the next pres will probably be nominating at least 1 justice during his term.
5-4 liberal court again?
or 6-3 conservative and kiss Abortion goodbye?
When was the last time the court had 5-4 liberal majority?the next pres will probably be nominating at least 1 justice during his term.
5-4 liberal court again?
or 6-3 conservative and kiss Abortion goodbye?
Should retire: Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy
Will retire: Ruth Bader Ginsberg
I'm not convinced he would trust ANY President because he clearly views himself as one of history's great jurists and doesn't seem to think that there could possibly be a suitable replacement.
I don't want any SCOTUS member to trust any President. That is not their job nor should it influence their actions an any way. A President is irrelevant to their function except where there is a potential conflict between that office and the Constitution That goes for Congress too. In that case trusting that the other branch is antithetical to their function. What is important is the case before them. I'd rather have a group of highly skeptical people doing this than pals.
I mean, trust the President to nominate his successor. The Constitution gives the President that authority, and despite the contentious confirmation hearings that have modernly become the norm, I don't believe the framers intended that the President's nominee would be scrutinized for political reasons - just to determine whether he was appropriately qualified. I'm not talking about anything to do with the interaction between the President and the Supreme Court (though Scalia in particular seems to feel it is his job to editorialize in a negative way about Democratic Presidents).
I'd be happier if Andrew J Napolitano was the next supreme court judge even though I don't agree with him very close to 100% or even as much as I agree with Dr. Paul... trying to not be as anti-pragmatic as I was and I realize that neither half of Rombama would nominate him even though Christie Todd Whitman (kind of a Gary Johnson Republican if you think about it) may have appointed/advanced him in NJ... due to that, I think Obama would be less unlikely to nominate Napolitano than Romney would for various reasons. Maybe I should petition Obama to nominate Napolitano in case one of the assholes on there now steps down. Then I can say I did something. Maybe I'm delusional. Then again, maybe I'm not delusional but simply dumb... or both.
In any event, I don't want to hear any insults from members of the Neo-Johnson cult, because I'm growing out of the Dr. Paul cult. I want to be my very own cult, with some degree of moderation of course... all while still having a massive (but not 100%) bias towards Rothbard and seldom forgetting how much Dr. Paul helped me to think for myself.
Ideally the court should be conservative. It is the guardian of the Constitution which should be protected from popularity contests and whim. At the time of it's establishment folk didn't live so long and the court was one or a few generations behind the population, sufficient to act as a conservative break against the populist house and a more deliberative senate.
However, the modern conservative Republican has gone off the rails pushing for a fundamentalist Christian state and liberals will now better protect the Constitution.
If you don't like the Taliban don't vote Republican.
I don't want a fundamentalist Equalist regime any more than a theocracy.
Neither do the people you disparage.
It's remarkable just how warped Righties' perspectives can get. If incomes were auctioned off by how much a person would pay in taxes, high incomes would pay more than Swedish level taxes. It's the bottom line that counts, and by any measure, America's wealthiest enjoy much better bottom lines than they did pre-Reagan.
Low taxes at the top don't change their lifestyles in the slightest, create jobs or contribute to the economy in any way other than asset inflation. The real world lifestyle difference between taking home $2M/mo and $1.8M/mo is non-existent, because only a small part of such massive incomes is actually spent.
Meanwhile, median families' earinings would be ~40% higher if the income distribution curve of 1980 had been maintained. Median families would be thrilled to pay pre-Reagan taxes on incomes that were 40% larger, bet on that, because they'd be a lot better off than they are today after 30 years of trickledown deception.