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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 07/07/2005 : 15:13:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
I had a chance to talk today with a lawyer who used be to the Attorney General for some state or other (I forget which one). I asked him what he thought about the SCOTUS vacancy, and he said that he thinks we are now looking at a record-setting "shortest tenure as Attorney General of the United States."
That is the best-case scenario (considering this president) in my view. If he chooses Gonzales, who would be a shoe in for conformation, and then goes for a more conservative nomination for Chief Justice, the makeup of the court will pretty much be as it is now. He has already openly criticized some conservatives who have been lobbying against a Gonzales nomination.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2005 : 16:58:33 [Permalink]
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More and more, I think it's going to be Gonzalas. It is to everyone's advantage to get this done and overwith, and I think that the Domocrats will accept him. This will not make the neo-con fruit bats happy, but, as this administration is on the downhill side, why should they care? There's plenty of time to suck up mend fences afterward.
I think that "Fat Tony" will be selected for Chief Justice, although I've heard Thomas' name mentioned.
And now my question is: will Gonzie do any extra, little favors for his long-time, good ol' buddy, George when & if he's on the bench, hmmm?
And yes, I have a nasty, suspicious mind.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2005 : 17:13:15 [Permalink]
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None of the current Justices will be promoted to Chief, filthy. To do so requires Senate approval, and then to fill the then-vacant Associate Justice seat requires another Senate approval. The current administration is going to have enough trouble getting one nomination approved. Getting two approved to promote one of the current Associates to Chief would be like pulling teeth.
And all that after the much more imminent fight over an O'Connor replacement. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2005 : 19:21:38 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
None of the current Justices will be promoted to Chief, filthy. To do so requires Senate approval, and then to fill the then-vacant Associate Justice seat requires another Senate approval. The current administration is going to have enough trouble getting one nomination approved. Getting two approved to promote one of the current Associates to Chief would be like pulling teeth.
And all that after the much more imminent fight over an O'Connor replacement.
Erm, yes. But perhaps the pliers should be kept handy. I've just read that Renquist is going to announce his retirement, possibly tomorrow. This came from a site that I don't much trust and won't bother to link, but there it is.
We live in interesting times, no?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2005 : 01:45:18 [Permalink]
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Personally, I'm more interested in the appointment for the empty seat. I don't believe that the Chief Justice appointment makes a real big difference to the ideoloical make up of the Court.
Supreme Court justices are often surprises to those that appoint them. Even if they join the Court beholden to the Administration that put them in office, it doesn't tend to last very long. The highest court in the land fosters independence. Afterall, weren't half of the so called liberal block of Justices appointed by Republican presidents? Didn't Ford appoint Stevens and wasn't Bush, Sr. responsible for giving us Souter?
This, I think, may be the scenario with Gonzales. But, anything is preferable to another Scalia or Thomas.
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"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2005 : 05:05:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Tim
Personally, I'm more interested in the appointment for the empty seat. I don't believe that the Chief Justice appointment makes a real big difference to the ideoloical make up of the Court.
Supreme Court justices are often surprises to those that appoint them. Even if they join the Court beholden to the Administration that put them in office, it doesn't tend to last very long. The highest court in the land fosters independence. Afterall, weren't half of the so called liberal block of Justices appointed by Republican presidents? Didn't Ford appoint Stevens and wasn't Bush, Sr. responsible for giving us Souter?
This, I think, may be the scenario with Gonzales. But, anything is preferable to another Scalia or Thomas.
Here's a potential appointment to that seat that'll spoil your day:
quote:
Conservative Caucus's Choice for Top Court Is Cast in Stone
By Hanna Rosin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 14, 2005; C01
Upstairs in the otherwise staid University Club yesterday was a gathering designed to annoy President Bush: Members of a group called the Conservative Caucus sat around an oval table wearing Ten Commandments pins on their lapels and declining to speak in the polite tones favored by Bush in this "dignified debate" over judicial nominations.
Here at this news conference, outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was not the "great American" deserving of a hug, as Bush said, but someone whose judicial philosophy concerning abortion rights was summarized as: "If it helps your career, then kill your baby." Here, the Supreme Court was not a venerable American institution but the body responsible for "decades of assault and abuse on the Constitution."
In this room, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, assumed to be Bush's personal favorite to replace O'Connor, is a "big step backward," and only one man, really, is qualified for the job: Roy Moore, former chief justice of Alabama, best known for refusing to follow a federal order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse and was therefore removed himself two years ago.
Wouldn't that be great? Rocky Roy on the Supreme Court?
American jurisprudence would be set back to the days of the Puritans.
Well, maybe that's a bit fulsome, but it would be something of a disaster for the justice system, none the less. And can you imagine having to stumble over Roy's Rock every time you entered a public building? 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2005 : 10:42:09 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Tim
Personally, I'm more interested in the appointment for the empty seat. I don't believe that the Chief Justice appointment makes a real big difference to the ideoloical make up of the Court.
Supreme Court justices are often surprises to those that appoint them. Even if they join the Court beholden to the Administration that put them in office, it doesn't tend to last very long. The highest court in the land fosters independence. Afterall, weren't half of the so called liberal block of Justices appointed by Republican presidents? Didn't Ford appoint Stevens and wasn't Bush, Sr. responsible for giving us Souter?
