If by, “nine-zip“, you mean 5-4, then I guess it was.
How many wingnuts will go around talking about the decision being unanimous over the next few days? Will anyone say it on the floor of Congress?
Update. To be clear, Rush admits the actual tally was 5-4 but says that it was really “nine-zip” against Sotomayor somehow. Other Republicans are saying the same thing.
Death By Mosquito Truck
This is winner-take-all delegate math at work.
Svensker
Aaaargh. Well, I know what I’ll be hearing from my brother in the months and years ahead.
LD50
@Svensker: Rush’s whole job is to create bullshit that his followers then parrot literally forever. So no, your brother will be claiming that this was a ‘nine-zip decision proving Sotomayor’s racism’ until he keels over.
Zifnab
It received unanimous support from all the SCOTUS justices that matter. And it was another example of a strict constructionist ruling, by which I define “strict constructionist” as “a ruling I agree with”.
Svensker
@LD50:
Thas eggzackly wot I ment.
Guess I didn’t express myself well before.
Dreggas
This from a party whose leader back in 04 claimed that a skin-o-the-teeth victory was somehow a mandate, it’s not surprising they would see this as a landslide either.
Legalize
Zinfab is correct. This was a 5-0 decision, with even that liberal fascist Stevens agreeing. I think the other 4 “justices” are actually interns or something. I’m pretty sure Ginsberg is from Canada too.
Davis X. Machina
Math is based on a footnote from one of the four dissenting Justices.
There were four Justices in dissent. And you won’t find the phrases “Justice GINSBURG concurring:” or “Justice GINSBURG concurring in part and dissenting in part:” anywhere.
LD50
@Svensker: Sorry, that ‘no’ should have read ‘yes’. I have no idea why I wrote ‘no’ there.
cleek
well, it came from a Senator, so, we’re pretty much already there.
Cornyn:
BFR
I take solace in the fact that every time he does this, a couple of his listeners will note that his take is, in fact, wrong.
He will be discredited for those listeners so that over time, the wingnut base will continue to decline even from where it is today.
joe from Lowell
This meme is like a marker. When a wastewater utility wants to find out where a leak is a coming from, they put different color dyes into catchbasins in different parts of town, and then look and see what color turns up in the stream.
The assertion that this was a unanimous decision will provide the same degree of certainty over who repeats Rush Limbaugh’s talking points.
Ash Can
I hope they go for it, full bore. Especially in Congress; that’s a hell of an idea. The more they repeat the “nine-zip” line, and the louder and more publicly they do it, the more people will be calling the guys in the white jackets with the butterfly nets to come and get them.
KCinDC
It’s very simple. Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts get two votes each, inheriting the votes that Ginsberg, Bryan, Stevens, and Souter were stripped of because of their un-American activities. Liberals just don’t understand how the Supreme Court works.
geg6
The really crazy thing is that by pretty much any definition you care to dig up, this is a major case of judicial activism. I mean, the conservative legal position has always been that, in a close decision, the decision should always uphold the local interpretation which is presumably based on being closer to the actual matter and those who wrote the actual law. Isn’t that one of the criticisms of the Roe decision? That it went beyond that supposed line? Well, no one has ever claimed wingnuts have any sort of logical consistency and we can’t expect them to start displaying any now.
kay
Wendy E. Long, counsel to the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, issued a statement saying that the firefighters “who protect the public safety and worked hard for their promotions did not deserve to become victims of racial quotas.’’
Casting the decision as a repudiation of Sotomayor, Long added: “Usually, poor performance in any profession is not rewarded with the highest job offer in the entire profession.”
Wow. Nasty, nasty, nasty. They’re going full-bore ” Hispanic affirmative action hire”. I’m actually surprised at the transparency of the attack. Wendy is not subtle.
NutellaonToast
As much as I hate to defend fat, lying, drug addicted pedophiles, did you even listen to what he said? He said “it was a 5-4 decision, but really it was 9-zip because.”
Yea, it’s obnoxious bullshit, but he was certainly not trying to say it was actually a unanimous decision.
JK
That’s wingnut arithmetic for ya. Limbaugh undoubtedly flunked 4th grade math.
kay
@Ash Can:
It’s amazing how unified they are, like some sort of horrible organism. They read the decision and everyone from the leader of the Party (Rush) to the lowly elected officials who serve Rush have a coordinated response on why it was really “nine -zip”.
Direct feed. From Rush’s lips to the Senate floor. Amazing.
timb
No, Wendy Long is not subtle, she’ll put up a pinata in the Rotunda before this thing is through.
What I found amazing from the comments was John Coryn stepped up to the plate to defend white guys. Man, that never happens.*
*He’s such a kook he makes Kay Bailey look rational.
kay
@NutellaonToast:
It’s all over the place. They have the talking point. They didn’t get a nine zip but it doesn’t matter.
