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Supreme Court Nominee - Neil M. Gorsuch |OT|
- Thread starter GK86
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nitekrawlwer
Member
Ah. Then perhaps I misread the conversation.
Coriolanus
Banned
Last Week Tonite promoted exactly that point, if memory serves.
All I know is that no matter how unfair it is, blocking this dude will hurt Dems in a way it didn't hurt the GOP when they did worse and without good reason and then he'll get appointed anyway. The double standard the GOP uses against Dems is frustrating.
People need to vote in 2017 and start rebuilding government from the bottom up, cuz 2018 and/or impeachment ain't nothing to bank on.
People need to vote in 2017 and start rebuilding government from the bottom up, cuz 2018 and/or impeachment ain't nothing to bank on.
ultratruman
Banned
Clinton was a flawed candidate. Outside of the Democratic party, her favorable ratings were consistently poor.
To your 'white people' comment, Trump actually did slightly better than Romney amongst minorities, especially Latino men. Hillary actually did better amongst white people overall than Obama, but Trump was able to steal the one demographic with a massively oversized weight in the electoral college: uneducated working class whites.
Its extremely easy for the GOP to cast themselves as the responsible and safe party, by virtue of their inherently reactionary message of returning things to the past/conserving the status quo. Democrats are inherently the party of change, and that means they have less room for error when it comes to being seen as a risk. The Democrats need to look at Hillary's defeat and decide whether they can afford to be seen as volatile and untrustworthy.
Mercury Fred
Banned
Shutting it down would be closing the doors and having it unoccupied and totally not functioning in any way. Pausing would be making no new appointments, writing no Executive Orders, making no changes to existing offices and introducing no new offices.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
This isn't a thread about Hillary, it's a thread about the Republicans' attempt to steal a SCOTUS seat. Leave this shit outta here.
Clinton was a flawed candidate. Outside of the Democratic party, her unfavorable ratings were consistently poor. To your 'white people' comment, Trump actually did slightly better than Romney amongst minorities, especially Latino men.
Hillary actually did better amongst white people overall than Obama, but Trump was able to steal the one demographic with a massively oversized weight in the electoral college: uneducated working class whites.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Nobody is going to lose their seat over a Supreme Court nominee. Doesn't matter the party.
metalslimer
Member
Gorsuch should be filibustered until a law is passed preventing what happened last year from happening ever again
There is absolutely no reason to relent on this. That seat is fucking stolen and nominated by a fucking traitor
There is absolutely no reason to relent on this. That seat is fucking stolen and nominated by a fucking traitor
I know I'm posting this on GAF, but "steal" is a bit of hyperbole.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trumps-ethics-train-wreck/513446/
Here's an extensive article on the topic. The second paragraph contains several more links.
The tl;dr is that Trump owns an international business which does business with foreign governments constantly, and thus receives emoluments from them constantly.
Ok, that's still shutting down the power and abilities of the Executive office. And an investigation happening is still not enough reason to do that.
I think if Scalia had his way, there wouldn't Have even been a vacant seat under Obama. I'm willing to bet that if he was still alive, he would be leaving his seat to replace with Trump as president anyway. Death was the first thief in this situation.
metalslimer
Member
No it was president obamas to nominate and the senates to at least consider. But they didn't want to consider even if it meant voting no
Like if they were to have voted him down that would have been one thing but they knew he was too reasonable to vote down thus they stonewalled for a year
Death is explicitly allowed to turn full SCOTUS seats into empty ones. That's the whole process.
Ah, his business. Yeah, that's not nearly enough to get him impeached as it stands right now.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
A vacancy opened up underneath Obama, Obama offered a nominee and the Republicans refused to acknowledge him. By constitutional duty, that seat is Obama's to fill and the Republicans will now have that seat. If Ginsburg or Breyer die before Trump is out of office, do you think Trump should leave the seat vacant until a Democrat takes his office?
Impeachment only requires political will from Congress.
Big Baybee
Member
They stole it. How would you describe it?
And there is none for that reason.
