Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "anybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they’re misguided” http://t.co/WvLrqi1gap
— Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) September 23, 2014
Guess I’ll have to check out the fashion section at the local B&N newstand:
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I’m Not Going Anywhere
… In a rare interview—featured exclusively in the October issue of ELLE—she speaks frankly with Jessica Weisberg about everything from riding an elephant with Antonin Scalia to why people who want her to resign so President Obama can appoint another progressive justice are nuts.… What do you make of the term activist judge?
Depends on whose ox is being gored. You think of activism, Congress is supposed to make the laws. So, it passed a campaign finance law. This court says, “No, Congress, you can’t do that.” This court is labeled conservative, but it has held invalid more statutes than most courts. That’s why I say that activism is like “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” So the answer to the question: If a judge is called an activist, you know the person saying that doesn’t like the decision…
Does it make a difference having three women justices?Yes, an enormous difference….When Sandra left, I was all alone…. Now Kagan is on my left, and Sotomayor is on my right. So we look like we’re really part of the court and we’re here to stay. Also, both of them are very active in oral arguments. They’re not shrinking violets. It’s very good for the schoolchildren who parade in and out of the court to see…
Lots more goodies at the link, including RBG’s salute to her late husband Martin Ginsburg and a life-long romance.
In other social news, the Washington Post notes RBG just accepted the Institute for Education‘s 2014 Cultural Diplomacy Award.
***********
Apart from honoring our warriors, what’s on the agenda for the day?
raven
Speaking of warriors, we watched the last episode of the Roosevelts last night and the parts about Eleanor were especially good.
Mustang Bobby
RBG is amazing.
Slowly dragging my butt out of the house and to the office. I was up late (for me) seeing the final dress rehearsal of the University of Miami’s Ring Theatre production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” It’s a cute little musical with no memorable tunes but good performances by energetic students. Can’t believe it’s been forty years since I trod the boards at the old Ring.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: I found the parallels between the way the wing-nuts treated FDR and Eleanor and the current First Family especially interesting.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Yes! And I’m reading the Reagan book now and things just have not changed that much. The book starts with the POW’s and Watergate and the wingnuts are just the same as now. It makes me wonder how much to give a shit about the whole thing.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby: They even went after his dog Fala, just as they went after Bo. I did like FDR’s remarks, I’d read them before but hadn’t seen the video.
OzarkHillbilly
Challenging Mississippi’s depraved justice system: Months in jail, with no indictment and no lawyer
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action complaint in Mississippi today on behalf of an estimated 50 prisoners who have been languishing for months in a Scott County jail without access to a lawyer and without being indicted for a crime.
The ACLU asserts the class of plaintiffs may be even larger; this is just one county in a state rife with right-to-counsel problems.
….
This is the third time he’s been arrested in Scott County and found himself sitting in jail for months without an attorney or an indictment. Once, he was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault and disturbing the peace. It took 16 months for him to be formally indicted. Another time he sat in the Scott County jail for a year for “possession of firearm by a felon” before the sheriff finally released him on his own recognizance without a hearing. “All told, Mr. Burks has spent over three years in the Scott County jail since August 30, 2009, on the three separate charges,” the complaint states. “He has only been indicted once, he has never been to trial, and he has never been convicted.”
Mississippi is not alone.
Carolinus
Interesting interview as it actually includes some new information about RGB’s thinking. She apparently feels any nominee as progressive as her would currently be filibustered and for whatever reason feels chances of a better replacement making it through improve after ’14/’16. She also seems to be confident enough in her future health to gamble on waiting for a more optimal retirement moment.
Schlemazel
@Mustang Bobby:
What got me was that they went after his kids, all of whom saw actual combat & won decorations for bravery. That whole thing of wingnuts attacking military service while claiming to support the military struck me as very modern. SIgh, the more things change the more they stay the same.
