502 error on Scotus thread, so here for now.
This is what’s known as a kick in the gut.
Damn it, hang in there woman! Two more years, please, two more years!
Rushed here to post. Halp!
Okay, what can we do to help her pull through?
One more year, then tell trump to go fuck himself.
But Trump’s Senate minions can just vote through anyone he puts up, through 2022 now, right? And then hopefully the Blue Wave continues and they’re able to somehow take the Senate.
You would need to control the Senate to do this.
Another third of the Senate has to face the voters in 2020. Edit: And of course we are hoping the President isn’t a Republican by Feb 2021.
Oops, meant through 2020. Basically if we lose another Justice before 2020, we’re screwed for decades.
Yeah that’s worth worrying about.
It will increase pressure to pack the court though, which I’m in favor of purely to keep the court from being the political football it has been for decades. If there were 27 justices instead of 9, evangelicals wouldn’t have sold their souls to save fetuses and they’d probably be a solid Democratic bloc.
Wait, what? Isn’t packing the court exactly political football?
Well, metaphors are what you make of them, but I’ve always understood a political football to be something passed back and forth between the two teams as they try to make headway in opposite directions. The ball itself doesn’t score you any points, but you need the ball to make a touchdown. Packing the court would make it much harder to swing the court–filling the football with cement, as it were. Then it could perform its intended function (you know, jurisprudence) more effectively instead of also being a political rallying cry every 4 years.
Basically increasing the size of the court to offset the court packing that’s happening right now. Ensuring a fairer, more representative court composition.
But what’s to prevent the other side from packing the court into an even larger body when they win again?
Court packing isn’t happening right now.
Court packing means increasing the size of the court.
The number of justices is not in the Constitution, but it is set by law. Congress has to change it, so there’s still a hurdle; you can’t just do it by fiat.
Right, the point of the discussion was that if Trump gets to appoint another justice, there will be political pressure from Democratic rank-and-file for a new Democratic president in 2020 or after to pack the Court.
Well whatever you want to call it. The GOP basically ignoring the demographics of the country and packing in as many conservative Justices as possible with no regard to the will of the people.
When I saw the bit about her lung cancer, I figured it was related to her fall a month or so ago. Turns out they found the lung issue during her care for the fall. So we should all be a little grateful for her accident!