Coriolanus
Banned
You will find no opposing argument from me in the topic of clinton's turrible indicators.
Still, historically that was not the case
so, as i said, there was reason to believe that she mite pull that off, esp since the The Don also had quite the shit indicators there.
Either way, the original point was about the party's trustworthiness, not the candidate's, and as i'd mentioned, the dem party had given the voters plenty of reasons to believe that they were the sane party (even if they went ignored), not shutting down the god damn government for no good reason being quite the bigly one. And yet the party was kicked to the curb both in 2010 and 2014.
Thus, given that one party's repeatedly belligerent stance was handsomely rewarded, while the other's sanity was harshly punished, how should the other proceed?
Considering the Republicans' justification for not even considering Garland was the "Biden Rule," I think they've set the precedent for exactly that if Ginsburg or Breyer were to die in 2020.
Mercury Fred
Banned
It's really more of a pause. And the unprecedented nature of this situation demands unprecedented measures. So, yes it's more than enough.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
There's none because Trump will sign whatever horrifying legislation congressional Republicans produce for him, not because there aren't impeachable offenses in his violation of the Emoluments Clause.
Show me the legal framework that move would operate in.
Well I do believe there are things Trump could do/have done that could lead to him being impeached. That just isn't enough.
CadetMahoney
Member
That's what I said. The Republican Party is deliberately collaborating with the undermining of our constitution and our democratic norms in an effort to take healthcare away from people and give tax cuts to the rich.
I mean, lots of Presidents should have been impeached but weren't. On the list of crimes they have committed Trump owning companies isn't super high.
Still gross, of course.
Where did I say that they were in the right to do it. I'm just saying I understand why they were salty enough to pull that shit.
ultratruman
Banned
Here's my theory for why the Democratic party crumbled under Obama: Although he himself was a man of profound depth and charisma, which ensured his own electoral success, he was also extraordinarily Left-wing for a US president.
EIectorally, there was no way the GOP were going to win in 08, and there's no denying Obama was an extremely good candidate and was effective at turning out his support. But he by no means won landslides, and was the first President in history to be re-elected with a reduced majority. His domestic agenda never helped him win.
Obama was popular, but his policies were easy to paint as dangerous. The ACA was relatively modest in terms of the scope of the legislation, but it completely undermined the fundamental US ideology of 'freedom of choice', and effectively made access to healthcare a right. This what spawned the Tea Party movement, and ultimately began the plummeting numbers of Democrats in office.
Here's the thing: the central message of a Conservative party is stasis. They're anchored in preserving the status quo, in ideas like stability and the rule of law. Being perceived as the party that will never try to change things gives you flexibility to be reckless, partisan and irresolute with details, and still be most people's 'default choice'.
A progressive party has it tougher. Although I believe most people would prefer to vote for centre-left partys, it's very difficult to be trusted when you're seen as wanting to change things. Riskiness and untrustworthiness is a huge vulnerability for leftwing politicians, and the Right are very good at exploiting this.
You don't have to just look at how leftwing Democratic candidates were from 1968-1994, look at the state of politics in the UK right now. Despite the absolute shambles of our current unelected conservative PM, the opposition leader is basically the UK version of Bernie Sanders (an old school lefty with a lot of dodgy foreign policy positions) and is getting absolutely hammered in the polls.
Please, Democratic supporters, do not make the same mistake as us and think you can afford to reduce yourselves to just a resistance, instead of an electable government in waiting.
"You can't complain about Nazis killing people if you kill Nazis."
Mercury Fred
Banned
The FBI has confirmed there is an espionage investigation involving the White House. This is uncharted territory in modern American politics. If the framework's not there (though I'm happy to research through the night), who fucking cares? Build it now.
by salty you mean terrified of the court shifting leftwards
You guys get that there's no actual law that says there should be five conservative justices, right? That's just because of Reagan.
If people want a nonpartisan court, I'm actually fine with that (I propose that the GOP choose four, the Dems choose four, and then the eight justices choose a Chief Justice themselves), but today we don't have one. Until last year the rule was that the president filled vacancies, subject to some light Senate confirmation. Now, apparently, the rule is that a Senate supermajority plus a president fills vacancies and otherwise they sit vacant.
