Federalist Society practice group chair and Claremont Institute board and faculty member John Eastman declares his legal work product on behalf of a then-sitting (well, wallowing more likely) president is hot garbage [TPM]:
Eastman told the National Review that the memos were “internal discussion memos” merely describing “available scenarios that had been floated,” and that somebody on Trump’s legal team “had asked” Eastman to write them.
“I was asked to kind of outline how each of those scenarios would work and then orally present my views on whether I thought they were valid or not, so that’s what those memos did,” the conservative lawyer said…
Eastman insisted he doesn’t actually believe in the memo’s jaw-dropping argument that House GOP could replace Biden’s electoral votes, and “anybody who thinks that that’s a viable strategy is crazy.”
Convenient that the exculpatory part was oral rather than written, huh? On a positive note, Eastman must be getting some serious side-eye if he feels the need to explain himself.
Open thread!
Patricia Kayden
catclub
I am not sure. In dealing with Trump, he should have written down that this was all impossible [which Trump never reads], but when he briefs Trump say the opposite to make Trump happy.
catclub
anybody buys shares in the Trump SPAC?
The CNN article mentioned all of the Trump IPOS have ended in bankruptcy for the corporations.
cope
Eastman’s walk-back? Meh, it won’t move any opinions one way or another.
Citizen Alan
The Federalist Society is what you would get if the Ayn Rand Foundation and the KKK had a baby that grew up to go to an Ivy League Law School.
Betty Cracker
@Citizen Alan: Ha! Well put.
Splitting Image
I’ve noticed that with conservatives, the same idea can be both a sincerely-held religious belief and a joke anybody would have to be crazy to think they believe.
If they get pushback, it’s a joke. If they don’t, it’s a sincerely-held religious belief.
Kay
Guffaw. He lied in the interview.
They’re not really worth talking to unless the purpose is to get them to tell the lie and then confront them on it, but all that does is make the rest of the interview completely unreliable.
He will lie anytime, anywhere, about anything. That’s what this interview shows us and that’s all it shows us. Their words don’t mean anything.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
Love her. She’s the only sensible, real world lawyer on that court. Again and again she brings it back to the people affected.
It’s an essential perspective and she’s the only one who consistently brings it. They should thank her. What a goddamned breath of fresh air in that museum.
zhena gogolia
Reposting from thread below for Friday afternoon winding down — lovely arrangement of “God Bless the Child”
youtube.com/watch?v=tmu49gLPNCs
zhena gogolia
@Kay: It makes me sick how they’ve stolen those seats.
Goes back to the sainted GHWB cynically nominating Thomas to replace Marshall.
Mary G
@Patricia Kayden: @Kay: Justice Sotomayor is a goddamn national treasure. Those clowns on the other side should hang their heads in shame. She is fierce as fuck. And remember all the bitching about her saying the court needed the perspective of a wise Latina? We’d be a much better country if we had eight more like her. She writes like a boss.
ETA: More trouble for Roody Ghouliani:
The Moar You Know
Says the man staring at a future of representing broke-ass COVID-carriers and Nazis. He meant every word. That was legal advice from a lawyer, in writing.
Everything Trump touches dies. Including this asshole’s career.
Leto
Here’s the Claremont Institute in all it’s racist/revisionist glory via recent Atlantic article: The Conservatives Dreading—And Preparing for—Civil War A faction of the right believes America has been riven into two countries. The Claremont Institute is building the intellectual architecture for whatever comes next.
Martin
Eastman was in the Jan 6 war room. I see no reason to be there if he thought the strategy was crazy.
Kay
@Mary G:
They really do need her. She hasn’t forgotten what this is ABOUT. It’s not “about” the instiutions credibility. It’s about THEIR WORK. If that’s credible the institution will be too. They have this backward. They can’t petulantly demand people consider them credible, despite what they DO. Flip it.
gene108
@Patricia Kayden:
For any BJ lawyers, do dissents actually do anything? Judges write them, but are those opinions used in later cases to overturn prior rulings?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
ranker.com/list/british-person-guesses-state-twitter/colinmorabito
Some are funnier than others but he nails Floriduh:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
“So if we understand your statement correctly your’ legal advice is a joke and shouldn’t be taken seriously, Mr Eastman?”
