accurate and better news than the MSM" is a bald assertion. You offer no support except, it seems, a smirk and a nod. Are you able to see how profoundly unconvincing your alleged argument is to someone who isn't already in the same tent as you?
3
And are you aware how your pompous posturing says more about why you'll never be in the same tent?
One is not required to have impeccable credentials in order to explore or critique issues of import. Indeed, satire and parody have long been valuable contributions to discourse.
Of course, before you sew the tent flap shut, instead of pontificating, you could sample Ms Bee's or Mr Oliver's work. I'm quite sure the same magic box that brought you to this comment forum could grant you access.
2
Illegitimate court with a stolen seat.
Politicians in robes. Nothing more or less.
Do not represent the American people by demography, faith, geography or education.
18
Unfortunately I do not believe for one moment that SCOTUS is any longer an independent and apolitical body looking out for all Americans. In reality the Supreme Court Justices obviously can not park their political convictions at the door prior to entering their chamber. The result of the hearing of the partisan gerrymandering case will tell us just how much their decisions are politically influenced.
18
Chief Justice Roberts made a historic blunder by not insisting that his court not be forced to operate short-handed because of Senator Mitch McConnell's grossly unconstitutional stonewalling of a legitimate nominee, Judge Garland, by President Obama. Justice Roberts should have written an open letter to Congress demanding that hearings onJudge Garland take place as constitutionally required, in a timely manner. Judge Roberts is guilty of helping to stack the ideological bent of the court.
30
What is most troubling about the conservatives on the court is their willingness to rule in favor of the entities that have many more resources than the average American. These are the same entities that have often put consumers and employees in danger with their violations. I fail to see what is so attractive to the conservatives that they do not want to support the "little guy" when it comes to serious violations on the part of large or medium sized corporations. We should not be forced to give up our rights when we cross threshold to our workplace or when we purchase a car, a computer, use a credit card, enter a nursing home, etc.
As far as digital privacy goes, all the data breaches mean that our information is unprotected anyway. And if someone is stupid enough to leave their cellphone on or use it when committing a crime they deserve to be imprisoned. What should not be allowed or expected is for police to demand that we hand over our cellphones during a routine stop or that our employers request access to our social media accounts.
If a person is working in a union shop, whether they belong to the union or not they are benefitting from whatever bargains the union is making on behalf of the employees there. Not joining the union can mean that if an employer decides to fire one for no reason there is no place to go for redress. It's as good a reason as any to pay union dues.
14
I suggest you look at the rulings. Democrat appointees are just as likely to side with corporate interests and certainly no more likely to protect digital rights. Look at the record on votes and decisions not your assumptions.
As far as union shops anyone can argue the inverse as well. unionized eployees are living off of benefit provided by non union employees.
1
But the GOP and the conservatives are the ones who are in control right now and they keep on telling us that they care about us, the average American when they don't. Your statement about the union employees living off the benefits of non-union is laughable. Unions, when they were started got us the 40 hour work week, vacation time, sick time, and some protection against the capricious behavior of employers. A well run union can do a lot of good for employees.
9
Thank you hen3ry for your clear and cogent presentation of the ongoing theft of the commons enabled by these judicial activists who appear hell-bent on helping the wealthy and powerful get more power and wealth. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
7
Vain leader, controlling leader, manipulative of the court system , and friends with oligarchs for their advantage.
Comrade Putin?
Nyet.
President Trumpster
8
What, if anything, in the Constitution requires a business to serve everyone?
What if anything, would allow a Federal law requiring serving anyone.?
3
The 14th Amendment, which also proscribed racial discrimination and the Jim Crow laws, applies, here. Both the American Bar Association and the ACLU have plenty of material about this if you want to know more.
9
It's pretty clear already that the right wing Justices are going to say that an individual's own religious beliefs allow them the right to NOT serve people whom their religion denigrates -- just as they did with the Hobby Lobby decision that allowed the owner to decide what his employee would be allowed to have (or not have in this case) in the way of insured birth control. When personally held religious beliefs become protected actions in the world of secular business, it is only a hair's breadth from secular governmental law is under constant threat from competing religions for which one will hold sway for making law.
Sadly, our right wing judges hold individual held prejudice above reasoned, secular law as the "preferred" guide to society. BIG MISTAKE, we went this route in Europe for a few hundred years -- didn't work there, won't work here, but they will do it anyway.
In other cases I have no doubt that the authoritarian leaning Catholics will tend to think alike, and in the greatest of ironies, all those WASP men voters will get skunked again as "the state" will win and the biggest "individuals" of all, i.e. corporate business, will have the law made even more partial for them and the Court will relegate human individual rights to a secondary position.
This Republic is on its way to the dust bin of history. We have a minority led Congress which it will be nearly impossible to alter until after the 2020 census, and that is even now being underfunded.
10
The first case should be the unconstitutional denial by Mitch McConnell of President Obama's right to nominate a Supreme Court Justice.
15
Nobody denied Obama the right to nominate anyone. But nomination does not a Supreme Court justice make. The Constitution requires that SCOTUS judges be confirmed by the Senate, and that's what elections are all about.
2
The GOP denied Obama the right to fulfill his duties as president. One of those duties is the ability to nominate and have appointed a Supreme Court Justice of his choice when there is a vacancy on the court. The GOP, courtesy of Mitch Turtle McConnell denied us and Obama a fair hearing on the nomination of Judge Garland. They wouldn't meet with him or acknowledge the nomination. Therefore the senate, courtesy of McConnell and his bigoted colleagues in the GOP was derelict in its duty to advise and consent.
14
And the Senate illegally refused!!! to do their duty under the Constitution.
11
Does seem momentous but is rather simple.
Monkeying with one person one vote for the sake of politics alters and diminishes that sacrosanct right. Districts should be divided fairly and equally, shouldn't be too hard to do, simple math.
No person should be required to create something against his or her beliefs, much as an Orthodox Jewish baker should not be required to make Heil Hitler Birthday Cakes if he does not wish to (or a cake that is not kosher).
Unions must be protected, and like heath care, they need the whole pool to have an effect. Folks should be able to opt out of union dues so long as they also opt out of union benefits.
Requiring warrants issued by a judge is the lifeblood of liberty, and while "getting criminals" is important, preserving and protecting liberty has always been far more valuable when stacked side by side.
7
I fear we are doomed as a nation if the court upholds this despicable gerrymandering. How is there any way to look the citizens of the US in the eye and say "yes, one of the most precious block to support our democracy is to be able to vote and have your voice heard and we are going to continue to deny you that. Nnot because you're not a valued citizen, who pays taxes and our salaries or have committed a crime or for colluding with foreign governments. We are making your vote not count because we made a deal with a political party." "And ,yes, they make us twist ourselves into judicial pretzels but they also are our people. They invite us to speak at their conferences in places that are so ethically challenging but that's ok."
Like any good performance when gorsuch speaks at Trump hotel, he's the talent but the House promoter takes most of the money for the gig.
They unleashed Citizens United on we the people and now there is a possibility the uphold gerrymandering (BTW has nothing to do with the original constitution) and make our voice obsolete.
It should shame them that we the base of this country has a Congress that hasn't worked for any of us for almost a decade, a President who is intentionally dividing the country, is getting filthy rich and could possibly be a traitor.
Let us not forget that the same republics the GOP and President fawn over (Russia, Saudi Arabia) make judges disappear.
4
And remember, one of these seats was stolen with the help of the Bernie Bros. who elected Donald Trump.
1
If the justices are going to just be pawns of the party that appointed them then this system has to end. Life terms were invented when your probably dead at 60. We can't have this much power just because you can live long.
5
Jim you are so right. I find it odd and disconcerting at the same time that most if not all major cases are decided on a 5-4 vote. How can thst be. Are there ever any major cases decided by a 9-0 vote? I don't get it and it's a symptom of what's wrong with our government. No one agrees on most everything
3
Most cases are decided 9-0. It's only the controversial ones that get all the publicity that tend to be split.
Gorsuch,President Obama had the constitutional right to appoint the next Justice .Mitch McConnell blocked the president and waited until Trump
Was inaugurated,then illegally saw Trump introduce Gorsuch as the next
Justice.This has never happened in our country's history.Other criminal outrageous acts have happened , but not this egregious ,publicly ignoring the
Constitution and the sitting presidents right to nominate his choice for the
Court.McConnell needs to be censured and told to leave the Congress ,
Permanently,in disgrace.Trump was fully aware he had no right to send any one to the court.Our rule of law has been trashed by these criminals.
8
Hey Nancy, it wasn't illegal. Stop the complaining. The Dems would have done the same thing. In fact Harry Reid did it for all judges except SOTUS. So spare all of us your indignation.
3
as the downward spiral of america accelerates.
3
Perfect - the supreme clowns in for life. What is wrong with this country?
3
Gerrymandering is unconstitutional for many reasons. In the most egregious cases, the incumbents are picking their voters instead of the other way around. This violates the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the First Amendment. It is fundamentally unfair, treats American citizens unequally based on political party affiliation, and intentionally nullifies a class of voters the expression of their political will.
mB, SCOTUS practitioner
8
If the Supreme Court upholds political redistricting ("gerrymandering", office holders picking their voters instead of voters picking their office holders), then we will be in a permanent condition in which 40% of the vote can win 60% of the seats. That will be the end of democracy in the US.
8
Unfortunately, the blatent theft of a Supreme Court vacancy by the Republicans has made any ruling of questionable legitimacy.
9
Those who think Gorsuch's appointment was illegal are whiners. Once Obama was illegally barred by McConnell, he could have made his own illegal appointment. Instead of fighting fire with fire, Democrats whine and whine They should organize the cry baby party.
1
Nomination. Article Two of the United States Constitution requires the President of the United States to nominate Supreme Court Justices and, with Senate confirmation, requires Justices to be appointed. ... "he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ...
So when the Senate refuses to Advise and Consent..then what? Stop apologizing for the Anti-Obama racists who rule this nation with an iron fist.
9
Oh dear, I thought you were a well-informed moderate. Here's some expert analysis of what's going on for you:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-badly-is-neil-gorsuch-a...
and for background:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-...
I don't recall anyone voting for Leonard Leo, who appears to have helped pick half the current justices, leading to a hyperconservative court that my old-fashioned conservative Republican friends find unrecognizable.
Obama is a legal scholar, and he had no interest in breaking the law or imposing his will in a dictatorial way. He did, finally, resort to executive orders, but we do know that McConnell and his cabal publicly stated they would obstruct him on the day of his first inauguration and never departed from that plan.
Be careful, you have a goose gander problem here.
4
And when Obama crafted executive orders, he was careful to make them fit the case and the law, and he didn't crow about them in the self-indulgent bully-child way ugly theater that is pushing the country into disgust and opposition.
2
We can be certain that "Justice" Gorsuch will be the knife blade of the hard right. McConnell didn't stick his neck out to block the constitution's functioning just to get a moderate, fair-minded scholar. Gorsuch is Trumpism in black robes. Gays, get to the back of the bus! Labor unions abolished, workers ground to pulp by their employers, and don't forget guns, guns and more guns.
