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kottke.org posts about The Supreme Court

Politics of the Supreme Court

A very interesting infographic of the ideological history of the Supreme Court from 1937 to the present. The color coding on the map is weirdly inaccurate but you can still be general trends pretty well…like how many of the justices changed greatly during their terms. William O. Douglas became slightly more moderate mid-term and then got really liberal while Rehnquist went from very conservative to more moderate as his term went on, especially after he became Chief Justice.

OT: I knew there was a Burger on the bench but was unaware of Justice Frankfurter (1938-1961).

Update: Alex Lundry designed the visualization and got in touch to explain the color coding.

The colors are chosen based upon the Min, Max, and Median of the area we are comparing. So, in the first view, the “overall” view, the darkest Red is anchored to the maximum ideology number across all justices and all terms, the darkest Blue is anchored to the minimum score, and the purest white is anchored to the actual median number (The Location of the Median Justice is NOT necessarily the actual median, as it is calculated via a Bayesian statistical estimate).

The second “compare” option, “within each seat, row” calculates separate color anchors for each row.

Similarly, the third compare option, “within each year, column” calculates separate color anchors for each column.

The Location of Median Justice and Court Average are not included in these calculations and their color values are set to what they would be in the overall comparison.

Update: Burger, Frankfurter, Salmon. (via @kurtw)


What?

<72pt text>What? Clarence Thomas hasn’t asked a question in a Supreme Court session in over two years…that’s 142 cases. Says Thomas:

One thing I’ve demonstrated often in 16 years is you can do this job without asking a single question.

(via clusterflock)


According to some recent analysis, Antonin Scalia

According to some recent analysis, Antonin Scalia is the funniest Supreme Court Justice. Justice Thomas, on the other hand, generates no laughs whatsoever.


Our short national nightmare is over, Harriet

Our short national nightmare is over, Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination for the Supreme Court (her letter). However, our long national nightmare still has 1181 days to go.


Five things I’d ask every Supreme Court

Five things I’d ask every Supreme Court nominee if I sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee: “If you knew to an absolute moral certainty that you could capture and consume a live infant without being caught, how many do you suppose you could eat in a weekend?”


Sandra Day O’Connor resigns from the Supreme Court

Sandra Day O’Connor resigns from the Supreme Court. Good news for conservatives, I guess.


Supreme Court rules that file-sharing companies can

Supreme Court rules that file-sharing companies can be sued for what their users do with their service. Next up, gun companies being liable for murders committed with their products.