NEW: Trump and GOP aim to complete reshaping of federal judiciary with new SCOTUS nominee https://t.co/xX8aTSboff pic.twitter.com/NtVeToUntk
— The Hill (@thehill) September 29, 2020
This administration is threatening the very legitimacy of the Court — and all of us — by trying to rush through a nominee.
We must take action.
Message your senator NOW to delay a SCOTUS confirmation ⬇️ https://t.co/irLAqi5OKj
— ACLU (@ACLU) September 28, 2020
While the odds, at this moment, are in Coney Barrett’s favor, when it comes to seating a new Supreme Court Justice, “rush” is a relative term. The first hearing isn’t scheduled until October 12th, which is two weeks or approximately 750 internet news cycles from now. The AP put out a good explainer on the process over the weekend. Here’s the latest from the NYTimes:
… The White House planned to send paperwork to the Senate formally nominating Judge Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor and appeals court judge in Chicago, on Tuesday, when lawmakers reconvene after the Jewish high holidays. She was also scheduled to begin courtesy visits to Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader who championed her selection; Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and many Republicans on the panel.
Some top Democrats, still steaming over Republicans’ rush to fill the seat so close to an election, turned down offers to meet, laying the first bricks in a wall of opposition to the nomination they plan to erect in the coming weeks. Others pledged to use the meetings to begin pressing Judge Barrett to explain her views on politically divisive issues that could come before the court, like abortion rights, gay rights, the Affordable Care Act and affirmative action…
Out of public view, the Judiciary Committee was already working at full tilt to prepare for four days of nationally televised hearings set to begin in just two weeks. The committee typically has more than a month for such preparations, but Republicans insist no more time is necessary because Judge Barrett’s record was studied by many of the same lawmakers in 2017, when she was nominated to sit on the appeals court.
Both sides were quickly bringing on extra help, with close to 20 lawyers and law clerks temporarily joining the committee between the Democrats and Republicans. The additions were reported earlier by Politico…
Per the AP:
… Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham says his panel will hold four days of confirmation hearings the week of Oct. 12.
Once the committee approves the nomination, it goes to the Senate floor for a final vote. This could all happen by Nov. 3 if the process goes smoothly. Graham said he hopes the committee can move the nomination to the Senate floor by the week of Oct. 26 for a confirmation vote…
Republicans are privately aiming to hold the final vote the last week of October, but acknowledge the tight timeline and say they will need to see how the hearings go. McConnell has been careful not to say when he believes the final confirmation vote will happen, other than “this year.” …
(I’m sure Senator-for-the-moment Graham is happy to have this dumped on his lap right now — it’s not as though he had other issues, like an increasing tight reelection campaign, to think about.)
Once again: While the GOP is eager to stress the ‘inevitability’ of Judge Coney Barrett’s ascension, there’s a lot going on between now and November 3rd, and almost as much between then and January 21st…
If it feels like Judge Amy Coney Barrett's SCOTUS nomination is moving real fast, it's because it is. A little history + a little math: https://t.co/PwLCkeUPYO
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) September 28, 2020
Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, has close ties to a charismatic Christian group that holds men are divinely ordained as the "head” of the family. @MBieseck @MRSmithAP https://t.co/Evd1a9fcsi
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 29, 2020
Billionaire climate polluter Charles Koch is pressuring senators into confirming Amy Coney Barrett by waging media campaigns vs them all over the country: https://t.co/hUr1nYHE5T
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) September 27, 2020
On The Road After Dark – lashonharangue – Southern Chile Road Trip Part 4
Cheryl Rofer
I see what you did there ???
HumboldtBlue
There isn’t much there that surprises, here’s hoping we make it in one piece to Jan.
Damien
Republicans have made themselves into the enemy. How very sad.
piratedan
I’d be happy to have all the Dems turn over the questioning to Amy Klobuchar and see if she would do the following.
