Stephen Breyer to retire at the end of this court session.

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think all the men on the Supreme Court should not be allowed to judge on Roe v Wade because they could get a woman pregnant... and the women can't either because they can get pregnant.

Especially not Gorsuch.
Who knows how many abortions he caused with his drunken frat boy antics.
Tom

Gorsuch is a damned whore. He’ll fuck any judicial precedent.

 

[ZiprHead]

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson are set to begin Monday, and Republicans are already signaling their plan to attack her for providing legal representation to people imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. In doing so, lawmakers are revealing a belief that certain people don’t deserve a quality legal defense — undermining a key pillar of the U.S. judicial system.

I think that there is a big difference between legal representation and actual advocacy that goes beyond the professional duty to provide a vigorous defense. I think that's what doomed Obama's DOJ nominee Debo Adegbile - he wasn't Wesley Cook's lawyer, but he supported that murderer's cause while working for NAACP (that this formerly illustrious organization has stooped so low as to defend unrepentant cop killers is really beyond the pale!) There was also a far left-wing lawyer (Lynne Stewart) who, while defending an Islamic terrorist, acted as a courier to smuggle messages from him to his terror cell. She was eventually sent to prison for this, but served way too little time. In other words, just because somebody acts as a lawyer, does not mean all their actions are fair game.

I do not know if KBJ's work with Gitmo terrorists went beyond her professional duties. I agree that merely acting as a lawyer for unsavory criminal defendants is not in itself objectionable though.

The implication is that Jackson should not have tried as hard at her job because of who she was representing: brown men from predominantly Muslim countries held without charge in an offshore detention facility.

Why do you think the issue is with their hue and not with the fact that they are Islamic terrorists?

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said vetting on the battlefield during the early stages of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was incompetent with no meaningful attempt to discriminate "who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation."....

In his posting for The Washington Note blog, Wilkerson wrote that "U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released."

Former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former vice-president Dick Cheney fought efforts to address the situation, Wilkerson said, because "to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership."

Wilkerson told the AP in a telephone interview that many detainees "clearly had no connection to al-Qaeda and the Taliban and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistanis turned many over for $5,000 a head."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/most-guantanamo-detainees-are-innocent-ex-bush-official-1.804550

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Has this question ever been asked before?

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham began his questioning of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by asking her what religious faith she subscribes to. She responded that she is a nondenominational protestant.

Judge Jackson told Graham that while her faith is very important to her, "as you know, there's no religious test in the Constitution under Article VI."

"And it's very important to set aside one's personal views about things in the role of a judge," she said.

Graham continued, asking the judge "how faithful would you say you are?" She said that she was "reluctant" to talk about her faith because she believed it is important that when evaluating her qualifications the public can "separate out my personal views."

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Meanwhile, Josh "Soft on Illegal Porn" Hawley...

Anyone remember when Kavanaugh was angry about being asked if he liked beer? And Judge Jackson is being accused of letting child molesters get off easily. I mean, both sides are just as bad, amiright?

 

[southernhybrid]

Has this question ever been asked before?

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham began his questioning of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by asking her what religious faith she subscribes to. She responded that she is a nondenominational protestant.

Judge Jackson told Graham that while her faith is very important to her, "as you know, there's no religious test in the Constitution under Article VI."

"And it's very important to set aside one's personal views about things in the role of a judge," she said.

Graham continued, asking the judge "how faithful would you say you are?" She said that she was "reluctant" to talk about her faith because she believed it is important that when evaluating her qualifications the public can "separate out my personal views."

I watched that as well and was wondering what the fuck Lindsey was going on about. What an asshole! Now, I'm watching that idiot Cruz questioning her. They attended law school together. OMG! This is going to be entertaining.

 

[Copernicus]

I watched that as well and was wondering what the fuck Lindsey was going on about. What an asshole! Now, I'm watching that idiot Cruz questioning her. They attended law school together. OMG! This is going to be entertaining.

Lucky for her that she didn't attend Princeton, where he used to walk into the women's section of the dorm wearing nothing but a paisley bathrobe.

 

[Elixir]

I watched that as well and was wondering what the fuck Lindsey was going on about. What an asshole! Now, I'm watching that idiot Cruz questioning her. They attended law school together. OMG! This is going to be entertaining.

