Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

The willow is too close to the house.

No one could have predicted…

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

All hail the time of the bunny!

Books are my comfort food!

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Now, More Than Ever

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Now, More Than Ever

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… Ergo, we need to make sure that the election cannot be (successfully) contested, by getting every single gettable vote for the Biden/Harris ticket and the rest of the Democratic slate.

Stay strong!

Reader Interactions

177Comments

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    America doesn’t just need a president our children can look up to, it needs a president who has the heart to get on their level.

    Reminds me of a cave trip in Arkansas I took my sons on. (I forget their ages, CJ was 9, maybe 10, his brother 2 yrs older) It was a very vertical cave, starting with a 120’+ entrance pit and a number of canyon passages one needed to traverse and domes, rifts, and pits along the way. We did some sight seeing and eventually got back to where some folks were bolting a climb in a tall dome and watched them work at it for awhile. Ate lunch, took naps, etc. When they got done we helped them pack up their gear and all of us headed out together.

    When we reached one 20’+ deep canyon that had to be traversed, CJ balked saying, “How do I do this?” (he had done this exact passage on the way in but things look a lot different going out)

    My buddy M, who is about 6′-7″ tall, said, “Like this.” and down the passage he went, those long legs of his making easy work of the 30′ or so of traverse.

    CJ looked at him with utter disbelief on his face and said, “I can’t do that!”

    M looked at him for a few seconds, gave a short nod of assent and came back. Then he got down on his knees and did the traverse that way. At which point CJ’s eyes lit up with recognition of the footholds and off he went.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m doing a volunteer gig connected with the election that is driving me nuts. I’ve been wanting to quit for months but tell myself it’s important and that I can hang in there until November 4. But then I think I can’t stand another goddamn day of it, and I’m definitely going to quit.

    Well, this puts it all in perspective. If RBG could try to hang in there while she was 87 years old and dying so she could fight for us, I can put up with a shitty situation for another 45 days or whatever it is. Fuck. No other choice.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    Michelle Goldberg’s NYT column:

    “It doesn’t matter how exhausted we are, or how difficult the odds. In this hell-spawned year, we can either give up, or give everything we can to stop some of America’s worst men from blotting out the legacy of one of our very best women.”

    Yep.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Bleach touted as ‘miracle cure’ for Covid being sold on Amazon

    Industrial bleach is being sold on Amazon through its product pages which consumers are buying under the mistaken belief that it is a “miracle cure” for Covid-19, despite health warnings from the US Food and Drug Administration that drinking the fluid can kill.

    The chlorine dioxide solutions are being sold on the Amazon platform under the brand name CD Kit and NatriChlor. Third-party sellers signal the bleach as a “water treatment” and include legal disclaimers that the liquid is “not marketed for internal use”.

    But comments from Amazon customers under the review section of the pages tell a different story. Users discuss how many drops of bleach they are imbibing and explain they are drinking the chemical which they call MMS to “disinfect ourselves”, a phrase that echoes Donald Trump’s controversial remarks in April that injections of disinfectant could cure Covid-19.

    The stupid, it hurts.

  12. 12.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I was encouraged this morning to read the names of Senators who might be unwilling to confirm anyone until the new president is seated. I believe Murkowski. We’ll see about the rest

    ETA: Also I read that if Mark Kelly is elected, he can be seated immediately. Is that true? Can someone tell me why?

  14. 14.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’ve gone back to swimming and I just put sweats on when I get out and bust through the locker room. I hang my stuff up when I get home and the chlorine is BANG! There’s nothing living in that pool but I don’t drink it!

  15. 15.

    raven

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:
    “If Mark Kelly, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Arizona, unseats Senator Martha McSally, a Republican who was appointed to her seat and began serving last year, he could be sworn in as early as Nov. 30 — possibly in time to vote on a new Supreme Court nominee, elections experts said.
    Hypothetically, that would narrow the Republicans’ 53-to-47 majority in the upper chamber, which may become relevant if a vote on a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was delayed until a lame-duck session after the election.
    The Arizona race is technically a special election. The state’s Republican governor appointed Ms. McSally to the seat after she was defeated by Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, in a closely contested Senate race in 2018.”

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Billionaire Chuck Feeney achieves goal of giving away his fortune

    Chuck Feeney has achieved his lifetime ambition: giving away his $8bn (£6bn) fortune while he is still around to see the impact it has made.

    For the past 38 years, Feeney, an Irish American who made billions from a duty-free shopping empire, has been making endowments to charities and universities across the world with the goal of “striving for zero … to give it all away”.

    This week Feeney, 89, achieved his goal. The Atlantic Philanthropies, the foundation he set up in secret in 1982 and transferred almost all of his wealth to, has finally run out of money.

    As he signed papers to formally dissolve the foundation, Feeney, who is in poor health, said he was very satisfied with “completing this on my watch”. From his small rented apartment in San Francisco, he had a message for other members of the super-rich, who may have pledged to give away part of their fortunes but only after they have died: “To those wondering about Giving While Living: try it, you’ll like it.”

  21. 21.

    debbie

    @Narya:

    I hope rage is on your list of acceptable reactions.

    I slept like crap last night. At one point, I clicked on my radio and listened to the BBC. Not once did they mention Mitch McConnell’s hypocrisy or Merrick Garland. What the fuck?

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy:
    ‘Frustrations at US policies’ behind Melania Trump statue, says artist

    The American artist behind a controversial statue of the US First Lady Melania Trump, unveiled this week in bronze in her native Slovenia, has defended the work as a representation of the contradictions of her husband’s presidency.

    Brad Downey, a conceptual artist from Kentucky based in Berlin, said the statue that replaced an earlier wooden carving destroyed in an arson attack in July, was motivated by his “frustrations with the policies of my birth country.”

    “On the one hand we have people being held in cages on the US border with Mexico, on the other, in what is to me a clear contradiction, we have a first lady who is the first ever for whom English is not her mother tongue, whose US citizenship was fast-tracked on a visa reserved for immigrants with extraordinary ability. At the same time her husband is xenophobic, anti-Islamic.

    “I felt I could isolate this contradiction and make a portrait of it.”

  29. 29.

    Narya

    @debbie: we are all where we are (or, as Buckaroo Banzai said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”) I’m grateful for the folks here and elsewhere on this bumpy path toward justice, and I too feel rage and despair. Sending you lovingkindness.

  31. 31.

    germy

    @OzarkHillbilly:  whose US citizenship was fast-tracked on a visa reserved for immigrants with extraordinary ability.

    I never understood that.

    Is that common for fashion models, or was the fast-track based on something else?

