U S Supreme Court - all related issues

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I think he should pick a moderate, pro-choice woman.
Moderate in the sense that she wouldn't have any serious baggage that could be easily turned into a political football. He needs a relatively clean fight.

And yes, I do think he should specifically choose another woman.
Only having two women on the court is ludicrous.
 
White House: Obama eyeing 10 people for top court
(AP) – 23 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A White House aide says President Barack Obama is considering about 10 people to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

The aide would not provide names. Among those thought to be on the list are federal appeals court judges Merrick Garland of Washington and Diane Wood of Chicago.

Another is U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, and possibly Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

The White House aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal considerations.

Obama said Friday he will move quickly to name a nominee, and he asked the Senate for a swift confirmation process.

It is pretty early to make any predictions, but here is mine:

Elena Kagan, and she gets around 66-69 votes to confirm.
 
It is pretty early to make any predictions, but here is mine:

Elena Kagan, and she gets around 66-69 votes to confirm.

I'm with you on this one. Elena Kagan seems to be the most logical choice. I am 97% sure that it will be a woman. If it's a man, I'd like nothing more than Obama to stick it to the right with Goodwin Liu. Frankly I'd like to stick it to them with Pam Karlan, who is one of the most impressive legal minds I have ever read or heard speak.

But Elena Kagan fits the bill - her qualifications are unimpeacheable, she's already SG, there are a couple of GOP senators like Snowe and Collins who can't not vote for her, etc. I don't think anyone at this point is going to get 70+ votes because Republicans are total obstructionists and little more. Which is why Obama should extend his middle finger and nominate Pam Karlan, imagine a bisexual atheist female from San Francisco, that alone might thin out the Republican herd.
 
I hope you are right about him picking a woman.
I just fear that he will cave into political fear and pick Garland, who is apparently the name some Reps have floated as a "safe" choice.

Going on what I've read and heard in the last few days, Kagan would be considered a moderate choice. Wood would not. I'm only passing on pundit opinions, not my own.

Of course, I am sure the person he picks will be vilified within hours of their selection, regardless.
 
I'm with you on this one. Elena Kagan seems to be the most logical choice. I am 97% sure that it will be a woman. If it's a man, I'd like nothing more than Obama to stick it to the right with Goodwin Liu. Frankly I'd like to stick it to them with Pam Karlan, who is one of the most impressive legal minds I have ever read or heard speak.

But Elena Kagan fits the bill - her qualifications are unimpeacheable, she's already SG, there are a couple of GOP senators like Snowe and Collins who can't not vote for her, etc. I don't think anyone at this point is going to get 70+ votes because Republicans are total obstructionists and little more. Which is why Obama should extend his middle finger and nominate Pam Karlan, imagine a bisexual atheist female from San Francisco, that alone might thin out the Republican herd.

He can't even get Liu on the 9th Circuit, I hope he does. If Obama gets a second term, maybe he can get Liu on the Supreme Court then. I'd like to see him there, too.

Karlan? We do have 435 Congressional elections in November.

As for Kagan, I can't see all of the GOP going after her hard and leaving themselves open to charges of anti-Semitism. Since they seem to be wanting to portray themselves as Israel's only true friends.

The last thing I want to see is any more Opus Dei, nut jobs on the Court, there are way too many now.
 
If it's a man, I'd like nothing more than Obama to stick it to the right with Goodwin Liu. Frankly I'd like to stick it to them with Pam Karlan, who is one of the most impressive legal minds I have ever read or heard speak.

hopey changey :grouphug:
 
imagine a bisexual atheist female

my imagination is not very good

so I did a google search

Melusine.jpg

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

Religion: Animism






right now, I'm stayin' with Elena Kagan
I would really like to see the GOP attack her.
 
He can't even get Liu on the 9th Circuit, I hope he does. If Obama gets a second term, maybe he can get Liu on the Supreme Court then. I'd like to see him there, too.

I think he'll get past cloture. He's very impressive and very young, and would be a good replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Stevens has said that every single justice who has been named to the SCOTUS after him has been more conservative than the person he or she was replacing with the sole exception of Ginsberg. And the statistics support his assertion. This is because the Republicans don't give a shit about bipartisanship or moderation and name freaks like Alito to the court.

It is unfortunate that the SCOTUS is a political body essentially. The Canadian one is nothing like it. Then again we also have a female chief justice...outrageous I know.
 
Justice Stevens is the sole Protestant on the Supreme Court.

Identity Politics dictates that a Protestant be named to replace him.

