Balkinization   |
Balkinization
Balkinization Symposiums: A Continuing List                                                                E-mail: Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu David Luban david.luban at gmail.com Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu Compendium of posts on Hobby Lobby and related cases The Anti-Torture Memos: Balkinization Posts on Torture, Interrogation, Detention, War Powers, and OLC The Anti-Torture Memos (arranged by topic) Recent Posts Partisan Divisions in the Supreme Court: It's Likely to Get Worse (and There's No Reason to Think that it Will Necessarily Ever Get Better)
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Monday, April 08, 2019
Partisan Divisions in the Supreme Court: It's Likely to Get Worse (and There's No Reason to Think that it Will Necessarily Ever Get Better)
Sandy Levinson
Comments:
"Richard Hasen and Linda Greenhouse both emphasize Antonin Scalia’s contempt for the Washington Post and New York Times. It is almost literally unimaginable that an earlier justice, at least after 1945, would have been so completely dismissive of these two leading newspapers."
Speaking as a long time reader of both, they were, (Especially the Post!) quite different publications even a few years ago. Decades ago they might as well have been completely unrelated to the current publications. It's still worth reading them occasionally to get an idea of what the other side thinks, but there isn't really much in today's Washington Post for a conservative to engage with anymore. It's a surreal experience reading the Post now, like getting a newspaper delivered from some alternate universe where fantasies are reality. And you can only take so much exposure to unbridled contempt. I think what we're looking at now is the failure of the preference falsification that prevailed during the Cronkite era, and the former regime is attempting to reimpose it. But without the former media dominance, the result is only bifurcation, not control. And, as though to compensate for the lack of dominance, the party line that is being pushed out just becomes more extreme.
Sandy: It is not enough for the Federalist Society (nor would it be for the ACS) to assure that compatible judges are nominated. Instead, they must be encouraged to remain vital parts of the political movement that accounts for their nomination in the first place.
Therein lies the rub The legal caste is overwhelmingly progressive and the social pressure within that caste to conform is similarly overwhelming. With this support system, any judge with a progressive world view will become a reliable rubber stamp for progressive policy regardless of the law. Our merry band of Federalists can provide refuge for those who still believe in the rule of law by the time they reach law school and an avenue to advance up the judiciary in alliance with appointing elected officials of similar outlook. However, once the Judge Rule of Law becomes Justice Rule of law with a lifetime tenure, the need for the Federalist support system and their commitment to the rule of law often wane in the face of establishing a legacy or maintaining their standing within the broader legal community. See, most infamously, Kennedy and now perhaps Roberts. I suspect legal academia has more influence over the Justices like Kennedy and Roberts than you believe and they would admit. I vividly recall the full court press on Roberts to maintain the reputation of his Court by defending Obamacare and Roberts's very unusual 180 degree response of leaving the rule of law majority to overturn and instead offering an self contradictory opinion claiming the individual mandate was merely a fine for some purposes and a tax for others to preserve the outlaw program. Was this simply an error rather than a collapse to pressure from our legal elite? If the Texas case finding Congress made Obamacare unconstitutional when it removed the Robert tax fig leaf makes it to the Supreme Court, we may find out. Do you recall when Kennedy offered a paean to the state power to define marriage in order to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act, then completely rejected that power ito create a fictional right to SSM? If Roberts abandons the reasoning of his first Obamacare decision to again protect the outlaw program, then his transition from a Federalist to a Kennedy will be complete. Feel the power of the dark side...
I often am wary about "back in the golden age" talk though there is a stronger ideological division in the Supreme Court these days.
