Sandra Day O'Connor

[tower912]

Thank you for blazing that trail.  RIP.

[dgies9156]

An incredible woman and a practical legal thinker.

A great woman whose biography was written by MU grad Joan Biskupic.

[Uncle Rico]

Loosen up, Sandy, baby

[MU82]

Sometimes disagreed with her politically, but she was fair and decent. She also knew when to get out. One of the better SCOTUS justices of my lifetime IMHO.

[Herman Cain]

Was a fantastic first rate justice . Continued to work on cases after she retired from Supreme Court

Reagan made an excellent choice

[Uncle Rico]

Was a fantastic first rate justice . Continued to work on cases after she retired from Supreme Court

Reagan made an excellent choice

Wouldn’t sniff the high court today.

[Pakuni]

Wouldn’t sniff the high court today.

That would be something for the president the U.S. Senate the Federalist Society to decide.

[Uncle Rico]

That would be something for the president the U.S. Senate the Federalist Society to decide.

That’s correct and that’s a problem. 

[jesmu84]

That would be something for the president the U.S. Senate the Federalist Society in conjunction with conservative billionaires to decide.

FTFY

[MU82]

Wouldn’t sniff the high court today.

Nor would a candidate with Reagan’s platform and temperament have a shot at his former party’s nomination.

[tower912]

Well, there you go again....

[SoCalEagle]

"Rather than talking about putting up a wall, why don't we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, and make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit?  Then, while they are working and earning here, they pay taxes here.  Then, when they want to go back, they can go back, and they can cross and open the border both ways." 

Ronald Wilson Reagan

[tower912]

Ah, the good old days.   When Reagan and Tip O'Neill would spend the day arguing over policy and then have drinks afterwards.

[Uncle Rico]

Ah, the good old days.   When Reagan and Tip O'Neill would spend the day arguing over policy and then have drinks afterwards.

I’ve been told the greatest threat to America is democrats, so to hell with Reagan

[Pakuni]

Ah, the good old days.   When Reagan and Tip O'Neill would spend the day arguing over policy and then have drinks afterwards.

Reagan was a RINO.

[tower912]

Reagan was a RINO.

Mr. Gorbachev, we support you invading Ukraine.


No, that doesn't sound right.

[Lennys Tap]

Wouldn’t sniff the high court today.

True. Biden wouldn’t even consider her.

[Lennys Tap]

Reagan was a RINO.

No more true than JFK was a DINO.

[MU82]

"Rather than talking about putting up a wall, why don't we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, and make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit?  Then, while they are working and earning here, they pay taxes here.  Then, when they want to go back, they can go back, and they can cross and open the border both ways." 

Ronald Wilson Reagan

Woke commie socialist.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Ah, the good old days.   When Reagan and Tip O'Neill would spend the day arguing over policy and then have drinks afterwards.

Policies are dumb. They are messy, complicated, and take time, thought, and effort.

Why not just distill an entire party's policy down to, literally, "Whatever Trump says"? Easy peasy.

[Pakuni]

No more true than JFK was a DINO.

Sure, sure.
JFK advocated for civil rights, increased federal spending on education, taxpayer-funded health care, the creation of HUD, raising the minimum wage, additional  federal funding for mass transit, federal aid for economically distressed areas and the right of federal employees to unionize.
You know, all the traditional Republican policy positions.

[tower912]

You forgot

Stared down the Russian bear.

Tried to eliminate a communist regime.  The attempt failed, but there was an attempt.

[Lennys Tap]

Sure, sure.
JFK advocated for civil rights, increased federal spending on education, taxpayer-funded health care, the creation of HUD, raising the minimum wage, additional  federal funding for mass transit, federal aid for economically distressed areas and the right of federal employees to unionize.
You know, all the traditional Republican policy positions.

Unabashed capitalist, fiscally conservative, pro business, pro growth, pro lower taxes, pro death penalty, aggressively anti communist, strong on defense.

You know, all the traditional Democrat policy positions.