I was surprise that Burns never even hinted at Eleanore’s sexuality. I know my mother told me that the GOP always was spreading rumors she was a lesbian. For the time that was very shocking. The echos of that are heard arouns HRC with a lot less reason.
Baud
@raven:
Yep. The only difference between now and then is that Democrats stopped competing for a large portion of the wingnut vote when we abandoned Jim Crow.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: As a theatre scholar, I’m impressed with their ability to turn a photo op (vide the “coffee cup salute“) into a five-act opera that would make Wagner quit the business. Where do they get the energy? If we could tap that, they’d knock the coal and gas industry on its ass.
Carolinus
@Carolinus:
Err, RBG even.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: That was hilarious, he was obviously loaded. We’ve had an interesting conversation here. My old man was off Okinawa on a destroyer, the first line of defense of the American Fleet. It was a horrific battle with somewhere in the vicinity of 200,000 dead. His recollection was that they really were not concerned that some old man died in bed in Georgia. I have always had that story in my mind and when I mentioned it to my father in law he was very disturbed. I think part of it was that he was in the V-12 program and did not go to the Pacific until the last couple of months. Anyway, it was interesting how the death of FDR impacted people.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: You see the pics of W saluting with his doggie in his arms?
http://nowscape.com/islam/images/Bush_dog_salute.jpg
raven
@Schlemazel: Brings to mind that old Vietnam Vets saying, “I don’t mean nuthin”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CtEvMIImOc
Mustang Bobby
@raven: Yes, I did. Someone at Michelle Malkin’s site said that while Obama was “disrespectful,” Bush was “adorable.” Gee, I wonder what was coloring their judgment?
Schlemazel
@raven:
Some clown posted the picture on Reddit last night so I linked to the dog salute pic that you did. COnversation got real quiet after that.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
I think it’s part of their social DNA. The same way you and I might get excited when our sports team is doing well.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: or “It ain’t nothing but a thing.”
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: My dad was in DC, so he was at the funeral parade for FDR. He said the lady next to him asked what would we do now without FDR. Dad told her that we’d be fine with Truman. My dad was from Missouri.
SFAW
I think Justice Ginsburg is wrong. If she were to retire, President Obama would be able to appoint liberal lion Andy Cuomo, or liberal stalwart Mary Landrieu (if she loses her election), and the net loss (re: left-side outlook) would be approximately zero, right?
BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: Not sure that either of those choices would get through the Senate.
SFAW
@Baud:
Is that the gene that increase the level of serotonin in their “brains” (so to speak)?
mai naem
I watched the Roosevelts’ last episode too and it was funny to see her criticized for pushing for physical education too, like Michelle. And the quote from Zumwalt on what Eleanor did when she visited. Barbara Bush would be bitching about how it hurt her beautiful head to see these burned faces. PBS did a doc on Eleanor a couple of years ago (American Experience???) and they talked about how she was underestimated when she was the US Rep at the UN because a lot of male reps from other countries thought she was just a silly little woman and she took advantage of that.
Botsplainer
I give you all the intellectual heft of David Brooks.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/opinion/david-brooks-snap-out-of-it.html?_r=0&referrer=
For this, he receives pay. Quite a lot of it.
You all can thank me now for sharing.
Mustang Bobby
@Botsplainer:
But nothing quite compares to the salad bar at Applebee’s.
SFAW
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, Andy would have all his upstate Rethug pals make the rounds to Grassley, Hatch, Jefferson Beauregard Session, and Butchy “Doe” Graham, (Sorry, Boston semi-inside joke re: Lindsey), and it would be smooth sailing, I would think.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sounds like a personal problem.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
Kay’s gonna love that little bit.
SFAW
@Botsplainer:
Ah, but his mere presence makes NYC so much more richerer, intellectually-speaking-wise, that I would disagree with him on that.
Or I would, if it would not embarrass him, what with him being all modest and humble and a subtle thinker and all that.
Mustang Bobby
Speaking of Roosevelt and World War II, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Upthecreek) warned an audience about America “heading for national socialism.”
