[Finfinder]

Heads are going to explode

Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced he will retire.

He notified President Trump in a letter Wednesday, telling him that effective July 31, he would "end my regular active status as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, while continuing to serve in a senior status."

Kennedy called it the "highest of honors to serve on this Court," and he expressed his "profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret, and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-co ... e-updates/

[Hong Wu]

This is helping to secure a somewhat conservative majority but it'll be a lot more interesting if/when a liberal justice gets replaced. IMHO the left is running out of outrage fuel, I wonder who will have physical energy to be outraged when one of the liberal justices steps down.

[Finfinder]

This is helping to secure a somewhat conservative majority but it'll be a lot more interesting if/when a liberal justice gets replaced. IMHO the left is running out of outrage fuel, I wonder who will have physical energy to be outraged when one of the liberal justices steps down.

It's bigger than you think,Kennedy was known as "the swing vote". Perhaps his biggest mark is that he is credited for his vote/ decision which allowed for same sex marriage.

It's gonna get ugly up in here. (the debate)

[Victoribus Spolia]

Heads are going to explode

Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced he will retire.

Time to celebrate.

[maz]

The Democrats just can't catch a break.

Democrats Regret Not Fighting Harder For Obama’s Supreme Court Pick

WASHINGTON ― The consequences of Republicans’ denying a Supreme Court seat to President Barack Obama became real this week, as the court dealt a sweeping blow to public sector unions and voted to uphold President Donald Trump’s travel ban. Both votes were 5-4, and Justice Neil Gorsuch voted with the conservative majority both times.

The reason Gorsuch is on the court at all largely comes down to one person: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who refused to give Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, a shot at filling the seat vacated after Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016. Garland never got a confirmation hearing or a vote; many GOP senators refused to even meet with him. McConnell pushed the argument that the next president should get to choose the next justice.

Democrats didn’t control the Senate at the time. But as they watch the Supreme Court now hand down major victories for conservatives, with Gorsuch playing a pivotal role, some of them wonder if they could have done more to stop McConnell.

“We should have shut down the Senate,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said Tuesday. “We made a calculation that we were going to win the 2016 [presidential] election and confirm a nominee. And it didn’t work out.”

“Hindsight’s 20/20,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). “I think I would have liked us to take an even harder line.”

Others weren’t so sure Democrats could have done anything differently.

“Are you trying to ruin my day?” asked Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “[McConnell] had the votes then. He has the votes now. Self-immolation was not an option. I have no idea what we could have really done.”

For some in the party, the problem began before Obama’s nominee even made it to the Senate. The issue was, frankly, with Garland himself. He was too moderate and too boring for some, and he just didn’t excite progressives.

“There were options to pick someone that the base would have been mobilized to support because of who they were and what they represented for the court,” said Heidi Hess, a co-director of the progressive group Credo Action. “Garland felt like a pick to play chess with Republicans, and it didn’t work because they don’t play respectability and civility — ‘Obviously this man is qualified, so we’re not going to block him.’ That was never going to happen.”

One Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, faulted Obama for not recognizing the war he would be waging with Republicans and for not picking a candidate who could fight.

Trump seized on the Supreme Court vacancy in 2016 and argued it was the best case for sending him to the White House, promising GOP voters who did not enthusiastically support him that he would appoint a conservative justice to replace Scalia. His campaign even released a list of people he would consider appointing to the seat.

But Democrats assumed Hillary Clinton would win the presidency. They discussed whether McConnell would relent and let Garland through during Congress’ lame duck session if she won the election. And there was debate about whether she should renominate Garland or tap someone more progressive of her choosing instead. There was far less discussion about what would happen if Trump won the White House.

[Finfinder]

@maz

The Joe Biden rule bites them on the backside.

[Hong Wu]

I'm not sure but I honestly suspect that Trump might try to nominate a moderate. Not that any such person would be treated as such by the media. I guess we'll find out soon!

[SpecialOlympian]

Lmao oh boy, conservatives are finally going to get to enjoy all of the policies they've been clamoring for. Ones that thankfully do not affect me.

Eliminating the minimum wage... to own the libs!

[Victoribus Spolia]

Lmao oh boy, conservatives are finally going to get to enjoy all of the policies they've been clamoring for. Ones that thankfully do not affect me.

Eliminating the minimum wage... to own the libs!

[SpecialOlympian]

Yes Victoribus, we're all aware that the core of current Conservative ideology is "own the libs continually no matter how much it costs us."

[Victoribus Spolia]

Yes Victoribus, we're all aware that the core of current Conservative ideology is "own the libs continually no matter how much it costs us."

Indeed, I wake up every morning and recite the following with elation:

[Doug64]

This is helping to secure a somewhat conservative majority but it'll be a lot more interesting if/when a liberal justice gets replaced. IMHO the left is running out of outrage fuel, I wonder who will have physical energy to be outraged when one of the liberal justices steps down.

Kennedy wasn’t a Conservative, but a Moderate — meaning he was all over the map, you might as well flip a coin than try to predict how he’d vote.

I'm not sure but I honestly suspect that Trump might try to nominate a moderate. Not that any such person would be treated as such by the media. I guess we'll find out soon!