This, I think, may be the scenario with Gonzales. But, anything is preferable to another Scalia or Thomas.
Gonzales cannot be allowed to take a seat on SCOTUS. Anyone who refers to the Geneva Convention as being a quaint and outdated document in support for torture interrogation for Al-Queda suspects cannot be counted on to defend our 9th Amendment rights.
Hopefully they'll consider Judge George Greer. When he writes an opinion, you can't tell his party affiliation nor whether he is liberal or conservative. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/15/2005 : 12:02:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
This just in:
``I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement,'' the chief justice said in a statement first disclosed by The Associated Press late Thursday and later confirmed by the court.
I suppose this changes everything. Now Bush will probably be looking for a more conservative replacement for O'Connor…
Yeah, I caught that a little earier. I'd hesitate to say what changes it might bring because, well, how much longer can Renquist last? The guy looks like death warmed over, what with the chemo and his age, and all of the rest of it. I'd not at all be suprised to hear of him back in hostital tomorrow, only to be released to the family's mortuary a few days later.
quote:
Gonzales cannot be allowed to take a seat on SCOTUS. Anyone who refers to the Geneva Convention as being a quaint and outdated document in support for torture interrogation for Al-Queda suspects cannot be counted on to defend our 9th Amendment rights.
Hopefully they'll consider Judge George Greer. When he writes an opinion, you can't tell his party affiliation nor whether he is liberal or conservative.
Yes, I think that Greer would be a good choice, far better than Gonzalas. But when is the last time that Bush & Co. made a good choice of anything with the benefit of the entire country in mind?
A funny thing I've noticed, over the decades. When someone gets on the SC bench, they often develop a conscience. Thus, O'Conner was a vast disappointment to Reagan, who expected her to be another hide-bound conservative.
Scalia and Thomas are fairly glaring exceptions to this.
A little more shit in the game: I am reading of a growing noise about convincing O'Conner to stay a while longer. If she should do this, Renquist's seat becomes a bone of far greater contention. If O'Conner stays, Rove will probably have Renquist poisoned the day he goes in for more chemo, just on the off chance that he might survive long enough that the Comatose Cowboy doesn't get to make an appointment at all.
Interesting times, interesting times.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 11:08:59 [Permalink]
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Our soon-to-be-bleagured president is going to announce his pick for O'Conners seat this evening. The current buzz is that it's going to be Edith Brown Clement of the Fifth Circute. I did a quick google and it seems that not a hell of a lot is known about her, at this point at least.
quote:
Clement was educated at the University of Alabama, receiving her B.A. in 1969, and at Tulane Law School, where she received a J.D. in 1972. Her early career included a period clerking for Judge Herbert W. Christenberry at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (1973-1975), after which she worked as a maritime attorney in private practice in New Orleans, Louisiana until 1991.
On October 1, 1991 Clement was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana by George H.W. Bush. She was confirmed by the Senate to this post on November 21, 1991 ( by 99-0 votes ), and received commission on November 25, 1991. In 2001 she served as chief judge of this court, before being nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
She was nominated to her current seat on September 4, 2001 by President George W. Bush, was confirmed by the Senate on November 13, 2001, and received commission on November 26, 2001.
Judge Clement is a member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States, the Federal Bar Association, the American Law Institute, the Federalist Society, the Tulane Law School's Inn of Court, and the Committee on the Administrative Office of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
She's conservative and has made a couple of decisions I don't agree with, but nothing I can quickly find that's really controversial.
It is interesting to note that Bush is announcing on prime time tv, when he could simply have spat it out from behind his desk and continued with the country's business. Anything to divert attention from Rove & treason, I guess.
We'll see.
Edit: From Kos: quote:
Judicial outlook and record
Clement doesn't provide much ammunition for opposition groups, but perhaps not much for conservatives to get excited about either. She hasn't written anything notable off the bench (or at least nothing that's come to light yet), and most of her judicial decisions have been in relatively routine and uncontroversial cases.
Civil Rights and Liberties
According to The Orlando Report, "MSNBC is reporting that Clement has acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is settled law and within the constitutionally protected right to privacy. She apparently stated this at her last confirmation hearing." Still, as Emily Bazelon wrote on July 5, 2005, for Slate, "There's little in the judicial opinions of short-listers Judge Edith Brown Clement (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit) and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit) to indicate their positions on abortion."
I do not think that James Dobson or Jerry Falwell will like this one, if indeed, she's the pick.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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| Edited by - filthy on 07/19/2005 11:35:03 |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 07/19/2005 : 11:31:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Gonzales cannot be allowed to take a seat on SCOTUS. Anyone who refers to the Geneva Convention as being a quaint and outdated document in support for torture interrogation for Al-Queda suspects cannot be counted on to defend our 9th Amendment rights.
Val, I agree, but unfortunately we have little choice. It's unlikely that the Senate is going to put up much resistance to his nomination, if that were the case.
It's all up to Bush and his handlers. Either he placates the RR or he chooses a slightly right of center nominee that doesn't raise too many objections. Either way, we find out today at 9:00PM US Eastern time.
Edited to add the word "today" |
"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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| Edited by - Tim on 07/19/2005 11:33:08 |
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Topic Locked
