Justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring-Kavanaugh Nominated

Interesting analysis from a presidential historian the other day. He said that Harry Truman, when he left office, said one of his biggest fears was that the parties would become a liberal party and a conservative party with no overlap.

That's what we are seeing today, despite deniers of it being a problem. That drives the nominees and we are getting to a stage where you have to check all the litmus test boxes.
 
The reality show on Monday will bring us all the answer to the question.

Still don't think it will move the needle towards more gun positive decisions.

Hope I am surprised.
 
Glenn E Meyer said:
Still don't think it will move the needle towards more gun positive decisions.
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Maybe that's the America from which Justice Kennedy retired...where the best we can hope for is that we don't move the needle away from more positive gun decisions.
 
What are the RKBA records of the three? I looked up Barrett and opinion was that we had no idea. Anyone look up the others? I suppose I could but I think I will sort the laundry.
 
MTT TL said:
Kavanaugh is pro 2A it's the rest of the BoR the worries people.
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Yes ... BIG TIME.

He seems to have zero regard for the Fourth Amendment, and that's a major concern. I more or less think of myself as mostly a single-issue voter (2nd Amendment), but when you throw domestic spying and the Patriot Act into the mix, suddenly my single-issue stance looks a bit wobbly.
 
I agree 100% A.B.
I have little respect for those who diminish the 2A because it is a part of the BOR I have the same issue with those who do it to another.
 
A run down of Raymond Kethledge’s major constitutional rulings:
https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/05/scotus-shortlister-raymond-kethledge-on

He is basically a null value as he has written very little on the Second Amendment. He also just recently had the honor of having SCOTUS overturn his decision on warrantless cellphone tracking. Mixed bag on First Amendment issues; but some important rulings limiting the takings clause (eminent domain and tax foreclosures).

Barrett also has no Second Amendment jurisprudence. She was supported in her appeals court nomination unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which means she picked up the votes of Joe Manchin, Tim Kaine, and Joe Donnelly. The only positive I saw on 2A issues is she wrote a law review article saying the original intent of the Constitution trumps stare decisis. If she actually believes that and defends it in nomination, that will create quote a storm.

It looks like the most insidery nominee (Kavanaugh) is the only one with a solid pro-2A jurisprudence.
 
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Kethledge does appear to be a mixed bag. From Mr. Roberts' link:

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Kethledge's Carpenter decision. "A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere," declared the majority opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts. "We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier's database of physical location information."
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This one is particularly troubling. If even Roberts didn't agree with him, IMHO he was way off track. And he was -- the government today is much too engaged in covert surveillance of the citizens, and we need a Supreme Court (as well as lower judiciary) who will rein it in, not encourage it.

Among property rights activists, Kethledge is perhaps best known for his 2017 dissent in Wayside Church v. Van Buren County. At issue was a forfeiture and foreclosure proceeding undertaken against a Michigan church over delinquent property taxes. "In this case the defendant Van Buren County took property worth $206,000 to satisfy a $16,750 debt, and then refused to refund any of the difference," Kethledge wrote. "In some legal precincts that sort of behavior is called theft." Kethledge argued that the church had raised a legitimate just compensation claim that deserved to be heard under the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment.
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Mildly positive, but this case could have been decided as a "1983" case -- this wasn't so much a question of whether or not the government had a right to take the property under eminent domain as it was a question of theft under color of law. Basically, here the government stole about $190,000. That's a fairly clear-cut question.

In his non-judicial writings, Kethledge has voiced support for the theory of constitutional interpretation known as originalism. In a 2017 article in the Vanderbilt Law Review, for example, he argued that judges "are bound to apply" the "meaning [of a constitutional provision] that the citizens bound by the law would have ascribed to it at the time it was approved."
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This philosophy is certainly positive -- if he lives by it.
 
I predict that the scoundrel (my former hero) John McCain, if he hasn't passed (may he live as long as he wants to), will cast the deciding vote on the Trump nominee . . . .
 
Still don't think it will move the needle towards more gun positive decisions.
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I agree with you at this stage of the game, and I am also convinced that one more appointment is in this administration's future.

Not asking anyone to believe me because obviously I could be wrong...
there could be even more than just one! ;)
 
In post #94, above, I wrote the following:

This one is particularly troubling. If even Roberts didn't agree with him, IMHO he was way off track. And he was -- the government today is much too engaged in covert surveillance of the citizens, and we need a Supreme Court (as well as lower judiciary) who will rein it in, not encourage it.
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I'd like to expand on that. The Fourth Amendment reads as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, or way off base, but to me being "secure in [my] person" includes being free to travel where I want, when I want, without the government keeping track of my movements. If I'm suspected of having committed a crime, the .gov can go to a judge and make a showing of probable cause for why a warrant should be issued to obtain my cell phone tracking information for the period immediately before, during, and immediately after the crime. Beyond that, the .gov has no business being in possession of my cell phone location information. They certainly have no business Hoovering up my entire cell phone database, along with millions of other cell phone users who have never so much as received a speeding ticket.
 
It's a short hop, skip and a jump from government overreach on the 4th to government abuse of other rights. We have all seen it before.
 
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