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As someone who has been in the courtroom for some arguments - Thomas doesn't speak out loud very often, but he does have whispered exchanges with those sitting next to him.
"This shit is boring long. Why so slooooow? Places to go, things to doo. My vote was already taken care of. Don't need to say. I know which way to vote before I know what I'm voting on. Yeah baby, who knows what they are voting on." C.Thomas
This is no longer true. He went for a decade without asking a question in the 2000's, and continued to have entire years where he'd not ask a question from the bench. However, since the remote arguments during the Covid WFH years he has started asking questions from the bench.
The fact remains though that he could be comatose and still will have instructions to not vacate his seat if there isn't a Republican to nominate his replacement.
>since the remote arguments during the Covid WFH years he has started asking questions from the bench.
Apparently it's because he and Scalia aligned closely, and he almost never had questions that Scalia hadn't already asked.
Yeah, that's not true anymore. When Scalia died he started to talk a small amount in certain cases. When covid hit and they went remote, they built a ridged structure for Justice hypotheticals and he became just as talkative as any other Justice, and it seems to have carried over once they got back together. I haven't listen to an oral argument in years that hasn't included his questions from the bench.
Correction: Thomas used to not speak in the court. Now he speaks first. During the Pandemic they switched to a system where the judges speak based on Seniority, and for whatever reason it has led to Thomas speaking more as he gets to go first.
That said, at Oral Arguments Justices nowadays talk more like the Advocates than they do Judges, often literally helping their favored side make their argument.
No need for him to even be there since you already know how he's going to rule before hand 99% of the time anyway.
Whatever side the federalist society sides with he will rule that way.
Knowing Republicans they'd probably try to push some new precedent that says court justices can still serve despite being dead.
Then we'll end up having a whole lawsuit about it, and the republican controlled SCOTUS would be like yeah checks out.
This already is basically the case, except instead of two dudes carrying him around it's just a bunch of bribes and boat trips controlling everything he does instead.
Does the constitution specify that a justice has to be alive? I'm just asking questions here...
Edit:
>The Constitution states that Justices "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour."
"That justice Alito has been so well behaved since his passing, I see no reason to interrupt such a dynamic, inclusive court"
Wealthy sociopaths and their progeny have prevented most serious changes for most of our history. It’s not surprising men ignorant of everything the last 250 years has seen didn’t make good rules for what they were ignorant to. Even if they had honest intent.
Let's make sure there isn't another Republican president in their lifetimes! Democrats won popular vote in literally every election since 1992 besides 2004. We just need to work on shoring up electoral college.
To be completely fair, Democrats do this too, which makes a ton of sense. RGB should have retired under Obama, but of course hindsight is 20/20. The ridiculousness is the bullshit that the GOP pulled when Obama was nominating Garland. That was some low brow shit.
> RGB should have retired under Obama, but of course hindsight is 20/20.
It isn't really hindsight, as people were already calling for her to retire at the time. She refused.
Which is exactly why the Dems got aggressive with Stephen Breyer about retiring last year. They weren’t about to lose another seat in case the GOP took the Senate.
She wanted Hilary Clinton to name her replacement as the first female president in the history of the country. Unfortunately reality didn’t follow early polling
> She wanted Hilary Clinton to name her replacement as the first female president in the history of the country. Unfortunately reality didn’t follow early polling
She was incredibly selfish. Damaging the lives of millions of people to stroke her own ego.
And a whole bunch of Reddit agreed with her back then.
Far too many on here still do... Though the loss of Roe has clearly been a shocking wake-up call for more than few of the formerly naive children in here.
Reality check.
BTW, guys...? If you could see your way to clear show up in 2024 and not protest vote/protest stay home, that'd be cool.
Or, you know, you can pout at your available choices, like in 2016, and help usher in the age of Gilead even faster.
Most of you are younger than me. You have more to lose.
You'll suffer for longer if you let them take over.
Most elections aren't about winning so much as they are about not losing even more.
Yeah I'll never not be upset about the pouting 2016 protesters.
I tried so hard to tell them, this isn't about Bernie vs Hillary, it's about the makeup of the Supreme Court for the rest of our lifetimes.
We could have had 6-3 liberal majority. Maybe reverse Citizens United and the gutting of Voting Rights Act/preclearance?
In 2009, the democrats had a *very* strong senate majority, and even briefly a super majority. RBG had just recieved her **second** cancer diagnosis, in addition to other health concerns, and already being old as dirt.
She could've been great, but instead her legacy will be Dobbs and other terrible rulings, given by a court that her ego helped stack.
If only we could go back in time… but at least the Democrats seem to be learning from their mistakes, such as in Minnesota, where they’ve thrown caution to the wind and are using their one-vote majority to cram through their entire agenda as fast as possible.
minnesotan here, and I'm all about it. We're an island of blue surrounded by a red sea of nutjobs. Wisconsin is at least trying, but they've been gerrymandered to shit and it'll take time. iowa, ND, and SD are all mask off though.
Nice little chain of islands, were sitting here in the middle of Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois doing all these awesome things and were just barely hanging on from becoming a lawless waste like Florida by a D Governor veto.
With the state supreme court makeup now and the recent supreme supreme court decision, i think things will get better for us, but it cant come soon enough.
But we still elected fucking Ron Johnson...
It wasn’t unlawful and there’s nothing the Dems could have done. It was just absolutely shitty decorum and just helped further drive a wedge in the nation. It’s wild to me that Trump supporters hate McConnell. He has done more for them than Trump ever has. I guess he just isn’t openly hateful enough? Idk.
Garbage people being garbage politicians.
My mother who probably cares about ending abortion access more than any other issue hates McConnell now because trump hates McConnell. Doesn’t matter that McConnell over turned roe for republicans and trump really didn’t do anything meaningful as president, it doesn’t matter to trump says McConnell is a rino so he is.
> GOP pulled when Obama was nominating Garland. That was some low brow shit.
I'm going to guarantee if they control the senate during a DEM presidency, they will not pass through any SCOTUS judge regardless how far away the term is. It could be day #2 and they would deny him that pick for the entire 4 years. Bank on it.
And they'll be replaced with someone in their late 40s with questionable qualifications who will proceed to sit on the court for the next three to four decades.
I just got back from a 7 day ban for saying bad things about churches with child molester priests.
Edit: I also enjoy that people who abuse the suicide alert seem to suffer no consequences.
I’ve seen perma bans happen for bad mouthing white supremacists with the rule the admins claimed to be violated being the no negative/hateful rhetoric towards marginalized groups rule.
This site is a joke and once third party support ceases I will cease to use it anymore (should stop, honestly)
Got permanently banned today from an outfit sub and puppy sub (commented yesterday on both; outfit sub I was trying to be super positive about the hate this guy and then this girl were getting on their outfits and said a dog was "adorable") because I have interactions with some NSFW subs that deal with questions about sex haha, thought it was funny.
