Supreme Court Nominee

[Chuck Naill]

How many of you were whining when Trump vowed to nominate a female?

[Chuck Naill]

And at a time when he was loosing the white female support.

[Bold2013]

Unfortunately this situation further substantiates that the court is political.

Also that the left’s outlook for the 2022, and 2024 is pessimistic.

[724Seney]

Perhaps more level heads will reply.

Wait?
More level headed than you Chuck??

Flathead.jpg

[welch]

I would like to believe that the nominee will be assessed as being the best for the position irrespective of their race or gender. However, as dneal points out, the fact that these characteristics are mentioned in the same breath as the nomination means that the nomination has become overtly tainted.

It has been like this for about thirty years. George HW Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a conservative black man to replace Thurgood Marshall, a liberal black man who had, before the court, been an important civil rights attorney. Republicans pledge to nominate anti-abortion justices. Trump appointed a woman, Amy Coney Barrett, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It is pretty routine.

The US is a large country with many superior legal minds across state and Federal judgeships. It is easy to pick someone really good who happens to fit where a President wants the Supreme Court to go.

[TSherbs]

I'll repeat: the three possible candidates named in the WaPo article are all highly qualified. The President is not obligated to name them not name others. He is not obligated, actually, to appoint anyone at all. Never in the history of these appointments has a president ever appointed who is *best* (highest qualifications). We couldn't even measure such a person accurately. Gender and race have ALWAYS been factors in the choices. In every choice, every single time. It's bullshit to suggest that it is not right or proper to do so now. For the record, I believe a President should have wide leeway to appoint whomever he/she wants, as long as they meet minimum standards of qualification. Two of which can be gender and race, whether it is stated or not.

[TSherbs]

I would like to believe that the nominee will be assessed as being the best for the position irrespective of their race or gender. However, as dneal points out, the fact that these characteristics are mentioned in the same breath as the nomination means that the nomination has become overtly tainted.

It has been like this for about thirty years.

More like for 180 years. Every justice appointed from the start until 1967 first had to be white and had to be male. Presidents did not have to promise this: it was a necessary and minimum qualification understood by all and enforced through the prevailing white supremacist culture.

[kazoolaw]

I'll repeat: the three possible candidates named in the WaPo article are all highly qualified.

And I'll repeat, what do you know of them apart from their names appearing in the WaPo?

The President is in fact free to appoint whomever. And the Senate is free to give or withhold its advice and consent.

[kazoolaw]

...as long as they meet minimum standards of qualification. Two of which can be gender and race, whether it is stated or not.

What are the minimum standards of qualification, from a constitutional standpoint?

[Bold2013]

I would like to believe that the nominee will be assessed as being the best for the position irrespective of their race or gender. However, as dneal points out, the fact that these characteristics are mentioned in the same breath as the nomination means that the nomination has become overtly tainted.

It has been like this for about thirty years.

More like for 180 years. Every justice appointed from the start until 1967 first had to be white and had to be male. Presidents did not have to promise this: it was a necessary and minimum qualification understood by all and enforced through the prevailing white supremacist culture.

Ethnic Gnosticism

[kazoolaw]

I would like to believe that the nominee will be assessed as being the best for the position irrespective of their race or gender. However, as dneal points out, the fact that these characteristics are mentioned in the same breath as the nomination means that the nomination has become overtly tainted.

It has been like this for about thirty years. George HW Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a conservative black man to replace Thurgood Marshall, a liberal black man who had, before the court, been an important civil rights attorney. Republicans pledge to nominate anti-abortion justices. Trump appointed a woman, Amy Coney Barrett, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It is pretty routine.

The US is a large country with many superior legal minds across state and Federal judgeships. It is easy to pick someone really good who happens to fit where a President wants the Supreme Court to go.

Clarence Thomas, in response to then-Senator Joe Biden asking if there was anything he'd like to say to the Judiciary Committee:

"And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for
uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different
ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You
will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. -- U.S. Senate, rather than hung from
a tree."

