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The Courts under Trump - Mega Thread


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1 hour ago, knapplc said:

 

You cannot say this with a straight face after what McConnell did to Obama's court nominees, both in the Supreme Court and the circuit courts.

 

Nor can you seriously think that Amy Coney Barrett, who has only been on the US Court of Appeals since 2017, was chosen to be a neutral applicant of the law rather than a partial, biased judge, especially in the presence of dozens and dozens more qualified choices.

 

There's a reason she was put on the court, there's a reason McConnell has destroyed all norms to ram her through. 

 

"Live Look-in at Knapplc"

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It's not really fair to mock someone for being concerned about the future of our judicial system, IMO.

 

As best anyone can tell, a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS and judiciary heavily influenced by Trump are going to lurch significantly to the right and hand down much more conservative rulings.

 

Conservative have been pretty forcefully hostile to a lot of civil liberties the rest of society pretty broadly agree on: Voting rights, LGBTQ rights, access to healthcare, protections for the environment, etc.

 

Sure these new courts might NOT be end up being more conservative. But what rational, unbiased person would think that's the most likely outcome knowing only what we know right now?

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22 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

It's not really fair to mock someone for being concerned about the future of our judicial system, IMO.

 

As best anyone can tell, a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS and judiciary heavily influenced by Trump are going to lurch significantly to the right and hand down much more conservative rulings.

 

Conservative have been pretty forcefully hostile to a lot of civil liberties the rest of society pretty broadly agree on: Voting rights, LGBTQ rights, access to healthcare, protections for the environment, etc.

 

Sure these new courts might NOT be end up being more conservative. But what rational, unbiased person would think that's the most likely outcome knowing only what we know right now?

 

One only has to look at the body of work from the GOP the last 10-15 years to see what they're doing. They are trying to codify their ever-increasingly conservative agenda into law. 

  • Roberts' court gutted the Voting Rights Act, and suddenly polling places across the South, in left-leaning districts, are gone.
  • Abortion clinics have been closed across the country. Mississippi has one - ONE! - abortion clinic, and they are fighting to shut that down.
  • LGBTQ rights are being undermined under the guise of religious liberty. 
  • The ACA has been under attack since its inception, and ACB has been vocally critical of it in her brief career. 
  • The EPA has been under attack from conservatives and is likely to face court challenges to its existence next year.

 

 

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43 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

It's not really fair to mock someone for being concerned about the future of our judicial system, IMO.

 

As best anyone can tell, a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS and judiciary heavily influenced by Trump are going to lurch significantly to the right and hand down much more conservative rulings.

 

Conservative have been pretty forcefully hostile to a lot of civil liberties the rest of society pretty broadly agree on: Voting rights, LGBTQ rights, access to healthcare, protections for the environment, etc.

 

Sure these new courts might NOT be end up being more conservative. But what rational, unbiased person would think that's the most likely outcome knowing only what we know right now?

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-compares-with-other-recent-presidents-in-appointing-federal-judges/

 

image.png.1d2d02e750ebaec6d4e9ee4c2f13e037.png

 

Obama is responsible for 39% of the current, sitting judges. Did any of you complain about the "changing judiciary" then? If Ds didn't want a conservative leaning federal court system, they should have made that percentage even higher before Obama left office. 

 

It wasn't a pressing concern for them then, because they were absolutely certain that HRC was going to win.  Suddenly, after Trump and the Turtle take advance of the opportunity to fill 200 seats, it becomes an issue.

 

 

 

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54 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

As best anyone can tell, a 6-3 conservative SCOTUS and judiciary heavily influenced by Trump are going to lurch significantly to the right and hand down much more conservative rulings.

I'm old enough to have seen through the years that the court rarely 'lurches'.  If there was ever a period of lurching it was the 1960s when the court made some very significant decisions that moved it to the left.

Let me add: very important and needed decisions.

 

The 2 most ideologically conservative justices, Thomas and Alito were nominated by Bush 1 and Bush 2 not Trump.  Kav is a justice Kennedy disciple who as we all know was a swing, moderate vote.  Gorsuch has more of a libertarian bent - not hard right. 

While ACB is a Scalia disciple, she wasn't appointed because she was a conservative ideologue like appointing a Ted Cruz or a Mike Lee would have been.  She strikes me as a "constitutionist"  and if that is a the case, then if there is well written law from the left of center that meets the requirements of the constitution, then it should have a fair hearing before her.