3
The gerrymandering case is of tremendous importance to New York City, where, when the last redistricting took place, the instructions clearly told those engaged in the process, to be sure to change district lines to guarantee that the members of every minority group, got a representative.
This was a disaster for good government, because it split apart physical neighborhoods, making it difficult for residents to join together to demand that issues such as schooling our children, sanitation, policing, traffic problems, and zoning be properly handled by the City Council.
In New York City, everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or ancestry has the exact same problems - splitting apart government into "Tammany Hall" vote grabbing districts is not a help in getting things done.
It would really improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers, if the Supreme Court stopped political gerrymandering from taking place. We need to organize around the needs of our residents, not the needs of our politicians.
5
I'm a 4th generation American, and not an anarchist, but I must admit major hesitation at complying with anything this Supreme Court decrees. First, they decided a President at the request of his brother, stopping a recount due to "hanging chads" that had not been a problem in Florida in the past. Then, that President for 8 years stacked them with Conservatives. The final straw was when the current congress refused a highly qualified candidate for 10 months, waiting to install another Republican in a country with at least half Democrats. Unfair. This is actually NOT MY SUPREME COURT.
7
The court is invalidated by Gorsuch's appointment. Judicial legitimacy is under attack. There are issues where I break in favor of the conservative argument. However, it doesn't matter. The current court is a sham. I won't trust any ruling one way or the other. The court is dead. God save the court.
3
Ah, c'mon kids. It is not even Monday yet and you are ripping at some members of the Supreme Court already.
At least give them a chance.
I can guarantee this. Their decisions will be in full complete sentences which can be understood unlike the gentleman occupying the Whitehouse who could use a spellcheck app :).
2
Living in Kansas and voting Democratic is a frustrating thing. Since Dan Glickman (D) was defeated by Todd Tiahart(R), in the 1994 Congressional campaign, my votes have been generally meaningless on the national, state and local levels. The exception is when a Democrat is elected to the Presidency. When Obama was elected I was thrilled because along with just having a Democrat as President, there are the judicial nominations.
However, so many of Obama's nominations to the courts were blocked by the Republicans as per their boast to block Obama at every turn. But it never occurred to me that with one more year to go in office that Mitch McConnell would change the rules. I shouldn't have been surprised really, but I was.
I feel disenfranchised. Like my vote for Obama didn't count because this SCOTUS seat was stolen and to me all decisions coming from this court while Gorsuch is there are invalid.
12
As long as Gorsuch sits on the court, it is illegitimate.
8
During his confirmation hearings and he consistently cried, and seemed how could you ask me that, we knew we were in for trouble. Crying when talking about generic topics showed he would never make it as an actor. Republicans again have shown this country what disregard it has for our rights. Shame.
1
I am pretty sure that I can predict which way the Court will decide on any politically relevant case. Five Republicans, four Democrats; GOP wins. The Court has simply become a partisan branch of the government. Maybe there was a dat when the Court was more than a branch of a political of a political government.
7
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of the United States of America is compromised by political tribute to be paid. It's not new.Clarence Thomas has never had one day of independence as a Justice. Roberts, Alito and Scalia, whose been replaced by Gorsuch are wedded to Republican/conservative ideals. Sotomayer, Ginsberg and Kaga, likewise liberals. If there was every going to be a balance on the court, it surely isn't happening now when even justices do not respect the appearance of impropriety and go to speak at Trump's hotel.
So now there are nine(9) or the full house. Four to four decisions can be expected with one person to swing it. Thomas quiet while some of the most important civil rights cases come before the court is still the embarrassment he has always been IF he is the token African-American on the court. Thurgood Marshall was no token. It is disgraceful that he was followed by Thomas as the lone African-American Justice.
If these trained Jurist were not obligated to the administrations that appointed them perhaps this nation would be on a better standing than presently. I am an optimist; I do not feel optimistic about the decision that will be coming out of this court session. And I pray that anyone thinking of retirement remains on the court until Trump is out of the WH.
3
Gorsuch is shameless. A despicable, illegitimate addition to the court, who will turn out to be worse than Scalia, I never thought that could be posssible, but Gorsuch has a real nasty, arrogant, duplicitous air to him. He put on a "Oh golly" "howdy doody" act during his confirmation. But his real self is grotesque.
10
Gorsuch and the right wingers are salivating out of both sides of their mouths...
5
Back to full GOP mischief.
4
While the Supreme Court contemplates gutting the power of workers to insist that their peers participate in labor unions, Donald Trump’s efforts to to renegotiate NAFTA have motivated Canada to speak up for American employees. According to our northern neighbors, laws and policies that drive down workers wages and threaten their well-being are illegally giving American companies a labor cost advantage. If the Supreme Court sides with employers who force employees to sign away their rights (somehow that is okay in the United States, but when unions require compliance with their interests, it is wrong), an international ruling may come to an opposite conclusion. Meanwhile, workers in the United States are being absorbed into the labor conditions of poorer countries without leaving home. Fun times!
5
An international ruling in a transnational arbitration run by corporate lawyers will come down on the side of the U.S., weakening unions and worker rights all around the world.
It is just another Republican twisting of language into its opposite, to call it a "right" to be paid less and get less benefits. Soon we will have a right to work an 80 hour week.
Unions are not perfect, but negotiating without a union is like one person playing football against a professional team. You get crushed.
5
The Supreme Court will not be back at full strength until Merrick Garland gets hearing and McConnell resigns after his name is dragged lower than Joe McCarthy.
It wasn't like Mr Garland was even a liberal by anyone's standard up until President Obama made his nomination. He's almost as pro-cop/anti anyone else who is worth less than ten figures at birth as Gorsuch. However, the US Constitution has more in it than the first line of the second amendment, even if we all like to pretend that the fourth and sixteenth do not exist sometimes.
We had a procedure to nominate a new justice, It hasn't been followed. Until it is the court is just as toxic to America as POTUS.
11
When it comes to confirmation hearings, the most important issue is always abortion. More important than capital punishment, than the right to free speech, gun ownership rights, minority rights, health care and the right to commit assisted suicide, among others. According to Planned Parenthood, most unplanned pregnancies result from the failure to take birth control pills on schedule. PP further says that many abortions are the result of carelessness and urges women to exercise greater care.
I'm not making this stuff up. That's what PP says. Bottom line, they're saying that the most important constitutional right repeatedly remedies carelessness. I have a hard time understanding why the right to abortion, which is not carefully guarded, is the most important legal issue out there. And don't get me wrong, I favor the right to abortion. I just don't think its importance comes close to a lot of other rights. If it was that important there'd be a lot less carelessness out there..
1
Unfortunately, the same people that oppose abortion generally oppose sex ed, so young people are not taught how to keep from getting pregnant. That is why red states have more unintended pregnancies.
Personally I'm pretty sure that if the Supreme Court were to actually strike down Roe V Wade, women would rise up like a tidal wave and the Republican Party would be over.
1
In the Republican mind, the right to life stops at birth. Care for the child, the mother, the health of the family, that can all go. Planned Parenthood's principle business is caring for women's health, always has been, always will be, and they also care for men's reproductive health.
It is the business of Planned Parenthood to advocate for the whole family, and it appears to me that you misrepresent their position.
1
We need to pray for the health of Justice Kennedy, as many of these critical decision will boil down to his vote. His balanced reasoning and centrist position are all that keep this court from tipping too far in either direction, although it lists heavily to starboard (right) most of the time these days.
4
it's important to make two different distinctions: 1) mobile phone companies tracking your location; 2) versus tracking apps that you turn off and on as you see fit for an apps services. For example, I do not necessarily want my mobile phone company following me around. However I do like driving, etc. tracking opt-in apps, but I initiate those on purpose, as a choice, and I have control over when it's turned on and when it's turned off - and I get to see what is tracked. You can't do that when you're talking about mobile phone company tracking.
2
We make phone calls through the phone company, but the phone company is not supposed to let the government bug your phone without a warrant (at least in public supreme court decisions-the FISA court does strange things i secret- notice the government thinks secrets are important). Privacy is key to keeping the government, now in the hands of a lying psychopath, from using our information against us.
There is supposed to be reasonable suspicion that crime has been committed, then a warrant issued.
Trump already wants to see the information of a million people that protested at his inauguration. Privacy isn't just some luxury for rich people who can afford special treatment.
If you don't think you have anything to hide, please post all of your account numbers and passwords here. And please include anything bad you may have said about Trump, because he is really interested.
The constitution has not been amended to make exceptions to the right to keep your private information secret, and the Supreme Court should not be overruling the constitution (especially while pretending to be stacked with "originalists."
As others have pointed out, the real danger in this session is a Supreme Court Decision that overreaches like Dredd Scott under Roger Taney. With half the country considering Neil Gorsuch to be an illegitimate justice, a decision that explicitly made all states "right to work" or decided that all cell phone use did not require a search warrant would surely split the country and destroy the current two party system as dramatically as the Taney court did. I can see our current system re-organizing into three or more parties: Progressive, centrist left, centrist right, far right, and a populist party.
2
"Populist" is a word rich people use to denigrate people that fight for the people. Trump pretended to be a populist to get elected.
Whenever the rich support a populist, you know something is screwy.
We are at a point of great consequence in this country. The Legislature is wildly polarized and, as a result remains static. The Presidency is occupied by a man who desires greatness, but has no capacity for it. The Supreme Court contains the brilliant minds of the most conservative and liberal justices of this country, as well as a resolved middle. The founders of this country understood the struggle of power that might erupt among the three branches of government. I hope they were equally prescient in balancing the indecision resulting from the stupidity of the branches. This, is the time for our most diverse, educated, and sequestered branch of government to rise above the petty squabble and provide nonpoliticized direction to this great nation.
19
For me this will always be the SCOTUS with an asterisk. Not only was the way that Neil Gorsuch was installed a disgrace; but he himself is a disgrace for accepting the nomination, coming to him as it did in such an odious way.
14
Given how proudly conservative the majority of the Supreme Court justices are, it is easy to foresee the outcome of the cases being presented before the Court this next term. Members of the court claim that the court is not politicized, but their rulings convey otherwise. We no longer have a system of checks and balances, but a system that is noticeably rigged against the disadvantaged and will remain this way for years to come.
I almost question why the justices go through the motions.
6
Yes, our government now checks the power of the People and balances the needs of various billionaires.
We outnumber them 1,000 to one. We have the votes. We have the power. But if you give the workers and the poor no party that fights for them, and don't demand that they organize for their own self interest, they will not vote.
It is time for Democrats to chose a side. Republican Lite or the organized left.
Now we will see if the Republicans got what they paid for when McConnell stole the Supreme Court from President Obama. I'm afraid they will paid off with interest.
We may eventually rid the country of this onerous Republican so-called leadership, but these packed courts will be haunting us for a long, long time.
81
If for nothing else, we should all express our deep gratitude to Mitch for holding Scalia's seat open. Gorsuch is the rightful heir.
3
In what way does he deserve that seat?
3
The Supreme Court is now nothing but political operatives. The Republican Senators were like common thieves when they would not bring Garland's nomination to a vote. The exceptionalism of the US is a thing of the past.
