Was watching All in with Chris Hayes and he, as well as many other journalists, pundits, and what not, seem to think that there is no way a SCOTUS nominee is going to go through. I just don’t get it- where have these people been the last seven years? Will they never learn? We’re a few days in and the GOP wall of obstruction is already crumbling into farce:
After Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead on Saturday, many Republican senators categorically ruled out confirming any nominee by President Barack Obama.
“This vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement.
Soon, a number of colleagues—including Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rob Portman of Ohio, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, all of whom face tough reelection battles—came out in agreement.
But within 72 hours, the GOP began showing some signs of division on tactics. Some Republicans are open to at least considering an Obama nominee in the GOP-controlled Senate, even if it amounts to nothing more than a show trial. Other still want to reflexively block any hearings or votes regardless of who Obama chooses.
It’s a sign that at least some in the party fear political blowback if Republicans look like they’re being unreasonable in obstructing Obama with almost a full year left in his term.
All Obama has done, mind you, is state “I’m going to do my job and I expect them to do theirs.”
That’s it. Wait till he starts lacing up his Chucky T’s and gets in the game.
I can't believe seven years in to his Presidency people are questioning whether Obama is going to get his pick. pic.twitter.com/3xJL9HcATS
— John Cole (@Johngcole) February 14, 2016
Trentrunner
We’ll see. Obama doesn’t win every time. Odds are against him this time. So wish he’d nominate Anita Hill.
Anyway, what’s this about Obama voting to filibuster Alioto’s nomination (under GWB)? Did Obama do that knowing the filibuster would be overridden?
Corner Stone
Is he?
Zinsky
The Repubes may block Obama’s nominee, but I’ll bet they lose the White House AND Senate as a result. What’s that adage about cutting off your nose to spite your face?
Gin & Tonic
Hey Cole, can you ask Alain to give us comment numbers back?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
I’m hopeful that No Drama Obama will get his pick approved also.
But it’s certainly possible that the Teabaggers will burn down the Senate so that he doesn’t. If that conflagration does come to pass, we’ll have to work to ensure that the Teabaggers never have the power to do that again…
Cheers,
Scott.
Bizono
I think that the politically savvy thing for the GOP to do is to sit on their hands until after the primaries and then hold hearings and vote to confirm Obama’s inevitably moderate appointee a few months prior to the general election.
But what the hell do I know? I’m just some dirty hippy…
slag
Whoever he picks, I’m sure she’ll be highly qualified and well worth confirming.
Tim C.
So… Yeah…. Sometimes I think he’s also America’s first Jedi president.
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: I’m pretty sure we’re going to need to assemble The Monuments Men to get back to a useful fucking platform.
NotMax
Should a Republican get in, no reason at all not to expect a bill to be promoted officially turning the calendar back from 2017 to 2009, erasing Obama’s time in office altogether.
The slow motion suicide of a major political party is not a pretty sight.
Percysowner
@Trentrunner: According to Wikipedia The Democrats in the Senate talked about filibustering Alioto but nothing really came of it. 25 Democrats, including Obama and Hillary Clinton voted to filibuster, nowhere near enough to actually filibuster and that was that. What they didn’t do was threaten to filibuster anyone nominated regardless of credentials and without any hearing. It’s the same old false equivalence, “both sides do it” nonsense we always hear.
amk
The problem is hayes and his cable noise idjits ilk are taken seriously by bloggers.
Trentrunner
@Percysowner: Thanks. So Obama made a symbolic filibuster vote, knowing that Alito would be confirmed anyway.
Not the same as what our Senate is threatening to do.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
President Black Ninja does the unimpeachable Constitutional thing, then stands back and watches the DERP. The GOPers are so predictable in their inability to learn anything.
Suzanne
If he nominated Anita Hill, I think I would die of The Laffs that I would have. I cannot imagine anything more hilarious than the Sad White Tears coming from every right-wing douche.
Hill is too classy to put herself or us through this again.
Doug R
@Gin & Tonic: Use your phone
NotMax
Miraculous that Thomas seems able to move and speak without Scalia’s hand up his butt.
Matt McIrvin
He might not actually get a nominee through, but he might be able to make them regret it.
Suzanne
@NotMax: I’m actually kind of loving it. I wish they would just lie back and enjoy it at this point (think of England), but it’s still kinda funny.
Patricia Kayden
@Zinsky: I believe that’s what will happen. The Senate will flip and the White House will stay with the Democrats.
John is being very optimistic which is great. However, I’m not sure if these Republicans see any downside to straight up obstructionism. I just don’t see them voting for President Obama’s nominee.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I was watching Hayes tonight, too, and something struck me that I hadn’t thought of, and that I haven’t heard anybody bring up, which is, that there are eight other people still sitting on that court, at least five or six of whom I can’t believe want to let the seat sit empty for a year.
Roberts–well, I don’t see eye to eye with him on most things, but he truly seems to care about the reputation of the court. I can’t think Kennedy would want to see the court hobbled this way for a year, either. What happens if either of those guys begin quietly telling McConnell and the other Republicans who aren’t suicide bombers to stop fucking around and do their jobs?
Keith P.
Basically, if Rubio or Jeb become the nominee, Obama’s not getting his pick. If it’s Cruz/Trump, they take what they can get with Obama.
Gin & Tonic
@Doug R: No.
Mnemosyne
@slag:
I’m still hoping for Goodwin Liu, even if he is a dude. First Asian-American Supreme Court Justice? Yes, please!
Corner Stone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Who in the R Senate gives one tiny fuck what they want?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: It does seem that the site design has, eh, regressed in the past 24 hours.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: I like Neal Katyal. Its the fact that he stuck his neck out for the Gitmo prisoners, plus it will make wingnut heads explode.
smintheus
I chewed out a callow young staffer in Toomey’s office this morning. He repeatedly interrupted me to insist “No it is not disgusting!”. Apparently voters are now supposed to call in to Toomey’s office to find out what they’re to believe, rather than to express their own beliefs.
kindness
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): You have a higher regard for Roberts’ honor than I do.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Corner Stone:
Well, I know, people like Cruz or Cotton or Sessions or Lee don’t give a shit. Those whose seats are up this year might well care a little, though. And there are even a few older senators who seem to have some vestigial, though badly stunted, sense of duty.
Patricia Kayden
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Given how much the Republican base hates President Obama, what would be the upside for Republicans voting for any nominee? That base is already furious that their politicians haven’t put the Kenyan Muslim in his place.
Lolis
Yeah, I am not sure why liberals quickly surrendered to obstruction. It plays into the media narrative that this normal. Maybe he won’t get his pick, but I agree that he has the skills to get it done. It was incredibly dumb for a couple of those senators to come out in support of the suicide mission, especially Kelly Ayotte. She tries to come across as moderate. I can see Susan Collins and Murkowski voting for the pick, especially if it is a woman. I hope it is a woman because like RBG said, we will only have enough, when all the justices are women.
smintheus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Or what if a Justice is asked and states publicly that they expect to have their colleague replaced this year.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I also like Liu because the Republicans specifically blocked him from a spot on the Ninth Circuit to try and prevent him from being in a position to advance him to the Supreme Court. Brown appointed him to the CA Supreme Court instead, where he’s been kicking butt. So I like him for both aspects.
Kamala Harris’ name was getting thrown around — she is our current Attorney General — but we’d rather make her our next US Senator, if it’s all the same.
LookingForACanadian
<3 you John C.
Brent
I have a lot of faith in this President but I don’t really see how he pulls this off despite your almost infectious optimism John. BUT IF HE DOES? That, my friends, will cement his position as one of the GOAT. It will certainly extend his political influence for decades going forward which is a very good thing.
Corner Stone
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): No, I’m pretty sure you’re not getting it. No one in the R Senate gives one tiny fuck what jerkface assholes confirmed for life want.
Corner Stone
If I am an R elected Senator, why would I give one tiny, little spec of caring what a SCOTUS judge wants? I know what I’m doing. And it’s flipping the bird to any vote on a replacement for Scalia. FOREVER.
