I hope to God she hangs on, but I think there is an excellent chance that RBG will die before the election. People her age can go downhill amazingly quickly. Even if RBG dies tomorrow, there is a process to appointing and confirming justices that simply cannot be completed in an orderly way before the election. Put another way, there is no way for McConnell to get another justice confirmed before the next president takes office unless he bends the rules and flouts norms.

But in response to your question, I am on record in this thread as saying that I have zero faith in McConnell. He is a terrible person. Bending rules and flouting norms are what he is all about. There is nothing that I would put past him.

You must be joking. The SCOTUS (and the entire federal judiciary) can and will get much, much, much worse if Trump is reelected.

The only people who believe otherwise are (i) Republicans; and (ii) progressives who are trying to justify to themselves why it is OK to not vote in 2020.

Also, I don't think you could find a single Democrat with a law degree, no matter how progressive his or her politics were, who thinks that a Trump reelection would be anything less than a disaster for the entire federal judiciary.

I said this a few days ago when news of RBG's hopsitalization came out and I'll say again.

I feel like there is an earthquake under my feet.

I'm a progressive (I think) and I'll be voting in 2020. But I voted for Hillary in 2016 and we can see where that got us.

And no, I'm not joking about the court. They're openly political now and they'll be openly political with another conservative. Same result.

Kavanaugh threatened the US Congress at his hearing.
Scalia died while the guest of a man who's case was refused to be heard.


The court overturned Abood with no actual precedent to do so and I am sure they'll do the same with any other case they're paid to rule away.

These are just things that I notice. A non lawyer and a non court watcher and they sicken me.


I blame Obama for letting it get out of hand so fast but this how all third world governments operate so it was going to happen sooner or later.

We don't demand more of our elected officials and they're not going to step up and give us more because of their high morals.

Look at the bright side.

Trump has already stacked the courts with second rate judges happy to take the bribes.

A few more isn't going to make life that much worse.

If you leave your company vehicle so you don't freeze to death your employer should fire you....because justice is blind.

lulz.

#****America

I can't imagine the machinations you have to go through in order to blame Obama for Brett Kavanaugh or for what you describe as the openly political nature of the Court. Perhaps you can explain.

The Supreme Court grants cert in a tiny percentage of cases -- something like 1-2%.

I would be shocked if any member of the Court has ever been bribed. And bribing enough members of the Court to guarantee victory in a particular case would be about as easy as bribing Lebron to take a dive in the NBA finals.

You are terribly, terribly wrong about this, and if you are talking to someone in 2022 who is appearing before a judge that Trump appointed in 2021, you will be embarrassed to even make the point.

I blame Obama for Gorsuch.

Well, if all the jurists are honest then you have nothing to worry about after all. That's at least good to know.

Biden is Mr Law and Order too you know.

Don't act like he's going to appoint anyone who will help your clients.

I mean, unless he found Jesus or something recently.

Again, if we were to assign blame for Gorsuch, Obama would have .0001% of the blame, and Republicans would have 99.9999% of the blame.

Judges, including Supreme Court justices, can be awful for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with whether they are on the take.

Again, you are simply delusional if you believe that Biden would have nominated Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or their moral equivalents. And Trump has nominated a great many people to lower courts who are not only terrible, but also unqualified.

Lest we forget, the Dems are the ones who filibustered George W's lower court nominations, and then turned around and went nuclear to push Obama's lower court nominations through when the GOP played obstructionists. There's no way Obama was not involved in the Dem leadership discussion to go nuclear.

Obviously, there's nothing to say that McConnell doesn't go nuclear anyway when presented with a chance to flip a SCOTUS seat, but there's no denying that the action of the Democrats gave him plenty of political cover to do so.

So certainly not most of the blame to Obama, but he does have to bear some responsibility.

Well then, nothing to worry about for Democrats.

Gorsuch and Kavanaugh (sexual misconduct and alcoholism not on resume) have the resume to become SCOTUS justices.

Those picks at least have the semblance of legitimacy even if the process reeked. Already, we have signs that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh aren't pure conservative ideologues and will do their best to serve as justices. Just on the last few pages, they voted to confirm Congress has the power to subpoena the President's financial records, laying a landmine for Trump even if he gets re-elected. They also voted to extend equal protection to LGBTQ.

The picks I really hate are completely unqualified people like Lawrence VanDyke and Neomi Rao to apellate courts. There is definitely a calculation that those picks would go under the radar and the administration felt free to pick whoever they wanted.

Sadly, they were right.

Nah, if Obama wanted his justice he would have got his justice.

He was the president, remember ? He could have fought that battle (since it was about upholding something explicitly stated in the God Damned Constitution....ffs).

One turd ruins the whole swim party. And that court pool is like a cranberry bog.

The fact that Trump has gotten away with so much for so long shows me how beyond repair our government is. It will either change very soon or there will be real trouble.

I'm betting on real trouble. I'm hoping not but at this point I have zero faith in the government to do anything but work directly for the donor class.

Voters take a bigger share of the blame than Obama. They should have been livid in 2016 and delivered a blue wave bc McConnell took us basically one step from "we'll never confirm judges from the other party" which is totally unprecedented.

My sentiment EXACTLY! Well said!

LOL if you think RFlush is blaming Obama for the reasons you mentioned. He is blaming Obama because he thinks there is something Obama could have done to get Garland (or someone more liberal) on the court before he left office.

Please to be explaining how.

This is correct. Whether you like them or not, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are exactly the sorts of justices that someone like Marco Rubio would have nominated if he were president. Some of Trump's lower court appointees are astonishingly unqualified.

Yes! Great point. I always forget that the talk at the time was that McConnell is just being a childish idiot and wasting everyone's time because there is no way Trump will win.

No one gave Trump a chance, which is one reason, I guess, there was not greater public outcry while it was going down.

Yea, that's... not how it works. The GOP broke recent norms, but they did not go against the Constitution.

If Obama made a legal challenge he would have been laughed out of court.

Oops..

Gorsuch >>>>> Kavanuagh >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>> Harriet Miers

So yes, I agree that it could be much much worse.

Harriet Miers is a good example of old norms working to eliminate unqualified candidates.

We used to do that too for federal appellate/district judges too. I still get irritated every time I see Neomi Rao’s name and she’s not even the least qualified of the bunch that Trump’s cronies (no way Trump is even involved beyond being told the nominees are what his base wants) put into federal courts in the last 3.5 years or so.

lol social unrest. people cant pay rent. they are bankrupt from medical bills. no one gives a **** about the ****ing court.

the court is already diminished in the eyes of anyone with a clue. the rest just keep up the facade regardless.

and yes, if RBG (or any of them) dies before Biden is inaugurated in January then Trump will nominated and confirm another Justice. if she dies after Biden gets in then lololoolol at the Dems getting anyone confirmed for the next 4-8 years without a super majority.

every 4 years its the same thing. gotta suck it up and vote for the warmongering corporatist neoliberal shill bc its the m0sT iMpOrTaNt ElEcTiOn eVaRrRRrRr bc of the lol Supreme Court.

He won a presidential election.
Twice.

If you think he had no power or right to have his nominee considered that's fine. Just maybe crack a civics book at some point in the future.