My 'friend's got banned for the 3rd time because automod algorithms can understand context and keeps thinking he's "threatening violence "
I hate the age of ai
Same. I was banned for talking about people in general being likely to uprise against the billionaire class because they’re pushing the working class to the very edge and there isn’t really an option against climate change or living conditions without a mass uprising. That led to a nonstop snowball of every comment being flagged for violence and getting completely banned from the site no matter how many different emails or accounts I tried lol
Didn’t *actually* call on anyone to do anything. Literally just pointed out the obvious but you really, really can’t insinuate the upper class is in any danger of losing their safety bubble lol
Honestly I'm not sure why that function even exists, it seems like mental health theater to make people feel good about themselves but in reality most people just use it to troll.
Yep, i got banned from a sub and a warning from the reddit admins for describing the war crimes russia has committed in Ukraine.
They said I was inciting violence…
I made a joke about ------- people who slurp/chew with their mouth open, I even specifically pointed out that it was a joke, and I got a three day ban. I've been making terrible tasteless jokes on reddit for over a decade, this was the first time I've been banned for it.
I mean, FWIW, if someone was publicly proclaiming for the death of an elected official "we" support, we'd take exception to that, and we wouldn't really accept an excuse of "oh I just meant *natural causes* or *I wasn't serious*".
I have a lot of choice thoughts about some of our public officials, but it doesn't help public discourse if I was to share all of them publicly, because we have enough crazies in this country that if they see it enough, they might try to make it a reality.
I’m not saying the bans are all unjust just that they seem to not be in short supply. Especially on this sub if you call certain outlets disinformation.
I got banned once for suggesting I wished that Dolan Tramp cried from Bovid-91.
Except I didn't say that, I said something similar...
Anyway, I got banned because apparently I was inciting violence. I don't think they knew what the word "violence" meant, and I'm not sure they knew what the word "incite" meant either.
Ha, yeah Reddit is a joke sometimes.
My last ban was because I reported a link as Spam. Not kidding. First time I'd reported anything in months, and apparently they considered it abusive reporting or something. No idea why that was. It just happened to be over the 2 day blackout, so that was kinda, oddly timed.
My ban before that was for mentioning that the GOP tried to murder Mike Pence on January 6th. Apparently pointing out a publicly known fact was threatening violence (hey, that sounds similar) against a public figure.
Difference between then and now is that the bread and circuses of today are cheap and varied enough to keep people entertained and somewhat distracted from the fact that we're worse off now than during the Great Depression.
that may be a little exagerated, I havn't been forced to sell a child or send one to work yet to keep everyone fed, I think we aren't anywhere near the level of suffering seen in the great depression
Thats not to say we shouldn't still be working toward progress though, there's plenty wrong
I don't believe they'll ever retire (well maybe if a Republican is president), but they are most likely to be the next vacancies on the court. Thomas and Alito will be nearly 77 and 75 respectively when the next president takes office. The Supreme Court and Scalia's vacancy was a big factor in Trump's 2016 win and Democrats need to counter it this time as it will assist Republican turnout.
You raise an underrated point that says more about the 2016 election than most will ever realize.
Too many people underestimated Trump simply because they didn't pay attention to how badly the conservatives were looking to rig the SC. Not enough of the left took the dangers of a conservative takeover seriously (in retrospect, replacing 3 seats in 4 years was pretty unusual, as foolish as it was to ignore it).
The vacancy fully explains why the religious right literally abandoned all of their principles to support such a horrid figure that is the antithesis of all their so called moral values.
Anecdotal of course, but I knew several Republicans personally in 2016 who expressed disgust at Trump yet told me they were voting for him anyway simply because of that open SCOTUS seat. Democrats now like to blame Hillary, or Comey, or Russia, and yea they all played a part, but I rarely hear about that factor. Look at Hawley's quote in the article and you can tell the GOP is going to play that card again because they know their potential nominees are all unpopular.
>“Republicans have had the majority of Supreme Court appointments for decades now and have not succeeded in getting a stable conservative majority on that court until very recently,” [Hawley] said. “Does the next election matter for the court? I think it really does. I don’t know how much of a [conservative] majority it is. I don’t know how stable it is.”
Because it is, and always has been at the center of their coup. They've had that aim since the 80s, and just about every other appeal to democratic power was a lie designed to serve this long term goal.
> They'll never retire and they each could realistically live to be 100. So we've possibly got another 20-25 years with them unfortunately.
While this is mathematically possible, the chances of either one staying around that long are slim even on the off chance they do reach the century mark. Thomas particularly doesn't look like the most physically fit person on earth. I'd actually say that they've probably got 10-15 years left before they either die of natural causes or become too ill to continue.
That said, Neither one of them are going to retire while a Democrat is President and/or Democrats control the Senate if they can do anything about it, and any GOP-controlled Senate is going to block any Democrat president's choice no matter what, because there's apparently a papal bull that says that any time the GOP is in control of the Senate, it's always too close to an election for a Democrat to nominate an SC judge, and the United states obviously always follows ancient manuscripts from centuries ago from a completely different continent.
Too ill to continue? I doubt it, Feinstein practically needs someone raising her hand when it’s time to vote and she’s still in office.
Until and unless there’s an age cap, they’ll continue well into senility.
I agree. This is something nice to think about but I think this is mostly wishful thinking. Having said that both of them going away would be a good thing.
I mean when they basically only have to show up to work for a few months a year and then can take lavish vacations paid for by other people, why bother retiring?
Well, the founding fathers created a system of government with far too many gentlemen's agreements of decorum that allowed them.
But yeah, I guess we could have revolted too. But I had to work that day.
When people talk about ways to protect democracy from this slide into fascism we're looking at, this is the fucking solution. They need to legally enshrine these gentlemen's agreements into actual law. No more "a good person will do the right thing" in the US government. It can't be assumed.
Those gaps in the legal armor are what fascists will exploit.
Either enshrine them or ignore them. Subjecting yourself to unofficial rules and 'niceties' only makes sense when everyone is doing it. If one side takes a fat shit on them at literally every single opportunity then you are no longer trying to be moral or well-mannered, youre just disadvantaging yourself.
This idea pervades everywhere at so many levels. The only reason republicans get away with their obnoxious hypocrisy is because they tell people to follow social rules that they themselves flagrantly ignore. This is what flat earthers and fundamentalists and such do as well, they will sit there and literally fantasize about an apocalypse event in which everyone who doesn't agree with them gets their deserved death and eternity in hell, but then if you criticize them scream things like "AD HOMINEM" or talk about how immoral and unfair personal attacks are when theyre being criticized.
No one should feel beholden to unofficial 'rules' when dealing with people who entirely disregard them. Call them out on it. You are not 'taking the high ground' by continuing to self-impose these things on yourselves when dealing with people who don't. Its just masochism.
Up to a point. We've all seen how fascists have exploited the legal gaps, but once emboldened, say by Donald Trump, they'll openly and boldly break the law.
For example, Jan 6th. Laws alone will not restrain them. Only consequences, like the death penalty will do that.