Simply ask the applicant about… every single law that the Trump Administration has broken…
a day on the emoluments clause, what constitutes a violation and bring up specific instances where the 45 Administration has violated it and ask her, in her opinion if this applies
then a day on the Hatch Act – rinse and repeat
We could have her take on the violation on immigration law, campaign finance violations, sexual assault, what constitutes conspiracy, money laundering, RICO, slander, etc
and just cite the violations that he’s publicly admitted to… and allow her to defend him and her nomination and make it obvious to all that she’s either a pawn or if she’s a jurist…
If nothing else, it would remove any illusions and doubts for us all.
since the result is baked in, I think a nice polite respectful review of what’s taken place would be in order… Harris will be on the campaign trail and I believe the Klobuchar would be up to the task.
Ohio Mom
In addition to everything else, I can’t get over Barrett’s lack of experience — she’s been a federal for all of three years. Even if I liked her politics, I think I’d be balking.
Adam L Silverman
Everyone needs to remember that Diane Feinstein is the ranking Democratic member on the Judiciary Committee. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.
guachi
To give you guys an idea how much variability is built into those Presidential Prediction sites I looked at the Economist’s website where they give an estimate of the chance of each candidate winning each state. I ran 100,000 simulations assuming a) each state’s result was independent of any other state and b) the estimate was accurate. This isn’t how the sites work as they build in a fudge factor for polls being systematically off in some way.
The Economist estimates Biden has an 85% chance of winning.
If the website is accurate and there is no systemic variability built in then Biden has a 98.6% chance of winning.
A large chunk of Trump’s chance of winning is fudge factor and not what’s specifically being represented in the polls.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: True. Sigh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chris Hayes gets on the optimism train!
West of the Rockies
Remember a thousand years ago when Harriet Miers was nominated, met with immediate scorn from both sides, and had the decency to remove herself? Of course, we ended up with a different wingnut, but at least the system kind of worked.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
gene108
Charles Koch is a very, very evil man.
MisterForkbeard
@piratedan: It would be four days of “I can’t comment on a potential case.”
Adam L Silverman
@gene108: He funds Ian Bremmer’s think tank.
prostratedragon
@gene108: Yep. And one who quite explicitly is intent on destroying every social accomplishment in this country for the better part of a century. And unlike Some, really is filthy rich, which gives the rest of us a major part of our social agenda for a while.
piratedan
@MisterForkbeard: i dunno, I think it would be enlightening to have her fully lay out how she believes what the Hatch Act is, the Emoluments clause… don’t even have to bring up the President, just have her give us a primer on how she feels about them.
guachi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just saw that tweet and dropped in $25 to the Balloon Juice for Gross fund.
Another Scott
@MisterForkbeard: +1
The confirmation process for justices is ridiculous now. They won’t answer questions about what they really believe, and make noises about things being “settled” or “stare decisis” or “balls and strikes” and then do whatever they want when they’re confirmed.
Maybe Democrats need to review what was done with Abe Fortas when he was nominated to be CJ…
The Senate has an obligation not to put cranks on the courts in lifetime positions. If the majority now wants to ram unqualified and dangerous people through, then the minority should be prepared to play dirty as well.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@Adam L Silverman:
I full expect Amy Barrett to be confirmed on whatever timetable McConnell has set up.
I truly believe Amy could be utterly disrespectful and get nominated.
If she spent the entire hearing on her phone, and then answered questions by showing the committee cat memes, she would still get nominated by whatever timetable McConnell has in mind.
@piratedan:
She will have canned answers to worm her way out of any serious questions.
You ask her about Hatch Act violations, and she can say she will not speculate on hypothetical issues, unless an actual Hatch Act violations comes before her.
@West of the Rockies:
I really find it infuriating that Bush, Jr. is held up as an example of a functional, and ethical Republican administration, because they had a few standards.
That’s how totally out of whack Trump and Republicans are now. Bush, Jr., Tom DeLay, etc. are now considered responsible relative to this current bunch of crooks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@guachi: I set up a weekly donation to the O’Bros’ Senate campaign fund, that way I don’t feel guilty about neglecting a race
MisterForkbeard
@piratedan: You can ask. She won’t answer.
Worth noting that most Republicans committed to confirming her before she was even named. They do not care what her opinions are. She can just refuse to answer anything and they’ll still vote for her and she knows it.
She is apparently charismatic and nice. So she’ll refrain from providing any sort of substantive answer and be useless and that’s she’s aiming for. Personable.
