Today in Supreme Court History: August 29, 1967

8/29/1967: Justice Neil Gorsuch's birthday.

Justice Neil Gorsuch

 

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

The whiff of illegitimacy will always cling to him.

[Sam Gompers]

Cemented by his recent clown world ruling.

[MoreCurious]

As much as I despise him, Mitch McConnell has accomplished more than he ever could have imagined.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It's easy to sit around and not do your job, if nobody is in a position to punish you for it. McConnell has been in that role for some time now.

[MoreCurious]

Any chance he'll be punished by the voters of Kentucky in November?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I doubt it. They're perfectly happy with him not fulfilling his Constitutional responsibilities and allowing a hostile foreign government to influence two presidential elections in a row.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Sorry to confuse you with facts, but it is the ChiComs who attempt to influence our elections.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Mitch McConnell will be known mostly as the guy who precipitated the enlargement of the the Supreme Court during the last gasp of right-wing relevance in national elections.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Absent everything else, do you really think SCOTUS could function with more than 9?

[Whistling Willie]

@captcrisis Don't understand such animus toward Gorsuch. If Merrick Garland had been confirmed to succeed Scalia, Gorsuch would still have been at the top of Trump's list and would have been nominated and confirmed to take Kennedy's seat on SCOTUS. In either case, he would be on the high court,

Whistling Willie

[Dan Schiavetta]

P.S. Merrick Garland's birthday is November 13, 1952.

[Well Regulated Militia]

Robert Bork's was March 1, 1927

[Dan Schiavetta]

Bork got a full hearing and was voted down by the full Senate. What?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

That was back in the day when Senators had guts.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Borking" is something you approve of?!?

[Sarcastr0]

Bork got a full hearing and was voted down by the full Senate.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I was going to say that, but didn't realize he was that old. I met him once...

[Sarcastr0]

I read his book. He was a nutsy theocratic authoritarian. We dodged a bullet.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, we sure did. "Slouching Towards Gomorrah."

I met him once. He came to our law school on a panel with Rose Bird, a California Supreme Court judge who had recently been bounced by the voters for being anti-death penalty. So we had two judges whose careers had been sidelined due to their beliefs.

My girlfriend was the only black female in her class, so naturally she got invited to be on the panel. Before the show, there was a dinner and she took me along. I chatted with him briefly over the buffet. Thomas Sowell was there, trying to press Bork on some ideological point. I got the impression Bork wanted to swat him away like a mosquito.

Bork was puffing on cigarettes (this was 1989) and was way overweight, stuffing himself with pigs in the blanket (or something). I said, "Those are fattening. You should take care of yourself." (He later did lose weight, but only because he had a heart attack.)

That said . . . he was an intelligent and articulate speaker. Ms. Bird came off like a bimbo.

(What? Is this too nuanced a comment for the usual crowd here?)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I met Bork once, too. He flew in for a "concerned parents community meeting," trying to persuade a bunch of white parents to be frightened enough by the prospect of desegregated schools to pitch in for a fund that would pay him to litigate to keep the schools as white as the Volokh Conspiracy.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I have that same tie!

[SKofNJ]

If I had known, I would have baked a cake.