Just remove the lifetime nomination.
no other judge in any other country is appointed for life on its highest courts
take that away and the damage Brett can do is limited
I still don’t know who thought it was a good idea to give justices life terms.
They wanted them not to fear public opinion or losing reelection, that the only thing influencing their job is themself.
It was implemented in a time where being 60 was a genuinely mind boggling thing to people.
It has no place in a current health focused society where people regularly live to be 80+.
I just don't see it changing because each party REALLY wants to get their guys' asses in those chairs for 25+ years
It does actually had a place; stability. Like mentioned above a supreme Court Justice does not have to worry about party politics and winning votes. A lifetime bench means that there is a layer of stability that is maintained over long periods of time, which means large and significantly important issues are not being flip floped every 4 years. If the supreme Court were an elected position with similar terms to members of Congress, knowing how much Congress flips, would really be a pretty can scary thing. If you fear a republican majority in Congress for a few years, think of how significant a republican supreme Court concerned with particular party ties and winning votes would be. You could expect very drastic changes much more often if that were the case.
But we're talking about situations where we have judges who are starting to fail the test of being "Cognitively aware" of their surroundings.
I hate to use John Oliver as proof of this, but on Last Week Tonight from the 9th of September, 2018, it was revealed that Chief Justice Berger wasn't totally with it for the last judgements of his term, and those decisions were "Reverse engineered" by his law clerks.
To me, that seems readily indicative of a problem.
Burger was the least competent Chief Justice and an asshole, beyond losing mental faculties, Bob Woodward smacked him in a book
Burger drew internal controversy within the Supreme Court throughout his tenure, as was revealed in the controversial, though best-selling book, Woodward and Armstrong's The Brethren. Although Senator Everett
Dirksen noted Burger "looked, sounded, and acted like a Chief Justice", the reporters depicted Burger as a weak chief justice who was not seriously respected by his colleagues due to alleged personal eccentricity
and lack of legal acumen.
Woodward and Armstrong's sources indicated that some of the other justices were annoyed by Burger's practice of switching his vote in conference, or simply not announcing his vote, in order that he be able
to control opinion assignments. "Burger repeatedly irked his colleagues by changing his vote to remain in the majority, and by rewarding his friends with choice assignments and punishing his foes with dreary
ones." Burger would also try to influence the course of events in a case by circulating a preemptive opinion.
Consequently, the Burger Court was described as his "in name only". Time magazine called him "plodding" and "standoffish", as well as "pompous", "aloof", and unpopular. Burger was a constant irritant
on the Court's group dynamic, according to The New York Times' Linda Greenhouse. Jeffrey Toobin wrote in his book The Nine that by the time of his departure in 1986, Burger had alienated all of his
colleagues to one degree or another. In particular, Potter Stewart, who had been considered a candidate to follow Warren as Chief Justice, was so discontented with Burger that he became the primary source
for Woodward and Armstrong when writing The Brethren.
It's surprising that the US doesn't have an age limit on the judges. In Canada (not quite the same I know) the supreme court has a mandatory retirement age of 75.
I never called it a perfect system. With the way things are Justices are inclined to spend longer and longer terms it out fear of situations such as what were in now. At least in recent history it had been somewhat of a judical tradition to keep a fairly even split between left and right leaning justices so as not to tip the favor in one way or another. This of course means that they typically would step down when the party aligned with their political leaning is in power. This of course gets completely thrown out the window if a Justice dies on the bench, of which is partly to blame from what I mentioned above.
It definitely has its flaws, but at least it allows for relatively stability when it comes to constitutional issues.
Justices usually have the sense to retire when they start to go, that's what Ginsburg is doing, Stevens did it in 2010 after stumbling on several sentences while in court.
https://twitter.com/ShimonPro/status/1041809415769399299?s=19
I guess the vote on Thursday is cancelled then
Womp womp
It still doesnt do anything to address the underlying issues of American politics. If anything, term limits for SCOTUS judges would just make things worse. You would get massive swings in judgments depending on whose in power. No progress would ever get made if each party is undoing the others work every 4 or 8 years.
Bottom line is American politics are very toxic and very us vs them. If you dont want scumbags in control of the courts, then you need to vote for people who dont strictly conform and vote to their party. Adding term limits to SCOTUS wont solve anything, but term limits for congress and senate however....
If anyone is still having doubts about whether or not Kavanaugh is actually that bad, leddit provided some fun context to his college years and the fraternity he belonged to
Monday is gonna be crazy
https://twitter.com/SenatorCollins/status/1042084224151502848?s=19
Lifetime appointments isn't exactly a bad idea, its just stacking a court with judges to overturn a ruling is. You're suppose to vote on a constitutional amendment, and if you can garner enough support for that then it has no place in our society.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/18/politics/trump-kavanaugh-testimony/index.html
"I don't think the FBI really should be involved because they don't want to be involved," Trump said, though he then held open the possibility of the FBI involving itself in the matter. "If they wanted to be, I would certainly do that. But as you know, they say this is not really their thing."
Um apparently the FBI or DoJ do background checks on anyone nominated to be on the Supreme Court. It's literally standard operating procedure
This the same honourable chairman that limpdicked his way out of a vote to remove him in the last hearing?
Ford’s testimony has been called off due to death threats according to the BBC
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaugh-senate-hearing.html
In the letter to the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday evening, Dr. Blasey’s lawyers said that she has been the target of “vicious harassment and even death threats” since her name was made public on Sunday in an interview published in The Washington Post. Her email has been hacked, she has been impersonated online and she and her family have been forced to relocate out of their home, according to the lawyers, Ms. Banks and her partner, Debra S. Katz.
That's her only chance before the final vote on wednesday, but I respect her decision if she doesn't out of fear
Was just reading the Fox News comment on the apologist video, and my god is it toxic:
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/242634/e8624917-b2b0-4ade-9fc8-6992c3126068/image.png
Fuck that guy...
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/242634/211d5d88-1230-47d8-b492-eefe31d50074/image.png
'She said he grop her' - all I need to know to explain that this guy's an idiot.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/242634/c366730d-58cf-4da8-bdc6-28079be6429d/image.png
Dave Jackson - the hero we need, but not the hero we deserve, flanked by two idiots.
Seriously, I could go on. This is genuinely what the political discourse has become in the US. Really fucking pathetic and sad.
She needs to shut up! She might hurt my political agenda and make me feel uncomfortable! What a bitch!
"I vote we make her a victim 150,000,000 times over"
I, too, wish 150 million rapes upon anyone who's threatening to keep me from getting absolutely everything I want when I want it.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/407296-kavanaughs-classmate-tells-senators-he-wont-testify
Mark Judge, the other man in the room according to Ms. Ford, is refusing to voluntarily testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
That leaves congress the option of issuing him a subpoena to testify, which, assuming he is not being charged with a crime, he would not be able to escape by pleading the 5th amendment.
Alex, what is a thing that will never happen (unless Kavanaugh's nomination somehow gets delayed until after a blue-wave midterm and the incoming House reps are seated).
Meanwhile, Trump's fourth wife is happily poisoning the country's minds. Don't read the comments.
https://youtu.be/n2JUDhxPJTA
Bill Clinton has become the "what about Chappaquiddick?" of our time. Yes Bill Clinton is an accused rapist. No that does not absolve Republicans for Trump, Rob Porter, Roy Moore or Kavanaugh. If Bill Clinton were accused now instead of ages ago, I doubt it would shake out the same way. Al Franken was pressured to resign after far less, after all.
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