 

So this is only my opinion, I can't predict the future like some on here can, but I don't believe there will be an all out war on civil liberties.  The court may find constitutional issues with existing law and that is fair as that is the court's job - then the congress can go back and do their job and rewrite law if needed.   My hope is that the civil liberty issues will become non-issues. That the court finds the issues to be grounded in the constitution.  If in 2 years this plays out differently, It will be fair game for Knapp, Danny or Red to quote this post and remind me.  I'll humbly eat my words and any crow that goes wt it. 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

Obama is responsible for 39% of the current, sitting judges. Did any of you complain about the "changing judiciary" then? If Ds didn't want a conservative leaning federal court system, they should have made that percentage even higher before Obama left office. 

 

It wasn't a pressing concern for them then, because they were absolutely certain that HRC was going to win.  Suddenly, after Trump and the Turtle take advance of the opportunity to fill 200 seats, it becomes an issue.

 

 

Obama is responsible for the most judges because judges appointed by other presidents retired, not because he did anything different.

 

This is an issue because McConnell simply obstructed the rightful President's appointees. How can you see that as fair or OK?

 

You seem to be implying that Obama has the most judges appointed, so everything must be OK. This doesn't make sense based on a simple timeline of the terms of these presidents. Go look at how many judges had been appointed by Clinton four years into the Bush presidency. Go look at how many judges had been appointed by Bush four years into the Obama presidency.

 

This is a spurious argument.

 

Source

 

Quote

 

Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland may be the most prominent casualty of the GOP-controlled Senate’s election-year resistance on the federal judiciary — but the pace of overall judicial confirmations under Mitch McConnell is on track to become the slowest in more than 60 years.

 

Under the McConnell-led Senate, just 20 district and circuit court judges have been confirmed at a time when the vacancies are hampering the federal bench nationwide, according to the Congressional Research Service. During George W. Bush’s final two years in the White House, Senate Democrats in the majority shepherded through 68 federal judges — a courtesy that Democrats now complain Republicans aren’t affording to President Barack Obama, even though Obama has had more judges confirmed overall.

 

 
Mitch McConnell purposefully obstructed Obama's appointees at historic levels. I don't care what party you lean toward, that's not OK.
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7 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

I'm old enough to have seen through the years that the court rarely 'lurches'.  If there was ever a period of lurching it was the 1960s when the court made some very significant decisions that moved it to the left.

Let me add: very important and needed decisions.

 

The 2 most ideologically conservative justices, Thomas and Alito were nominated by Bush 1 and Bush 2 not Trump.  Kav is a justice Kennedy disciple who as we all know was a swing, moderate vote.  Gorsuch has more of a libertarian bent - not hard right. 

While ACB is a Scalia disciple, she wasn't appointed because she was a conservative ideologue like appointing a Ted Cruz or a Mike Lee would have been.  She strikes me as a "constitutionist"  and if that is a the case, then if there is well written law from the left of center that meets the requirements of the constitution, then it should have a fair hearing before her.

 

So this is only my opinion, I can't predict the future like some on here can, but I don't believe there will be an all out war on civil liberties.  The court may find constitutional issues with existing law and that is fair as that is the court's job - then the congress can go back and do their job and rewrite law if needed.   My hope is that the civil liberty issues will become non-issues. That the court finds the issues to be grounded in the constitution.  If in 2 years this plays out differently, It will be fair game for Knapp, Danny or Red to quote this post and remind me.  I'll humbly eat my words and any crow that goes wt it. 

 

 

 

The fact that ACB is being confirmed one week before an election should be enough to show that what happened before is not what's happening now. 

 

And two years from now if those civil liberties are stripped, who cares if you eat crow. The damage is done.

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2 minutes ago, knapplc said:

This is an issue because McConnell simply obstructed the rightful President's appointees. How can you see that as fair or OK?

I agree with you on this Knapp.  What the GOP did esp in the last year of Obama's admin was actually unconstitutional besides being unethical, politically rude and a bunch of other descriptors.    It is unconstitutional because the president has the constitutional responsibility to nominate and appoint and the congress as the constitutional responsibility to advise and consent.  The Senate under The Turtle did not fulfill their constitutional duty.  While they are 'playing out that duty' today, it was hypocritical of them to not have done so in the 2015-16 period.  Obama's nominee in 2016, Garland, should have been on the court and by all accounts he was not a liberal ideologue but a moderate person acceptable by people on both sides.  Because the Turtle turned this into a political issue then, we have the issue today. 

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28 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-compares-with-other-recent-presidents-in-appointing-federal-judges/

 

image.png.1d2d02e750ebaec6d4e9ee4c2f13e037.png

 

Obama is responsible for 39% of the current, sitting judges. Did any of you complain about the "changing judiciary" then? If Ds didn't want a conservative leaning federal court system, they should have made that percentage even higher before Obama left office. 