Mary G
@Leto: Ugh. Another insurrectionist runs his mouth.
Cacti
The Republican Party attempted the overthrow of a national election and thus far have faced zero accountability, either legally or politically.
I don’t think our Republic is much longer for this world in its current form.
Leto
@Patricia Kayden: She’s absolutely pissed off and it’s radiating like the sun from her dissents. Good. They’re making a fucking sham of the entire judicial system and they want us to pretend it’s all on the up and up. Their constant bitching about how they should be respected… they can go fuck themselves. It’s so nakedly partisan I think even the normies are starting to catch on. Term limits and court expansion.
Brant
@Citizen Alan: … and then got rabies.
montanareddog
@Kay: Exactly, Justice Sotomayor, is the only judge whose opinions/dissents talk to us non-lawyers who live in the everyday world.
The others, it is either blatant partisan sophistry or abstruse legal self-absorption
Elizabelle
Speaking of truth: Facebook has another whistleblower. Take that company down. It’s a long article and worth a click. Packed with information and examples. This is worth a post on its own.
Since appeals to common decency and preserving democracy won’t work, the new tack seems to be getting the SEC to go after them for insufficiently warning investors of risk. All about the Benjamins, again. Money talks, though.
WaPost: New whistleblower claims Facebook allowed hate, illegal activity to go unchecked
Latest complaint to the SEC blames top leadership for failing to warn investors about serious problems at the company
Fomenting outright genocide, fomenting an insurrection, and tearing communities and families apart. Take those fuckers down.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT: Does anybody have any insight about what’s going on in VA?
I know I’ve asked a few times before, but I’ve been reading worrying things about the governor’s race down there
jonas
@Cacti: As Ben Franklin put it, we got a republic, “if you can keep it.” If we were a nation of grown-up, rational citizens, they couldn’t get away with this. But since about 40% of the electorate is a bunch of racist, WATB scattered throughout a bunch of rural states with overweighted electoral influence, a minority party can basically aim to destroy the country and, yes, get away with it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Leto: That Claremont institute website is biggest pile of gibberish dressed as intellectualism I have ever seen. One of the things that strikes me that if the MAGA hats get their revolution these Claremont guys don’t get they will be put against the wall too for being all elitist.
Cacti
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I guess that depends on what you mean by doomed.
That the foundation cracks are showing in the American experiment is undeniable at this point though.
randy khan
He’s kind of got to say that he didn’t mean anything in the memo because otherwise he has a real legal ethics problem. But I’m not convinced it’s going to help him, since if lawyers could get away with giving clients terrible legal advice by later saying they contradicted that advice orally you never could discipline them for that kind of incompetence.
waspuppet
He said all that to his girlfriend in Canada. You haven’t met her.
An eight-year-old in a ball pit was always the image I went with.
Lacuna Synecdoche
TPM: via Betty Cracker @ Top:
Y’know … I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a political operative throw himself under the bus.
“The guy who wrote that, the guy who floated that idea, is crazy I tell you. Bonkers. Just completely nutso.”
“It was you.”
“Yeah, but I was asked to.”
The Moar You Know
@Leto: I agree most people understand at this point that the Court is an obvious partisan con job, but are terrified at the idea of changing anything about it. That fear of change is going to be a big hurdle. After all, the Senate has been shown every generation since the founding of this nation to be a giant boulder placed squarely in the path of any real progress this country tries to make*, and the only substantive changes made there is the change from a 66-vote threshold to end discussion to 60 votes, and the abolishment of the filibuster for judicial nominations. Changes are a big ask for the American voter.