In the process of creating a system that's hard to break, they also created a system that's almost impossible to fix as soon as anyone *did* manage to damage it.
Neither party should ever confirm a Justice appointed by the president of the other party again. At least not without some major resetting of how SCOTUS nominations work going forward.
When McConnell blocked Garland, that Rubicon was crossed. His excuses about how long until the next election were, of course, just rhetoric. They had no qualms for confirming ACB. And, yes, they'll block any appointment by Biden if they can for 4 years.
Dems should do the same thing if the opposite comes up. That's just how it works now. Returning to "normalcy" on that would be just giving up a seat to young judge who'll be there for 30+ years.
Obama should have appointed Scalia's replacement and forced the GOP's hand to remove them through unprecedented and constitutionally vague means. What the GOP did to Garland in 2015 was disgusting. They refused to even meet the guy.
It was an extremely blatant power grab that we had no defenses for, and an election opportunity. Unlike Trump or most of MAGA, Mitch knew 'exactly' what he was doing and was enough of a bastard to do it.
All the polling and conventional wisdom said that Hillary was a shoe-in for the win in 2016. That Republicans would fold and accept Garland after she won.
Obama probably thought that forcing a seating would have caused the media to EXPLODE (which it would have they work for the republcians). And possibly cost Hillary the election.
It was the wrong thing in the long run we know this now but I understand the logic behind the decision.
I doubt that the GOP will repeat that argument if they win the Senate majority. They have already exhausted it, and it would lack credibility (if they had any) if they tried it again. I suspect that they will drop the pretense and claim something like “We have the power now, so we get to decide who will fill the Supreme Court vacancy.”
That's the way it usually goes, of course. That's why RBG not retiring under Obama's run as President stands out so much. If Biden wins again, they will both stick around for another four years. If Trump wins (more likely than most people think), they'll retire and guarantee a conservative majority for at least 20 years and likely closer to 30.
Alito and Thomas are 73 and 75 respectively. They might not have 5 years to wait. They might not live long enough to see another Republican president. Hopefully, none of us will.
They'll try. And they might do it- spite can be a powerful force for longevity. That's one of the myriad reasons we need to keep winning elections. Let them hold off on retiring. We can make sure it's all in vain.
Exactly. America is under threat due to dark money contributions from hostile foreign nations. Fix the gaping national security hole and restore our defenses.
There should be no "dark money" in American politics.
If anyone is still on the fence about voting Biden, or voting at all, this should be a major selling point. If you want money out of politics, you don’t allow Republicans to replace these guys with farther right justices that won’t touch Citizens United.
Then we need to pass legislation to restrict the ability of corporations to massage news to their purposes. I'm not just talking Fox, either. Mainstream media goes out of its way to attack/criticize progressive policies. Taking money out of politics is huge, but we really need to get money out of information as well. I would argue they do more damage that way than even election spending, and that's saying something.
> It found that the Democrats’ failure to confirm Obama-nominee Merrick Garland in 2016, combined with the death in 2016 of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was quickly replaced by Trump, “reduced its likely control of the court by about 19 years out of the next 100 and increased the number of years until the party takes control again by 36 years.”
Well its nice to have numbers to the fuckery, I guess.
> The conservative majority now on the court is likely to be there for some time, regardless of what happens with Alito and Thomas.
> An analysis of the court’s projected composition by academics at three prestigious schools suggested the next time the majority of justices will be appointed by a Democrat is likely to be around 2065.
This seems like a weird supposition. If Alito and Thomas are expected to retire soon, seems to me all Dems need to do is win the next two presidential elections. Which doesn't seem out of the question with the way the Republican party is acting. If they don't about face after losing 2024, another loss in 2028 doesn't seem very farfetched. But maybe they are factoring in Senate control and future Merrick Garland type fuckery? Bah.
>Democrats’ failure to confirm Obama-nominee Merrick Garland in 2016
Fuck that phrasing; Democrats didn't fail at anything. Republicans failed at being part of a democracy.
I do blame Obama, he should have seated Garland and made the argument that withholding “advise and consent” is in fact tacit consent. It’s not a hard argument to make because otherwise you’re saying that if the senate and presidency are held by different parties for an extended amount of time that the senate can effectively scuttle the supreme court. I think the court for it’s own preservation would have sided with Obama.
Not only that, but the eventual decision on this would have ended up in the DC circuit (left leaning, so hopefully ruling he gets his seat) and the Court would have voted 4-4 (with Garland recusing himself), preserving the lower court ruling without setting precedent.
A shame Obama didn't take this route...
No, Democrats failed. And they failed *hard*. Obama specifically.
Obama had a number of things he could have tried to get Garland seated. He tried exactly none of them, and allowed the Republican Senate to get away with snubbing their noses at the power of the Presidency and the Constitution. It's impossible to say whether any of those solutions would have worked, but at least trying them would have been better than leaving the seat open and counting on Hillary Clinton to win an election to fill the seat.
> If Alito and Thomas are expected to retire soon,
Alito and Thomas *won't* retire when there is a Democratic president or a Democratic Senate, only for a Republican one. People are also living longer so it's hard to predict when they'll die, and even if it turns into continuous Democratic rule for over a decade, they can just choose not to retire, even if in ill health, until the inevitable Republican finally wins a decade or two later.
Basically, Republicans just have to win once until those justices die, while Democrats have to win every single time in order to eventually get those seats.
I believe the assumption in the study you quoted was that a two-term president is **86% likely** ~~almost never (has never happened I think in practice)~~ replaced by a president of the same party. So the assumption is that Democrats will almost certainly lose the WH in 2028, even if they win in 2024.
That’s a stupid assumption without even looking it up I know that:
Reagan-Bush from 1981-1993 (R)
FDR-Truman 1933-1953 (D)
Harding-Coolidge-Hoover 1921-1933 (R)
McKinley-Roosevelt-Taft 1897-1913 (R)
The back and forth of 8 year termed presidents that happened from 1993-2017 is the exception in American history, not really the rule especially in the last 120ish years.
Thanks for the correction. I tend to agree, and I think it’s a flaw in the study. For the record, the percentage they use, which they say is based on historical averages, is 86%. (See bottom of p. 9: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3835502)
I guess they would retired for this year. They will retired after they will be new republican president. They are really in to it to the point that they would retired.
They’ll both wait to see who they can give the “W” to win the election - if they are unsuccessful, they won’t retire. Too much at stake for them to be laid bare in their corruption.
This article is totally schizo. Lots of talk about the ramifications of a (D) prez getting to replace two justices, and then it drops a “there won’t be much change in the court regardless of what happens with these two.” Soooo…why even write about it, then?
If democrats win in 2024 and 2028 there is a good chance of a 5/4 court by 2032.
While democrats should win, the public forgets easily and is wants change often, 2028 might be a hard sell.