Amazing and horrible to witness. That’s lock-step!
NutellaonToast
@kay: Where else has it been said? So far my limited googling isn’t finding other examples.
Maus
It’s slowly declining because they’re dying off, not getting smarter.
Indylib
@NutellaonToast: Benen has several examples.
smiley
@kay:
According to Greenwald, 11 of the 21 judges who have ruled on this case at all levels ruled like Sotomayor. Impeach them all for poor job performance!
Kirk Spencer
In the other thread on this I commented how Roberts’ concurrence made it look like there was a lot of yelling in the back rooms. Now that I’ve finished Ginsberg’s dissent that’s even louder. Yeah, a bunch of folk are taking one footnote and reading it as a complaint about the district court. They really should look at the rest. Here – I’m going to slice from several footnotes.
First footnote:
Yeah, no bitterness there. The second footnote is just an explanation of the disparate-impact history (how it comes from Griggs). The third and fourth are similar – normal for these things. Then there’s the fifth:
The Sixth, again, opens with a slap at the majority:
and seven:
and eight:
Then in nine comes a hint of who the REAL target of the wingnut footnote is:
That footnote is number ten, which includes the key statement:
Yeah, I really think that neither Roberts nor Ginsberg would cry at the other’s funeral.
Zuzu's Petals
Quick, somebody get right on the number of times the USSC overturned Alito’s lower court rulings, especially the times they pointedly dissed his faulty reasoning.
chopper
ah, so this is rove’s math.
lutton
It’s okay–I feel better knowing that Obama won 129,391,711 to zip…
kay
@smiley:
It has nothing to do with the decision, or Sotomayor, really, as an individual.
It’s a dog whistle. Well, that’s not correct. It’s a trumpet blaring : “Hispanic affirmative action hire!”
They’re not even trying to be subtle anymore. It’s a way-back in time, for me, this trip to the wonders of conservatives trumping up ethnicity-based resentments. I thought they were past that, actually.
Ah, memories.
kay
@NutellaonToast:
It’s in a comment above, and on the full run-down is on TPM.
Zifnab
@Kirk Spencer: All of that went straight over my head.
cleek
gotta get them rubes all riled-up and red-faced so they’ll be ready, when the GOP comes round to their table, to stuff $20s into its star-spangled thong.
a little Hispanic panic should keep ’em hootin and hollerin till their wallets are good and empty. so long as the GOP shakes its ass with enthusiasm. the rubes may be rubes, but they demands their dancers dances it like they means it.
JGabriel
Zuzu’s Petals:
Don’t stop there. Make sure we get every dissent Alito wrote or joined that later remained repudiated by the USSC, as well.
.
Shinobi
My eyes have been opened. 5=9!
This is even better than when I found out about 42. All of my problems are solved!!
Brachiator
@smiley:
No, you don’t understand. Just as the only person that Bill Ayers ever talked to while living in Chicago was Barak Obama, the only jurist who ever ruled on the New Haven case was Judge Sotomayor.
Either that or the other 11 judges were liberals without birth certificates.
RememberNovember
yah know it’s sad. Maybe it gives them comfort to make up numbers…hey maybe they can hang their fuzzy dice with their fuzzy math…proof that climate change is happening- it’s cutting off the oxygen to their brains.
Brachiator
@Zifnab:
Shorter version (Justices Rule for White Firefighters in Bias Case ):
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer and Souter, taking part in his last opinion before he retires from the court. Justice Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, a clear signal of her deep disagreement with the majority.
Hope this helps.
Kirk Spencer
@Zifnab: Sorry. OK, shorter version.
Looks to me like Ginsberg and Roberts are calling each other names. Each is basically saying the other is an idiot blinded to precedence and law by their partisan leanings. It’s so severe a dislike that they’re pushing in the open in their writing here.
The rest was just specific examples.
[edited to add] The footnote the wingnuts are using to justify 5=9 is REALLY Ginsberg commenting about Roberts and company.
Donald G
Ah, this looks like the same math Ahmadinejad and Khameini are using over in Iran.
Of course, it was also a 5-4 vote along partisan political lines in 2000 that installed G-dub into the White House with a “mandate”. :-) So, of course, 5-4 equals “unanimous” in Wingnuttia – if the 5-4 decision breaks their way.
jmg
On a similar note, the Detroit Lions went 0-16 last season, but based on Jason Hanson’s kicking stats they finished near the top of the league. I could get used to this kind of logic. I find it comforting to create my own reality.
Cal Gal
Obviously, creating your own reality includes creating your own math.
In RePug math, anything liberal = 0, so there you have it. 9 – 0 = 9!
Case solved.