*I really recommend Robert Caro’s “Master of the Senate”, I think it’s volume 3 of his LBJ biography, because the first 200 or so pages is the best history and explanation of how the Senate works that I have ever read anywhere. Ought to be required reading in the schools. I will say this; the last twenty years of what we term “dysfunction” is exactly how the Senate was designed to work. I personally think it’s a far bigger problem than the Supreme Court.
Cameron
@Leto: I’d like to see a vote by the House for/against retention every 10 years for all Federal judges (yes, SCOTUS, too). You’re not retained, you’re automatically retired from that position. I think some states already do this.
Patricia Kayden
@Leto: “intellectual architecture”?
What Williams is spewing is nothing new. It’s the same old racist b.s. that has endured for centuries. There’s nothing intellectual about it.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: Zuckerberg has blood on his hands. I get that you can’t monitor every single word on your platform but being complicit in genocide is a bridge too far. He could do better if he cared.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
That’s too nice a take for them. If you had said alien baby, then OK.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@gene108:
Nothing more than judicial wanking, which is why all the RBG “I dissent” messaging irritated the fuck out of me. It’s not a position of strength if you don’t use it to call the judges in the majority a pack of corrupt assholes more interested in feathering the nests of their string pullers than doing justice.
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
Also? You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand what these hacks are doing. They are refusing to stop that law. It’s well within their power to stop it until it’s heard but they decided the rights of those women in Texas are worthless. Worth nothing. Meaningless. As a practical matter, and “as a practical matter” is ALL you have to care about. Barrett can drone on and on about her legal philosophy, but you’re not taking her law school course. You just want your rights.
geg6
@gene108:
IANAL, but yes. I’m 99.99% sure that is true.
Ksmiami
@Kay: or drag them out by the hems of their worthless fucking robes; at this point I don’t care which way it happens but the SC needs to be reformed
Leto
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: the creator always thinks they’ll control the monster. It’s like these guys don’t read or watch movies.
@The Moar You Know: yeah, change is a scary monster. It’s one of the reasons the “refusal to change the filibuster” club members cite: well the Republicans will just do it right back, so we can’t possibly change it. We know that refusal to change means that we’re going to be stuck in this eternal gridlock, but what about that potentially scary future??? Regarding Caro, that series is in the to read pile. Promise I’ll get there!
@Patricia Kayden: definitely. Started reading his responses and I was like, “This is just standard racist Republic bs. Nothing new.” His people are just mad that Republicans haven’t gone full on, pre-1950s racist. They’re moving that way now, just not fast enough for him I guess.
Leto
@Patricia Kayden: they’re putting out commercials now showing this dude who’s a content moderator, and he’s talking with the “interviewer” about how hard they’re working to have a nice place. Like… this is what you think will help your PR nightmare? This? Lol, ok!
Ksmiami
@Cacti: agreed… but I want Covid to work it’s way through the opposition first.
Leto
@Kay:
Are you saying she’s Bork, but in a dress? I’ll leave that mental image there for everyone to enjoy…
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Contra le Comte, dissents can provide the logical framework for overturning cases. Also, they can provide guidelines by which legislators can construct new laws. Cynical family law attorney was cynical.
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
Justice Coathanger Barrett’s dissent to the dissent: “Nuh-uh!”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
Today, our worst TV station put up an article on Fraudbook that was talking about how the Great Resignation seemed unaffected by the end of pandemic relief. Surprisingly little pushback on right wing nuttery has been happening there lately – it’s like looking at Free Republic. Anyway, an ostensible woman listed as being from Ft Lauderdale with 7 friends sailed in with a nasty comment about it being mask mandates and unconstitutional vaccine requirements.
I used the word “idiot” in my response.
Literally 30 seconds after my response, I got a text to my cell number from “her” – and my cell is set on Fraudbook to be available to friends only. It was vaguely threatening. About a minute after that, I got a notice of a 7 day suspension.
Keep in mind that the number texted from is a Nebraska area code. Keep also in mind that my cell isn’t on my business site.
