https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44638092
So Anthony Kennedy, a long standing Judge in the US Supreme Court has announced he's standing down. While obviously gaining a lot of poor reactions seeing he's going to allow Trump to put in a particularly right wing judge in replacement, replacing him a moderate Republican, more of a swing voter if anything, with a hard right Republican.
Now I don't believe this is a particularly awful thing as it's very possible that the Democrats could pull what FDR did and appoint a bunch more liberal judges to the SC, "Court Packing" as it's called. But it likely cost political capital to do that, but I don't believe it will be as much as we think it is as the GOP has got away with dirty political tactics for a while and unless you're not voting for them anyway, you generally don't care all that much.
I'd be careful judging the guy for this anyway, he knows that the Dems could do something like this and likely judged it as such, we really don't know the guys personal life either...so passing proper judgement is hard. He's an old guy and it's possible he just could have worn out, this has been reportedly been on the books for a while anyway and it's possible he planned this before anticipating the rise of Trump.
US President Donald Trump has said the search for a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will "begin immediately".
"We have to pick one that's going to be there for 40 years, 45 years," Mr Trump said at a rally in North Dakota.
The retirement of Mr Kennedy, a conservative who sided with liberals on many votes, gives Mr Trump the chance to shift the top court's balance more to the right for decades to come.
The judge, 81, will retire on 31 July.
He made the announcement on Wednesday, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family after 30 years on the top court. Mr Trump later praised Mr Kennedy - who held the pivotal vote on many key cases - as "a great justice of the Supreme Court".
So Anthony Kennedy, a long standing Judge in the US Supreme Court has announced he's standing down. While obviously gaining a lot of poor reactions seeing he's going to allow Trump to put in a particularly right wing judge in replacement, replacing him a moderate Republican, more of a swing voter if anything, with a hard right Republican.
Now I don't believe this is a particularly awful thing as it's very possible that the Democrats could pull what FDR did and appoint a bunch more liberal judges to the SC, "Court Packing" as it's called. But it likely cost political capital to do that, but I don't believe it will be as much as we think it is as the GOP has got away with dirty political tactics for a while and unless you're not voting for them anyway, you generally don't care all that much.
I'd be careful judging the guy for this anyway, he knows that the Dems could do something like this and likely judged it as such, we really don't know the guys personal life either...so passing proper judgement is hard. He's an old guy and it's possible he just could have worn out, this has been reportedly been on the books for a while anyway and it's possible he planned this before anticipating the rise of Trump.