The base hates John Rogers.
burnspbesq
You’re awfully confident in your judgment for somebody who has gotten every Obamacare Supreme Court decision dead wrong, boyo.
mclaren
If anyone thinks the Republicans in congress can stonewall a presidential supreme court nominee for 11 months, I’ve not news for you:
Not.
Gonna.
Happen.
Obama will appoint a Supreme Court judge. And that judge will tilt the Supreme court back toward sanity.
No more Citizens United v. FEC, bitches.
dr. bloor
@smintheus: I highly doubt the SCOTUS wants to be seen as sticking its nose into the Senate’s business, which is what that amounts to.
Major Major Major Major
OT: ¡JEB! forgot to renew jebbush.com and now it redirects to Trump’s website. Epic troll.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was surprised Portman came out so quickly to echo McConnell, only because he strikes me as more cautious than that (the story I saw implied he announced with McCain as if it were more than a coincidence in timing, but it was a bit unclear) but even given that, he and Ayotte will chuck Senator Yertle under the bus in a heartbeat if they think doing otherwise will cost them any measurable support. So would McCain, but that’s a much more remote possibility.
Lindsey Graham suggested Orrin Hatch as a compromise candidate, and probably meant it.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
Tino Cuellar might be even a better choice that Liu if the objective to fuck the Republicans in November.
Frosty in Dallas
Adalberto Jose Jordan
Cuban born appellate judge
11th Circuit Appeals Judge (appointed by Obama, confirmed by a 94-5 vote) since 2012.
District Judge in Southern District of Florida (appointed by Clinton, confirmed by a 93-1 vote) from 1999 to 2012.
Cruz and Marco come out against him???
no tienen cajones.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Corner Stone:
Who?
Corner Stone
@mclaren: Why can’t they?
dr. bloor
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He needs to figure out how to get better oxygen flow through that closet he’s in.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren: There ya got it folk, the next President will appoint Fat Tony’s replacement.
burnspbesq
@mclaren:
Why, pray tell?
dr. bloor
@Major Major Major Major: You just knew he was going to end up shooting himself in the foot with that gun of his.
Corner Stone
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yikes. CJ Roberts.
My only possible excuse is the crazification factor was on my mind.
ETA, Although…they probably don’t like John Rogers very much , either.
dammit
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Patricia Kayden: There are still some people in the Senate that can be persuaded that they face a greater risk from the voters from siding with the insane Teabaggers than from actually doing their jobs.
It’s still very early in this process. We’ve heard the maximalist initial positions. We’ve heard things like that in the past, and things eventually were resolved before the country fell over the cliff.
There apparently are 24 GOP Senate seats up this year. There are 44 Senate Democrats.
Assuming that 51 votes are need to approve Obama’s nominee, that means 7 of the 54 GOP Senators need to feel some heat. 7/24 is less than 30% of those up for re-election. It’s not an impossible task.
And once there is a majority, the pressure to make the vote closer to the usual nearly-unanimous approval will become even stronger. They might even go the “without objection” route – who knows.
But we’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Major Major Major Major: I have to admit, I kinda like Trump for pulling that stunt. Really fucking funny.
If they’re going to turn our electoral process into an episode of Jackass, I might as well get stoned, sit back, eat nachos, and laugh until I cant breathe.
east is east
Mitch McConnell is not an idiot. He is a frightened puppet. Life is so much easier when one has the freedom to tell the truth.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Anyone Obama appoints will be a good replacement.
burnspbesq
I will admit to being surprised to see Thom Tillis as the first Republican Senator to waffle. He may be slightly less of a dick than I previously believed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I can’t think Kennedy would want to see the court hobbled this way for a year, either.
Sandra D’s been willing to speak out, and I could see a joint op/ed from her and Stevens, assuming he’s still active. Not that this would necessarily be a game-changer, but who knows what will happen?
Nobody, that’s who.
amk
dolt 45
burnspbesq
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Makes perfect sense, except for one thing. The relevant number isn’t 51, it’s 60. Supreme Court nominations can still be filibustered. And as much as I wish I could, I just can’t see 14 Repugnants going off the reservation.
Mnemosyne
@burnspbesq:
Fortunately, there are many, many great candidates out there. I would love to see a West Coaster get in and break that hegemony as well.
The Lodger
@Corner Stone: What’s wrong with John Rogers? Leverage was a great show!
Mike J
@Gin & Tonic:
Tons of stuff broke. My guess is that the people they bought the theme from updated, somebody hit the button to install the update on this site, and now all the hand crafted fixes are gone. And last time they said it took them 12 hours to download a backup because they didn’t have a copy of the good version of the 5k css file laying around.
Wag
@NotMax:
You’re right. It’s a glorious sight!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@BillinGlendaleCA: Chief Jusice, SCOUS. Like Robert Goodell.
Corner Stone
@The Lodger: Actually, I thought it was a shit for brains show. But yeah.
LookingForACanadian
John is right. Instincts, I have them (like crazy). And I’ve been thinking the same– seeing people I totally respect (eg, Booman) so quickly give into this bullshit narrative is, frankly, quite astonishing. I vegged out on politics last Saturday for the first time since late October 2012. I am ready.
Corner Stone
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Scouse?
Hows bout a booze whistle up your bum, then? Brilliant!
Calouste
@Suzanne: It shows that Jeb? doesn’t exactly hire the most competent people. Same with Rubio with his Morning in America ad that starts with a shot of Vancouver, Canada.
Btw, would Ted Cruz win the Gridlock & Obstruction Party’s nomination, the SuperPACs on the Democratic side will have the easiest job ever. They can probably already put together multiple 30 second ads with Cruz’s fellow Republicans literally calling him a liar, and there’s only going to be more of it.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@burnspbesq: Cruz says he’ll filibuster. Doesn’t that mean it’s guaranteed to fail based on his history and the hate he’s engendered in the body?
;-)
We’ll see.
I think we’ll have a much better idea how this plays out once Obama announces the name.
Cheers,
Scott.
cokane
im with ya Cole. I don’t understand the reflex to take this Republican bluster at face value. That Obama is in his last year is just the most handy excuse. It’s fucking obvious. If Ginsburg steps down in Clinton’s first year, the Republicans will just dig around for the first second third and eleventieth handy excuse in that case.
It’s such transparent sophistry but yeah aggravating to listen to it being countenanced in any way. Your clearheadedness almost makes me forgive your Steeler fandom.
Mike J
BTW, Fred from Slacktivist says our invective is morally acceptable.
He also points out that Scalia was the only person in the room who laughed at Colbert’s nerd prom gig.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He has a lot of faith in Colbert not to do something like put up some crypt-keeperish Trump doll to be the face of that disembodied voice. I hope the old Colbert takes over from the nicey-nice one he’s been on the new show.
east is east
@LookingForACanadian: I liked your thiamin version. I was thinking schizophrenic rant.
MikeBoyScout
Read some comments about why Republican Senators should give a shit. Let me give you something to chew on.
A SCOTUS which cannot support precedent decisions because it comes down to a 4-4 tie is bad for business.
Those big businesses that the GOP feeds on for contributions to the Senate campaign coffers really don’t want or need to be managing different rules because differing lower court decisions stand.
The Senate Republicans have a tough battle holding their majority this election. They won’t be able to do it without money and support of business.
Business has had about enough of the tantrums the GOP Congress. This tantrum may play to the RWNJs, but it don’t play on Wall Street.
just a thought.
redshirt
@MikeBoyScout: At last, big business will save us!
east is east
Fight the numbered comments that be.
LookingForACanadian
@east is east: omg, not sure if I should blame the 5S, wordpress, chrome, B-J, prosecco or some combination of the foregoing. Exhausting.
seaboogie
Comment # 80 – Heh.
I’m with you, John – and here is my take on Obama’s elventy-dimensional jedi tactics:
a) He nominates someone with impeccable credentials, perhaps someone like Sri Srinivasan who has already passed nearly unanimous muster
b) He gets fully on message with “Republicans don’t believe that government works, because they are the ones who make sure that it doesn’t work by NOT DOING THE JOB THAT THEY WERE ELECTED TO DO – and the current crop of GOP candidates for president don’t believe in a president performing one of his significant administrative tasks. As your president and as a Democrat, I DO believe in doing my job and believe that government works when you have people willing to do their job and upholding the oath to which they’ve sworn to the American people.”
c) He gets Bernie and Hillz both on message on that front together – because one of them is going to inherit the senate that is elected during this election season.
d) He especially leans on Hillary and therefore DWS to make sure that the Dems have viable candidates in senate seats that will be up for election
If his SCOTUS nominee is still hanging in the balance once the primaries are concluded, he leverages the Dem nominee’s GOTV operation and goes full on supporting the senate candidates that are up for grabs.