Did not read the book, but it's often interesting to me (toss in that qualifier) to look historically. The Supreme Court started as a "Federalist"* institution as a whole, George Washington concerned about putting in people who supported the ratification. You'd think that maybe Jefferson and Madison would change things there but John Marshall continued to dominate. The Marshall Court did start to divide in the 1820s. Nonetheless, a Jacksonian division than dominated. History for various reasons prevented a longstanding ideological division for various reasons but one did pop up to some extent since the Roosevelt-Truman justices broke into two basic factions. Still, there was a basic united view of various things though it was not really as cleanly reflected in the population as a whole probably. To that extent, maybe the eventual division in the Supreme Court was an ultimate result of a "popularization" of some sort coming to the courts as well. A useful enterprise here was to have a few justices who could truly be seen as median justices. These justices these days, by both sides, are at times deemed to be wusses of some sort. Take someone like Byron White. Liberals can point to various things he did that bother them (see his rather crude dissent in Roe v. Wade) but he also was on their side on gender equality and other issues. Plus, you have a few presidents who did not select ideological pure justices. Now, we need not give them too much credit. Some like Brennan was not really their intent. Also, it's a reflection of stronger political divisions. Stevens and Souter are now deemed strong liberals. And, not to violate "both sides do it" requirements, one party did push the envelope more in recent years. Merrick Garland, for example, is someone who could have toned down things. Some liberals didn't like that pick and Republicans for years supported him. (If you want to take them at face value or not.) Half of the Democrats supported Roberts. Kagan, who reached out to conservatives for years? Not so much on the Republican side. And, though the judiciary clearly matters to both parties, Republicans have put more energy into fighting for an ideological pure judiciary. The value of median justices continue. We do need to push for mixture here. Breyer and Scalia, e.g., a few times showed up together. Different ideological groups should reach out, not just as tokens, for speakers, especially on things that can bring people together (even now, the Supreme Court is fairly united on certain subjects). And, the two sides still don't seem similarly situated. Breyer and Kagan might be strong liberals, but both for years also have tried to bridge the divide. Roberts will up to a point as Chief Justice. The other justices, not so much though back in the day RBG actually was more likely to (she was a median judge on the court of the appeals). OTOH, I'm not sure if the problem is as new as some might suggest. For instance, a book on the Warren Court noted the justices basically had a certain mindset. Another was basically a type of foreign country. --- * There was some annoyance by those against ratification in particular about that label, some deeming the party more "nationalist" than "federalist." One wag at the time suggested the parties be split into "ratification" and "anti-ratification" or "rat" and "anti-rat."
Sandy: "Richard Hasen and Linda Greenhouse both emphasize Antonin Scalia’s contempt for the Washington Post and New York Times. It is almost literally unimaginable that an earlier justice, at least after 1945, would have been so completely dismissive of these two leading newspapers."
If you want the establishment left point of view of America's leading blue megalopolis and the Capitol, then the NYT and WP are your go to papers. Beyond that, the papers are useless as complete and objective news sources. The NYT/WP provides little news concerning "flyover country" or the issues important to this area's inhabitants. The NYT/WP will faithfully report the DNC meme of the day However, the papers will either spin or spike news which is harmful to Democrats. In sharp contrast, most especially since Trump arrived, the NYT/WP has gone to war with the GOP. Their favorite tactic is citing unnamed Dem bureaucrats inhabiting the deep state making slanders against Trump and/or the GOP without attempting to verify the claims with actual evidence. "Fact checking" is generally reserved for and used as a sword against Republicans. These checks are generally little more than labeling anyone who disagrees with progressive opinion to be a liar, most especially Trump.
Brett and Bart on the 'MSM', as with so many conservatives today, must be seen for what it is: an inverted projection of their own paranoia, biases, and tendencies towards hyperbole and absolutes. *They* increasingly must have their 'news' supplied by outlets that are ever more extreme in their bias, paranoia and hyperbole and absolutes, and so any sources that don't fit into that mold seem like 'an alternate reality' to them, for sure (when you choose to live in the mirror dimension this one looks pretty crazy to you). There is, of course, no left win equivalent to the conservative media, a media that was created and is run with the conscious and rather blatant objective of coordinating with the conservative elements in the GOP to get 'their' message across, conscious 'shadow institutions' created, consciously working together on a common blue print with pushes to use standardized lingo and wording (notice Bart's always on-track parroting of whatever lingo the conservative media apparatus is using at the time) (see, the Powell memo, the work of conservative 'think tanks' to create shadow academic journals and 'research,' Fox news, the creation of a lifelong GOP operative with the conscious objective and current management style of not just having a right bias but outright coordination with the GOP and it's more conservative elements). To some degree conservative media consumers are actually conscious, and proud, of being in on their gaslighting (remember how Limbaugh's fans used to call themselves 'dittoheads').
When you combine these astro-turf efforts with another increasing tendency of conservatism that I've noted here before has been rising since at least Nixon, that is the growing embrace of anti-intellectualism as a *virtue,* you're getting something pretty terrifying: a group of people proudly, happily ignorant and unwilling and not having to ever engage in outlets that tell them that what they believe isn't just wrong, but paranoid nonsense.