 

It wasn't a pressing concern for them then, because they were absolutely certain that HRC was going to win.  Suddenly, after Trump and the Turtle take advance of the opportunity to fill 200 seats, it becomes an issue.

 

 

 

 

I think you're forgetting about the most important factor in all of this... Mitch McConnell. He flat-out stonewalled Obama's nominees over the last two years of his presidency.

 

Mitch McConnell laughs about stopping Obama hiring judges, allowing Trump to fill courts with conservatives

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26 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

The fact that ACB is being confirmed one week before an election should be enough to show that what happened before is not what's happening now. 

 

And two years from now if those civil liberties are stripped, who cares if you eat crow. The damage is done.

Let me reword what I said.  Yes, I know my insignificant voice is meaningless in the big picture.  I do care and hope all civil liberties are maintained.  The court rarely takes back that which has been already given and 'blessed' by the court. That is why I think it will be a non-issue.  

What I see at risk potentially: 

1. ACA:  if the court rules against certain provisions, I see the Biden Admin and a Dem Senate quickly 'fixing' any deficiencies that the court may find. 

2. R v W :  Personally I believe this is a state issue and not a federal issue.  I thing the ruling found a right to abortion in the thinnest of air.  However, what I believe doesn't matter.  Again this is long standing ruling and the court rarely changes its mind. If it does, it will most likely send this back to the states to decide.  There will be states for and against and you will end up wt a have and a have not situation.  Which isn't ideal.  What may happen then, their may be a push for a constitutional amendment to restore R v W.

3.  I think it is doubtful the court takes away LGBTQ rights already established by the court.  Instead, I think they recognize that we can walk and chew gum at the same time - by giving religious organizations, businesses, individual religious exemptions in line with their 1st amendment rights. 

4. EPA and environmental laws -  Like you, I would be very disappointed if the court became a de-regulatory agency of the govt.  They should see EPA laws as working for the overall common welfare of the country.  They should not be in the pocket of the energy sector.

5.  Voting rights - also here - I hope they vote down/rule against  every unfair gerrymandering law, every hindrance to voting, every obstacle that gets in the way of voters.  Voting rights should be the most sacred duty and the easiest duty to fulfill in our country and the SC should see it that way as well and rule against any GOP hindrance.  This is also an argument against the electoral college as it dilutes one person, one vote - I think it diminishes the value of that one vote. 

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17 minutes ago, schriznoeder said:

 

I think you're forgetting about the most important factor in all of this... Mitch McConnell. He flat-out stonewalled Obama's nominees over the last two years of his presidency.

 

Mitch McConnell laughs about stopping Obama hiring judges, allowing Trump to fill courts with conservatives

 

I mentioned the Turtle's hand in this in my reply. McConnell is more at center of this maelstrom than Trump if you ask me. 

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1 minute ago, DevoHusker said:

 

I mentioned the Turtle's hand in this in my reply. McConnell is more at center of this maelstrom than Trump if you ask me. 

 

You did, but you seem to be excusing what's happening because Obama has 40% of the currently appointed judges. It's a very confusing post.

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46 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-compares-with-other-recent-presidents-in-appointing-federal-judges/

 

image.png.1d2d02e750ebaec6d4e9ee4c2f13e037.png

 

Obama is responsible for 39% of the current, sitting judges. Did any of you complain about the "changing judiciary" then? If Ds didn't want a conservative leaning federal court system, they should have made that percentage even higher before Obama left office. 

 

It wasn't a pressing concern for them then, because they were absolutely certain that HRC was going to win.  Suddenly, after Trump and the Turtle take advance of the opportunity to fill 200 seats, it becomes an issue.

 

 

 

what i notice is that in 4 years trump appointed 194 judges (with a few more possible as a lame duck).   and obama appointed 312 in 8 years.   trump has gotten to appoint more then his fair share due to mcconnels abdicating his duty and blocking the senate from doing theirs.   i would like to see how many other presidents appointed total rather thn current share of judges to see if those numbers are normal.

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24 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

You did, but you seem to be excusing what's happening because Obama has 40% of the currently appointed judges. It's a very confusing post.

 

It is not confusing at all. I excuse nothing. I call out McConnell and Trump. I link that Obama appointed roughly 40% of the current, sitting judges, and ask why it wasn't a problem until the recent 24% of judges lean right. 

 

Clear as a ding, dong bell. 

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