8
I cannot understand why there hasn't anyone challenged the election day set on Tuesday. Most people have to work and physically presence during the week day. Either change the election day to weekend giving people a choice or extend the election hours to 24 hours. If we are serious enough and care about the voting, then we should have the courage to extend our service to voter's convenience. On a separate matter, why can't the Supreme Court Justices initiate their own lawsuits when they see something unfit, improper, and injustice to the society.
2
People have challenged it, but global corporate mass media ignores them. They ignore everything that corporations don't want you to think about. The billionaires that own the media, and the CEOs that work for them have veto power over content. That is how they twist public opinion against its own self interest.
1
With Gorsuch occupying a stolen seat on the bench, appointed by an illegitimate regime, nothing the court rules on where he casts the deciding vote, is valid. The court is illegitimate, and their "rulings" should be completely disregarded, until Gorsuch is removed.
102
I agree. But how do we correct this Republican malfeasance, and get rid of the malicious Gorsuch? Our democracy is in serious danger.
3
To not mention Merrick Garland in the opening sentence in relation to anything about the Supreme Court gives republicans a pass.
They STOLE that seat, but not even giving the nominee of President Obama a hearing. All decisions should be null and void going forward.
The NYTimes is being complicit in the theft of Democracy itself.
17
I doesn't really matter who wins the argument over whether the Supreme Court has become a political branch of the government or whether the justices are activists. Too many Americans on both sides believe that the court HAS become political, and believe that justices ARE acting like activists. So something isn't working the way its supposed to. Time to change it. Time to look at the big picture of what the founders wanted -- an apolitical court - and figure out how to now in 2017 appoint justices who will be able to take positions that are apolitical. If you don't think you can do that, you don't belong on a court.
4
Hold tight to you civil rights, everyone. They will be under severe challenge and many will probably be lost. If trump doesn't get rid of things like freedom of the press and freedom of assembly and speech, as he continues his oath to dictatorship, this court may do so. The balance of this court is George Bush's lasting legacy.
6
To all those Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders voters in key battleground states last fall who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she was not "pure" enough for you, well guess what, you own this Supreme Court.
I hope you are happy now that you are a major contributing factor in helping turn back the clock so many good, hard fought battles by people who acted as adults and not viewed the world through an ideological binary prism.
And for Democratic Party supporters, we need to become that big tent again by uniting together to fight extremism and elitism in our party if we hope to reverse the disease that will be spawn from this reactionary, conservative Supreme Court.
27
People should vote for the candidate of their choice. Whoever has the most support appoints Supreme Court justices. Blaming others for your own failure is petty and mean-spirited. The real reason the Court is moving right is that Clinton supporters didn't get the job done.
5
Perhaps, if Ms. Clinton had not assumed she was entitled to the support of some of those key battleground states and, instead, actually visited them and listened to their people, she might have gained enough support to win.
And had Ms. Clinton not participated in the corruption of the nominating process, including accepting an advance copy of debate questions, as well as supporting rules that spotted her a large swath of delegate votes regardless of the votes of the people, perhaps the DNC would have ended up nominating Bernie Sanders and, being the most popular politician in America, he might have won.
But we will never know because HRC did overlook the states that cost her the electoral college majority, she did work to stack the deck against Bernie Sanders, and she did not go to battle to contest voting "irregularities" in key battleground states that might have exposed a system vulnerable to corrupt vote counting that remain unchecked. She also did not take responsibility for her failures, preferring to blame everyone else, just like Donald Trump does.
And maybe, just maybe, if more Democrats had insisted on a fair process and accountability to the people, Ms. Clinton might have been forced to earn enough respect to win or be forced out in the primary for inspiring almost as much distrust and animus as Trump had going into the election.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote cut evil. Hopefully the Democrats will keep that in mind next time.
5
So, it wasn't the Russian interference.
It was the Clinton interference that did it.
2
I base the following predictions on my take of how I believe the three unreconstructed conservatives plus Chief Justice Roberts will vote, how the four liberals will vote, and how Anthony Kennedy will land on each of the specific cases.
On gerrymandering and the rolls-culling issue, which will turn on technical issues, I believe that Kennedy will vote with the right in a 5-4 decision to leave things as they are. Where egregious gerrymanders and other state voting rights legislation have been demonstrated conclusively to be racial in motivation, they have been reversed by the federal courts, so adequate legal protections can be argued to exist now. Where other political motivations are argued as the basis of an alleged gerrymander, and on the rolls-culling issue, I believe that the Court will reason that this is a political outcome organic and basic to our form of government, and to change that should be a process managed by the political, not the judicial arms of government.
On religion and discrimination, I believe that Kennedy will vote will the liberals, creating another 5-4 decision with the opposite outcome. I believe that he will reason in a very close call of conscience, that the religious convictions of individuals should be respected in most things but that the consequences to an American’s right to live his life as he sees fit within the law would be unacceptable if services were denied to him on the basis of an identity choice that is lawful.
On worker’s rights and the class-action waiver, I see no reason to suggest that Kennedy will vote differently for unions than he did in consumer cases, resulting in a 5-4 decision allowing arbitration. “Concerted activities” can be practiced within a framework of arbitration, unless one chooses to define that term as strikes, and that is an ideologically convenient definition. On the collective bargaining issue, to rule for the unions would be to put their collective interests above those of individuals, and I don’t see Kennedy doing that – another 5-4 decision that will favor the right.
On digital privacy, this will turn on whether Mr. Carpenter voluntarily supplied location information to carriers or other parties, such as Google. If he did, I believe that the decision could be 6-3, 7-2 or 8-1 against him, with Kagan joining Kennedy affirming no right of privacy if information is voluntarily supplied, possibly with even Breyer and Sotomayor concurring. If it wasn’t voluntarily supplied, the decision will be closer but still against Carpenter – 5-4, with Kennedy siding reflexively on the side of law-and-order. He would reason that obtaining records that exist in a public company is not the same as ransacking a private cellphone or placing a GPS transmitter on a car without a warrant.
Not surprisingly, in all but one case that turns on conscience, I believe that these cases will be decided to support an originalist view of the Court’s role. Elections have consequences.
1
This is not a legitimate court - Gorsuch has no legitimacy as a judge on it.
This is now a Republican kangaroo court whose rulings will never be seen as legitimate by the rest of the country of the world until Mr. Gorsuch is replaced and President Obama's choice seated on the bench. Until that happens, this is a partisan, right-wing institution of the Republican Party, wholly owned and paid for.
They deserve all of the respect that President Obama was accorded by the repugnant, reckless, lawless Republicans that forced this illegitimate carpetbagger into his place extra-legally.
13
There is so much to toss and turn over, but Neil Gorsuch -- how he came to occupy a stolen seat AND his examining rulings in the lower court -- particularly keep me up at night. I worry greatly about what this court will do to our tattering democracy.
93
You can expect the same as you got from Scalia, but an even more ideologically pure version. It is, indeed, cause for consternation.
14
"Another may settle the question of whether businesses can turn away patrons like gay couples in the name of religious freedom."
Attention should be paid to this case IMO because it's a quick and slippery slope from "My business is not legally required to serve LGBT people because of my beliefs" to "My business is not legally required to serve African-American/Hispanic/Asian/Muslim/Jewish people because of my beliefs".
A federal lawsuit: "Minnesota Videographers Said They Don’t Have to Film Gay Weddings. A Judge Disagreed."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/minnesota-gay-marriage-video.html
"The couple wanted to post a statement on their website saying they would not make films celebrating same-sex marriages, court documents said...But Judge Tunheim, who dismissed the lawsuit, said that the statement was “conduct akin to a ‘White Applicants Only’ sign that may be prohibited without implicating the First Amendment. ..."Posting language on a website telling potential customers that a business will discriminate based on sexual orientation is part of the act of sexual orientation discrimination itself,” the judge said, adding, “as conduct carried out through language, this act is not protected by the First Amendment."
(According to their local newspaper, this couple, Angel and Carl Larsen, are planning an appeal to this federal ruling.)
P.S. What Justice Gorsuch may reveal is that Chief Justice Roberts has a mind of his own, as he showed in the 2015 ACA vote. We'll see.
7
The gay wedding-cake case will be decided as a freedom of speech issue. There's no way that the SCOTUS will make it a religious freedom issue, and the reason for that is 'Employment Division vs Smith', a 1990 majority opinion written by the late hero of the Right, Antonin Scalia.
Scalia ruled that government no longer has to show a compelling state interest for denying religious exemptions, as long as the law in question applies generally to everyone; "a law of general applicability".
So forget about religious freedom arguments- there's already Supreme Court precedent about that one, and there is no way that the Originalist activists on today's court are going to overrule their hero Scalia.
When all three branches of government are in republican hands, the US as a democracy will be over.
6
They are. It is.
2
Unless the people rise up and take it back before they cement their hold over the institutions of government.
When they say Deep State, what they really mean is the institutional memory of democracy. The experts and professionals that make government work are under attack. They cannot protect us. We must protect them.
2018 may be too late. Trump may start a war and declare martial law. That is how democracies become Tyrannies. If you do not think it can happen here, you have not read enough history.
Fight for democracy. Fight for your constitution.
When Trump is proven to be the criminal and traitor most of us know he is, Gorsuch will have to go. There will be no reason to ever respect any decision that he, as the agent of a criminal and traitor and as a squatter in the seat stolen by McConnell, has made. The Executive Branch will be within its rights to refuse to enforce any SCOTUS ruling with Gorsuch's vote as the margin.
Advice to Neil: Don't get too comfy and cozy on the bench. You don't belong there. You are not going to be around long enough to earn a pinch of a pension.
When Trump goes down, Gorsuch gotta go too.
Think of this like "clawback" laws. Ill gotten gains by criminals and traitors must never be allowed to stand.
7
I sure wish I had had a chance to hear Garland Merrick before the Senate committee - I was out of town at the time. What's that you say? He wasn't given a chance to appear? Who was responsible for that??
7
Hopefully both Kennedy and Ginsburg will soon depart the court so that President Trump can put in place a strong Federalist Society SCOTUS which will protect our constitution for decades.
6
You mean "appoint more radical activist judges who ignore caselaw and precedent and think they can use the founding fathers as ventriloquist dummies"?
There's no way that the men who wrote and ratified the Constitution of the United States would approve of these Originalists. Anyone familiar with the Federalist Papers would agree. Were Alexander Hamilton alive today, he'd go upside all their heads.
9
The Republican Party is against the constitution. That is why compromise with them is a mistake.
The Constitution says that the point of government is to insure domestic tranquility and provide for the general welfare. Attacking other countries all over the world, and splitting us off from our allies, is not insuring domestic tranquility. Cutting services for most people to give tax cuts to billionaires is not providing for the general welfare.
The constitution says nothing about capitalism and the only thing it says about markets is that government has the right to regulate trade.
They keep equating markets with democracy because the want to replace democracy (one person=one vote) with markets (one billion dollars=one vote) because then the rich would have all the votes.
The Republicans have elected and fully support a liar who has undermined the constitution at every opportunity, including helping to steal a Supreme Court Seat.
