To quote from the article: "Within hours of Justice Kennedy’s retirement announcement, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had started a fund-raising campaign on social media and sent an email..."
Granted, the article is about how conservatives are gearing up to support President Trump's nominee, yet it seems so pathetic that the only reference on the liberal side is to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
It speaks volumes about liberal entitlement that they believe that they are due, neigh have the right, to have their agenda fawned over. Further, they similarly feel that their goals, laws, etc. are like divine truths coming down from on high.
Here's a new verb for you - "crowleyed". Like the Congressman Crowley who just got unexpectedly defeated in the primary because he thought it was his due to be re-elected, the left better get ready to be crowleyed by the right as they are out maneuvered, out positioned and out spent on getting the next SC justice appointed.
2
But wait, wasn’t this issue only supposed to bring Democrats racing to polls in November? Darn, those Republicans, they can think too? I was assured by Hillary the deplorable couldn’t add two and two together.
2
The Republicans have shown they are more than willing to change the rules in order to 'pack' SCOTUS. Mitch McConnell changed the rule to a simple majority vote for SCOTUS judges. In addition by claiming it was an election year he successfully denied Mr. Garland any interviews for Scalia's vacant position allowing Gorsuch to 'steal' the seat.
I propose that if Democrats win big majorities in the house in 2018, and can control 60+ senate seats by 2020 they pass the law FDR wanted back in 1936 increasing the number of SCOTUS judges to 15 from the current 9.
Members of FDR's party thought it was cheating and balked at giving him the ability to 'pack' the court.
Post 2020, the Republicans and any doubtful Democrats should look at it simple as a 'rule change'. Just like what Mitch did to get his way.
4
So does everyone finally realize what's at stake? Or are we going to have to keep reading articles on demographic destiny or how women voters will single handedly defeat the powers that be? I've had enough of fantasies. Quite possibly the game is over. The Republicans don't play fair and they've won. The only question is how to fight back.
4
The Family Research Council wants to spend a "three-year, $22 million plan several months ago to engage pastors and voters though the 2020 election, and has eight mobilization events planned with pastors in midterm battleground states this summer."
Then the church or denomination should be willing to give up their non-taxed status with the IRS since they are using their pulpit to influence and sway voters in local and regional elections.
It's only fair right?
7
I am continually stunned at the hypocrisy of the GOP. The Christian right anti abortion do-gooders want to restrict or eliminate abortion to save babies' lives but don't want to pay for the social programs that help those same children get medical care and food to eat.
If you are against abortion then fully fund Headstart, school lunches, Medicare for low income children, free birth control, and free child care for low income parents who work. Anything else is just the worst kind hypocrisy and religious legalism.
8
thank you Harry Reed for opening the door on appointments
3
This appears to be article 5280 in the NYT series of Why Everything that Happens -- no matter what -- is Good for John McCain. Or in this case, Trump.
1
The Supreme Court, like all other US institutions, no longer deserves respect as a defender of the constitution. Look no further than Gorusch, who, if he had any integrity whatsoever, would have declined his nomination because the seat did not belong in the hands of a Republican president. But no, power over democracy. A true Republican.
With this second appointment imminent, goodbye reproductive rights for women which, by the way, affects men too! If wives had not had the ability to pursue professional careers for the past nearly 50 years (which requires control over their own bodies), then real family incomes would have declined dramatically. Choice matters.
What's most perfect is that its the anti-choice folks who are most likely to assert that health care is a privilege, not a right. HAHAHA, right? Pro-life until birth.
And what about the gays? Put them all back in the closet, deny them marriage rights, make it clear that the only people who matter in this country, who truly matter, are white heterosexual evangelical males. MAGA!
8
Who cares about SCOTUS, we have all the integrity any one country needs in Robert S. Mueller III alone. Look at him right now, out tirelessly and without any regard for self beating the bushes somewhere for any question a young Donald T. may have possibly cheated on in elementary school to give Democrats something to hang him on. That’s dedication to duty enough to humble any American.
1
What did you expect?
The chickens are coming home to roost.
It’ll be payback for Bork.
It’ll be payback for decades of left wing legislation from the bench.
Hopefully as a consequence big D Democrats will be more moderate next time they’re in power. But, I doubt they will be, in which case, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
5
Granted, Republicans are fired up at the prospect of turning back the clock, but what makes them think oppressing women and minorities and poisoning the environment will work out better the next time? If anything a SCOTUS so out of touch as to overrule Roe v Wade will, one way or another, have a shorter life span than a fetus carried to term.
3
Your other headline for this article on the front page says:
"Fired-Up Right Revs Its Engine for Biggest Court Fight in Years"
You forgot the other side: Fired-Up Left Revs Its Engine for Biggest Court Fight in Years.
The left is not going to take this fight sitting down!
3
I think it's about time for major lawsuits against churches for fraud and garnering donations under false pretenses. Also for tax evasion.
4
Does everyone want to live in a country governed by Conservatives?