When in doubt, follow the politics. Promises to nominate are often political offers to "buy" votes used by both parties. Joe Biden is just cruder than most, promising to nominate a black person to the Supreme Court, and then making it clear that if you don't support Biden for President you're not black: "Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."

Maybe this nomination is Joe Biden's penance for filibustering the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown.

[Chuck Naill]

Obama nominated a white male.

[TSherbs]

Obama nominated a white male.

That was another Senate circus show. The ugliness over fighting nominations to the SC is, for me, one of our national embarrassments. All the way back to Bork.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Note: my other post stated 'I would like to believe...'

I am aware of what has gone before and continues to this day, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

[Chip]

The US Supreme Court has always been a political entity. For most of its existence, it worked to enforce racial discrimination (e.g. Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson) and other doctrines that have been recognized as unjust, unfair, and unconstitutional. Any recent idea that the court is above politics vanished when it handed the presidency to George W. Bush (Bush v. Gore) in a blatantly political decision that stopped a legal recount.

The present court by no conceivable standard represents the US electorate or population (unless there is a previously unremarked majority of right-wing Catholics). The notion that justices are selected according to their legal qualifications, apart from politics, is insane.

I hope Biden nominates someone who will challenge the present biased majority on the court.

Justice Thomas (owing to his wife's longstanding corrupt financial and lobbying activity) should either resign or face ethics charges.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...-supreme-court

[kazoolaw]

...as long as they meet minimum standards of qualification. Two of which can be gender and race, whether it is stated or not.

What are the minimum standards of qualification, from a constitutional standpoint?

A pulse: no age limit, no citizenship requirement, no law degree required.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/faq_general.aspx

[Chuck Naill]

The US Supreme Court has always been a political entity. For most of its existence, it worked to enforce racial discrimination (e.g. Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson) and other doctrines that have been recognized as unjust, unfair, and unconstitutional. Any recent idea that the court is above politics vanished when it handed the presidency to George W. Bush (Bush v. Gore) in a blatantly political decision that stopped a legal recount.

The present court by no conceivable standard represents the US electorate or population (unless there is a previously unremarked majority of right-wing Catholics). The notion that justices are selected according to their legal qualifications, apart from politics, is insane.

I hope Biden nominates someone who will challenge the present biased majority on the court.

Justice Thomas (owing to his wife's longstanding corrupt financial and lobbying activity) should either resign or face ethics charges.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...-supreme-court

I just learned of Thomas' wife's activities Thursday on Fresh Air. I agree. She has benefitted from his position, and he remains as quite as a church mouse.

[Chuck Naill]

Since race is a part of this thread, or some have made it so, perhaps it is appropriate to talk about it.

One member introduced Ethnic Gnosticism or the assertion that one member of one ethnicity cannot understand what it is like to be a member of a different group. I see particularily true for American white people when it comes to African Americans.

I once had a white, female manager who said that it had been 150 years and so black people should be "good to go". Or, stop whining and complaining.

It is like someone who has lost a child, had their house destroyed by a fire, or been raped, one simply cannot get over it. It occurred. If they grew up in a Jewish, Muslim, Hispanic household and felt the looks from strangers, it stays with them. Racism has almost become invisible, but it is there.

Let black people get upset at it is met with brutal force. Let white people get upset, and you get a democracy challenged. And what is most ironic, many whites see them both as the same.

When you get to know various generations of African Americans, they each have a story where race has played a role in their lives. There is not time and space to explain it all here. but just to say that perhaps some here might consider that you don't understand and will try to either read or talk. It is possible you might have a different experience than me, but I doubt it if you go about it objectively with a mind to learn and not to confirm some bias. Most won't, but some might.

[TSherbs]

Childs has been acknowledged as being on the short list:

CNN: White House confirms J. Michelle Childs is among 'multiple individuals' under consideration for Supreme Court nomination.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/28/polit...use/index.html

[kazoolaw]

The present court by no conceivable standard represents the US electorate or population (unless there is a previously unremarked majority of right-wing Catholics). The notion that justices are selected according to their legal qualifications, apart from politics, is insane.

You might be interested to research the "Jewish seat" on the Supreme Court.