Take almost any issue and you can see this on it's face. Climate change for example. The 'MSM' or 'NYT' print a story on climate change like this: 'Respected scientific group releases study that considerable, damaging sea rise can be expected in decades due to anthropomorphic climate change.' Fox or Limbaugh will counter with a story like this: 'Handful of scientists, often in non-related field, say general consensus on climate change is wrong. Is a conspiracy by a worldwide cabal of most scientists, who are perhaps all God-less socialists who hate America and capitalism, afoot?' The Fox/Limbaugh consumer sees the former story and thinks 'huh, obviously they're part of the conspiracy!' But to anyone not 'drinking the Kool-aid' on the far right (which is essentially the right these days), what is a journalist to do? To report any story a neutral aiming fact finder will, of course, put much more coverage and credit to what a large group of people with lot's of creditable training and experience in a field say than they will a much smaller group of people with much less credentials making a much more paranoid, hyperbolic sounding group's counter-claim is. But even that reasoning cannot pierce the bubble the right ensconces itself in these days, because they've got the argument ad elitism they like (well, that's just a bunch of elites, and we know all elite institutions are part of the left wing establishment!).
This example can be repeated over and over, from issue to issue. These kind of people are not going to be reasoned out of anything. What CAN be done though is to make sure to record their foolish statements, predictions and stances, and then relentlessly mock and point out how wrong they were. Bart is a good example of this in a small way with his laughably and demonstrably wrong 'these poll numbers are great news for McCain or I guarantee a Romney victory' statements here. On a larger scale, look at W Bush, once beloved by the Right he and many of his stances they once went to the barricades for are now disavowed as never having been conservative at all (this applies to Nixon too as a great example) because they've, with time, become so palpably wrong to people with any shred of non-crazy and intellectual integrity. Now, you're not going to shame the Palin's or Bart's, these people know no shame in being proven wrong regularly, they will not retreat but reload and keep making such silly pronouncements and statements. But what does happen is that the more casual 'fan' of the right starts to move away from what becomes mockable. And that's the margin of them losing... Of course, on the other hand, if the Left starts embracing a mirror image of this model, as seems to be trending to me, then watch out, all bets are off for those of us who are trying to be objective and fair minded and not crazy...We'll just have two flavors of paranoid self-imposed ignorance to choose from.
Again, it's so easy and transparent now to see how someone like Bart's thinking is simply to invert his own biased projection onto his 'opponents' (in Bart's world there are just fellow partisans and enemies, he's happily said, like some conservative heroes of his, he doesn't do 'nuance').
"If you want the establishment left point of view of America's leading blue megalopolis and the Capitol" Well, of course the newspapers originating out of two big 'blue' 'megalopolis' (note the classic propagandist wording, why say 'city' when you can try to score a point?) focus more on...the news and issues involving/concerning those two big cities. Duh. What's amazing is how much coverage and time they spend trying to do otherwise. "The NYT/WP provides little news concerning "flyover country" or the issues important to this area's inhabitants." This is, of course, easily, demonstrably wrong. For example, the recent flooding in the 'heartland' (another propagandist term Bart dittoes regularly) was covered very extensively. "The NYT/WP will faithfully report the DNC meme of the day However, the papers will either spin or spike news which is harmful to Democrats." Again, this is *total* inverted projection. There is nothing the NYT/WP does that *comes close* to the full throated and blatantly coordinated 'coverage' that, say, Fox gives to Trump and the GOP in general. Fox was started by a life long GOP communications operative with the stated goal to offer conservative friendly news. Fox figures go into the Trump administration and back to Fox with a regularity and ease that just doesn't exist for the 'MSM' media outlets. They clearly coordinate and parrot the *exact* stories and opinions the administration wants them to (as opposed to the general left-leaning of the 'MSM' which is just a trend in any 'knowledge' sector these days). "In sharp contrast, most especially since Trump arrived, the NYT/WP has gone to war with the GOP." Again, the coverage of the NYT and WP is critical and, in the latter, even close to hostile, to Trump often, but nothing like the unceasing level of hyperbolic, conservative conspiracy fodder Fox regularly offered against Obama and Clinton. Limbaugh used to open his show when Bill Clinton was President with sirens for 'America under seige' with a running count-down of when it would be over. "Their favorite tactic is citing unnamed Dem bureaucrats inhabiting the deep state making slanders against Trump and/or the GOP without attempting to verify the claims with actual evidence." Actually, what occurs much more often is that the 'MSM' outlets will give far too much life to lightly (at best) charges that are getting much air in conservative outlets and cite unnamed sources to undermine *Democratic* figures ('some Democrats are worried about clouds being cast over Clinton's campaign by allegations of...'). ""Fact checking" is generally reserved for and used as a sword against Republicans." A party that embraces anti-intellectualism and has as it's head someone who lies and makes false statements as much as Trump is going to lose out in fact checking. This is no more indicative of bias than the fact that teams that play against Zion Williamson tend to get called for fouling him a lot is indicative that the refs are 'pro-Duke.'
