As it happens Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas (especially Thomas) are far better about picking SCOTUS Clerks from outside the Harvard-Yale-Stanford-Chicago-NYU-Columbia crowd. Ginsburg and Breyer are probably the worst offenders.
6 Likes
I’ve known a couple of Thomas’ former clerks in a weird twist—despite my best effort’s I liked them a lot.
4 Likes
I know several myself. My politics probably aren’t yours, but I like them a lot, too!
2 Likes
They are catching up to what’s been going on in Canada for awhile now. I hope the process is smoother in OK, but I doubt it will be.
7 Likes
The Black Hills are such a huge non-starter in both directions, I honestly don’t know how something like that gets resolved without violence unfortunately. There is no real doubt about it from a legal standpoint: the land belongs to the Sioux Nation under the operative treaty. And there is no doubt the other way from a political reality: there is no way under any circumstances under the current political reality that the federal government could or would meet their obligations.
And there is no ability any longer for the tribes to inflict meaningful violence on their own behalf to take the land back, so where does that leave the potential for violence?
9 Likes
Gorsuch almost wasn’t a part of this. He had recused himself from the Casey case because he had heard it in the 10th, but I guess since they married(?) with the other case there was no conflict. This was a major concern because RBG couldn’t be relied on to end up with a 4-4 tie which would have upheld the lower court finding in favor of the Muskogee Creek nation. She doesn’t have a great history with Indian affairs.
ETA: Didn’t see you had clerked in the 8th. You probably knew this already and have far more insight.
5 Likes
So- you were a judge on federal circuit?
I thought you all had lifetime appointments. By your use of past tense, assuming you decided to give it up.
Just curious. Don’t mean to pry, but always seemed like a cushy job to me, with great importance though
2 Likes
Oh I wish! I clerked for a federal judge on the 8th Circuit! I’d love to be a judge but that’s not quite my career path (although four of my friends from law school are now federal judges)!
6 Likes
This has to be my favorite type of disclaimer! “I know enough to know you shouldn’t trust everything I say without subsequent verification.”
Honesty; it’s so refreshing!
5 Likes
See how the other half lives.
On further reading (from people smarter than me), I think this may be a bigger deal than I was giving it credit for initially. I had read this as being more administrative and procedural the first round, but man that second to last paragraph from Gorsuch is unapologetically swinging for the fences:
The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation. It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the Tribe’s authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised reservation. As a result, many of the arguments before us today follow a sadly familiar pattern. Yes, promises were made, but the price of keeping them has become too great, so now we should just cast a blind eye. We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.
4 Likes
This stuff is so complex than unless the fellow is a specialist in Indian Law, all hot takes are deeply suspect.
1 Like
wow. If Warren became the nominee for Biden’s Vice, this sort of thing might be turned into an effective (iff somewhat disingenuous) campaign ad-- after all trump appointed Gorsuch, and Warren spoke against and voted against the nomination.
(Of course, that depoends on Trump keeping his mouth shut)
Get off my lawn.
That would only be an effective line of attack with anyone not already committed to voting for Trump again if Warren had opposed Gorsuch’s nomination for reasons that have anything to do with the case at hand, though. As memory serves, she opposed it because it was a blatant intent to end-run an appointment made in good faith by Obama and spiked by the Republican-controlled Senate so that they could get someone they preferred instead. That Gorsuch has occasionally been on the right side of history in some cases since his confirmation is irrelevant.
It also implies that Republicans and other waffling voters would be all in favor of the outcome of this ruling, which is… questionable when you stack it up against literally every other thing this administration has said and done to native tribes.
1 Like
Many tribes/nations have developed their own court systems through the last 200 plus years. The Cherokee won their supreme court case in 1837 re: homelands, to which A. Jackson replied “let them enforce it”. The lakota use a sacred pipe to swear rather than a bible.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