Since he is out of fucks to give, I think he’s going to make sure that O’Connell decides that this is not the hill he wants to die on.
Y’all will tell me what is wrong with this scenario, I am sure….
Omnes Omnibus
I am kind of hoping for Rich Cordray. Well qualified and I would like to be able to say that I actually know a Supreme Court Justice.
Jinx
@Trentrunner: Yes. When you listened to his answer, he implied or maybe insinuated is a better word, that there were arrangements or agreements for certain senators to vote to filibuster. He left the impression that the filibuster would not be successful. He alluded to political cover for those who were arranged to vote in favor of the filibuster.
22over7
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thank you! I wondered what took so long to bring up this point. Cruz is going to be ALL up in the Senate’s business. It’s going to be the public meltdown of the year.
chopper
@Brent:
my feeling is it all depends on how much the president feels like working at this point in his term. he’s made a sport of handing congressional goopers their asses, sure, but at this point he might not have it in him to go one more round. I know I’d be ready to clock out early if I were him.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I remember Cordray was on the List O’Contenders the last couple of ttimes there were vacancies. Here’s hoping!
I’m three degrees of separation from Manson; it would be cool to be two (digital) degrees from a SCOTUS Justice.
Suzanne
@chopper: I don’t think he has senioritis. I think POTUS wants to go out in a blaze of glory. Maybe on the way out, he’ll do the Dave Chappelle thing.
“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you, fuck you….”
max
I just don’t get it- where have these people been the last seven years? Will they never learn?
They’re getting bluffed out by the Republicans. The whole point of saying they won’t even hold a hearing is to make noises about how tough they are in the hope 1) someone will believe them 2) the Dems and the press will be intimidated and give up all hope ye who enter here. They did this back in 2010 and 2011 (where they warned up by demanding Obama appoint a conservative justice). Basically they can say whatever the fuck they feel like as long as it sounds tough to the base, and then… oops. The press lets them off on this frequently. Sheesh, Chris Hayes is letting them get into his head.
At any rate, the posturing about not even allowing a hearing is straight forwardly bluffing from weakness. Who among them wants Benghazi/Hillary moment wants a perfectly respectable potential justice in a hearing where she/he can sound all … nice. And so on with a filibuster and a vote. They want this problem to go away until after the election, not causing headlines.
That’s the problem with appointing a judge that implies a maximalist position to heighten the contradictions – then they can smear them as a commie liberal and have it sound half-reasonable. The minimalist position is to give them what they want – some kind of semi-conservative nominee – which gives them room to run to the hard right as possible and then reject them, to not much in the way of strong objections from liberals. No, just ignore the R head games and proceed as you would normally. Nominate the same kind of person you have nominated before – they get through or they don’t.
If they don’t, nominate another one.
That’s it. Wait till he starts lacing up his Chucky T’s and gets in the game.
Dude, he’s already there.
max
[‘Different operational methods for different situations – Ghandi and MLK are applicable here.’]
max
[‘
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: To mix sporting metaphors, he can see the finish line from here. It’s time for the kick. Any good runner can dig deep for that last effort.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: I know a guy who argued in front of the court, but I don’t think he’d take the pay cut to be on any court.
The Lodger
A lot of the GOP senators whose terms expire this year may have been threatened with primary opponents on their right, and heaven knows there are always enough underqualified and overfinanced Matt Bevin-esque handjobs out there to make that a real threat. But once those primary deadlines pass and the pressure to vote on a replacement stays on, we’ll probably see a vote before the end of Obama’s term. I hope.
seaboogie
@22over7:
And I think that Cruz is going to be Obama’s unwitting ally – because everyone who knows him hates him – so the harder that Cruz pushes his messiah act, the more Obama needs to mention “Republican Senator Ted Cruz” doesn’t believe….., and the more semi-sane ones fall into line.
gratuitous
It wasn’t surprising that the Republicans immediately promulgated yet another new rule for the Obama administration. What’s surprising to me is that the opposition to the whack-o new rule coalesced so quickly, and some of the Republicans have had second thoughts (assuming they had first thoughts). Usually the Republicans get a clear field to run their mouths for the better part of a week, and the popular media’s conventional wisdom forms around their position.
This time the pushback was there and fast. I, too, think that the President will name a nominee and the Senate will give the nominee a hearing and a vote. I don’t think there are many Republicans who are so thrilled by the current candidates for their presidential nomination that they think November is a lock. With that calculation in mind, do they want to vote on an Obama nominee, or take a chance on a Clinton or Sanders nominee? There’s also a good possibility that the Senate won’t be under Republican control come January. They might want to influence the choice as much as they can while they can.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: That can be a thing.
Emerald
@burnspbesq:
You got it! That’s who I want! Tomasky and a commenter on Booman’s page brought him up. Mexican-American actually born in Mexico, and that’s important. Brilliant jurist with impeccable education. Imminently qualified for the SCOTUS. Married to a Korean-American who is also a brilliant judge.
And the kicker: he is 43 years old.
Now. Let’s see the Rethugs refuse to seat him. Let’s see him do interviews in perfect Mexican Spanish all over Univision for months.
Yertle will weep.
seaboogie
Also, Harry Reid wrote a wonderfully blistering piece for WaPo today, and this is his last hurrah too, so he is out of fucks to give. I say he takes off his gloves and bare-knuckles it till the end. I really respect him – to the same degree that I do not respect O’Connell.
Omnes Omnibus
@seaboogie: McConnell?
burnspbesq
@MikeBoyScout:
Your idea would make a great deal more sense if you could point to some cases still pending this term in which Big Bidness has a dog in the fight. Those cases pretty much all went early in the term and have been decided.
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus: Oops – too late to edit. A shot of espresso at 6 pm has both an upside and a downside. Thanks for catching that.
burnspbesq
@Emerald:
Cuellar looks like a rock star in the making. The only problem is that he would have the same recusal issue as Justice Breyer. Unless, of course, Georgetown or GW put enough money on the table to get Judge Koh to resign from the bench and go into teaching. She’d still be influential (anybody think Marty Ginsburg wasn’t influential?).
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
if he hits that bullseye the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. checkmate.
Major Major Major Major
@chopper: I love Zapp Brannigan.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: That is essential to my point.
Corner Stone
@seaboogie: Shit be happening and shit. *Fist bump*
Redshift
@Patricia Kayden:
Because a bunch of them are in states where their base alone isn’t enough to win reelection. They may be terrified of a teabagger primary, but they’re also probably not looking forward to spending their general election campaign trying to get away with obvious bullshit about why a president can’t appoint a Supreme Court justice.
LookingForACanadian
@LookingForACanadian: 41 years old; “omg” notwithstanding, I’m serious that fixing typing errors here is confounding. Also, John is right.
Omnes Omnibus
OT and reposted from a lower (deadish) thread: There was a state wide primary today in WI. Deciding who was going to be on the ballot for the Supreme Court during the April 5 Spring Election and Presidential Preference Primary. In a couple of counties they had some other judicail primaries. While waiting in line (a line for an election like this!) I was talking with the chief inspector who said that they were expecting a 25% turnout. For an election like this, that is amazing. I think it bodes well.
Suzanne
@Emerald: WOW. I just Googled him, since I haven’t heard of him before. DAMN, he sounds like he would be excellent.
Not bad-looking, either. I’ve gotten a bit spoiled having a President I can ogle, and those days are numbered. I can pretend to be Canadian and enjoy Trudeau, but it isn’t the same.
Mai.naem.mobile
@burnspbesq: I like Leondra Kruger. She’s eminently qualified. She’s black, female with a young child. The GOP would look like they were beating up a very sympathetic smart nerdy young black mother. She’s 39.
