New Yorker magazine alert thread

the rin tin tin article was good but i already knew a lot of that stuff thanks to this novel, which includes RTT and the owner as major characters:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/30/article-0-05778FDF000005DC-156_306x447.jpg

who put pubic hair on my jurisprudence

i think i say this every time toobins writes something, but: iirc he's writing a follow up to the nine. i forget where exactly that took us up to (def roberts iirc), so i assume it's from a different angle.

i can't stand toobin's writing style--didn't think much of the article either. couldn't decide if it wanted to be about clarence or virginia.

Well, Toobin, like lots of practicing lawyers, is bound by their honor code; he can't get as critical as we'd like. I accept his toothless prose cuz he's the only one offering these insights.

i know a layman's opinion isn't going to transform anyone's opinion but, i picked up the nine thinking that i'd skim & then abandon it, being the fairly flighty reader that i am & having had, at the time, only a fairly cursory familiarity with/interest in the workings of the court. and i zipped through it. so just a vote for readability, here.

& i think it was purposefully about clarence and virginia and clarence-and-virginia!

it could have been me this week though--i thought the rin tin tin story was kinda boring :/

http://animalnewyork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/New_Yorker_Parody_cartoon_closeup.jpg

http://animalnewyork.com/2011/08/scientologists-defile-eustace-tilley-for-new-yorker-parody-mag/

x-post

Ethics requirements or not, I do not buy Toobin's take that Thomas is the intellectual heavyweight that he's suggesting.

think that part that shocked me the most was when they described how he often leaned way back in his chair and acted as if he was dozing off during arguments sometimes

I have been to Supreme Court sessions twice and both times it sure looked like he was dozing.

insofar as originalism is a rigorous intellectual position.

is the 'publication of record' a ny-er thing? it just seems like a confused nyt-zing. i know you shouldn't try to bring logic to this gunfight. maybe it's satirising the caption competition being ... shitty and slightly confused?

Ethics requirements or not, I do not buy Toobin's take that Thomas is the intellectual heavyweight that he's suggesting

yup. like citing colonial child rearing methods for that video game case is kind of insane

Really?

I'm no lawyer but I wrote my own response to Toobin's article last week.

I think the quicksand one gets in wrt originalism is that there are Framers (drafters of the law/bill/amendment/Constitution) and then there are the legislators that voted and then there are the standards (however varying) of the times in which the vote happened. It makes perfect sense to me that a Justice should wish to know the particulars of the debate leading to the vote - that is a signal reason why such debates are entered into the record - but do you look more to the debate in the Cosntitutional Convention, to the Federalist Papers, to the newspaper accounts of what went down, to the auto- and other biographies of the pppl present? How do you weigh the importance of such sources?

By using your prejudices as a mediator, silly!

And what weight to stare decisis? Thomas makes a compelling argument wrt Brown vs Bd of Education inasmuch as blind adherence to stare decisis can be a terrible and destructive form of tyranny and misjustice. Otoh, pretending like many of these issues haven't been covered ad nauseum and that it's not a waste of valuable time to revisit them not to mention a form of instability and a kind of un-democratic 'activism' is unbecoming to the grandeur of the last resort that is the High Court. Thomas' willingness to revisit any and all past decisions based on his own reading of history is just as activist as anything decided by 'living document' liberals.

By using your prejudices as a mediator, silly!

C'mon, Alfred, everyone not only has prejudices but it's the prerogative of the President to nominate candidates s/he thinks share them.

You know I was being silly, right? I'm making fun of the originalist fetish for poring over the Constituton – like Prego, it's all in there.

Btw, his originalism wrt to Corporations is bewildering to me since, such as they exist today, they were almost entirely unkown then, consisting of limited liability partnerships, mostly of even unlimited ones such as Lloyds.

I'm making fun of the originalist fetish for poring over the Constituton

I would love to read a good study that parallels the fetish wrt the Constitution and the Bible; there is such an overlap amongst a certain kind of Protestant, esp evangelical, American and I find it both stupid and pernicious, not to mention presumptuous.

His bitterness about being perceived as an unemployable token out of Yale also leaves me quizzical. Does he think his job prospects would have been any better from some other school? Does he think he'd be on the SCOTUS?!

He thinks he wouldn't and he's resentful about it!

That's the part that hurts my brane. He's all BTWashington (and Douglass) self-reliance, blah, blah about leaving black folk to themselves but then bitter that he was a 'token' who accepted a place at one of the best schools in the country and succeeded about as fantastically as a lawyer can (in the public sector). Is it self-loathing? I just don't get it.

he is an idiot but i can't pretend to understand the feelings he has because of that, as a white btw; i just dislike that it's influenced his jurisprudence as it has. i actually came out of reading that piece liking thomas a bit more than i had before, and i think i resented toobin for that

great response, alfred

In re Thomas's appearance of snoozing -- to give him the benefit of the doubt here, the fact is that by oral argument justices have already received extensive briefing on each side's arguments -- more extensive than anything you can cover in oral argument. A significant number of jurists actually consider oral argument to be either a waste of time or a kind of beneficial "show" that helps people to understand and believe in the judicial process. Obviously it's still a dick move to be so contemptuous (although he's hardly the first justice to do so, there are lots of stories about past SCOTUS justices obnoxious oral argument habits). Even proponents of oral argument admit that it might only be a chance to clarify some sticking points, and that most of the meat of the argument will come from the briefs.

I don't mind that Thomas never speaks and looks bored during oral argument -- it's a dumb argument that liberals make when they don't want to engage the man's opinions.

