Politics: J'accuse!

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm trying to picture a Rush-type writing a similar piece about Kerry.

Oh, the outrage . . .

I don't think so.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
WTF is a Mallard Fillmore?

It is a very awkward and unfunny (IMO) syndicated cartoon appearing in certain conservative newspapers thourghout the country (e.g. The Washington Times). Thw main character is a duck.


S_A_M

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Thw main character is a duck.

How did the duck handle the inherent conflict between party loyalty and the Cheney-Scalia hunting trip?

[sgtclub]

http://cnn.worldnews.printthis.click...partnerID=2006

[Russia claims new weapon]

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
How did the duck handle the inherent conflict between party loyalty and the Cheney-Scalia hunting trip?

You know there is a Ginsburg/ woman's rights group similar flare -up?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
How did the duck handle the inherent conflict between party loyalty and the Cheney-Scalia hunting trip?

By pretending there is no inherent conflict, and deriding those who claim there is. Quack quack.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
You know there is a Ginsburg/ woman's rights group similar flare -up?

Did they give her a free makover? The Post hasn't given this any coverage, so I'm a bit in the dark here.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
By pretending there is no inherent conflict, and deriding those who claim there is. Quack quack.

No, he was asking about the Scalia thing, not the Ginsburg thing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
You know there is a Ginsburg/ woman's rights group similar flare -up?

Please explain. I had forgotten that women's rights groups were meeting with Cheney's energy task force. Something about lingerie-burning cogeneration, right?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Kevin "Ho'" Drum posts translated polling data from Spain:

1. Over 90% of the populace had decided their vote before the attacks.
   
2. 8% decided after the attacks.
   
3. 60% believe the government incorrectly informed the people about the authors of the attacks, and didn't share all available information.
   
4. 60% believe information was manipulated and hidden.
   
5. 30% believe the government told the truth.
   
6. 25% of PP (Conservative Party) voters believe the government mishandled the information. 65% of PP voters believe the government told the truth.

link

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Please explain. I had forgotten that women's rights groups were meeting with Cheney's energy task force. Something about lingerie-burning cogeneration, right?

If anyone seriously didn't know about this, here's a quick blurb:

"In the last issue of The Docket I wrote about the furor over Justice Antonin Scalia’s refusal to recuse himself in a case concerning Vice President Richard Cheney when it was found that Justice Scalia had gone duck hunting with the Veep soon after the Supreme Court issued certiorari in the case. I pointed out how Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had similarly refused to sit out of cases where the American Civil Liberties Union—an advocacy group Justice Ginsburg worked for before becoming a judge—was a party, and I wondered, “How does one duck hunt compare to eight years as an in-house counsel and board member?”

So you might have colored me surprised when just one week later the Los Angeles Times ran a story questioning Justice Ginsburg’s decision to not recuse herself in cases involving the National Organization for Women when the Justice has become closely involved with an annual lecture series that NOW sponsors. In fact, that lecture series is titled, “the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture Series on Women and the Law,” where the Justice is a keynote speaker and pictures of the Justice are used to advertise the event—but not for fundraising.

Law professors had a mixed reaction to the news. Prof. Monroe Freedman at Hofstra University argued that the Justices should “draw the line at cause-oriented litigation organizations” like NOW. But Prof. Stephen Gillers at New York University rejected the idea that “judges should lead monastic lives . . . I think judges and justices should participate in broad legal debates, but within restraints.”

Justice Ginsburg rose to her own defense, making a number of insightful points. For one, when judges recuse themselves in other courts, another judge is assigned to replace them. However, on the Supreme Court, there are no “backup Justices.” This raises the risk of a 4-4 vote split leaving an important question of law peculiarly unsettled. “Some of my colleagues think a recusal in the Supreme Court is equivalent to a vote against the petitioner,” the Justice said, because a 4-4 split effectively makes the petitioner lose. Justice Scalia reiterated that argument in his 21-page decision last week to not recuse himself from the Cheney case: “The petitioner needs five votes to overturn the judgment below, and it makes no difference whether the needed fifth vote is missing because it has been cast for the other side, or because it has not been cast at all.”

While she stated that Justices should not “lightly recuse” themselves, Justice Ginsburg noted that the rule is especially strict on financial interests. “If I owned one share of General Motors, I couldn't sit on that case,” she said as an example. On the other hand, familial affiliations weren’t quite as serious. Four of the Justices have a spouse or child who practices law, and those Justices have a formal agreement between them to not recuse themselves just because that relative’s firm is involved in a case before the Court. And Chief Justice William Rehnquist added a couple of comments to the fray on the Today show two weeks ago, where he indicated that he would not recuse himself in a case merely over social ties, such as if a member of his regular poker group was involved in case argued before the Court.