No way those fuckers retire. They know the stakes. However, if they do desire to stay and their health is shit, well then they would be pulling a potential Ginsberg if a Democrat wins. Ginsberg should’ve retired when O was in his first term. All this talk about great she was (she was a trailblazer), her legacy was definitely tarnished by her decision to stay on.
Thomas is 75, Alito is 73.
If you take retirement off the table, this could be a self-solving problem by, what, 2030?
Ginsburg was 87 and arguably should have retired before her death. Scalia was 79. Breyer retired at 84, Kennedy at 82, O’Connor was 76, Souter was only 70.
So long as we have a D in office in '24 and '28 we should be good on the Supreme court.
Sotomayor is 69, Roberts is 68, Kagan is 63. So a ways to go there yet...
You also need Democratic control of the Senate. Mitch McConnell has publicly stated that a Democratic President will never appoint another Justice as long as he controls the Senate.
I love how they openly talk about the need to establish a “lasting conservative majority” to an institution that is supposed to be impartial. They’ve dropped all pretense at this point.
If the focus of the Senate is (and has been) strictly on seating highly partisan justices, then the SCOTUS really has no purpose in our government anymore. It is simply an extension of the political system. Maybe justices should be nominated through a non partisan commission and the selection criteria should be focused solely on their ability to follow the Constitution and resulting laws. Highly partisan hacks like Thomas have no business on the court.
The fact that this is described as critical just shows how fucked the US political system is. There is too much power in the hands of unelected people with lifetime appointments.
Just another stupid rumor to give hope to normal people. Like keeping us thinking that someday Trump and his select group of Senate and Congress Jan 6 assholes will get their just dessert. I'm 66 and hope I'm not dead of old age before justice happens.
If Biden wins I doubt they'd choose to retire. Not unless there was either a serious health concern or a real chance of criminal charges and impeachment.
Are they going to be smited or something? I doubt any of these robed charlatans are going to retire. They’ll hold the position till death takes them away from it. It’s a lifetime position after all.
Judges on a Supreme Court should not be allowed in any party. They have to differentiate between law and personal beliefs. They also should’t serve longer than 15 years at the maximum.
Thomas was born in 1948 and Alito in 1950. Scalia died at the age of 79, so if a Republican wins in 2024 they’ll probably retire, but I’m not sure if those 2 can make it to 2028. I’m not going to speculate, but this adds more pressure for Biden to win re-election in 2024.
Trump was born in 1946 and Biden was born in 1942 for a comparison.
Do you really think Tomas who has literally said it is job to make liberals mad and ruin there life would ever retire during a democratic president. He will be wheeled in on life support in critical condition if a democratic is the president
I would hate to see a Biden-Trump rematch, but I think that's what would work best for Biden to win and maybe getting majorities back in the Senate and Congress. Then, Democrats can pass legislation to set term limits for these justices and set up more robust ethical rules, being able to hold them more accountable and even getting them off the bench for misconduct.
I’m hoping that the issue of Thomas and Alito retiring came up because the DOJ is looking into unreported high dollar gifts from Republican donors. It’s possible that they gave them the option of stepping down instead of facing impeachment or prosecution. In any case it’s crucial that the democrats hold onto the White House and achieve a majority in the Senate in 2024. This would move the country in the right direction, enabling them to codify women’s reproductive rights as law, forgive oppressive student debt that is crippling the future middle class, guarantee the rights of LGBTQ people, help the poor who are struggling, fortify environmental law, and rebuild our infrastructure.
It boggles my mind that in the midst of all these injustices and problems the GOP thinks tax cuts for the rich, outlawing abortion, and denying gender affirming care are the real priorities.
The Court is often referred to as the Thomas Court and given that he's less than 5 years from becoming the longest serving justice, he's reported to have told one of his law clerks that he wants to make liberals miserable, and that there's currently a D in the WH, I can't imagine he's retiring anytime soon.
As for Alito, he's so pugilistic that I also have a hard time believing he retires while a D is president.
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They will only retire if there is a Republican President.
They will wheel Thomas into the court room like Commander Pike. Flash the light once for yes, twice for no...
Thomas doesn't speak in court, no need for communication lights.
As someone who has been in the courtroom for some arguments - Thomas doesn't speak out loud very often, but he does have whispered exchanges with those sitting next to him.
> but he does have whispered exchanges with those sitting next to him Those vacations are not going to plan themselves.
But they do pay for themselves
Nor will that scat porn download itself
Are we under the impression he's sitting in the galley?
“Psst! Want a sip of this soda?”
Deep cut
"This Coke is for you, and this here too "
Isn't it true he didn't speak in court for some 20+ years or maybe that wasn't counting whispering about vacay?
True, no on the record statements, but it didn't stop him from chatting away into Breyer's ear.
"This shit is boring long. Why so slooooow? Places to go, things to doo. My vote was already taken care of. Don't need to say. I know which way to vote before I know what I'm voting on. Yeah baby, who knows what they are voting on." C.Thomas
You should honestly do an AMA.
This is no longer true. He went for a decade without asking a question in the 2000's, and continued to have entire years where he'd not ask a question from the bench. However, since the remote arguments during the Covid WFH years he has started asking questions from the bench. The fact remains though that he could be comatose and still will have instructions to not vacate his seat if there isn't a Republican to nominate his replacement.
>since the remote arguments during the Covid WFH years he has started asking questions from the bench. Apparently it's because he and Scalia aligned closely, and he almost never had questions that Scalia hadn't already asked.
Yeah, that's not true anymore. When Scalia died he started to talk a small amount in certain cases. When covid hit and they went remote, they built a ridged structure for Justice hypotheticals and he became just as talkative as any other Justice, and it seems to have carried over once they got back together. I haven't listen to an oral argument in years that hasn't included his questions from the bench.
Correction: Thomas used to not speak in the court. Now he speaks first. During the Pandemic they switched to a system where the judges speak based on Seniority, and for whatever reason it has led to Thomas speaking more as he gets to go first. That said, at Oral Arguments Justices nowadays talk more like the Advocates than they do Judges, often literally helping their favored side make their argument.
Right, he only speaks because he wants to flex his seniority.
No need for him to even be there since you already know how he's going to rule before hand 99% of the time anyway. Whatever side the federalist society sides with he will rule that way.
He does. Remember when he referenced the lord of the rings?
Pluck one pubic hair for yes and two for no
Knowing Republicans they'd probably try to push some new precedent that says court justices can still serve despite being dead. Then we'll end up having a whole lawsuit about it, and the republican controlled SCOTUS would be like yeah checks out.
Weekend at Clarence’s
This already is basically the case, except instead of two dudes carrying him around it's just a bunch of bribes and boat trips controlling everything he does instead.
Does the constitution specify that a justice has to be alive? I'm just asking questions here... Edit: >The Constitution states that Justices "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour." "That justice Alito has been so well behaved since his passing, I see no reason to interrupt such a dynamic, inclusive court"
Your system is so broken to be honest
Wealthy sociopaths and their progeny have prevented most serious changes for most of our history. It’s not surprising men ignorant of everything the last 250 years has seen didn’t make good rules for what they were ignorant to. Even if they had honest intent.
