(01-27-2022, 07:30 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Is Michelle qualified though?
Pretty sure they both have Doctorates from Harvard Law School. But it would not be unreasonable to argue that anyone who has not sat as a judge is not qualified for the supreme court.
(01-27-2022, 08:00 PM)treee Wrote: Pretty sure they both have Doctorates from Harvard Law School. But it would not be unreasonable to argue that anyone who has not sat as a judge is not qualified for the supreme court.
True. It also isn't unreasonable to argue that selecting someone from a parameter of a specific sex and race is not qualified either, at least without checking out all the potential latinos, asians, whites, middle easterns, and males as well.
(01-27-2022, 08:22 PM)Millhouse Wrote: True. It also isn't unreasonable to argue that selecting someone from a parameter of a specific sex and race is not qualified either, at least without checking out all the potential latinos, asians, whites, middle easterns, and males as well.
If the pool of viable candidates were small I would agree. But I think there are enough good candidates that narrowing it by gender and race will not affect the quality of the candidate.
(01-27-2022, 08:00 PM)treee Wrote: Pretty sure they both have Doctorates from Harvard Law School. But it would not be unreasonable to argue that anyone who has not sat as a judge is not qualified for the supreme court.
I don't know why they would start making that a requirement, now. 41 United States Justices were not judges prior to sitting on the SCOTUS. This includes some of the most known names of Chief Justices in SCOTUS history like Taney, Rehnquist, and Warren as well as several other Chief Justices.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
Ben Carson, who Trump put in charge of HUD and who was completely unqualified for that position and thus did nothing, is just gosh darn upset about Biden saying he will nominate a black woman to the SC.
(01-28-2022, 10:12 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't know why they would start making that a requirement, now. 41 United States Justices were not judges prior to sitting on the SCOTUS. This includes some of the most known names of Chief Justices in SCOTUS history like Taney, Rehnquist, and Warren as well as several other Chief Justices.
That seems like a fair counterargument . But I don't think that precedent necessarily invalidates that position. A candidate who has a history of effectively checking the executive branch is important to me with how much power the legislative branch has ceded over time.
Quote:Conservatives Are Pre-Mad at Biden's Supreme Court Pick Before the Pick Has Been Made It is unacceptable to pick someone based on their identity. Unless that identity is "young" and "right-wing." By Jack Holmes Jan 27, 2022
SAUL LOEBGETTY IMAGES Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring from the Supreme Court in a move with unambiguous political timing after a period where Breyer tried to downplay the influence of partisan politics on the high court. But things have already moved beyond Breyer himself to the question of who will replace him, a process that will do little to buttress Breyer's onetime fantasies of apolitical adjudication of the law. During the 2020 campaign, President Joe Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the big bench, and on Thursday afternoon he confirmed that he will follow through on that promise. It hasn't yet happened, to be clear, which hasn't stopped the pre-backlash to the future event from rolling in.
Yes, some key luminaries from the conservative intelligentsia have thoughts about nominating a Black woman because she is a Black woman. There hasn't been much mention of the fact that Ronald Reagan pledged to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court because she was a woman. There's also been little mention of their own fellow travelers' push to get Amy Coney Barrett on the bench while a presidential election was in progress, a push that included pointing to different facets of Barrett's identity. In the case of Ramesh Ponnuru, that included a discussion of how the optics would be better if the Court's conservative majority included a woman when it struck down Roe v. Wade.
Anyway, America's Big Smart Boy Ben Shapiro is now sounding the reverse-racism alarm:
Quote:Joe Biden will nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court because he said he would select someone based on race and sex, and then we will be told that noting that this is definitionally affirmative action and race discrimination is itself racist.
Also, there's a reason Democrats never miss with their SCOTUS picks: they overtly choose wild Leftists. That's the only real qualification. They wouldn't care whether Biden nominated an HLS grad who clerked for Breyer or Cardi B, so long as that person voted reliably Left.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently on the DC Court of Appeals, went to Harvard for undergrad then Harvard Law
California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger went to Harvard then Yale Law
Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi went to Princeton then Yale
Circuit Judge Eunice Lee went to Ohio State then Yale Law
District Judge Wilhelmina "Mimi" Wright went to Yale then Harvard Law
This is not to say that going to an Ivy League law school automatically makes you the best judge around, just that clearly these candidates are more qualified for this job than Cardi B, and that probably figures into why they might be chosen instead of her. Gee, why would they even be linked to Cardi B in this discussion?
