Clarence Thomas has said he’s considering retiring from the Supreme Court after the next election. Am I the only one who finds this to be a peculiarly political revelation?
Who is going to be most motivated by the possibility of losing another knee-jerk conservative on the court? This is Thomas trying to stir up fear in the far right base, increase the stakes for them in the coming election, and rouse up more desperation. The election is already disturbing enough without inducing more fervor in the ugly side of the electorate.
Of course it’s also entirely possible that Thomas is such a lackluster hack that he doesn’t care and just wants to bail out.
Even if it is a political ploy, I highly doubt it will be enough to persuade a majority of voters to back Trump. Now, it might be enough to push the GOP to ditch Trump at the convention, but that in itself is a high risk strategy.
If it’s true he’s retiring, I’m seriously pissed that we’re not going to get a more liberal candidate this election. With Scalia gone, Thomas going, and Notorious RBG, Breyer, and Kennedy getting up there in years, we’re looking at possibly the most judicially important election of our lifetimes.
Maybe he’s retiring because without his puppet master (Scalia) he doesn’t know how to vote.
@3 that’s not fair. Thomas has always had his own distinct, bizarre judicial philosophy. That said, he probably misses having Scalia there to ask questions during oral arguments.
Keep in mind RBG and Breyer were nominated by Bill Clinton, and Obama nominated Sotomayor and Kagan. I would expect Hillary Clinton to nominate from the same end of the judicial spectrum.
Clarence Scalthomas isn’t smart enough to think this far down the road. (I still call him “Scalthomas” because he automatically voted Scalia’s way all the time.)
Interesting side issue on Clarence Scalthomas: He had to file amended financial disclosure forms for many years because he “forgot” to report his wife’s income from her right wing goofus bird kook outfit. He wrote “none” on the form, then when he filed the new forms he claimed the reason was he neglected the check the proper box. “Inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.”
And the howler: $686,589. You know–that “extra” six hundred grand you had stashed in the laundry room cabinet from the spouse’s income.
Imagine this if President Clinton’s new Supreme Court justice does this one. Fainting couches, please.
I slightly disagree. It’s the Washington Examiner trying to stir up fear in the far right base. There’s no reason to believe that Thomas has said or done anything to justify this; the Examiner article merely says that he ” is mulling retirement after the presidential election, according to court watchers.” In other words, they couldn’t even find someone to provide even an indirect quote from Thomas relayed anonymously. It’s just “court watchers” — which could be anyone including you and me — speculating about Thomas’s internal thought process.
Something is really screwed up. When the first consideration for appointing a judge in our nation’s highest court is political orientation, we have seriously failed. Fairness and impartiality have gone out the window, all we are doing is voting for our view.
Sure, our side’s view is the right one, it’s the other side that’s putting in prejudiced judges, but wholly frak are we messed up as a country. Can we at least pretend the judges are picked on merit?
archangelospumoni @6,
Scalia and Thomas did vote together often, but no more so than any other pair of ideologically similar justices. You might as well nickname Justice Kagan “Elena Bader Kagamayor.”
For example, this New York Times analysis from 2014 showed that over the previous four terms, Thomas and Scalia voted together 91% of the time. Which is not as high as Roberts and Alito’s 93%, or Kagan and Ginsburg (93%) or Kagan and Sotomayor (94%).
sure. just like we can pretend global warming doesn’t exist, evolution is a failed theory, and the earth is only 5000 years old.
people do it every day.
we can even pretend the US is not effectively an oligarchy.
Where’s Dr. Seuss when you need him?
*sigh*
I want that wall.
For those quoting stats on justices agreeing with each other, it’s also worth noting that judges as ideologically different as Thomas and Sotomayor agreed 66% this year since most decisions are unanimous or near-unanimous.
futurechemist@12,
So noted. What of it? The point is that the “Thomas just votes however Scalia does” meme is misleading at best. If someone wants to suggest another metric by which to justify this rather tired talking point, I’m all ears.
I’m not a fan of Justice Thomas. I find his written opinions rather simplistic and some of his views appalling even for a conservative justice. Which is why “he was Scalia’s puppet” is pretty much the weakest attack you can make on him.
