Discussion: Supreme Court To Address Abortion, Birth Control, And Race In New Term

Discussion for article #241346

Depending on what the Court says how much you wanna bet we donā€™t hear about ā€˜9 unelected juristsā€™?

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Is the Supreme Court (Republican) of the United States (S.C.R.O.T.U.S.) going to transport America back to

Pleasantville?

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For better or worse, Texas frequently is the center of controversy.

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I think itā€™s good that the court is revisiting the abortion issue. And the court may go either way, either upholding hard-fought and won womenā€™s rights on this, or curtailing them. And I believe either result is bad for republicans. At least, I should think that women (and many men for that matter) in this country would not take kindly to the court telling them that the rights that women do currently enjoy with respect to their decisions regarding their own reproductive health need to be curtailed using whatever distorted logic the court may choose. Whereas the court affirming those rights would stymie and infuriate the T-nuts and republicans in general, thus bringing relief as well as deep satisfaction to women, progressives and reasonable voters generally. Either way, women and progressive voting blocks are energized. Same logic would apply to the gerrymandering issue and its stakeholders.

Justice Breyer in a recent interview said the Court will likely take up the constitutionality of the death penalty in this new session and address the question of whether it violates the provisions of the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.

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Alito, who took the seat of Justice Sandra Day Oā€™Connor, provided a fifth vote for conservative outcomes on cases involving gun rights, abortion, campaign finance and race. Those are issues on which Oā€™Connor probably would have been with the courtā€™s liberals.

Just with simple math, 1 of 9 justices is 11.11% of the court: more than a ā€œdimeā€™s worth of differenceā€.

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Yeah and at their ages, I find it stunning the writer would even say no chance of a retirement between now the election. Statistically there is an even money chance one of the nine may succumb to a heart attack, stroke or other life-ending malady simply due to the age of the bench. I do not btw wish this to happen to any of the justices but to rule out this distinct possibility is beyond ludicrous.

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Itā€™s very frustrating when I hear the ā€œboth parties are the sameā€ clowns complain. Just on SCOTUS alone, there are huge differences, and if the Court was 5-4 the other way some huge decisions in recent years would have gone the other way. Itā€™s that simple.

Sure, both parties are owned by corporate entities too, but many times they are different ones, though there is a lot of ā€œoverlapā€ too. But on most social issues the two parties are very far apart. That is what makes 2016 such a huge election, there is almost a guarantee of at least one Justice retiring.

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SupremeCorporation K-RATS ------4 Angry Jurists and Scaliaā€™s lap dog.

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Is it too much to ask for a car carrying Scalia, Alito, and Thomas to have a front blowout and plunge into the Potomac in the middle of a blizzard?

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SCOTUS ladies need to kick some scrotus.

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I agree, but the more general point is on voluntary retirements from the bench or semi-voluntary hardship retirements. Generally speaking, at least in recent history (I havenā€™t studied up historically so canā€™t speak beyond recent history) justices have attempted to muddle through sometimes grave illnesses to time their leaving the bench to non-election-year times. Justices tend to want to avoid looking like they are timing their ā€œgoing outā€ with Presidential cycles.

From a practical perspective, if any of these justices retired tomorrow, I think we would have a hard time getting any candidate confirmed by the Senate through the remainder of 2015 or to election day 2016. Maybe might happen in the lame duck session, but by then the argument would be ā€œjust let our newly elected government take the reigns on thisā€. So, I think that even if there is a loss of one of the members of the bench in the next year and three months, it will fall to the President elected in 2016 to decide who to offer up, and the Senate elected that same year to decide who to confirm. This is actually good news for Democrats, as the Presidential-year elections tend to favor us more than off-year elections, so (without having really gamed out the specific Senate races up in 2016) we have a good chance at getting a better nominee confirmed.

That is, of course, if we win the Presidency. If something happens which causes a Republican to take office in 2017, that likely also means that the Senate has swung more to the batshit-crazy side of the fence, and weā€™ll need to buckle up for a horrifying assault on civil liberties with likely two more Scalia clones but in their 40s or younger installed.

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Great expectations with Alito as the fifth wheelā€¦?

ā€œsome Republicans pledging to find nominees who are similar to conservative Justice Clarence Thomasā€ who is quite possibly the dumbest justice in decades. See Kaganā€™s dissent to his bare majority opinion in Genesis Healthcare v. Symczyk, http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-1059_5ifl.pdf. Dismantles him.