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The US police department that decided to hire social workers

    The Alexandria police chief, Mike Ward, was “sick and tired” of sending his officers to respond to 911 calls that they lacked the skills and time to handle. In this small Kentucky town of 10,000 people 15 miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio, two-thirds of the calls police responded to were not criminal – instead, they were mental health crises and arguments resulting from long-brewing interpersonal conflicts.

    Police would show up, but they could rarely offer long-lasting solutions. Often, it was inevitable that they would be called back to the same address for the same problem again and again.

    “We’ve been tasked – sometimes unjustifiably – with solving the problems of our community,” said Ward, who retired last year. “Just call the police, they’ll take care of it. And we can’t do that. It’s unrealistic.”

    In 2016 he decided to try a new approach: he talked the city into hiring a social worker for the police department. “To an officer, they all thought I was batshit crazy,” he said of the police.

    The current police chief, Lucas Cooper, said he was “the most vocal opponent” of the plan at the time, thinking that the department should be using its budget to hire more officers for a force he viewed as stretched thin. But now four years later, Cooper sees the program as indispensable: it frees officers from repeat calls for non-criminal issues and gets residents the help they needed, but couldn’t get.
    ……………………………….
    He gave the example of a Vietnam war veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and would call 911 in the early hours of the morning after waking from nightmares.

    “He just didn’t have anybody else – so all he knew to do was call 911 and he knew police would come and he would talk to them,” said Cooper.

    Over the course of a year, the man called 911 about 60 times. When cops would show up and speak with him, he would calm down, but sometimes it could take hours, diverting away police resources at a time of day when few officers were on duty.

    “We knew we weren’t solving the problem, we were just putting a Band-Aid on it every time he called,” said Cooper.

    When the department hired on its first social worker in 2016, she was able to work with the man and connect him with medical treatment with Veterans Affairs. His calls to 911 stopped.

    It’s a start.

  39. 39.

    JMG

    A prediction: Trump will nominate a new Justice, but McConnell won’t bring the nominee to a vote before the election. Better to let Trump have Justice Whoever as a campaign pledge than to put Justice Whoever on the bench leaving only pissed-off Democrats with the issue.

  40. 40.

    PJ

    @germy: “alien of extraordinary ability” is a term of art in the immigration code as the standard to which artists applying for O and P visas must attain.  What this means in reality is that if artists have not achieved a certain degree of notoriety in their field, they may be denied admission.  I guess “models” have been shoe-horned into O visas rather than other work categories covered by other visas.

  42. 42.

    Tony Jay

    Given that Senator McConnell has belatedly acknowledged the constitutional illegitimacy of his decision to deny President Obama’s nominee a hearing and a vote in 2016, when will he be scheduling the Senate vote to request that Justice Gorsuch voluntarily step down in order to begin the confirmation procedure for Justice Garland?

    Variations. Every day. Let the People know who the bad guys are.

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    @JMG: That’s a possibility and probably the smart play from a strategic point of view, but maybe the evil bastards will go with the “bird in hand” principle. There’s so much that could jolt the race between now and November. And Trump is an impatient toddler who will demand that he be allowed to place a fanatic on the court immediately.

  44. 44.

    zhena gogolia

    @Tony Jay:

    They have this tortured logic worked out, which I first saw floated by Joni Ernst a few months ago, and it’s also in McConnell’s statement of last night, as RBG’s toes were just barely turning lukewarm. When Scalia died, Obama was a “lame duck” and the Congress was Republican, so they couldn’t possibly hold hearings on him. Now the voters have spoken and we have total Republican rule, so we must let the Republican President and Senate seat a justice.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Frozen poo and narcissists’ eyebrows studies win Ig Nobel prizes

    To test the validity of a story in a work of ethnographic literature, Metin Eren, an anthropologist at Kent State University in Ohio, made a knife from his frozen faeces. He then set about butchering an animal hide, an endeavour that ended in failure.

    “It’s an honour to be recognised,” Eren said, before the ceremony in which he was honoured for his work on Thursday. “I’ve followed the Ig Nobels my entire life. It’s a dream come true. Really.”
    …………………….
    This year’s awards included a physics prize for work that recorded the shapes earthworms adopt when vibrated at high frequency. The peace prize honoured the governments of India and Pakistan for having their diplomats ring each other’s doorbells in the middle of the night and run away before anyone answered.

    The UK can once again hold its head up high. Chris Watkins, a psychologist at the University of Abertay, shared the economics prize. His research found that French kissing was more common between partners in areas of high income inequality. “If kissing, as hypothesised, is an important gesture for keeping a long-term relationship going, our data show that people engage in it more in economically harsher environments,” he said.

    Boris Johnson shared the medical education prize with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a choice selection of other world leaders for demonstrating during the Covid-19 pandemic that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can.
    ………………………………….
    The acoustics prize went to a team that enticed a Chinese alligator to bellow at high pitch after inhaling helium. The work informed investigations into the role of bellows in communicating body size in courtship and territorial claims.
    …………………………
    The management prize went to five Chinese assassins who subcontracted the hit to each other but failed to get the job done.

  47. 47.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    See you all Monday. The RBG death has just sent my tolerance for political discussion to zero. I’m taking the weekend off.

    I know intellectually that we are in good shape for a win in a legitimate election. I know intellectually that the time from now to Jan 20 was always going to be filled with continued and worse destruction. I know intellectually that we will eventually get back in power, assess the damage, and begin the work of repair. Intellectually I’m still optimistic.

    But emotionally I need a mental health break.

  48. 48.

    Nicole

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    From his small rented apartment in San Francisco, he had a message for other members of the super-rich, who may have pledged to give away part of their fortunes but only after they have died: “To those wondering about Giving While Living: try it, you’ll like it.”

    Very evolved of him, for a rich person.  I am not a fan of celebrating wealthy private philanthropy, as I am of the belief it’s an attempt by the wealthy to rehab their reputations. I agree with AOC (it was AOC, yes?) that every billionaire is a failure of government policy, but good on him for giving it away.

    I know someone who works in trusts and estates and the stories of the lengths some people go to control their wealth (and their families) from beyond the grave- it’s so weird.  That’s what McConnell, at 78, is doing, with his frantic remaking of the judiciary.  Trying to control a nation he won’t live to see.

  49. 49.

    Elizabelle

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:   Ceci, that’s wise.

    Make some GOTV calls to Democratic voters — that might inspire you — and them.  Just make ten, and see how it makes you feel this weekend.  (ETA:  Or just read a good book or relax however you prefer, and come back strengthened later in the week.)

    I shall be offline as much as possible.  Cannot stand the gloom and doom purveyors and Eeyores and I told you so ghouls.

    Perhaps this will be a turning point for the much better good, and we don’t see it at the moment, in our grief.

