5-4 DECISION TO RETIRE

5-4 DECISION TO RETIRE 

Today Supreme Court Judge Anthony Kennedy announced some really troubling news in the form of his retirement. He has vastly been considered the swing vote in a lot of cases, thus the 5-4 ruling comment, which is typically the case and now opens it up so that President Trump has the potential to put two hard right conservative judges in the Supreme Court with a life time position. Just more proof that elections have consequences.

 Stock image of Anthony Kennedy being a 5-4 BAD DOG!

The history of this swing voter is that he was nominated by Ronald Reagan and has been on the court since 1987. And while this news is troubling, I can at least remind you of one thing - In the last term, he's been a piece of shit "liberal" siding Supreme Court Justice. Constantly being the 5th vote in those 5-4 decisions siding with conservatives.

Let's stop kidding ourselves as liberals. He was never one of us. He's a garbage centrist who just didn't care about normal human beings anyway. Yes, we romanticize his actions because he was the key vote in getting same sex marriage approved as well as an affirmative action thing here and there. But remember that in 19  5-4 decisions, Justice Kennedy constantly sided with his conservative counter parts. I know, I know.. the law is the law. But just today as well with screwing over unions, it's pretty clear that he was just not really on the side of sanity. 

I mean, I can be pretty cynical about all this yeah, and even more so about what he hasn't done. But I can see why so many are now worried. Instead of a potentially sane "swing" Judge who can listen to reason whenever someone doesn't black mail him into siding with conservatives, this does mean that we have the potential to worry about Roe v. Wade.  Which would allow states and the federal government to out right ban most or all abortions.

We also have the potential that more challenges to capital punishment and solitary confinement will got un-rejected. Add in the potential of ruling in favor of religious challenges to anti-discrimination laws... but again, he was the moron who recently allowed that baking situation to go by in favor for the discriminatory bakery... but as well as we'll see perhaps a reverse to some past supreme court rulings on gay rights. Also, of course a big one, government actors from engaging in explicit race based affirmative action situations will just go heavily towards dictator Trump.

This all just makes me hate Ronald Reagan just a little bit more for having nominate him in to the Supreme court. His retirement wasn't much of a surprise. He has been on there since 1987.

So what happens now? I guess Trump has another sure fire in Supreme Court placement. Now the only question is if they'll just try to squeeze it in before the November elections in 4 months or if they'll live up to the own standards that the Republicans put when Obama tried to nominate. You recall, when McConnell denied Judge Garland a hearing for nearly a year because they claimed they wanted the American people to have a say in the matter with who they vote for. I guess the ball is in Leader McConnell's court on if he'll walk the walk to the talk he talked.

My guess is that it's not going to happen and we'll have a quick replacement stuffed in there before the November elections because fuck everything.