Law Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire from Supreme Court

Washington (CNN)Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who provided key votes for same sex-marriage, abortion access and affirmative action, will retire from the Supreme Court.

Kennedy's decision to step down could transform the Supreme Court for generations. President Donald Trump will have his second opportunity to nominate a justice and will likely replace Kennedy with a young, conservative jurist. That would create a bloc of five staunch conservative justices who could move the court further to the right and cement a conservative majority for the foreseeable future.
The nomination battle will likely ignite a firestorm on Capitol Hill as it comes just a year after Republicans changed the rules of the senate in order to push through the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump's first nominee.
This story is breaking and will be updated.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/27/politics/anthony-kennedy-retires/index.html

 

[CWCissey]

why do people continue to be surprised that America is a conservative country?

Is it not common knowledge who sailed on the Mayflower and what they believed in?

American schools still tend to further the myth the Pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution.

They forget England at the time was undergoing The Reformation, which meant the Puritans could no longer go around yelling at the Jews and Catholics. It's probably where the screaming about religious persecution when told to sit down and shut up comes from...

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

BTW that casual dismissal of parts of America that aren't cloistered urban centers is what lost the Left the Rust Belt and it's one of the most driving aspects of why even moderate members of your own party view this fringe with distaste.

Why can't we all be Americans? Why do people who choose to live in cities consider themselves superior than those who would prefer smaller communities close to nature?

People in urban areas inherently have different interests than people in rural areas, and regardless of which side you're on, that's always true and it'll always be true.
I used Kentucky because in my head it's somewhere with a shitty economy, but hey, what do I know? That could just be images from Lyndon Johnson on some guy's front porch still in my mind. If it's not true then that's great, but it doesn't have any effect on me, just like people in Kentucky probably don't care that much about how well or not well the fishing ports of the Northeast are.

 

[Chiang Kai-shek]

Trump is managing to do what FDR could never do. Pack the court with his nominees!

 

[Keystone]

I bet none of you thought you'd live long enough to see the mainstream media act like tourettes guy:

 

[Fareal]

American schools still tend to further the myth the Pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution.

They forget England at the time was undergoing The Reformation, which meant the Puritans could no longer go around yelling at the Jews and Catholics. It's probably where the screaming about religious persecution when told to sit down and shut up comes from...

“Religious persecution” = being told to stop sperging out about the use of vestments, kneeling for Communion and the Book of Common Prayer having too many Catholic bits in it

 

[TowinKarz]

Religious schisms, the TV franchise shipping wars BEFORE we had TV franchise shipping wars.

 

[Captain Ahab]

If that’s how they react now, I can’t wait to see their reactions when Trump is re-elected and gets to pick two more justices. Ginsburg and Breyer are old enough to retire. No way they are gonna last six more years.

 

[Sissy Galvez]

why do people continue to be surprised that America is a conservative country?

Is it not common knowledge who sailed on the Mayflower and what they believed in?

Here are the reasons: Obama was elected twice so clearly republicans had lost their hold on the government and the boomers were dying so the leftist utopia would happen any minute. Twitter, basically amplifying idiot leftist voices who should never have been given that opportunity. The entire platform is trannies and leftists braying and shrieking constantly. To an outsider/normal person, makes it appear as if they are majority and not a fringe minority. Trump getting the nomination and the entire republican nomination process was supposed to further push republicans into irrelevance because of their crazy views and Trump’s horrible personality.

Leftists have been predicting the death of the Republican Party for 10 years now and here we are, they control all branches of the government. Maybe don’t listen to these idiots?

 

[Absolutego]

People in urban areas inherently have different interests than people in rural areas, and regardless of which side you're on, that's always true and it'll always be true.
I used Kentucky because in my head it's somewhere with a shitty economy, but hey, what do I know? That could just be images from Lyndon Johnson on some guy's front porch still in my mind. If it's not true then that's great, but it doesn't have any effect on me, just like people in Kentucky probably don't care that much about how well or not well the fishing ports of the Northeast are.

And, again, this "fuck 'em, got mine" attitude and general ignorance of places outside your urban environment is part of why people who DO care about this country cannot stand self-obsessed urbanites like yourself. Kentucky isn't all rednecks and bourbon distilleries, there's a growing health sciences industry in Louisville, for example. The town's also one of the various Southern cities that's a magnet for tech companies fleeing California. Lexington's consistently been in the top 10 cities to start a new business in this country for the past 5 years. The south in general has been one of the fastest growing regions in the country this century.

Maybe by sheltering yourself in your concrete jungle it's you who has been made ignorant about the livelihoods and well being of your fellow countrymen.

 

[Unpleasant]

People in urban areas inherently have different interests than people in rural areas, and regardless of which side you're on, that's always true and it'll always be true.
I used Kentucky because in my head it's somewhere with a shitty economy, but hey, what do I know? That could just be images from Lyndon Johnson on some guy's front porch still in my mind. If it's not true then that's great, but it doesn't have any effect on me, just like people in Kentucky probably don't care that much about how well or not well the fishing ports of the Northeast are.

Whatever complaints you might have about the current regime, the economy shouldn't be one. My 401k is managed by some jew in a brokerage firm and it was up 29% last year, and it certainly wasn't based on local companies.

Revel in the salt or you're missing the entire point of this entire site. With the media and politics more polarized than ever, any huge news like this makes for a hilarious time. It just happens that libs tend to go for insane histrionics and hysterics much more so than conservatives, which makes for much better salt mining.