1
I have enough conservative friends to be able to tell the difference between conservatives and reactionaries. I also find it possible to liberate and conserve at the same time.
1
The Democrats may finally understand the nuances of control in our national government. They never fight for their rights whereas the GOP always have the gloves on. As long as the Democrats refuse to stand for something, they will stand for nothing.
7
Ya know both abortion and contraceptives were practiced at the time of Christ.
Why didn't he mention them?
Seems to me that certain people want to control other people for their own gain.
Which would be in violation of the first commandment.
Nice try, but we all know only a Republican would reference anything from the Bible to politics. Which puzzles me why Diane Feinstein was saying yesterday, “ye shall reap what ye sow” with regard to delaying Trump’s nomination confirmation until after the November mid-terms. Maybe it was just some sort of fleeting senior moment. I’m sure that’s all it was, for no way would she be quoting from scriptures. In a true liberal’s house about the only thing that’s good for is a nice heavy doorstop.
1
Just like a long-time cheating/losing team, they determine that the only way they can get victories is to build a stable of highly biased referees to ensure that the team wins no matter how the game is played.
What's so ironic about this strategy is that it depends 100% on those disdainful "Elites"--you know, mostly highly-educated people who the Trump and Right constantly disparage to score points with their rural supporters.
4
Here are some of the ways Trump benefited from a liberalization of the "Christian" norms of yesteryear. He has divorced 2 women. His children from the divorces have not suffered the social shame and stigma of being children from 'broken" homes. He married his second wife AFTER she gave birth to their child and everyone was accepting of the new marriage. He began to date his 3rd wife while still married to his second wife and morally liberal society was accepting.
I'm not saying this is wrong as I was a child in the 1950's when divorced women and their children were treated differently and it was a difficult time.
I watched our neighbour divorce his wife and even though she had worked their farm as hard as a man for 40 years , she was not given a decent share in the value of the farm.
It was not the church that worked to recognize women's right to property. It was not the church who stopped the laws that said a husband had to give permission for a woman to use birth control. And so on and so on.
Many everyday people have benefited from these new values. From the president on down, people live in common law arrangements and divorce and remarry but suddenly the term "liberal" is used as a profanity.
To Trump's supporters I say this, "to whom has Trump ever been loyal?" and someday he will come for you and what you hold dear.
13
Notice that his supposedly religious right wing base is fully accepting of these actions. Hypocrisy or just psychosis?
4
@Joe
Neither. Pragmatic. The Supreme Court is why many voted Trump. Hillary wouldnt have appointed justices sympathetic to their values. After Trump does, one hopes they’ll finally express their disgust with him by throwing him under the bus in 2020.
1
Ever notice that all the core values of the Republican party involve controlling instruments of government that enable minority rule?
9
Yep, first order of business in a right wing government is to take away your freedom. Count on it.
4
The best explanation I've heard for how the so-called religious right could endorse Mr. Trump comes down to "hanging one's hat" on a pet issue to the exclusion of any other concerns.
The same reasoning presumably applies to his supporters who are veterans or Gold Star families.
For those supporters who think of themselves as Christians, the prospect of shifting the Supreme Court towards conservatism is how they rationalized supporting Trump.
Prepare to see the air thickened by historic concentrations of cognitive dissonance.
2
A great deal depends upon whether Trump overreaches, which he doubtless will be tempted to do. A Harriet Meyers appointment or some unqualified, zealous sycophant are one thing. Another Gorsuch-like appointment of a conservative but eminently qualified jurist, Democrats should simply confirm with noted protest to avoid dragging the issue out over the midterms. The balance on the Supreme Court is already lost. A Trump appointment cannot be stalled until 2021, even if Republicans lose the Senate. The Democratic base will be just as fired up over the rightward shift of the Court as by any effort in vain to prevent it, perhaps more so. Let the right enjoy the complacency of a Court victory in summer 2018. Democrats need focus and mobilization around November 2018. The longer historical truth is that the defense and advance of greater and equal rights is and ought to be a battle of the people not of lawyers.
4
There is no path to a progressive victory here, so I have NO IDEA while all of these conservatives think there's going to be a fight. They've already won.
If the senator from Maine or from Alaska decides to vote against, then that's completely up to them--I doubt either side will impact their decision.
And even if there was a way to fight, the fighting would only energize the right that much more.
Sorry, but the progressive cause has already lost. The only hope is that Gorsuch II will be nominated BEFORE the mid-terms, and (unwittingly) encourage Dems and progressives to go to the polls.
3
Message to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee -- demonstrate that you mean when you proclaim that “This is an all hands on deck moment, team.” This starts with requiring Senators Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly, all of whom voted for the Gorsuch nomination, pledge to oppose any nominee proposed before the mid-term election. The re-election of any of these 3 does not advance a progressive agenda.
6
Bring it on. The more egregious the overreach of this faction of our country, the more responsive sensible and moral people can be in going to the polls.
