Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring

The hypocrisy flowing from the mouths of senate Republican scum like Hawley and Kennedy is so aggravating. Even given the bottomless pit of lows, it never stops amazing me. We’re barely one year separated from them ramming through a justice in Trump’s final weeks, and they’re whining about the timeframe. Biden has vowed to nominate a black female, and republicans are acting as if that’s the only litmus test, as if Biden is just plucking some random woman off the street for a job. It’s infuriating.

They’re not even trying to pretend they don’t have an issue with the concept of a black female judge. The least they could do is offer up their usual sugar-coated dog-whistling by patronizing folks and saying “I’d have no problem with a black female judge, we just don’t want a far-left judge”. But no, Hawley, Fox News and the sedition caucus in Congress are doing their usual bullhorn racist war cries and acting as if this is just anti-white affirmative action or something.

God forbid they be happy having sat three justices despite having a minority of voter support. God forbid they try to heal the nation a bit by taking this seriously and doing some bi-partisan hearings and offering their support for a qualified black female.

You would think that if the GOP was truly not racist, was truly against liberalism and not anyone who isn’t a white Christian conservative, they would find it politically beneficial to aid in seating another minority and woman justice. You would think… but you’d be wrong. Because in today’s GOP, racism is fashionable. Ugh.
 
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The Rs need to rein in the idiots like Hawley and Kennedy on this matter. Or hey, let it rip. Life in the shrinking R bubble must be a real trip these days, although they can't see out very well I guess. They'll end up doing for the Dems what the Dems might otherwise have more trouble doing, which is get the Democrats really really interested in going to the polls for the midterm elections. Talking trash about qualified black female jurists might just do it. Who knows, it might do more than if the Dems finally got their message together about a great recovery from the covid-lashed economy.
 
Since Reagan specifically promised to name the 1st woman to the Supreme Court in 1980 there have been 12 subsequent justices named to the top court:

One-third are women: four out of the 12 = Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett.

One-sixth are people of color: two out of the 12 = the massively unqualified Thomas (obviously nominated to fill the Black seat of retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall, the courts 1st Black Justice and a Civil Rights pioneer) and, Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latino on the court. Obama didn't say he was going to nominate her because she is Latino. But critics and racists said it anyway.

For about a decade now, many (most?) top law schools have seen women's enrollment at 50% or higher. Students of color at 50% or higher. Under Biden's predecessor there wasn't a hint of diversity. Unless you're counting the breathtaking ineptitude and poor legal qualifications of many of his nominees. Dubya's nominees weren't stellar either. Neither were they diverse in any real sense of the word or concept.

Biden will be assailed by the GOP and racists (quite often there is no difference) no matter what. So I hope he says "Fuck y'all!!" and keeps busy fulfilling his promises whenever he can.
 
yaxomoxay said:
No. If it happens - as we all hope - it must be incidental.
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For nearly the first 200 years of the nation’s existence, it was NOT incidental that ONLY white men could vote, hold office, etc. But now, if a non-white person is to succeed, it needs to be “incidental”? How does that make sense?

If I hold a football match (take your pick American or otherwise) and make one team stay inside the the locker room for the first half, will they have any chance at catching up in the 2nd half if we say “ok now both teams play by the rules”? I guess if they’re down by 10 scores, they are supposed to just come back on their own, with no concessions given to make up for the first half. Or in this case, we’re talking more like at least 3 quarters of the game.
 
yaxomoxay said:
You’re replying to me as if I said, implied, meant, or believed that racism is over. racism is included - and it’s a much worse form - in my rant about always thinking about race.

My comment about the 8 years with a black President is meant as “I hoped we’d be at a much better point by now”.

Again, must be me.
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You used the past tense several times. Then you focused on President Obama's race while overlooking and not addressing how other Presidents were shown to use/focus on gender and race. So again: I guess it must be you.
 