Mr. W:
Spare me. I know you don't believe half the crap you just shoveled. For as long as we have had political parties and relatively free newspapers, we have had a partisan news. The only difference today is the inbalance bewteen the handful of GOP media like Fox News and the tidal wave of the Democrat media from everywhere else. Your argument that your favorite news sources are objective, but mine are radical maniacs is utter bull sh_t. BTW, I consume both Dem and GOP news media because its the only way to get all the news and keep up with what my political opponents are up to. You clearly get your news from Colbert and MSNBC.
He's right, Bart. You're a bullshit spewing idiot, and Faux News is largely responsible for ignorant assholes like you.
There is no Democrat(sic) media as there is a conservative one, one that consciously, blatantly and in a coordinated way acts as a propaganda source. It's not even close. But of course as the fish swimming in the bowl assumes everyone else is swimming in one outside Bart assumes the outside world is as mockably paranoid and bias as he is.
Oh, come on, Mista Whiskas: You must have watched that media suicide watch election night 2016, just as I did. What did you call that, the weeping face of disinterested objectivity?
American media have always been partisan. Our newspapers originated as propaganda outlets for political parties, as you can see from the names of the older papers. For a short, short while they put on a mask of objectivity, and under the cover of it purged most of the Republicans. Then the mask fell off, and you want us to pretend it didn't.
2016? When the 'Democrat media' gave by far the most coverage to the nothing burger story of the Clinton email scandal?
Are you really committed to pretending that a blatant but successful white wash is the same as a "nothing burger"? I suppose you think Lynch and Bill arranged to meet in an empty jet on the tarmac in order to discuss the grand kids, too?
You don't HAVE to be a hack here, she's done, stick a fork in her, you don't have to defend her anymore. Let it go, it's OK now to admit she's corrupt.
Brett thinks an investigation into his political enemies led by a lifelong operative of the other party who broke protocol to speak out of turn about a case which he knew was ultimately non-prosecutable sinking his political enemy's election is a whitewash *for* his political enemy. He demonstrates how far gone the right is, and how nothing but the most irresponsible biased 'reporting' would seem right and fair to him.
"which he knew was ultimately non-prosecutable"
There's a huge difference between, "won't be prosecuted because the DOJ is corrupt" and "wouldn't be prosecuted because there's no crime". But I doubt you're ever going to admit that, and that's sad.
You see, we know the DOJ is corrupt because it didn't indict Hillary, who we know is guilty. Assuming the former must yield the latter, and in Brett's mind only a blind partisan reporter wouldn't assume the latter. This is how conspiracy theorists think, it's a closed loop which can't be broken, the loop just gets expanded as to who is 'in' on the conspiracy. So you can get a lifelong GOP head of a historically and sociologically conservative institution and from a historically conservative profession be named to investigate a Democratic figure, break protocol to issue declarations damaging to that figure's political prospects in a case concluded not even warranting indictment and for the conspiracy theorists it's just proof that the conspiracy's net is wider than first thought. Again, only the most blindly partisan and irresponsible reporting would satisfy Bretts of the world. Sadly, conspiracy theorist thinking is essentially a defining feature of the Right these days. Reporters, academics, etc., that won't indulge that kind of thinking, even if they politely entertain it (which they usually do but shouldn't) are therefore seen as the mirror image of what these conspiracy theorists themselves are. It's bizarro all the way.
Yes, we know she's guilty, because just information in the public domain at this point would be enough to convict somebody who didn't have political connections.
Mr. W brings up a perfect example of the my observation above: "The NYT/WP will faithfully report the DNC meme of the day However, the papers will either spin or spike news which is harmful to Democrats."