Redshift
@Ohio Mom:
No one who believes in justice should want someone who has never tried or defended a case to be a judge. No one who believes in justice should want someone who has only a few years of judicial experience to be on the highest court in the land. (Exceptions if a president chooses the lost tradition of appointing a non-judge to the Court.)
It’s the endless nominations of judicial candidates who are as young as possible that so clearly demonstrates that the GOP doesn’t care about anything but ideology. They don’t need experience, or (hah!) judgment, or knowledge of the rest of the judicial system or of the world, because they don’t want them to be judging, they only want them to know what the preferred conservative outcome is, and their only job is to construct whatever pretzel logic is necessary to reach it.
MisterForkbeard
@Another Scott: Honestly, I think the game really should be to ask them questions they will lie about. Like Kavanaugh did.
Then investigate and impeach once we have the Senate. In addition to expanding the court. Make it very clear that these republican picks are awful and illegitimate and stain the court.
I can dream.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman:
And Hitler loved his dog. Being evil doesn’t have to mean he never does anything good, it means he does a hell of a lot that’s evil.
gene108
@Redshift:
Remember reading something on the Bolshevik take over of Russia, and either Trotsky or Lenin declared the courts are not about judging the merits of a case, but they must decide how each case can further the revolution. The courts are the vanguard of the revolution.
Anyway, modern Republicans really remind of Lenin’s tactics, where a dedicated focused minority can impose their will on a less focused majority, who does not agree with most of what they are doing.
TS (the original)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
From the same source
Worst poll for trump approval from rasmussen in 4 years. They are moving towards reality.
gene108
@Adam L Silverman:
His brother, David, was a big backer of the New York City Ballet.
This does not outweigh the evil they have wrought on this country, with their inherited wealth, and arrogance.
They helped transform American conservatives from a reactionaries to change, who opposed social spending on certain groups, to radical right-wing revolutionaries intent gutting every bit of progress we’ve had in over 100 years.
dmsilev
@MisterForkbeard:
That’s not quite right. They committed to confirming her sight unseen because they know what her opinions are. They know that any Federalist Society hack will have the opinions they want.
Johnnybuck
Why the hell Democrats are even giving legitamacy to this shitshow is beyond me. But all of my betters on this blog keep telling me they must. We keep playing by their rules, and we keep losing. Make them own it.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
My continued apologies.
–Disgruntled Californian
bluefish
Folks know what this guy is about. We just gotta care enough to give a damn. I still believe. There must be a song. Don’t want a drippy ballad. Want a song. We know.
piratedan
@TS (the original): that’s how Ras works, sunshine up their ass 80% of the time and slowly coming into sync with everything else as we get closer
dmsilev
@TS (the original): Also in polling news,
Two separate polls of PA, from the NYT and ABC/WaPo, have Biden at +9.
mrmoshpotato
LMAO!
Via Karoli
sdhays
@MisterForkbeard: Democrats need to:
Points 2 and 3 don’t even need what’s her face to answer anything. I wonder if we should even bother using her name since even the people voting for her don’t care.
Matt McIrvin
@guachi: You never actually have independent, completely uncorrelated poll errors, though–there are systematic effects that introduce correlation between errors. We saw that starkly in 2016– the polls in the Great Lakes region were all off in the same direction. That’s what these models are trying to estimate with their jacked-up variability.
TS (the original)
@piratedan: Agreed. I saw another tweet suggesting that it might go up next time to prove how well trump did in the debate!
I still can’t believe his approval is above 40% (with real pollsters). My only conclusion is that the polls have the % republicans way too high. Which would give a great result on Nov 3 if true.
TS (the original)
@dmsilev:
I’m hoping … we were so conditioned by 2016, that we have trouble believing the truth in these polls. There is no reason why they cannot be true – although GOP voting suppression could impact the result.
I read somewhere (probably in BJ) that no poll result can be a definite win unless the leader has at least 50%. We tend to see this as Biden being in trouble BUT If this is the case, there are some major states where trump is in real danger – including Texas. It is my dream that trump loses Texas.
kindness
Republican leadership wouldn’t be rushing so much if they didn’t think they are going to need a ringer to keep Trump president after he loses the election. That is their motivation. It’s scary.