8
When our rights are outlawed, we need to willingly become outlaws. Once the Supreme Court becomes a partisan tool of the Republican Party, we need to ignore their rulings and engage in nullification at the state level, exactly like conservatives do when they don't get their way. When Congressional conservatives steamrolled the rights of Northern states in the 1850s by enacting the Fugitive Slave Act, northern abolitionist liberals admirably went about breaking the law with abandon. Liberals should take a similar stance with women's rights to the extent possible if Roe v. Wade is overturned. For example, both birth control and sometimes abortion can be had simply by ingesting a pill. Liberals should flood the country with birth control and morning after pills purchased in blue states or overseas if they are not available here. Come on, folks... the feds can't even keep heroin, cocaine, and meth off the streets. You really think they could stop the widespread distribution of important medications? Also, liberal states should fund abortion clinics as close as possible to their borders with red states, with the clearly stated intention of helping the red state citizens. It's one small step, but an important statement; We are not morally obligated to obey an unjust government. We must undermine it in every way possible.
20
I don't how many times I will have to repeat this before it goes viral, but the whole key to taking these people down is hanging them with their own dyslexic interpretation of how the constitution protects minority rights by limiting the powers of the majority.
1
To really cement a "generational" shift, the right will hope that Justice Thomas retire will also retire prior to 2020 (presuming the Senate will remain under GOP control).
Because a 5-4 conservative majority is not a very secure long term advantage when one of the 5's is 70 years old. You could say it would be expected to last about 10 years.
If a Democrat President is elected in 2020 and re-elected in 2024, it is likely (actuarially speaking) that person would nominate replacements for Ginsburg, Breyer and Thomas -- then the Court flips to a liberal majority.
If the GOP can nominate a 50 year old replacement for Thomas, then the oldest of the 5 conservative Justices would be Alito at 68. Then you could expect say 20 years of a conservative majority -- a true generational shift.
5
Hmm... you know Mmm, when violent olden-day's and modern-day's Religious Nazi-Cabals play such "generational" Kinder-Chess and regardless think of themselves as the uber-geniuses of political strategies based alone on fake news-/religion-led mass deceptions, I am merely amuse about our "Nu-cu-lear" end-time theocracy-scheming Trump-Republican-Nazis combined cognitive and emotional inanity more? :)
Best,
A.E.
Projectheureka LLC
What do you think this discussion does for the credibility of any decision forthcoming from this court?
1
The country is bifurcating. The cities, the coasts, the blue states are going to continue to march forward regardless of the backwards policies of the GOP and Trump. California, NY, WA, CO, OR, etc will simply ignore the moves and changes either legally or politically. The sad truth is that the rest of the country are truly the ones most in need of progress and change. Alas we are destined to split in one way or another as I do not see a way for two completely opposing ideologies and practices to survive the massive changes coming to the lives of Americans in the near future.
12
Here's a twist. Choice, too, is an issue of race that manifests in complex ways. If abortion is outlawed in Alabama, for example, which residents of Alabama will truly lose access to choice? Not the most advantaged, comprised disproportionately of whites. For the racists leading the Trump charge, they ought to think long and hard before pushing their anti-choice agenda. Those die-hard white nationalists will not celebrate the predictable results of eliminating access to affordable family planning.
1
If people wake up and calm down, there is a way forward to a united future.
6
This will be a walk-through for whoever Trump nominates. This appointment was decided in November of 2016.
Anyone who thinks any differently is just whistling through the graveyard. It may affect some down ballot races but that will be too little, too late.
Nominated and confirmed no later than October 1st, if it even takes that long.
Elections have consequences even for those who don't vote. How about that?
11
Why does anyone think this will be a fight? The Republicans have the Presidency and the Senate. A simple majority is all that is required for this nomination so it is very unlikely that Trump's candidate will not be approved.
7
There is no choice now. This is a sad day because the democrats have no way to stop the gop now. trump/putin/kim will rule this nation for years to come. A new court will do nothing to uphold the constitution because they will all owe loyalty to trump for giving them their jobs. The next justice will be a trump yes man. Hearings will not have to be held because there can be no opposition & lies will abound on how the new justice pledges to uphold the constitution unless trump wants something different.
3
The right wing are more authoritarian and less tolerant of others beliefs and values than average people. They want to be free just like everybody else but they want to restrict the conduct of all others that does not correspond to what they believe to be right. They truly think that they are right and that freedom is being right like themselves. They will never understand otherwise.
We could see our legal system become incapable of assuring good laws and equal protection as these conservatives find the changing world requires serious reconsideration of old interpretations of the laws with entirely new circumstances to consider. The right wing’s denial of climate change and continuing denial of evolutionary theory in biology gives one a glimpse of the problems ahead.
12
So, fired-up right, you're fine with hypocrisy? You're fine with kleptocracy? You're fine with babies being born and abandoned by your wealth- and power-based unchristian brothers and sisters, who regard women as vessels to bring forth that "pure" fetus but don't care about the mother, child, family, and community once the child becomes visible outside a sonogram?
You do know that Trump probably used Elliot Broidy to pay for an abortion while he was running for office? http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/more-evidence-that-broidy-w...