Yeah, um… Nuremberg is really nice this time of year, Pat.
mai naem
@BillinGlendaleCA: I have a friend whose grandma lived through WW11 and refused to believe that FDR was disabled when it came out after he died that he was disabled. I sometimes deal with the elderly at work and have run across(not so much anymore because they’re dying off) lots of people who became Dems because of FDR. Ken Burns talks about how young TR and FDR were when they died. Same goes for LBJ. I’m surprised Carter is still around.
Botsplainer
@Mustang Bobby:
He generally has some like mindeds among The Olds following his twaddle. From the comments:
So much wrong in that, I can hardly see straight.
What that writer really means to say is that color knew it’s place, the NYPD knew how to bust heads without consequence and that you can make up stats about a mythical crime rate in order to sell a lie about a time that never was.
The question I have for Brooks is was he ever young? Did he ever do anything risky, daring, counter cultural? Get a tat? Vandalize something? Have a one-nighter because he was overcome with desire? Get in a fistfight?
Nobody ever gets to the end of his/her life and thinks “I wish I’d been an even bigger candy ass than I was. I just never had a corn cob far enough up my ass, nor was I really at the top possible form as a moral scold.”
PurpleGirl
@SFAW: No way. I want RBG to stay on the Court. No way would President Obama be able to get a liberal such as herself on the Court. And Andrew Cuomo ain’t no liberal, no way, no how.
Botsplainer
@SFAW:
The New York intellectuals of the 40s and 50s would have gutted him if he ever got elevated beyond the obituary desk.
debbie
@Schlemazel:
Sad how nothing’s changed. I recently read “The Angry Years” by Lynn Olson about the lead-up to WWII. Aside from Churchill’s shocking meddling in American affairs, what surprised me most was that the angry vitriol from the isolationists could just as easily come from today’s right wing. Instead of forming a 501c3 group, they formed a committee and printed flyers.
http://www.amazon.com/Those-Angry-Days-Roosevelt-Lindbergh/dp/1400069742
Mustang Bobby
@Botsplainer:
I am sure he was the teacher’s pet, the kid that said “I’m telling!” when his friends did daring things, and the image of him having a one-nighter just made me barf up a little in my mouth. Thanks.
delk
Gang brutally gay bash two guys in Philadelphia.
Everyone ID’d thanks to social media.
A week goes by and they only charge three of them.
As of today, they are EXPECTED TO TURN THEMSELVES IN.
Oh, did I mention they are white? Oh, and one of them is the daughter of the local police chief?
sigh
debbie
@Botsplainer:
Except that all that interesting stuff takes the kind of cash that most people don’t have. I guess we can be content, looking through the front window, watching the party going on inside (channelling Barbara Stanwyck).
Schlemazel
@PurpleGirl:
He was joking.
The unspoken risk with her idea is that it will be more likely to get a real progressive when she does go. I think if she can just hang on another 40 years or so the nation will have woken up to the con’s con and corrected a lot of elected errors. Can she do that?
BillinGlendaleCA
@mai naem: Well, Carter benefits from better medical care than we had in either 1919 or 1945 as well as a much healthier lifestyle than either TR or FDR. TR was on the heavy side and FDR was rarely seen without a cig.
PurpleGirl
I knew a fellow student at NYU whose name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt Seigel. He usually just called himself Frank Seigel. Except when he was at an Alumni function of some sort and was talking with Alums from NYU in the 1930s and 1940s. Then he used Franklin D.R. Seigel. And those Alums would recognize the F.D.R. and their eyes would start to shine with memories. It was something to see. (Frank was one of the students the Dean could put in with Alums and not be worried about what he would say or do. I was in that group too, but Frank excelled in those situation.)
