Bitcoin Forum

Right now, this is the ideological position of the SCOTUS judges:

https://s.abcnews.com/images/Politics/supreme-court-kavanaugh-graphic-538-jc-181001_hpEmbed_13x8_992.jpg

(In the above graph, John Roberts is given a score of +0.20, making him a centrist to moderate conservative. But recent rulings indicate that he has taken a leftist to far-leftist position).

Out of the 9 judges, we have 4 who are far-left (Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer) and 4 who are right-wing (Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas). The remaining judge (John Roberts) who forms the swing vote, can also be considered as left-wing.

In short, the SCOTUS is having a left-wing majority now.

Now Trump is left with almost 1.5 years, and the Republicans enjoy a comfortable majority in the senate (even without the RINO Murkowski). If there is another vacancy during his term, then Trump should be able to fill it and flip the SCOTUS from left-wing majority to right-wing majority.

And indications are that, there will be at least one vacancy this year... and it is going to be none other than Darth Vader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg is suffering from lung cancer (a type of cancer which has low levels of survival, especially for 86-year olds). As per my calculations, she has 6 months, or at the most 12 months left.

Trump has given indications that he may chose Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg. Barrett is one of the most conservative judges available and her selection would ensure a conservative majority at least for the next two decades.

There is much more noise in the media about political views of SCOTUS judges rather than any threat for either democrats or conservatives. The point is that SCOTUS judges many times demonstrated that their political views have absolutely no influence on their work and relations between them. They all are close friends that are playing golf with each other at the spare time.
If someone in US government is still trying to stay away from all recent political bullshit then it is SCOTUS.

I’m not sure Ginsburg can last another 4 years so I think Trump will get another conservative pick.  But I believe judges are pretty independent thinkers so I don’t think it will sway too much one way or the other. 

I'm okay with another Kavanaugh shitstorm or two.

Let's do it.

I was under the impression (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-ginsburg/supreme-court-justice-ginsburg-back-at-court-after-cancer-bout-idUSKCN1Q41YD) she is going to fully recover from the cancer she had.

I do agree that RGB is very old and will probably not last through the end of Trump's second term if he get reelected. This is of course speculation.

Roberts used to be a solid conservative justice until the ObamaCare case. I get the feeling that Roberts does not particularly like Trump, and wants to avoid the court system becoming politicized. Obama/Clinton appointed judges are ignoring the law and making ruling based upon the fact they will hurt Trump, and Trump is responding by publicly criticizing the judges.

IMO, the best chances of Trump getting the court to shift farther to the right is Roberts retiring. This would eliminate a swing vote and replace it with a right leaning Justice. I think the chances are greatest this will happen sometime after the 2020 election, if it would happen during a Trump presidency at all.

Well... let me put in some additional details.

Darth Vader Ginsburg is not a smoker and the cancer nodules which were removed from her lungs were not a result of either active or passive smoking. Those were a result from other medical conditions.

She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999, and with pancreatic cancer in 2009. Her medical team claims that in both cases, it was early stage cancer and the treatment was 100% success. But now, it looks possible that the nodules were result of metastatic disease from either of the two earlier cases.

That means that her treatment for the earlier cancer cases were not exactly 100% successful. Cancer has spread from colon or pancreas, to the lungs. Her doctors can try to hide this fact, and claim that these nodules will not reappear again. They have reasons to do so. But I am skeptical. If the disease is spreading, then more and more nodules will be found and in some cases the surgeons may not be able to remove them. In such a situation, given her age, she may have 3 to 6 months left to live.

Trump still has around one and half years left with his current term. The probability of Ginsburg dying before that is 98%.

Ginsburg is having a dedicated team to look after the PR campaign. Every day, they are claiming that she is as healthy as an eighteen year old. But Trump should not fall in to that trap. There should be no compromise. The replacement for Ginsburg is going to be Amy Coney Barrett. No more "compromise" candidates like Roberts, who will team up with the far-left.

IMO RGB is already dead. There has been too much weird shit going on around her appearances and too much riding on her retaining her position for every second they can manage.

I think you are assuming this was the same cancer each time. This may not be the case.

Ultimately her health doesn't matter as long as she is alive. She has a lifetime appointment and can continue to serve until she either dies or retires (or is impeached, but this is unlikely).

Trump should respect RBGs lifetime appointment. If he is seen as trying to push her out because she is sick (even if she is very sick), he will have difficulty getting any replacement confirmed.

It doesn't matter all that much long term because the poltiical map is changing as baby boomers die out.  RBG dying only represents the entire conservative demographic dying as well.  The new wave of progressives will pack the courts as needed. Be patient.

+1 to that.

We should never compromise the integrity of the court itself, once we do that we compromise the court forever. Some may say that RBG is unfit to serve and such (Consevatives are going to say this, as it benefits them) though they wouldn't say the same thing if a Right leaning justice was sick as well.

Let her serve out her (lifetime) term, of this same sort of presidential pressure is going to be used to push out Conservative justices.

Nobody pushed her out and yet Trump will get a chance to name her replacement. Biden and the other Democrats are going ballistic over the replacement, but in the end Amy Coney Barrett will get confirmed as the next SCOTUS judge. Biden should rather blame RBG. She had a chance to retire in 2016, when Obama could have named her replacement. But she refused, due to her greed for power. She refused to retire, even when she was totally incapable of attending the court. And even after all this.... RBG will be remembered as the justice who gave conservatives a solid SCOTUS majority.

BTW, I heard that Murkowski and Collins are planning to vote against the Trump nominee. That's not going to be enough. 

This was originally posted in 2019 but Kavanaugh further right than Gorsuch, don't know about that. Conservatives usually bat poorly on SCOTUS picks. They end up not ruling as conservative as their previous judicial records or become a John Roberts.

We need a bit longer to see how Kavanaugh fairs, but I would love a Gorsuch-like pick or any other originalist tbh.

Kavanaugh is still rated as a right-wing judge, but may not be as conservative as Gorsuch or Thomas. I am pretty sure that he will not end up like Roberts. John Roberts was nominated by George W. Bush, and he had an affinity towards left-wing candidates who were put forward by the RINOs such as Arlen Specter.

George W Bush tried to nominate another left-wing judge (Harriet Miers), but was forced to cancel his plans as a result of opposition from his own party. His father George H. W. Bush nominated one of the most left-wing judges (David Souter) in the history of the SCOTUS. In short, GWB and his father did a lot of damage to the conservative cause and Trump has reversed most of this damage after three decades.