SFAW
@Johnnybuck:
What legitimacy are Dems giving? Outside of Manchin not wanting to pack the Court, and DiFi being generally useless, what Dem is saying it’s A-OK for the Rethugs to ram her through?
I must be reading a different blog from you.
And what would you propose, other than what’s already being done?
dmsilev
@TS (the original): Post has a story up with all the poll details. No real surprises in the demographic breakdown, etc.
Mai Naem mobile
@Adam L Silverman: you are right there but if DiFi wants any kind of leadership position next year in very possibly a majority position she better get her shit together. I don’t think Klobuchar, Harris, Blumenthal and Booker are just going to let her get away with being milquetoasty. Also if she doesn’t realize the danger of Trumpov by now she needs to go caucus with the GOP.
Mai Naem mobile
I was on the Miami Herald website reading the Parscale story and they had ad for Amy Coney Island basically on the loop. Can’t remember the name of the PAC paying for it but it was something generic like American Justice United. Decent ad but it ends with that pic of her with the crazy eyes. Not sure why one would use the cray cray eye picture
Mary G
In between calls and texts for Joe and Kamala, I’ve been writing strongly worded postcards to DiFi telling her to cut that comity shit right out. Kill the filibuster and pack the courts (all of them) or else have your legacy tied to Donald Fucking Trump for all eternity.
Mary G
Here’s my late night fantasy – Sonia and Elena are nice to Amy and manage to deprogram her and turn her liberal.
Mary G
FTFNYT has Twitler Tax story Part Deux up:
We are a failed state.
guachi
James E Powell
@Johnnybuck:
I’m shocked. Shocked! To find that gambling is going on on this blog.
James E Powell
@sdhays:
I would add that Democrats and every other person of conscience should always refer to her as “Radical, right-wing Amy Coney Barrett” That is, after all, who she is.
Walker
I have warmed considerably to the term limit legislation for SCOTUS. Life time appointments wee to make the judiciary independent but they have proven themselves to be anything but. It is time to eliminate the farce. This is an easier sell that is much better long term than court packing.
Another Scott
She’ll have been on the federal bench for all of 3 years next month. But she does have a record. E.g. a law review paper from 2016 – https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2795646
Hmmm….
Cheers,
Scott.
Eolirin
@Walker: Wouldn’t that require a constitutional amendment? That’s a nonstarter.
Yutsano
Brokeahontas is trending on Twitter. Again.
AxelFoley
A very hearty “Fuck you” to all the whiny asses who just couldn’t vote for that woman, even when told the Supreme Court was at stake. We wouldn’t be in this situation, along with all the other corrupt shit Trump has done, aided and abetted by the GOP, if ya’ll would’ve taken your heads out of your asses.
janesays
@Ohio Mom: She is too inexperienced to be nominated for this job, but I don’t think that’s a good line of attack for Democrats to take strategically, since it can be thrown right back at them – Elena Kagan had zero years on the federal judiciary (or any other judiciary) before being nominated to SCOTUS. She had been nominated to the DC Circuit by Bill Clinton in 1999, but she never even got a hearing (Republicans controlled the Senate at the time) and her nomination lapsed.
Again… I think it’s a totally valid criticism, one I made myself on a tweet reply the other day, but had Kagan’s inexperience thrown right back at me.
I think the best line of attack is to point out that she will almost certainly be the 5th vote to take healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans. She’s still gonna get confirmed anyway, but her stance on the ACA needs to be tied to GOP senators in tough election races like a lead ball.
Then we need to expand the court.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@kindness:
I’ve had a hard time understanding the need to ram this nomination through before the election. I originally believed what you say here, but then I realized that the SCOTUS would fuck over other Republicans on the ballot, too. I can’t imagine various GOP politicians/candidates or the Conservatives on the SCOTUS willing to destroy their own elections/re-elections or the Court’s legitimacy just to save Trump’s ass. There will come a time when Trump is gone
James E Powell
@AxelFoley:
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that none of those people are reading this blog right now.
Sally
@James E Powell: To me she will always be “crazy Amy”.