The 2016 election and elections in 2010 and 2014 already validated that Republican tactics work.
Build it how? Who has that power? Who gets to declare the EO under investigation to the point where it is shut down?
This is not a simple or easy thing. I'm not conferable giving any power to shut down the Executive Branch to any one individual.
Not to split hairs, but it's the Trump presidential campaign being investigated not the administration. There is overlap but there are also suspected members no longer associated with Trump (e.g. Manafort).
Blocking Gorsuch isn't "doing the same thing," it's correcting the invalid move of the republicans. The way to set things back to normal is to confirm Garland or equivalent. Letting Gorsuch through just breaks things permanently.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Didn't he get outted?
Mercury Fred
Banned
I'm not saying it's simple or easy. I'm saying it's an emergency and needs to be treated as such.
That really is splitting hairs. And there's overlap. So.
It haven't reached the level of any imminent emergency. There is no legal way to do what you are talking about right now. Which means to even begin setting up such a process, the President would have to be onboard with it.
And it's not splitting hairs. For action to be taken against Trump, Trump would have had to break the law.
Mercury Fred
Banned
It is splitting hairs. There's a long list Of Trump campaign staffers and now cabinet (and family members) with known, deep Russian ties. And Trump himself has known, deep, Russian entanglements. It's more than enough to freeze the Executive Branch while the investigation is ongoing.
And speaking of legitimacy and integrity, The SC's integrity was already damaged by denying Obama his appointment. Allowing a Russian collaborator to make a lifetime appointment to The SC would permanently undermine the institution's integrity and destroy the public's faith in it.
You keep saying that, but it's just not true. There is no way to do what you described. The Legislative branch can't do it, the Judicial branch can't do it, and no part of the Executive branch can.
It's not reasonable or possible. There is an investigation, and we'll see what comes from that. Until then, that orange pile of crap is the President.
Mercury Fred
Banned
And you keep saying that it's somehow urgent for an administration under investigation for espionage to make appointments, especially lifetime appointments because of... reasons? It's absurd to suggest that there's anything remotely pressing about The SC appointment, especially after what we witnessed last year. If you're so concerned about the integrity of institutions, perhaps you should consider how what you're suggesting perverts those very institutions.
For this discussion, it does not matter the urgency of the President's act. He has the power to nominate a SC Justice, and he has done so. No one has the power to take that ability away from him without impeachment.
Mercury Fred
Banned
You've argued that the integrity of institutions are at stake. So you need to address how the integrity of those institutions are jeopardized by allowing a compromised administration under investigation for colluding With Russia to make lifetime appointments in this environment.
I'm off to bed btw. I'll pop in tomorrow.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
No it is not. It is exactly what they did. The seat should have been Obama's to fill.
Until an investigation has actually shown wrongdoing on Trump's part, there is no conflict here. I don't care if they are under investigation, "under investigation" isn't a state of being that the Constitution makes provisions for.
The Director of the FBI doesn't get to shut down the Executive Branch.
Exactly. It's a very bad situation to be in, because on top of that you are going to be damned if you do let him through (by your own base) or damned if you don't (by appearing to be obstructionist).
Personally, given what we've seen in the hearings I think the Democrats will let him through. It would be nice to extract some concessions out of Senate Republicans in exchange but that prospect is dubious at best and ridiculous at worst.
I will not personally blame them for doing this and I encourage fellow Dems to do the same. Judge Gorsuch is the best of bad options. Save the fight for 2018 and beyond when we might have the numbers. The press has already begun painting Gorsuch as a consensus builder and and independent thinker. Doubt we're going to be able to change independents mind on him even though his record may differ in some cases.
Two parting thoughts -- really want to wipe that smug smile off of Sen. Graham's face. I cannot even fathom the dishonesty it takes to actually make that statement about congeniality in the chamber given what went on the past year. 2nd -- really feel bad for Judge Garland in this situation. I would be devastated if that happened to me personally.
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