And we have law professors calling black women “lesser” because they wanted somebody else to be nominated.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1486709641073631236/

He is trying to backtrack, but considering he accused Sotomayor of being unqualified and only getting the job because she was Hispanic… it seems like this professor is the one with a problem, not the non-white SCOTUS justices.

Funny how one “meant no offense” when saying Biden’s pick would be a “lesser black woman.” He assumed all black women are inferior to his personal preference for the court… how can one be surprised that would offend people?
 
lizkat said:
The Rs need to rein in the idiots like Hawley and Kennedy on this matter. Or hey, let it rip. Life in the shrinking R bubble must be a real trip these days, although they can't see out very well I guess. They'll end up doing for the Dems what the Dems might otherwise have more trouble doing, which is get the Democrats really really interested in going to the polls for the midterm elections. Talking trash about qualified black female jurists might just do it. Who knows, it might do more than if the Dems finally got their message together about a great recovery from the covid-lashed economy.
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I hope they go all out and as the old folks in Brooklyn say: "Show they ass!" Hoping Biden nominates Ketanji Brown Jackson. Collins, Graham and Murkowski already voted yes for her confirmation to the District court. I would love for them to vote no and explain why the change. Rubio was one of three GQP punks that didn't vote on her nomination. I want him to go on record and explain at the debate between he and Val Demings in Florida and explain his vote this round. It'll fire up the Dem base in the state.
 
SuperMatt said:
For nearly the first 200 years of the nation’s existence, it was NOT incidental that ONLY white men could vote, hold office, etc. But now, if a non-white person is to succeed, it needs to be “incidental”? How does that make sense?

If I hold a football match (take your pick American or otherwise) and make one team stay inside the the locker room for the first half, will they have any chance at catching up in the 2nd half if we say “ok now both teams play by the rules”? I guess if they’re down by 10 scores, they are supposed to just come back on their own, with no concessions given to make up for the first half. Or in this case, we’re talking more like at least 3 quarters of the game.
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I was hoping we were already playing a different game, league, and sport. I guess I am wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time, will not be the last.

Good luck.
 
ronntaylor said:
You used the past tense several times. Then you focused on President Obama's race while overlooking and not addressing how other Presidents were shown to use/focus on gender and race. So again: I guess it must be you.
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Yes, because I hoped - back in 2008 and even 2016 - that Obama was the breaking point, America’s (if not the West’s) acknowledgement of a new era in which skin finally isn’t that important. I am not comparing Obama with his predecessors. It’s the opposite of overlooking the other presidents, it’s acknowledging their fault to say that the meaning of Obama’s election had the potential of being groundbreaking.
 
yaxomoxay said:
Trump was elected mostly because the opponent was the most unlikable person on earth, not as a reaction to Obama’s skin.
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Yeah, well... it's not like starting back in 2008 we suddenly no longer had not only a long history of informal discrimination against nonwhite people, but a history of intentionally making and implementing laws to segregate life in America according to race.

The USA had had intentional "affirmative action" in support of white supremacy in this country from the get go --so from a lot of cradles in this country-- and long after slavery was abolished, and long after the Civil War, and long after the original Voting Rights Act of 1965.

So... the USA electing Barack Obama once in 2008 might have been a fluke... because that is how that resentment went at first for the consciously racist voter, i.e. the voter who "knew" deep down from the cradle on that of course there's a place for Blacks in the USA: just not at quite the same tables as "[all] Americans" to borrow a gaffe (if one buys that it was a gaffe) from Mitch McConnell.

But when 2012 rolled in and the Rs couldn't get Romney across the finish line, re-electing a black guy to our highest public office was no fluke, eh? Once is a fluke, maybe.

So what was it then? As 2016 election season approached, some white voters looked around in areas where nonwhite populations had increased and figured what it was, was pushback time.