You're fine with forgiving pedophiles and abusers, and giving them ready access to weapons to kill at a distance, as long as they're on your "side"?
You're fine with giving more to the wealthy while the social safety net, health care for all, emergency services, roads, first responders, etc. get their budgets cut to the bone?
You're fine with fires, floods, extreme storms, pollution, toxic waste, and all the benefits of climate change/global warming? You don't believe in science though you are typing on a computer, use electric lights, drive in a car, etc. etc.?
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Your witness:
Kennedy's son:
"@ProudResister
— Deutsche Bank has loaned Donald Trump over $2.5 billion since 1998
— " was fined $630 million for a $10 billion Russian-Money Laundering scheme in 2017
— Retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy’s son was TRUMP’S BANKER at Deutsche Bank
24
Trump's shamelessness is so pure he cannot even be laughed out of office.
4
Trump and Republicans will get their judge. The Democrats have few levers they can pull. The appointment, however, may motivate the Democrats to vote in the mid term elections, and depending on the whom Trump names, in 2020 to replace the president.
But I have heard enough from the Right about how the Coasts and supposed "elite" have manipulated the government and left them unrepresented. Going back to 2000, Republicans have won two presidential elections without the popular vote. Beyond that the Democratic senators and representatives in the House speak for many millions more than their Republican counterparts. Yes, I understand this is how the "system" works, but at least conservatives could acknowledge the baked in advantage they have in the US government at present as opposed to whining about politicians who don't listen to them, stoking the image of the "Forgotten Man". Please get off the victim train.
20
I'll say it again: this will be anything but the "biggest court fight in years". This is going to be a battle between a hammer and a nail. The time for the witless left to have fought this battle was November 7, 2016.
12
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” -MLK
As Trump plans to nominate judges and justices that promote injustice, what does that say about our “justice” system?
6
it's true that this will galvanize the Republican base ahead of the midterms. But if doesn't also galvanize the Democratic base then shame on them.
9
Everything makes so much sense now! Obviously the answer to being unable to govern effectively for the Republican Party was to go with a Pyrrhic victory and just burn the everything to the ground.
Thankfully, the Reichstag still isn't on fire [yet].
6
Irony is Republicans who have spent my entire 40-year life whining about "judicial activists" appointing judicial activists to shove their morals down our throats by judicial fiat.
12
Battle? This is no battle , it is Gallipoli if the democrats really wish to engage. Waste of time. This issue is now removed from the midterms where the real battle lies for the future. This court battle is a diversion from what needs to be done over the next 27 months . VOTE !!!
6
The past 18 months has seen democratic norms crash and burn, smashed by a combination of sustained attacks against the press and fine-tuned right leaning propaganda machines.
Starving public education for the past 40 years has delivered an electorate that can't tell facts from shinola. Ready, willing and able to let hate and fear drive them.
Only sustained civil disobedience and multi-million participant demonstrations will make the difference - and even then... "who are you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes.
7
We've got a Supreme Court that can't even tell us what an "establishment of religion" is, even though they profess to mind read the vernacular of the times the first amendment became the law governing them.
I wish the Times would cease and desist from using the entirely intellectual dishonest adjective “conservative” in their headlines and in the texts of their stories, op-eds and editorials. The truthful and manifestly accurate description of members of the Republican Party is “reactionary.” Why, you ask? Thank you for allowing me to count the ways, in no particular order:
1. Reactionaries seek to destroy the crumbling wall that tenuously separates the state from the church. Under the laughable pretext of “religious liberty,” they seek to impose an evangelical, intolerant worship/faith-based statutory benchmark for the legitimization of “citizenship.”
2. Reactionaries seek to curtail or revoke the voting franchise of non-whites and other “undesirables” who comprise a demographic that tends not to vote Republican.
3. Reactionaries seek the permanent control of every female body—from puberty to menopause—with very strict, non-appealable punishments for anyone convicted of terminating a pregnancy.
4. Reactionaries seek to dissolve the idea of term limits for office-holders at every level of government, the idea being to cement one political party (guess whose?) in perpetuity.
5. With space running out, reactionaries seek to privatize health care; transportation; prisons; education; outlaw the study of science; strictly segregate the races; require attention at every public event so as to pay homage to a flag and country that has ceased to represent diversity and independence.
14
When will America realize overturning Roe v. Wade is NOT about saving a life, it's about control of what women do, particularly white women. To believe that politicians give a hang about women of color is absurd!
White women represents 64% of users for all abortion services in the USA. Check the stats. If the Republican party could pass a law that said ONLY white women cannot have an abortion, the whole issue would drop in a New York minute. Every one else would be able to do as they please.
Republicans are terrified of the falling numbers of the white population in USA. Make sense now??? You cannot have a white supreme "race" without the white population.
Pretty sickening. Completely true .
8
This article makes no sense. Why would getting a right-wing SC justice fire up the right-wing base to vote? They already have the Senate and the president to make their fevered dreams come true. The vote will in all likelihood have taken place before the mid-terms. So what are they so motivated to vote for? Celebration?