Lucky for her that she didn't attend Princeton, where he used to walk into the women's section of the dorm wearing nothing but a paisley bathrobe.

Nothing entertaining about it. If I could afford the lawyer I'd sure SH for promising entertainment. Lyin' Ted is too stupid to entertain anyone over the age of 24 months. I kept wishing 'Tanji would rip his head off, but she's just too professional. And black. She might get away with it if she was white...

 

[Bomb#20]

I think all the men on the Supreme Court should not be allowed to judge on Roe v Wade because they could get a woman pregnant... and the women can't either because they can get pregnant.

Heh. It's true, though -- no one on the court should be allowed to rule on Roe v Wade. No Roe v Wade case should ever come before the court, because all attempts by states to circumvent it should be blocked without getting to the constitutional question, because state-level regulation of abortion should be preempted by federal law, because the Democrats should have passed a federal law protecting abortion rights back when they had the numbers to pass it without Republican support and a president to sign it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think all the men on the Supreme Court should not be allowed to judge on Roe v Wade because they could get a woman pregnant... and the women can't either because they can get pregnant.

Heh. It's true, though -- no one on the court should be allowed to rule on Roe v Wade. No Roe v Wade case should ever come before the court, because all attempts by states to circumvent it should be blocked without getting to the constitutional question, because state-level regulation of abortion should be preempted by federal law, because the Democrats should have passed a federal law protecting abortion rights back when they had the numbers to pass it without Republican support and a president to sign it.

The Texas law circumvents that.

 

[TomC]

The Texas law circumvents that.

Supposedly that's why we have a SCOTUS. To apply Constitutional Law to the government.
Unfortunately, the TeaParty Republicans ended the old nonpolitical, nonpartisan, SCOTUS in 2016. It was already under assault, but they (Mitch McConnell &Co) did that US institution in because it served their personal ambitions to do so.

RIP
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Texas law circumvents that.

Supposedly that's why we have a SCOTUS. To apply Constitutional Law to the government.
Unfortunately, the TeaParty Republicans ended the old nonpolitical, nonpartisan, SCOTUS in 2016 1986. It was already under assault, but they (Mitch McConnell &Co) did that US institution in because it served their personal ambitions to do so.

RIP
Tom

FIFY. A technicality, but important.

 

[Politesse]

I think all the men on the Supreme Court should not be allowed to judge on Roe v Wade because they could get a woman pregnant... and the women can't either because they can get pregnant.

Heh. It's true, though -- no one on the court should be allowed to rule on Roe v Wade. No Roe v Wade case should ever come before the court, because all attempts by states to circumvent it should be blocked without getting to the constitutional question, because state-level regulation of abortion should be preempted by federal law, because the Democrats should have passed a federal law protecting abortion rights back when they had the numbers to pass it without Republican support and a president to sign it.

They would need a spine to do such a thing, though, unfortunately.

I worry about Obergefell v Hodges for the same reason.

 

[blastula]

Weird question, but I don't care if she does or not.

Why? I guess you do not care about justices' possible conflicts of interest. At least when you agree with their political positions.

Quite a stretch to call it a conflict of interest. How would she personally benefit from her opinion?

If Yale had a policy to preferentially admit Irish, would you not think Kavanaugh should recuse himself in a case about whether such policies were legal?

Weird question again. Why would she be any more biased than any other justice who went to Harvard?

I do see someone with an obvious bias here, but it's not her.

This reminds me of the overturning of California gay marriage ban, that when the judge in the case came out as gay, some people said he should have recused himself.

Based on? Just that she's black?

Harvard has been systematically discriminating against white and Asian students and in favor of black ones.
So yes. Her being black is sufficient to suspect her of being a beneficiary of racist admission policies.

You said "most likely." But so what if she was? Harvard also discriminates against non-legacy students in favor of legacy students. Why do you care either way? Did you apply and get rejected and are still stewing about it?

Why?

I am concerned about the old man's hard shift to the left over the last 2 years. And I am concerned about the kinds of opinions another far left justice might come up with.

You're concerned that a liberal will be on a 6-3 conservative court? Gives you the vapors, does it?

Red Sonja is horrible enough!

One of your cringiest smear names yet, and that's saying something.

 

[Derec]

Do you think it is also reasonable to expect Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan and John Roberts to recuse themselves as well? They are all Harvard Law graduates.

No, because they were not beneficiaries of Harvard's racist admission policies.