[MU82]

Washington Post editorial: Sandra Day O’Connor is gone. So, increasingly, is what she stood for.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/01/sandra-day-oconnor-dead-legacy/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

Former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who died on Friday at 93, was a trailblazer in more ways than one. The daughter of Arizona cattle ranchers, she tended the herd on her way to graduating third in her class at Stanford Law School in 1952, before becoming the first woman on the Supreme Court. When President Ronald Reagan chose her for the job, few knew who she was: at the time, an obscure state appeals court judge. Unlike other justices, she rose to the pinnacle of the judicial branch by way of lawmaking in her home state’s legislature. From this, and her years on the ranch, she brought a practicality to the court that most of today’s justices lack.

In this sense, Justice O’Connor represents an era regrettably past — a time when government leaders cared about getting things done collaboratively. With her guidance, the Supreme Court weighed carefully the impact its rulings would have on Americans. In oral arguments, she would often ask how a hypothetical ruling might affect real people and institutions. She was far from being an abortion rights activist, yet she provided the key vote to uphold the core elements of Roe v. Wade in the landmark 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling, explaining in a co-written principal opinion that a generation of women had come of age relying on the constitutional right to abortion.

“Rare indeed is the legal victory — in court or legislature — that is not a careful byproduct of an emerging social consensus,” she wrote in a 2003 essay collection. If only that were true today, as polarized factions within the court and in Congress too often seek to impose ideological views rather than examine the evidence and reason with facts, to apply raw power rather than build consensus.

Justice O’Connor was an avatar of change and progress, but she was also painstakingly centrist. She was the key middle vote that swung the court toward some of its most consequential conclusions. Overshadowed in cultural memory by former justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she had more influence on the law in her time. She was among the 5-4 majority in the Casey decision, which preserved abortion rights for another generation but also allowed for greater state regulation, as long as it did not impose an “undue burden” on women’s access. This satisfied neither liberals nor conservatives.

Similarly, in 2003, she wrote the majority opinion upholding university affirmative action in Grutter v. Bollinger, declaring that affirmative action’s “benefits are not theoretical but real,” even as she said the “Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” ...

Justice O’Connor’s no-nonsense ethos reflected life experiences different from those of most justices, and of others who have gained power by cultivating their résumés and satisfying select ideological groups. She was a living argument for thinking beyond the ordinary litmus tests in selecting judges and other powerful officials. Alas, her private lament, conveyed to a friend later in life, resonates beyond the court’s marble steps: “Everything I stood for is being undone.”

[Pakuni]

Unabashed capitalist, fiscally conservative, pro business, pro growth, pro lower taxes, pro death penalty, aggressively anti communist, strong on defense.

You know, all the traditional Democrat policy positions.

1. "Unabashed" capitalist?  JFK believed in market economies - as has every Democratic president since him - but was by no means "unabashed."
JFK on capitalism:

"But we recognize – it is impossible not to recognize that the public good cannot be best served by permitting the private economic order to function without the guiding hand of government intervention."

https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/boston-ma-19520425

2. Fiscally conservative? He favored deficit spending, increased the national debt and at the onset of his presidency, ordered federal departments to spend their budgets ASAP.

3. Pro lower taxes? While it's true he did usher in a tax cut, let's put it in perspective. His plan set the top marginal rate at 65 percent and the corporate rate at 47 percent. Trump's tax cut set those figures at 37 percent and 21 percent. JFK would be appalled. And no Republican would sign on to JFK's plan. They'd call him a socialist.

4. Death penalty? Can you find anything to back this? The only action re: the death penalty that I can find he took was eliminating a law that made the death penalty mandatory for first-degree murder in Washington, D.C.
http://www.jfk50.org/page/history_now/1962-03-22_death_for_murder_1_

5. Yes, JFK was aggressively anti-communist. Today's Republican party is not. The party's flag-bearer lavishes praise upon communist dictators and the way they rule. A majority of Republican voters don't think the U.S. should support the defense of Ukraine. The most prominent figure in the conservative media world says he's rooting for Russia.