Emerald
@burnspbesq: One would hope that getting her hubby onto the SCOTUS indeed would be a nice incentive to begin an illustrious teaching career.
What worries me about it, and about whomever Obama names, they have to know that they are going to be trapped in a living hell until the thing is over. They have to understand that it’s also about November, and, frankly, the verdamnten future of the verdamnten country.
Whatever happens, I have no doubt that Obama will snooker ’em, as per usual.
Anoniminous
The average American doesn’t know jack about civics. You could tell them the Lord High Executioner of the Mikado appointed Supreme Court Judges and they’d swallow it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: Your point being?
burnspbesq
@Anoniminous:
He’s got a little list. And you’re on it.
22over7
@Anoniminous: Well, he is a personage of noble rank and title, so…
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
Two words: recess appointment.
The so-called lawyers on this forum will rush forward to explain that’s impossible. Learn the law, shit-for-brains.
Source: SCOTUSblog.
Adam L Silverman
@Percysowner: @Trentrunner: They didn’t actually vote to filibuster. What they did was vote against cloture, which ends debate and allows the question, in this case a simple majority confirmation vote on Associate Justice Alito’s nomination to proceed. It was a safe and ceremonial/signaling vote that they found him to extreme, but did not have the leverage to prevent the nomination.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
This update is heading toward “Intermediate Web Design bad class project” territory.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Hey, fuck wit, why are you calling for a recess appointment when a regular appointment is still in play?
gwangung
@mclaren: Snicker. National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning. Senate decides when it’s in session and not in recess. Learn the law, shit for brains.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: She would be an automatic hold. Anyone worried about being scored by the NRA or Gun Owners of America (GOA) will do whatever is necessary to block her. She is the 2nd Amendment Maximalists public enemy #1 with Gavin Newsome not far behind.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just what I said. The average American is ignorant. That has to be understood, grasped, and used as one of the premises of analysis.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: And we can’t use this get info out? I object to the idea that American voters are too dumb or mean to vote in their own interest. Let’s make sure they know.
mclaren
@gwangung:
Snicker yourself, shit-for-brains. Obama’s DOJ files suit against National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning to overturn it. The new 4-4 court overturns. Say goodbye to that bullshit.
Now Obama can make recess appointments all he likes.
Learn to think, shit-for-brains.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne:
Judge Koh’s easy on the eyes too.
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Unfortunately that’s the wrong math. It will require 60 votes for cloture, which allows the Senate to then proceed to an actual simple majority vote. 14 Republican Senators would have to vote for cloture for the nomination to proceed to the actual vote on it.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey, piss-for-frontal-lobes, because you get a 5-4 liberal majority any way you can. Then you systematically demolish all the procedural obstacles erected to systemic change — the president brings suit against Citizens United and the court overturns it, the president fast-tracks a challenge to restrictions on voting rights and overturns ’em.
Within just a year or two, with a recess appointment, you can crush and wipe out decades worth of obstructionism in the court.
That’s why, mongoloid. Then when you bulldoze all the bad supreme court decisions out of the way by reversing ’em, you move aggressively with recess appointment and steamroll right over the obstructionist senate and House. That’s how you force through change.
You people don’t really have a clue, do you? You’re just a bunch of non-stop learned helplessless acolytes, whimping in the corner in a foetal position as you mumble to yourselves “There’s nothing anyone can do, it’s all hopeless.”
Bullshit.
The president of the United States has a justice department and a presidential counsel that can be unleashed the grind bad legal decisions into hamburger, given a supreme court that’s not somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: You are wrong. Canning is already precedent. Binding on lower courts. A 4-4 Court can’t overturn. Facts. Look them up.
Law is more complicated than you pretend it is.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Mnemosyne: And as she is most likely to win that seat she probably has her eye on a run for the White House in the future.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Fuck wit, I didn’t say trying for a recess appointment shouldn’t be done. I asked why you are going for the extreme when a regular appointment is still on the table.
Take a remedial reading course.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think mclaren did, same place he got his JD.
burnspbesq
@mclaren:
NLRB v. Noel Canning says STFU, dumbshit.
mclaren
And none of this even presupposes Obama is willing to play hardball.
Obama can hold the next defense appropriation hostage. You don’t want to confirm my supreme court nominee? No problem, I veto your defense appropriation.
Then Obama can get really medieval of the Republicans’ asses — he can start “work to rule.” He will enforce only to the exact letter of the law only precisely those regulations passed by congress. Congress wants to obstruct? They’ll find out what obstruction really means.
The president has decided that each highway funding appropriation in each obstructing Republican senator’s state requires 11 months of additional study before the work can begin. The president has appointed a commission which now states that the pork barrel military procurement spending in each obstructing Republican senator’s state needs 11 months of additional supervisory review before the monies can be spent.
Watch the Republicans frantically try to explain why their highways are falling apart and their bridges are collapsing and those sweet sweet pork barrel military projects are shut down and the factories are empty and their constituents are out of work.
All because the Repubs decided to obstruct Obama’s supreme court nominee.
The Republicans are bullies, and like all bullies, they’re cowards. They’ll fold like cheap suits just the way they did when they threatened Obama over the debt ceiling.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Pulled it from his ass?
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
After you’ve passed your Test of English as a Foreign language, you need to take a basic logic course.
Because we’re in an era of extremes where the Repubs are running every obstruction tactic to the uttermost extreme and they’re counting on shit-for-brains monogloids like you to wimp out and not take equally extreme measures (like recess appointments) to steamroller right over their obstruction and get the job of governance done.
Now go back to playing with your lego set, Failed IQ Test, the adults are having a serious discussion here.
burnspbesq
@mclaren:
Now, it you’d like to explain (1) how one gets jurisdiction over a reported decision (as opposed to a natural or juridical person), and (2) how you get your case through the District Court and the Court of Appeals in time to make a difference in 2016 … you may, in fact, not be stupid, but you surely are ignorant.
Mike J
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Juvenile delinquent.
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
That’s why Obama files suit to overturn NLRB v. Noel Canning, shit-forbrains tax avoidance lawyer. And with the current 4-4 court he’s got a good shot at winning.
Your alternative solution, of course, is to curl up in a foetal ball in the corner and whimper.
Go fellate your Republican masters, this is a liberal forum. We believe in solving problems, not explaining how everything is hopeless and nothing can be done.
chopper
@burnspbesq:
not if chief justice rogers has anything to do with it!
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
No worries, we want to keep her here anyway. Personally, I’d rather have her as governor than Newsom since he has that zipper control problem, but that doesn’t seem to be how the state party divvied it up.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Please cite the comment where I ruled out a recess appointment. I’ll wait.
I asked you why you were calling for a recess appointment when an actual appointment was still in play. You have been too scared to answer my question in your hurry to cast aspersions on people here. Answer my question.
Adam L Silverman
@mclaren: NLRB v. Canning was decided 9-0. Justice Breyer, part of the left of center/liberal wing wrote the decision and Chief Justice Roberts wrote a concurrence. It wasn’t a 5-4 decision where you could try to persuade Associate Justice Kennedy to flip his vote.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/national-labor-relations-board-v-noel-canning/
mclaren
@burnspbesq:
If you knew twice as much of the law as you do now, you’d still be a empty-headed pig-ignorant addlepate.
(1) That’s what the president’s counsel is for. If Barack Obama could gin up a patently absurd rationalization for his drone bombings like getting Eric Holder to go out and give a press conference explaining that firing a Hellfire missile at a peasant in a country we’re not at war with constitutes “due process,” and that this therefore fulfills the fifth amendment’s due process clause, Obama can get someone to gin up a slightly less absurd rationalization to explain why the president of the United States has legal standing to challenge NLRB v. Noel Canning. Any lawyer with half a brain could come up with twenty legal rationales before breakfast to show why the POTUS has standing inasmuch as NLRB v. Noel Canning directly affects the president’s ability to govern and thus constitutes a vital constitutional question.
(2) You fast-track the case through the District Court and into the Supreme Court. You’re telling that’s not possible? You’re telling me that’s never been done? Bullshit, you’re lying and you’re ignorant. The courts fast-tracked the Al Awlaki decision, the courts fast-tracked many similar decisions that were time-critical. Don’t tell me this never happens, you’re ignorant and you’re lying.