  51. 51.

    zhena gogolia

    @Nicole:

    This is what puzzles me about Trump, Barr, and McConnell. They don’t believe in God, so they don’t believe in an afterlife. (Barr: “Everybody dies.”) All they believe in is money and power. But why? They can’t possibly spend all that money before they reach their ends. Wouldn’t they like to do something for other people? Just something small? What drives them????

  53. 53.

    zhena gogolia

    @Woodrow/asim:

    Yes, we can do that some time when we’ve forgotten the scrutiny Democratic First Ladies got for things like their cookie recipes and their toned arms.

  54. 54.

    Woodrow/asim

    @zhena gogolia: This is what puzzles me about Trump, Barr, and McConnell. They don’t believe in God, so they don’t believe in an afterlife. (Barr: “Everybody dies.”) All they believe in is money and power. But why? They can’t possibly spend all that money before they reach their ends. Wouldn’t they like to do something for other people? Just something small? What drives them????

    White Supremacy drives them. Just like it drove the American South to self-sabotage its own economy, just to keep my ancestors suppressed and given White folx a sense of power.

    White Supremacy is like the sugar rush that never ends. No matter how low you are on the social pole, dealing in White Supremacy makes you feel like you’re always more powerful, than you are. And that sense of power drives some to crave even more power — over their wives and kids, over their employees, over their constituents.

    White Supremacy cannot be satisfied — it’s never about actual genocide, because who would you hate, then?  Thus it spirals down into more and more of the kinds of self-perpetuating cycles of violence that Adam has described as likely to be in our future, sadly — as it was, in our past.

  57. 57.

    Bruuuuce

    @zhena gogolia: What drives them is lust, for power, for money, for control, for a feeling of superiority any way they can recognize, to compensate for their awareness of the shriveled states of their hearts, and souls, and frequent inability to compete on a level playing field.

  58. 58.

    Nicole

    @zhena gogolia: I hear you.  I finally started to cry about RBG this morning, and it was sparked by the free charging wi-fi station outside my apartment building- there was a quote from her on the screen.  They put just the last half, but I looked it up and here’s the full thing, because it says so much about her: “I tell law students… if you are going to be a lawyer and just practice your profession, you have a skill—very much like a plumber. But if you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself… something that makes life a little better for people less fortunate than you.”

    And that’s what started me crying.  Because I do not understand the mindset of people for whom the cruelty is the point.  I don’t understand how you can’t want to make things better, even in a small way, for other people.   I mean, a tourist is lost on the subway and before you know it, ten NYC’ers are all offering them solutions and arguing with each other about the best way for the tourist to get where they need to go.  That’s the world I like to live in.  I think the Barrs, the McConnells, the Trumps, are broken, in some intrinsic way, and there comes a point in their life when they just aren’t fixable.  Maybe bad parenting broke them, maybe, to borrow from a horseback riding teacher years ago, they just have had their ears pinned back from the moment they dropped out of their mommas.  I don’t know, but I don’t understand it.

    There are plenty of politicians who did terrible things but learned from it- I was last week old when I learned Earl Warren, as AG of California, pushed for the Japanese internment camps, because it was politically advantageous for him at the time.  By 1944, he realized what an awful thing he had advocated. (I learned thanks to George Takei’s graphic novel, They Called Us Enemy, which I highly recommend).  Barr, who is ostensibly Christian, will never see it.

    God, even Atwater realized he’d fucked up.  What does that say, that Lee Atwater had a Road to Damascus moment and McConnell never will?

  59. 59.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So let this be a lesson to ALL septuagenarians out there – you’re not indispensable. There comes a time when you really don’t have a stake in the future, and at a moment when it is possible for you to pass a torch that confirms your legacy and empowers progress, pass it regardless of your feelings of health, because when you do get ill or pass on, it may not be possible for your legacy to survive you.

    Regardless of her contributions, McConnell, Falwell, Graham, Trump, Cruz, Domenach, etc. are in a position to erase every single positive  thing she ever did.

    Here’s to our coming 21 member Supreme Court, otherwise.

    We’re being done in by our elders.

  60. 60.

    Elizabelle

    Email from the League of Women Voters.  I think we can make a big difference, showing up — in person — with a battery operated candle.  We mourn and admire RBG, and here are our numbers.

    Last night we all received the devastating news of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing.

    As we continue to mourn the loss of an extraordinary human being who was a role model and inspiration for many of us, if you are like me, you are also looking for something to do.

    For those in the Washington, D.C. area, please join us for a vigil tonight on the steps of the Supreme Court. The event organized by our partners Demand Justice, will start at 8pm ET, after sundown out of respect for those in the Jewish community celebrating Rosh Hashanah. If you wish to bring a votive candle, make sure it is battery operated. Do not bring anything flammable to the Supreme Court area.

    Following the Supreme Court tribute on Saturday evening, we expect vigils around the country starting Sunday. For everyone attending in-person rallies and vigils, please wear a mask and practice social distancing where possible. For those who cannot attend in-person events, virtual events will be announced soon.

    You will be hearing from us more in the coming days and weeks, but this weekend let’s honor Justice Ginsburg’s legacy. We will work together to ensure her dying wish not to see her seat filled until after inauguration day is respected.

  61. 61.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: I think he’d want a hack in before January so he can try to use that hack to nullify an election loss. That’s going to be Trump’s main play because it’s about him.

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I already called both of my senators this morning, the good (Baldwin) and the bad (Johnson).  Obviously, I got their answering machines, but I left messages saying that I had Baldwin’s back with any efforts the she and the other Democratic senators took to fight a Ginsberg replacement and that I was watching what Johnson was going to do and would be responding with both my vote and my money if he votes to rush through a replacement.  I want both of their voicemail inboxes to be full of similar message when they come in on Monday morning.

    Not much, but I think every little bit counts.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Agreed. I hope we don’t wholly focus on the court though. We’ll be reacting to the GOP and media until the election if we do and that’s a weak place to be.

    Win the election. Lose the seat, save the seat, we’re not in control of that and whatever good or bad decisions led to this situation are in the rear view mirror and can’t be fixed. Just win the election, because the worst case scenario is not losing the seat- it’s losing the seat and the election.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I’m fine with allies fighting it but I don’t think Biden should wholly focus there. The vast majority of our voters don’t pay attention to supreme court justices. Let Trump and political media spin into a SCOTUS drama frenzy. Joe Biden has to reach voters and now that will be more difficult because it’ll be 24/7 scotus drama.

  67. 67.

    Matt McIrvin

    @zhena gogolia: Barr was a notorious schoolyard bully. A lot of these other people probably were too. I saw so many of those people up close when I was a kid. I think they’ve been raised from childhood by their parents to believe that the strong deserve to hurt the weak, the weak deserve to be hurt by the strong, and bullying the weaker also demonstrates that you are stronger. It’s an entire sadistic ideology of “strength” as cruelty.

