Posted on 09/26/2013 9:04:48 PM PDT by richardb72
Courts are being dumbed down because politicians are trying to keep the smartest and most persuasive judges off the bench, argues conservative economist John Lott in his recently released book, Dumbing Down the Courts: How Politics Keeps the Smartest Justices Off the Bench.
While confirmations have been getting tougher for all the nominees, smarter, more influential nominees have had the hardest time getting confirmed, Lott told The Daily Caller in an interview about his book. There is a simple reason for this. Judges who understand the law and are articulate may be able to convince other judges hearing cases to change how they vote. They may also write opinions that influence other judges around the country.
Lott, who also authored the best-selling More Guns, Less Crime, says the statistical record bears out his claim.
For example, someone from a top 10 law school, who graduated in the top 10 percent of their class, and who clerked on both a Circuit Court and the Supreme Court, it takes them 158 percent longer to get confirmed, Lott said. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
The runner up to Chief Justice Warren, is Chief Justice Roberts!!!
Kagan is clearly not very bright. There's no doubt the rest of them are pretty smart. Four of them simply don't care what the Constitution actually says. Roberts' 0bamacare ruling is a typical liberal opinion: facile, contradictory, and ultimately rather silly. That doesn't mean he's stupid.
Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, Elena Kagan, and the unwise Latina Sotomajor...
Roberts, Kagan.
All of them
Stevens |
Kennedy |
Souter |
Ginsburg |
Breyer |
Scalia |
the federal government's ability to regulate intrastate commerce, stemming from the ability to regulate interstate commerce, is still valid even when that regulation prohibits interstate commerce, even if this would "pull the rug out from under them" because, well, we say so.
That decision was an insult to logical thinking. (False implies true!)
Kelo was terribly unjust, though not without some legal-reasoning, and could be alleviated if eminent-domain were used to seize all of the justices's properties (via projections
, of course). I think you'd be amazed at how quick the Supreme Court could act once its members were directly influenced/impacted/inconvenienced by one of their rulings.
I'm sure I could think of more.
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