Quote:
Originally Posted by LessinSF
No comment on how there does not appear - yet - any new conservative bloc with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh? So far, they have often been in conflict.
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Blocs have always been overstated - easier for simple minds if it's a team sport. I think the most notable development this term, however, has been Clarence Thomas going ultra-right without significant criticism from any of the federalist society or libertarian sorts who like to pontificate about the court or from any of the conservative members of the court itself. If you are fond of bloc analysis, I'd say look for the emergence of a third block of the radical right, and don't be surprised if that bloc has a fundamentalist vibe to it (oddly, a Catholic fundamentalist vibe). So there will be an increasing number of decisions where Thomas together with Alito or Kavanaugh or one or two others goes uber-right, the majority kind of shrugs and ignores them, and maybe one or two of the liberals point out that they're total lunatics challenging the very fundamentals of representative constitutional democracy.
And, of course, the court continues to engage in truly crappy historical analysis. But that is neither new nor particularly partisan, even if Alito and Thomas deserve particular awards this year, Alito for Bradensburg and Thomas for the Indiana case. Someone in Bradensburg should have done a "concur but for the moronic view of history" opinion.