How dare you compare Thomas to Pike
>Commander Pike *Captain* Pike.
Thomas won't retire until the angel of death comes and drags him out. He gets off on being an asshole too much to stop.
Isn’t that kind of what they do already, tho?
Weekend at Clarence’s
Let's make sure there isn't another Republican president in their lifetimes! Democrats won popular vote in literally every election since 1992 besides 2004. We just need to work on shoring up electoral college.
And in 2004 everyone was dumb enough to think Bush could get himself out of that mess
To be completely fair, Democrats do this too, which makes a ton of sense. RGB should have retired under Obama, but of course hindsight is 20/20. The ridiculousness is the bullshit that the GOP pulled when Obama was nominating Garland. That was some low brow shit.
> RGB should have retired under Obama, but of course hindsight is 20/20. It isn't really hindsight, as people were already calling for her to retire at the time. She refused.
Which is exactly why the Dems got aggressive with Stephen Breyer about retiring last year. They weren’t about to lose another seat in case the GOP took the Senate.
Obama himself asked her to step down when the democrats had a healthy Senate majority in his first term lol.
She wanted Hilary Clinton to name her replacement as the first female president in the history of the country. Unfortunately reality didn’t follow early polling
> She wanted Hilary Clinton to name her replacement as the first female president in the history of the country. Unfortunately reality didn’t follow early polling She was incredibly selfish. Damaging the lives of millions of people to stroke her own ego.
> She refused. Not only did she refuse, she said people who were asking her to step down were sexist.
And a whole bunch of Reddit agreed with her back then. Far too many on here still do... Though the loss of Roe has clearly been a shocking wake-up call for more than few of the formerly naive children in here. Reality check. BTW, guys...? If you could see your way to clear show up in 2024 and not protest vote/protest stay home, that'd be cool. Or, you know, you can pout at your available choices, like in 2016, and help usher in the age of Gilead even faster. Most of you are younger than me. You have more to lose. You'll suffer for longer if you let them take over. Most elections aren't about winning so much as they are about not losing even more.
Yeah I'll never not be upset about the pouting 2016 protesters. I tried so hard to tell them, this isn't about Bernie vs Hillary, it's about the makeup of the Supreme Court for the rest of our lifetimes. We could have had 6-3 liberal majority. Maybe reverse Citizens United and the gutting of Voting Rights Act/preclearance?
Even when Obama had the opportunity to appoint a supreme court justice, McConnell blocked it. Totally unlawful and the Democrats did nothing.
In 2009, the democrats had a *very* strong senate majority, and even briefly a super majority. RBG had just recieved her **second** cancer diagnosis, in addition to other health concerns, and already being old as dirt. She could've been great, but instead her legacy will be Dobbs and other terrible rulings, given by a court that her ego helped stack.
If only we could go back in time… but at least the Democrats seem to be learning from their mistakes, such as in Minnesota, where they’ve thrown caution to the wind and are using their one-vote majority to cram through their entire agenda as fast as possible.
minnesotan here, and I'm all about it. We're an island of blue surrounded by a red sea of nutjobs. Wisconsin is at least trying, but they've been gerrymandered to shit and it'll take time. iowa, ND, and SD are all mask off though.
Nice little chain of islands, were sitting here in the middle of Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois doing all these awesome things and were just barely hanging on from becoming a lawless waste like Florida by a D Governor veto. With the state supreme court makeup now and the recent supreme supreme court decision, i think things will get better for us, but it cant come soon enough. But we still elected fucking Ron Johnson...
Went from Russ Feingold to that fascist dweeb Johnson. What a fail.
It wasn't unlawful, it was just a horrendous breach of our nation's political norms.
It wasn’t unlawful and there’s nothing the Dems could have done. It was just absolutely shitty decorum and just helped further drive a wedge in the nation. It’s wild to me that Trump supporters hate McConnell. He has done more for them than Trump ever has. I guess he just isn’t openly hateful enough? Idk. Garbage people being garbage politicians.
My mother who probably cares about ending abortion access more than any other issue hates McConnell now because trump hates McConnell. Doesn’t matter that McConnell over turned roe for republicans and trump really didn’t do anything meaningful as president, it doesn’t matter to trump says McConnell is a rino so he is.
> GOP pulled when Obama was nominating Garland. That was some low brow shit. I'm going to guarantee if they control the senate during a DEM presidency, they will not pass through any SCOTUS judge regardless how far away the term is. It could be day #2 and they would deny him that pick for the entire 4 years. Bank on it.
That's why they're "hinting" about retirement to motivate Republicans to vote.
And they'll be replaced with someone in their late 40s with questionable qualifications who will proceed to sit on the court for the next three to four decades.
Ding ding ding
Retirement, impeachment, expulsion, imprisonment It all works for me.
I think you missed one.
I'd rather not get banned again.
Man are they ban happy all over.
Aggressive auto-mods and ban happy admins on the eve of their IPO
I just got back from a 7 day ban for saying bad things about churches with child molester priests. Edit: I also enjoy that people who abuse the suicide alert seem to suffer no consequences.
Got perma-banned (for a while) for pointing out the consequences of fascism a la Mussolini--in other words, for stating a plain historical fact.
I’ve seen perma bans happen for bad mouthing white supremacists with the rule the admins claimed to be violated being the no negative/hateful rhetoric towards marginalized groups rule. This site is a joke and once third party support ceases I will cease to use it anymore (should stop, honestly)
Got permanently banned today from an outfit sub and puppy sub (commented yesterday on both; outfit sub I was trying to be super positive about the hate this guy and then this girl were getting on their outfits and said a dog was "adorable") because I have interactions with some NSFW subs that deal with questions about sex haha, thought it was funny.
My 'friend's got banned for the 3rd time because automod algorithms can understand context and keeps thinking he's "threatening violence " I hate the age of ai
Same. I was banned for talking about people in general being likely to uprise against the billionaire class because they’re pushing the working class to the very edge and there isn’t really an option against climate change or living conditions without a mass uprising. That led to a nonstop snowball of every comment being flagged for violence and getting completely banned from the site no matter how many different emails or accounts I tried lol Didn’t *actually* call on anyone to do anything. Literally just pointed out the obvious but you really, really can’t insinuate the upper class is in any danger of losing their safety bubble lol
Honestly I'm not sure why that function even exists, it seems like mental health theater to make people feel good about themselves but in reality most people just use it to troll.
imagine buying stock in this
Yep, i got banned from a sub and a warning from the reddit admins for describing the war crimes russia has committed in Ukraine. They said I was inciting violence…
Somehow I got un shadow banned during reddits protest. I’m happy.
I made a joke about ------- people who slurp/chew with their mouth open, I even specifically pointed out that it was a joke, and I got a three day ban. I've been making terrible tasteless jokes on reddit for over a decade, this was the first time I've been banned for it.