Tony Jay
Goebbels used to ‘entertain’ dinner party guests by giving impassioned, inspirational speeches in favour of Socialist Revolution or the imposition of a Protestant Theocracy, petrifying his audience with terror as they wavered between “Do I report him to the Gestapo?” and “Is this what we’re doing now?”
Then he’d laugh and they’d all share in the joke, applauding all the louder when he finally gave a speech extolling the wisdom of Hitler and the glories of Nazism.
Eastman is somehow less convincing than Goebbels.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
You respect them a lot more than I do.
New Deal democrat
Brutus, the anti-Federalist whose arguments Hamilton attempted to refute in Federalist #78 (“the judiciary is the least dangerous branch”), presciently had this to say:
”those who are to be vested with it[the judicial power], are to be placed in a situation altogether unprecedented in a free country. They are to be rendered totally independent, both of the people and the legislature, both with respect to their offices and salaries. No errors they may commit can be corrected by any power above them, if any such power there be, nor can they be removed from office for making ever so many erroneous adjudications….
“Every body of men invested with office are tenacious of power; …
“This power in the judicial, will enable them to mould the government, into almost any shape they please.”
and
“ I question whether the world ever saw, in any period of it, a court of justice invested with such immense powers, and yet placed in a situation so little responsible.
“they have made the judges independent, in the fullest sense of the word. There is no power above them, to control any of their decisions. There is no authority that can remove them, and they cannot be controlled by the laws of the legislature. In short, they are independent of the people, of the legislature, and of every power under heaven. Men placed in this situation will generally soon feel themselves independent of heaven itself.”
Anonymous At Work
@catclub: If Eastman really was producing “work product” as an attorney working for Trump as President, he would have contemporaneous correspondence documenting such and could produce it. As well as other documentation from his time as an official attorney working on behalf of the Trump White House, such as appointment letter and security approval, etc.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Leto: More like they never read up on the French Revolution, the problem with these Utopinic Revolutions is they always eat their own because perfect is impossible. MAGA burns down congress, tries Hillary for baby killing and then next day Covid Mu Gama variant kills off 20% of them the purges will start.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Was anything I said wrong?
sab
@Mary G: I remember when folks on our side were mad about her nomination because as a diabetic she didn’t have a 95 year life expectancy. And now some of us want term limits.
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s worse than it appears at first glance, FB-Instagram not only don’t discourage and scrub miysogynist-racist-violent content, they encourage and promote it. BBC researched the issue, including setting up fake accounts to watch what gets pushed out automatically to potentially “interested” users.
In sum, they aren’t performing non-management or even inept mismanagement, they encourage posting this material and then make money from it by pushing it out.
Blood, indeed.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
In theory, no. In reality, the glacial pace on doing anything beneficial for society renders statements made in dissents to be utterly meaningless.
“As Justice So-and-So said in his 1956 dissent in Jarndyce v Jarndyce’s Ancient Copyright” doesn’t really lend itself to a new analysis of older principles.
Leto
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Agreed; also I think we’re starting to see the waves/cycles of their revolution happen faster and faster. Reaganism, compassionate conservatism, Tea Party, now MAGAts. Not sure what’s coming after them, but guaranteed it’ll be worse. It’s always worse.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
That’s pretty creepy. Got to wonder how she would’ve gotten a hold of your cell number. Maybe a “friend” did it? Or perhaps one of Zuckerbot’s Hall Monitor’s didn’t like what you said and leaked it to that woman?
sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Beyond YIKES!
Ksmiami
@Leto: forewarned is forearmed… I really don’t see how we get to America 2.0 without bloodshed. I just don’t see a path forward given the Rt wing media universe and the gullibility of MAGATS
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: It is true that a dissent today does not bear fruit tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t do it eventually.
HeleninEire
@The Moar You Know: Just ordered it. Cuz even with an effing Masters degree in Government Policy I still don’t get it. Thanks.
ETA: Will I need to read the first 2 volumes to understand it?