That’s not the way this works. Democratic voters are the ones who are going to be fired up to vote even more, just as Republican voters were during the Obama era (except the stakes are far, far higher).
6
For decades the Left, unable to persuade Americans of their views according to elections and elected representatives, have seen fit to shove them down our throats by judicial fiat.
What's going on with the Supreme Court is perhaps the highest form of "justice".
15
Man, you drunk the Kool-Aid.
12
Uh, innumerable polls of US voter attitudes disagrees with your post. Judicial fiat? Okay, I give up. If you truly believe that McConnell's choosing power over democracy by denying the then elected president to do his constitutional duty of appointing a replacement for Scalia...if you think THAT was justice, then there is no real conversation to be had. Religious freedom for Christians only. Health care for the healthy only. MAGA!!
1
I am not expecting a blue wave in a growing economy with record employment levels for blacks and minorities. What Dems promised, Trump is delivering.
Want higher taxes and no job? Just vote blue.
17
I’m guessing you’re white, claiming to know how black people feel.
5
We won't forget how you Judas'd us on immigration. Booms don't last forever; soon or later, the GOP will run out of silver to buy away people's consciences.
We'll be back with a vengeance then.
3
From a growing economy, to lower unemployment, Obama delivered, and then Trump claimed the credit.
9
I have never received so much for my one vote as I have when I voted for President Trump!
14
So he’s convinced you. The perfect conman.
2
Joe - All you got was a gift wrapped box of trump steak. When you actually have to eat it, I think you'll be singing a different tune.
4
That's something to be proud of! Separated families, trampled individual rights, increase in domestic terrorism by white nationalist, reduction in health care, reduction in social safety nets, tax breaks for the the very rich and corporations, etc.
8
“'The history of heartache and being burned during Supreme Court battles is much more salient to conservatives,' said Gary Marx, a strategist with the Judicial Crisis Network, who organized the conference call and who has been working for the past 18 months on a campaign anticipating the Kennedy vacancy."
To the utter SHAME of liberals and progressives. After what McConnell did in 2016, the Supreme Court should have been on every left of center voter's mind, but obviously it was not. Even if you "didn't really like Hillary," HOW could fail to vote for her and give the Supreme Court to the right wing?
Dang, labor rights, privacy rights, voting rights, all gone.
3
People, why are you worried about Trump nominating someone for the SCOTUS? So far, he cannot even put forward a candidate who knows what "motion in limine" means and it will be a while before he finds someone, anyone who can answer first semester law questions.
You're characterizing his nominees as ignorant of the law? Seriously? Their philosophy may differ from yours but you're proving your own ignorance if you believe Neil Gorsuch is anything other than exceptionally well qualified in the law.
3
This is what is wrong with this whole thing. No one can stop a nominee now who has no idea of law & no experience. This time anyone including Betsy DeVos could be the next justice. McConnell saw to that when he changed the filibuster rules last year. Anyone & Everything goes now. SAD.
1
The "Federalist Society" has groomed a school of purportedly respectable lawyers who hold that the states are paramount to the federal government. That's Trump's on-deck circle.
2
I pray for the women of child bearing age in states like KY, TX, GA, AL, MS, LA, MO... where abortion could be illegal within 18 months. My state, WA, will protect women's rights on this issue. To the 40+% of Americans who didn't vote in the last election, thanks a lot folks! Stay disengaged and watch your country go down the drain.
23
Praying cost you autonomy over your own body. Everybody who does it is a phony or not all here.
If this all comes to pass, I will never return to my home state in the south for fear of what my daughters could face.
3
The GOP should get a multi-billion dollar law suit for attempting to destroy the rule of law in our country. They know perfectly well that it is completely inappropriate to even ask for Mueller’s evidence, let alone subpoena his team or threaten them with contempt of Congress or impeachment while a legal investigation is under way. They should be sued out of existence. Individual lawsuits should also be taken out against individuals like Gowdy for malpractice and unprofessional conduct.
5
There is no respect for the Constitution, separation of powers, checks & balances in this administration. It is all about disgracing this country in the eyes of the world. Everything is being done by the Putin playbook. Protect trump no matter what it takes, including interference by the congress & its petty little committees, whose chairmen now see themselves a demigods. They are craving trump's pat on the head. Get all the information & evidence & burn it.
4
Considering a majority of white women voted for Trump, expect Abortion to become illegal and pay inequality to be enshrined in law. Women will still be second class citizens for the foreseeable future.
6
Naturally.
Conservatives appear to wish nobody has the right to vote. On anything.
5
OK, so the Dems should double down on gaining a majority in Congress and pass laws that take SCOTUS's outsized role in deciding what is legal or not, out of the equation. Pass laws that clearly spell out what is legal or not. Leaving these questions up to unelected old people is unfair to them and us.
8
You want to limit SCOTUS' "outsized" role? You mean like re-write the Constitution? Diminish a branch of government for your convenience?
You want to pass a law spelling out everything that is legal?
