You guys are disappointing me

[scottw]

are there any leftists that aren't smarter than everyone else?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by scottw

are there any leftists that aren't smarter than everyone else?

No, just none dumber than Authoritarians
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...so-differently

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by scottw

are there any leftists that aren't smarter than everyone else?

leftists aren't smarter than everyone else but it appears Fox news viewers know less about current events than people who don't watch the news.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2.../#42b2643112ab

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

, lawyers with no experience for judgeships, etc. .

Having judicial experience didn't stop Sonia Sotomayor from saying this, which should prevent her form ever serving on a jury, let along on the Supreme Court...

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”

You cannot get more bigoted than that, you simply cannot, and she will be on that bench for the rest of my life. White men, by virtue of their skin pigmentation and genitals, make inferior judges. That's super.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Having judicial experience didn't stop Sonia Sotomayor from saying this, which should prevent her form ever serving on a jury, let along on the Supreme Court...

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”

You cannot get more bigoted than that, you simply cannot, and she will be on that bench for the rest of my life. White men, by virtue of their skin pigmentation and genitals, make inferior judges. That's super.

It wasn't bigoted at all in context. Just a little clumsy.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Having judicial experience didn't stop Sonia Sotomayor from saying this, which should prevent her form ever serving on a jury, let along on the Supreme Court...

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”

You cannot get more bigoted than that, you simply cannot, and she will be on that bench for the rest of my life. White men, by virtue of their skin pigmentation and genitals, make inferior judges. That's super.

And she said that 8 years before she was appointed and she made it through confirmation. Just like Gorsuch did, that is the way the game works.

[Pete F.]

Ahh, a new Hope for the White House

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

The reason I said just like Gorsuch is because both parties get their turn and both whine about the others choice.
Laura Gomez said:
"I was a speaker at the conference Sotomayor's speech kicked off, and I would like to put her comment in context.

Entitled "Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation," the conference brought together -- for the first time, to my knowledge -- judges, lawyers, scholars and law students to consider the state of Latinos in the judiciary.

This shows how far we have come from interpreting the Law to interpreting by personal opinions. The blindfolded symbol of lady justice holding a scale no longer applies. The "presence" in the judiciary no longer must be those steeped in the law, who represent the specifically defined Constitution, but those who represent various factions, ethnicity, race, gender, and such things that have no defined or universal perspective.

By 2050, Hispanics will be 30 percent of the U.S. population, and yet the number of Latino judges remains tiny. The number of female Hispanic judges is even smaller; Sotomayor is one of two Hispanic women among federal appellate judges, and there are not much more than that among the hundreds of federal district judges.

The Constitution limits government. It does not limit Hispanics. Interpreting constitutional law protects the rights of everybody. Interpreting by personal ethnicity protects that ethnicity at the expense of others.

Part of the impetus for the conference was to signal the potential crisis for our courts in the 21st century if we do not get more Latino lawyers interested in becoming judges and more appointed to the bench.

The potential crisis being manufactured here is further erosion of the Constitution into unlimited, irrelevant, and divisive points of view that lead to chaotic, unpredictable government which has no basis or principle for being.

In this context, I did not find Sotomayor's comment controversial. As I look at the speech eight years later, I'm struck by how measured and careful she was in making the claim.

First, the sentence I have quoted here followed Sotomayor's acknowledgement that there is no universal definition of "wise."

A defining mark of a Judge is the use of precise, unambiguous language.

Second, she presented the statement as aspirational by using the phrase "I would hope"; she was talking as much about the ideal of diversity as its reality.

Diversity of meaning in law is not law. It is chaos.

Third, she specified that she was talking not about all Latinas and all white men but about ideal types; she invoked a "wise" Hispanic woman who has had a particular set of life experiences and white male judges who have not "lived that life" (suggesting that some white males could, in fact, bring a similar empathy and/or life experience to the bench).

None of us has lived the life of anybody else. This is stupid gibberish. It is not the life you have lived that must be brought to the court of justice. It is your knowledge of the law. Legal, constitutional justice cannot be just if it is based on one personal life experience. It must encompass all lives alike in the interface with government.

Fourth, she went out of her way to say that she thought this would be the case "more often than not," rather than all the time.

More often than not cannot be a just way to interpret the law. Justice requires boring, predictable, disinterested impartial certainty.