Obviously it's still a dick move to be so contemptuous (although he's hardly the first justice to do so, there are lots of stories about past SCOTUS justices obnoxious oral argument habits).

The justice who consistently ranks at the bottom of polls:

Taft wrote that although he considered McReynolds an "able man", he found him to be "selfish to the last degree... fuller of prejudice than any man I have ever known ... one who delights in making others uncomfortable. He has no sense of duty ... really seems to have less of a loyal spirit to the Court than anybody".[12] Addicted to vacations, in 1929, McReynolds asked Taft to announce opinions assigned to him (McReynolds), explaining that "an imperious voice has called me out of town. I don't think my sudden illness will prove fatal, but strange things some time [sic] happen around Thanksgiving".[13] Duck hunting season had opened and McReynolds was off to Maryland for some shooting. In 1925, he left so suddenly on a similar errand that he had no opportunity to notify the Chief Justice of his departure. Taft was infuriated as two important decisions he wanted to deliver were held up because McReynolds had not handed in a dissent before leaving.[14]

McReynolds would not accept "Jews, drinkers, blacks, women, smokers, married or engaged individuals as law clerks".[15] A blatant anti-Semite,[16][17] "Time [magazine] called him 'Puritanical', 'intolerably rude', 'savagely sarcastic', 'incredibly reactionary', and 'anti-Semitic'".[18][19][20] McReynolds refused to speak to Louis Brandeis, the first Jew on the Court, for three years following Brandeis's appointment and, when Brandeis retired in 1939, did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to justices on their retirement.[19][21] He habitually left the conference room whenever Brandeis spoke.[19] When Benjamin Cardozo's appointment was being pressed on President Herbert C. Hoover, McReynolds joined with fellow justices Butler and Van Devanter in urging the White House not to "afflict the Court with another Jew".[22] When news of Cardozo's appointment was announced, McReynolds is claimed to have said "Huh, it seems that the only way you can get on the Supreme Court these days is to be either the son of a criminal or a Jew, or both."[23][24] During Cardozo's swearing-in ceremony, McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper,[

I thought Toobin missed at least one chance to criticize a blatant intellectual INconsistency -- Thomas's appeal to the supposedly racist origins of restrictions on corporate speech is actually not originalist at all, and it makes about as much sense as the "Hitler was a vegetarian" smear. Maybe it was out of context; I haven't actually read Thomas's opinions in the relevant cases. No justice is 100% intellectually consistent, but Thomas does a pretty good job of appearing that way, or at least appearing to have very strong convictions that he sticks to. The power of "originalism" comes largely from its fundamentalist nature -- in this way it's a LOT like protestantism, i.e. throw out all the interpretation, go back to the text. "That's what it says in the constitution" is strong because it tends to put the other side on the defensive. A lot of liberal jurisprudence does most likely go beyond what the framers intended, even if conservative claims about original intent are nonsense. I wouldn't really want it any other way -- the framers didn't live in our time and I don't want to be governed by their dead hands.

I don't mind that he doesn't ask questions, honestly, and it has nothing to do with my politics, but I think its incredibly disrespectful for someone named to such a high position to not even bother to try and appear interested.

McReynolds sounds like a douchebag of a truly entertaining variety; wish he'd been around during a 24 hour news cycle period
that article made me wonder what it would take for someone to be forcibly removed from the supreme court. i'm not a legal wonk; has that ever happened?

Jefferson tried (and failed) impeach Samuel Chase. Gerald Ford and other Congressional leaders tried to do the same to William O. Douglas.

actually, Chase WAS impeached, but later acquitted. Vice President Burr presided. I would have LOVED a ring side seat.

i think only one justice, samuel chase back in the early 1800s, was ever impeached - the senate aquitted him. same process as with presidents (and per the constitution w/ all officials in high office): house brings charges of impeachment, senate conducts the trial

xp

samuel chase signed the declaration of independence, damn! that's like a lifetime hood pass, you gotta really fuck up to get impeached

holy shit that rin tin tin article is great esp when he's describing rtt's acting in that one movie with the wolves

unfortunately not on netflix

not watch instantly or to order?

it looks like the whole thing is on youtube tho

ooo, link?

feel like nyer is pandering to me w/ the dog stories of late, simultaneously pandering to me and humiliating me 'we can make you read gopnik'.

oops

Clash of the Wolves - 1..."
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by National Film Preservation Foundation.

'originalism' always strikes me as more of a way for right-wingers to justify their less popular beliefs than a coherent belief system. judicial review isn't in the constitution either -- john marshall essentially invented the power for the court in marbury v. madison -- but i don't think most originalists are eager to get rid of that one.

I love that Warner Bros savior and first American dog star was a German dog found in France!

I have a grudging respect for Thomas based on his politeness to other justices, albeit distant, and his silence, while troubling, is at least purportedly based on his desire to hear the attorneys w/o interruption. I too have listened to teachers w/eyes closed though in my case that may have had more to do w/fatigue than anything else.

OPTIMIFIC

That's a word.

Re Clarence Thomas: I feel like people are getting hung up on descriptions like "intellectual heavyweight" -- regardless of how sharp or profound his insights or analyses are, he has rigorously staked out positions and judicial philosophies that, if nothing else, seem to be influential on the current court.

"I have a cunning plan"

the problem is it's not just "nothing else"; it's also a ton of what seems to me to be utterly wrongheaded thinking

Emotional baggage

Well, sure, but that's why I wouldn't personally use the word "heavyweight."