Botsplainer
@Mustang Bobby:
The eraser banger, the one whose bar mitzvah was the least happily attended by eye-rolling girls, the guy whose prom date was arranged by his mother, the guy who never had a date for homecoming, the last guy selected for sandlot ball games, the spaz in gym class that the teacher/coach had to actually yell at to pick his ass up on running laps or playing a game…
Botsplainer
Oh, hey – there’s a “Shut Up David Brooks” tumblr!
http://shutupdavidbrooks.tumblr.com
Mustang Bobby
@Botsplainer: The suck-up to the football jocks so they wouldn’t pants him. “Hey, Biff, great game!”
OzarkHillbilly
2014′s Most and Least Happy States in America
SFAW
@Schlemazel:
Thanks. I thought I was being obvious, but apparently not so much.
I’m concerned that it will take longer than 40 years. I believe that – barring some cataclysm which causes the scales to fall from the eyes of the rest of the non-27-percenters – it will take more time than I have left in this plane of existence, but I was hoping my daughter would live long enough to see a liberal Renaissance (and a big FUCK YOU to Ralph Nader on that one). But with each passing year and each passing display of Reichtard psychosis, I become less optimistic.
I hope I am wrong. I really, REALLY hope I am wrong.
OzarkHillbilly
Weekly Standard Writer Says He Is On Terrorist Watch List
Seems appropriate to me.
Botsplainer
@Mustang Bobby:
Of course, he never actually went to the game – too pedestrian. He stayed home to read his latest National Review for some witty Buckley comments. After that, he watched Dallas and went to bed with visions of JR’s financial manipulations fueling the tiny, desiccated portion of his brain that is the”fantasy-pleasure” center.
qwerty42
@Mustang Bobby: …Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Upthecreek) warned an audience about America “heading for national socialism.”
Yeah. There is this lurid fascination with the Third Reich. I think they got all their knowledge of the era from war movies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperate_Journey) and comic books.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s a start. Now, if they would just add the rest of the Rethug Partei, we might be getting somewhere.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m 3 years older than he was when he died.
SFAW
@qwerty42:
Not sure Virginia residents would equate Roberts’s statement with Naziism, I would think he was going for the anti-commie sentiment, especially considering the anti-Obamacare screeching. And the anti-tax-increase-on-the-1-percenters screeching.
Schlemazel
@BillinGlendaleCA:
TR had several health issues from childhood, it was part of the reason he went West & drove himself physically to prove his vitality. I don’t recall if FDR had health issues but he could have & they just didn’t get diagnosed but he did have polio & that probably is not longevity enhancing.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: IIRC asthma was the hardest for him as a child, forcing him to sit out various sports. Led to hisconstantly trying to prove his manhood later on.
Schlemazel
@Botsplainer:
So, except for the Bar Mitzvah (I was raised Methodist) you described my childhood to a T. Where did I go wrong? I could be a mediocre writer for his kind of money!
@Mustang Bobby:
In my defense, I never sucked up to the any of the jocks. Never got pantsed but they treated me poorly enough so as not to matter.
Schlemazel
@SFAW:
You’re singing my tune. Now if you would do that while Omnes was around maybe he would not label me as the most negative person here :)
Botsplainer
@Schlemazel:
It’s never too late for redemptive coolness, even in middle years. Fencing classes, gymnasia, dance classes, scuba shops, skydive operations, tattoo parlors, dive bars that cater to under 40s and piercing studios all await you!
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: You forgot “Friends Camp”.
Botsplainer
@OzarkHillbilly:
Friends Camp is anti-cool. If I want to sit around and talk awkwardly with people who don’t understand me, my values, my hobbies or my life, I can go to a family reunion on my mom’s extended side.
MomSense
@Mustang Bobby:
They have hundreds of years of racism and racist policies to defend. Proving that he is the failiest failure who ever failed is of utmost importance to maintaining that America’s original sin was and is justified.
MomSense
@Mustang Bobby:
It was that image and not the
that did it??