Finally, in the next sentence of her speech, Sotomayor went on to specify that she was addressing the dynamics of an appellate court with multiple judges (such as the three-judge and en banc panels on which she sits as an appeals court judge and the Supreme Court), rather than talking about a trial court context in which a single judge presides.

She was referencing the group dynamics on a U.S. Supreme Court of nine justices who converse publicly during oral arguments and privately during conferences over cases. In these settings, who a judge is, in all the ways that matter, undoubtedly affects his or her own thinking about cases as well as that of the other justices.

The "thinking" about Constitutional cases should not be clouded by racial or ethnic or gender points of view. Of course, Progressives elevate those points of view above actual law. It is exactly the type of "interpretation" which makes the Constitution irrelevant.

Does anyone that doubt that Justice Thurgood Marshall's identity as an African-American male or his experience as a civil rights lawyer shaped his judicial philosophy and influence his fellow justices some of the time? Most watchers of the Supreme Court have similarly concluded that Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have had a great impact on their colleagues in cases of particular interest to women, such as abortion and sex discrimination.

Insofar as Marshall's and O'Connor's, or Ginsberg's impact on their colleagues was shaped by the law, their race or gender would be unimportant. But when their impact was fueled by their personal "identity," then constitutional justice was not served, it was transformed into identity politics--and the Constitution was rendered moot.

Ultimately, whether, holding other things constant, women of color make "better" judges than white men is an empirical question that we are unable to answer definitively any time soon, given the small numbers of minority judges.

It is the type of question that relies on the opinion of what is "better." It is the type of question a progressive would ask. It is the type of question that makes the Constitution a matter of opinion.

That inquiry itself begs the question of quality explicit in Judge Sotomayor's comment: What makes one judge better than another? Better for whom? Some political scientists have argued that the appropriate measure is essentially political: Is the judge better for those who elected the president who nominated the Supreme Court justice?

That begging of the question is a progressive inquiry. It depends, again, not on law, but on opinion. And on politics not justice or law. Better for whom? The Constitution, as written and adjudicated, would yield the better for all. Interpretation based on identity or politics, would supposedly make it "better" for limited identities or for political agendas.

At the end of the day, a judge's race and gender may have less impact on how she decides a particular case than how the larger public perceives the court on which she sits. In a society in which African-Americans and Hispanics, in particular, report high rates of dissatisfaction and lack of faith in the courts and other criminal justice institutions, the racial and gender makeup of the judiciary has greater relevance.

Progressive Courts have been trying to satisfy the high rates of dissatisfaction of minority identities for many decades, and the dissatisfaction grows. No wonder. When law is not universal, it will not satisfy. And the more it is tailored to various identities, the more that the dissatisfactions and lack of faith will grow. Making identitarianism more relevant in the makeup of the Court, rather than insisting that the law is uniformly judged, will only lead to erosion of law with the ensuing dissatisfaction with it.

Of 111 Supreme Court justices, all but four have been white men. It's past time the nation's highest court looked more like the nation."
Laura Gómez is professor of law and American studies at the University of New Mexico. Gómez, who has a Ph.D. in sociology and a law degree from Stanford University, is the author of "Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race.

When a nation is divided, what will the law that looks like it . . . look like?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

When a nation is divided, what will the law that looks like it . . . look like?

Luckily because parties in power change we seem to attain a balance between Originalists and Non-Originalists.
Of course those who think that they have the only definition allowable have concerns, but things average out just like the weather.
My concern is that the far reaches of politics on both sides have an inordinate amount of power. I think there are several reasons for this, our electoral process and the effect of the media at a minimum.
The extremists on both sides should have an effect but it should be moderated by the moderate politicians in the middle.
I compare the federal government to a giant sphere rolling along, for most of our government's existence it was pushed along by the people in the middle and it's path was altered to left and right by people pushing from the sides. We seem to now have reached a time where everyone has moved to the left or right and few are left to push us along.

[Pete F.]

Why would Latinos worry about deportation. Why would their experience count?
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/conten...eat-depression

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Why would Latinos worry about deportation. Why would their experience count?
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/conten...eat-depression

What is your point?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

What is your point?

Where did you learn about Mexican repatriation?
In school?
From your family members that we removed?
Knowledge and experience count, if it did not Judging could be done by a machine.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Where did you learn about Mexican repatriation?
In school?
From your family members that we removed?
Knowledge and experience count, if it did not Judging could be done by a machine.

If people, and governments run by people, acted like machines, then not only could judging be done by machines, it would not even be necessary. Except that even machines malfunction.