  69. 69.

    Ohio Mom

    Nicole @58:

    “I mean, a tourist is lost on the subway and before you know it, ten NYC’ers are all offering them solutions and arguing with each other about the best way for the tourist to get where they need to go.”

    This made me chuckle. In my youth, when I lived there, I was one of those ten NYC’ers.

    Sab @62:

    Good on our Governor. I sometimes think about how much cognitive dissonance he lives with. Unlike most Republicans, he appears to know right from wrong, and yet he remains trapped in his identity as a GOPer.

  70. 70.

    zhena gogolia

    @Ohio Mom:

    I’ll never forget how frightened I was the first time I went to NYC with my brother. Then we were sitting in a cramped restaurant, and I managed to flip a yogurt-soaked orange section from my bowl onto the lovely navy-blue coat of the woman sitting on the banquette next to me. She was SO NICE about it that I realized I had the wrong idea about New Yorkers. In many, many subsequent visits I never had any reason to change that first impression.

  71. 71.

    NotMax

    TCM alert. Not in everyone’s wheelhouse, mentioned as know there are fans of manga and classic Japanese action tales here. Beginning at 2:45 a.m. Monday are two – count’ em, two – Lone Wolf & Cub movies.

    Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons
    Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell
    .

  72. 72.

    MomSense

    We just have to focus on the election.  The reality of the situation we find ourselves in now with SCOTUS  is the result of the long game Republicans have been playing for  decades and too many Democrats didn’t know or care about it.  All the smug dismissive responses to my campaign calls going back to 2000 about the SCOTUS always being on the ballot fell on deaf ears to the Naderites and the my vote doesn’t matter types.  Bush gave us Thomas and Alito.  In 2016 the same arguments about the Court didn’t matter one fucking bit to the Bernie or busters. When they complain about Citizens United I want to reach through my screen and strangle them.
    I’ve been angry about our failure to give the courts the prominence they deserve forever, but I’m feeling it acutely today and I’m not over it.  I also don’t like being lectured about the appropriate way to feel and all the positive actions we can take now.  That ship fucking sailed decades ago and maybe some of us feel angry because we have been organizing about the courts for a long time and we lost.

    My advice is to focus on the election.  If SCOTUS becomes an issue that actually moves people to vote for Democrats I’ll be pleasantly surprised.  The more likely scenario is that this will take up all the media airplay and that will help the Republicans.  The challenge for us is to keep the focus on the economy, the fact that parents are fucked over when it comes to school and daycare, and all the other bread and butter issues that will help Democrats.  Republicans are motivated by the courts – they have been consistently for decades.  They will show up to vote for Republicans and it will give them the justification that outweighs their concerns about trump.
    I’m not being a downer for saying that a SCOTUS justice in play helps Republicans.  It may also help Democrats, but it definitely helps Republicans.

  74. 74.

    MomSense

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I also wonder about Barr’s dad who was at Dalton, the same school that hired Epstein to teach even though he didn’t have a college degree.  Barr’s dad wrote a Sci-Fi novel about child sex slavery.  I do wonder what kind of horrors were taking place at that school?

  75. 75.

    MomSense

    @MomSense:

    Meant Roberts and Alito not Thomas. I’m still pissed about Thomas.  I’m hearing Republicans still talking about  fucking Bork and how Garland was revenge for Bork.

  76. 76.

    debbie

    @Ohio Mom:

    I was also one of those NYCers,  but after giving directions and walking about a block or so, I realized those directions were wrong. Time and time again.

  79. 79.

    Tony Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Ha! Suuuuure. That’s an entirely defensible position. They should be made to repeat it  over and over again.

    And Democrats should, IMHO, be using it as justification for announcing that when they get control back they’re immefiately expanding the SC to repair McConnell’s damage and restore Constitutional Government after this radicalised interregnum.

    No prisoners. No apologies. No compromise.

  80. 80.

    Eunicecycle

    @MomSense: Everything Republicans have done with the courts in the last 30 years they say is in revenge for Bork. You know, when people actually look at your public rulings and statements and decide you’re not qualified, you’ve been Borked.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:   Good advice, Kay.  Leave it to the allies and surrogates.

    Although you know SCOTUS will come up as a question, constantly.

    But Biden, and Democrats, can operate on more than one track.

  82. 82.

    germy

    WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump on Saturday urged the Republican-run Senate to consider “without delay” his upcoming nomination to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just six weeks before the election.

    “We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us,” Trump tweeted, “the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices. We have this obligation, without delay!”

  86. 86.

    Elizabelle

    @Eunicecycle:   Someone should remind the GOP — not that it matters, they have their slogan BORK! for the mouth-breathing — that several presidents’ justices did not make it through the Senate vote.  Democratic presidents, too.

    They did not, however, get stopped purely by the Senate Majority Leader.

  87. 87.

    germy

    @Eunicecycle:  Everything Republicans have done with the courts in the last 30 years they say is in revenge for Bork.

    And everything they’ve done to Democratic presidents is in revenge for Nixon’s resignation.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    Marc Caputo
    @MarcACaputo
    ·43m
    Biden campaign’s first RBG-centric fundraising pitch is sent out under the name of runningmate/Sen. Kamala Harris, who will have a vote on Trump’s pick if/when it comes to the Senate floor

    Perfect. Hand it to Kamala.
    Biden needs to be at a school, workplace or nursing home. If he’s asked he can give the same statement he made last night which was perfect – there’s nothing that needs to be added to it by him.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    @zhena gogolia:

    his is what puzzles me about Trump, Barr, and McConnell. They don’t believe in God, so they don’t believe in an afterlife. (Barr: “Everybody dies.”)

    I think you are wrong about AG Barr, who is a member of Opus Dei, a fanatical right-wing Catholic organization founded by a fascist monk in Spain almost a hundred years ago. I think he believes in the Old Testament Lord of Hosts, angry all the time, willing to kill whole populations for blending threads in a mixed fabric, or eating the wrong animal.

    Barr just wants to punish people here while he can, before sending them on to the hell his angry Lord promises in the afterlife.  Barr is deluded enough to believe that he is doing his Lord’s work by punishing some and holding others down with a choke hold, his favorite police tactic.

  93. 93.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    “We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us,” Trump tweeted..

    He’s President of the Red States of America as they impose their will on us all. I’m kind of in a “fuck America, fuck Jesus, fuck the troops, fuck the cops, fuck granny and her white picket fence, fuck the shitty flag, fuck the dumbasses that wrote what has now been revealed to be a shitty constitution” mood.