They have even undermined the Post Office, which is directly created by the constitution, by forcing it to prepay healthcare and pension expenses 70 years into the future, something no other organization does.
The only thing originalist about Republicans is that originally there was a king and they want another one.
Democrats if you do not stop this massive attack on the constitution from the right, you will be irrelevant. Stop playing footsie with those that want to destroy our Republic and organize the left to take back democracy.
1
Neil "Frozen Trucker" Gorsuch isn't a legitimate Supreme Court judge. Note that in addition to Clinton winning the popular, Democrats in the House and the Senate received many millions more total votes than Republicans there. This is not democracy -- we are being ruled by a tyrannical right wing, whose party standard-bearer says that among KKKers and Nazis, there are many "very fine people."
Disgusting. Take a knee.
12
We have an illegitimate Supreme Court, an illegitimate President and a worthless Congress. We've hit the trifecta of broken government!
25
Yes we can have peaceful revolution now, or a civil war later. Pick one.
Let's hope that Ginsberg and Kennedy will oblige, soon. Two more SC appointments and the Trump legacy will last for a generation. MAGA!
7
The American legacy will be browbeaten, and ragetweeten, all the while.
1
I think Gorsuch is going to be the final variable that pushes the Supreme Court's decisions half a century or more backward. He is Scalia without the high IQ or sense of humor. But if you are a wealthy white "Christian" male, you are in good hands.
8
Ah, the defenders of plutocracy back at it again. Ordinary people don't stand a chance.
6
Any five-to-four decision in which Gorsuch is part of the majority, is illegitimate and not legal... He was not appointed by the protocol prescribed in the US Constitution. The seat was stolen by a shameless corporate owned partisan worm in the Senate... The fact that he accepted the appointment to this stolen seat has already revealed his main motive is political, and in no way reflects the spirit of the US Constitution and the intentions of our founding father's who penned it.
And he has the audacity to claim he is an ORIGINALIST!
11
He took the oath, he's on the court and his decisions will stand. Win an election.
3
Barack Obama won the 2012 election which gave him the right to appoint his nominee. There is no justification for waiting until the subsequent election to nominate a justice. Obama won fair and square. McConnell and his fellow republicans cheated. To attach any legitimacy to Gorsuch's appointment is the height of cynicism.
5
Supreme Court justices are not appointed. Nomination is the easy part; the hard part, which you overlook, is confirmation. For someone who professes loyalty to the Constitution, you seem unfamiliar with its text or how it works.
2
By November of 2018 it should be crystal-clear just how much damage McConnell did to our nation by installing Gorsuch. Hopefully Kobach will not have destroyed our democracy by then.
7
McConnell will go down in history as a monster, for sure, but a monster who lost all his power and became the pathetic figure he is today - crushed, impotent and finished.
4
No commentators here are bothered by SCOTUS being "kangaroo court".
As long as it "jumps" their way. But when it doesn't they are on the front lines railing against the concept.
4
1, I have read that extreme gerrymandering cost the Democrats 7 votes in the House, which is nit very many. Maybe others have heard otherwise. But if it's true, It seems razy for the Republicans to repeatedly test the limits.
2. I don't know what the courts will decide on the religion and discrimination issue. But if the religious discriminated against me, I sure would discriminate against them. Nothing good comes of that.
3. On the workers; rights case it seems to me that small disputes should be resolved by arbitration and major disputes should be resolved by litigation. But since when has common sense had anything to do with the law?
4. On the digital privacy case, I have some expertise. The issue is whether the government acquired the cellphone data in violation of the Fourth Amendment. But even if the government violated the Constitution, it may well be of no use to Mr. Carpenter. It used to be that Fourth Amendment violations triggered the exclusionary rule, so that the cellphone evidence could not be used.. The court has cut back on the exclusionary rule, so that whatever it decides, the cellphone data may still be admissible to convict Mr. Carpenter.
2
Another undermining of the Bill of Rights by the Supreme Court, which keeps giving more rights to corporations (75% owned by billionaires) and making exceptions for actual humans.
I deplore comments below on the newest Justice.
This is American politics pure and simple.
The first Chief Justice, Mr. Marshall was a "midnighr" appointment of our second president, Mr. Adams.
Nothing that the 3rd president, Mr. Th. Jefferson could do about it thiugh he was philosophically opposed to mr. Marshall even if both were Virginians.
And without realizing, Th. Jefferson helped our system of government when Mr, Marshall famously declared "emphatic responsibility of this court to declare what the law is."
So, please give the newest Justice a break.
He may yet help with a ruling that the "liberals" may end up admiring down the road.
And as the liberal's favorite #44th famously said, "elections have consequences."
And as his VP famously said in the well of the House,"it's over."
7
If during the Bush Administration, the Democratic Majority in the Senate had refused to consider his USSC nomination, almost a year before an election, my guess is you would make the opposite argument.... You'd be screaming "Treason!" Nice try, but no sale, Neil...
19
The interesting part is that most members of the Supreme Court tend to drift to the left over time, as they get more acquainted with the constitution and how the law is supposed to work.
The court is tainted by the GOP.
12
Robert Bork.
At least Bork got a vote.
1
John from Bernardsville
Where in the Constitution is there a requirement that any nominee be voted on? (Hint: nowhere). And what would have been the point of having a vote that Garland would have lost?
1
I can't help but think that the people saying they want an America where basic human rights are denied really ought not live here. I think Papa Putin would welcome you, though, since he seems to share your 'values'.
8
Yes and if you don't like regulations, move to China. The only regulations they have there on what you can say and who you have sex with, a perfect fit for Republicans. Pollution and worker rights are not regulated at all, and they have already slashed the safety nets that used to protect people.
And you will have the right to build Apple Phones without a functioning union.
China is Trump supporter Paradise.
But will they have the chutzpah o remove this idiot from office? (And I'm not even Jewish) but it is the only word to describe what's needed. "In a fresh set of Twitter messages from his New Jersey golf club, where he was spending the weekend, Mr. Trump diminished Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s outreach to Pyongyang and its autocratic leader, Kim Jong-un, leaving the impression that he was focused on possible military action. On a visit to China, Mr. Tillerson acknowledged on Saturday that he was trying to open talks. " The president is a war mongering monkey. Get him out of office, please. Please. Please someone save us from the destruction he is creating.
15
He wants to start WWIII. (Yes you cannot attack North Korea without China getting involved, and since China has more people that Russia, which shares thousands of miles of border with them the Russians will likely ally with them.)
He wants a war so he can declare martial law. Trump and his supporters against checks and balances. He wants to be emperor.
Stop ignoring the obvious.
Tragically, there little reason to expect this latter-day Taney court to do anything for the American people, for representative democracy, for the environment -- or for any cause that impinges on the rich and powerful.
6
Two out of the nine justices got there in ugly partisan ways.
Not legit. Corrupted from day one.
Thomas and Gorsuch are soul brothers in this sense.
17
Roger Maris does not have an asterisk.
There is only one line for Season Home Runs.
Supreme Court decisions do not carry asterisks.
1
"consider the privacy of location data held by cellphone companies"
A related question is that those same companies will not tell the owner of the phone the location of a lost or stolen phone. They consider the owner's privacy to be the company's proprietary information that the owner can't know, about his own phone. THEN they want to sell that to other people instead.
This is about taking information from one to benefit another, private information.
3
Yes we have allowed our privacy to be turned into a commodity. See the film "Terms and Conditions My Apply" to see how insidious this really is, to see the Irishman who sued to get the thousand pages of searchable info Facebook had on him, and to see Mark Zuckerberg adamantly demand that he has a right to privacy when the film makers tried to interview him in front of his house.
If you have nothing to hide please copy all of your account information and passwords here:
What's in your wallet?
1
"whether government workers who choose not to join unions may be forced to pay for the unions’ collective bargaining work"
A closely related question is whether unions are forced to bargain on behalf of non-members for free, getting them equal treatment without any contribution to pay for that benefit.
So, are non-union workers to become second class workers, or to become free riders? Actually, the real answer sought is to bust unions so all workers become second class.
8
I was, involuntarily, a member of a union that consistently lobbied on the opposite side of issues I cared about yet I was forced to pay for that.
3
Anne Smith, no, you're not. Look up Beck v IBEW and Financial Core.
1
It's entirely debatable whether a "free-rider" benefits from a union contract. It's more like "forced-rider", as these non-agency paying employees are forced to support political positions such as seniority based layoffs and LIFO if they are represented by the union. Many may choose to bargain by their own and be free of these union contracts. And taking away power from these public sector unions may not be a bad thing for many taxpayers in this country who are supporting many public employees with generous six-figure salaries and $1+ million pensions. It's a broken market because of the strength and greed of many public sector unions. Since Abood was decided in 1977, history has proven that its impossible for public sector unions to separate dues that should be used for contract negotiations / political purposes.
1
"The Supreme Court has generally favored contracts that require disputes to be resolved informally through arbitration rather than litigation."
The Supreme Court has also assumed that those arbitration are and will be fair. The Supreme Court has never said those arbitrations are meant to allow less just outcome, just cheaper and faster outcomes.
Arbitration can be cheaper and faster. I've been an arbitrator, and I've done a great many arbitrations for both plaintiff and defense. I know the strengths of the process, but I also know the weaknesses of it.
The biggest weaknesses are that it can run away without supervision to be abused, and there is then no check on the abuse. That is NOT something the Supreme Court will allow, if it ever admits that is what is happening.
Arbitration will be favored only so long as the Supreme Court can pretend it is as fundamentally just as the long and more expensive court process.
Arbitration has been manipulated and abused to avoid just outcomes, in favor of the extreme desires of those best places to manipulate the process.
Whether today or someday soon, that will hit its hard limit.
3
Remove the criminal from the Supreme
Court! No decision is valid while Gorsuch sits!
12
The conservative judges seem to render decisions based on facts.
I can't wait for another liberal judge to retire.
7
I have no quarrel with conservative judges. Mr. Gorsuch is a common thief who stole a seat in collusion with the GOP congressional leadership. Justices who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States regardless of their orientation, should be jurists of honor. Mr. Gorsuch does not live up to that standard.
In CA the DMV requires all drivers over 70 to take a competency and eye test.
Good thing for Kennedy and RBG their aren't CA registered drivers: they'd be of the streets in a heartbeat
4
Right on!
Get rid of all those old justices (who don't agree with me)
If you read the article carefully, you will see that it is not about driving.
2
All of the moaning about Trump. This is the real reason conservatives and moderates voted. We do not want the world liberals want.
11
And, Hooey, it should go without saying that liberals don't want the world conservatives want.
This is the world that conservatives want:
(1) The vote should belong exclusively to white Christian men.
(2) The Bill of Rights should not apply to blacks, latinos, muslims, gays and women.
(3) Any kind of discrimination--in commerce, in the workplace, at colleges & schools, in houses of worship, in any venue, at any time--should be legal, except discrimination against white Christian men.
(4) Saluting the flag and singing the national anthem should be mandatory at all public gatherings, including sporting events, plays, movies & concerts. Flag-burning should be punishable by immediate deportation.
(5) Any criticism of a white Christian politician, or a white Christian preacher, or a white Christian businessman should be a crime.