Major Major Major Major
I feel like this thread needs a joke or something.
Q: What do you call a black man flying an airplane?
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Asked and answered, shit-for-brains. Counsel is being argumentative. You’re wasting our time.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Dude, put down the bottle (or needle) and go to bed. I absolve you of my request that you respond to me.*
*Not on substantive grounds.
chopper
@mclaren:
how would the four liberal justices overturn NLRB in a 4-4 court? there’s no way in hell the dc circuit is going to go against existing precedent and up and make a different decision than the one that just came down, especially if it’s clear that someone’s trying to game the system now that Nino croaked.
seaboogie
@mclaren:You have all of Ted Cruz’s charm in the BJ Senate.
Aleta
The United Federal Reserve Order of The New World Nations will only assasinate the next justice too, so I think Cruz is right to wait until after the Civil Appocalyptian Hostilities are over to appoint a survivor.
chopper
@Adam L Silverman:
which means no lower court is going to fuck with it, and it’s doubtful you could scrape up four justices in order to grant cert anyways.
mclaren
@Adam L Silverman:
Times change. Roll the judicial dice and see what comes up.
If they refuse cert, then Obama moves on to much tougher measures, like tit-for-tat refusal to administer congressional laws except by microscopically glacial work-to-rule until the obstruction ends. Or, alternatively, Obama can challenge the legal definition of congress being “in session.” Or, alternatively, Obama can start sequestering funds from the obstructing Republicans’ districts and states using presidential signing statements until such time as the obstruction ends.
Meanwhile, Obama can take his case to the public in a series of speeches and televised appearances. “The Republicans are denying you, the American people, the right to be represented. In effect, they are saying that they will shut the entire process of government down whenever a Republican is not president. Phone your representative. Call your senator. Do it today.”
You think congress won’t melt like a wedding cake in the rain under enough public pressure? It happened earlier in Obama’s term when congress tried to pass that internet-censorship legislation and the American rose up as one and uttered such a roar of rage that congress pissed itself and backed off. It can happen again.
The question is, whether Obama and the Democrats actually want to make an issue of it. What we’re seeing on this forum if obviously a bunch of astrutrfer sock puppets paid by the Kock brothers, phony internet handles like burnspbesq and omnes omnibus, explaining all the elaborate and complicated and incoherent and highly implausible reasons why the president of the united states is helpless and America is permanently wired for Republican rule and nothing can ever change for the better, and progressives are doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed.
Adam L Silverman
@chopper: Given it was a 9-0 decision affirming the lower court ruling written by Associate Justice Breyer, the bigger question is how you get all four liberal wing justices and Associate Justice Kennedy from the conservative wing to decide they were all wrong three years ago.
seaboogie
@Major Major Major Major: ? Waiting…..
Mike J
@seaboogie: A pilot.
Major Major Major Major
@Aleta: ugh. We have to wait two years and thirteen days? Er, I mean ‘haha good joke sir/ma’am’
mclaren
@chopper:
So if it’s doubtful, wellllllllllll…then we’d better not try. Because, shit! People! If we actually tried to change things, damn! Things might actually change.
But that’s impossible. Nothing can ever change, there are a million highly complex and amazingly labyrinthine reasons why nothing can ever change, and we’re fucked forever under Republican rule.
I don’t buy it.
Lead, follow, or fucking get out of the way. If your’e telling me there’s no creative legal strategy for getting around what amount to some picayune senatorial procedural minutia, I’m calling bullshit, right here, right now.
Major Major Major Major
@seaboogie: @Mike J: a pilot, you fucking racist
chopper
@mclaren:
the decision came down a year and a half ago.
worn
@mclaren: #145
Sometimes it’s easy to forget how unpleasant you are. This evening it is most certainly not one of those times.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren:
Fuck you. No-one has said that. People have said you are wrong. Deal with it.
chopper
@mclaren:
I was being nice. when i say “doubtful” I mean “no fucking way, what part of 9-0 are you having trouble comprehending”.
mclaren
@Adam L Silverman:
The same way you convince them that Citizens United v. FEC was wrong. You point out that the tremendous ramifications of that bad decisions (NLRB v. Noel Canning) wind up effectively destroying the power of the president of the united states to appoint supreme court justices.
That bad supreme court decision effectively means that no one but a Republican president can ever appoint a supreme court justice, ever. That’s bad law. It’s unacceptable governance. It’s garbage legal logic. It’s a recipe for destroying representative government.
And if even I can come up with argument like that, think what the president’s counsel can come up with.
seaboogie
@Major Major Major Major: In skimming, I read “in”, not “flying”…
mclaren
@chopper:
No, you’re not being nice, you’re being an ignorant incompetent clown paid by the Koch brothers to explain to us that everything is hopeless and nothing can ever change away from permanent Republican obstructionism and utter collapse of representative government.
Take your shtick out on the CPAC circuit, the Ann Coulter crowd will love. We’re talking about serious change in the real world, not your “we doomed, it’s all hopeless” bullshit.
scav
@mclaren: And yet you seem not to be convincing anyone here — repeatedly even. consider.
Major Major Major Major
Two atoms are whizzing through space. And they smash together!
One of them starts scrambling around saying “you gotta help me, man! I lost an electron, help me find it!”
“Are you sure‽”
“I’M POSITIVE!”
chopper
@Adam L Silverman:
not even three years. when was the last time the court overturned a unanimous decision the same court made two years prior?
mclaren
@worn:
You’re goddamn right I’m unpleasant. I’m unpleasant because I believe that change for the better is possible.
You and your fellow learned helplessness professional liberal victims are so full of reasons to explain why the world is fucked and you’re helpless and nothing can be done to create a better more progressive world, that’s it’s suspiciously convenient, isn’t it?
Almost as though you and your fellow DINOs are just coming up with excuses with avoid working to promote progressive change…because working is hard. Much easier to sit back in your barcalounger and explain supericiously to everyone that the Republicans are in charge forever, America is now eternally wired for far-right control, and we’re all fucked, so there’s no point in doing anything.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way, loser.
mclaren
@scav:
Of course I’m not convincing any of the Koch-paid sock puppets who have come out in force in this thread, you don’t “convince” someone who posts under a fake internet handle and gets talking points and receive cash in a brown paper bag.
You fight the fuckers and grind ’em into hamburger.
We didn’t “convince” the Germans at Nuremberg, we hung their asses.
chopper
@mclaren:
Hey, don’t get me wrong, the checks from the Kochs are nice (my new garage ain’t gonna build itself) but I’m shooting down your rainbow-pooping unicorn fantasy pro bono. consider it a gift.
Major Major Major Major
@mclaren: ‘hanged’, shit for brains
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: One reason he might want to make a recess appointment while a permanent appointment is still in the cards would be that he could make the recess appointment somewhat extreme, which could light a fire under the collective Republican ass WRT confirming the real nominee.
ETA: Although I could also see that backfiring and hardening the opposition.
Adam L Silverman
@mclaren: I’m not explaining anything implausible, all I did was tell you that all of the then five conservative wing justices and all of the four liberal wing justices were in unanimity in their ruling. And as for the President challenging when the Senate is or is not legally in session, because of NLRB v Canning, he no longer can. The core of the Appellate Court ruling that was affirmed is that the Senate and the Senate alone determines when it is in recess. The only thing the President can do to affect this is to call all of Congress back into session when it is in recess or on a shorter adjournment. That he can do and if he chose to do so he could make it impossible for anyone in Congress to effectively campaign by keeping them in session from now through the election.
And no one is saying anything or everything is doomed. Its not that our system is doomed to be wired for Republican rule. Rather it is our system is intended to be purposefully inefficient and only functions when everyone is willing to work within a bounded political consensus. The GOP, especially in the Senate, has demonstrated that they are not willing to do that. This makes the system lurch from crisis to crisis. Unless or until the GOP members of Congress actually get punished as a result, and I don’t just mean loosing five or six seats to flip a narrow Senate majority to the Democrats, nothing is going to change. Frankly it is amazing our system managed to not completely lock up more often. Basically we’ve got the Great Rebellion d/b/a the Civil War and we’ve got the meshugas that’s been building since the Clinton Administration and has been on full display for the Obama Administration.