No, he won’t, not if he wants to get reelected in 2020. When I constantly pointed out Trump’s lack of character on comment threads, the equally constant rebuttal was “But the Supreme Court!” If he turns on his supporters now, on this, he’s done. I wouldn’t be surprised if impeachment and removal became real possibilities.

Lmao oh boy, conservatives are finally going to get to enjoy all of the policies they've been clamoring for. Ones that thankfully do not affect me.

Eliminating the minimum wage... to own the libs!

Not a chance. The only ones that would have any chance of being overturned are those imposed by the courts and that doesn’t include the minimum wage, among (many) others.

[SpecialOlympian]

As if every anti-abortion group and business association isn't prepping legal paperwork to try and get cases into the pipeline as soon as the next Justice is nominated. Republican voters will finally have the Darwinian economic system they've always craved.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Justice Kennedy’s retirement allows Trump to become the restorer of GOP values

Whomever he picks will surely move rapidly to overturn the key decisions that Kennedy, often a decisive swing vote, supported on abortion and gay rights.



With the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Donald Trump is on the verge of becoming the most powerful Republican president in history. Kennedy’s decision amounts to rocket fuel for the November midterm elections for the GOP and will bond it to Trump. Trump can achieve the party’s decades-long dream of overturning legal abortion, not to mention ending gay marriage and affirmative action. CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin predicts that within the next eighteen months, twenty states will outlaw abortion.

It is an irony of history that Trump, a lifelong libertine, will become the president who restores the traditional moral values that the GOP has so passionately preached. But whomever Trump picks—perhaps a female conservative—will surely move rapidly to overturn the key decisions that Kennedy, often a decisive swing vote, supported on abortion and gay rights. The cultural war that the right has waged against the left since the 1960s is now at a hinge point. Democrats such as Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota will come under enormous pressure to support Trump’s nomination, while desperate liberals are already looking to Senators such as Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins to hold out against a judicial ultramontanist.

Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell says that he wants to schedule hearings for this fall—before the midterm elections. Democrats are crying foul. They say that McConnell’s refusal to hold hearings for Merrick Garland during President Obama’s second term means that the same principle should obtain today—no hearings during an election year. “We’re now four months away from an election to determine the party that will control the Senate,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein. “There should be no consideration of a Supreme Court nominee until the American people have a chance to weigh in. Leader McConnell set that standard in 2016 when he denied Judge Garland a hearing for nearly a year, and the Senate should follow the McConnell Standard.” Good luck with that. “There’s no presidential election this year,” McConnell noted.

The GOP will ram through any nominee, confident that a successful conservative pick will boost its electoral chances in both 2018 and 2020. Republicans can confirm any new nominee by themselves. “The goal will be to get a conservative confirmed before the election,” Senator John Barrasso said. “I’m delighted to see President Trump have another opportunity to appoint another Supreme Court justice. And I’m sure he’s going to appoint somebody just like Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch.” A young justice, which is what Trump will likely pick, could serve for three decades or more.

This isn’t a Dunkirk moment for the left; it’s Waterloo.

I'm not sure how likely the mentioned outcomes are, but I'm still amazed how politicized the courts, including the Supreme Court, are in the US.

[Rancid]

THis is going to be a disaster for millions of people. Gay, poor, minorities.

[Albert]

As far as I understand Kennedy is not really a conservative. Voting in favour of gay marriage and things is far from traditional conservative Republican standards. In essence he is a progressive who thinks himself as a conservative, like so many conservatives do as well.

[Stormsmith]

The abortion thing isn't a bigee. On line pharmacies will start stocking the abortion pill.

[One Degree]

There is a good chance there will be a 7-2 Conservative Court before Trump is out of office. Life changes. I don’t remember any of the changes being all that difficult to adjust to and neither will most of you.

[blackjack21]

This is helping to secure a somewhat conservative majority but it'll be a lot more interesting if/when a liberal justice gets replaced.

Kennedy has been a swing vote, so replacing him with a conservative will definitely make the court more reliably conservative than it was. While Bush appointed Clarence Thomas, he also appointed Souter who was a disappointment and left the court allowing Obama to replace him with Sonia Sotomayor.

Keep in mind, RBG is getting up there too. That's when the court will really start to change its complexion.

[blackjack21]

I'm not sure how likely the mentioned outcomes are, but I'm still amazed how politicized the courts, including the Supreme Court, are in the US.

Well the US constitution is an inherently conservative document by today's standards, so the left has been trying to inject leftist ideas into it like "gay marriage" which clearly are not there. So if the court gets to be composed of strict constructionists, a lot of what the left thinks is written in stone was just glued sand and will blow away in the not too distant future.

As far as I understand Kennedy is not really a conservative. Voting in favour of gay marriage and things is far from traditional conservative Republican standards. In essence he is a progressive who thinks himself as a conservative, like so many conservatives do as well.

Obergefell was simply terrible jurisprudence. If there is a ruling worse then Roe v. Wade, that's it for me.

The abortion thing isn't a bigee. On line pharmacies will start stocking the abortion pill.

They can just go to Canada.