(6) Any protest by anybody against any authority (except the IRS) should be a crime. Protests against the police should be a major felony.
(7) The death penalty should be re-instated everywhere, for any crime that the majority of white Cristian men feel deserve it.
(8) Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security & disability insurance should be eliminated.
(9) Any government function that could be performed by the private should be turned over to that sector as soon as possible.
(10) Gun ownership should be restricted to white Christian men.
22
Moderates do not support Trump.
1
Note: these hypocrites are not Christians in the real sense. Plenty of Christians are good people who do their best to follow the Jesus of the Gospels, an excellent example.
Along with a President who was not popularly elected, a Congress skewed to the right by gerrymandering and voter suppression we now have another institution within our country that has been totally corrupted by the blatant unconstitutional and uncivil actions of denying Merrick Garland, Obama's appointment, this seat by the partisan right wing Republican Party. I think we can forget about fairness and justice for now. The facade has fallen off the robes. Right wing partisan political operatives remain in the majority to enforce the right wing agenda.
24
We lost the Executive Branch with the Trump Russia election of 2016.
We have lost the Legislative branch over Congressional ineptitude since then, as they try again and again to pass things via "reconciliation" without having a true Senate vote or debate.
Too bad Mitch McConnell self reported the theft of Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland as "his greatest triumph." It looked good in the short term.
But now all coming decisions will be tainted -- and thus we no longer have a single branch of government that we can view as acting by Constitutional mandate.
6
Racial discrimination in housing, restaurants, and other businesses is illegal. Presumably, the owners of such businesses have held a variety of religious beliefs. The court is now going to review whether religion can allow discrimination for other reasons? Many people inclined to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation would also be inclined to do so on the basis of race, and did historically. We eliminated the legality of that, but the court in its '"wisdom" has seen fit to take up the issue of legal discrimination based on religious beliefs about who a person chooses to have sex with or marry?
The conservative wing of the Roberts court is backwards thinking, reactionary and clearly playing to those who hold unsupportable discriminatory beliefs. If it is illegal to discriminate by race then the contention that it is legal to discriminate by sexual orientation is as laughable as the arguments that may be used by the conservative justices who would twist logic to arrive at a decision.
Differences in sexual orientation, like the concept of racial differences (disproved genetically), have been with us throughout human history. Anyone who thinks otherwise and contrives to write arguments supporting discrimination on that basis will be on the wrong side of history, just as others were on racial discrimination. I don't think the Robert's conservatives care, just as the current GOP no longer cares about right and wrong. It is all out in the open now.
2
There are at least two criticisms in this article that are mistakenly biased towards the left and receiving plaudits among the comments for doing so.
The artistic bakers who run Masterpiece Cakeshop did not refuse to sell their daily product to the gay couple. The latter were free to buy any cake from the showcase. What they refused to do was use their artistic talents to create a custom cake for the couple. I fully support the right of gays to marry. I also decry those opposed to their union to being forced, by law, to lend their individual and private services to the process. What is next? Forcing the leader of a religious congregation opposed to such unions to provide that couple with his services in his capacity to do so, when a civil union would accomplish the same end?
The other case that should be dismissed is the use of devices to track a person’s movements. Determining another’s location history by direct surveillance is lawful. Using technology may make that more effective, but it does not fundamentally change the lawful process of establishing, minute by minute, the person’s whereabouts. The problem with dumping a cellphone to determine prior locations was that doing so could reveal other material that would normally need a warrant. That is not the case here; all this technology is accomplishing is assisting the legal right of authorities to know the person’s location history.
Both cases should be dismissed.
6
"The latter were free to buy any cake from the showcase."
This is fantasy. The "showcase" cakes were not artistic? You are spreading lies.
3
According to The Times, the owner of the bakery refused to sell any wedding cake to the couple. There was never a discussion of him using any artistry to convey anything reflecting the same sex nature of the marriage because Mr. Phillips shut down any prospect of selling a wedding cake to the couple. Here is a quote from that story, from the bakery owner:
“I’ll make you birthday cakes, shower cakes, cookies, brownies,” Mr. Phillips recalled saying. “I just can’t make a cake for a same-sex wedding.”
There was no offer to sell the same-sex couple an off the shelf wedding cake. There is no indication that Mr. Phillips even makes generic wedding cakes. That is a central issue of this case.
4
Just went to the Masterpiece Cakeshop web site. I stand corrected.
Now a follow-up question: Were they asked to make a merely celebratory cake, or one that carried a message proclaiming the nature of the marriage, or even further, advocating same sex marriage? If the former, they should have made the cake. If the latter: They were asked for a cake taking a position on the topic, and that they should not be required to do.
3
The privacy case is extremely important, but even a ruling in favor of privacy would only restrict the government. The use of tracking by private companies has become so pervasive that it is truly frightening. Seeing ads that know far more about your activities than they should is just the warning sign of what's possible. Counting on Google, Facebook, ISPs and the like to police themselves is not enough. As a legal matter, this requires legislation. There may need to be lines companies cannot cross regardless of consent.
As it stands now, you get a mile long disclaimer when you first use a device or app, that no one reads and just clicks "OK". From that point, the company can track your every move, every word, literally everything you do online. Something has to change.
As for the religious liberty case, all Christianity demands is that Christians not endorse, promote or encourage others to sin. There are relatively few cases where that conflict arises, and allowing them to abstain is not in any way a significant burden. The case of a bakery is particularly offensive to the First Amendment because it requires the creation of a work of art celebrating a gay wedding. It compels speech. It is not merely a case of selling a neutral item to everyone equally. That is not "live and let live", that is Orwellian thought control on a level that should never even be considered in this country.
5
Amidst all the talk about the conservative majority's "originalism," the commentators and public have failed to comprehend the real nature of the majority's jurisprudence: Republicans win. Especially like Scalia before them, these partisan activists are originalists when it suits their purposes, textualists when it suits their purposes, neither when it suits their purposes, deferential to legislatures when it suits their purposes, dismissive of legislatures when it suits their purposes, preemptive when it suits their purposes, and states righters when it suits their purposes, but you almost always can predict the outcome if not the rationale, simply by looking at whose oxen are being gored.
In describing these justices as partisan activists, I am not necessarily criticizing or being dismissive. Virtually every case that arrives at the SCOTUS invokes policy and, if it were simply a matter of "applying the rule of law," would never have advanced beyond the trial court. The question is not whether the justices will improvise and impose their legal and political philosophies, but, rather, whether you like the outcomes when they do so. Personally, I abhor many of the outcomes these days and question their intellectual integrity, if not competence, but I have no illusions about the nature of the work. Rightwing criticisms of left-leaning justices as "activists who legislate rather than follow the law" are moronic.
3
Although there are several important cases coming before the Supreme Court this term, none are more “momentous” (to use Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s word) than those involving the well-organized Republican efforts at voter suppression.
The most conservative members of the Supreme Court have demonstrated utter disdain for the American tradition of free and fair elections. They also show no respect for judicial precedent.
This perverse and partisan attitude by conservatives in favor of a continuing Republican onslaught on the ability of our most vulnerable citizens to vote is historic in its scope.
These conservative extremists in judicial robes are determined to place artificial obstacles in the paths to the polls for people of color and for any low-income voters likely to vote for Democrats.
Rejecting the values of our Constitution in conducting elections makes the march towards authoritarian rule by a privileged class inevitable.
106
The People Need to overrule the Supreme Court when it oversteps its bounds. That is done by putting tens of millions in the street, so that congress is forced to pass amendments to the constitution that make clear our intent, as the sovereign citizens who grant our power to our representatives, temporarily.
The Democrats don't need to lie and cheat like Republicans, but they need to fight for what is right with all of the tools at their disposal, including getting millions on the street to pressure congress.
Donald Trump is a walking constitutional crisis, and the time for triangulating and compromising with the greater evil is over. The Republicans have no interest in compromise anyway. They think it is evil and a sign of weakness. And Donald Trump is a proven liar. He does not really want to work with Democrats. He wants to use Democrats as leverage to create unity in the Republicans.
If you want to compromise with Republicans, you have to make strong arguments for the left, grow your base of the 80% of people that would do much better with left leaning policies (rather than looting by the 1%) and negotiate from a position of strength.
Letting the Republicans steal a Democrat's Supreme Court nomination means they will do it again next time, unless the Democrats grow a spine and lead the workers and the poor, and small business people, that need them as customers into power.
For every case that is heard, Roberts assigns the justice who will write the majority opinion. But each justice can write an opinion on any case, whether it be a concurrence or a dissent. We know where the justices stand politically. And we know their habits at oral argument. What we seldom hear is anything about the justices' writing habits. And they vary drastically.
Silent Justice Thomas wrote 49 opinions in 2015, including 25 dissents. In 2014 -- his last full term -- Scalia wrote 30. The disenchanted Kennedy and the relatively inexperienced Kagan wrote 12 in 2015. Altio, Breyer, and Sotomayor wrote from 22-25. Senior Justice Ginsburg wrote 18. And the Chief Justice wrote 11.
Most of the opinions the Justices write are optional. Only the majority opinion is assigned. These optional opinions can be critical legally. Occasionally, a concurrence is more influential than a majority opinion, and concurrences sometimes signal the direction of the Court. Dissents will often lay out how opposing views are still applicable in certain contexts.
Lower courts often complain that they don't get enough guidance from the Supreme Court. Concurrences and dissents help give that guidance. Analysts focus on the thinking of each justice and their voting habits, as they should. But their writing habits are important and attention to this matter would be helpful.
4
Michjas: You write that "For every case that is heard, Roberts assigns the justice who will write the majority opinion," but this is not exactly true. The most senior justice who is in the majority assigns the opinion. Therefore, Roberts only assigns the opinion when he is in the majority. Kennedy, the swing vote on the Court, is often the most senior justice when he sides with the more liberal justices--which is why he has authored many of the Court's most significant opinions on gay marriage, etc. Moreover, Roberts will often assign an opinion to Kennedy to keep him in the majority (see, e.g., Citizens United).
2
why even both having a court? we know the outcome even without knowning the law or the merits of the case.
7
I don't foresee much if any progress on the gay rights/same-sex marriage front. Despite all the self-labeled "originalists" stacking the court, the words of the Constitution regarding religion go in one eye and out the other. While their personal religious beliefs should, Constitutionally, be irrelevant, they will be anything but for Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito. Roberts's and Kennedy's votes start from a thumb-on-the-scales position and are iffy at best.
Justice Ginsburg's "momentous" will be fulfilled the moment that Justice Gorsuch pulls a Scalia - voting to allow flag-burning as free speech - and joins with the so-called Activists in holding true to our Constitutional Rights. The "Originalists" (a euphemism for Right Wing Ideology) will be shocked to find that the Framers' intent was to grant Rights, not to restrict them. That by-the-book Gorsuch's vote may provide the decisive margin precisely due to adhering to the original intent will bite seat-thief McConnell right in his...seat. Watch for it.
Let's not kid ourselves: Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Roberts are GOP political operatives in judge's clothing.
They will do whatever the GOP demands, without thought or conscience.