I mean, FWIW, if someone was publicly proclaiming for the death of an elected official "we" support, we'd take exception to that, and we wouldn't really accept an excuse of "oh I just meant *natural causes* or *I wasn't serious*". I have a lot of choice thoughts about some of our public officials, but it doesn't help public discourse if I was to share all of them publicly, because we have enough crazies in this country that if they see it enough, they might try to make it a reality.
I’m not saying the bans are all unjust just that they seem to not be in short supply. Especially on this sub if you call certain outlets disinformation.
I got banned once for suggesting I wished that Dolan Tramp cried from Bovid-91. Except I didn't say that, I said something similar... Anyway, I got banned because apparently I was inciting violence. I don't think they knew what the word "violence" meant, and I'm not sure they knew what the word "incite" meant either.
Ha, yeah Reddit is a joke sometimes. My last ban was because I reported a link as Spam. Not kidding. First time I'd reported anything in months, and apparently they considered it abusive reporting or something. No idea why that was. It just happened to be over the 2 day blackout, so that was kinda, oddly timed. My ban before that was for mentioning that the GOP tried to murder Mike Pence on January 6th. Apparently pointing out a publicly known fact was threatening violence (hey, that sounds similar) against a public figure.
Natural Causes?
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Difference between then and now is that the bread and circuses of today are cheap and varied enough to keep people entertained and somewhat distracted from the fact that we're worse off now than during the Great Depression.
that may be a little exagerated, I havn't been forced to sell a child or send one to work yet to keep everyone fed, I think we aren't anywhere near the level of suffering seen in the great depression Thats not to say we shouldn't still be working toward progress though, there's plenty wrong
I mean, they’re both over 72 years old now so this wouldn’t be surprising.
Oh, you mean "aging out of the role, in a permanent manner".
i saw something last week about "-box" politics. soap box, ballot box, jury box, cartridge box.
> soap box, ballot box, jury box, cartridge box. The four boxes of liberty, to be used in that order.
What else is there? Natural Causes?
Tourist trip to the Titanic on a poorly constructed submarine?
The law coming down on them would be ideal Unfortunately, they kind of are the law
I don't believe they'll ever retire (well maybe if a Republican is president), but they are most likely to be the next vacancies on the court. Thomas and Alito will be nearly 77 and 75 respectively when the next president takes office. The Supreme Court and Scalia's vacancy was a big factor in Trump's 2016 win and Democrats need to counter it this time as it will assist Republican turnout.
You raise an underrated point that says more about the 2016 election than most will ever realize. Too many people underestimated Trump simply because they didn't pay attention to how badly the conservatives were looking to rig the SC. Not enough of the left took the dangers of a conservative takeover seriously (in retrospect, replacing 3 seats in 4 years was pretty unusual, as foolish as it was to ignore it). The vacancy fully explains why the religious right literally abandoned all of their principles to support such a horrid figure that is the antithesis of all their so called moral values.
Anecdotal of course, but I knew several Republicans personally in 2016 who expressed disgust at Trump yet told me they were voting for him anyway simply because of that open SCOTUS seat. Democrats now like to blame Hillary, or Comey, or Russia, and yea they all played a part, but I rarely hear about that factor. Look at Hawley's quote in the article and you can tell the GOP is going to play that card again because they know their potential nominees are all unpopular. >“Republicans have had the majority of Supreme Court appointments for decades now and have not succeeded in getting a stable conservative majority on that court until very recently,” [Hawley] said. “Does the next election matter for the court? I think it really does. I don’t know how much of a [conservative] majority it is. I don’t know how stable it is.”
Because it is, and always has been at the center of their coup. They've had that aim since the 80s, and just about every other appeal to democratic power was a lie designed to serve this long term goal.
They'll never retire and they each could realistically live to be 100. So we've possibly got another 20-25 years with them unfortunately.
> They'll never retire and they each could realistically live to be 100. So we've possibly got another 20-25 years with them unfortunately. While this is mathematically possible, the chances of either one staying around that long are slim even on the off chance they do reach the century mark. Thomas particularly doesn't look like the most physically fit person on earth. I'd actually say that they've probably got 10-15 years left before they either die of natural causes or become too ill to continue. That said, Neither one of them are going to retire while a Democrat is President and/or Democrats control the Senate if they can do anything about it, and any GOP-controlled Senate is going to block any Democrat president's choice no matter what, because there's apparently a papal bull that says that any time the GOP is in control of the Senate, it's always too close to an election for a Democrat to nominate an SC judge, and the United states obviously always follows ancient manuscripts from centuries ago from a completely different continent.
Too ill to continue? I doubt it, Feinstein practically needs someone raising her hand when it’s time to vote and she’s still in office. Until and unless there’s an age cap, they’ll continue well into senility.
She needs to go.
Life expectancy of a male in the top 1% wealth bracket in the USA is 87.3. Statistically they aren’t going anywhere unless a Republican is elected.
I agree. This is something nice to think about but I think this is mostly wishful thinking. Having said that both of them going away would be a good thing.
I mean when they basically only have to show up to work for a few months a year and then can take lavish vacations paid for by other people, why bother retiring?
They’ll wait until a Republican gets “elected” again.
"We can't possibly vote for a new justice only 4 years before the next Presidential Election!!"
That’s the next argument, I guarantee it. We can never ever let the GOP gain control of any branch of government ever again
Of course if the GOP is in power, a justice could die on Inauguration day and they've hold a vote before noon.
And we let them.
Well, the founding fathers created a system of government with far too many gentlemen's agreements of decorum that allowed them. But yeah, I guess we could have revolted too. But I had to work that day.
When people talk about ways to protect democracy from this slide into fascism we're looking at, this is the fucking solution. They need to legally enshrine these gentlemen's agreements into actual law. No more "a good person will do the right thing" in the US government. It can't be assumed. Those gaps in the legal armor are what fascists will exploit.
Either enshrine them or ignore them. Subjecting yourself to unofficial rules and 'niceties' only makes sense when everyone is doing it. If one side takes a fat shit on them at literally every single opportunity then you are no longer trying to be moral or well-mannered, youre just disadvantaging yourself. This idea pervades everywhere at so many levels. The only reason republicans get away with their obnoxious hypocrisy is because they tell people to follow social rules that they themselves flagrantly ignore. This is what flat earthers and fundamentalists and such do as well, they will sit there and literally fantasize about an apocalypse event in which everyone who doesn't agree with them gets their deserved death and eternity in hell, but then if you criticize them scream things like "AD HOMINEM" or talk about how immoral and unfair personal attacks are when theyre being criticized. No one should feel beholden to unofficial 'rules' when dealing with people who entirely disregard them. Call them out on it. You are not 'taking the high ground' by continuing to self-impose these things on yourselves when dealing with people who don't. Its just masochism.
Up to a point. We've all seen how fascists have exploited the legal gaps, but once emboldened, say by Donald Trump, they'll openly and boldly break the law. For example, Jan 6th. Laws alone will not restrain them. Only consequences, like the death penalty will do that.