FFS, Dereck Chauvin was an experienced officer who showed extreme brutality and excessive use of force over 8 minutes.

What he did was bad, but it was not worse than what Noor did. Certainly not five times worse, and yet he will end up doing five times the time. Because there were nationwide riots for Floyd but not for Dammond.

Mr. Noor acted in a split second. There is no reasonable parallel between the two cases.

There isn't. Floyd was a career criminal. Dammond was innocent. Floyd needed to be restrained. Noor had no reason to pull a weapon on Dammond. Floyd had high amounts of fentanyl and meth in his system that undoubtedly contributed to his death. Dammond's death is solely due to the bullet Noor shot at her.

And your insinuation that the Mn AG (who did not prosecute either case) somehow went soft on Mr. Noor because he is a black Muslim is pure racist bullshit.

He did not personally prosecute the cases, but he was involved in the Chauvin prosecution. He also inserted himself into the Daunte Wright case. He could have retried Noor after the idiotic decision to reduce his sentence to a virtual slap on the wrist, but he chose not to. In other words, he goes hard against white cops, but is soft of a black Muslim one.

 

[Derec]

You said, “ beneficiary of racist admission policies.”

She is that.

My position is that it is not “racist” to want a diverse student body, and to value background in addition to grades.

It is not racist to desire a diverse student body or to consider personal background.
It is racist to discriminate against applicants on the basis of race.

Also, people who cite "diversity" to argue in favor of racial preferences also tend to be big supporters of so-called "HBCUs", which are the least diverse universities in the US, and even go as far as demanding they be given preferential treatment by the federal government (example).

What is your opinion of HBCUs and their lack of diversity? Is lack of diversity not a problem when it's mostly black people in a college?

I know that you think it is; that an all-Asian school, or an all-white school should be forced upon an institution that doesn’t want one. And that if an institution values something besides a score on a single test, it must be somehow “unfair”.

Where do you get the idea that Harvard or other highly selective universities would be "all-Asian" or "all-white" if they instituted race-neutral admission policies? I also do not think "a score on a single test" should be the only criterion on which admissions are based. But it is a nice objective measure that is, unlike GPA, consistent between the many high schools applicants come from. That said, I think SAT/ACT, GPA/transcript, extracurriculars and personal background are all important for admissions. I do not think race or gender should be. I think it is very perverse that supposed liberals fail to see that point.

You’ve said it enough times, I get what you think.

I never said anything of the sort. You are misrepresenting my positions!

But you (should, by now) know that others think that valuing cultures and desiring a mix of cultural representation and attaining it by demonstrating that more than a single grade is valued, is not a “racist policy.”

Again, you are trying to sugarcoat the policy that actively discriminates against people based on the color of their skin. And race/ethnicity is not the same as culture anyway. And again, nobody is advocating basing decisions on "a single grade".

We disagree. I get that. You get that. We both read Harvard’s statements that they value more than a single grade as a measure of worth.

Will you stop with your "single grade" straw man? You built him up so tall, he would not be out of place at Burning Man.

Now you’ve changed from “racist admission policies” to “racial preferences” and you’re still not accurately stating Harvard’s position. It is not a “racial preference,” it is a part of an overall picture.

The change was just for variety of language. I think racial preferences in admissions are racist policies because it is discrimination on the basis of race. And I also think that's exactly what Harvard is doing.

Here you see stark differences in SAT scores for admitted students at Harvard by race. Look at the chasm between Asian students and the "preferred races", i.e. blacks, hispanics and Indians.

And here you can see that the admit rate was highest for black applicants and lowest for Asians.

And here is another graph, showing admit rates by race and academic performance.

As you can see, it is rather obvious that Harvard is discriminating based on race.

Interestingly, you claim they are discriminating against Asian students, yet for this year’s freshman class they admitted a higher percentage than before. Go figure.

That really says nothing about whether they are discriminating. How many would they be admitting if they had a race-neutral admission policy?

Of the admitted students, more than 27 percent are Asian Americans (up from 24.5 percent in 2020) and 18 percent are Black (up from nearly 15 percent in 2020). Harvard admitted slightly more Latino students, 13.3 percent, up from 12.7 percent in 2020. The share of students of who identified as Native Americans fell by 1 percent point to 1.2 percent.