This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t work for change, but acting like the last righteous person when people who understand parts of the system well try to explain it to you isn’t going to fix any problems.
worn
You read a lot into that. I never said any of the fighting passion you advocate is misplaced. The comment was about the messenger’s presentation, not the message. If you think you are going to positively influence people by being unpleasant, you are fated to a continuation of what you have been quixotically doing here for years.
But whatever. It’s obvious you are just wound up and failing to exercise fire discipline.
Also, too: I may be a loser, but I’m your loser
Adam L Silverman
@mclaren: Citizen’s United vs. FEC was a 5-4 decision. All four of the then liberal wing justices voted in the minority and joined the dissent written by Associate Justice Stevens. The majority opinion was written by Associate Justice Kennedy. Trying to get him to overturn his own majority opinion is highly unlikely.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Same as always, Cap.
(A certain tall basketball player has that nickname, he also played an Airplane co-pilot. Roger, Roger.)
Adam L Silverman
@chopper: You’ll have to ask Omnes or Steve in ATL or NotMax. I’m basically looking them up one at a time on SCOTUSBlog as they get thrown over the transom.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Making a recess appointment is a fall back. That has always been my point in this thread.
BillinGlendaleCA
@seaboogie:
And Rubio’s intellect.
scav
@mclaren: We know your opinion of anyone that disagrees with you, but you somehow assume the supreme court is suddenly not going to be like everyone else you encounter in your life and find your persuasive efforts immediately effective to a man. Therein lies your immediate delusion.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
A sterling piece of legal logic. I’m sure everyone here is thrilled with your legal acumen. That would be a cite of Fuck You v. Up Your Ass, presumably?
You’re lying. Learn to think, shit-for brains.
It’s a simple syllogism:
[1] Major premise: If NLRB v Noel Canning stands and is good law and if POTUS has no legal standing to challenge…
[2] Minor premise: then as long as Republicans remain committed to refuse to appoint a supreme court justice…
[3] Conclusion: this means that no Democratic president can ever get a supreme court judge appointed, and therefore that only Republican presidents can appoint supreme court judges. Which in turn means, applying this across the board, that by your legal reasoning, only Republican presidents are empowered to execute laws passed by congress, since only Republican presidents will be the president who don’t get obstructed using this kind of legal chicanery.
This conclusion clearly and obviously means that Democrats lose power forever. There is no conceivable point in future history, as long as Republicans in congress remain committed to obstruct and as along as NLRB v Noel Canning stands as valid law, in which any Democratic president can accomplish anything at any time anywhere by any means in any way.
That, if you hadn’t noticed, means “we’re doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed.”
False. People have come up with transparently illogical and self-contradictory sophistries in a failed and futilely frantic effort to show that I’m wrong. None of your flimsy rationalizations for eternal Republican control hold up under scrutiny, and I’m explaining why, in detail.
I am dealing with it — by pointing that your shit-for-brains bogus arguments don’t hold water, your assumptions are invalid, and the logical endpoint of your reasoning is absurd: namely, that progressives should crawl into a corner and slit their throats, because there’s nothing we can do to effect genuine change in America in 2016.
It’s the same fake phoney bogus argument as “Bernie Sanders is unelectable,” “America is a center-right country,” and “Washington is wired for Republican control.” In short, self-defeating bullshit based on laziness, ignorance and incompetence.
LABiker
There’s a typo in the meme graphic.
chopper
@Adam L Silverman:
overturning CU could be possible. you’d just need to convince the dc circuit to take up another challenge (pretty fucking hard) and then get the court to come to a different decision overturning a recent scotus precedent (not fucking likely). and then hope that the four liberal justices on the supreme court hate the previous decision so much that none of them are willing to join the rest to shoot down the dc circuit based merely on stare decisis. a 4-4 decision means the lower court decision is binding, and in the case of the dc circuit wouldn’t create a split circuit or anything, no? i anal and all that.
not fucking likely, but better chance than overturning a 9-0 fucker like NLRB.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus:
Under ordinary circumstances, yes, but we DO have an extraordinarily awful Congress to contend with. It’s far from guaranteed, probably actually pretty unlikely, that Obama will play the “confirm my real nominee to get rid of my kooky recess appointment” gambit, but it is available to him and suffices as a reason he might do it, to answer your unanswered question to McLaren.
seaboogie
@mclaren: This is for you, mclaren….else you burst a blood vessel.
Sorry, but this calls for desperate measures….
chopper
@mclaren:
it’s a 9-0 decision from less than 2 years prior (with the same justices as today), that’s about as close to “stands and is good law” as you’re ever gonna get.
Major Major Major Major
@mclaren: ooh I could have a character named Major Premise. He’d go well with Brigadier General Esteban Consensus III
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: You never actually responded to the questions I asked. Readers of the blog will apportion points. I won’t deal with you any more tonight.
I do suggest that you get some sleep.
mclaren
@scav:
You need to improve your lying skills. What you meant to say there is “We know your opinion of anyone whose response in a debate is `fuck you.'” That’s the amazingly ingenious response you sock puppets have managed to come up — “fuck you, mclaren.” Excuse the fuck out of me for not being overwhelmed by intellectual candlepower of that argument.
Provably false. Read what I wrote. Obama has to do something. That means filing suit. If he’s unsuccessful, he tries something else. If that’s unsuccessful, you try something else.
You tell me your solution, geniuses. Just sit there and suck your thumbs while the Republicans block every Democratic president supreme court appointments from now until the end of time?
You people really aren’t thinking this through. I didn’t called you “shit-for-brains” for yucks, you really truly aren’t following the logic here.
Think about it:
If a Republican congress can get away with permanently blocking Obama’s supreme court appointments…
…What’s to prevent a Republican congress from permanently blocking the next Democratic president’s supreme court appoinments forever? For 4 years? 8 years? 12 years? 20 years?
And then follow the logic through…what works for the Supreme Court works for everything else the president tries to do. If the Republican congress can get away legally and procedurally with blocking a Supreme Court nomination forever, why can a Republican congress get away legally and procedurally with blocking a president from doing anything else he wants to do?
Why can’t a Republican congress defund the White House whenever a Democratic president is in it? Why can’t a Republican congress shut down the West Wing whenever it’s full of Democrats? Why can’t a Republican congress grind every Democratic presidency to a complete halt by systematically refusing to allot funds to anything the Democratic president does? Air Force One doesn’t run on magic fairy dust, it takes money. The West Wind isn’t powered by rainbow unicorn farts, it takes money.
By acquiescing to this kind of procedural blackmail, you people are in effect saying that no Democratic president exist, except insofar as s/he squats naked in a defunded White House with no electricity, no aides, no secret service, no nothing.
That’s insane.
You people are ignorant and you’re making fools of yourselves. Any legal reasoning that leads to this kind of absurdity is prima facie invalid, and anyone who has ever studied law understands that.
Adam L Silverman
@chopper: Given the difference in the DC Circuit now that President Obama was able to fill the vacant seats versus the understaffed DC Circuit that heard the case originally, this is a possibility.
I think the bigger issue would be if the liberal wing justices decide that stare decisis is negotiable given how recent the decision is and that it was a bare majority decision. I always get the feeling when looking at how the Supreme Court has operated since the early 70s that the liberal justices are overall more respectful of stare decisis than the conservative ones. The latter seem to think it only really means anything when it comes to conservative rulings.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Sorry, you’re using common sense. That’s not permitted in this convocation of DINO and Republican-lite Koch-brothers-funded sock puppets and astroturfers.
Major Major Major Major
@mclaren: when do the Brinks trucks arrive anyway? I’m late on rent.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Shorter Omnes Omnibus: “The low-denomination bills in the brown paper bag the Koch brothers paid me for astroturfing this liberal forum with far-right bullshit just ran out, so I’m gonna boogie.”
John Revolta
Oh, my. Seems like the title of this post was how you say, prophetic?
AxelFoley
Obama’s from Chicago. He’s gonna lace up his Air Jordans, bruh.
mclaren
@Major Major Major Major:
You need to use a more spectacular method of derailing this conversation. Your far-right astroturfing efforts just aren’t working.
