The Supreme Court

[Peter]

Senator Rand Paul: The constitution says the President nominates, and the Senate gives its advice and consent for the Supreme Court. That's exactly what President Trump says he's going to do, and I stand with him. We should not let a divided 4-4 court go into a very close election. We should not let the other side scream and holler and hold their breath. We should act expeditiously to fill this Supreme Court seat!

Justice Dept. Brands NYC an ‘Anarchist Jurisdiction,’ Targets Federal Funds. “New York City was among three cities labeled ‘anarchist jurisdictions’ by the Justice Department on Sunday and targeted to lose federal money for failing to control protesters and defunding cops,” Steven Nelson reports for the New York Post. “When state and local leaders impede their own law enforcement officers and agencies from doing their jobs, it endangers innocent citizens who deserve to be protected, including those who are trying to peacefully assemble and protest,” Attorney General William Barr said.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

TG,

Wanna quick laugh?

Imagine Mitt Romney watching this video right now.

LOL...

Michael

[tmj]

What is this threat of the dems to pack the Supreme Court? By what mechanisms? How is a packing of the court accomplished?

[ThatGuy]

35 minutes ago, tmj said:

What is this threat of the dems to pack the Supreme Court? By what mechanisms? How is a packing of the court accomplished?

Sheldon: Here's an interesting fact about alcohol: Man is not the only species that ferments fruit in order to become intoxicated. Can you guess what the other is? Hint: sometimes they pack the alcohol in their trunks.
Penny: Monkeys.
Sheldon: When does a monkey have a trunk?
Penny: When a suitcase just won't do.

"The Roommate Transmogrification", THE BIG BANG THEORY

(And the answer was "Elephant"!)

[tmj]

TG

Not what I was going for, but thanks for reminding me I have the answer for why "it's called a toast"

[ThatGuy]

12 minutes ago, tmj said:

TG

Not what I was going for, but thanks for reminding me I have the answer for why "it's called a toast"

But...but the answer IS "Elephant"; because the elephant is the symbol of the GOP, and the democrats would rather pack the courts with monkeys than elephants, and..see, it's funny, because...

 

[Peter]

6 hours ago, ThatGuy said:

But...but the answer IS "Elephant"; because the elephant is the symbol of the GOP, and the democrats would rather pack the courts with monkeys than elephants, and..see, it's funny, because...

Oh come on. You know the Democratic logo is a jackass, not a monkey . . .  

[ThatGuy]

11 minutes ago, Peter said:

Oh come on. You know the Democratic logo is a jackass, not a monkey . . .  

Yeah, but that assumes that there aren't Republican-monkeys on the Supreme Court, like Justice John Roberts...( you know they saying, "monkey-see, monkey-do..."). They don't necessarily have to be Democrats; they just have to dance like trained monkeys to the tune of the Democrat's Sorosian, deep-state taskmaster...

[ThatGuy]

37 minutes ago, Peter said:

Oh come on. You know the Democratic logo is a jackass, not a monkey . . .  

The two aren't mutually exclusive, ya know...
(Biden's gaffes are the gifts that keeps on giving...)
 

 

[merjet]

Considering the source, I cautiously read this. Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg Refused to Step Down

The gist is that RBG's daughter Jane Ginsburg said: “I think that Mother, like many others, expected that Hillary Clinton would win the nomination and the presidency, and she wanted the first female president to name her successor.”

[Peter]

Sources: Article III, Section I, The Constitution. FAQ Page, Supreme Court Website. Adam Levitin, Georgetown University Law. Question: Does the Constitution allow for the number of Supreme Court justices to be changed? Can you really have more than nine justices?

Answer: Yes. The Constitution does not specify exactly how many justices should sit on the Supreme Court. Originally, there were just six justices. During the Civil War, there were as many as ten justices. There have been nine justices since 1869. 

Old news from Politico: Within days, or moments, of the start of a new Senate session, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announces his intention to move legislation that would expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 members, to “repair the wound inflicted on our Constitution by the Republicans’ refusal to recognize the will of the electorate.” The Senate and House pass the bill, and President Joe Biden signs it on Inauguration Day.