Another Scott
Excellent.
Never, ever let him forget that.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@janesays: This is also true:
Leto
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
Yes, there will. But do you know what will live on for generations afterwards? Federal judges. Pack all levels of the courts with enough Federalist Society hacks and you’ll effectively cripple most progress we try to make for years and years and years to come. Think about all the crank lawsuits Trumpublicans are doing now, then think about how many more they’ll file with friendlier courts.
The American public is stupid. We can have free healthcare, taco trucks on every corner, wages going up by $20k across the board, and the American public will still vote in Republicans. Also they don’t give two shits about “legitimacy”. It’s power.
Mallard Filmore
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
The only concern is to protect Trump. Nothing else matters.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: It wasn’t meant to be complimentary or to excuse him. Bremmer’s think tank promotes, because Bremmer believes in, a genteel form of American isolationism. Which is why Koch funds him because Koch does as well.
Adam L Silverman
@gene108: Again, it was neither meant to be complimentary or excuse his other behavior. Koch believes in American isolationism. He funds Bremmer’s not for profit think tank because Bremer believes in a genteel version of American isolationism as well. They’re both wrong.
HumboldtBlue
Solidarity is needed.
Worker solidarity.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: You have nothing to apologize for. If California’s are willing to reelect her and she believes she should still be a senator, then that’s that. It should not mean, however, that just because she’s been in the Senate since Brutus was a senator that she should be the ranking member on or, should things break just right in November, the Judiciary Committee chair. And frankly at this point neither should Leahy. They need to get out of the way for far younger Democratic senators who have a far better understanding of 2020.
Adam L Silverman
@Mai Naem mobile: That’s one of Leonard Leo’s dark money network funded pass through organizations/sock puppet PACs. He’s got about a 1/2 dozen of them.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: I like double stuf oreos!
Adam L Silverman
@Eolirin: It would. And given that the less than 10% of the US citizenry can prevent the Constitution from being amended, it is not going to happen.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Mallard Filmore:
I’m sorry, but I can’t believe the GOP would be willing go that far and self-immolate just to protect Trump, who would turn around and dump them as soon as he didn’t need them anymore
@Leto:
All that does is give the Dems even more justification to simply stack the courts in our favor. And for what? The Conservative justices would be throwing away not just their legitimacy but their relevance and institutional power by installing Trump as dictator.
And I’m going to be completely honest; if they do that, Americans are not going to just meekly accept that. I sure as hell won’t. I know several people who feel the same way. I’m sure you and everybody else on this blog won’t either. All hell will break loose and the Republicans will have to contend with us as Poroshenko has had to face his fellow citizens in Belarus
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): The hardcore conservatives, from the social to the 2nd Amendment absolutists, believe that Roberts has been compromised. The conspiracy theory, which dates back to the late Bush 43 administration is that Roberts is either a heavily closeted gay or bisexual man, but most likely gay. That he was forced to get married during the Reagan administration – as in it was made clear to him that if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to progress from Republican administration lawyer to Federal judge – so his wife is really his beard. Additionally, their children were illegally adopted because they are really from Ireland, not from where they are “officially” stated to have been from, and that the Obama administration and specifically the Clinton State Department covered it up. As a result the Clinton’s have something on him. And this is why he voted to keep the ACA constitutional and legal, why he hasn’t allowed Roe V Wade to be overturned, and why he cannot be trusted to rule on any 2nd Amendment case. This is why you have Senator Cruz stating that they can’t risk a 4-4 court if the election results are litigated up to the Supreme Court. Cruz is signaling to the people that believe this bullshit about Roberts that Roberts is really part of the liberal bloc on the court, not the conservative one so right now there are only four conservative justices: Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch. And these nutters are beginning to develop their own conspiracy theories to explain Gorsuch being idiosyncratically conservative, not extremely authoritarian like Thomas and Alito. The Roberts’ conspiracy theory regularly shows up in the comments sections of the firearm sites like TTAG, as well as other hard core to extreme right websites.
Emma from FL
@Adam L Silverman: They live in a bad thriller, don’t they? I wonder if it is because their real lives are such a nothing that they need to build a fantasy world where they are the heroes. Or just maybe it’s just a glucose imbalance in their brain.
