Obama warned us about the Supreme Court we have right now

[babylonsister]

Obama warned us about the Supreme Court we have right now
Special rights for white Christian conservatives.
Ian Millhiser
Feb 11, 2019, 2:40 pm


Nearly fourteen years ago, a deeply conflicted young senator rose to announce his opposition to future Chief Justice John Roberts’ confirmation to the Supreme Court. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind Judge Roberts is qualified to sit on the highest court in the land,” the senator conceded. “Moreover, he seems to have the comportment and the temperament that makes for a good judge.”

Resume and temperament, however, were not enough. In the toughest cases, “adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon.” How the judge covers the last mile “can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”

The young senator who spoke these words was Barack Obama, and he spent much of his presidency getting dragged by Republicans who likened Obama’s call for judicial “empathy” to a promise to burn the Constitution and replace it with Das Kapital. Former Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), then the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, described “empathy” as “a code word for an activist judge.” Several years later, when Obama nominated Chief Judge Merrick Garland to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, then-Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) attacked the nomination, claiming that “the so-called empathy standard is not an appropriate basis for selecting a Supreme Court nominee.”

Garland, of course, was not confirmed. And President Donald Trump since filled two Supreme Court vacancies with two judges who share Hatch and Grassley’s values. We now live under a high court majority that rejects Obama’s call for judicial empathy.

It shows.

more...

https://thinkprogress.org/supreme-court-conservative-justices-devoid-of-empathy-were-now-seeing-what-that-means-d7e5f380e767/

[FakeNoose]

1. K & R Thanks!

This is a timely reminder.

[Va Lefty]

2. Yep, Hillary too.