Happy hour must have started early today.
1
The US Congress decides what is Godly, and therefore mandatory for everyone.
If I may presume to read the mind of a dead man, Chief Justice John Marshall, whose court decided the Marbury v. Madison case that established its authority to review the constitutionality of legislation, believed that the Supreme Court is the appropriate federal authority to judge whether or not the Congress has enacted a law pursuant to its limited powers delegated to it by the people through the Constitution.
Conservatives were opposed to the violent rebellion against the British Empire that led to the American Revolution.
Conservatives were opposed to the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican-American War.
Conservatives were opposed to the abolition of slavery and fighting to preserve the Union during the Civil War.
Conservatives were opposed to the Spanish American War, World War I and II, the Vietnam and the Iraq War.
Conservatives were opposed to Reconstruction, white women's sufferage and civil rights.
Conservatives were opposed to amending or interpreting the Constitution to confer any rights upon any persons who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men who owned property.
The law is not fair nor just nor moral nor objective, Both slavery and Jim Crow were legal in America. Law is gender, color aka race, ethnicity, faith, ational origin, socioeconomics, politics, education and history plus arithmetic.
Conservatives abhor liberal judicial activism. Conservatives worship conservative judicial activism.
There is nothing simple about applying and interpreting an 18th Century Constitution.
5
Tom Paine and Ben Franklin both understood perfectly well that everything that purports to be done in the name of God is presumption. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" was enacted to inoculate the government against it.
2
Conservatives where opposed to the Mexica-American war? Cool, then we need to deport all people not of Mexican heritage to the correct side of the pre 1848 border. LAW AND ORDER! Conservatives demand nothing less.
1
I still don't understand why Trump gets credit for stuff like filling openings that would have existed regardless of if he was president. Are his picks any different for those posts from what any other Republican president would have done?
3
Surely you jest.
4
I grew up in Bible country and I've always felt that the available Supreme Court seat did more to get Trump elected than anything Comey or the Russians did. The Right have no problem playing hardball and turning into single-issue voters.
5
Just exactly who is it that thinks they have a right to dictate what a woman does with her own body? The pedophile/gay/supposedly celibate boys of the catholic church? They are dead wrong.
Women were given the inalienable right - by their creator - to decide when and if to recreate life. No one can "take away" those rights.
NOW is the time to elect Socially Conscious Women to OUR U.S., state and city governments and pass the Equal Rights Amendment to OUR U.S. Constitution so "NO law may be passed in the United States or any of it's territories or other properties that discriminates because of gender."
NO law. Not now. Not ever again. It is time to end this catholic church/radical christian charade to try to control the rest of us.
7
I take great offense at you making this a gay issue and lumping me in with pedophiles.
No one is taking away a woman's right to "recreate". She is welcome to get pregnant any time she wants to.
5
You are wrong to include "gay" with "pedophile". The two are in no way connected.
Also, even though I generally agree with the gist of your comment, the all caps is obnoxious. In other words, your style undercuts the substance of your argument.
2
Has anyone asked Trump why his ban doesn't include Saudis? After all, the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center were SAUDIS. Was it that sword dance Trump had with the Saudis, or was it that magic eight-ball they crowded around and laid their hands on that convinced him they didn't have to be included. Or is he building another hotel.
13
Asked and answered. The Saudis have been found to have adequate identity management and information sharing procedures. You may not agree with that, but that's the 'why".
7
And they pay him and his son-in-law directly.
I agree with much of this column, though Kennedy was not present during the early stages of Republican frustration with the court. Those irritations--times when there were very few conservative victories--included the Warren and Burger eras. Kennedy was only appointed at the tail end of those times, in 1987.
Over the past several decades, Republicans have developed stronger political coalitions, sometimes based on single issues--abortion, guns, SCOTUS, taxes--that created the current situation. This all led to the election of the current guy in the White House, someone who could care less about the integrity of the court and any number of our other institutions. For those who applaud the takeover of the federal court system by conservatives, they might be a bit uncomfortable with the idea that the ends justify the means--but they'll take the win.
The Democrats are going to have an uphill slog to try to recapture state legislatures. Gaining both houses of congress would help, but with the SCOTUS what is done is done. Maybe they can block a nominee now, but it seems a long-shot. We all still have to figure out a way to live with one another, if we can.
None of this makes me happy on a personal level, but attempting to take an aerial view, it is possible to see how this has been coming for a while.
7
Just to be clear, the GOP's single-issue voters on guns and taxes had nothing to do with Supreme Court decisions - except perhaps very indirectly. Those voters were and are responding to legislative and social changes, not to Supreme Court decisions that offend their deeply held beliefs.
Pierre,
Might point is that the Republicans--now in control of all three branches of government--have a coalition of groups that vote Republican on that issue alone--not that any individual court decision is decided on the basis of a single-issue voter group. These voters fought to change the tenor of the court at a grass roots level. For many years we Dems relied on the courts themselves--not so concerned with building coalitions. We are waking up, but it will take time.