Knowledge and experience in fixing machines have nothing to do with being Mexican. Knowledge of constitutional law is relevant to being a SCOTUS Judge. Being Mexican has nothing to do with it.

Again, what is your point?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

If people, and governments run by people, acted like machines, then not only could judging be done by machines, it would not even be necessary. Except that even machines malfunction.

Knowledge and experience in fixing machines have nothing to do with being Mexican. Knowledge of constitutional law is relevant to being a SCOTUS Judge. Being Mexican has nothing to do with it.

Again, what is your point?

My point is that justice should be blind, but not deaf.
That by whatever name you call the two sides of the argument about Constitutional Law, they are both important. That while the Constitution is a largely static document, it can change thru amendment and interpretation. The interpretation part is controlled politically by the appointment of Judges for life so that a political party gets to choose and it has a long term effect but not a permanent one.
One may choose to select Originalist appointees or Living Constitutionalists, but neither is prohibited or required by the Constitution.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Luckily because parties in power change we seem to attain a balance between Originalists and Non-Originalists.

Balance applies to things that are in some way measurable. Principles are not quantifiable. There is no balance between good and evil. Between correct and incorrect. There may be variations of each, but no balance between them.

Textual Originalists and Progressives have different ideological and legal views of the Constitution. There is no middle ground of judicial "interpretation" between them. The most obvious and critical difference is that the Originalist views the Constitution as immutable written law whose text is changeable only by amendment and which must be interpreted by the original meanings of its words, whereas a Progressive views the Constitution, at best, as an artificial quasi-directional context from which any interpretation which satisfies a personal notion of some form of justice supercedes any impediment that words in a text might impose.

In effect, the originalist holds the Constitution as the law of the land, and a Progressive views the Constitution as an obstacle to good and efficient government. An Originalist understands the Constitution basically as the legal limitation and description of government power. A Progressive is antithetical to the notion that good and efficient government should be limited.

Any so-called balancing interpretations of those two separate views will necessarily chip away a the original notion of the Constitution being the law of the land and a limitation on government. And with every new case which leads to a "balancing" effect, ever more of the original notion is destroyed, until, eventually it no longer, in any practical sense, exists.

The same process can be said in attempts to "balance" good and evil or right and wrong. Eventually, with every balancing act, the original concepts will be erased.

Of course those who think that they have the only definition allowable have concerns, but things average out just like the weather.

The weather is quantifiable. Average weather is a mathematical balancing of observed patterns. And that "average" changes as patterns change. So an "average" temperature merely describes what is, not what it should or must be. In that respect, there is no real and permanent "middle," there are only different numbers on a changing spectrum, each with its own value.

My concern is that the far reaches of politics on both sides have an inordinate amount of power. I think there are several reasons for this, our electoral process and the effect of the media at a minimum.
The extremists on both sides should have an effect but it should be moderated by the moderate politicians in the middle.

There is no "middle." What you call the middle is a position which once established will be held to as fast as any other position. In a sense, all positions are "extreme." They are extremely what they are. Those you refer to as "the far reaches on both sides" consider themselves to be no more extreme than your "middle." If they have a notion of the "middle," they consider themselves to be the true middle--all others being extreme, or wrong, or stupid.

The notion of an extreme position is a preferential point of view, and it does not lead to rational discussion. Discussions or debates not based on any common principles lead to foaming at the mouth rants based on myopic opinions. Or to incoherent and prejudicial Supreme Court decisions.

Claiming to be a "centrist" or in the "moderate" middle is a rhetorical trick to paint opponents as extreme.

I compare the federal government to a giant sphere rolling along, for most of our government's existence it was pushed along by the people in the middle and it's path was altered to left and right by people pushing from the sides. We seem to now have reached a time where everyone has moved to the left or right and few are left to push us along.

If it were a giant sphere, the surface on which it roles along would have no center. There would be no "middle" for people to inhabit. And the universe through which it rolled would have no left or right. Those are relative terms.

And the time which we have now reached is one in which we are divided by classical views and post modern ones--the classic view being that there is objective reality, and the post modern view that realities are merely fictions or social constructs.

Our Progressive jurists are closer to the post modern view than to the classical, and the Originalists, vice versa. That is one of the reasons that the Constitution, for a Progressive, is a fiction to be molded into whatever the current social constructs decree.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

If it were a giant sphere, the surface on which it roles along would have no center. There would be no "middle" for people to inhabit. And the universe through which it rolled would have no left or right. Those are relative terms.