Patricia Kayden
@Cacti: To be honest, I’m trying to stay optimistic because I know that there is a core of Democrats who will stand in line for hours to vote and bob and weave through voter suppression traps to exercise their rights. That’s really all that can save our democracy. We have to keep voting.
Patricia Kayden
@trollhattan: Wow!! House Democrats should haul Zuckerberg’s behind to answer questions about this. He is actively promoting dangerous ideologies knowing that people have already died as a direct result of propaganda.
Martin
@sab: Well, the competition of ‘who can nominate the youngest justice’ doesn’t benefit anyone.
Typically ‘job for life’ evokes visions of dictators. Turns out to have been correct.
Kay
About time they started taking it seriously.
Ksmiami
@Patricia Kayden: it’s not enough when the GOP via it’s crazies are taking over the election mechanisms and can just void votes for Democrats. See Georgia and AZ. But we have numbers and the resources to hurt Republicans so I say that route is starting to have more of an appeal.
cwmoss
@Mary G: Agree with your remarks but she has no power in this and it’s so dismaying I don’t really have words for it. I posted her dissent on my feed with my comment:
“Here come the Taliban! Our very own psychos, led by Amy Coathanger Barrett and the drunken rapist Brett Kavanaugh. Here is a strongly worded letter from an actual human being with no power (but a lot of wealth and privilege), Sonia Sotomayor; the letter doesn’t matter to the Taliban because they hate women, especially ones who dare to be poor. They also hate you if you’re not one of them.
This is the beginning of the end not just for legal abortion (it is that), but also for legal birth control. Two bought-and-paid-for whores, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, could stop this but they don’t want to because the kaiju who own them wouldn’t like it.”
Kay
@Martin:
Honestly? they’ve abused it:
Expand it. Make each one less important. Then maybe they’ll stop believing they are irreplaceable.
Mary G
LA Times article shows Alec Baldwin’s tragic shooting was bound to happen:
Bold mine. The article goes on to say that the accident happened six hours after the union crew left, so I imagine some yahoo they found on the street who said he was a prop guy and knew all about guns was hired with no questions asked. I can hear Adam Silverman’s disdain from across the country.
The woman who was killed was the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, who had constantly complained about safety issues. Baldwin is a producer of the movie, so he’s going to have to pay big money in the civil suits.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: FB in India is up to no good either. Fomenting genocide does not get you banned if you belong to the ruling party.
Leto
@Kay: That’s the county next to us. Ugh.
cwmoss
@gene108: Lawyer here. (Not SCOTUS stuff; just state court mucking around.). Dissents don’t have power on their own. They just explain why the whiny losers think the opinion of the court is wrong. When there’s no majority point, dissents might have more relevance to the reasoning of the opinion of the court. We’re not really seeing legal reasoning with the fascist majority that’s on the court now. We’re seeing raw assertion of power. That’s why the particulars of the fascist arguments don’t matter. These fuckers are results oriented and dangerous. Roberts is the least bad of the bunch and he’s terrible.
sab
@Martin: I agree with you completely. Also I hate term limits. Every justice would be auditioning for his/her next job.
We need somehow to get the Federalist Society out of the process. We have a whole generation of jurists who have been spoon fed since high school, instead of ones who have been out in the world surviving like normal people.
Kay
@Leto:
I genuinely feel for the schools. Covid as really hard for them and no sooner do they start to get back up than BAM, here come the screamers. It feels unfair to me, that they’re conducting this political campaign in schools, where probably 90% of people just want things to go back to normal. It’s so incredibly selfish.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Well, there was the whole elected-by-popular-vote amendment.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It was clearly a fresh account, but he was awfully fast in zapping me two texts. It takes me longer than that to log in to my Lexis account (I have access to cell numbers via that). I think it was a Facebook employee, given the speed and some patterns I think I’ve noticed.
sab
@sab: In my misspent youth, as a baby lawyer, when I moved from Michigan back to Ohio I couldn’t “motion in” with only four years experience. I would have had to take the Ohio bar exam instead. Fine with me. I hated law practice. But the Federalist Society was referring people with less experience than mine to be District Court Judges with lifetime appointments, and Trump appointed some of them.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Reform it or burn it to the ground… I’m starting to prefer option 2. The Supreme Court has way too much power over our democracy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
This is the paragraph I would have bolded:
Whole thing is extremely fishy, and I don’t for one minute think we’ve heard anything close to the whole story.