I am not saying that any particular issue is illegitimate.
What Supreme Ct. heartache are conservatives talking about?
Recognizing the dignity of others? Supporting women in their right to control their own bodies? Giving citizens basic human rights goes against conservative norms? That's one I just don't get.
35
However ... it the GOP get an extremist Justice appointed before the mid-terms why would the base need to turn out?
Yes the SC is a key driver for them ... but they are in a cleft stick. Get it while they can ... or wait and use it to try and save themselves in the elections.
They can't do both.
5
Radical religious fundamentalists want to Make Christian Shariah Law Great Again and ban the separation of church and state, evolution and science.....while greedy Republicans want to Make Robber Barons Great Again.
The rest of the world is moving forward.
We can move forward, too...or be left in the medieval religious dust.
Vote.
Protest.
Donate to democracy.
https://www.voterparticipation.org/support-our-work/donate-to-vpc/
November 6 2018
52
I not think that it would be wise for Mr.Trump to select a radical right wing “judge” as he would risk to collide with his own nominee down the road. Such a nomination would also be utilized by democrats to mobilize their supporters during the upcoming midterms - and there are too many races that will be decided by a handful of votes. I think we will see a nominee who will - at least on paper - be appealing to not only for hardline conservatives.
2
President Trump is under investigation for the crimes of obstruction of justice, conspiracy against the United States, breaking emoluments laws, abuse of power and other possible felonies that the public is not yet privy to. Because of this, it is obvious to anyone paying attention that he should not be allowed at this time to appoint any justices until Mr. Mueller’s investigations’ conclusions are known. It would be a grave injustice to allow a person who may be guilty of such serious crimes against our country to be allowed to pick the judges who may very well be sitting over a trial in which he is the defendant against our country. It does not get any more serious than this. Trump should not be allowed any appointments or nominee picks until Mueller's investigation concludes.
49
"Should not" is not enough.
5
Per Mueller, Trump is under investigation but not a criminal target. You can still hope.
3
Per Mueller, Trump is under investigation. The "criminal target" rhetoric is not a legal term. It's a Fox "News" term.
1
Abortion is such a contentious issue in America because it’s not easy to draw a line about when it’s okay and when it’s not. Reasonable people can disagree on this issue. Because of that, the Court should never have ruled on Roe v Wade as it did.
Roe v Wade didn’t make the issue go away - it made it more strident. From the hardliners of Planned Parenthood to the equally hard hardliners on the Christian Right there’s a massive gulf that should have been worked out through the democratic process.
Imagine if abortion been left to the people in their states to experiment and work through in many-varied ways over the four and half decades since that decision. By now we’d have stuck some reasonable compromise on an issue with infinite shades of black, gray and white.
Relaxing Roe v Wade won’t lead to women getting back-alley abortions. It will lead to the sort of normal back-and-forth on the issue that is the heart of democracy.
Meanwhile, thanks to Harry Reid, the democrats are powerless to stop Trump’s appointment. Who should they blame besides Harry? Simple: Hillary. For bungling an election she should have won running away.
14
Planned Parenthood are hardly "hardliners". To suggest such demonstrates your bias.
And its totally naive to talk about "relaxing Roe v Wade. The entire GOP message to their base is about repealing it - after which where abortion is illegal women WILL be getting back-alley abortions.
9
My thoughts exactly.
I am pro-choice - but anti-Roe.
A position shared, BTW, by Edward Lazarus, Alan Dershowitz, Richard Cohen - hardly right wing or religious extremists by any stretch.
Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg has stated Roe may have been a mistake - it triggered a counter-reaction that we are seeing today. (Although clearly, she would vote to uphold it.)
As far as overturning Roe TODAY, that is a much closer call - when a SCOTUS decision has been in place for 45 years, that has to be VERY carefully considered.
I would probably hesitate to do so.
3
Planned Parenthood hardliners?
Really?
Your bias is showing so clearly - they take care of women regardless of race religion or creed.
Relaxing roe vs Wade will lead to the death of women- but then I suppose they are disposable goods to someone like you.
1
When you visit Republican Party forums like Free Republic and see Republican cartoons like those from Ben Garrison, the acronym “SCOTUS” is everywhere. They have taken it very seriously ever since Bork lost his nomination in the 80s when they were caught flat-footed. Since then, the Heritage Foundation and the rest of what Clinton called “the vast right wing conspiracy” machine have had their minds dead focused on SCOTUS.
And yes, it’s all about abortion.
11
They will get a big jolt all right. Right in the backside when
WE THE PEOPLE kick them out with OUR votes.
13
Shorter argument: the GOP knows right wing judges advantage their donors and don’t care if their policies are hated and harmful to most Americans.