    If that puts me in a “burn it the fuck down, we don’t deserve this place” ideological landscape, so be it.

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    @germy:

    “We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us,” Trump tweeted

    The know nothings. The dead enders.  The Russians.  The red staters.  The insanely wealthy, particularly those with enormous outstanding federal tax debt.

    The whole country?  Fuck ’em.

    ETA:  Actually, I think that Trump tweet reads loud and clear to Blue Staters.  You have your incentive for writing some more cards, giving some more money, voting early, calling voters.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    Biden is not going to have any problem with commenting on judicial nominations process and moving on. But if we want to lose the election we’ll focus there. For Republicans it’s a core argument fight- it’s the only one they have left after Trump because they jettisoned every other principle. For us it’s a process fight. There is no large group of voters who want to spend 45 days listening to Democrats accuse Republicans of “hypocrisy”. Jesus Christ. Just kill me now.

    I though Ginsburg should have retired when Obama was elected. I have never seen a sensible defense for why she didn’t, other than “she didn’t want to” which is certainly her right but doesn’t do much or me and in fact doesn’t make any sense if the goal was to advance liberal jurisprudence. Let’s not lose the seat and the election by chasing this. It’s gone.

  97. 97.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MomSense:

    My Jewish friends make a great point about the Christianist presumptions inherent in “RIP” and “she’s in a better place”.

    May her Memory Be a Blessing.

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MomSense: If you read any Republican source on the Bork confirmation you will see it describing the Democrats as filibustering him, which they did not. They’ve developed a whole mythology.

  100. 100.

    Bruuuuce

    I’m beginning to see calls for the House to send the Senate resolutions of impeachment, which would take precedence over minutiae such as confirming Justices. On the one hand, that would be a good thing. On the other, the political calculus is not good. Second and third impeachments of Trump, justified as they are, will be viewed as political fodder and used for huge fundraising and PR efforts among the base and the weak-minded. Impeachments of other officials (Barr, Kavanaugh) would be just as bad, politically.

     

    I think that, stipulating that we can hold off any votes on SCOTUS until the election is over, sending those resolutions during the lame duck term wouldn’t be a bad strategy. But not now.

  101. 101.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    I though Ginsburg should have retired when Obama was elected. I have never seen a sensible defense for why she didn’t, other than “she didn’t want to” which is certainly her right but doesn’t do much or me and in fact doesn’t make any sense if the goal was to advance liberal jurisprudence. Let’s not lose the seat and the election by chasing this. It’s gone.

    Have you made this declaration for any other Justice? Or did you reserve it just for her? What’s your cutoff age for when a Supreme should retire? Are you currently making it for the other Social Security collecting recipients? Are you calling for Breyer to immediately step down? I can’t wait for you to start harping on Sotomayor to step down to “advance liberal jurisprudence” next year, or Kagan in 7. You at least need to be consistent on this.

  102. 102.

    J R in WV

    I’m very encouraged by the huge wave of folks lining up to vote as early voting started in their states. I’m also having trouble typing because of the big kitty purring on my lap!!

    Voting BLUE in such numbers that no court would dare overturn any portion of the election — that’s the best solution to this whole historic situation~!!~

  103. 103.

    MomSense

     

    @Kay:

    One of the things I really appreciate about Kamala is that she didn’t wait for moderators to ask the right questions or get sucked into stupid debates about M4All.  She would bring up how women, especially women of color and poor women were being denied reproductive health services and abortion services and we needed to keep our focus on helping them right now.  She is a lot like Ginsberg when it comes to asserting and defending rights for women from the jump.  Remember her question to Kavanaugh to name a law any law that regulates men’s’ bodies.  That was a glorious moment- didn’t change the outcome but it was glorious.  That’s the thing about the courts.  It’s one of the most direct projections of power.  That’s why we have to be in power.  Protesting doesn’t do shit when it comes to the Courts.

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kay:

    Sen. Kamala Harris, who will have a vote on Trump’s pick if/when it comes to the Senate floor

    Or even before. Kamala is a member of the Judiciary Committee and presumably will have the opportunity to question and vote on advancing the nominee.

  106. 106.

    J R in WV

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a hero, doing heroic work, her whole life. She should have never stopped, just as she did never stop. Those who decry her standing in the court until she actually died in service don’t understand her viewpoint — which was to serve the nation for her whole life.

    Some folks jumped on her instantly last night upon her death, and I pied the whole lot of them. Those were people who rarely post anything, much less well thought-out ideas. I’m not going to pie people I respect merely for expressing the wish that RBG had avoided this situation.

    Frankly I don’t blame her so much as I blame all those who didn’t help vote to keep Trump away from his catastrophic run in the Oval Office. I worked my ass off doing phone banking for Hillary, calling Ohio for weeks. It got more depressing the closed we got to the election, thanks for Comey, that piece of rules-don’t-apply-to-me crap, along with the Russian agents like Manafort, Assange and Trump.

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @J R in WV:

    Voting BLUE in such numbers that no court would dare overturn any portion of the election

    I’m not convinced there is such a number–I think they might overturn even a landslide.

    But if we need to have a revolution, whether peaceful or violent, the first step is establishing legitimacy in the popular imagination, and overwhelming numbers will help with that.

  108. 108.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Leto:

    My cutoff is 70 – once they pass it, it’s time to start looking for exits. Frankly, it would thrill me to no end if federal judges were limited to 10 year terms.

    Electoral College needs to go, too.

  111. 111.

    Tony Jay

    From over here it looks pretty simple. The Democrats should get their messaging on this issue out there right now and stick to it.

    Either McConnell sticks to his own made up rule regarding nominations for SC seats and holds no hearings until after the voters have decided, or the Democrats will repair his unconstitutional radicalism after they retake power in Washington.

    Simple. Democrats want to let the People decide. If McConnell doesn’t want to do that and insists on radicalising the Court for partisan ends, he gets to watch the next Congress restore the Will of the People through Constititionally appropriate means. It’s all on him. The opinion of the Democratic Party will not change.

    Now, back to the Election campaign.

  112. 112.

    Leto

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: why aren’t you saying shit about Breyer? Oddly fucking silent on that front. Again, just like with Kay, consistency. You better start warming up for Sotomayor, though Kagan has some time. Also I’ll say this: just like with Peolsi, I trust(ed) RBGs judgement on just about everything more than rando’s on a top 10k blog/Twitterverse.

  114. 114.