Kay
@sab:
They could police themselves and retire at a reasonable time. They are, after all, professionals. Oh, right. It’s impossible to even ask that they do that. Unless it’s in the federal code they will do exactly what serves them best, until they don’t want to! Me, me, me.
It’s like dealing with 12 year olds. “But I’m ALLOWED to do it” Is this what they want? We can’t leave them any discretion at all or they’ll abuse it?
sab
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That’s what I thought. Facebook itself, or Facebook working much too closely with these people.
New Deal democrat
@sab: Justices should have a single 9 or 18 year term, and then serve on the Circuit Courts if they want to continue.
Also there should be a method by which a Congressional supermajority of some sort can adopt a dissent signed on to by more than 1/3rd of the Court. I believe Canada has something like this.
A tin-eared Court that tries to ram its views down society’s throat (viz. Dred Scot) in the long run is a major danger to the country.
Anyway
I am really disappointed in the “intellectuals” in the Democratic party – not the elected officials but where are the think-tanks/academics /legal bigwigs on our side presenting their case for how to answer the Republican runarounds on judges, voting rights, state level legislation thwarting Democratic governors etc. There seems to be very little strategy except vote harder and that’s no answer. In all cases there’s a shrug, nothing we can do. They should be working on creative ways to address how the House doesn’t represent huge swaths of the country – only thing we hear is the timid proposal to increase the court size. We need more ideas.
“Combine the Dakotas”
Omnes Omnibus
You guys have fun.
cwmoss
@Omnes Omnibus: me cynical family law aty, also too
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, looks like time to go elsewhere.
Kay
@New Deal democrat:
Oh, it’s infuriating. What is the game playing with this Texas law? Are they actually working on behalf of one side now? Helping them with litigation/political planning? Too fucking clever by half. They’re way out of bounds.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
“But I’m an INDISPENSABLE ELDER!!!”
justawriter
Might be a good moment to rerun Doonesbury’s “GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY” strip
sab
@New Deal democrat: In the olden days before the Federalist Society culled the herd many judges got better with age. They had time to think and consider and talk to their colleagues and learn.
Your idea of short terms is appalling. Every last justice would be worrying about their next job. I live in Ohio with a term limited legislature and it is not a success.
Sure Lurkalot
@randy khan: He’s a terrible lawyer and a terrible liar. He meant every word of his seditious memo and I don’t see why he isn’t being charged with plotting to overthrow the US Gov.
I’m trying as hard as possible to be patient as the cogs grind slowly but where we are reminds me of the Mueller investigation. The lack of leaks and the slow tempo were seen as thoroughness and competency. Bobby 3 Sticks! Crossing his I’s and dotting his T’s, until he folded like a house of cards.
I took a stupid online current events quiz the other day where the answer to whether Russia helped Trump get elected in 2020 was categorically false. We cannot afford to rewrite history like this. We cannot let the 1/6 sedition be swept under the rug by the mainstain media and war criminals like Condi.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@sab:
The difference is that legislators can be voted out of office, therefore term limits on them is undemocratic and hurts institutional knowledge as well as helps lobbyists.
Judges are independent and because of that unaccountable to the public. Sure, they can be removed by state legislatures/Congress, but that never happens. Term limits on judges, especially Supreme Court Justices, are needed imo
sab
@Kay: Federalist Society culled the herd. Could any person with Brett Kavanaugh’s history have survived in the normal job market ? They groomed the toxic twerp since high school. If he had had to survive in a normal work environment he would maybe have had a troubled existence in several large local law firms. He sure as hell wouldn’t be on the S Ct.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): But they will always be looking to their next job. Look what Obama’s finance geniuses did in bailing us out of the Great Recession. Protected the big banks, then got jobs with them.