Go google the sentence: "Justice Department told Comey they would not prosecute Clinton." This refers to the testimony of Clinton whitewash and Trump witch hunt perp Lisa Page gave to Congress the Obama Justice Department told FBI early on that they were not going to charge Clinton with the gross negligence crime, which suggests "lifelong Republican" Comey lied when he took responsibility for the charging decision in order to give the politicized Justice Department cover Sorry, Mr. W, but the Obama Justice Department refusing to prosecute their boss's chosen successor is not the same as a "non-prosecutable" case. The first page of google hits nearly all refer to a NY Times story claiming Trump was considering ordering Justice to prosecute Clinton and Comey "according to two people familiar with the conversation," which itself is a good example of my observation above: "Their favorite tactic is citing unnamed Dem bureaucrats inhabiting the deep state making slanders against Trump and/or the GOP..." This story has nothing to do with what I asked. The only source reporting the story for which I searched in plain English is, of course, Fox News. I suspect you know nothing about the Page admissions to Congress because Colbert and MSNBC declined to tell you. A very 1984 existence. FYI, the Clinton whitewash and Trump witch hunt perps have made a long series of disclosures to Congress which give us a very good idea of then parameters of these conspiracies (yes, we are discussing prima facie cases of conspiracy). The most comprehensive compilation of this testimony, complete with flow charts, I have found was at an internet news outfit called the Epoch Times in a VERY long story entitled: Spygate: The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump. I guarantee Mr. W will refuse to read the evidence and instead will kill the messenger. Just watch.
Brett's statement reminds me of a neighbor who challenged another neighor's fence because he looked up where the property lines were and the fence was on his side . He made a big stink to our mutual neighbor, after all, it was cut and draw, all the info needed was in the public domain. After a tidy sum in court and attorney costs he met a humbling defeat: the fence had been there long enough to be protected by adverse possession....
In other words, just having public domain knowledge (a term from copyright law) doesn't help a non expert know much about much. But this is the right today, their anti-elitism insulates them from this common sense truth. The amazing thing is when journalists don't make the mistake with them they double down and accuse the journalists of bad faith!
As you can see with Bart as well, the conspiracy thinking common on the right just expands the bubble so that the conspiracy is deeper than one thinks. Sloppy reasoning from selective evidence via dubious, unprofessional sites driven by a foregone partisan conclusion. This is mainstream Right thinking right now!
So now Blankshot thinks it was DOJ that made the decision for Comey? And like any Republican, Comey decided to take the blame and not mention to anyone that he was just a puppet for Obama? Yeah, that totally makes sense.
Mr. W:
Did I call your response or what? In any case, we are discussing the admissions of the Clinton whitewash and Trump witch hunt perps themselves, not the fantasies of the GOP or GOP media. The first thought I had reading the testimony was a conspiracy to deny honest services in violation of USC 18 U.S.C. § 1346.
"After a tidy sum in court and attorney costs he met a humbling defeat: the fence had been there long enough to be protected by adverse possession...."
So, the implication is, nobody is allowed to reverse your white washes, they're indelible? Mind, I think you're probably aware that adverse possession has to actually be adverse; The Obama DOJ refusing to prosecute Obama's former SOS was hardly that. It was more like the renter exception...
Regarding the title, it's hard to know really.
I would not be shocked if somehow in the next 5-15 years, let's say (who knows), there is a serious change in the status of the national parties. Or, something big happening in the Supreme Court nomination process that changes things somehow. Maybe not. But, things do change over time.
It's interesting, though predictable, to see our resident conservatives miss the point. Of course the point of my analogy wasn't about a point of property law or which property doctrine would be a better analogy, but about the point that a person could have or have access to all the 'public domain' information about a complex legal matter but, without knowledge and training, they will still not be able to draw sound conclusions. In fact, you need the knowledge and training to even know what information is actually necessary to draw them. Like so many conservatives today ensnared with anti-elitism (while supporting a billionaire heir) and the charm of simplistic, clean cut answers, I don't think Brett can imagine or accept this point...