Taken together, we’re starting to see the picture of how the Court deals with conflicts of interest. The emphasis seems to be on financial bias, rather than personal or jurisprudential bias. In other words, the Justices tend to accept that each of them have pretty well-formed ideas as to how they approach the law, and it’s perfectly natural for them to speak before groups that share these ideas and consort with their legal peers. Although this might be considered “bias” in a traditional sense, it would be foolish to think that anyone could achieve the highest Court in the land without some kind of developed jurisprudence, whether it be friendly to NOW and the ACLU in Justice Ginsburg’s case or the Federalist Society in Justice Scalia’s. Perhaps a kind of “constant conflict” is inevitable on a Court where the stakes are the highest anyway.

But maybe this is also simply the natural result of the system. As Justices Ginsburg and Scalia have pointed out, when recusals cannot be replaced, the bar will be set higher to minimize the potentially negative side effects of having fewer Justices decided a case. If you don’t want the bar lowered, change the system. That would mean creating a body of replacement judges to fill in for recusals. This would not need to be a large group, since recusals should still not be common, but it should consist of federal judges due to the nature of the cases that come before the Court. The judges would have to come from all the different Circuit Courts of Appeal so that if the issue happens to be one where the Circuits have split, there could be a replacement that would not be a judge from one of the Circuits that has weighed in on the matter. And it would be best if this replacement group could be selected without partisan wrangling.

Put within those constraints, the choice seems obvious: Designate the Chief Judge of each Circuit as a potential fill-in for the Justices. Chief Judges are appointed by a non-political process under 28 U.S.C. § 45, so their jurisprudence plays no factor in whether they get the position or not. The commission is based on purely rote factors like age and seniority on the Circuit. These judges all focus their experience on the issues the Supreme Court handles, and all of the Circuits are represented. It works, but I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting this to happen.

With the Court as fractured as it is, it’s understandable to be wary of recusal. But the appearance of propriety is the Court’s greatest currency, and it’s important to ask whether we’re better off risking that over a stubborn system that penalizes recusal instead of respecting it as part of what a Justice must do to preserve the integrity of the system. "

http://home.earthlink.net/~jmarkels/...3-23-2004.html

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore
If anyone seriously didn't know about this, here's a quick blurb:

* * *

Put within those constraints, the choice seems obvious: Designate the Chief Judge of each Circuit as a potential fill-in for the Justices. Chief Judges are appointed by a non-political process under 28 U.S.C. § 45, so their jurisprudence plays no factor in whether they get the position or not.

* * *

I guess someone has been reading my posts here.

But isn't the more relevant comparison for Ginsburg's position Scalia's recusal from the pledge case after his speech, rather than the duck hunting trip? The latter called for recusal on the basis of the perception of a financial favor being provided for a vote; it had nothing to do with Scalia's jurisprudential bias (or leanings) in the case.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I guess someone has been reading my posts here.

But isn't the more relevant comparison for Ginsburg's position Scalia's recusal from the pledge case after his speech, rather than the duck hunting trip? The latter called for recusal on the basis of the perception of a financial favor being provided for a vote; it had nothing to do with Scalia's jurisprudential bias (or leanings) in the case.

Maybe I missed something. I hadn't seen this cast as "your vote for free ducks", but as "don't be off partying with your buds when you're deciding their cases", which is more like the bias thing than the buyoff thing.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
*I don't have pay cable and thus haven't seen Dennis Miller since he started sucking the president's dick. Thus, I can't comment on whether he's successful where others have failed.

Nope.

The most surreal thing about that show is the monkey.* I liked Miller's old HBO series, but this CNBC thing is just sad. WTF Miller thinks using a monkey as the straight man adds to the "comedy" escapes me. Bedtime for Bonzo this ain't.

Gattigap



*Apologies to Flinty.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by bilmore
“The petitioner needs five votes to overturn the judgment below, and it makes no difference whether the needed fifth vote is missing because it has been cast for the other side, or because it has not been cast at all.”

Is the requirement five votes or is it a majority of votes cast? In other words, if two justices recused themselves, would four out of seven be needed or five out of seven?

Forgive this non-litigator his ignorance, but I see a significant difference in this issue depending on the answer.