Obama hadn't been re-elected in 2012 because of the color of his skin. But he was resented in some quarters for having got re-elected "despite" being Black. And where there were more Black voters living and working in 2012 than there had been previously, some racists saw that arithmetic and extrapolated it nationwide and figured the time had come to push back on a perceived and dire threat to their ideal of white supremacy. You can talk until blue in the face and note that some nonwhite minorities tend to vote straight Republican tickets, but white supremacists in America are still mired in fear and anger that the USA elected and then re-elected a Black man as our President.

Yes in 2016 there was populist discontent among voters aligned with both major parties. And yes it didn't help that the parties both ignored that and put up largely establishment candidates... and the Dems did all they could to squash Sanders in favor of Clinton, the candidate whose "turn" the establishment Dems figured it had been back in 2008, a million light years back from 2015...

But Trump saw daylight in the Rs' array of choices in a year of populism on the right, and from the day he came down that escalator to throw his hat into the ring, he hauled in formerly sotto voce racists and gave their ignorant and sometimes malevolent cause more than a dogwhistle. He provided oxygen to racist views in traditional and social media. He opened the porch door and invited racists into the parlor... and eventually into the White House.

Racists may not have been who put Trump across the finish line --since there were and are plenty Trump supporters who never saw a GOP tax cut they didn't crave more of-- but Trump's throwback administration will forever be linked to the racist policymaking of the likes of Stephen Miller, who if nothing else was a vocal and crystal clear spokesman for that administration's views, intentions and implementations meant to further white supremacy.

Racists may not be the only ones who don't like the idea of a white male US President affirming his intention to nominate a Black female to the highest court in the land. Be that as it may but we have to get past the GOP's whine that the Democrats are making it about race and gender. It is about race and gender. Inequality has always been about race and gender in the USA. Same as it has been in a lot of other countries. And just like a lot of other countries, the USA is still trying to live up to the ideals of its Constitution and show the world and its own citizens that equality under rule of law is for everyone. How we get there is by striving to prove it. And let's face it, after we ever deal appropriately with race and gender, the longstanding class differences that have largely spun off those inequalities still remain to be dealt with but the gap will stop growing.

We are not perfect, our Supreme Court is not perfect, the next sitting justice will not be perfect but the Court will be more diverse. In my lifetime this court has finally got past being "nine old white men in dresses" and to my mind that in itself a good thing. Women. Some non-whites. Their presence doesn't speak to their other qualifications as well as does the eloquence of their opinions and dissents. But it's part of the appearance of diversity, and a hell of a lot more forthright about that diversity than is the behind-scenes fact that six of the nine justices still hail from the Federalist Society, mired in a faux 18th century view of 21st century American jurisprudence.

Appearances matter. It's why we have the spirit and not just letter of law. It's why we have expectations of the visibility of American equality under law. Race and gender are not the only thing, but they're important.. at least to the roughly two thirds of Americans who are not white males.
 
lizkat said:
Yeah, well... it's not like starting back in 2008 we suddenly no longer had not only a long history of informal discrimination against nonwhite people, but a history of intentionally making and implementing laws to segregate life in America according to race.

The USA had had intentional "affirmative action" in support of white supremacy in this country from the get go --so from a lot of cradles in this country-- and long after slavery was abolished, and long after the Civil War, and long after the original Voting Rights Act of 1965.

So... the USA electing Barack Obama once in 2008 might have been a fluke... because that is how that resentment went at first for the consciously racist voter, i.e. the voter who "knew" deep down from the cradle on that of course there's a place for Blacks in the USA: just not at quite the same tables as "[all] Americans" to borrow a gaffe (if one buys that it was a gaffe) from Mitch McConnell.

But when 2012 rolled in and the Rs couldn't get Romney across the finish line, re-electing a black guy to our highest public office was no fluke, eh? Once is a fluke, maybe.

So what was it then? As 2016 election season approached, some white voters looked around in areas where nonwhite populations had increased and figured what it was, was pushback time.

