Today in Supreme Court History: October 3, 1990

10/3/1990: Justice David Souter takes the oath.

Justice David Souter

Comments

[DaivdBehar]

Another Ivy indoctrinated, know nothing, scumbag dumbass. The country is totally sick of this failed, crap elite. All national achievement has been despite these scumbags, and never because of them. These woke Ivy schools should be shut down and their assets seized.

[DaivdBehar]

Does he still jog daily in Washington? Let's pray he does not get mugged by one of the criminals he has protected.

[Michael D]

No, he went back to his home state and got the F out of the Washington cesspool. He still hears some cases by designation on the Circuit Court.

[DaivdBehar]

Good for him. A good decision.

[Queen Amalthea]

Authoritarian nutjob.

[PeteRR]

More disappointing than Alien 3. Would not nominate again.

[buckleup]

Perhaps one of the worst mistakes of the Bush 41 era. But military incursions and raising taxes were bad enough. Oh and vomiting on the Japanese prime minister.

[Krayt]

People assume it was a mistake and not deliberate.

[Sarcastr0]

What kind of conspiracy are you peddling here?

You think Bush was secretly not socially conservative?

[David Nieporent]

People assume it was a mistake and not deliberate.

Are you talking about the vomiting?

[Michael D]

The biggest disappointments of Souter, for me, were his joining with the majority in Gonzalez v Raich and Kelo v City of New London.

[DaivdBehar]

Judge Kazinski persuaded me to support Kelo. He said the public use for a highway support the private profit of a trucking firm. What do you think?

I also want Kelo to apply to chattel in the form of a corpse, and having presumptive organ donation. The decision applies to property, not just real property.

[Gandydancer]

Are you being sardonic?

If you are, it's too dry for me.

If you aren't, then eminent domain to seize your house so as to give it to a some entity for use, in part, as a homeless shelter is fine, I guess.

But I -think- you're being sardonic.

[Queen Amalthea]

"Are you being sardonic?"

I think you meant "a lunatic."

[Dan Schiavetta]

George HW Bush picked him without knowing his judicial philosophy. Which says more about HW than it does about Souter.

[Gandydancer]

Trump didn't know anything about anyone he picked, so the tradition of GOP Presidential indifference and incompetence is still unbroken.

[Kleppe]

The recent phenomenon of liberals casually insisting en masse they can read the President's mind is deeply unsettling, but also instructive.

[Queen Amalthea]

I thought mind reading was perfected with four years of Trump defenders constantly saying 'oh, he didn't mean that!'

[GKHoffman]

Neither Bush Pere nor Trump needed to know anything about potential SCOTUS appointees. They have people to do that for them. Bush got bad advice.

[Krychek_2]

Souter represents what was until recently mainstream Republican thought, not 100 percent but overall. The complaints about him from the right mostly reflect how extremist and radical the GOP has become.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Well said.

[PeteRR]

We've been complaining about him for 20+ years. So define "recently."

[Krychek_2]

Define “we”. There have always been extremists so the fact that there have been complaints for twenty years is no surprise. But during that time period mainstream Republican jurisprudence has been Souter, Stevens. Blackmun, Powell, Brennan, Potter Stewart and Anthony Kennedy. All appointed by Republicans and none of whom would have any chance of being appointed by a Republican today.

The GOP used to be a moderate party. Not any more.

[Gandydancer]

Krychek is a moderate. Evidently. In his own mind.

[PeteRR]

By mainstream you mean, throw a dartboard and hope the guy turns out to be at least a moderate. Souter is the proximate cause of the rise of the Federalist Society vetting judicial candidates.

One of the reasons why the Dems didn't use to squawk so much at who the GOP nominated is most of the time they "grew" in office and became liberals.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Selecting someone who genuinely will stick with stale superstition, tawdry bigotry, and knuckle-dragging backwardness for life can be -- and should be -- difficult.

Most people are better than that, particularly in modern, educated America.

Carry on, clingers . . . so far as better Americans permit, anyway.

[GKHoffman]

I see what you're doing with that description. So are you or are you not available?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I am expressing scorn toward right-wing culture war casualties.

Available for what?

[Michael P]

The right criticized him ever since he was appointed to the Supreme Court. Do you think Rust v. Sullivan (1991) is an example of how the right has become "extremist and radical"? Or that Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) is a good example of "what was until recently mainstream Republican thought"?

Let's see some examples that support your hypothesis.

[Krychek_2]

Pete RR and MichaelP: What it comes down to for me is what are Republican judges actually doing, and not what the people in the peanut gallery are grousing about. The Court we currently have is a radical departure from most Republican judges since World War II.

But let's see if I can illustrate my point with a mirror image hypothetical. Suppose through some fluke AOC were elected president and immediately found herself with five vacancies on the court. So we now have a Supreme Court telling us that the Constitution mandates guaranteed income and health care, and declaring that the electoral college is unconstitutional. Well, up until AOC made her appointments, none of those views were the views of mainstream Democrat judges, but they're now the law of the land. Does that mean that what is mainstream has changed?

No, it means the radical extreme has taken over the party and it is now reflected on the Supreme Court. Which is basically what has happened with the GOP: The conservative equivalent of AOC has taken over the GOP and the nuts are now in control.

But do not confuse a radical takeover with what is actually mainstream.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" the nuts are now in control "

They control the Republican Party, and they will continue to be influential in half-educated states for a while, but they are destined to be irrelevant in the context of general American progress for so far as anyone can reasonably foresee. Does anyone genuinely believe intolerance, ignorance, and superstition are coming back in modern America?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I believe it. Or more precisely, I don't think it ever left. I'm a fan of your continued optimism, though.

[Queen Amalthea]

Casey *curbed* abortion rights.