Mustang Bobby
@MomSense: I figured they were one and the same.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: Which explains Panama, the Spanish-American war, and his wildlife killing spree in Africa.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: And so much more…
rikyrah
yeah, that will work out, Marco. Tell the United States Armed Forces that they will always be stationed somewhere.
ok.
yeah, try and sell that.
He is SO out of his league.
………………………
Rubio eyes ‘permanent U.S. troop presence’ in Middle East
By Steve Benen 09/24/14 08:51AM
President Obama recently summarized his vision for a military offensive against Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria. The administration’s entire approach was packaged in four sentences:
“To confront the Islamic State terrorists, we need a sustained air campaign targeting their leadership, sources of income and supply routes, wherever they exist. We must increase our efforts to equip and capacitate non-jihadists in Syria to fight the terrorist group. And we must arm and support forces in Iraq confronting it, including responsible Iraqi partners and the Kurds. In addition, we must persuade nations in the region threatened by the Islamic State to participate in real efforts to defeat it.”
Wait, did I say that was President Obama’s summary of his policy? I meant this was an op-ed from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), in which the far-right senator condemned “the president’s failed isolationist policies.”
Rubio has been going out of his way to position himself as a leading, hawkish voice on foreign policy, though his efforts have occasionally been awkward, as evidenced by the senator urging Obama to follow the exact same course Obama himself had already presented to the nation two days earlier.
This continued yesterday when the Florida Republican talked to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto about developments in the Middle East.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-eyes-permanent-us-troop-presence-middle-east
SFAW
@Schlemazel:
No (am I being negative by using that word?), I’m happy to let you draw fire.
Besides, I have plenty of other traits which annoy people. Like being wicked smaht. (Didn’t know I was the test subject for Professors Dunning and Kruger, did you? Pretty impressive, to my mind. And Bobo’s too, prolly.)
MomSense
@Mustang Bobby:
HA!!!
debbie
@rikyrah:
Someone’s been listening to Bill O’Reilly…
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/o-reilly-has-an-isis-strategy–2
Punchy
I’m putting this in the WTF category.
I mean, really? In 2014, he can just say this straight out?
Punchy
Can someone tell me what word in my comment triggered a moderation status?
SiubhanDuinne
@Punchy:
Wasn’t in your comment, it was in your link — the dreaded Čäśįñø word.
SFAW
@Punchy:
You’re kidding, right? After five-plus years of Obama-as-witch-doctor/Hitler pictures, secession talk, various threatening statements regarding Obama, the Supremes deciding racism is dead, Louie Gohmer/Michele Bachmann/Steve King/Donald Trump/Reince Priebus/take-your-pick saying the vile shit they’ve been saying, Perdue calling Michelle Nunn a terrorist sympathizer, and so on and so on, you really think Straub’s statement is beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Punchy: Why yes, he sure can. Racist fucktards can say anything they want, it’s in the constitution, and frankly I love it when they do so I know who to avoid.
But you missed the even more shameless part: he’s bidding 90 million for a 2.4 billion dollar property. 3.75 cents on the dollar. Takes some balls to present that with a straight face.
A Humble Lurker
@OzarkHillbilly:
Perhaps I’m just dumb, but I can’t make heads or tails of that.
SFAW
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
The former Wang Towers sold for $525K. When I heard that, I was kicking myself for not bidding. Not that I (normally) could have afforded that kind of mortgage in those days, but I bet I could have gotten friends in on the deal.
Tractarian
You go girl! Show the world it’s not just men who value their ego over the well-being of their fellow citizens!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@SFAW: Wow. Buys in 1994 for 525k – something an average citizen and a few friends could afford. Sells in 1998 for $100 million. Four years and you’d be set for life.
Lotta good luck involved in timing the market like they did, but they did it right. Problem with this last recession is that no commercial real estate hit “fire sale” levels of pricing here in SoCal. Probably never will unless we repeal Prop 13 for commercial properties – too much motivation to hang on through bad times if your tax burden is what it was back in 1979.