Obama hadn't been re-elected in 2012 because of the color of his skin. But he was resented in some quarters for having got re-elected "despite" being Black. And where there were more Black voters living and working in 2012 than there had been previously, some racists saw that arithmetic and extrapolated it nationwide and figured the time had come to push back on a perceived and dire threat to their ideal of white supremacy. You can talk until blue in the face and note that some nonwhite minorities tend to vote straight Republican tickets, but white supremacists in America are still mired in fear and anger that the USA elected and then re-elected a Black man as our President.

Yes in 2016 there was populist discontent among voters aligned with both major parties. And yes it didn't help that the parties both ignored that and put up largely establishment candidates... and the Dems did all they could to squash Sanders in favor of Clinton, the candidate whose "turn" the establishment Dems figured it had been back in 2008, a million light years back from 2015...

But Trump saw daylight in the Rs' array of choices in a year of populism on the right, and from the day he came down that escalator to throw his hat into the ring, he hauled in formerly sotto voce racists and gave their ignorant and sometimes malevolent cause more than a dogwhistle. He provided oxygen to racist views in traditional and social media. He opened the porch door and invited racists into the parlor... and eventually into the White House.

Racists may not have been who put Trump across the finish line --since there were and are plenty Trump supporters who never saw a GOP tax cut they didn't crave more of-- but Trump's throwback administration will forever be linked to the racist policymaking of the likes of Stephen Miller, who if nothing else was a vocal and crystal clear spokesman for that administration's views, intentions and implementations meant to further white supremacy.

Racists may not be the only ones who don't like the idea of a white male US President affirming his intention to nominate a Black female to the highest court in the land. Be that as it may but we have to get past the GOP's whine that the Democrats are making it about race and gender. It is about race and gender. Inequality has always been about race and gender in the USA. Same as it has been in a lot of other countries. And just like a lot of other countries, the USA is still trying to live up to the ideals of its Constitution and show the world and its own citizens that equality under rule of law is for everyone. How we get there is by striving to prove it. And let's face it, after we ever deal appropriately with race and gender, the longstanding class differences that have largely spun off those inequalities still remain to be dealt with but the gap will stop growing.

We are not perfect, our Supreme Court is not perfect, the next sitting justice will not be perfect but the Court will be more diverse. In my lifetime this court has finally got past being "nine old white men in dresses" and to my mind that in itself a good thing. Women. Some non-whites. Their presence doesn't speak to their other qualifications as well as does the eloquence of their opinions and dissents. But it's part of the appearance of diversity, and a hell of a lot more forthright about that diversity than is the behind-scenes fact that six of the nine justices still hail from the Federalist Society, mired in a faux 18th century view of 21st century American jurisprudence.

Appearances matter. It's why we have the spirit and not just letter of law. It's why we have expectations of the visibility of American equality under law. Race and gender are not the only thing, but they're important.. at least to the roughly two thirds of Americans who are not white males.
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I don’t understand why me mentioning Obama triggered everyone. I never claimed racism to be over. I am saying that, after 14 (fourteen!) years after he became president I’d hoped to be a much better point, and certainly not in a point in which the President (whoever they are) goes on tv claiming that his choice is made based on race and/or gender. Very different from some affermative action.

Also, I must push back against the “fluke” comment.

Obama won by 10M votes in 2008.
Obama won by 6M votes in 2012.
The D candidate won by 4M votes in 2016 but lost the elections because she was too stupid to listen to her experienced husband.
The D candidate won by 7M votes in 2020 and got more votes than anybody else in history.
So no, it wasn’t a fluke.
 
yaxomoxay said:
Trump was elected mostly because the opponent was the most unlikable person on earth, not as a reaction to Obama’s skin.
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His only reason for running was to repudiate everything Obama did. He was too much of a punk to run against Obama. He used birtherism, one of the most insidious political attacks in our nation's history, to gain traction with like-minded (racist) voters. It was all about skin color when it came to the one President that wasn't white in our 200+ year history. Again, did you somehow miss how racists/racism came out bold and pissy with the election of Obama? Including top GOP officials and especially Mango's entire raison d'etre for running.
 
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