The most qualified nominees ever! There were no other considerations!
BILL CLARKGETTY IMAGES
Besides, conservatives have embraced a strategy of stuffing young, right-wing judges on the federal bench at all levels, even if that means nominating and confirming people whom the American Bar Association rated "unqualified" for the job. Some had never tried a case before. One had an "absence of any trial or even real litigation experience." The only considerations for Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Barrett were that they were young—so they could make policy and shape American life from the bench for decades—and that they would do so in a way that advanced the policy agenda of the conservative project. They were not chosen because they were the Most Qualified Candidates, they were chosen because, out of a larger pool of people who had the requisite educational credentials and career resumés, they had certain characteristics that the Federalist Society, and thus its allies in government, valued.
Meanwhile, in a since-deleted tweet, Ilya Shapiro, a bigwig from the libertarian Cato Institute, unlimbered himself of an opinion:
Quote:Because Biden said he’s only consider black women for SCOTUS, his nominee will always have an asterisk attached...Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is a solid prog & v smart. Even has identity politics benefit of first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn't fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we'll get a lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?
How does Ilya know the person will be "lesser" before the individual person is named? He doesn't know what their credentials are, he doesn't know how they've ruled in previous cases, he doesn't know their views on precedent and stare decisis. All he knows is that their ethnic and gender background, and thus the experience they've had living in America, is playing a major role in the process.
Which nobody is denying. The logic from the Biden camp, and progressives more generally who are in support of selecting a Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, is pretty simple and transparent: in the centuries this country has been around, millions of Black women have lived in it and never been represented at the highest levels of the judicial system. Biden wants to rectify that by appointing a qualified jurist from that background to serve on the highest court in the land. Yes, it is political, and it's good politics for him, just like every judicial appointment that every president has ever made. Except for David Souter, who enraged Republicans by failing to consistently advance the conservative policy agenda from the bench.
Speaking of the conservative judge machine, Ed Whelan—who could once be found cruising Zillow listings to prove his theory of a Brett Kavanaugh doppelgänger—had some thoughts to offer the New York Times:
Quote:But conservatives like the National Review legal commentator Ed Whelan have pointed out that the number of Black women Mr. Biden has nominated is strikingly disproportionate to the available pool of Black women with law degrees.
Quote:According to a 2021 profile of the legal profession by the American Bar Association, just 4.7 percent of American lawyers are Black and 37 percent of lawyers are female. The report did not break out Black women in particular, but the implication is that roughly 2 percent of American lawyers are both Black and female.
Right. Black women are underrepresented in the legal profession and the judiciary. That is the point. This does not somehow prove that the Black and/or women jurists who are nominated to the federal judiciary are unqualified. All it proves is that Joe Biden is attempting to address this situation by nominating more people from this background, an agenda he made an explicit priority in his successful campaign for president. Now, as president, he is following through on that campaign promise. Can we at least wait for an individual person to be named before blasting them as an unqualified disgrace?
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
I do try to be fair to elected members of the gop but too many of them simply lie and have no ethics and they know their voters don't remember or care...they just get angry and dig their heels in to support whatever they are being told.
Quote:White House burns Wicker for criticising Biden supreme court pick Republican senator says choice will be beneficiary of affirmative action but critics point to support for Trump vow to pick woman
In a barbed intervention on Saturday, the White House said it hoped a Republican senator who complained that Joe Biden’s supreme court pick would be the beneficiary of race-based affirmative action, would give the nominee the same consideration he gave Amy Coney Barrett.
[/url] Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife?
Read more
[url=https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/jan/28/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-ginni-thomas]
Barrett was nominated and confirmed shortly before the 2020 election, after Donald Trump pledged to pick a woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The hardline Catholic duly succeeded the liberal lion, establishing a 6-3 conservative majority. Biden has pledged to put the first Black woman on the court as a replacement for Stephen Breyer, the 83-year-old liberal who this week announced his retirement.
On Friday, Roger Wicker of Mississippi complained that Biden’s pick would therefore be a beneficiary of race-based affirmative action, which the court seems poised to declare unconstitutional, having said it will consider a challenge concerning college admissions.
