Re-reading books and stores or re-watching movies can be a trip. They stay the same but depending where you are in life, the perspective is quite different.
I was wondering if any two Supreme Court justices have voted alike 100% of the time. Off hand, I’d think Scalia and Thomas would come close, or maybe Kagan and Sotomayor, though they are a bit too new to the bench to really get a good sampling. I couldn’t find anything that sampled the entire history of the court, but the closest answer I could find was from a 2014 NY Times article about the current bench. Here are some highlights:
Reagan’s appointees, Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy, have agreed just 82-percent of the time.
Clinton’s nominees, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, 88-percent.
Bush43, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., have agreed 93-percent of the time.
Obama, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, have agreed 94-percent of the time.
Justices Scalia and Thomas have agreed 93-percent.
The two who have disagreed the most, who have agreed 66-percent of the time – Justices Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who a close friend thinks looks like Frau Farbissina from the Austin Powers movies.
I doubt the Supreme Court will release their decision on same-sex marriage today. They seem to like the spotlight, and Friday isn’t the day for making news. Also, with the funeral for South Caroline state Sen. Clementa Pinckney being held today, I tend to think they want the attention of the nation to be on healing and closure. But hey, whatdoIknow. EDIT: Well, they did announce that decision today, and it shows I’m no Supreme Court prognosticator.
Bill Clinton was often labeled as “The Comeback Kid” but I’m beginning to think President Obama has also earned that moniker. No one thought the health care reform would happen, and Affordable Care Act came into being, and has been upheld twice by the Supreme Court. He had bad favorability ratings, and he won re-election (with Joe Biden). There were debates over federal spending and increasing the debt limit, and that ended up working out. And last week the news outlets were stating that his own party dealt him a huge blow by turning their back on him about his trade deal, even after visiting them in the Capitol, and it was considered dead in the water, but yesterday the bill actually passed Congress. I’m not saying he’s a great president, but just think he’s often labeled down and out and then comes out with a win.
Other than East Texas, I don’t think there’s a lot of Confederate pride in Texas, but the Dallas Morning News provided a map of Confederate symbols in the area. As for my small hometown, all I can recall is a school named after Robert E. Lee, which had a black principal.
I can always remember the difference between “principle” and “principal” because the school “principal” is supposed to be your “pal”.
My mobile phone is about two-and-a-half years old and yesterday it just turned off while speaking to a friend and wouldn’t boot up. I tried a soft and hard reset to restore it to the factory settings, but it still won’t boot up. My contract with Sprint ends in September, and I was trying to hold out before switching to a competitor. So if you don’t get a reply to a text or phone call, just know, my phone is dead.
It just won’t die – US Navy pays out millions to Microsoft to keep running Windows XP – That story reminds me of another story about the new jet fighter the military is adopting and how dependent it is on software, which makes me wonder if we’ll one day hear of one being hacked.
I bet the average teen can name more Kardashians than Supreme Court justices.