ETA Extremely lucrative jobs.
Cameron
Biden coming out and saying he’s for filibuster reform for voting rights legislation is encouraging; whether or not he can get the Terrible Two to go along – who knows?
Sister Golden Bear
@SiubhanDuinne:
A friend of mine is a retired cinematographer, who then went on to be an industry safety instructor. Conditions on sets — especially non-union, low budget pics — are routinely problematic enough that no conspiracy theories are needed.
The coming lawsuits aren’t at all worth “accidentally” killing someone who’s complaining about corner-cutting. Plus, it’s probably the movie may never see the light of day now.
Similar to an accident a few years ago when a camera operator was killed while filming within a permit on a railroad bridge — without any spotters to warn about unexpected train traffic. Director didn’t want to spend the time and money to get the permit nor have the railroad safety officials on set.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Age limits for judges work beautifully in Ohio. They have a good, long career and then we insist they do something else. It’s not the end of the world.
Judges backed a measure to up it from 70 to 76 and it went down in flames- 62% no.
sab
@Kay: YES!
New Deal democrat
@sab: Until 1789 and Article III of the US Constitution, for over 2000 years the rule for Republics was, the more powerful the position, the shorter the term.
i am proud to be in the distinguished company with whom you are appalled
ETA: actually, I’m allowing them to serve for life; but after their Supreme Court term is up, they serve on, e.g., the DC Court of Appelas for as long as they want. No need to audition for anything.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It’s kind of interesting. When they get close to termed out they get really reflective- just to lawyers, they don’t muse on the bench or anything, but they know it’s coming to an end and they talk about it. I think it’s good to have an endpoint.
Geminid
@Mary G: Sonia Sotomayor has professional experience that is exceptional for a modern day Supreme Court Justice. I believe her colleagues share the typical path to the Court: academic teaching alternating with Justice Department policy jobs, then a few years as a federal Court of Appeals judge. Justice Kagan did have appellate experience as U.S. Soliciter General
Sonia Sotomayor was a judge for the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals when elevated to the Supreme Court. But she had seven years experience as a federal trial judge for the U.S. Southern District of New York when she was appointed to the 2nd Circuit. She had been a litigator in private practice for five years, and before that tried criminal cases for over four years as an Assistant Manhattan County Attorney under Robert Morganthau. It is no wonder that Justice Sotomayor has her feet on the ground in a way her colleagues do not.
sab
@Sister Golden Bear: I remember working on a summer stock set where the inexperienced lighting director hung stage lights on our ladder to the fly loft. In the event of a fire we would have burned or been electrocuted. We brought in ropes to climb down if need be. Short cuts kill people.
Fair Economist
@Sure Lurkalot:
That sounds like a new kind of push polling.
Kay
@Geminid:
I think it makes a huge difference. I read that Biden was looking for a more diverse experience set in his judges and I was thrilled. The criminal defense bar is woefully underrepresented. A consumer-side lawyer! A union side labor lawyer! Immigration! Let’s get some other worlds in there.
Kalakal
@HeleninEire: no, but they’re well worth reading. The whole series is superb, it’s absolutely masterly not just as a biography of an individual but of his world and times My fear is that Caro will never finish it. I cannot recommend the series too highly
sab
@Geminid: I am a huge huge fan of Sotomayor. She has so much real life experience, as a person and then legally. Is there any legal job she has not had and excelled at?
Betty
@Kay: She is the only one I trust.
The Thin Black Duke
@sab: That is what’s so damned scary about this, ain’t it? These nasty entitled pricks in the GOP with too much power and who want to fuck up things for the hell of it, have no idea how things work, let alone fix any problems. Republicans let the power grid go down in Texas. Republicans let Covid go wild because they think it only kills black people. Republican throw snowballs in the summertime during a photo op to mock climate change. Besides being vile creatures, the fucking Republican Party is goddamned useless. What fucking good are they? The Master Race? In the real world, they couldn’t be the assistant a.m. manager at the local Mickey D’s.