And the time which we have now reached is one in which we are divided by classical views and post modern ones--the classic view being that there is objective reality, and the post modern view that realities are merely fictions or social constructs.

Our Progressive jurists are closer to the post modern view than to the classical, and the Originalists, vice versa. That is one of the reasons that the Constitution, for a Progressive, is a fiction to be molded into whatever the current social constructs decree.

I'll stick with this, change the names as you wish. I am assuming that they will be Good and Evil.
The sphere is not a physical sphere but a description of how our society moves and changes and apparently too hard to comprehend.
"That by whatever name you call the two sides of the argument about Constitutional Law, they are both important. That while the Constitution is a largely static document, it can change thru amendment and interpretation. The interpretation part is controlled politically by the appointment of Judges for life so that a political party gets to choose and it has a long term effect but not a permanent one.
One may choose to select Originalist appointees or Living Constitutionalists, but neither is prohibited or required by the Constitution."

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

I'll stick with this, change the names as you wish. I am assuming that they will be Good and Evil.
The sphere is not a physical sphere but a description of how our society moves and changes and apparently too hard to comprehend.

I admit...I cannot follow what you are talking about...probably me

metaphorical spheres..some good some evil...moderately extreme...push me pull you....

must be a good perscription

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

I'll stick with this, change the names as you wish. I am assuming that they will be Good and Evil.
The sphere is not a physical sphere but a description of how our society moves and changes and apparently too hard to comprehend.
"That by whatever name you call the two sides of the argument about Constitutional Law, they are both important. That while the Constitution is a largely static document, it can change thru amendment and interpretation. The interpretation part is controlled politically by the appointment of Judges for life so that a political party gets to choose and it has a long term effect but not a permanent one.
One may choose to select Originalist appointees or Living Constitutionalists, but neither is prohibited or required by the Constitution."

You and Spence have a lot in common in your use of language. Your posts, like this one, are a flow of vague words that seem to imply something substantial but never really deliver it.

And what does the quote you will stick with mean by "the two sides of the argument about Constitutional Law" and that both are important? Important in what way?

There are more than two Progressive methodologies taught and used by Justices to "interpret" constitutional cases. e.g., Monumentalism, Instrumentalism, Realism, Formalism, Cognitive Jurisprudence, Universal Principal of Fairness, Rule According to Higher Law, Preferred Freedom (or Selective Rights Jurisprudence), Utilitarian Jurisprudence, Positivist Jurisprudence, Sociological Jurisprudence, among others such as strict scrutiny, etc. These are mostly concocted ways to skirt constitutional text and deliver verdicts that could not otherwise be found in the structure of the Constitution and are means which are not bound by any form of originalism or strict constructionism. This is especially true in cases which test actual articles in the Constitution. In cases needing decision on statute law, there is a little more leeway since many statutes are not as strictly written as is the Constitution.

I assume your quote is lumping all forms of "originalism" into one "Originalist side" in which change can only be made by amendment, and all of the Progressive concoctions lumped into a loose construction, a "Living Constitutionalist side" in which change can also be made by "interpretation."

The writers of the Constitution did not conceive of constitutional text being changed by interpretation. Text was only to be changed (replaced) by amendment. "Interpretation" was to be the application of the text to the facts of the case. "Interpretation" that changed the meaning of the text in order to arrive at a decision not grounded in the original text is obviously not an application of the text but actually a rewriting of it. This sort of "interpretation" does not create a "Living Constitution." It leads to a "dead" one. It creates a new unwritten constitution that replaces the written one which no longer applies since the text is completely malleable and therefor meaningless. The "Living Constitution" nullifies written text and adjudicates instead by unbounded and unprescribed judicial opinion. The Living Constitution, in effect, is not a document, it is the constant mill of personal opinions cranked out by the majority of the SCOTUS jurists.

And how are both "sides" important?

The "originalist" side of the argument secures unalienable individual rights and liberties which can only be abridged by the representative vote of those individuals.

The "Living Constitution" side guaranties no individual rights but secures to government the ability through its Court the power to decide what rights individuals and collectives have

[scottw]

Originally Posted by detbuch

"Interpretation" that changed the meaning of the text in order to arrive at a decision not grounded in the original text is obviously not an application of the text but actually a rewriting of it.