42
It seems we're caught, spinning in a realty television vortex of presidential lies, scandal and manufactured crises while the institutions of democratic government are attacked and the political, economic and legal systems are rigged for the powerful, wealthy elites. The Koch brothers, industry trade groups and the financial sector have succeeded in bending our government to their will. This second Trump supreme court pick should completely close the door on worker protections, reproductive, civil and voting rights in favor of corporate interests and a far right ideology cloaked in the concept of strict constuctionism. I feel like we're whirling around in ever tighter circles as democracy is pulled faster and faster down the drain. The best tools we have to resist this oligarchy is massive and sustained public demonstrations and record breaking voter turn out, especially in the next two elections. Let's put down our cell phones, fold up our laptops and take to the streets.
58
How will these Justices respond to USA vs Trump, when he contests the likely subpoena he must inevitably receive from Mr Mueller in order to bring the Russia-Trump Campaign Conspiracy investigation to a proper conclusion? If this subpoena is issued later this summer, before the President's nominee proceeds with the Judiciary Committee's hearings, should the legislative branch proceed to vet this candidate while the Executive who made the nomination demonstrates contempt for the Federal Judicial process? Shouldn't that be determined before a "court-stacking" effort proceeds?
24
Remember to Republicans it's always about making money. So the Court will look the other way.
1
So it seems the authors are under the impression only Conservatives are willing to go all out on the nomination and the Progressives will just roll over. Guess we will have to see if their predictions are correct.
7
Oh, boy, democrats have...energy? Meanwhile republicans have Trump, who is not a politician and brought an entirely new method of street fighting to high stakes politics. Democrats are still trying to win the last political battle with their outdated techniques and aren't doing too well. Progressives just scream in horror about everything and claim the sky is falling. That's the state of things today.
14
There are in fact a few Democrats who have witnessed confirmation battles like this, but they are in their nineties. And the rightwing legal world is excited to overrule as much of the New Deal as they can. Roe v. Wade is important, but for the truly reactionary, this is a chance to go back to about 1351–the Statute of Labourers Act, after the Black Death, prohibited peasants from leaving their villages to seek better pay. Defined “freedom” in a way Trump really gets, deep down.
37
The article frames the issue as being conservatives' desire to put Justices on the Court who will agree with them on social issues, but that is not the point. Conservatives properly want to appoint Justices who will fairly apply the Constitution as written, not invent Constitutional provisions in order to satisfy social-justice goals. Conservatives have the higher moral ground here: they want to appoint Justices who simply apply the Constitution and don't make themselves into super-legislators. It's progressives who want to simply appoint Justices who will advance their social-justice goals.
8
Then why don't they do that?
1
The Constitution over against social justice, as if the written law is somehow on a higher plane than justice?
3
They can start with "well-regulated militia" then.
22
I suspect the thesis that the right cares more about the Court is folklore. Republicans always bring it up, but that's because they really can't discuss policy. Most people don't agree with them on most of their mainstream issues.
Whatever the characterization of Justice Kennedy's legacy, he permitted a couple of the very worst decisions in American jurisprudence: Bush V. Gore and Citizens United. One brought us endless war, torture and a great recession, and the other decision degraded politics and government to the totalitarian capitalist autocracy we have now, funded by oligarchs and amoral corporations.
If John Roberts is now a centrist, we've gone over the falls.
26
Republicans are for freedom, but that doesn’t include human rights? I’m super confused, because they’re super confused.
13
Supreme Court nominations wouldn’t be filled with such fear and loathing if all justices were “textualists” who based their rulings on what the Constitution says or doesn’t say. The document is silent on many issues because the issues we confront today did not confront the delegates who signed it. The delegates who attached their signatures to the Constitution realized it would need to be revised to align it with changing circumstances. This is why they included the amendment process in the Constitution. The framers would be horrified to discover that today we permit a small panel of unelected jurists to usurp the amendment process by pretending they can discern “implicit rights,” “original intent” or, in some cases, “God-given” or “human rights” that transcend the Constitution.
For example, the Constitution does not mention slavery or African American, but in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court relied on “original intent.” In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Taney proclaimed: ““The question before us is whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [Negroes] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.”
3
The neo-Republicans have purged anyone who doesn't march lockstep with the party's post-Bush Jr. socially conservative agenda, yet have been successful in exploiting several issues with broad appeal, like illegal immigration and crime, and maintaining focus on them.
The Democratic party has instead fallen into the chokehold of illegal immigration advocates and race-based fringe groups and has lost the broad appeal of its traditional economic and social justice message.
The "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" hoax can be blamed at least in part for Trump's win, for exacerbating divisions and for giving Trump's supporters the excuse to brand the entire mainstream media as "fake news." Incredibly, the pattern is about to repeat, based on the recent factually inaccurate "missing illegal children" media frenzy, which then transformed into the somewhat more truthful, but still divisive "children separation" frenzy, which may well turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the increasingly more hysterical and delusional fringe left.
The Republicans have the incentive to keep illegal immigration and ethnic strife stories on the front burner, to drown out and discredit the likely damaging revelations coming out of the Russia probe, trade wars with allies and President Trump's open support for Putin's destructive policies in Europe. The Democrats and much of the media appear to oblige them, seemingly deaf and blind to the mood outside of their bubble, which will likely burst in November.
9