Bringing up the rear is Kennedy, a blazing mediocrity, who has never expressed an original thought. He will proudly round out this GOP kangaroo court.
7
And how are the reliable left votes any less political. The absurd legal reasoning that Sotomayor used in her dissent in the Michigan affirmative action case was purely to support her political views. An optimist's view would be that different people can honestly read the Constitution to reach differing conclusions. A less charitable view would be using it to simply justify your political views. But either way neither side has a monopoly on doing it. Most of the readers of the Times just prefer one view.
7
Why should Supreme Court justices have original thoughts? Leave the thinking to voters and the legislature. The court's job is the faithfully Apply the law to the facts. Not to make up the law.
4
And The Girls bow before PC, Schumer, and the Dems.
Add them to your kangaroo court "insight".
3
I have absolutely no faith left in the Supreme Court, which is pretty sad and very scary. The majority are in the pockets of rich Republicans. Enough said.
12
The left's endless whining about Gorsuch gets old. McConnell used perfectly legitimate rules and won big, probably tipped the election. It is unfortunate that politics have become so divisive but both sides play the game.
6
And this is the philosophy that you would hold if the tables were turned and the Democrats had refused to allow a Republican president's nomination its due process: the the Democrats had "used perfectly legitimate rules and won big...," and that Republicans were "endless[ly] whining..."
LOL. Right.
8
Full strength means after McConnell stole a supreme court seat from Obama and got a son of privileged --Gorsuch --the seat?
28
Maybe Kennedy or Roberts might save the court from becoming a right wing farce machine, but I wouldn't bet the rent. They aren't very bright men.
The degree to which politics has undermined the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is striking.
The first egregious blow was Bush v. Gore, followed by Citizens United, and now the unprecedented theft of a seat by Gorsuch.
15
Every act by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch will be tainted by his association with Trump, following the purely partisan act by Senate Majority Leader McConnell of holding the Supreme Court seat vacant for over a year. One hopes Justice Gorsuch actions won’t be so purely partisan; placing party over country.
3
Forlorn hope, he's already been blatant.
Karma can certainly be an uncomfortable fit, can't it:
WASHINGTON — As a senator more than two decades ago, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. argued that President George Bush should delay filling a Supreme Court vacancy, should one arise, until the presidential election was over, and that it was “essential” that the Senate refuse to confirm a nominee to the court until then.
Mr. Biden’s words, though uttered long ago, are a direct contradiction to President Obama’s position in the battle over naming a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/us/politics/joe-biden-argued-for-dela...
1
Pointing to the actions of another is no defense. Can we all commit murder because another already has? Bad judgement of the past does not defend the bad judgement of the present. This is not about party, but about governance. Following the ideals of a party to govern is what we want, but actions used expressly for any party over the people as a whole is simply greed. Ignore the talk ... Can anyone really believe Trump is in politics for anyone other than himself? That McConnell is driven to be the Senate Majority Leader at all cost?
Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Citizens United.
He voted with the majority in Shelby County and Bush v. Gore.
Now he's our last best hope to save the quaint "one man, one vote" notion that is central to the vitality of our democracy?
Really?
The Berners, the Greenies, Cornell West, Susan Sarandon and all those insistent of Purity of the Turf in Democratic politics, must be so relieved that evil Hillary didn't get elected.
Now, for at least a generation, we will have a SCOTUS that will be controlled by conservative jurists whose Rules of Decision will be governed solely by political considerations.
Congratulations everybody.
8
Awesome!
1
The Supreme Court is roughly 80% political. These intellectuals attempt to rationalize their arguments as apolitical, but it is a farce. Just wait until the gerrymandering case comes in front of the court. It will be 5 to 4 against. They will preach about the constitution and then go hang out with the Kochs on an island in the Caribbean or a hunting lodge.
8
I consider this the Supreme Court Lite. It will never operate at full strength as long as its most recent appointee, Neil Gorsuch, was placed there by the machinations of McConnell, and not by the democratically elected (by a large margin) president, Barack Obama. Gorsuch's seat was intended to be for Merrick Garland, and everyone knows it.
30
Thus far, I've assumed that religious conservatives vote for Republican candidates for the presidency so that he will appoint conservative justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. But I've seen no movement in that direction and question whether it will ever happen. At what point would these voters recognise that the Republican Party is not going to give them what they want in this area?
2
Gorsuch loved Scalia, and Clarence Thomas always parroted Scalia.
Gorsuch now parrots Thomas: In his first fifteen cases on the Cour the joined Thomas, the most right-wing Justice, every time—and he even joined all of Thomas’s concurring opinions.
Not surprisingly, Thomas and Gorsuch attained the court under the most sordid circumstances possible. An insult to America.
Just when you think the GOP hits rock bottom, it always manages to transcend.
26
Look at Justice Ginsburg. She appears ready to fall over. A perfect candidate for retirement, but she will hold out until the grim reaper comes calling.
4
If I were The Grim Reaper and saw RBG coming down the street, I'd run for my bed and pull the covers over my head.
2
The NYT may consider the Supreme Court "back at full strength" but, I for one, do not.
Mr. Gorsuch should not even be in the picture -- literally or figuratively.
While I almost never agree with the positions taken by Justices Thomas and Alito, they acquired their seats legally.
Mr. Gorsuch is there thanks to the vile machinations of McConnell and fellow travelers.
Mr. Gorsuch will always be, Mister.
73
Since the Supreme Court is majority Republican, I expect to dislike every decision the court makes for the forseeable future. They will decide to gerrymander further in support of Republicans, and that gay people can be denied services and business because they are gay, and that workers cannot sue their employers.
Every decision they make will be towards fascism and to benefit the rich, and this fact sickens me. America is going down the drain.
29
I am a progressive voter, but this is where your vote slides into oblivion. In some ways the one good thing about the *45 administration is it's ineptness. But SCOTUS is the place where day to day ineptness doesn't count.
Progressives ----- the next time you go to the polls angry and unwilling to vote for a person because they aren't progressive enough, remind yourself how your vote will matter. All of *45's policies will disappear eventually because they are formed with steam not bedrock. Yet Gorsuch will remain.
19
And corporate Dems—instead of expecting Progressives to crawl to you on their knees, instead of insulting and scolding them when they disagree with your machine—try adopting some actual progressive planks, and try actually listening and reaching out. K?
Any one of these planks put forth by the MOST POPULAR POLITICIAN IN THE UNITED STATES would do:
https://berniesanders.com/issues/
1
Friend, he may be popular on Avalon, but not in Oklahoma City, Dallas, Birmingham, Ann Arbor or a host of smaller cities. I'm going with him in 2019, but let's get real here. Not all Americans are on his bandwagon. He's going to have to sell himself to centrists otherwise the sickening racist rants and tweets will win out.
1
Centrists seem to think they have the "correct" position. I think they ought to learn something a little different from losing.
The blame game is easy enough. Who's to say Clinton's support put Obama over the top? People tire of political dynasties. The center must reach out to progressives otherwise the racist rants and tweets will win out.
Could we please do away with the pretense that the SC resolves legal issues, except for those very few cases where politics doesn't play much of the role.
Otherwise, we all know the score:
Conservatives 5 - Liberals 4.
That is all we need in order to know how this term's cases will be resolved.
A judicial branch that is dependent on the executive and legislative branches for its nomination and confirmation can't serve its role as control and balance.
8
You said it. The Supreme Court has successfully become a kangaroo.
4
The seat given to the Koch Brothers by their hired henchman McConnell gave them majority control of SCOTUS. Of course, this was the major target of their decades long push to control the entire US government for their own personal benefit. As such, I think I speak for most of us in not having high hopes for the political gerrymandering case or the workers rights case to end in decisions that benefit anyone BUT people like the Koch Brothers. Their government control machine will just keep churning along at our expense.
32
Granting cert on the gerrymandering case is important. First, gerrymandering is a political process by definition, but if it were only a political question, the court would have demurred. Still, the extreme result that we have seen across the country of an even split of voters giving six in ten seats to the controlling party begs for clarity.
But brazen partisanship is not the exclusive province of the legislature. It's entirely possible the conservative court will postpone objection to the practice while conservatives benefit.
3
Not since the XIX Century has the Supreme Court been so densely packed with reactionaries and retrogrades. Uniquely among all Supreme Courts since the Civil War, the current SC sees no boundaries, however absurd, in its efforts to restrict democracy, restore white supremacy, erode individual rights, and do away with the separation of Church and State.
The current US Supreme Court has more in common with the Supreme Court of Iran than with that of any modern democracy. And it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.
13
Not just Kennedy, tottering Ginsburg at 84 is on way out too whether she likes it or not, and so is Breyer, almost 80. Maybe they can all exit together. Trump will appoint their replacements anyways, so please save us the suspense of timing and leave already! Thank you.
6
Does any sane person think a 100% republican SCOTUS is a good idea?
1
I hope they hang in there until Trump gets impeached. If they all go at once, and the court becomes overwhelmingly fascist, then this country has lost all hope.
1
Our Supreme Court is politically lopsided with 9 justices.
It should be an even number, so the ruling is always based on a majority.
If there is a tie, these cases must be kicked back for the states to decide.
The future of our country must not be held hostage by a small number of senile, judicial activists in the Supreme Court.
1
I lost faith in the Supreme Court where Judges are chosen by some unspoken ethnic, religious, and political keys, the latter ranging from the leftist cryptosocialists to traditional conservatives.
It would have been much better, if the Supreme Court were a Council of the Wise.
1
Discrimination is a crime. Not a violent one, but a crime, nonetheless.
As such, if people are able to use religion to commit discrimination, what would legally stop them from using religion to justify other crimes?
You can't be a business owner who is only to happy to take gays' and lesbians' tax dollars to cover your tax loopholes and exemptions, and to help build and maintain roads that deliver your capital, only to howl and whine that serving them is against your religion. It just doesn't work that way.
But if the SCOTUS permits discrimination on the basis of religion, the American experiment is over.
What's next, Republicans? A return to separate entrances? An overturning of Brown? "We don't serve your kind"?
Spectral evidence admissible in court?
What?
28
To anyone thinking Justice Gorsuch is capable of having an open mind , the theft of our nationwide judicial system by far right judicial activists is neither new nor unintentional. We've been silenced: this gets worse as the conservative apparatus supported by organizations like the Koch billionaire network replaces democratic people's rights with owner's kleptocratic rights.
"The Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-...
The Federalist Society also helped seat Justices Roberts and Alito (Thomas and Scalia were on board).
"The Federalist Society has for years been singularly focussed on building a farm team of judicial nominees who subscribe to a philosophy that is hostile to the advancement of social and economic progress in the country. Behind the scenes, during Republican administrations, they are very engaged in identifying and recruiting for judges candidates who are ultra-conservatives—who are opposed to our rights and liberties across the board, whether it’s women, the environment, consumer protections, worker protections.”
Justice Gorsuch is violating the unwrtitten ethical rules of even his conservative colleagues: "How Badly Is Neil Gorsuch Annoying the Other Supreme Court Justices?" https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-badly-is-neil-gorsuch-a...
Poisoned earth, air, and water, here we come: quick profits uber alles.
