Good Questions.....My guess is that she wouldn't give a real answer to any of them.

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The world could use more Stan Ovshinsky's

It was really interesting to see how she spun her own words in accordance to White House coaching. I wonder how she'll be acting once she takes the seat.

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A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw

You'd think the standard would be to actually answer questions in these kind of hearings. If questions were not answered it would count against them. Isn't it strange that one of the most important jobs in the US gets high scores during a job interview by being able to answer without saying anything? If you ask me, this is where you spill your guts.

By the way, during the hearings is she under oath?

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You do realize you are arguing with a mindless vegetable, don't you?

No one gives detailed answers since Bork sunk himself by opening up and scaring the shit out of the Senate.
Everyone on the committee understands that she is going to be confirmed.
The GOP Senators with large numbers of Hispanic voters in their states are already coming out in favor of her, add those votes to 60, and see if you can make it come out to 49.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

The Supreme Court had no say in whether or not to "let slavery run for 100 years", or impose its views of what you or they view as "obviously flawed social norms". It has no basis other than what we the people permit or proscribe under the Constitution, for good or ill.

This is true, however, I suspect in most instances what you would view as "bad idea" that gets "legal momentum" is actually based on stare decisis, but is simply a correct interpretation which you dislike the results of (such as the fact that slavery was without any question permissable for the first hundred years of our nation's history). Stare Decisis by definition means that you are dealing with an incorrect precedent, which, in the interest of stability of the overall legal framework is accepted and allowed to stand.

No judge that I am aware of treats stare decisis as an absolute inviolable doctrine. Good judges employ clear standards for when and how to apply it (Scalia's are pretty good).

The power to decide the constitutionality is clearly something you do not have a firm graps of the scope of, especially since you lament the fact that the court didn't overstep its authority and eliminate slavery during the early years of our republic despite the fact that the existence of said institution was clearly provided for and anticipated by the text of the constitution.

As Scalia has said, 'I am not saying that if you allow the courts to make up the law you won't occasionally get some good stuff that you wouldn't get through the sometimes messy and disorderly process of democracy, but you would get some good stuff under a monarchy as well, that is not an argument in favor of it in a democratic republic.'

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Certainly it did have a choice, and we see what side of history they wanted to be on for those 100 years. The 9th amendment was in place on day one, and the supreme court has hardly EVER invoked the 9th amendment. Why is the 9th amendment considered "not really" an amendment by the scotus when such virulence is put forth over the first and second amendments? Is somehow the 9th amendment 'not as important'? The 9th amendment when you get right down to it is the most important amendment of all, but not in the court's eyes, where it almost doesn't exist.

In fact, the court's unwillingness to use the 9th amendment is WHY we eventually wound up with so many more amendments.... "well if the courts aren't going to acknowledge we have the rights to due process and equal protection under the law, we'll just have to add that". The problem with that is, then the court eventually takes a position that we ONLY have the rights explicitly stated in the constitution, in complete disregard of the 9th amendment.

From what I've seen of Scalia, he invokes Stare Decisis vs precedent vs originalism/textualism based on whatever strikes his fancy. Most of the time what strikes his fancy is having corporations and the government winning against the average citizen. So he grabs-and-goes with whatever technique ends up with the decision he wanted all along.

The constitution didn't 'anticipate' anything in the way of slavery. It wrote the existence of slavery into the constitution so that enough states would ratify the constitution. From the beginning there was MUCH discussion of abolishing the institution of slavery, which an 'originalist' and 'founders intent' would have shown that slavery was something that we should be working to END, not to institutionalize it through court decisions upholding it.

Do you disagree with me about the Sotomayor hearing? Did they discuss the power of Justices to declare law unconstitutional?

If a king naturally sides with the interests of the government and with the interest of large corporations over the average citizens, why do we need a court system at all?

You, are clearly delusional sir...


and apropos nothing, wheres the big beef been regards her being catholic, ala the Alito deal, *hhheeeyyyyyyyyy if we confirm Alito, that’s 5 Catholics on the SC, what’s up with that?* and all that boudlerdash. The media questioned Roberts views because, gosh, though not catholic ( he or his wife) his wife had "strongly held views" on abortion........I think we know why but it would be nice to see someone else forward the reasoning behind the utter lapse of this angst now that sotomayor is an RC.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

One of the most ancient and fundamental canons of construing a legal text is that its parts are to be read as being internally consistent with one another. Meaning, that if something is clearly provided for and forseen by one part of the text, it is not appropriate to interpret another part of the text as prohibiting that.

Since the constitution's text clearly forsees and permits the institution of slavery prior to the ratification of the 13th Amendment), it is an illegitimate interpration that the 9th Amendment proscribes slavery. Furthermore, slavery (or "involuntary servitude") was not entirely rendered unconstitutional even by the 13th Amendment which explicitly makes an exception for it as punishment for a crime of which someone has been convicted.

Then you clearly have not actually read or understood his court opinions or other writings on the matter.

Slavery's eventual abolition (unlike its contemporaneous existence and practice) was not written into the original document. It was, rather, tha hope of the founders that The Founders hoped that society would come to see the folly of slavery and abolish it through the democratic or constitutional process (by statute where empowerd or by amendment where neccesary). Just because something had a particular aspirational goal on the part of the founders, does not mean that Justices of the Supreme Court are empowered to superceded the clear language of the law to pursue their notion of that aspiration.

The preamble to the constitution, for example, does not empower the courts to substitute its views of what consitutes "a more perfect union" (the overarching aspirational intent of the Constitution) for that of the will of the people as expressed through its elected representatives. It is merely empowerd to invalidate statutes which either conflict with the explicit provisions of the text or clearly exceeds the powers granted under it.

As for an overall discussion of the courts power to invalidate laws, that is not the real issue, the issue what constrains HOW a justice is intended to interpret and apply the meaning of the law.

You're missing the point, which is that people criticize "originalism" on the grounds that there are some arguably positive changes to the law that activist courts have made which would be inappropriate under the original understanding. The point is that under any system you are likely to get some good things that might not have come about at the time under our democratic system, but that does not represent an overall argument in favor of said lawlessness. I suspect if a politically conservative court majority abolished the progressive income tax citing equal protection and capped total taxes to at most 25% of an individuals income citing the ninth amendment you would not find those to be legitimate exercises of judicial authority, yet they are no less supported by the text of the constitution than many of the liberal rulings you do support.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane