Senate Confirms Neil Gorsuch To Supreme Court (washingtonpost.com) 450
halfEvilTech quotes a report from Washington Post: The U.S. Senate confirmed Neil M. Gorsuch to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday. On a vote of 54 to 45, senators confirmed Gorsuch, 49, a Denver-based judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He will become the 113th person to serve on the Supreme Court and is scheduled to be sworn in Monday. Gorsuch's confirmation was the result of a rule change in the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used the power of his position to change the rules of the Senate to lower the threshold on Supreme Court nominations to end debate from 60 to 51 votes. Therefore, "all presidential nominees for executive branch positions and the federal courts need only a simple majority vote to be confirmed by senators," reports Washington Post.
It is unclear as to what exactly Gorsuch's confirmation means for the tech industry. However, it is certain that Gorsuch will "face cases that demand a solid command of the complex issues digital technology raises, from copyright and privacy to intellectual property rights and data storage," writes Issie Lapowsky via Wired.
It is unclear as to what exactly Gorsuch's confirmation means for the tech industry. However, it is certain that Gorsuch will "face cases that demand a solid command of the complex issues digital technology raises, from copyright and privacy to intellectual property rights and data storage," writes Issie Lapowsky via Wired.
God Dammit (Score:2, Insightful)
It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:2, Insightful)
on McConnell's part, regardless of how you feel about the outcome. Passing a left-leaning centrist with polling showing a Democrat in the White House and the Senate a toss-up, and the chance of a far more partisan left-leaning judge. I guess stopping everything that black guy tried to do was the primary objective.
Re:It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, there was little risk in his gamble, with all up-side. If Clinton had won, they would have just immediately confirmed Garland, so the court would shift marginally to the left. By waiting, they kept the same mix as before Scalia's death.
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It wasn't a gamble at all, it was both reasonable and politically smart. Even many people who hated Trump's guts voted for him because they couldn't stand the idea of Hillary Clinton appointing more supreme court justices. I think that's what finally pushed Trump over the finish line.
And given the kind of people Obama had appointed before (Sotomayor, Kagan), Congress was not going to give him another chance. If SCOTUS had tilted any further to the left, Congress would like have taken drastic action, like si
Re:It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:5, Informative)
Obama and his appointees simply do not represent the American people.
[Citation needed.] Let's look up some stats [cornell.edu], shall we?
-- Polls of Sotomayor nomination: 54-55% approve, 25-26% disapprove, 20% don't know/no opinion.
-- Polls of Kagan nomination: 46-48% approve, 30-34% disapprove, 20-22% don't know/no opinion
Gorsuch falls in this general range, a bit higher than Kagan, but lower than Sotomayor. Notably, polls for Alito and Roberts had significantly lower approval numbers (though also higher "don't know" numbers).
Also, ~50% of Americans approved of Garland's nomination for what it's worth, and depending on which poll you believe, somewhere between about 50 and 65% of Americans thought he deserved a hearing.
So, I'd say there's little evidence to support your assertion that Obama's appointees "do not represent the America people" when polls about the nominees suggest more people approved than disapproved of all of them.
Re:It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:4, Informative)
I wasn't making a statement about whether majorities like them, I was making a statement about whether their beliefs actually align with the beliefs of the American people, and I don't believe they do. Nevertheless, if you do want to talk about polls, look at the page: in 2016, 37% say the court is "too liberal", vs 20% saying that it is "too conservative", and SCOTUS approval ratings have dropped sharply under Obama. The only reason approval ratings are still as high as they are is because courts and decisions are strongly distorted by the MSM.
If you check the news stories from last year and this year, you'll also see that people widely perceive SCOTUS nominations as a reason why people are might be/are/have been voting for Trump.
And you need to realize that polls tend to be biased in favor of the left because conservatives, libertarians, and/or independents rather hang up than voice a negative opinion to an anonymous stranger that has their personal information. People don't get fired, attacked, or beaten up for approving of Obama or progressive causes, but they do get fired, attacked and beaten up for supporting Trump or opposing affirmative action or opposing gay marriage. Keeping quiet in RL about conservative, libertarian, or independent viewpoints is pretty much ingrained now in many people.
Re:It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:5, Informative)
I can only speak for my own experience there. I'm a gay atheist and I used to be a vocal "progressive liberal Democrat" for a couple of decades. I never experienced threats of violence or even nastiness from conservatives; occasionally, they'd express their pity for me for being a sinner, others would just have me over for dinner. On the other hand, when I told progressives or Democrats that I couldn't in good conscience support Hillary and was just not going to vote, the amount of abuse, ostracism, and vitriol I was subjected to was just astounding.
Re:It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a 'popular vote.' The votes in every state in our Federal Republic all count only within the self-contained boundaries of each state.
The only thing a 'popular vote' represents is journalists running around gathering up numbers from all the states. Numbers which have no meaning outside of state boundaries.
Deal with it.
Re:It was a hell of a gamble... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you angry at me? I'm just telling you what happened. I didn't vote for either of them.
But your reaction shows why Democrats keep losing politically: instead of facing reality, their supporters just become rude and throw temper tantrums.
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I guess stopping everything that black guy tried to do was the primary objective.
Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan might have some words about your dipshit contention.
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Insightful)
"But in a speech on the Senate floor in June 1992, Mr. Biden, then the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said there should be a different standard for a Supreme Court vacancy “that would occur in the full throes of an election year.” The president should follow the example of “a majority of his predecessors” and delay naming a replacement, Mr. Biden said. If he goes forward before then, the Senate should wait to consider the nomination."
Yeah, yeah. What he *meant* was that if a Democrat was coming into office the next year, they should delay. If a Republican were coming in to office, they need to do it right away.
Same way Obama can bomb the shit out of the Middle East for years and it's no big deal. But Trump does the same thing and he's "starting another war in the Middle East!!!"
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Is that the same as if Obama intervenes in Syria, it's a giant waste of military power and "losing to Putin" but if Trump bombs Syria to ill effect, it's a "show of strength"?
To be clear, I agree with the recent missile strike against the airbase in Syria. I just find it amusing how hypocrisy works.
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Of course trump is currently running his campaign for re-election so I guess we are in the throws of an election even now.
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Near as I can tell, the only people running an election campaign regarding Trump are the Democrats. They still haven't figured it out.
"Elections have consequences." to quote a political hack from the recent past.
And that is why Joe is Vice President (Score:2)
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Keep fucking that chicken. Pretending the opinion of one senator (who boasted about writing the Patriot Act) means Jack or shit has been a popular talking point in the right wing nutosphere for the last few weeks. It's like you've been taking lessons from your fellow right winger, Hillary Clinton, and her paid CTR trolls on how to disseminate bullshit.
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So, Goofy Uncle Joe is fine with the Supreme Court being filled with left-wingers and moderates, but we have a problem if anybody right of Karl Marx is nominated? Got it.
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Moderates are to the left of Karl Marx? That's news.
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Karl Mark was an intellectual who spent a good part of his life writing in the British Library in London. He was also an armchair radical, but mostly he was a dull stuffy political economist.
Also much of what he wrote is very very obsolete now in the 21st century. Tons of his theories have been given one hell of a chance and failed in execution.
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So, Biden said he's support Bush if Bush did something he'd support, and that he'd support certain behavior if it weren't affecting him or his current situation.
What a class act!
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Insightful)
stole from whom? up or down vote, garland would have lost, i can almost guarantee it. biden suggested, before he left the senate that the appropriate course of action for supreme court nominees after the election season commenced was to wait until after the election to confirm. democratic obstruction of bush nominees initially started the fillibustering of judicial nominees in the circuit courts, which the republicans turned around and used on the democrats during obama's term. after which the democrats got fed up with the obstruction and killed the fillibuster for lower court confirmations. yet during that period kagan and sotomayor were confirmed without a hitch.
was it legal to neglect to hear garland? yes. was it right, as right as any of the political maneuvering in washington.
mcconnell gambled, and everybody thought he was a fool because if hillary won, it would have been someone politically left of garland for that seat. but he won his bet.
constitutionally, it was well within mcconnell's powers to refuse to hear garland. it's been done before, about 150 years ago.
it was the democrats that killed the fillibuster. don't forget that, the only reason it didn't cover supreme court nominations was because none of the supreme court nominations were fillibustered.
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Follow the argument. The original poster was saying that the "American People" spoke and demanded Trump be able to appoint whomever he wants. That's not quite true now, is it?
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Republicans just stole that seat.
No they didn't. The voters gave it to them.
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Republicans just stole that seat.
No they didn't. The voters gave it to them.
No they didn't, the States gave it to them.
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so much. Whatever else you think about Gorsuch's politics (and unless you own a large corporation they're awful) it's a fact the Republicans just stole that seat. It really angers me to see them doing so much wrong and getting away with it again and again...
It's a little more complicated than that.
The rule change extends the 51-vote (instead of 60) requirement to Supreme Court nominees. It was previously downed to 51 for all other judicial nominees during the Obama administration, when it was the Republicans being obstructionist in minority rather than (as now) the Democrats.
Also a president nominated someone to the Supreme Court, in accordance with Constitutional process. The Senate changed its rules, but they—whatever you or I may think of the rules
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The abuse of rules is actually done by those who vote against cloture as a means of avoiding the actual vote. The only valid reason to vote against cloture is if there is still a bona fide need for additional debate. When those who wish to blo
Re:God Dammit (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a Republican, but the whole "stolen seat" thing is kind of overstating it because it implies that Garland would have become a justice for the SCOTUS, which is unlikely. It was stupid for the GOP to refuse a vote for Garland (stupid on multiple levels but even just strategically - they could have blocked Garland just via voting, there was no need to take it a step further and refuse a vote altogether and cause so much rancor), but regardless Garland was most likely not going to be on the SC, so the seat was not stolen. Legally it doesn't appear that they did anything technically wrong, but I think it's fair to say that having a vote would have been the right thing to do (notwithstanding some cases in the past where people such as Biden suggested a different course of action).
But let's be clear: both sides have, are, and continue to behave like children. Is what the GOP did stupid? You bet! Is the Dem handling of Gorsuch stupid? Most definitely. It's worth noting that the GOP senators in the past voted to seat justices that were quite liberal, but in the end relented because the candidate was qualified and there was not a good reason not to. With Gorsuch there's no real debate that he is very qualified, and yet few Dems voted for him - they voted against purely as retaliation.
And so the Dems did something stupid in retaliation for something stupid the Reps did. And the Reps did that stupid thing because of what Dems did to them before that. And the Dems did that thing because of what the Reps did even earlier. It's been going on for so long that we're at the point where neither side can claim any sort of moral high ground - it's pure, deep-rooted, partisan politics, and anyone who tries to argue that one of those two sides is better-behaving than the other is turning a blind eye to past events.
To everyone who is frustrated by this, you have to realize that Dem and Rep are two sides of the same coin. Both are almost comically hypocritical and neither consistently acts in the best interest of the USA. They have reached the point where so much of their identity is defined by not being the other side that I don't think there is any way for either party to fix themselves.
I watched a lot of the Gorsuch hearings and I came away with two main conclusions: (1) Gorsuch would make a great justice - I don't agree with him on various points, but he's sane and sincere and intelligent and it's not hard to imagine him being a fair judge. (2) The senators from both major parties are complete morons. So much pettiness and shallow posturing. So much snide smirking and pretentiousness. It was embarrassing for both parties.
It's time we moved the conversation away from "Reps are bad" vs "Dems are bad" because that will get us nowhere. Both are terrible and possibly beyond repair. But as long as we allow ourselves to believe that one side is acting in good faith while the other side is not, we will make zero progress. Both are incredibly corrupt. Both major parties have a list of "sins" so long that neither should be allowed in power.
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Thinking of supreme court justice appointments as property of the president is unacceptable. Congress is supposed to advise and consent, and the advised that the president should wait with the appointment until the next Congress and withheld their consent. That was a legitimate decision and it was a reasonable decision. I suspect that SCOTUS appointments is also
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31% of Americans are white men. The rest are definitely affected by "social justice."
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31% of Americans are white men. The rest are definitely affected by "social justice."
Can I start a new movement? We are the 69%!
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:God Dammit (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or you have real world examples like the head of the Idaho Democratic party that stated un-ironically: "shut other white people down".
Perhaps you should step outside of your echo chamber.
http://www.washingtontimes.com... [washingtontimes.com]
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Thats not what he said, what he said is that the people who don't share your demographics are getting fucked over... not that you are personally doing it, but if you ignore that others are getting fucked over you are complicit in that... even if republicans have trouble understanding what that word means.
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Perhaps it is you who needs to learn the meaning of the word:
complicit [merriam-webster.com] : helping to commit a crime or do wrong in some way
I believe the word you are looking for is complacent [merriam-webster.com]: "marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies".
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looking the other way = complicit
Re:God Dammit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Insightful)
We're all getting fucked over. And what is frequently blamed on racism is usually classism. And please don't act like people aren't openly hostile to white men. I constantly hear people blaming "rich white men" for everything. In movies, white men are constantly depicted as the milquetoast suburbanites who are bullied by their wives and are sexually unappealing. Wait, I know what I'll do, I'll check my privilege because my middle class self is swimming a Olympic sized pool of money along with my fellow white male conspirators...perhaps we can fellate each other later.
Racism is never classism. Plenty of white people have it hard. But the fact is that if they were black, they would have it even harder. Imagine that you are having the worst day of the worst week of your life. Now imagine that on top of all the other BS you have to deal with, random people treat you like a thug or a criminal as soon as they see you. Or just based on your name before they see you at all. Black people have all the problems of poor whites, and all the problems of all blacks.
Poor whites struggle against classism and that is BS which should be shut down. Poor blacks struggle against classism and rasicm and that is double BS that should be shut down. But even if black people make it rich (or are born rich), they will still have to deal with the racism BS, like being harassed by every cop who thinks black people only drive nice cars if they have stolen them.
Think it is hard being depicted as a "milquetoast suburbanites who are bullied by their wives and are sexually unappealing"? First world problems. Try getting through your day with random people reacting to you like you were a dangerous animal.
Privilege is a relative thing.
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The concept of 'races' fucks us all over.
Two hundred years from now, people will look back and say 'what was all the bullshit about?' We can hope, anyhow. But there will always be legacy grievance seekers. Always.
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People are being interrogated for hours entering the country because of their nation origin. You can call it 'religion' if you like, but that's just your racism emerging.
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That's not helped by the Democrat's insistence to play by the rules and try to reach an agreement with the Republicans, and the Republicans insistence to pull the football away, set fire to the house and p*ss on the doorstep, cackling all they way, in the name of Party.
F*ck every goddamn one of them. Under no circumstances will I ever vote for a Republican ever again. Anyone with an (R) next to their name shares in the stink, and will be avoided. Since that's apparently the only way to get anything done the
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Lemme guess... history for you starts in... 2013? With the 'unprecedented' Republican obstruction against Obama's nominees... which forced the hand of Senator Reid to do the not yet triggered Nuclear Option... leaving out SCOTUS nominees because there was not a vacancy.
Some of us remember the Bush era where the nuclear option was first threatened for SCOTUS nominees due to actually unprecedented Democrat obstruction against many court nominees.
Then again, some of us also remember the attempted hi-tech-lynch
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I'm with you completely. But don't let short term memory lull you into complacency with Democrats who have done this same kind of thing.
Screw both of them. Time for election reform.
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I for one am still rooting for/pushing for the repeal of the 17th Amendment via the Article V process.
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Democrats didn't insist on playing by the rules. They could have made this change and made executive nominees partisan. But they didn't have control of the house to allow them to nominate a judge even if they had changed the rules.
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What's left of The Gun Control Act of 1968. Replace it with law that expands sport use to include recreational shooting, 'plinking', for instance.
And repeal of several Executive Orders, #13637 for instance the order banning re-importation of long rifles, and then repeal the Mutual Security Act.
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wake up. It's nobody's "party" who lost. It's the American people.
An R or a D next to your name means nothing when the only difference between the two is specifically which corporation lobbying for the same particular deregulation bought you out.
All this "party" crap is little more than an artificial wedge issue created to keep all of you at eachother's throats to notice it's someone else strangling you both.
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If you have a personal stake in the wedge issue, you should be trying to fix the issue rather than voting for the parties that are perpetuating it.
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If his/her particular wedge issue is climate change, progressive taxation or women's health, it would seem one party "perpetuates" that more than the other.
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That's an easy thing to say if you're a straight, white male
Maybe you should fuck off with your identity politics, then, and take some personal responsibility for your life instead of playing the Oppression Olympics.
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Straight, white males (myself included)
Then maybe you should stop letting people walk all over you while playing the Oppression Olympics. You're not helping anybody. Here, enjoy [youtube.com] some Thomas Sowell [wikipedia.org].
Re:God Dammit (Score:5, Informative)
That is bullshit. Nearly 3 in 10 of all cloture motions filed in the history of the Senate were filed during McConnell’s tenure as Minority Leader. The filibuster existed before the Age of McConnell, but McConnell made them commonplace.
The two parties aren't the same: one wants authoritarian control by the 1% of the entire planet, and the other is the Democratic Party.
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't be a brick. You ought to know that McConnell said at the outset that his most important goal wasn't making the lives of Americans better, it was to ensure that President Obama would be a one-term president. Hence, the obstruction. Hence, not giving President Obama the stimulus he needed to get the U.S. back on its feet economically, resulting in a sluggish crawl of a recovery that we are still living in. Do you think McConnell did that for the people? No, he did it so the people could be preyed upon by the 1%, so their homes could be foreclosed upon, so their student loans couldn't be discharged in bankruptcy, so they couldn't recover and would be so worried about survival that McConnell and his kleptocrats could hijack the government for the benefit of their donors, not the people.
The Republican morons are the ones who deny climate change. The idiotic red states cling to their bigotry and fictional religion so they are easily manipulated single-issue voters. The Democrats would like to keep this planet inhabitable, they want all Americans to have healthcare provided by the government and funded through taxes, and they want good education for everyone.
Frankly, it's uninformed people like you who have made this takeover by Republican thugs possible. You really ought to do something about your ignorance.
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The legislators were going to be paid anyway, so why do you think it would have "wasted our money"? There salary is the same whether they vote or not.
Does landmass get a vote now?
Re:God Dammit (Score:4, Informative)
Keep telling the people in the middle that they don't matter and they'll keep voting against you.
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They are entitled to vote against me, so be it. But they shouldn't get a vote weighted 3x more than mine.
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Yes. Because then they would have to justify that decision to their constituents. By refusing to schedule a vote, they were able to blame the people at the top and avoid taking any responsibility for their failure to do their constitutionally mandated duty. They chose the cowards' way out rather than face the voters. Make no mistake. Every single Republican in Congress who did not have the cour
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Except they are not constitutionally required to hold a vote, or a hearing, or even a meeting with a nominee. Their 'consent' is required... and they simply withheld it.
Even those in the House of Representatives, which p
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They did not withhold consent. They withheld the opportunity to even talk about consent. That's critically different from a constitutional perspective.
As for whether they are constitutionally required or not, I would argue that their one job is to vote on issues, and that refusing to discharge their duties for an entire year—particul
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They did in just the same way a disinterested person in a bar does when they ignore your advances.
Half true... they made rather clear, through their inaction that they did not consent to that nominee at the time... having previously advised the President not to nominate and waste anyone time.
Or, does someone have to give an affirmative "no, I do not want to have sex with you" for you to not receive consent? If so, that wo
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Half true. Had it gone to a vote, the previous candidate would likely have gotten enough votes for confirmation, hence the reason the leadership was not about to let it go to a vote, nor even go up for debate. The Constitution says the consent of the Senate, not the consent of the Senate Majority Leader.
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You mean you are bringing facts?
Pure speculation.
Except for the fact that the leadership serves at the pleasure of the body.
Except for the fact that the leadership serves at the pleasure of the body... which ar
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Are you forgetting the fact that Garland was specifically named as a reasonable nominee by the republican party, long before Obama selected him? Only after he was picked did it become an issue.
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Strange, your anger is that the Republicans did what the Democrats threatened to do for years but either never had a chance to act on (in case of Reid's use of the nuclear option), or never got fed up enough to do.
None of this was unprecedented though, just ask Ruben H. Walworth, John M. Read & Edward A. Brad
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Obama was elected by a majority of Americans. Twice.
Interesting take on Gorsuch from a Democrat (Score:5, Interesting)
So...time for Ginsburg to step down, right? (Score:2)
If you think a 49-year old justice will be bad at tech, you should look up the ages of the rest. There's even one on there named "Ginsburg" who was 35 when Gorsuch was born - probably time for her to finally head out to pasture, right?
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx
Re:So...time for Ginsburg to step down, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Gorsuch will "face cases that demand a solid command of the complex issues digital technology raises..." If you think a 49-year old justice will be bad at tech, you should look up the ages of the rest. There's even one on there named "Ginsburg" who was 35 when Gorsuch was born - probably time for her to finally head out to pasture, right?
Whatever you may think of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's politics or decisions, she is an intellectual giant, much smarter and sharper than the vast majority of people half her age. There's a good reason she and Scalia were such good friends. Despite almost polar opposite politics, there were few others in the world that were their intellectual equal. And they were both wise enough to understand that associating yourself only with those whose political beliefs are aligned with yours is really self-limiting, and ultimately rather boring.
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Except: Scalia was a hack. And an idiot. He routinely engaged in reasoning that he would have flipped shit over if it came from another judge. Just one example: [consortiumnews.com]
something to think about (Score:5, Insightful)
The nuclear option will come back to haunt them.
You would think that the party of the filibuster as a basic tactic would have figured this out, because as that "commie bitch" on the Supreme court noted, the situation is a pendulum, and if you do a little math and dating, the Democrats are poised for ramming some supreme court nominees who are not going to be appreciated by the Republicans.
That's so obvious that it qualifies not as the law of nintended consequences, but more like plain old unfixable stupid.
Re:Rule Change when it's in his best interest? (Score:4, Insightful)
The rule making this possible was introduced by the Democratic Party in 2013, also used first by them. Blaming the GOP for now taking advantage of this is kind of hypocritical.
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Because the Republicans were keeping a nominee from being confirmed just like how they stole the seat from Garland.
Re:Rule Change when it's in his best interest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the Republicans were keeping a nominee from being confirmed just like how they stole the seat from Garland.
Circuit Court Judges. Yet the Republicans passed the majority of nominees without any problem. You should at least consider the possibility that the few (it was more than one) being held up were of particular concern. Instead of changing nominees, as Schumer demanded the Republicans do, they changed the rules and packed courts with additional judges. (The DC Circuit gained 3 more judges)
The Democrats are the last people allowed to bitch about it when they introduced bypassing cloture when it suited their needs. Reap what you sew sound familiar? If it suits their interests they can introduce a rule change to require cloture on both all Judges again. I certainly hope that the Senate moves back in that direction, but have no hopes that the Democrats want such a thing.
Schumer also forgot about demanding President Bush not dare introduce a Supreme Court nominee in his last 18 months in office. Then got upset after President Obama did exactly that and could not get a hearing on his candidate. You know what they say, "Karma is a b**ch!".
Re:Rule Change when it's in his best interest? (Score:5, Informative)
That’s quite a revision of history you have there. The Democrats removed the filibuster for judicial nominees because the Republicans were blocking hundreds of President Obama’s appointments.
Since 1979, Republicans have obstructed nearly 50% more often than Democrats: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2013/11/21/chart-a-recent-history-of-senate-cloture-votes-taken-to-end-filibusters/
Again, the two parties are not the same: one fights for right, and one fights for evil.
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Perhaps those numbers have more to do with the types of judges nominated than the actual parties doing the blocking. Democrats tend to want to pack courts with activists while Republicans trend more towards actual judges. There's much more reason to object to ideological activists being appointed to life time positions on courts than to object to those that actually try to follow the law and not their feelings when ruling.
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That's a matter of perception. "activists" vs "actual". Others may see the issue exactly the opposite way as you. Both side can shout "You're WRONG!" at each other until they're blue in the faces.
Really, at the end of the day, Global Warming will be a litmus test on this. If the Republicans are right on this issue, things will continue similarly to the way they've been, with minor variations. If the Democrats are right, we're in a heap of trouble unless we take corrective action. But on this matter, Na
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Lol, no, the oceans could literally be stating to boil off and you'd probably have at least half of the Trump base blaming it on Democrats. They'll kill us all and they'll never face consequence for it.
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Schumer also forgot about demanding President Bush not dare introduce a Supreme Court nominee in his last 18 months in office.
Liar.
And before you trot out Schumer's speech, please keep in mind that voting "No" on a nominee is not the same as blocking a nominee from getting a hearing and a vote.
Re:Rule Change when it's in his best interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet the Republicans passed the majority of nominees without any problem. You should at least consider the possibility that the few (it was more than one) being held up were of particular concern. Instead of changing nominees, as Schumer demanded the Republicans do, they changed the rules and packed courts with additional judges.
According to the Congressional Research Service, there were 68 presidential nominees for various positions filibustered between 1949 (basically when the Senate began allowing filibusters on nominations) and 2008. The Republicans had filibustered 79 of President Obama's nominees between 2008 and 2013 when Reid used the nuclear option.
In other words, in a little over 4 years, the Republicans filibustered more presidential nominees than had been filibustered in the preceding 60 years. That doesn't sound like selecting just a few people "of particular concern" to me.
By the way, I strongly disapproved of the nuclear option back then, as I still do now. There are Rules of the Senate, and this is using a ridiculous parliamentary loophole with no Constitutional foundation to override previous Rules of the Senate (which normally require a 2/3 majority to amend).
Frankly, I'd first prefer to see the federal judiciary self-destruct to the point that it actively went to war against Congress itself because of staffing issues... as with the Civil Rights Act (which eventually passed after 60+ days of filibustering) eventually someone will give. Eventually there would be some compromise. No longer. Now it's party line forevermore. Just wait -- in a few decades that Senate will be voting to take away Constitutional rights by party vote.
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The GOP cited that in their rule change for Supreme Court justices. Before it was limited only to lower courts.
The rule was in place after the GOP refused to hear any Obama nominees. It was warned back then that it will come back to bite them in the ass and sure enough it did.
The one thing not coded in the constitution though is how many justices sit on the Supreme Court. That is actually in the Judicial Act of 1869 which set the number of justices to 9. It had been as high as 10 previously. But there is no
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the only thing enforcing the fillibuster was tradition. which both parties supported. then the democrats killed it in 2013.
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the only thing enforcing the fillibuster was tradition. which both parties supported. then the democrats killed it in 2013.
Before than the filibuster was used sparingly to block only the most extremes of appointments, The Republicans turned it into a WMD and blocked appointments en masse so they could use the confirmations as barganing chips to get concessions.
The Obama noamnie, Garland was a centrist the GOP should have been more than happy to accept rather then roll the dice on the Presidental election (especially once Trump became the nomanniee and most professional pollers called the election lost) but in todays political r
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I'm sorry that your understanding of history only starts in 2013.
You really should look up the way the Democrats threatened it repeatedly back during the Bush-43 era... but then that would ruin your narrative.
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Gorsuch's confirmation was the result of a rule change in the Senate.
Nah, Gorsuch's confirmation was the result of Mitch McConnell refusing to do his Constitutional duty last year.
As annoying as it as it is, the Advice and Consent Clause [wikipedia.org] is a limit on the President, not a mandate on the Senate to take action:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not
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you throw around 'constitutional duty' like that means something. please clarify what you think the relevant passage actually means.
https://aclj.org/supreme-court... [aclj.org]
i'd think you'd be a little more worried about executive discretion
http://www.economist.com/blogs... [economist.com]
i don't care if you're left or right or middle, the president doesn't does not and should not have the power to unilaterally ignore laws. vis a vis obama's daca and dreamer's stance, i'm on the right...ish. i'd consider myself a liberal, but the
Re:Golly. Gee. Gosh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pro death penalty I can see, the other two not so much. He has complained about liberals trying to legislate in the court room when they can't get laws passed, including on gay rights issues. He has also commented that abortion rights are dependent on the court's finding that a fetus does not qualify as a person, which even the most liberal judge should agree with.
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He has complained about liberals trying to legislate in the court room when they can't get laws passed, including on gay rights issues.
Is that because he isn't familiar with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution? That's rather disturbing for a Supreme Court Justice.
clearly forgetting cause for effect (Score:4, Informative)
Because the GOP was filibustering pretty much every nominee for purely partisan reasons. Funny how you left that part out.
Re:A rear-guard action for a fading party (Score:4, Interesting)
The conservatives know demographics are running against them,
Depends on how you slice it. Lots of Latinos are moving in, and they tend to be more conservative, to the point that some Latin American countries even ban abortion. They tend to be much more religious and socially conservative in general.