And of course Bart can think he 'called my response' without realizing that I 'called' his in his initial post and subsequent response. Note that he thinks he called my response by saying I'd 'kill the messenger,' but in ignoring that my pointing out the dubious source he noted was only *one* of several other routine failings in his reasoning he actually *displayed* the several others (selective evidence, sloppy reasoning, et al). This isn't really surprising. We've seen Bart and Brett's tendencies to over confidently opine on subjects they don't know about, toss out hyperbolic over generalizations and predictions that later are easily demonstrated to be wrong (often to comic effect), so many times. No, what interests me is not the predictable response, but the source. Is it, as I once thought, just example that minds are warped with extreme partisanship in general, or is there something unique about today's conservative high partisanship that does this? I actually think the answer these days is that the question was a false one, that increasingly today "conservative" just = "extreme partisan." That is, there is no middle to conservatism, the fringe is the mainstream. And this ties us back to the OP: polarization and an inability to reason with the other side are inevitable when one side's mainstream becomes the fringe. Paranoid conspiracy, with all the sloppy mistakes of the mind that come with it, closes itself off from reasoning. In other words, it only takes one to tango to produce the gulf between sides...
Mr. W:
You killed the messenger without bothering to read the message. If you had read the article, you would have noted the author was reporting the testimony of the Clinton whitewash and Trump witch hunt perps, not spinning a conspiracy theory out of whole cloth, as did the witch hunt perps. You obviously have no desire to learn the truth. Go back to Colbert and MSNBC.
I watch neither MSNBC or Colbert (though I did enjoy his previous iteration which was an amusing send up of O'Reilly. But it is because Bart lets the right wing equivalents do his thinking for him that he makes so many careless blunders. Like the present case: conservatives point to the fact that Page, one of the nearly three dozen lawyers or other stuff working for Comey (R) and then Mueller (R), told Congress in private hearing that Justice prosecutors told them that would not prosecute Clinton based on the stated recklessness mens rea. A ha, the lemmings shout, what other explanation for this refusal before the investigation was finished other than perfidy and skullduggery?
Well, there could be another explanation. Like that under Gorin the statute was likely constitutionally infirm under the bare stated mens rea (as I've discussed here about half a dozen times and as is explained here: https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/why-intent-not-gross-negligence-is-the-standard-in-clinton-case/ ). Yet another examples of the partisan lemming leap: sloppy reasoning based on selective evidence with a foregone conclusion on an area they're not educated in...
The thing is, at some point you think they'd be mad at such media for misleading then into making the kind of foolish claims we debunk from our two regularly. But no, they keep going back for more sand to use as the foundation for their partisan houses...
Yes, we discussed Gorin and its ramifications here on several threads. Some people are impervious to evidence.
Mark Field is supposed to be in kumabya mode here agreeing with Brett and all but then Mr. W. instigated things. The Left (™) is so divisive.
Mr. W: Like that under Gorin the statute was likely constitutionally infirm under the bare stated mens rea
Sophistry. There is no constitutional requirement for any level of mens rea. Felony DUI, statutory rape and a myriad of regulatory offenses are strict liability crimes. The lesser mens rea of gross negligence can be the basis for homicide and lesser crimes like the misdemeanor storage of classified materials statute Clinton violated over 1,000 times. However, lets assume the misdemeanor statute barring misstorage of classified materials required intent like the felony statute baring provision of classified materials to uncleared persons. The proof Clinton intended to violate both statutes is overwhelming. State briefed Clinton on the law and Clinton signed a non-disclosure agreement acknowledging she understood the law. The sheer volume of violations is further circumstantial evidence Clinton made no mistake. Finally, there is evidence the bureaucracy warned Clinton she was breaking the law. The Obama Justice Department and FBI had no legal basis to decline to prosecute Clinton.
Of course Bart just ignores Gorin and does the equivalent of stomping his feet, but responsible DOJ prosecutors can't do that. Partisan conspiracy theorists can of course.
Again, remember in past discussions Bart and other conservatives could not point to any post Gorin convictions or prosecutions analogous to Clinton's situation.