I think he’s lying. What reason would there be to wait until after the election? The Republicans have already shut down the nomination process for Judge Garland. Any additional vacancies now would be stimied similarly until after the election anyway. The only logical reason for announcing his pending retirement and not just going ahead and doing it at the end of the term is that it motivates the right wingers to boost Trump over the finish line, then he can say “Psyche” and plug along for another decade or so.
I never really understood the whole “Thomas was Scalia’s puppet” thing, it bothers me for several reasons. 1) For the reasons already mentioned: he didn’t vote with Scalia more than any other pair of ideologically similar Justices. 2) Saying Thomas was Scalia’s puppet removes, or at least reduces, Thomas’s moral culpability for a wretched ideology. Thomas is vile, with or without Scalia. 3) In some circumstances it smacks of veiled racism.
Well…if Thomas does retire, that would be the end of the risk of 4-4 ties in SCOTUS decisions until the Senate starts allowing new justices to be appointed.
I’m still wondering how the Senate is allowed to even do that. I can imagine covering a political process with “extended vetting”, but they aren’t even doing that… they’re simply not only refusing to do THEIR jobs… but preventing the POTUS from doing their job as well.
why aren’t people just pitchforking these fuckers?
Re: Ichthyic # #17…
POTUS did his job. He sent a nominee to the Senate for their consideration. I agree that the Senate is abdicating its Constitutional duty to “advise and consent” by not even holding hearings. However, these is nothing to prevent the Senate from holding hearing, bring the nomination to a floor vote, and voting the nominee down, regardless of how qualified he is. Even Republican voters have noticed that the Senate isn’t doing the job and–according to polls–are not happy about it.
It will be interesting to see what happens after the election results are in. Will the Republicans move on Garland if Clinton wins? Or will they still maintain their “fingers on ears” stance? And…does a nomination die when Congress ends the session and starts a new one?
I have seen things already I have never even heard of before. seriously, a lot of what has happened in Congress this term is historically unprecedented.
I would not want to make ANY predictions about what will happen next.
Not arguing that but it’s not the first thing I look at. Primarily I want to know that they understand facts have more to do with their job than pet theories or other fantasies. Basically I’d like to pretend we can all act like we live in the same universe and just disagree about how to look at it.
I had a creationist essentially tell me exactly the same thing not so long ago.
They kinda have to uh… double pretend?
first they have to pretend they are talking about the same universe… you know, the actual real universe. then they have to pretend it’s just a disagreement about viewpoint.
but they do it. they most certainly do.
The Senate’s duty is to “advise and consent” to the President’s nominee. Now, I have C-Span. And as much as I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, I’ve watched it from time to time. What I’ve learned about consent in the Senate is that all it means is that nobody voices an objection. You’ll see it constantly in the Senate. A Senator gets up and says: “I ask unanimous consent”, and unless someone says “I object” he/she goes on with their point, concluding that, absent an objection, they have unanimous consent. They don’t have to vote every time somebody asks for consent.
If I were Judge Garland, I would just show up at the Supreme Courtroom and take my seat, reasoning that “seeing no objection” I have received the Senate’s consent. Done! too late to object now.
Go back and re-examine the data. Look at the times when Scalia would have been the sole dissenting vote, but joined at the hip by Clarence.
Dan @ # 14: I think he’s lying.
Pls read the damn post: Thomas hasn’t said a thing; this all comes from a third-rate paper citing (not even quoting) anonymous sources.
And, fwiw, Thomas’s wife denies the rumor.
I wonder if the GOP will move on Garland’s nomination in the lame duck session after Clinton wins. That would be *hilarious*!
Uh, what whheydt said. And here I thought I had an original thought.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2016/02/16/stupid-liberal-memes-clarence-thomas-edition/
If I were Obama, on the day after the election (assuming Clinton won) I would withdraw the Garland nomination. Okay, Republicans, you wanted the next President to fill the SCOTUS position? You got it.
No.
You may be thinking of a “recess appointment“, which is of limited duration and does expire. My understanding is that to prevent even this from happening, the thugs are keeping the Senate in session by some semantic trickery, even whilst most senators are not present.