Unfortunately that does not protect us from the 9th circus. For cases that I follow, just going by whether they were appointed by an R or a D president is 97% a

Unfortunately that does not protect us from the 9th circus. For cases that I follow, just going by whether they were appointed by an R or a D president is 97% accurate at predicting how a judge will vote. If I can predict their vote without reading the briefs or listening to the arguments, I suspect they can (and do) as well.