Flag of Ecuador. I used to be able to sing the national anthem, but it’s been awhile.
Let me just toss out a few topics before I go give platelets:
- Ecuador quake death toll rises to 350 — This might not hit home for you, but I lived there for the longest period that I lived anywhere in my peripatetic childhood. Small quakes that would move furniture in our house were a regular part of life.
- Dow Closes Above 18000 for First Time Since July — And if that floats your boat, I’m happy for you.
- Oil Slips After Output Deal Fails — Which is both good and bad news. Good because I really don’t want to go back to paying more for gas, and it’s been creeping up lately. Taking the long view, it’s bad from an Energy Party perspective. You know who is the world’s largest producer now? Russia. Because it costs a lot less to produce a barrel there than it does here.
- Supreme Court Sharply Divided on Obama Plan for Immigrants — Again, it would be nice to have nine justices!
- A cold-eyed view of allies has left Obama with few overseas friends — Which is not good, geopolitically speaking.
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Maybe by this time next year, President Hillary will have named Bernie to the Supreme Court.
Hilarious. The way he always kind of yells in that old man voice, I’m imagining a Justice Sanders opinion WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS! 🙂
“Again, it would be nice to have nine justices!”
You know, I’m actually kind of okay with an even number of justices in this super-charged environment. For one thing, only a very, very, very small percentage of cases before SCOTUS will end in ties.
For the ones that do, the law has a well-settled method for a tie. The lower court’s holding remains in place, the split decision of SCOTUS isn’t binding precedent, and the cases can be re-argued later. It’s actually very civilized, and you get a return to the status quo ante.
Fine. It gives the lower courts a bit more power in the short term and maybe ratchets down the high-stakes litigation at SCOTUS. That doesn’t sound all bad.
“and the cases can be re-argued later. It’s actually very civilized, and you get a return to the status quo ante.”
And if the case is re-argued, THE LAWYERS WORK FOR FREE! Oh… wait…
To echo SNL from over the weekend, “With regard to attorneys’ fees, yadda yadda yadda, and we retry the case…”
The lawyers are all mostly government guys who make the same no matter what.
Of course, they could be employed doing something else; something not redundant.
Yes, yes. But we’re talking a truly de minimus number of cases. And it wouldn’t be that much more work. The cases would have already been briefed once (the writing part). The easy part is showing up at the courthouse and doing oral argument. And again, it’s only a very small number of cases.