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: @Goku (Amerikan Baka): It’s not even stacking them. For well over a decade, Chief Justice Roberts annually notifies Congress that the Federal judiciary is overwhelmed because the numbers of judges hasn’t kept up with the increase in cases. Some of this problem was, of course, because McConnell bottled up over 150 of Obama’s district court nominees and another 50 to 60 of his appellate court nominees. But even with all of those now filled, there still aren’t enough Federal district and appellate court judges to handle the case loads. Up until about two weeks ago, Graham and Feinstein were in quiet talks to push legislation in the lame duck, presumably regardless of who won the election, to expand both sets of courts to fix the problem. Should the Biden win and the Democrats take the Senate and maintain their House majority, they should move ahead with this. And then promptly fill the new vacancies, which would fix a lot of the damage that McConnell and Leonard Leo have done over the past 3 and 3/4 years.
Adam L Silverman
@Emma from FL: My understanding is that there were longstanding whispered rumors about Roberts’ sexuality. He was a bachelor well into his 30s and when people went looking for what he did in his spare time it always seemed to be in the company of men, not women, or even mixed company. For a long time there were several websites dedicated to the conspiracy and a lot of them posted the same picture of Roberts on vacation somewhere with a bunch of his friends, all male, and this was presented as “evidence”.
Personally, I could care less what his preferences and orientation are and the only reason it might be even remotely relevant is that 1) if he is heavily closeted, it makes him a security threat, 2) if he is actually gay, but to maintain his privileged position and status he rules in ways that are harmful to LGBTQ, and 3) the hypocrisy.
And there are lots of straight men, as well as women, who through whatever reason, wind up single and not involved with anyone. It happens.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Absolutely, they should. Barrett’s anti-democratic “only ‘virtuous voters’ should be allowed to vote” bullshit is justification and cover enough for the Dems to pack the SCOTUS and simultaneously expand the federal judiciary. Kill the filibuster and ram it through if necessary. Take a page out of the GOP playbook and ignore the subsequent media and GOP whining. Doing so will put us ahead for next time when the GOP takes over the federal government
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
So much creativity. It’s a real shame to see it wasted on a paranoid delusion.
Adam L Silverman
I’m to bed. I had a long and exhausting day of fasting punctuated by spending the afternoon preparing everything for the breaking of the fast at the end of Yom Kippur. The good news is that I, apparently, have made it through another day of atonement and have been inscribed in the Book of Life* for another year. The bad news, of course, is that I, apparently, have made it through another day of atonement and have been inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. So I am here to continue to afflict you!
* Technically not the same book, but obligatory:
Steeplejack
@Mai Naem mobile:
No others available.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: The United States has been mainlining conspiracy theories since a hundred years before it was the United States. We’d have to send at least a plurality of the citizenry to deprogramming to fix this problem.
Mallard Filmore
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
If Trump remains President, Republicans will be in power until this country dissolves.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Mallard Filmore:
But they won’t actually be in power. He will. They will be rendered irrelevant and Trump will drop them as they won’t be necessary to rule (if they’re willing to twist the laws so much to destroy democracy, then the law means nothing and Trump will rule by fiat). They will be under his thumb for as long as he’s alive.
And besides, most people will not take this laying down. There will be mass protests
Emma from FL
@Adam L Silverman: I agree with your evaluation of the relevance of Roberts’s sexuality, but I was actually thinking of the sort of mind that spends its days buried in conspiracy theories. When reality hits me in the chops I read science-fiction. They seem to prefer trying to bend reality.
Mallard Filmore
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
Yes, even if they remain mostly peaceful, we will fade back to a regional power. Our economy will not recover.
These things have happened before. Germany, Russia, China. I cannot explain what motivates the political leadership.
Leto
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): <a href=”#comment-7876129″>@Goku (Amerikan Baka)</a>:
<blockquote>All that does is give the Dems even more justification to simply stack the courts in our favor.</blockquote>
Here, lets do a quick layout of just this: First thing we’ll need to do is eliminate the filibuster, which a number of Dem Senators oppose. Next up you’ll have to pass legislation, in both chambers, to increase the size of the courts. We already know at least three Senators (DiFi, Manchin, King) who have said they’re against that. Finally you need the President to sign off on it, which he’s already said he’s against.