 

[TowinKarz]

@Sissy Galvez In that regard, I feel for moderate D's, I know exactly how it feels to have the public assign and judge your personal political stances by the antics of a Pat Buchanan or Joe Arpaio before you even get one word out of your mouth... the good news, it eventually does get better, the loonies can't stay in charge forever.

The bad news, if they're determined loons, they can hold on to power for a decade or more before finally being dislodged.

 

[Sissy Galvez]

@Sissy Galvez In that regard, I feel for moderate D's, I know exactly how it feels to have the public assign and judge your personal political stances by the antics of a Pat Buchanan or Joe Arpaio before you even get one word out of your mouth... the good news, it eventually does get better, the loonies can't stay in charge forever.

The bad news, if they're determined loons, they can hold on to power for a decade or more before finally being dislodged.

Oh I know, this melt down is epic because they are being forced to face reality. They have no power outside twitter and all they can do is drag people and ruin their reputation or get them fired. They have zero impact on public policy and that realization scares the shit out of them.

No fucking chance of self reflection and maybe change, though.

 

[A Useless Fish]

I know this is a blatant declaration of ignorance of how the USA handles these things, but what are the chances of someone like Trey Gowdy being recommended for the Supreme Court? I understand he's supposed to be leaving his current position soon.

 

[melty]

Two scoops
Two justices

Spoiler

Two terms

 

[Tetra]

Consider everything that has happened this article has aged extremely poorly.
"Obama Challenges GOP to 'Win an Election' If They Want New Policies"
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-challenges-gop-win-election-policies/story?id=20593955


When (depending on who you ask) did everything go so right/wrong?

Feels like yesterday these assholes were smug cunts about their "complete lockdown"


This guy is not having a good day fellas

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

And, again, this "fuck 'em, got mine" attitude and general ignorance of places outside your urban environment is part of why people who DO care about this country cannot stand self-obsessed urbanites like yourself. Kentucky isn't all rednecks and bourbon distilleries, there's a growing health sciences industry in Louisville, for example. The town's also one of the various Southern cities that's a magnet for tech companies fleeing California. Lexington's consistently been in the top 10 cities to start a new business in this country for the past 5 years. The south in general has been one of the fastest growing regions in the country this century.

Maybe by sheltering yourself in your concrete jungle it's you who has been made ignorant about the livelihoods and well being of your fellow countrymen.

I guess it's hard for me to understand why people care so much about other states, but I'm a provincial asshole who wishes we had way more states' rights than we do now, so I'm probably the minority here.

 

[melty]

I'm starting to think Trump might legitimately be a wizard. It's almost impossible to have such a long string of incredibly good luck.

Trump has some kind of reality-manipulating powers. Not in a science fiction sense, but more sheer force of will combined with luck, but a lot of the luck coming from an ability to see systems in the world and make them work in your favor. This particular instance is probably just luck, but there are some people in the world for whom things just seem to go right for, and they seem to get what they want all the time. Usually it comes from really deep knowledge of a specific area and good intuition, though intuition itself is based on correctly acting on things you might not really understand, and some people are clearly better at it. Trump is one of these people but on an unusually grand scale. He also has no problem going after what he wants even when everyone else says it's stupid or you can't do that. That certainly helps.
I don't know if he is really a genius transdimensional polo master but I don't think he is an idiot, and I think he understands trends and things in society that other people don't. It struck me when I found out he'd registered the MAGA slogan several years before running for office. He'd been talking about running for office for years and never really did it. He's in the right place at the right time, but he also knew it was the right place and time. He has the right combination of qualities to make these implausible things keep happening.

 

[PantsFreeZone]

Two scoops
Two justices

Spoiler

Two terms

Two genders.

 

[TowinKarz]

I guess it's hard for me to understand why people care so much about other states,

Because my state's (Pennsylvania) economic health depends on other states being healthy too.

If other states are doing poorly, there will be less work, less use of electricity, and thus, less demand for electrical power generation, which means, less demand for bituminous coal, our biggest export. (And before you lump me in with backwards hicktopia Kentucky, know this, our number TWO export is medicines and vaccines.......)

If other states' heavy industry is not doing well, there won't be a market for new railroad locomotives, the GE engine works in Erie is a major employer and can't survive just selling to in-state rail lines.

If other states aren't doing well, people won't have the money to invest in private aviation, Cessna and Piper were founded here, we still do a sizable business in light aircraft engines and component parts for them.

Other major exports from here are lead-acid batteries, forklifts and powered machinery, work-truck carbodies, and agricultural equipment, all things that require a healthy industrial base on a national level to have a market to sell to.

THAT'S why I care about how someone 3 time zones away is doing, if they aren't doing well, they can't buy the stuff my neighbors make, and then my neighbors dont' have money to spend at MY business...... it's symbiotic, because there's stuff that "other guy" has that I need in return because I can't get it locally, like pineapple for example? I love pineapple, but good luck growing those in an Appalachian cornfield.

Claiming empathy should stop at state borders for political reasons is a short-sighted and stupid thing to believe when we all need to work together to get max benefit from a capitalist-democratic system. And why the parochial "Only blue coasts matter" democrats are so darn toxic and repulsive, they'd rather starve than have food grown by the "wrong" people or see "bigots" get a paycheck.


Last I checked an American flag, your star is as big as mine.... that's not a put down, that should be inspiring. You say why should I care? Why should I not? They're Americans, same as me, and want the same basic things I do, economic and social stability, a shot at personal happiness when not on the job, and fair and equitable treatment by impartial courts.

 

[kobebyarlant]