BINGO

this is akin to Spence taking the exact wording of a statement and claiming that "taken in context"....those words mean or were intended to mean something completely different than what was actually stated....I've lost count of how many times he's attempted this....it's all about arriving at a desired conclusion...who needs Google or a Constitution when you can just make it up as you go along

[scottw]

Jonah G was praising retired Justice Stevens yesterday for at least having the audacity to be honest.....something that has been rare in the debate where the left has spent considerable time mocking and attacking 2A advocates for "unfounded fears" that the left would like to make significant changes to the Rights of Americans where guns are concerned...Wayne inferred and all but admitted his best "solution" recently but I couldn't quite get him to step out of the shadow...


"Stevens’s argument cuts through all of the fictions and double-talk and says plainly what millions of Americans and lots of politicians and journalists truly believe: Law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be able to buy guns easily, or at all, if it makes it easier or even possible for non-law-abiding citizens to get their hands on them.

But there’s another reason I applaud Stevens’s position. He seeks to change the meaning of the Constitution the way the Founders intended: through the amendment process.

For more than a century, progressives have argued that the Constitution should be seen as a “living and breathing document,” in the words of Al Gore and countless others. What they usually mean is that judges and justices should be free to discern in its text new rights that progressives like, from the right to privacy to the unfettered right to abortion. One needn’t be absolutist about this. I do think we have a right to privacy, because I think you can find that right implicit in the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments, among other places.

What is ridiculous and despotic is when courts radically reinterpret the text to conform to contemporary norms or fads. Often, when I rail against the “living” Constitution, someone will say to me, “If the Constitution didn’t change, we would still have slavery,” or, “Women wouldn’t be allowed to vote.” That’s true. But those changes weren’t the product of a living, breathing Constitution. They were the result of constitutional amendments, which are as valid and binding as the original text."

those progressives are a sneaky bunch...never take your eyes off of them

[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

this is akin to Spence taking the exact wording of a statement and claiming that "taken in context"....those words mean or were intended to mean something completely different than what was actually stated....I've lost count of how many times he's attempted this....it's all about arriving at a desired conclusion...who needs Google or a Constitution when you can just make it up as you go along

Good lord I hope you never read the Bible.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

Good lord I hope you never read the Bible.

I forgive you....

[spence]

Originally Posted by scottw

I forgive you....

You might want to save that forgiveness for Michael Cohen he's going to be needing some very soon.

[spence]

Oops!
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[PaulS]

No worries Trump has just said their story has not changed on the stormy issue.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Pete F.]

Rudy wasn't up to speed yet
Unfortunately Mueller is
Does everyone in the White House get a life preserver?

[Got Stripers]

I still can't believe DJT hasn't sent Rudy G packing after all his interviews, because if anything; he is making it worse for the Trumpster.

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

I still can't believe DJT hasn't sent Rudy G packing after all his interviews, because if anything; he is making it worse for the Trumpster.

I think DJT loves and fosters the Chaos to make the nothing to see folks job easier.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

I still can't believe DJT hasn't sent Rudy G packing after all his interviews, because if anything; he is making it worse for the Trumpster.

Remember Trump may not be tried in a court of law, but impeached in Congress where politics and confusion rule.
However Ken Starrs office had an opinion that contrary to what Rudy thinks that a president could be indicted.
"What was the Starr office’s stance?
In laying out his case, Mr. Rotunda played down arguments that permitting a president to be indicted would cripple the executive branch. Instead, he placed greater emphasis on immunity issues that the Nixon — and, later, Clinton — legal teams dismissed.

Among them, he noted that the Constitution’s speech-or-debate clause explicitly grants limited immunity to lawmakers for certain actions. “If the framers of our Constitution wanted to create a special immunity for the president,” he argued, “they could have written the relevant clause.”

He also wrote that the 25th Amendment, which allows for temporary replacement of a president who has become unable to carry out the duties of the office, created a mechanism that would keep the executive branch from becoming incapacitated if the president was on trial.

And he noted that if indictments had to wait until a president’s term was up, some crimes would become untriable — such as those where the statute of limitations had run out. That could happen for crimes that do not rise to an impeachable offense, he wrote, citing the example of a president who punches an irritating heckler.

“No one would suggest that the president should be removed from office simply because of that assault,” he wrote. “Yet the president has no right to assault hecklers. If there is no recourse against the president, if he cannot be prosecuted for violating the criminal laws, he will be above the law.”