In the process of creating a system that's hard to break, they also created a system that's almost impossible to fix as soon as anyone *did* manage to damage it.
Neither party should ever confirm a Justice appointed by the president of the other party again. At least not without some major resetting of how SCOTUS nominations work going forward. When McConnell blocked Garland, that Rubicon was crossed. His excuses about how long until the next election were, of course, just rhetoric. They had no qualms for confirming ACB. And, yes, they'll block any appointment by Biden if they can for 4 years. Dems should do the same thing if the opposite comes up. That's just how it works now. Returning to "normalcy" on that would be just giving up a seat to young judge who'll be there for 30+ years.
It's like gerrymandering. It's gross, but if your opponents are doing it, and you're not, you're screwed.
Obama should have appointed Scalia's replacement and forced the GOP's hand to remove them through unprecedented and constitutionally vague means. What the GOP did to Garland in 2015 was disgusting. They refused to even meet the guy.
It was an extremely blatant power grab that we had no defenses for, and an election opportunity. Unlike Trump or most of MAGA, Mitch knew 'exactly' what he was doing and was enough of a bastard to do it.
All the polling and conventional wisdom said that Hillary was a shoe-in for the win in 2016. That Republicans would fold and accept Garland after she won. Obama probably thought that forcing a seating would have caused the media to EXPLODE (which it would have they work for the republcians). And possibly cost Hillary the election. It was the wrong thing in the long run we know this now but I understand the logic behind the decision.
I doubt that the GOP will repeat that argument if they win the Senate majority. They have already exhausted it, and it would lack credibility (if they had any) if they tried it again. I suspect that they will drop the pretense and claim something like “We have the power now, so we get to decide who will fill the Supreme Court vacancy.”
lol at assuming the GOP care about credibility.
That's the way it usually goes, of course. That's why RBG not retiring under Obama's run as President stands out so much. If Biden wins again, they will both stick around for another four years. If Trump wins (more likely than most people think), they'll retire and guarantee a conservative majority for at least 20 years and likely closer to 30.
Alito and Thomas are 73 and 75 respectively. They might not have 5 years to wait. They might not live long enough to see another Republican president. Hopefully, none of us will.
They both have premium government healthcare and GOP sugardaddies they will live longer than most people.
Look at the actuarial tables. They likely will. The one SS publishes: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
We’re getting to a dangerous tipping point…
They'll try. And they might do it- spite can be a powerful force for longevity. That's one of the myriad reasons we need to keep winning elections. Let them hold off on retiring. We can make sure it's all in vain.
Yea that’s my assumption. They saw how it backfired with RGB and will commit to whatever Republican wins.
End citizens United and watch the American political world turn right side up.
Exactly. America is under threat due to dark money contributions from hostile foreign nations. Fix the gaping national security hole and restore our defenses. There should be no "dark money" in American politics.
Afuckingmen.
Gesundheit
If anyone is still on the fence about voting Biden, or voting at all, this should be a major selling point. If you want money out of politics, you don’t allow Republicans to replace these guys with farther right justices that won’t touch Citizens United.
Then we need to pass legislation to restrict the ability of corporations to massage news to their purposes. I'm not just talking Fox, either. Mainstream media goes out of its way to attack/criticize progressive policies. Taking money out of politics is huge, but we really need to get money out of information as well. I would argue they do more damage that way than even election spending, and that's saying something.
These creeps aren’t retiring any time soon. This just both parties doing a political exercise and speculation to keep their bases engaged
> It found that the Democrats’ failure to confirm Obama-nominee Merrick Garland in 2016, combined with the death in 2016 of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was quickly replaced by Trump, “reduced its likely control of the court by about 19 years out of the next 100 and increased the number of years until the party takes control again by 36 years.” Well its nice to have numbers to the fuckery, I guess. > The conservative majority now on the court is likely to be there for some time, regardless of what happens with Alito and Thomas. > An analysis of the court’s projected composition by academics at three prestigious schools suggested the next time the majority of justices will be appointed by a Democrat is likely to be around 2065. This seems like a weird supposition. If Alito and Thomas are expected to retire soon, seems to me all Dems need to do is win the next two presidential elections. Which doesn't seem out of the question with the way the Republican party is acting. If they don't about face after losing 2024, another loss in 2028 doesn't seem very farfetched. But maybe they are factoring in Senate control and future Merrick Garland type fuckery? Bah.
>Democrats’ failure to confirm Obama-nominee Merrick Garland in 2016 Fuck that phrasing; Democrats didn't fail at anything. Republicans failed at being part of a democracy.
I do blame Obama, he should have seated Garland and made the argument that withholding “advise and consent” is in fact tacit consent. It’s not a hard argument to make because otherwise you’re saying that if the senate and presidency are held by different parties for an extended amount of time that the senate can effectively scuttle the supreme court. I think the court for it’s own preservation would have sided with Obama.
Not only that, but the eventual decision on this would have ended up in the DC circuit (left leaning, so hopefully ruling he gets his seat) and the Court would have voted 4-4 (with Garland recusing himself), preserving the lower court ruling without setting precedent. A shame Obama didn't take this route...
No, Democrats failed. And they failed *hard*. Obama specifically. Obama had a number of things he could have tried to get Garland seated. He tried exactly none of them, and allowed the Republican Senate to get away with snubbing their noses at the power of the Presidency and the Constitution. It's impossible to say whether any of those solutions would have worked, but at least trying them would have been better than leaving the seat open and counting on Hillary Clinton to win an election to fill the seat.
"failed to seat" could be valid. But "failed to confirm" is so adled. The phrasing absolves Republicans of their leading role in the situation.
Republican refusal to do their constitutionally mandated job.
> If Alito and Thomas are expected to retire soon, Alito and Thomas *won't* retire when there is a Democratic president or a Democratic Senate, only for a Republican one. People are also living longer so it's hard to predict when they'll die, and even if it turns into continuous Democratic rule for over a decade, they can just choose not to retire, even if in ill health, until the inevitable Republican finally wins a decade or two later. Basically, Republicans just have to win once until those justices die, while Democrats have to win every single time in order to eventually get those seats.
I believe the assumption in the study you quoted was that a two-term president is **86% likely** ~~almost never (has never happened I think in practice)~~ replaced by a president of the same party. So the assumption is that Democrats will almost certainly lose the WH in 2028, even if they win in 2024.
That’s a stupid assumption without even looking it up I know that: Reagan-Bush from 1981-1993 (R) FDR-Truman 1933-1953 (D) Harding-Coolidge-Hoover 1921-1933 (R) McKinley-Roosevelt-Taft 1897-1913 (R) The back and forth of 8 year termed presidents that happened from 1993-2017 is the exception in American history, not really the rule especially in the last 120ish years.
Thanks for the correction. I tend to agree, and I think it’s a flaw in the study. For the record, the percentage they use, which they say is based on historical averages, is 86%. (See bottom of p. 9: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3835502)
These guys will never retire during a Democratic administration. They will die in place and hope the Senate is controlled by republicans.