It’s an approach Democrats are already raising. Simple, right? Time for a reality check. It’s true that Congress can shape the size of the court to its political desires. In 1866, with a Congress at permanent war with President Andrew Johnson, it passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which cut the size of the court from nine to seven, and barred Johnson from appointing any new justices. (After Ulysses Grant was elected president in 1868, the number was bumped back up to nine, where it has remained ever since.)

But when it comes to the court, there are and have been “institutional” concerns that have trumped the simple exercise of political power. The most famous example was the effort by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937 to deal with a court that was striking down much of his New Deal legislation. After his landslide reelection in 1936, he proposed to add one justice for every judge who’d reached the age of 70, up to a total of 15 . . . . Today, one of the more significant institutional voices against expanding the court is … Joe Biden. In July 2019, Biden said “we’ll live to rue that day” if the court was expanded. In a debate, he said it would lead to round after round of expansion and the court would “lose all credibility.” Senator Bernie Sanders, no stranger to radical ideas, has also said he doesn’t want to pack the court. So has the more moderate Michael Bennet.

But that was before the coming war over RBG’s seat. If a new Democratic president and Senate are taking power just after a blatant GOP power grab in the face of the electorate’s choice, any reluctance on the part of Biden or a Senate Democrat would face the full fury of the Democratic base. Steve Bannon once famously said that, in politics, “We [the Right] go for the head wound, and your side has pillow fights.” If there’s a Supreme Court seat or two to avenge, the pillow-fight approach might end. Apart from the hunger for political payback, a conservative court shaped by Mitch McConnell would mean the all but certain death of the Affordable Care Act, the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade, and a generation of judicial hostility to the core ideas of the Democratic left.

So, if Senate Republicans won’t stop McConnell from jamming a justice through the Senate, would Senate Democrats really be constrained by their prior doubts about expansion? One of the likeliest consequences of the confirmation of a “lame duck” justice is a battle royal within the Democratic ranks over just that question—hardly what a new President Biden needs, as he deals with multitrillion-dollar deficits, a still-deadly viral pandemic and lingering economic woes.

As FDR’s scheme showed, court-packing doesn’t have to be as simple as just elevating additional justices to the court. There are several alternatives that have been debated in legal and academic circles: They range from giving each political party five justices, who would then choose five more; to limiting the terms of judges so that every president gets two picks; to making all 180 federal appeals court judges members of the court, with panels of nine chosen at random to rule on all matters, including which cases the court would take up. (This change would require only legislation; proposals for limiting the terms of justices would require amending the Constitution.)

They all have the quality of careful thought and the nonexistent possibility that any of them becomes reality in the midst of a full-blown constitutional brawl. And if Congress pushes through a restructuring of the court on a strictly partisan vote, giving Americans a Supreme Court that looks unlike anything they grew up with, and unlike the institution we’ve had for more than 240 years, it’s hard to imagine the country as a whole would see its decisions as legitimate.

There’s a good reason that more than 80 years ago, in a time of turmoil, a Democratic president at the peak of his political power nonetheless found his plans thwarted by members of his own party, who found the cost of tinkering with constitutional machinery too high a price to pay. If McConnell calls a lame-duck session in the face of an electoral loss to lock in a conservative court majority, however, it’s hard to imagine any such concerns staying the hands of Democrats

[Peter]

From Newsweek:  How could Democrats pack the Supreme Court? Democrats will need to pass bills expanding the court in both the House and Senate to open the pathway for the president to pack the benches with liberal and progressive justices, as is his right under the Constitution. In the House, Democrats have a slim majority and cannot lose three or more votes if they wish to pass their proposals. The Senate is split 50-50. This makes it highly unlikely that Democrats would win the 60 votes necessary to get past the filibuster, which would allow the GOP to block reforms to the court.

From CBS News:  Pelosi has "no plans" to bring bill expanding Supreme Court to House floor.