SFAW
@Tractarian:
You don’t really believe that shit, do you? There’s no way we’d get anyone close to as liberal as RBG – not now, not after Hillary (presumably) gets elected – unless the Rethugs lose a massive number of Senate seats. Ego? No, she sees what the Roberts Court has done, and she’s saying (in effect) that it would only get worse if she steps down “for the good of the country/Party” or whatever.
Now, if Scalia and Sock-Puppet stepped down, for the good of sanity and rationality, it might be worth considering, but not until at least TWO of those mofos retire.
SFAW
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
No way FSM loves me that much. Nice to daydream about, however.
MBunge
@Carolinus: She also seems to be confident enough in her future health to gamble on waiting for a more optimal retirement moment.
Then she’s a fool. I’m not saying she should step down. I would like to still think the Supreme Court should be above these kind of political games, which would make me an even greater fool. The political calculus here is pretty inescapable, though.
Anyone Obama nominated will be far better, from the liberal perspective, than anyone nominated by a Republican.
The likelihood of any near-future Democratic President nominating someone substantially more liberal than Obama would is so small as to be practically microscopic and, given the possibility of a GOP-controlled Senate, the near-future chances of any substantially more liberal nominee getting confirmed have to be quantified in sub-atomic terms.
It ain’t all about you, RBG.
Mike
SFAW
@MBunge:
Whether she retires/leaves tomorrow or three years from now, the likelihood of getting anyone within spitting distance of liberal is already microscopic. So she should retire ASAP because we’ll get someone who is less-bad than someone who would get nominated by Jeb Bush?
Even if the Dems retain control of the Senate after the midterms, the likelihood of getting anyone halfway close to RBG (judicial-and-political-philosopy-wise) is just about zero. We’d be lucky to get anyone to the left of Kennedy. So because there’s a chance that her successor might be another Scalia (which is also unlikely, I think), she should resign now? I can’t see how that’s anything like a winning argument.
MBunge
@SFAW: So because there’s a chance that her successor might be another Scalia (which is also unlikely, I think), she should resign now?
As the Court is currently composed, RBG isn’t making any law or setting any precedents. She’s ALREADY on the losing side. Whether she’s there or another Democratic nominee isn’t going to change that. However, putting a Democratic nominee slightly younger than 81 on the court might make a very big difference indeed in the composition of the court in the future.
Mike
SFAW
@MBunge:
There’s no one Obama could nominate today – not Jesus returned (that socialist), not Moses the Lawgiver (too Jewish, too liberal) – who would (or even could) get through before the midterms. There’s (likely) no one Obama could nominate after the midterms who will be anything other than a Kennedy clone, except ever-so-slightly more liberal than Kennedy. If the Rethugs take the Senate, it won’t matter who Obama nominates. If the Dems retain the Senate, it (mostly) won’t matter who Obama nominates – there is no deal he could cut with the Rethugs that would allow him to get anyone semi-liberal on the Court. Oh, but they’re young, so that’ll help. Except not if they’re another Kennedy or worse.
I get a little tired of variants of “let’s try something the Rethugs might be OK with, because maybe they’ll stop being evil motherfuckers for a little bit.” What you’re proposing is, in some ways, one of those variants.
ETA: And as far as “being on the losing side”: the solution is not to ensure even more losses, by trading an 81-year-old liberal for a young conservative.
cckids
@Mustang Bobby:
I’ve always equated him with Sid from Tom Sawyer – superficially well behaved, with a dishonest, mean streak he keeps hidden from adults.
MBunge
@SFAW: If the Rethugs take the Senate, it won’t matter who Obama nominates. If the Dems retain the Senate, it (mostly) won’t matter who Obama nominates – there is no deal he could cut with the Rethugs that would allow him to get anyone semi-liberal on the Court.
And that dynamic is going to change…HOW? Will there be any difference if Hillary is President?
