We Worry About Supreme Court Appointments

[Ben]

We always talk about SC appointments, but I think sometimes forget the lower courts. Interesting article on the significant shift there since Obama took the helm:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/31/obama-appointments-already-pulling-appeals-courts-to-left.html

[TommyGunn]

It isn't going to get any better.  After 4/8 years of Hillary we'll be a communist banana republic.

[tokugawa]

To paraphrase uncle Joe,   "It is not who makes the law, it is who interprets what the law is".

[MechAg94]

That is what Tom Gresham and others have been saying about the Heller decision.  We are already seeing lowers courts do their best to undermine it.  The SC nominees are just the part of the ice berg that is visible.  All the other appointments are not so visible.  

[roo_ster]

Here you go. 

Remember, deserve's got nothing to do with it.

I’m not sure how many people realize it, but for the last forty-five years the average age of a Supreme Court justice upon retiring has been just under seventy-nine. Right now, Ginsberg is eighty-three, Breyer is seventy-eight, and the court’s frequently sensible swing vote, Kennedy, is eighty. Add in the recently deceased and very much missed Antonin Scalia, and that means that even a one-term president may get to pick two to four supreme court justices, while a two-termer will likely get to pick four or, depending on the continued health of Thomas and Alito, perhaps as many as six.1

Let’s not hunt for trouble; instead of worst casing the thing let’s just imagine a two-term Hildebeast, replacing Scalia, Breyer and Ginsberg with youngish leftist judges, and Kennedy hanging on against the odds for some other president to find his replacement. So we’re looking, best case really, at three new hard leftists, plus Red Sonia,2 in a “Wise Latina” vein, and Kagan...

In any case, hand Hillary Clinton the keys to the White House and the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court and either kiss your Second Amendment rights goodbye or be prepared for civil war, and soon. That is to say the war will begin soon, though it will drag on for years or decades.

That’s not the most troubling prospect, though. Although Hillary hasn’t declared a litmus test for gun control, she has declared a litmus test for the First Amendment, specifically with regard to the case I mentioned above, Citizens United.10

You may, gentle reader, recall that a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Trump wants a place in the history books while Hillary is confident that she’ll be able to dictate what the history books are allowed to say...

So think about that one, too, when you’re thinking about pulling that lever in November. Think about it in terms, also, of “hate speech laws,” of religious freedom, of control over the internet…and the end of the First Amendment and the right of free speech, the defense of which was the logical core behind the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, a core Hillary Clinton apparently wants to excise from the heart of America.

And multiply x100 for the lower courts.

[Perd Hapley]

Trigger warning: this may keep you from sleeping for the next two months.

What if 2016 is another 2000-style, hanging-chad election?

[roo_ster]

Trigger warning: this may keep you from sleeping for the next two months.

What if 2016 is another 2000-style, hanging-chad election?