No, here's what happened. Conservative conspiracy theorists like Bart *need* for emotional partisan reasons for their political enemies to be guilty of something. Not content to argue they are merely wrong or have bad policy they need to 'weaponize' the law against them. Hillary can't just be wrong, she must be jailed. And with that foregone conclusion they continue to fall, like Wiley Coyote, for sloppy reasoning based on selective evidence from dubious sources. Here Bart led with 'a ha, they refused to prosecute on gross negligence before the investigation was done even so there must have been a conspiracy!' He did this even though he has had the Gorin requirement that gross negligence can't be the mens rea pointed out to him here about a half dozen times here, making him look similarly foolish in past discussions. But he took the lemming leap again, got caught again, and now instead of learning and growing as a person he's just changing the goalposts and flinging anything he can as cover for the fact that he fell for it AGAIN. To return to the OP, the fact that most professional journalists will neither follow the Bart's of the world in making such silly, repeated mistakes is why the Bart's of this world think it is the journalists! that are the biased ones... In short, these poll numbers look great for McCain! WMD's will be found and I guarantee a Romney victory, and a refusal to prosecute based on gross negligence for the offense in question can only mean a whitewash was afoot! Bart's just really bad at drawing conclusions about this type of thing, and so are most conservatives. That in itself is a problem, but it's compounds when they then distrust and castigate the media for not endorsing their terrible conclusions.
Even Politifact isn't buying it. She exchanged classified information on an insecure server, and did it deliberately, on more than one occasion where the documents were marked as such, and considerably more occasions when she would have known the contents were classified even if not marked.
It is taking the risk that requires the intent, not that the risk result in a leak.
And Brett proves that he too, typical conservative, just can't learn the (a?) lesson. Brett knows he's not a lawyer, but you'd think he'd at least *read* the Gorin decision that those of us with legal education have been pointing to here, or at the least read what even better educated and trained people have been saying about it, such as in the link I provided, which says clearly that Gorin requires not just the 'intent to take a risk' that Brett so confidently (and ignorantly) hangs his hat on now, but “intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States.”
These lemmings, why do they keep leaping?
If they had any shame or integrity they'd say 'huh, I didn't know that. I still think Hillary is fishy, but I guess my charge that prosecutors saying they won't charge under gross negligence (Bart) or my claim that the fact they didn't argue that she 'deliberately' exchanged 'classified' information on an unauthorized server means she must have been guilty and therefore media outlets that didn't report so and prosecutors who didn't indict thereon were in on a conspiracy (Brett) really is undercut by Gorin. I have to think more on this issue and be more careful in making conclusions about it, and things like it, in the future.'
But extreme partisans and propagandists don't have shame or integrity. They have goals. Don't retreat, reload!
"Mark Field is supposed to be in kumabya mode here agreeing with Brett and all but then Mr. W. instigated things."
My sense of humor is apparently too dry and understated sometimes.
Brett: She exchanged classified information on an insecure server, and did it deliberately, on more than one occasion where the documents were marked as such, and considerably more occasions when she would have known the contents were classified even if not marked.
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Even assuming Clinton's subordinates sent her emails illegal cutting and pasting sections of classified information without proper markings, Clinton knew most off the subject matter of her work was classified and very intentionally conducted ALL of her work on an unauthorized and unsecured private email system.
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Books by Balkinization Bloggers Linda C. McClain and Aziza Ahmed, The Routledge Companion to Gender and COVID-19 (Routledge, 2024) David Pozen, The Constitution of the War on Drugs (Oxford University Press, 2024) Jack M. Balkin, Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation (Yale University Press, 2024) Mark A. Graber, Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform after the Civil War (University of Kansas Press, 2023) Jack M. Balkin, What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Most Controversial Decision - Revised Edition (NYU Press, 2023) Andrew Koppelman, Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) Gerard N. Magliocca, Washington's Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington (Oxford University Press, 2022) Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2022) Mark Tushnet and Bojan Bugaric, Power to the People: Constitutionalism in the Age of Populism (Oxford University Press 2021). Mark Philip Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak, eds., Making the Forever War: Marilyn B. Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism Culture and Politics in the Cold War and Beyond (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021). Jack M. Balkin, What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Same-Sex Marriage Decision (Yale University Press, 2020) Frank Pasquale, New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI (Belknap Press, 2020) Jack M. Balkin, The Cycles of Constitutional Time (Oxford University Press, 2020) Mark Tushnet, Taking Back the Constitution: Activist Judges and the Next Age of American Law (Yale University Press 2020). Andrew Koppelman, Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty?: The Unnecessary Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2020) Ezekiel J Emanuel and Abbe R. Gluck, The Trillion Dollar Revolution: How the Affordable Care Act Transformed Politics, Law, and Health Care in America (PublicAffairs, 2020) Linda C. McClain, Who's the Bigot?: Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2020) Sanford Levinson and Jack M. Balkin, Democracy and Dysfunction (University of Chicago Press, 2019) Sanford Levinson, Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Duke University Press 2018) Mark A. Graber, Sanford Levinson, and Mark Tushnet, eds., Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? (Oxford University Press 2018) Gerard Magliocca, The Heart of the Constitution: How the Bill of Rights became the Bill of Rights (Oxford University Press, 2018) Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today (Peachtree Publishers, 2017) Brian Z. Tamanaha, A Realistic Theory of Law (Cambridge University Press 2017) Sanford Levinson, Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (University Press of Kansas 2016) Sanford Levinson, An Argument Open to All: Reading The Federalist in the 21st Century (Yale University Press 2015) Stephen M. Griffin, Broken Trust: Dysfunctional Government and Constitutional Reform (University Press of Kansas, 2015) Frank Pasquale, The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press, 2015) Bruce Ackerman, We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2014) Balkinization Symposium on We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution Joseph Fishkin, Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity (Oxford University Press, 2014) Mark A. Graber, A New Introduction to American Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2013) John Mikhail, Elements of Moral Cognition: Rawls' Linguistic Analogy and the Cognitive Science of Moral and Legal Judgment (Cambridge University Press, 2013) Gerard N. Magliocca, American Founding Son: John Bingham and the Invention of the Fourteenth Amendment (New York University Press, 2013) Stephen M. Griffin, Long Wars and the Constitution (Harvard University Press, 2013) Andrew Koppelman, The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform (Oxford University Press, 2013) James E. Fleming and Linda C. McClain, Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues (Harvard University Press, 2013) Balkinization Symposium on Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues Andrew Koppelman, Defending American Religious Neutrality (Harvard University Press, 2013) Brian Z. Tamanaha, Failing Law Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2012) Sanford Levinson, Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (Oxford University Press, 2012) Linda C. McClain and Joanna L. Grossman, Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2012) Mary Dudziak, War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences (Oxford University Press, 2012) Jack M. Balkin, Living Originalism (Harvard University Press, 2011) Jason Mazzone, Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law (Stanford University Press, 2011) Richard W. Garnett and Andrew Koppelman, First Amendment Stories, (Foundation Press 2011) Jack M. Balkin, Constitutional Redemption: Political Faith in an Unjust World (Harvard University Press, 2011) Gerard Magliocca, The Tragedy of William Jennings Bryan: Constitutional Law and the Politics of Backlash (Yale University Press, 2011) Bernard Harcourt, The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (Harvard University Press, 2010) Bruce Ackerman, The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (Harvard University Press, 2010) Balkinization Symposium on The Decline and Fall of the American Republic Ian Ayres. Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done (Bantam Books, 2010) Mark Tushnet, Why the Constitution Matters (Yale University Press 2010) Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff: Lifecycle Investing: A New, Safe, and Audacious Way to Improve the Performance of Your Retirement Portfolio (Basic Books, 2010) Jack M. Balkin, The Laws of Change: I Ching and the Philosophy of Life (2d Edition, Sybil Creek Press 2009) Brian Z. Tamanaha, Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide: The Role of Politics in Judging (Princeton University Press 2009) Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Barrington Wolff, A Right to Discriminate?: How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association (Yale University Press 2009) Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel, The Constitution in 2020 (Oxford University Press 2009) Heather K. Gerken, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It (Princeton University Press 2009) Mary Dudziak, Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (Oxford University Press 2008) David Luban, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (Cambridge Univ. Press 2007) Ian Ayres, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart (Bantam 2007) Jack M. Balkin, James Grimmelmann, Eddan Katz, Nimrod Kozlovski, Shlomit Wagman and Tal Zarsky, eds., Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment (N.Y.U. Press 2007) Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck, The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (N.Y.U. Press 2006) Andrew Koppelman, Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines (Yale University Press 2006) Brian Tamanaha, Law as a Means to an End (Cambridge University Press 2006) Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution (Oxford University Press 2006) Mark Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil (Cambridge University Press 2006) Jack M. Balkin, ed., What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said (N.Y.U. Press 2005) Sanford Levinson, ed., Torture: A Collection (Oxford University Press 2004) Balkin.com homepage Bibliography Conlaw.net Cultural Software Writings Opeds The Information Society Project BrownvBoard.com Useful Links Syllabi and Exams |