    Leto

    @zhena gogolia: if we’re going by that mark, arbitrary age because… “reasons”, then we need to be prepared for Justices being nominated in their mid 30s. I asked Omnes about this about a year ago, roughly what age should lawyers be considered for judgeships, and he said by mid 30s most judges have all the knowledge/experience they need. If we’re looking to have term limits on ALL federal positions (not just the SC, because why would you limit to just the SC for all the same reasons), AND we don’t want them to DIE in office, then mid 30s is the perfect age. Still healthy, apparently has all the legal acumen they’ll ever accrue, as well as collecting all the bench experience they’ll need, and there’s a plentiful supply of them. Plus once they hit 60, we can basically tell them to fuck off, go knit/fish, and not have to hear from them any more.  Win/win all around.

  115. 115.

    germy

    Hillary Clinton: "Mitch McConnell cares only about one thing, and that's power. He cares about literally nothing else. And, of course, he's going to do everything he can to fill that seat."

    — Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) September 19, 2020

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @Leto:

    No one asked about Breyer. I would say the same. Renquist? Christ he stayed on the bench so long he was obviously addled and everyone knew it. I’m not invested in these individuals- it’s not about the individual, or it’s not supposed to be. It’s about the court.

    I’m fine with “I wanted to stay in the job, have a right to stay in the job” etc. but don’t tell me it’s about liberal priorities – it’s not. I let the seat go when Trump was elected. I want to win the election.

  119. 119.

    Leto

    @Kay:  The fact you’ve never brought it up speaks for itself. If it’s about “the court” then you need to demonstrate that she’s lost the capacity to serve, and you couldn’t. All you’re doing is transposing Ohio’s shitty laws onto a national stage. Anyone advocating for the nation to copy what Ohio does is just fucking lunacy.

    You didn’t bring up that RBG or Breyer should retire back in 2008, just like you won’t bring up the other Justices who are a footstep away and who should apparently get the fuck out. Jesus I understand why immigrants feel out of place in America.

  120. 120.

    Kay

    @Leto:

    I absolutely think Sotomayor (who I love as a judge- she’s underrated) should step down when she’s elderly and if she’s in failing health and we have a new Democratic President. That seems like an eminently sensible strategy to me so I don’t know why I wouldn’t. I can’t of course decree this (obviously) but that’s my preference.

    Obama made excellent picks. I would have preferred three. I didn’t get it so now I’d like to win the election so Biden can maybe get one.

  121. 121.

    Kathleen

    @Nicole: So did George Wallace. I agree with you that the evil we’re seeing is from broken fragmented beings. As my Christian co worker put it perfectly said, so many of our deepest problems are of the heart.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @Leto:

    I don’t have to demonstrate anything. I’m not in charge. Do I think 80 year old Democratic judges should step down when a new Democrat is elected? Yeah, I do. Go ahead and apply that to any of them. I don’t care what the Republicans do. I know what they’ll do. They’ll do what Kennedy did, which is let a new GOP President appoint their replacement, because they know Presidential terms are 4 or 8.

    If I have a conservative majority on the SCOTUS can I get Joe Biden, or must I die on this hill? The seat is gone. There won’t be any legacy defending because the seat is gone. I would have been on board for legacy defending! I don’t have the judge to do it.

  124. 124.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:   I agree with you about Ginsburg should have retired when Obama was president.  Have always thought that, and did not appreciate the 3.5 years of angst over whether her health would get her past the Trump years.

    Unpopular opinion here, but suck on it, peeps.

  125. 125.

    Kathleen

    @Matt McIrvin: I suspect their parents bullied them. I’ve heard/read that about Rove, Trump, Koch Brothers,  Roger Ailes and that’s just off the top of my head. That doesn’t excuse their malevolence but I think we need to acknowledge the energies of the people they appeal to.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    I’m disappointed because I thought I saw signs that Biden was starting to pull away and what I want is a huge voter REJECTION of Donald Trump. I don’t want to go off in other directions and please, God no not a process fight you’re going to lose.

  130. 130.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    should step down when she’s elderly and if she’s in failing health and we have a new Democratic President.

    Moving the goal posts there. First it was elderly. Now it’s failing health and we need to have a new Dem president. If we’re applying Ohio law, which you stated works just fine, then it’s just elderly. Health/party has nothing to do with it because it’s “the court”. I mean, if it’s really about “health” as you state, then the cap needs to be 50 because the human body is well past peak by that time. I also can’t wait to see you shit on Pelosi for the same reasons. It’ll be amazing.

  132. 132.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s just this “no one does this! how dare you!”. Judges do it all the time. There’s a absolute scramble in Ohio every time there’s a new governor because they know if they look at the rules they can get the new gov to appoint a bunch with strategic retirements. No one is horribly offended by this. I mean, christ they’re all lawyers. If there’s one thing they know it’s “rules and dates and factors”. It would be amazing if they didn’t do it. It’s 50% of their work. If there’s one thing we all know it’s “timed out”.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    That’s the argument for electing judges but there’s also good arguments against it. I don’t think they should elect federal judges.

    Here’s a federal court that uses a different process though:

    Bankruptcy judges serve as judicial officers of the U.S. district courts and constitute the bankruptcy court for their respective districts. The U.S. court of appeals for each circuit appoints bankruptcy judges to renewable fourteen-years terms. The number of bankruptcy judgeships is determined by Congress, which receives periodic advice from the Judicial Conference of the United States on the need for additional judges.

  136. 136.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Leto:

    Absolutely Breyer should’ve gone. WE ARE HOSTAGE TO THE OLD in this country, and have been my entire adult life. I’m sick of policy pandering to them, and stopped giving a shit about granny eating cat food when I noticed that granny didn’t give a shit about me.

    Frankly, we’re long overdue some major age discrimination in employment and other public expenditures, particularly with regard to heroic Medicare efforts, considering the amount of public benefits my worthless, never-contributed a dime maternal grandmother devoured over the final four decades of her resource wasting life.

  137. 137.

    Jinchi

    @Leto: Have you made this declaration for any other Justice? Or did you reserve it just for her? What’s your cutoff age for when a Supreme should retire?

    No age limit, but I think Supreme Court justices should be term limited to 10 years. Lower court justices should be term limited as well, or at least subject to regular re-appointment/re-election. Lifetime tenure drives insane choices and gamesmanship. I think that the whole Presidential nomination/Senate approval process should be ended as well.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    The bar in Ohio makes what I think is a better argument for electing judges – better than “let the people decide!”. They say appointing them leads to a sameness in background and experience. I think there’s truth to that- we currently have an Ohio Supreme Court judge (he’s a D) who was an army nurse and went to law school as a second career. I think that diversity of experience is valuable in a judge.

  139. 139.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MomSense: hear, hear

    I’m not being a downer for saying that a SCOTUS justice in play helps Republicans.  It may also help Democrats, but it definitely helps Republicans.