The astroturfers still haven’t explained how following your legal reasoning leads to anything but Democratic presidents permanently unable to appoint anyone, anywhere, anytime for any reason by any means, when faced with an obstructive Republican congress.
Now show me how that’s even remotely constitutional.
Show me how that doesn’t massively violate the checks and balances by giving congress unconstitutional and absurdly unreasonable permanent power over the president.
I’m waiting, geniuses. Tick…tick…tick… Let’s hear your legal reasoning.
Hint: `fuck you, mclaren’ is not a valid legal argument.
David *Rafael* Koch
Chris Hayes is a Joe-McCarthy-like smear merchant
mclaren
@Adam L Silverman:
Sorry, Adam, you’re trying to tell me it’s always been like this.
No. That is factually incorrect.
It hasn’t always been like this. Look at this graph of the number of times cloture had to be invoked in congress over the last 55 years. Notice that it’s gone through the roof. There are literally an order of magnitude more filibusters in the last 8 years than in the previous 55 years.
This is not “business as usual.” This is a massive change from congress’ previous behavior, it’s radical, it’s extreme, and it calls for extreme measures in dealing with it.
Suzanne
Wow, this thread has been pleasant.
Maybe we could discuss some cat-ass-shaving next.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Pundit capture. Hayes wants wants to be one of the guys and be invited to all the fancy cocktail parties. That means adopting their CW.
gex
@seaboogie: no kidding. I found “mongoloid” to be a particularly nice touch.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren:
The West Wind is indeed powered by unicorn farts, documented fact.
mclaren
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s another option.
The Republicans in congress want to get hardcore about obstruction, fine — Obama can force ’em to stay in Washington D.C. until their campaign coffers run dry and they all get thrown out of office by candidates who can campaign and raise money.
I’m still waiting for the elegant and convincing legal argument that shows us how a Republican congress that can permanently prevent a president from ever appointing anyone is even remotely constritutional and doesn’t flagrantly violate the separation of powers.
The astroturfers still haven’t explained how following your legal reasoning leads to anything but Democratic presidents permanently unable to appoint anyone, anywhere, anytime for any reason by any means, when faced with an obstructive Republican congress.
Now show me how that’s even remotely constitutional.
Show me how that doesn’t massively violate the checks and balances by giving congress unconstitutional and absurdly unreasonable permanent power over the president.
I’m waiting, geniuses. Tick…tick…tick… Let’s hear your legal reasoning.
Hint: `fuck you, mclaren’ is still not a valid legal argument.
Mike J
@gex: He wore a hat, he had a job, he brought home the bacon
BillinGlendaleCA
@gex: I noticed that as well, though I was just thinking that mclaren was a DEVO fan.
BillinGlendaleCA
@srv: Beck and the Rage Furbie(aka, Chucky the floor pooper) have been on the Cruz bandwagon for a while.
ETA: Damn you Mike J for getting there first. Damn you to heck.
(ETA should have been on my previous comment, damn me to heck too.)
mclaren
Let’s rip the bullshit off the veil of faux legal reasoning purveyed in this thread and explain plainly and clearly that what is being proferred by the legal minds here is only one of two competing doctrines of the presidency.
The claims advanced here by minor legal minds like the tax avoidance lawyer burnspbesq very clearly fall into the category of the “weak president” philosophy. But that is far from a legally settled doctrine. It’s just one interpretation of the constitution. The “strong president” philosophy is equally valid and has been advocated many times in the past.
You Republican astroturfers act and talk as though the “weak president” interpretation is black-letter law, fixed in granite. It’s not. It’s just one belief system. The other, equally common belief among presidents and constitutional scholars, is the “strong president” theory — and that’s the one I’m advocating.
I’m still waiting for you legal geniuses who ridicule my legal logic to explain and show in black-letter case law why the “strong president” interpretation is unconstitutional.
AxelFoley
@mclaren:
Holy–!
Did…did McLaren post something positive about Obama? Something positive, period?
Help me out here, because I think my Snark-O-Meter may be broken.
NotoriousJRT
To Mitch McConnell, his tortoise-ship, I have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. Listen to POTUS; you’ll hear me.
gex
Excuse me while I go apologize, repeatedly, to everyone I know who had to deal with my hypo mania before I got my bipolar II condition under control.
Including some of you here, perhaps.
mclaren
Obama has done some damn good things. He’s also done some horrible things, extending Dubya’s godforsaken War on Terror and internal surveillance to Orwellian extremes never dreamed up in liberals’ worst Bush-era nightmares.
I give Obama credit when he does something progressive. He’s been good on gay marriage, he’s been good on appointments, he’s been good (albeit very very late) in ratcheting down federal drug raids on state dispensaries in those states where weed has been legalized, Obama recently did excellent work with executive orders shutting down those horrible asset forfeiture laws. Obama recently unleashed the DOJ hounds of hell against corrupt racists in Ferguson, MO, and long past time. That’s all good stuff.
Obama rammed through the ACA, but that’s a mixed bag. It’s health care, but many people now point out they can’t afford the high deductibles and co-pays, so they can’t get medical care they need. The ACA is something, and it’s marginally better than nothing, but it’s only a stopgap. There are no cost controls and as more and more middle class people find themselves priced out of health care by ever larger deductibles and copays, something is going to have to change.
Obama has gotten sucked into the endless unwinnable wars overeas. Getting us out of Iraq accomplished nothing as long as America is going to ball right into another endless unwinnable war (Syria, anyone? Pakistan?).
So Obama’s presidency is a mixed bag. I’ve always said that. Painting me as a reflexive foe of Obama is absurd and flagrantly counterfactual. Which is to say, SOP for the Balloon-Juice commentariat.
Major Major Major Major
@mclaren: what legal reasoning? I’m making jokes.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Chris went south after he started working weekdays.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
In fairness, didn’t Obama try to push for some legal constraints on the surveillance program and come up against strong, somewhat bipartisan opposition in Congress?
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Obama intiially pushed for legal constraints on panopticon warrantless wiretapping and then he folded. What’s particularly galling is that Obama flip-flopped while he was still campaigning for the presidency.
Obama has had an incredibly tough time dealing with a fanatically obstructionist racist congress, probably the most obstructionist congress facing any congress since just before the Civil War.
Obama still could have pushed hard for recess appointments, he could have been much more creative legally in combatting congressional obstructionism, and so forth. I think Obama himself recognizes that his big mistake in trying to form a bipartisan consensus in his first term was a major error. Those racist Republicans weren’t going to agree to anything proposed by a black president, period, ever. It took Obama years, alas, to realize the sheer ferocity of the opposition he faced.
The rest of us understood that just by looking at the congress and the presidency under the Drunk-Driving C Student and his torturer sidekick from 2001 to 2009, so how Obama didn’t see it…I can’t begin to understand. You don’t deal with Republicans today by persuading them. You deal with by grabbing a meathook and sinking it into their face.
mclaren
@Major Major Major Major:
No, you are a joke.
There’s a difference.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
It’s true he certainly could have fought them harder and pulled some riskier moves. However, and I think this has to do a lot with race, he had to make a show of trying to work with the Republicans and to let people see how intransigent they were. There was also the fact of his campaign promise to work toward comity.
Unfortunately, the Republicans have stuck stubbornly to the “obstruction as primary tactic” strategy and either too few people got the message about what the Republicans were doing or too many people got discouraged at the ugliness of it all or no one was listening when Obama or anyonelse said you gotta keep voting in every election. This is also largely abetted by our credulous-of-all-things Republican and politics is all about the horserace media.
scav
rage ping pong. and totally ineffective, except as an ego-balm.
Mandarama
@Suzanne:
Could we? Because I have a 16-lb Maine Coon with digestive issues. Anything to elevate the discourse!
Kropadope
@Mandarama: I tried to be nice but they had it coming.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Weren’t those the last words Lee Harvey Oswald said before he started firing?
mclaren
Proof that the “tradition” of presidents not being able to get Supreme Court judges appointed in election years doesn’t exist.