Patricia Kayden
Woohoo!! Go President Biden!!
debbie
@sab:
No love for Kagan?
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Hope he’s penning a letter to Kev.
Starfish
@Cameron: I don’t trust a Republican house to vote on merits. I would expect them to vote to win and just vote the Democrats out because they are Democrats.
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke: Too true.
Geminid
@sab: Sotomayor’s Wikipedia biography describes her difficult confirmation when she was nominated to the 2nd Circuit. Republican Senators tried to torpedo her nomination, but their ostensible reasons were specious. Sotomayor concluded that she was being “profiled” as an American of Puerto Rican descent. She had seen this before.
sab
OT If you have a pitbull then Nylabones are awesome. I do not know why they love them so much but they do. Not instant love. Takes them a while to come around. But a pitbull needs to chew big tough things, and that is a nylabone. Beats having them gnaw playfully on your arm.
sab
@debbie: I love Kagan, but only a bit less than Sotomayor. I don’t know why.
Cameron
@Starfish: I don’t trust Republicans, either. But I think judges might be a bit more circumspect in their rulings, since they know they will be evaluated on them (and other things, of course) and don’t know in advance who will be holding the House in ten years. Doesn’t matter; it’s not going to happen anyway,
zhena gogolia
@sab: How is your doggie?
sab
@zhena gogolia: Going in Monday at crack of dawn for tumor excision. I am beyond on edge. She might come out fine with some chemo. She might come out with a death sentence.
Before the death sentence I do not want over optimistic medical advice that chops her up for no reason. Have not run into it yet, but that is my big fear.
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: YES!
Ksmiami
@The Thin Black Duke: ok I need a cigarette after that. Righteous
sab
@sab: ETA or the chair or sofa legs. They need to chew seriously and roughly.
Jinchi
Agreed.
Allowing Supreme Court judges to serve indefinitely is the source its problems. Its credibility as an honest arbiter of the law hangs by a very thin thread.
Partisans want to stack it with young ideologues, who will be entrenched for decades. And the judges themselves want to decide who picks their replacement.
I’m not sure why it’s important to the country that these particular people should have the last word on all legislation for the next 30 years.
catclub
Who knows how it was designed to work? The filibuster was just made up as a senate rule.
Soprano2
@Kay: I fervently believe that a roomful of people with the same viewpoints and experiences usually makes a worse decision than a roomful of people with various viewpoints and experiences, because they all have the same blind spots. Same with judges – if they all came from the prosecution side of the aisle, they have the same prejudices and blind spots. It makes for worse decisions.
Ruckus
@sab:
I want SC term limits. Just not too short term limits. Something like 20-24 yrs. Another possibility would be qualifications to serve on the SC, like having been a judge for a minimum time to even qualify for a seat on the bench. Along with enlarging the court.
I also think that the house should serve at least 4 yr terms. With limits to how many terms/years they could serve. Something like 20-24 yrs. And we should enlarge the house.
Also the senate should be 4 yr terms, with a total time they can serve like above for the house, 20-24 yrs.
This is supposed to be a country for the people, and yes someone like Nancy Pelosi is still a positive long after that time would have been up but how many people are in power and abuse that power and abusing that power means they can often server way longer than realistic. I can name names but I’d bet you can guess most of them. Some are on our side and need to be replaced. Almost all of the other side needs to be replaced, and there is no reason to suspect that a replacement will be any better. But they have name recognition and staying in gets them seniority in their party which gets us Mitch McDamage types.
I’d say my take is that we will never have a perfect elected congress or court system especially, I feel that restricting serving time is about the best we could do. Because we sure can’t seem to depend on not having the Mitch McDamage types screw us for every day they can, and it sure seems they get to buy their way in, in one fashion or another
I absolutely think that really short terms, like 2 yrs screws us as well as how it works now without term limits. And too short term limits are horrible.