11
Great summary by Adam Liptak. It looks like Justice Ginsburg is correct, that this will be a momentous term.
Whether we remain progressive or swing further to the vindictive Right hangs on decisions from these judges who appear to reflect our politics: irrationally split.
In an age in which rational debate is put aside by churlish rants on Twitter and other social media, the Court should be that bastion of careful deliberation. I'm not sure that this Court is up to the challenge.
Decisions like Citizens United, the decision of which determined that common people have the same free speech as do billionaires, the Boston-based McCullen v. Coakley decision that allows chaos as free speech by letting anti-choice protesters interfere with the passage of women to clinics, and the Hobby Lobby decision that elevates Christianity to the powerful business level, do not make me feel that this Court can make a profound decision. This Court seems just to check the boxes and move on.
This Court appears to ignore the grander scale of the effect of its decisions: a political fillip to billionaires sways this country away from free speech; a decision for Hobby Lobby eases more religion into government.
The McCullen v. Coakley decision was advantaged because pro-choice people didn't stand up to the anti-choice people. There was no riot. The Court didn't see that order enhances free speech. We'll see if this Court can look beyond the routine to see greater decisions.
2
It really is both absurd and disgraceful that one Supreme Court justice has the power to determine the course of America's legal system. It's quite obvious that eight of our nine justices are able to phone in their decisions without hearing any evidence or listening to any arguments that fail to support the opinions they already bring to the issues at hand. Each side merely uses the ambiguity of the Constitution (or, in some cases, of holy scripture) to "inform" the convictions that they then proceed to transform into the law of the land. If Kennedy does retire, it's very likely that the four progressives on the bench will see their convictions rendered negligible. Would it be too much to hope that The Donald will look for another justice in Mr. Kennedy's mold as opposed to that of Justice Scalia? Do rabbits throw fear into the hearts of wolves?
7
Neil Gorsuch is no doubt an intelligent man capable of turning off his idealogical filters and seeing the world as it really is, That's when his conscience will try to intervene. He knows he occupies a stolen seat, and that he was placed there to advance an idealogical agenda. Will he drift towards the center or stick to the far-right conservative views that got him where he is?
Imagine one of those old cartoons where the protagonist is wrestling with their conscience before performing some action, and the little angel and the devil are hovering above him, each trying to convince him to take their point of view.
Mr. Gorsuch, you've gone as far as you can go, and nobody can take it away from you. There's only one thing left to prove; whether you care about the American people more than your ultra-conservative sponsors. Do the right thing.
28
So far, in the few cases that he has had a vote on, he has shown that he will follow the ultra-conservative ideology 100%. I hope he makes that swing, but it doesn't look like it at the moment.
3
Dream on. Are you kidding? The appointment of Gorsuch will go down in history as part of the fall of democracy. Gorsuch is understood as a man accurately depicted as the Jack Kramer of Battle of the Sexes - this guy is a dyed in the wool 'limited perspective' republican. He loves himself so much he can't really see anything else.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-badly-is-neil-gorsuch-a...
8
It is a toss up between Trump and the Supreme Court as to who will do the most damage to America.
56
Ginsburg and Breyer seem unusually pale.
They might follow Kennedy in short order.
3
The lack of comments here is disturbing.
Few base their voting on the make up of the court as well.
Indifference kills.
7
Time to roll back gay rights, abortion rights and every other invented right that this Court has created by judicial fiat because leftist democrats could not pass it at the ballot box. Soon Kennedy and Ginsberg will be gone and Trump will get two more strict constructionists. Then you will see real progress for generations to come.
2
Expect to be shocked, but not surprised.
4
Thank goodness we have Neal Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. Now all that has to happen is for Anthony Kennedy to retire and President Trump can replace him with someone more moderate. The Supreme Court needs to swing back rightward as it was becoming too much to the left. There are too many important cases that could have lasting effects on our country. Please Mr. Kennedy you have served us honorably but you need to enjoy retirement.
24
The court is conservative. It should be liberal for the first time in years but was stolen by the GOP. They've not had any progressive rulings. Any gay rights should have been given at the signing of the constitution...that's not progressive.
3
When oligarchic corporations control 99.9% of the american economy, all provided free to them by a right wing SCOTUS, you may not get your wish.
3
Republicans have lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes yet in that time conservative justices have been nominated for the Supreme Court against the poitical leanings of this country. One of those justices was swarn in despite a legitimate nomination being ignored by Congress. That's not representative democracy, that's the kind of thing that starts riots if it's allowed to continue too long. And Kennedy is a right wing moderate.
2
It will be a consequential year at SCOTUS. Here are my own right-center hopes for a few outcomes.
On privacy, the 4th Amendment protects privacy, and this matters. Cell phones track our every move, and at the same time have become necessities of modern life. Privacy is vital but must be balanced against everyone’s right to protection from violence, including from terrorists. Protection of cell phone data should be strong, but not absolute. The data should be subpoenable with a warrant, but the bar for obtaining one should be high.
In employment law, there needs to be balance between workers’ and employers’ rights, and hopefully the court will help find one. Public service unions have long held too much power, and the result is the near bankruptcy of many states and cities; the balance should shift away from the unions. In the private sector, the same was true once, but no longer is. Employers often seem to have too much clout, and balance should be restored as to what’s legal in employment contracts. Non-compete clauses, for example, should be ruled unenforceable.
I’m also hoping the next opening on SCOTUS will be filled by a Justice who respects the word of law and our constitution. It’s unfathomable that affirmative action by public universities has been allowed to stand, in the interests of “diversity.” There may be value in diversity, but the fact that AA is a clear violation of the equal protection clause should be determining.
6
The 600,000 third party voters in Michigan, Pa., and Wisconsin empowered 70,000 voters to tilt the electoral college and the election to Trump.
Indifferent non-voters are also to blame.
This is an American tragedy. We now have a right wing Supreme Court which is prepared to tear the very fabric of our lives.
You built this.
21
This court may be the best reason Hillary Clinton should have been elected. The judicial quality of its decisions will be tied to the political benefactors who denied Judge Garland his rightful seat, and in his stead put a justice who is already appearing at political fundraisers for the right. He spoke at an event at the Trump hotel, which his nominator will profit from. He has traveled through Kentucky helping Senator McConnell, the man who changed the Senate rules to allow the Judges approval. There needs to be greater ethical guidelines if the existing ones allow him to reciprocate for getting him this job.
The nature of our country is at stake here. The ability of workers to have effective unions, the ability of voters to have their voices felt without the filter of a gerrymandered district, and even the expectation of privacy will be challenged.
244
I would like to know what Gorsuch thinks about the method used to provide a seat for him on the court. Might it become a standard method in coming years when considered applicable. Imagine it lasting through a hypothetical four years of Clinton
1
The SC was the very reason why republicans eventually came around and voted for Trump
The country would not survive another partisan hack like Ginsberg.
2
The fact that the wimpy Democrats gave up a Supreme Court Seat without a fight is one reason why they lost the presidency. Americans don't vote for 90 pound weaklings that like getting sand kicked in their faces.
The stealing of the seat which took place under Obama, should have been fought with everything the Democrats had, including shutting down congress if necessary. Millions should have been called to protest.
Instead....chirp.
Why would the People believe the party would fight for them, if it won't fight for its own power.
Gorsuch just proudly gave a speech at a Trump hotel, justifying it by invoking the 1st amendment. His ethical problem is that the hotel will soon be in a coming Supreme Court case.
No wonder he admires Scalia: he too cast a blind eye to conflicts of interest.
38
The court should not be guided by partisan ideology, only interpretation of the constitution. This seems more a hope anymore than reality. Anyone who has read the poorly reasoned decisions in the Hobby Lobby and Citizens United cases have good reason to be skeptical of what baloney may result from this term. All 9 are smart people. Hopefully still, they will use that intelligence to elevate the status of this vital institution with rational decisions that benefit all.
96
I’m not holding my breath. Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch are revanchist extremists.
2
Sorry Wayne, but you seem conflicted. On the one hand you suggest that the justices should be guided only by interpretation of the constitution but then later suggest that they should divide based upon "rational decisions that benefit all". The latter is inherently political since people cannot agree on a) what is rational or b) what benefits all. Secondly, what happens when "benefit for all" is in contradiction to the constitution? You seem to assume the two are always in agreement.
1
Yes the Supreme Court has been misinterpreting the 14th Amendment, which was written to make anyone born in the US a citizen, with all the rights of a citizen, to give rights to corporations.
The whole point of a corporation is tho shield the shareholders from the responsibilities of the corporations, so rights should not be flowing from the shareholders to the corporation. A corporation is a fictitious entity, not a human.
We need to set the court straight with a constitutional amendment:
Corporations are Not People and Money is Not Speech.
1
based on mathematics applied to existing law (though not specified as such) 6 red states would not qualify to become states, resulting in 12 less republican senators including the majority leader gone. and states like New Jersey and California would have twice the number of house representatives that they currently have.
2
When the Court accepts a case claiming that a man exhibiting strong signs of mental illness is not eligible to be President, I will begin to pay attention. Not before.
8
Thank you Mr. Liptak for your preview of the upcoming Sup. Ct. term, however you did not mention 2 very important immigration cases, one involving removal of an immigrant based on how a "crime of violence" is defined (Sessions v. Dismaya) & the other deciding if an immigrant in detention is entitled to a bond hearing & other relief after being held for 6 months (Jennings v. Rodriguez). I hope you will correct this omissions as these cases have particular importance now when immigrants who are out of status are facing severe enforcement measures from our federal gov't. By not mentioning these cases, you present an incomplete picture of the upcoming Sup. Ct. term.
3
Ginsburg should step down. Her openly partisan political comments over the past year shows she is unable to remain impartial.
14
And Gorsuch?
13
Gorsuch should step down as his was stolen seat...AND is unable to remain impartial as evidenced by his speaking at Trump tower. Ginsburg is impartial. We have a loon as POTUS and she called him out.
24
Her opinions off the bench are protected by the 1st amendment. You don't seem to have a problem with Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Gorsuch exercising that right. Why?
42
A rigged supreme court faces a momentous term. Garland ought to be there and all of our civil rights have been violated in his absence.
87
...and will continue to be violated as long as Gorsuch is there. The damage will most likely be irreparable.
6
The GOP will codify the worst instincts of their party. There might be some surprises, but they were installed for this purpose.
How the "originalists" decide also tells the tale. If they support something, they will MAGICALLY find it in our constitution, then justify it through tortuous logic and word games. Scalia was good at this scam.
If they don't support something, it is NOT in the constitution.
We can thank Reagan, the Bush family, and Trump for these frauds.
47
The Republican Senators through their blatant abuse of their power and their disregard for the normal order have destroy any faith I had in the Supreme Court.
102
Only a lack of faith in the Court? How about in the Congress itself -- gerrymandered to within an inch of existence? Bought and owned by corporate America and the likes of the Kochs and the Mercers . . .
"Full strength," maybe. With gorsuch on the court, illegitimate, definitely. One branch of government down, two more surely to follow. I want my country back.
