Sinfest

[Major Tom]

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens to Retire, effective the first day after SCOTUS goes on summer break.

of course this is a great opportunity for Obama, to put his (another, though not the first) mark on the court, but geez -- wasn't 2010 already proving to be an exciting enough milieu of obstructionist backbiting, deceit and angst?

[Mizike]

Sotomayor?
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Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

[Major Tom]

d'oh.

still...

[Major Tom]

glen greenwald has what i'd call a rather sobering take on the court's chances of maintaining even a status quo, ideologically, as opposed to shifting toward the right/center-right

[Sam]

Impartial ideological analysis shows that the court is unusually skewed to the right as-is and there's currently a bad trend of extremely callous rulings helped along by this weird functional makeup. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Kelo v. New London were both extreme examples of (I believe) 5-4 straight-up demonstrations of the board's current worrisome makeup.

In its current state, the greatly aging Stevens acted as the prime mover and asset to the civil liberties/leftward thought bloc and he's essentially pivotal in that regard. Losing him is going to take a bad situation and probably make it worse.

[mouse]

it's a mark of how far right the court has moved when you realized stevens, who was appointed by a republican, is now considered the leader of the liberal wing of the court.

we are probably stuck with a solid, radically conservative block on the court for some years, given the youth of roberts and alito. even scallia is easily good for another decade or more - he's only 74, and supreme court justices do seem to go on well into their 80's. my guess is that the first of that block to retire will be thomas - he's only 61, but he doesn't seem to be enjoying himself, and he's sure not building any legacy he needs to hang on to complete. he's such a party hack, though, he'll hang on doing nothing until the next republican president comes around. really, our only hope for a major change back towards even the center (never mind the left) is if this lot gets struck by lightning.

that being said, i sorta hope obama goes all out and chooses someone really really liberal. it's not like he's not going to have a fight - he could pick the most conservative, reactionary judge in the country, and the hard-core right would dig in their heels, just because it was obama's choice. so why not go all out? yeah, that candidate might go down in flames - but then the next one can still be fairly liberal, and still seem like a much better choice.

well, it should keep the summer interesting.
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aka: neverscared!

[Major Tom]

he should nominate jerry brown

i hear he's looking for a job

[Major Tom]

[mouse]

[nathan]

[Him]

[ShadowCell]

yes, although Congress can impeach them or they could voluntarily resign.

[Him]

[ShadowCell]

actually the thinking was to insulate justices from political pressures, so they could be free to interpret legal cases of the greatest national import without worrying about losing their jobs.

of course, i don't think it actually works that way anymore. on the other hand, it only further entrenches conservatism when the justices are themselves conservative--and you won't necessarily get conservative justices. just ask Eisenhower about that.

[nathan]

if you ask eisenhower about anything, ask him about THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.
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All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last. - Marky Mark Proust