And what exactly happens if the Republicans win the White House in 2016? That doesn’t look too likely right now, but how likely did it look like Bill Clinton would be president in 1990 or Barack Obama in 2006? Is the then-83 year old RBG going to spend another 8 years on the court trying to outwait a Christie Administration?
Mike
texasdem
@Schlemazel: FDR had scorchingly high blood pressures. It’s really a miracle he didn’t die much sooner, or have a disabling stroke like President Wilson (although having Eleanor essentially take over as Edith Wilson did would have been fine).
SFAW
@MBunge:
Forgive me repeating myself, but:
Because only a conservative would get through in the next 3 years, unless there’s a near-total Rethug meltdown in the next 5-6 weeks. I’d rather take my chances that RBG makes it long enough that her successor is much less likely to be Kennedy-lite. And if things get tough enough for her that she has to retire before 2017, there won’t really have been any ground lost.
Trying to make it sound like an ego thing for RBG is a no-op. She may not be totally selfless – I don’t know if she is/isn’t – but her assessment is fundamentally correct, and your apparent belief that her retiring would somehow help the liberal cause is the stuff of unicorns.
SFAW
@MBunge:
And with a significantly-more-liberal-than-today Senate, Hillary might actually nominate another left-of-center candidate. Do I think the Senate will be like that? I only give it about a 20 percent chance (number based on nothing more than a wild guess). Do I think Hillary will win? As of today, probably – but if Jeb runs, I think her numbers drop. Probably still win, but a tighter race. Do I think Hillary would nominate another William O. Douglas or Thurgood Marshall? Probably not, but not guaranteed she wouldn’t, either.
But saying today that it’s turtles all the way down for the next 10 years is pointless. Might as well speculate that the next one after Hillary will be a theocon, “and what will RBG do then, huh? Can she live to 100? Huh? Huh? Answer me THAT, SFAW!” It’s a pointless exercise to assume her resignation today would make anything any better.
DissidentFish
@SFAW: Anything could happen in 2016. Dems tend to be strong in presidential years, and Republicans Johnson (WI), Toomey (PA), Portman (OH), Burr (NC), Ayotte (NH), Blunt (MO), Kirk (IL), and Rubio (FL) have done nothing productive in their Senate terms and can all be defeated. Shelby (AL) will retire. Isaksson (GA) will retire. McCain (AZ), Grassley (IA), and probably Coats (IN) will leave seats open — and Democrats could pick those three up.
We’ll know better after this year’s election, but between the core republican voter aging, and the possibility that the republicans have dug themselves a do-nothing, dead-end hole they can’t get out of — 2016 could have 60+ Dem count in the Senate.
(Of course, I did think Mondale was going to beat Reagan…)
SFAW
@DissidentFish:
I am always hopeful, but I think you’re being overly optimistic about 2016. Ayotte’s in no danger, nor is Rubio. A Dem picking up an Arizona seat seems unlikely, same with ‘Bama. Portman doesn’t seem vulnerable at the moment (Kay, if you’re reading this, and I’m wrong, please correct me), Missouri is almost as crazy as some of the Deep South (the Carnahans and McCaskill notwithstanding).
A year ago, I could have made a lot of money betting on Rick Scott to win, since his approval rating was in the dirt. Today? As I asked Betty a week or so ago, is Bob Shrum running Crist’s campaign, or is Crist just shitty? (To be fair, Betty is more optimistic than I, and she lives there, so I’m trying not to get too down about it.)
I’d love to see a 60+ Dem Senate, but I don’t think it’s likely. I will be ecstatic to be proved wrong, of course. Even more so if it’s President Warren. (I can’t conceive of a Rethug I’d vote for over Hillary, but she’s as corporate as her husband or Andy Cuomo – although hopefully not as corrupt as Andy. As long as she doesn’t take campaigning lessons from Martha Coakley.)
SFAW
@DissidentFish:
You probably shouldn’t have done so much Owsley in 1984