83
Sorry, but the Supreme Court completes the demise of our government. At least the government that used to be of, by, and for the People. Now all three branches of government are down. I, too, want my country back.
3
Tomorrow is the first Monday in October.
God help us.
8
Gorsuch's seat was stolen and he--a top legal mind--eagerly and knowingly accepted this prestigious and valuable position from colluder-in-chief Trump. When Gorsuch appears in public people should turn their backs to him.
183
Thank God HRC lost. We were on the edge of losing our country for ever.
6
I don't know what country you are rooting for, we got the one the Russians wanted us to have. Now the stolen Supreme Court seat is occupied by a man who has helped campaign around Kentucky with the Senator who tore down the rules to get him appointed, and has helped a fund raiser in a hotel that will profit Mr. Trump...sounds like he bought the job.
85
And that hasn't happened already?
8
After all the reporting on Russian interference, Trump cohort meetings, Trump firing Comey, Trump asking while campaigning for Russians to interfere, Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Kushner, Trump jr., Facebook Russian ads, Twitter Russian meddling, after all that:
Why are Democrats not howling that Trump is not legitimate, and therefore Gorsuch is not legitimate?
The election was a fraud, but the Gorsuch appointment is the most egregious assault on our democracy. The idea that Mitch McConnell stole that nomination from Obama and then solidified it for Trump, who stole the election from all of us, is beyond disgusting, .
But, where is the demand for accountability on the left???
134
"Why are Democrats not howling that Trump is not legitimate, and therefore Gorsuch is not legitimate?"
They have been.
3
Any semblance of justice depends on Justice Kennedy during this term. The 4 other Republican Justices are right-wing to the core and their votes are easy to predict in these important cases. if Kennedy retires, and/or one of the 4 moderate democrats retires or dies in the next 3 years, we will have a solidly right-wing, activist Supreme Court for a generation.
1
The "left" simply isn't as craven and desperate for power as the other side. I suppose that's unfortunate in times like these, but nonetheless it's why I'll never identify with that other side.
The gerrymandered Supreme Court is back to a full compliment of judges but it will never be at full strength because of the politics that gave us Neil Gorsuch. There will always be an asterisk next to this court's decisions and he will always represent a weakness in our judicial system.
155
Amen. There will always be a stain named Gorsuch on this court.
2
The Supreme Court only has eight justices that have been been nominated, had hearings, and confirmed by the senate. The ninth justice was installed through a cynical political maneuver that undermined the rule of law and the constitution. No one on the left will ever accept Justice Gorsuch as being legitimate, and that is a tragedy.
165
Whether the left accepts the legitimacy of Gorsuch is totally irrelevant. They have been moaning about Bush vs. Gore for 16 years, and lately have the 3M+ votes meme on display. Winners don't care.
3
@kwb
This isn't a game. It isn't about "winners" and "losers." It's about the people living in our nation. It's about you and about me and about our children and grandchildren. It's also about the land and wildlife that we, as citizens, are the caretakers of. Gorsuch is very relevant in as much as he will cast votes against the People and the land just to support a strong right-wing, religious ideology. As I said, this is not a game!
6
Nothing has undermined my faith in American democracy more than the Republicans' refusal to let the Merrick Garland nomination proceed. The Supreme Court, which I once considered the bulwark of said democracy, now increasingly seems like a panel of political operatives governing by fiat.
370
The mean-spirited and personal attacks against people with different political views I read here are disheartening. There is no substitute for respect and civility in order to reach the compromise and bipartisanship which is necessary for our divisive society to survive.
11
Richard....are you aware that Gorsuch's seat was stolen by Republican hijackers uninterested in the will of the American people ?
Hijackers deserve all the respect and civility normally afforded to hijackers: a date in criminal court and life-long prison sentences.
104
"The mean-spirited and personal attacks against people with different political views I read here are disheartening."
And look who's president, @Richard. Trump just loves it.
14
Having different political views on issues is one thing, and people of good will can argue their points or agree to disagree; however, the anger being expressed here is largely because of the cheating and corruption of the political process that the GOP has been engaging in for the past couple of decades (think back to the Brooks Brothers riot and the stopping of the vote count in Florida in 2000 or Tom DeLay working with the GOP legislature in Texas to effect a mid-term redistricting to gerrymander districts for further partisan advantage). What I see is a continuous effort on the part of Republicans to rig the very mechanisms by which our representative democracy functions - vote suppression; gerrymandering; the unimpeded flow of money into politics (even undoing laws that require disclosure of who that money is coming from); record-setting obstruction in the Senate; and, of course, refusing to allow the President of the United States to name a Supreme Court Justice. Of course we are angry - the GOP loves to claim they are patriots, and yet they are doing everything in their power to undermine our Constitution and the norms that make our form of representative government possible.
15
This is why many conservatives voted for Tump. These cases outline the anti-gay, voter suppression, union busting and gerrymandering goals of conservative politics. All of these cases are against individual freedom and liberty. All support the concentration of power and profit under the guise of liberty. We shall soon see which side of the Constitution the Court is now on.
The Court may give conservatives much to cheer about but the price was Donald J. Trump. He committed the worst of offenses. He destroyed the truth, he destroyed meaning and in doing so, he destroyed government. Racism is just the bonus prize.
270
The right-wing coup d'tat continues unabated with the Russian-Republican appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch happily carrying radical right-wing corporate water to dump all over the American people.
I predict Gorsuch will be a new and improved version of America's worst Justice (with all due disrespect to Roger Taney), Stephen Johnson Field, a Robber Baron justice from 1863 to 1897 who ensured average Americans were consistently trampled upon and violated by moneyed interests.
The cause of Field’s life was neutering the government’s power to enact economic and business regulation.
In the 1870s, for example, nearly all grain grown in the Midwest was shipped through Chicago, where nine firms owned the city’s grain warehouses and they colluded among themselves to charge monopolists’ rates to farmers. When Illinois enacted a law forbidding this price gouging, Field responded with an angry dissenting opinion labeling this law “a “bold assertion of absolute power by the State to control at its discretion the property and business of the citizen.”
Years later, Field complained that a modest income tax on upper-income earners was an “assault upon capital” which “will be but the stepping-stone to other taxes, larger and more sweeping”
Field’s vision of the Court was as an enemy of business regulation and a protector of business and profits, not American citizens.
Gorsuch will politely continue the corporate assault on Americans.
Americans need you more than ever, Anthony Kennedy !
263
A "coup d'tat" is a violent take over of a government. We voted these people in.
Your rhetoric undermines any valid point you are attempting to make.
1
coup d'état -- a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.
A coup d'tat may violent or peaceful, David.
Your lack of appreciation for right-wing voter suppression, deleterious Grand Old Propaganda on the American political IQ, open hijacking of a Supreme Court seat and Russian-Republican rigging of our latest election cycle undermines your comprehension of the definition of the 2016 American coup d'tat.
54
Why go back to the 19th century to find your worst judge, when we have Thomas, Alito, and Scalia to choose from, an abundance of "riches?"
2
The "Justice" Dept., which I literally pay cash to support each week in taxes, has taken a specific stand to deny me basic human rights as transgender. It says xyz law should not extend to cover certain Americans.
Shouldn't anyone even remotely involved in promoting justice inherently believe everyone, everyone has identical rights?
No justice from Justice; the irony is sublime. It would be like a bad Monty Python sketch if Sessions and his good old boys didn't actually have such profound power. The power I have given them.
41
One of the most disturbing issues with the Republican appointees to the Supreme Court is their willingness to upend and reverse existing Supreme Court precedent, including very recent cases. This has certainly created the impression that the Court is politically motivated in its rulings. The ruling on the travel ban is the most recent example. We can only hope that decisions on the issues described are well reasoned and devoid of political policy favoritism. They could start by finding that partisan gerrymandering as it exists today is unconstitutional.
240
We can only hope that such alleged willingness to "upend and reverse existing Supreme Court precedent, including very recent cases" includes reversing Citizens United and McCutcheon. Otherwise we're in for at least a generation of legalized bribery, thanks to the five "conservative" judges.
Finding partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional is undoubtedly important. But unless we get money out of politics nothing will change and we'll slide ever downwards into feudalism, where the majority of the country's population is just seen as a life support system for the very few and very rich. Or maybe we're already there.
36
What's equally disturbing is that the GOP justices lied during their confirmation hearings, all genuflecting to the importance of precedents and "settled law."
Then they became activist judges.
33
I lost faith when the Supreme Court appointed Bush 2 president.
30
The legitimacy of this court is questionable, considering the unfair tactics used by McConnell to deny President Obama his choice of justice. The court has been stacked in violation of the intent of the Constitution and of tradition going back to the founders. McConnell, of course deserves the contempt of the American people and Gorsuch is a knee-jerk ultraconservative whose heartless rulings in lower courts are indelible markers of why Trump picked him. The most sacrosanct and least political of the three branches has been sullied and scandalized.
236
Philip,
The Courts are only "stacked" if you disagree with them. If you don't like the law(s), change the law(s) by winning elections!
2
But if the courts are stacked by the Senate failing to do its duty to advise and consent, so the courts are then able to make elections impossible to win no matter how many votes one gets, something is wrong.
3
McConnell was unfair and deserves our contempt, but then Obama and Congressional Democrats let him get away with it. Bolder leadership would not have accepted it.
2
Gorsuch will be a disaster, like his pal Clarence Thomas. Both attained the court under the most dubious circumstances, but their ambition guided everything.
For those who believe there's little difference between Democrats and Republicans, watch Gorsuch's decisions, and weep.
200
David,
You don't have to agree with the Constitution to read the Constitution! However to have an opinion on what is "legal" under the Constitution you should, at least, have read it!
2
Richard, and you should also read the 5th Amendment and the 14th Amendment which guarantee due process and equal protection.
3
Len,
"Due Process and Equal Rights" are also what the Supreme Court says they are. That has "varied some" over the course of the last few hundred years!
You don't like Thomas or Gorsuch, but are probably fine with Ginsburg!
2
There should have been no fight over a vacant seat. That seat is stolen. Always will be.
369
Art I, Sec 4 of the Constitution says that the "Manner of holding Elections... shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, but the Congress may ... make or alter such Regulations." It doesn't say the Supreme Court may do so, no matter how deplorable gerrymandering has been since the days of Elbridge Gerry himself. Much as I wish that it were illegal, it seems to me the duty of each state separately --- or of Congress, to end it.
1
The is filled in with case law. In the case of gerrymandering, the SC would be perfectly within its rights to declare a state's system for holding elections violates key elements of the condition, like equal protection.
4
This is "originalism," a phony judicial philosophy from this Trump apologist.
"Much as I wish that it were illegal, it seems to me the duty of each state separately --- or of Congress, to end it."
He wishes no such thing. He's playing word games.
Worse, he's negating the very idea of the Supreme Court, which has the right to affect the entire country.
8
And having 9 justices on the Supreme Court is merely a Congressional bill! The Constitution is silent on the numerical makeup of the Court. Anyone who argues that Roosevelt lost his battle to change the makeup of the Supreme Court by adding Justices need but look at the (rapid) subsequent retirements of the reactionary Justices to know who really won!
3