So Harvard admits a share of blacks significantly higher than the population share of blacks in the US, even though, academically, black applicants significantly underperform. Why? This is not even diversity, it's hyper-representation for the sake of hyper-representation!

So you called it a racist policy, and said that the fact that she was black was “sufficient to suspect her of being a beneficiary” of these “racist” admission policies.

What's wrong with that? Harvard discriminates by race to admit more blacks than they would under a race-neutral policy. In fact, their discriminate in favor of blacks so much, they end up 4-5 percentage points overrepresented compared to population at large.
So why is it wrong to suspect any black student of being a beneficiary of such a heavy-handed racial preference?

Bomb’s question is an interesting one for you to answer. Is the fact that you are white sufficient to suspect that you are a beneficiary of racist policies? (Note I have changed his question slightly so that it is appropriately hyperbolic)

What racist policies in particular do you have in mind that you think I have benefitted from? Be concrete.
Racial preferences (aka "affirmative action") in both college admissions and hiring goes against me. So what do you think I have benefited from? Or do you think that Eddie Murphy sketch was a documentary?

 

[Derec]

As long as we look at it in a bubble, you are absolutely right. If we act like adults, recognize a black person has been nominated twice in the history of the Supreme Court,

Three. Are you forgetting Thurgood Marshall? He was put on the court in 1967. That means that for over half a century we have had roughly proportional representation of blacks on SCOTUS.

a woman has been nominated 5 times for the Supreme Court, and a black woman has never been nominated for the Supreme Court, we realize that concentrating on a slate of highly qualified black women is hardly anything to get angry about.

We cannot change the past. I do not think it is in any way "adult" to practice historic payback. In fact, I think that is very childish to demand a hyper-representation of blacks on SCOTUS as some sort of payback for the past.

After all, if this woman were so bad, her qualifications would be getting torn apart. Instead we hear a lot of whining about Biden's decision to narrow the pool. Last black nominated to the Supreme Court was Clarence Thomas when modem speed was still provided in Baud, during the George HW Bush Administration!

Yes, the problem is that Biden pledged to nominate nobody but a black woman in his bid to secure Clyburn's endorsement for South Carolina. I do not see how any fair-minded person cannot view that as a problem.

And it does not matter when the last black justice was nominated. SCOTUS justices are lifetime posts and serve for decades. And 1/9 (that we have had since 1967!) was already close to being representative of US population.
The problem is that Biden made a decision to only consider black women and not even to make SCOTUS representative, but to have blacks be over-represented. And what of the future? Will 2/9 (22.2%) be the new floor for black representation on SCOTUS? Will there be a demand to only replace these two black justices with other black justices in perpetuity?

A side-note though: when Loren uses "a black" as a noun, he is routinely attacked on here for his choice of language. I guess there it's ok when a leftist uses it that way.

Man, the shit that you think is so important.

It's a major case to be decided by the SCOTUS in the coming months.

 

[Derec]

I bet she won't cry and say she loves beer.

I also bet she also won't be asked about what she may or may not have been doing when she was 17 or what parties she may have attended.

I guess now is as good time as any to finally come forward and say that KBJ molested me when she was 17. Now, I do not remember exactly when or where, but it is true. You can ask my good friend, Keyser Söze. Also, something something second door.

I demand FBI do a full investigation at this late stage, no matter how long of a delay that causes to the nomination process.

 

[Derec]

Or by 'original' does he mean 'original plus at least five amendments'?

Assuming (probably too optimistically) that you are asking this in good faith, it means the original text and all the amendments. It basically means that the way to change the Constitution is the amendment process, and not reading stuff into it based on the concept of "living constitution" or "emanations from the penumbrae" which sounds more like gnostic cosmology than sound jurisprudence ...

 

[Derec]

Grassley seems a bit senile. SCOTUS needs term limits. Damn! This country is fucked up.

SCOTUS or Senate? Both are probably good ideas.

 

[Derec]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/most-guantanamo-detainees-are-innocent-ex-bush-official-1.804550

Headline says "most", but the text says "many". Backtracking between the headline and first sentence already. Great journalism!

Also they mention Omar Khadr, the millionaire terrorist. He was clearly guilty. Instead of giving him $10M (CAD), Canada should have tried him for high treason.

Also, I had no idea who this " Lawrence Wilkerson" was, so I looked up his wiki page.
He likes ranting about the "Jewish Lobby" and has praised Iran in the past.