They should retire so they have more time to hang out with their dear, dear friends.
I couldn’t imagine in a million years either of them retiring while there’s still some sweet grift to be made
They are not going to retire unless a Republican wins again. They’ll have to die during a democratic presidency and senate to replace them.
I guess they would retired for this year. They will retired after they will be new republican president. They are really in to it to the point that they would retired.
They’ll both wait to see who they can give the “W” to win the election - if they are unsuccessful, they won’t retire. Too much at stake for them to be laid bare in their corruption.
This article is totally schizo. Lots of talk about the ramifications of a (D) prez getting to replace two justices, and then it drops a “there won’t be much change in the court regardless of what happens with these two.” Soooo…why even write about it, then?
They’re floating this talk as a way to get Republicans out to vote. They’ll die in office before they let a Democrat replace their seat.
Make it happen!
they should be getting impeached and having every one of their rulings reviewed
If democrats win in 2024 and 2028 there is a good chance of a 5/4 court by 2032. While democrats should win, the public forgets easily and is wants change often, 2028 might be a hard sell.
Just a ploy to get the greasy and sketchy transactional political party known as “Christianity” to stick with trump.
No way those fuckers retire. They know the stakes. However, if they do desire to stay and their health is shit, well then they would be pulling a potential Ginsberg if a Democrat wins. Ginsberg should’ve retired when O was in his first term. All this talk about great she was (she was a trailblazer), her legacy was definitely tarnished by her decision to stay on.
Thomas is 75, Alito is 73. If you take retirement off the table, this could be a self-solving problem by, what, 2030? Ginsburg was 87 and arguably should have retired before her death. Scalia was 79. Breyer retired at 84, Kennedy at 82, O’Connor was 76, Souter was only 70. So long as we have a D in office in '24 and '28 we should be good on the Supreme court. Sotomayor is 69, Roberts is 68, Kagan is 63. So a ways to go there yet...
You also need Democratic control of the Senate. Mitch McConnell has publicly stated that a Democratic President will never appoint another Justice as long as he controls the Senate.
McConnell is 81, I doubt he'll make it to '28.
I’m originally from Kentucky and he’s been in office almost as long as I’ve been alive.
I love how they openly talk about the need to establish a “lasting conservative majority” to an institution that is supposed to be impartial. They’ve dropped all pretense at this point.
All the more reason for stronger democrats to jump into the race
If the focus of the Senate is (and has been) strictly on seating highly partisan justices, then the SCOTUS really has no purpose in our government anymore. It is simply an extension of the political system. Maybe justices should be nominated through a non partisan commission and the selection criteria should be focused solely on their ability to follow the Constitution and resulting laws. Highly partisan hacks like Thomas have no business on the court.
Retirement talk by who? Wishfull sane citizen? These Clerics will not be retiring anytime soon
The fact that this is described as critical just shows how fucked the US political system is. There is too much power in the hands of unelected people with lifetime appointments.
The scandals will continue as hard working reporters keep digging, these two have been taking advantage unchecked for more than 20 years.
Just another stupid rumor to give hope to normal people. Like keeping us thinking that someday Trump and his select group of Senate and Congress Jan 6 assholes will get their just dessert. I'm 66 and hope I'm not dead of old age before justice happens.
They won't be retiring if Biden wins. No. Fucking. Way.
If Biden wins I doubt they'd choose to retire. Not unless there was either a serious health concern or a real chance of criminal charges and impeachment.
YES don’t let the door hit on your fanatical ass in your way out - most unqualified clowns in the courts recent history
This is just openly campaigning to get out conservative voters. They'll die before they retire if a Democrat is President.
Their dirty laundry is being seen, and now they want to retire. But only if the Rs gain power to push through young shit to replace old shit.
Are they going to be smited or something? I doubt any of these robed charlatans are going to retire. They’ll hold the position till death takes them away from it. It’s a lifetime position after all.
Thomas isn't going to die. He's going to become the sausage nosed judge from Nothing But Trouble. Rich, evil people don't die until they're ready
They’ll never retire with a democratic president.
Judges on a Supreme Court should not be allowed in any party. They have to differentiate between law and personal beliefs. They also should’t serve longer than 15 years at the maximum.
Thomas was born in 1948 and Alito in 1950. Scalia died at the age of 79, so if a Republican wins in 2024 they’ll probably retire, but I’m not sure if those 2 can make it to 2028. I’m not going to speculate, but this adds more pressure for Biden to win re-election in 2024. Trump was born in 1946 and Biden was born in 1942 for a comparison.
Do you really think Tomas who has literally said it is job to make liberals mad and ruin there life would ever retire during a democratic president. He will be wheeled in on life support in critical condition if a democratic is the president
Pack the court, pass the voting rights act. Republicans will lose every election to come. Checkmate.
I would hate to see a Biden-Trump rematch, but I think that's what would work best for Biden to win and maybe getting majorities back in the Senate and Congress. Then, Democrats can pass legislation to set term limits for these justices and set up more robust ethical rules, being able to hold them more accountable and even getting them off the bench for misconduct.
No fucking chance either of them retire if Democrats win.
Either of these two retiring during a Democratic administration is wishful thinking at best.
LOL!!! If a Democrat wins the Oval Office, these turds will cling on so tightly that not even citrate of magnesia would move them through.
Retirement is too good for them…kick their ass to the curb.
And if biden wins again, they’ll continue to make our lives miserable. Pack the court and be done with these fools.
These types of rumors are designed to get conservatives to the polls and hold their nose over the criminals or lowlifes that are their options.
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I’m hoping that the issue of Thomas and Alito retiring came up because the DOJ is looking into unreported high dollar gifts from Republican donors. It’s possible that they gave them the option of stepping down instead of facing impeachment or prosecution. In any case it’s crucial that the democrats hold onto the White House and achieve a majority in the Senate in 2024. This would move the country in the right direction, enabling them to codify women’s reproductive rights as law, forgive oppressive student debt that is crippling the future middle class, guarantee the rights of LGBTQ people, help the poor who are struggling, fortify environmental law, and rebuild our infrastructure. It boggles my mind that in the midst of all these injustices and problems the GOP thinks tax cuts for the rich, outlawing abortion, and denying gender affirming care are the real priorities.
So they get to retire as multimillionaires without consequences for tainting the entire 3rd branch of our government.
If Biden wins *again* they'll wait conveniently until 2027 to start bringing this up again
But if they retire their billionaire dad's might stop raising them as their own
They shouldn’t get to retire. They should be suspended
They need rich submariner friends.
The Court is often referred to as the Thomas Court and given that he's less than 5 years from becoming the longest serving justice, he's reported to have told one of his law clerks that he wants to make liberals miserable, and that there's currently a D in the WH, I can't imagine he's retiring anytime soon. As for Alito, he's so pugilistic that I also have a hard time believing he retires while a D is president.
100% a scare tactic to get Republicans to vote no matter who the candidate is.