    I think RBG’s iconic status might give the issue a new importance for Dems, “suburban” women, as the pollster code goes. I hope so.

  141. 141.

    Jinchi

    @Kay: I don’t think they should elect federal judges.

    I used to think the same, when I believed that most judicial nominees sat somewhat outside the political world. But we live now in an era where judicial nominees are, if anything, even more partisan than elected officials.

  142. 142.

    Kathleen

    @MomSense: That is s campaign video for Desiree Tims who’s running for Congress in Dayton OH. She is very impressive. I watched Ohio Dem online convention and Kamala was guest and she spent the time chatting with Desiree who told her Kamala’s signature “I eat no for breakfast” got her through law school.

  143. 143.

    Leto

    @Kay: No, I guess a lawyer doesn’t have to demonstrate anything. If a contested election goes to the SC, you’re probably going to have both Trumpov and a conservative SC. But hey, you already stated that our voters don’t give a shit about the courts so yeah.

     

    @Elizabelle: I guess for me it’s the inconsistency wrt women. For some reason I’m supposed to trust Nancy Pelosi in everything she’s doing, even though she’s 80 and apparently she’s already dead, but for RBG that old bag should’ve stepped down 12 years ago. At least be consistent with the argument. Literally no one here is arguing for Pelosi to step down for younger members. That same thought process should extend over. I feel this is the same argument for term limits for members of Congress. Yes, term limits for them already apply via election, but the case being made by both you and Kay is AGE should be the overriding determining factor in this. I mean, she moved it to health/party specific president, but age is the only factor in determining if a person is qualified to do their job. Ok…

    And again, it’s striking that nobody was clamoring for Breyer to retire during Obama’s 2 terms. Why wasn’t his retirement demanded back in 2008, like apparently RBGs was? Like I said, can’t wait to see what people here really think when Pelosi finally dies. It’ll be amazing.

  144. 144.

    Leto

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Whew, that’s the same hot take I expected from the guy who transphobic. LET THE OLDS DIE! A+ Dem messaging there.

    @Jinchi: which is a better argument to be had, which is one that I would make.

    @Kay: While that’s aspirational and all, your current makeup is 7 Rs and 2 Ds, which helps explain your backwards trend in abortion rights since 2014. But yeah, Ohio is “the model”.

  145. 145.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Nelle:

    When I care enough to bother? Frequently.

    My mirth is boundless when certain congregations, short-term peacetime military service  or K of C membership are listed prominently in the obit.

  147. 147.

    Leto

    @Elizabelle: Also using our ruby tinted looking back rose glasses, at what point during Obama’s first term (when we held the Senate) should she have stepped down. Remember everything that was going on during that time (both political/judicial). Kay should have no problem answering this too. Should be pretty simple.

  148. 148.

    Elizabelle

    @Leto:  Pelosi and Ginsburg have entirely different statuses there.  A presidential nomination when a vacancy arrives, vs. elections every two years.  One of these phenomenal women is more easily replaced than the other.

    In general, I am not in favor of old folks hanging on to Committee chairs or power forever.  That said, Nancy Pelosi is phenomenal at her job, and we are lucky to have her talents and steel.

    You make a good point about Breyer.  He is just five years younger than Ginsburg.

  149. 149.

    Elizabelle

    @Leto:   She waited too damn long.  I suspect she might have been waiting to be replaced by the first woman POTUS.  Didn’t happen.  Bad gamble.

    It’s all done, though.  Further, replacing Ginsburg would have been replacing a liberal justice.  Replacing Scalia would be trading a liberal for a conservative.  We will never know, but I don’t think every aspect of our political life resides with the great god McConnell.

    This is all I will say on this.  I am sick about the whole thing, and nothing any of us says means fuck anything.

    I am out of here.

  150. 150.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Making the number of justices be something like 21 would forever dilute the importance of SC picks in presidential elections.

    Errors can be more easily undone.

  151. 151.

    Omnes Omnibus

    If we are arguing about Supreme Court terms, I think a single term of, say, 18 years would serve the goals of institution stability over time and removing the death pool bingo that we currently have.  It would also take much of the pressure off any justice to hang on longer or retire early for political reasons.

    @Leto: I would say that a lawyer with 10-15 years of experience. would be necessary before going on the bench.  So if a lawyer went straight through from college to law school, mid to late 30s would be minimum.  Other life experience would also be recommended.  I would not say that mid-30s is the optimal age for appointment.

  152. 152.

    Nicole

    @Leto:

    For some reason I’m supposed to trust Nancy Pelosi in everything she’s doing, even though she’s 80 and apparently she’s already dead, but for RBG that old bag should’ve stepped down 12 years ago.

    There’s been plenty of “Pelosi is too old and should step down” in the past.  And yet McConnell is only a couple years younger than Pelosi and men, statistically speaking, don’t live as long as women do.  But you never, ever hear anything about his age.

    Mind you though, overall I’m agreeing with you that there’s a double standard against women in politics when it comes to age, which I imagine is probably linked to our societally instilled distaste for women after they are no longer in their reproductive years.

    The last 2 Supreme Court justices to die in office were Rehnquist and Scalia, at 80 and 79, respectively.  RBG outlasted them by 7 and 8 years, respectively.  Rehnquist, in particular, died early in Bush’s 2nd term and I don’t recall anyone saying during Bush’s first term that Rehnquist should retire so Bush could appoint another GOP justice.

  153. 153.

    Kay

    @Leto:

    I didn’t say Ohio was “the model”. I specifically said I don’t think federal judges should be elected.

    Ginsburg agrees with my general approach if not the specifics:

    “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ruth Bader Ginsburg told her granddaughter, Clara Spera, in the days before her death, NPR reported.

    She understands the importance of timing. All lawyers do. She got one new president and she needed two.

  154. 154.

    Gvg

    @Leto: no it’s not moving the goal post. Maybe you missed the point of why some people really wanted her to retire then. It was strategic and related to everything that were the circumstances then. Her age and poor health were significantly worse than most justices we have seen and the political situation was already crazy and partisan. Earlier too old judges weren’t in the same political toxic heading towards worse time. This matters in why I and some others really resented her choice. This day was easily foreseeable and she was smart.

    your argument is striking me like you think there is some hidden misogynistic reason we point to Ginsburg instead of others. It’s because the GOP is so misogynist right now. I want to be safe. Losing this seat to whatever corrupt hack Trump nominates, makes me less safe. I have been frightened by this possibility since 2009. Fear makes me angry. Being told I shouldn’t feel that way, makes me angrier.

    if there was a Liberal man on the court who was critical to protecting the rights of women and others, and he had been in as poor a health and as old as Ginsburg, I would have wanted him to step down when Obama was president and we held the Senate. After that it wasn’t possible. Everything all circumstances, were a factor in our opinion. It wasn’t just that she was old.