Wicker told a radio station in his state: “The irony is that the supreme court is at the very time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota. “The majority of the court may be saying writ large that it’s unconstitutional. We’ll see how that irony works out.” On Saturday, a White House spokesperson noted that after Trump promised to pick a woman, Wicker merely said he hoped Barrett would be “an inspiration” to his granddaughters. “We hope Senator Wicker will give President Biden’s nominee the same consideration he gave to then-Judge Barrett,” the spokesperson said. Breyer has protested that the court is not political, but though his retirement will not give Biden a chance to change the ideological balance of the panel, the president will be able to install a younger liberal before Democrats defend control of the Senate. Many have seen rich historic irony in conservative complaints about Biden’s pledge to nominate based on race and gender. The historian Rick Perlstein was among those to point out that Ronald Reagan, the hero of the modern Republican party, chose a justice entirely because she was a woman. Before his victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980, Reagan announced that “one of the first supreme court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can possibly find”. He duly nominated Sandra Day O’Connor, a political moderate and the first woman to sit on the court. “She was totally unqualified on paper,” Perlstein said, on Twitter. “[Zero] con[stitutional] law experience. Reagan lucked out.” Wicker also told SuperTalk Mississippi Radio he feared Biden’s pick would be more progressive than Breyer. “We’re going to go from a nice, stately liberal to someone who’s probably more in the style of Sonia Sotomayor,” the senator said, adding: “I hope it’s at least someone who will at least not misrepresent the facts. I think they will misinterpret the law.” Many observers made Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, and a member of the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, favourite to be Biden’s pick. Jackson replaced Merrick Garland, now attorney general but in 2016, the nominee Republicans refused to give even a hearing when Barack Obama picked him to replace Antonin Scalia.
An era of bitter partisan warfare ensued. This time, Democrats will court Republican moderates such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah. But Wicker said Biden’s pick would in all likelihood “not get a single Republican vote”.
“But we will not treat her like the Democrats did Brett Kavanaugh,” he said, in reference to the bitter fight over Trump’s second nominee, who denied accusations of sexual assault. Democrats need only stick together to succeed. Thanks to a Republican rule change, nominees require only a simple majority.
The Senate is split 50-50 but controlled by the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris.
Wicker pointed to a wish for at least symbolic vengeance, saying the Kavanaugh fight “was one of the most disgraceful, shameful things and completely untruthful things that [Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee have] ever, ever done”. You've read 5 articles in the last year Article count on
Apropos of nothing, today is Gene Hackman's birthday. Enjoy this quality acting scene. (NSFW/Language)
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
(01-29-2022, 02:02 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Read an interesting opinion piece on Politco this morning about the SCOTUS and partisanship. Rather even handed and worth a read.
Hmmm, it's almost as if there is a poster on this message board who has been saying something similar.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
Susan Collins says she's more concerned about Biden announcing he'll pick a Black woman than Trump announcing he'd pick a woman because Biden made his announcement when he was a candidate & therefore politicized the process. (Remember Trump's ACB superspreader event at the WH?) pic.twitter.com/dcCGolAbhx
(01-30-2022, 02:44 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Hmmm, it's almost as if there is a poster on this message board who has been saying something similar.
We've both pointed out that neither side of the political aisle fails to nominate partisan candidates. Why do many here have zero issue with Sotomayor being as reliable a "liberal" justice as Thomas is a "conservative" one? In fact, the only justices who have sided with the other with any degree of regularity are those considered conservative. Roberts being the obvious one, but Kavanaugh has sided with the liberal wing on more than one case as well, and I'm not talking about the rare 9-0 cases.
What's especially funny is you getting a thumbs up from someone who is the greatest offenders in this regard.
(01-30-2022, 04:52 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: We've both pointed out that neither side of the political aisle fails to nominate partisan candidates. Why do many here have zero issue with Sotomayor being as reliable a "liberal" justice as Thomas is a "conservative" one? In fact, the only justices who have sided with the other with any degree of regularity are those considered conservative. Roberts being the obvious one, but Kavanaugh has sided with the liberal wing on more than one case as well, and I'm not talking about the rare 9-0 cases.
What's especially funny is you getting a thumbs up from someone who is the greatest offenders in this regard.
I have just been known to state that the Justices are politicians and the court is political. I just wish people would admit this.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
![[Image: giphy.gif]](https://media0.giphy.com/media/1kwsTjL8BNqlszNtnCE/giphy.gif)
Stephen Breyer/SCOTUS
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