1/2 of the United States population cannot be disenfranchsisied.
 
He/She is to rule on legal issues, not on theologian issues. No one would be disenfrenchised, no matter his/her religion.
 
Huffington Post

Glenn Beck prepared his listeners Friday for a "radical" Supreme Court nominee after news broke that Justice John Paul Stevens would retire at the end of the court's current term.

Beck believes that President Obama will--"if he's smart"--select a "gay-handicapped-black woman who's an immigrant" to energize what Beck perceives to be the president's flagging Democratic base. The Fox News host told radio listeners that the diversity of the imaginary, aforementioned nominee would be used against critics to "make the right and the middle-right into monsters."

Beck: She could be the devil, she could say 'I hate America, I want to destroy America,' and that way they'll only be able to say, 'Oh, Why do you hate gay immigrant black, gay, handicapped women.' Because that's what this has to be. It must be about.. And when I say this, I mean all of it.

They must energize their base. And Their base is getting smaller and smaller. Their base is becoming unions, thugs, MoveOn.org, Huffington Post--that's their base.

And anybody who has said, 'OK, wait a minute. I wanted universal health care. This is starting to spook me.'

They must make the right and the middle-right into monsters. Because they're losing those people on the middle-left ... those people on the middle-left back into their camp. And they can't do it without hatred and fear. That's all they're doing. That's why as they get louder, we must get softer.


Beck might be disappointed in Obama's nominee.

While there's no word yet from the White House about the identity of the president's selection, HuffPost reporters Ryan Grim and Sam Stein have identified Elena Kagan, Obama's solicitor general, as a frontrunner.
 
With Sotomayor, Obama did a fairly moderate pick and there was no real dust up.

I expect the same thing this time.


I kind of believe Harriet Miers, was a clever plan by W. Give them a scalp, and then replace a pro-choice woman Judge, with a rock solid, right to life, Conservative white male.

I don't see any chess-like moves necessary this time.



this is interesting,

Hillary Clinton, Supreme Court Nominee? White House Says 'No'

I'd like to see Obama put her on the Court on his way out the door.
 
When I started this thread, my thoughts were that it could include Court Decisions, also

here is one handed down today

Supreme Court strikes down animal-cruelty law
By DAVID G. SAVAGE

Dealing a setback to the animal rights movement, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down on free-speech grounds an anti-cruelty law that made it a federal crime to sell videos or photos of animals being illegally wounded, killed or tortured.
It marked the second time this year that the high court wielded the First Amendment to toss out a law with popular support.

The 8-1 ruling overturned the conviction of a Virginia man who sold several dog-fighting videos to federal agents.

All the states have laws against animal cruelty, but a decade ago, Congress adopted the new measure to stop the Internet trafficking in videos that showed tiny animals being tortured and crushed. Lawmakers said hunting would be unaffected since it is legal. Moreover, the ban on animal-cruelty photos included an exemption for those that had "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value."

Nonetheless, the law was challenged as unconstitutional by prominent media groups, which said it threatened freedom of speech. The case arose when Robert Stevens, a promoter of pit bulls, was indicted and convicted for selling videos on his website that showed the dogs fighting each other or killing wild boar.

Government lawyers had defended the anti-cruelty law on the grounds that photos of animals being tortured, like pornography involving children, should be outside the protection of the First Amendment because the speech has little value and comes at a high cost to society.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., speaking for the court, rejected as "startling and dangerous" the notion that the First Amendment protects only speech that is desirable or has social value. "The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the government outweigh the costs," Roberts said.

He also said the law was too broad and could allow for prosecutions for selling photos of out-of-season hunting, for example.

Though enacted a decade ago, the law against animal-cruelty videos had been used rarely. It came under challenge recently when federal prosecutors turned it against the underground industry of dog fighting.

After Stevens was convicted of selling the dog-fighting videos, he appealed and argued the law was unconstitutional.

He won a preliminary ruling from a U.S. court of appeals in Philadelphia last year, and the high court agreed Tuesday the law must be voided. "We do not decide," Roberts said, "whether a statute limited to crush videos or other depictions of extreme animal cruelty would be unconstitutional," he wrote in U.S. v. Stevens.

Only Justice Samuel A. Alito dissented. He faulted the court for striking down "in its entirety a valuable statute that was enacted not to suppress speech, but to prevent horrific acts of animal cruelty - and in particular, the creation and commercial exploitation of 'crush videos,' a form of depraved entertainment that has no social value."