The people who are telling us Obama is helpless are lying to you. People like Adam Silverman who imply that the ridiculously extreme number of cloture votes required to end filibusters during Obama’s adminsitration are “just par for the course” and “perfectly normal” and “just a symptom of healthy government with its checks and balances” are trying to deceive you.
None of this is normal.
None of this is reasonable.
It is wild extreme outlandishly fanatical obstructionism, and it has been dealt with by extreme measures. Those who say otherwise, would condemn all Democratic presidents to impotence ad infinitum.
Kropadope
@mclaren: Yeah, but I was just joking. I don’t hink I was all that rude to anyone this time. No one actually had it coming.
Kropadope
@mclaren: Oh, and I was really eager to hear what you had to say about this.
Citizen Alan
@Corner Stone:
It certainly won’t happen, but it would be hilarious if either Roberts or Kennedy button-holed McConnell at some D.C. shindig and quietly said “Let the President have his god-damned nomination and fill Scalia’s seat or so help me God, I will just start voting with Ruth Bader Ginsburg on every issue just to ensure that all our opinions are 5-3 instead of 4-4. It’s not like your mouth-breather constituents can hate me any more.”
seaboogie
Eventually mclaren will turn himself into butter – perhaps in time for us to enjoy pancakes for breakfast.
Death Panel Truck
I could take the meme more seriously if “Everyone” hadn’t been misspelled.
AnotherBruce
@burnspbesq: That’s my guy, especially if Trump wins the nom, But come to think of it, it woud be a good plan if Cruz won.
Brachiator
What a mess. If the Republicans posture and obstruct, but finally give in, would there be a drop dead date that they might have in mind. Would it make sense to give a new justice time to join the next court session beginning in October?
NR
Everyone is talking about downsides for the Republicans, but there’s a danger here for Democrats, too. If the Republicans approve Obama’s nominee just before the election, it could make them look reasonable and work to counteract all their other batshit insanity. They might just be willing to let the seat go knowing there’s a good chance they’ll get it back when Ginsburg retires (likely during the next president’s term). They could end up with the White House and the SCOTUS (and Congress too).
Whatever the case, there’s one thing you can say about Scalia. The man died as he lived: creating a massive political shitstorm.
Amir Khalid
@NR:
Do they have the necessary room for manoeuvre, though?
? Martin
@NR:
No, they’re incapable of that. The GOP never needed to broadcast that they were going to block Obama’s nominee except to placate the bomb-throwers in their base. That they did broadcast it means that they are trapped by having to take these completely unreasonable positions. When the GOP does do something reasonable, they always look like losers because they are unable to proclaim that compromise as a virtue. That’s their real problem – their base demands that they never look reasonable.
For whatever reason, the people running the show can’t seem to break from of that.
Sherparick
It is one of the sad realities of the American Constitution is that George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Gouverner Morris, and the other 34 white male lawyers, politicians, and property owners who wrote it assumed an elite consensus for making the thing work. In a almost Tom Friedman, Village Beltway, meme, they all denounced political parties and faction and basically created a Governmental system that really does not work well if ideological political parties start competing. Of course, within 4 years of having written the thing and the last part of Washington’s first term of President, the consensus had started to break down and parties forming between the “Administration (Hamilton)” and and the “Anti-Administration (Jefferson and Madison)” factions. However, after 1800 election, the Federalists broke up and Jefferson and Madison in office started adopting Federalist policies in practice that they opposed in theory so by Monroe, it was back to one party elite consensus. When ideological and sectional parties emerged in the 1850s, and ante-bellum Democratic Party became the first “Confederate party,” the U.S. Government slowly stopped working and of course, on Lincoln’s election they tried to break it up (ironically, by leaving the Government, they gave Lincoln solid majorities in Congress that would, with some criticism and prodding, support his policies throughout the Civil War, the Copperheads being a distinct minority in the North). After the Civil War, at the end of reconstruction, a new elite consensus formed (sadly on the basis of White Supremacy and forgive and romanticize the “Lost Cause.”) and the parties were broad geographical alliances with factions having different ideologies. Even the New Deal and FDR, did not break with the parties being non-ideological collection of factions across large Geographic areas, with the South being solidly Democratic (on the basis of White Supremacy) and New England being mostly solidly Republican based on Yankee tradition. And the post WWII elite consensus of Anti-Communism, union and industry alliance, the Welfare State, and managed capitalism really lasted through the Nixon-Ford administration. But with the Goldwater dissent and the Civil Rights revolution, the political scientists are getting what they asked for in the 1950s, ideological (and again sectional) political parties who view the other side as bent on the destruction of the American republic. And the American Constitutional system does not work very well when there is such a division among the people and the elite. There is no way I would tolerate an appointment of a Janice Rogers Brown or her like to the Supreme Court. The disasters she would inflict on the environment and workers in the name of protecting the “sacred right” of property and dismantling of 130 years of Government reform at the Federal and state level would be abhorrent. Likewise, I cannot expect any Neo-Confederate (and as the polls from South Carolina indicate, there are plenty of them) to tolerate the appointment of Supreme Court Justice who would sustain the New Deal, Environmental Protection, and Civil Rights Revolution since those programs and policies have undermined the prerogatives of the white patriarchy that they believe is divinely ordained.
mike in dc
When the law says “shall” it really means “must” or “will”. So the POTUS is obligated to nominate someone, and the Senate is obligated to advise and consent, i.e., to hold hearings and vote on confirmation. In theory they can decline, but they are essentially shirking their constitutional duties at that point.
chopper
@seaboogie:
looks like he already did.
The Other Bob
I am surprise no one has caught onto the fact that the next Senate takes over on January 1, but the next President on January 20. If the Democrats take over, they can confirm Obama’s appointment during that time.
chopper
@The Other Bob:
that’s assuming we flip the senate.
Adam L Silverman
@mclaren: @mclaren: I think you need to read more carefully, I was actually agreeing with you that right now our system is not functioning. This is what I wrote, I’m bolding and italicizing the especially relevant portions:
“And no one is saying anything or everything is doomed. Its not that our system is doomed to be wired for Republican rule. Rather it is our system is intended to be purposefully inefficient and only functions when everyone is willing to work within a bounded political consensus. The GOP, especially in the Senate, has demonstrated that they are not willing to do that. This makes the system lurch from crisis to crisis. Unless or until the GOP members of Congress actually get punished as a result, and I don’t just mean loosing five or six seats to flip a narrow Senate majority to the Democrats, nothing is going to change. Frankly it is amazing our system managed to not completely lock up more often. Basically we’ve got the Great Rebellion d/b/a the Civil War and we’ve got the meshugas that’s been building since the Clinton Administration and has been on full display for the Obama Administration.“
chopper
@Adam L Silverman:
it’s mclaren. as usual, he’s arguing with the voices in his head.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Good one! Mrs. J is so into correct language, thanks for helping out with that.
J R in WV
@Mandarama:
Use a drug before starting work on the shaving project!!
I once had a big cat get into some leaking transmission fluid. Being that a cat’s method of personal cleanliness involves licking off the dirty, action in the nature of hot water and Dawn detergent was essential. I wore welding gloves up to my elbows and still had a hard time.
Shaving is an order of magnitude harder than just washing!
Cat and I both survived in good health, leaky transmission truck went away post haste.
Barbara
@Patricia Kayden: All I can say is, it’s harder than you think to do that, and one reason McConnell came out guns blazing is that, he knows that if the matter comes to a vote, there are approximately 7 people who will find the pressure to give the president his choice nearly unbearable. He is trying to head that off by putting all the pressure on Chuck Grassley — who, to be honest, is the worst person you can imagine for McConnell to play this game. He is too mercurial, not much of a team player and also up for re-election in the state of Iowa, a not all that conservative place where he could actually win on the strength of Democratic votes (annoying as that is). Who are those people?
Ayotte, Collins, Kirk, Johnson, Portman, Toomey and Grassley. I think Ayotte and Johnson are a lost cause, too far in the tank and too stupid to even know it. But the others are going to be hard pressed to explain their votes to their constituents and survive in the Senate. That’s why Cruz and McConnell want NO VOTE.
I mean, this really is a game changing event and they know it. So much of their strategy lies with getting the court to invalidate Democratic initiatives and roll back existing precedents.