  156. 156.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yep. Too many get to become judges with far too little general experience. The worst judges I know never did anything beyond being prosecutors for 5-10 years before getting to the bench. The best judges had extensive amounts of time in practice, are well-versed in empathy and don’t get to wound up in the rigidity of process.

  157. 157.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle: @Leto: I am not a fan of alternate history.  We could play it all day.  What if she had retired and a 45 year old liberal had replaced her and then been hit by a truck?  Or if the GOP had Garlanded her replacement giving Trump this appointment early and a 6-3 right-wing Court for his whole term?  That would have been fun.  Hence my preemptive “fuck you” to all the alternative historians last night.

  158. 158.

    Nicole

    @Leto:

    Plus once they hit 60, we can basically tell them to fuck off, go knit/fish, and not have to hear from them any more.  Win/win all around.

    RBG got on the Supreme Court at 60.  Served 27 years.

    Earl Warren got on at age 62.  Served almost 16 years.

    Thurgood Marshall was 59.  Served 22 years.

    Would the nation be in a better place if they’d all been told to go fuck off and knit/fish at 60?

  160. 160.

    Elizabelle

    @Gvg:   Thank you.  You explained it really well.

    And Nicole had a great point about McConnell, and about mens’ life expectancy.  Except:  Senators and presidents get the very best of healthcare.  And just about every Senator is wealthy.  In both cases, unlike a lot of their age cohort.

    Leto:  please stop calling us misogynists.  You would be sadly mistaken there.  It’s age and health and politics.  Obama could have been a a one-term president too.  McConnell vowed early on to make him one.

  162. 162.

    Tazj

    @Matt McIrvin: I had no idea that Barr was a school bully until you commented. I had to go look it up.He was so mean and antisemitic to his classmate. I know he was in high school but even then his views were extreme, protesting against the NAACP? Wow.

  163. 163.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:   We deserve a better political system.  We really do.  We should not be in this situation.  “We” didn’t send the Republicans over the cliff into insanity and sociopathy, but it’s where we find ourselves.

    And it’s on we to do something about it.

    This whole topic is really distressing me.  Off to do something else.  Ciao.

  164. 164.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Agreed. There was a drug court judge here with a counseling-type background. One of my brothers is in counseling and he said the judge had a sterling reputation. It was a very sad day when he retired, though he returned to counseling, so it wasn’t a total loss.

  165. 165.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie:   They are more likely to die at advanced ages, when they are beset with about their fourth occurrence of cancer.  Funny that.

  166. 166.

    Leto

    @Kay: Objection, speculation.

    @Gvg: So I’ll pose the same question: at what point during Obama’s first term should she have made him expend that type of political capital to replace her? Again, consider everything that was going on into this calculus. Also you have a liberal man who’s critical of protecting women’s rights/other, almost a decade older and has his own health issues. If we’re going by her health issues, then she should’ve stepped down in 1999 with her first bout of cancer. Right? Because her next bout of cancer occurred in 2009, but was treated and she was fine. After that, with her health issues, we didn’t hold the Senate. So at what time did you want her to step down? And this should be posed to Kay/Elizabelle/everyone else too. You now have a retroactive timeline, make that decision.

    Also here’s Breyer in his own words:

    In a recent interview with Axios, Breyer said that who the president is and the court’s future ideological balance were “not totally irrelevant” considerations for justices weighing when to leave the bench.

    But when asked about retirement, Breyer, a Clinton nominee, said, “I don’t really think about it,” and added, “I enjoy what I’m doing.”

    https://thehill.com/regulation/499617-speculation-swirls-about-next-supreme-court-vacancy

    Breyer is aware of what’s going on. He should’ve stepped down in 2008 when Obama was elected and there is an undercurrent of misogyny with this. Like I said above, can’t wait to see this blog when Pelosi passes. It’ll be amazing. Should be amazing when Breyer passes too.

  169. 169.

    Leto

    @Nicole: That’s kind of my point. We have an arbitrary age limit, like fucking Ohio, and where would be wrt to some of the best justices of the court? Age hasn’t nothing to fucking do with it. This isn’t 1776 when the life expectancy was 50. (Obvious sarcasm wasn’t obvious, should’ve done a /s for that ender)

     

    @Gvg: and you’re playing alternate history, and you’re not saying the same about Breyer.

     

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’d ask, is that a good time to seat them on the SC, or start them at a lower level and then progress up from there. And I agree with you on alternate history. Everyone here clamoring she should’ve retired is playing it. It would’ve required her to have that magic Obama time traveling machine to know when the precise moment to step aside would’ve been. It sure as fuck would’ve been helpful for me circa Oct 2018.

     

    @Elizabelle: Obama being a 1 term president should’ve been on the mind of Breyer too. But of course it wasn’t. If that’s the case, Sotomayor and Kagan need to step once/if Biden wins. Because… age.

  170. 170.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Leto: The vast majority of Supreme Court Justices come from the Circuit Court bench (federal appellate court).  Those judges come largely from federal practice or academic backgrounds.  If I were gaming the current system, I would place potential Court nominees as judges on the Circuit bench in their late thirties or early forties.  Season them there for a few years and then when a appointment comes along pick someone from 45-55.

  174. 174.

    James E Powell

    @Kay: 

    Biden is not going to have any problem with commenting on judicial nominations process and moving on. But if we want to lose the election we’ll focus there. For Republicans it’s a core argument fight- it’s the only one they have left after Trump because they jettisoned every other principle.

    Agree completely. I think it’s the only issue that would cause Republicans who are sick of Trump to hold their noses and vote for him.

  175. 175.

    Bill Arnold

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    The first step was an EB-1 visa, aka an “Einstein visa”.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/us/melania-trump-einstein-visa.html
    I knew a young computer scientist who got one of those visas. He was very very smart, and arguably a genius. It was dicey; he was writing papers while unemployed and living on savings and waiting on the visa process.
    Melania has since proven herself to be scum (birther, etc), and the adjudication officer should be investigated (bank records, etc.)

    Once those[top of field arguments] are met, the decision comes down to a vague and undefined “final merits determination” by the immigration agency.
    “That is the mystery; nobody knows what it is,” said Ms. Sostrin, the lawyer in Los Angeles, who recently secured EB-1s for an award-winning stunt performer and a high-end events planner.

  176. 176.

    Bill Arnold

    @Woodrow/asim:

    Can we focus on shit like Melania’s racist stance for backing the Birther movement, and less on how horrible she must be for having maybe done sex work?

    If there was fraud, maybe her citizenship can be revoked, and she and her parents deported.
    At the very least she should be worrying about this.

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