The Humane Society called the decision a disappointment, but its officials said they were heartened the court left the door open for a new law that was more targeted at "crush videos" and dog fighting.

Wayne Pacelle, the group's president, said the law could be revised to apply only to "cruel" killing or wounding of animals for purposes of entertainment. "Our attorneys are confident that we can narrowly tailor a new measure that would withstand constitutional scrutiny," he said.

This is the high court's second notable free-speech ruling this year. In January, the court struck down the laws that prohibited corporations from spending money on election races. In that 5-4 decision, the court said restrictions on corporate political spending amounted to restrictions on free speech


I think the Court did the right thing here.

Once again, Alito shows he lets personal bias cloud his judgement.
 
^ I can't believe anyone wants to watch that sort of thing, it's beyond sick and disgusting to me. I don't care what the law is, there's no reason for that sort of thing to exist. Crush videos and fighting videos are completely depraved.

updated 5:15 p.m. ET, Wed., April 21, 2010

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama, treading carefully in the explosive arena of abortion and the Supreme Court, said Wednesday he will choose a nominee who pays heed to the rights of women and the privacy of their bodies. Yet he said he won't enforce any abortion rights "litmus tests."

Obama said it is "very important to me" that his court choice take women's rights into account in interpreting the Constitution, his most expansive comments yet about how a woman's right to choose will factor into his decision.

He plans to choose someone to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens within "the next couple weeks," he told CNBC.

When asked if he could nominate someone who did not support a woman's right to choose, Obama said: "I am somebody who believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction."

He said he would not judge candidates on a single-issue abortion test.

"But I will say that I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women's rights," Obama said. "And that's going to be something that's very important to me, because I think part of what our core constitutional values promote is the notion that individuals are protected in their privacy and their bodily integrity. And women are not exempt from that."

Such a detailed answer raised the question of whether Obama had, in fact, spelled out a fundamental test over abortion. The White House rejected that.

"I think a litmus test is when you say, will you ask a direct question about — do you believe this? Do you believe that?" White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "I think the president will ask any nominee discuss how they view the Constitution and the legal principles enshrined in it."
 
^ I can't believe anyone wants to watch that sort of thing, it's beyond sick and disgusting to me. I don't care what the law is, there's no reason for that sort of thing to exist. Crush videos and fighting videos are completely depraved.

that is just it

we don't make up laws on what we want, what is icky or not.

That is what Alito, seems to do.
They need to write the law properly. There is already new legislation, hopefully properly written this time, making its way through congress.
 
It is pretty early to make any predictions, but here is mine:

Elena Kagan, and she gets around 66-69 votes to confirm.

She's the one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36967616/ns/politics-supreme_court/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/09/AR2010050903489.html

http://content.usatoday.com/communi...a-to-nominate-elena-kagan-for-supreme-court/1



looks like NBC News's Pete Williams broke the story and others are just reporting his announcement

it won't be official until I read it on Drudge

(I am still waiting for Obama's tweet)
 
With Sotomayor replacing Souter and Kragen replacing Stevens, the Court will be less liberal.

The only hope is that these two new members will be able to construct arguments that can sway Kennedy. I am not hopeful.
 
With Sotomayor replacing Souter and Kragen replacing Stevens, the Court will be less liberal.



you think? with not one, not two, but three women, i am concerned that decisions will be more irrational and based on emotion, and often given to erratic changes in mood and emotional neediness. one day they're conservative, the next way liberal, what's a straight white guy to do to talk some sense into these ladies?
 
yes, there is cause for concern
we will have a wise Latina and two Jewish women

will they remember to put America first?
 
yes, there is cause for concern
we will have a wise Latina and two Jewish women

will they remember to put America first?



clearly, they'll have to set aside their (a)gend(a)er and/or religious or ethnic preferences and vote according to the laws.

that's a tall order. our last president knew that only a white man isn't burdened by his life experiences and can see clearly.
 
the Christofascist right is already calling her a lesbian.

seems like she probably is. who knows? i'd almost like it to come out and we can all discuss it. would love to see someone try to defend the point that being gay or lesbian automatically disqualifies you from SCOTUS.
 
I feel the need to revise my original estimate of votes for her

I still say she gets on the court,

I now think she will get few (if any, except Lieberman) GOP votes, there is too much risk in voting for her, it is more politically savvy to vote no

just ask Bob Bennett of Utah.


there is enough political cover in saying a vote for solicitor general should not equate as approval for S C.

few solicitors general have any Judaical experience, most SC appointments have Judaical experience
 
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