So to recap: we need to elect enough Senators to overcome/outvote the already 3 people who said they’ll be a no to both filibuster elimination and court packing. We don’t even have the temperature on if we have the votes in the House to pass this, and to top it off, we need to convince Biden that this has to happen.
Guess which party didn’t have those obstacles to overcome because they <em><strong>DON’T GIVE A SHIT?</strong></em>
Yes we should do all those things, but we have a hell of a long way to go before we get there, we have about a million other things to content with after these four years, and we still have people who are holding on to a concept of government that just doesn’t work. Regarding what Adam said about Graham/DiFi quietly working to expand the courts? Like everything else, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Leto
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
And we still have children in cages. And we still have cops killing POC. And we still have the muslim travel ban. We still don’t have his tax returns. We still have Kavanaugh and Gorsich. We’ll still have ACB on the Court legislating ACA/Roe v Wade out of existence and 2d Amendment rights expanding. I see how effective those protests over the past 4 years have been.
You’re continuing to forget that if he’s “re-elected” he’ll still have the keys to power of the state and all that entails. Bill Barr will gleefully continue to do everything he’s doing now. I’m off to bed but I’ll end it like this: lets make it to Nov 3rd and re-evaluate at that time.
Brachiator
@janesays:
David Souter, one of my favorite justices, had state experience but very little federal judicial experience before he became a Supreme Court Justice.
He had the right temperament, something very difficult to assess.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Mallard Filmore:
How do you know? Let’s not pretend the GOP is 10 feet tall and invincible. That’s what they want us to think so we’ll be discouraged
@Leto:
Then they will need to be convinced that nothing less than American democracy is a stake.
We have to at least try. Has Biden explicitly said he would be against it? We have to take into consideration that he’s not going say stuff like that while campaigning
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
Look at what’s happened in other countries where governments fell because of mass protests. They’re not invincible. Nobody is
I’m talking about Belarus-level protests. I’m talking about Eastern bloc protests in 1989 levels. I believe they can happen here and the Republicans will lose either way. I’d prefer we beat them in the election and I think we will
Brachiator
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
Why do you keep coming back to this?
In the meantime let’s get out the vote.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
Of course let’s get out and vote. However, the rush to confirm Barrett was brought up and some commenters evidently think the fix is in and the SCOTUS will install Trump; IOW, our votes won’t matter. Why else the rush to confirm before the election?
I’m merely trying to point out that if that comes to pass, Trump won’t automatically be victorious; that life goes on and that no leader or government is totally invincible
James E Powell
How does Trump stay above 40%?
RBG’s passing & his rapid supreme court nomination coupled with his income tax have completely taken his remarks about downplaying COVID out of everyone’s mind. No one remembers what he said about fallen soldiers or guys who went to Vietnam.
Each new scandal – and scandal is not a strong enough word – obliterates the previous ones. And they are not perceived by his supporters as “Trump did something bad” – Each one gets played as Trump fighting against people who don’t like him.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@James E Powell:
By the same token, all of these scandals keep hurting him with voters he actually needs in order to win. It’s like he keeps walking into rakes
Mallard Filmore
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): “Our economy will not recover.”
With Trump in charge? We will be the last first-second world country to get the ‘Rona under control. I do not see the kind of personal interaction required for smooth intercontinental commerce. “Send my executives and techs into the burning mess raging in the USA? Forget that. And NO, they can’t bring their plague here.”
We will fade internationally. I am pessimistic enough to hope we can bring all our foreign posted military personnel back.
A second Trump term will put our recovery at least 2 years behind the rest of the world.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Mallard Filmore:
He won’t be in charge for long. Everything will come to a stand still, the GOP/Trump admin will be unable to govern and will be forced from power
Brachiator
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
McConnell and other conservatives want the new justice on board to hear the challenge to the Affordable Care Act, scheduled for early November. Possibly having to resolve the election is icing on the cake.
You keep asserting this fantasy that mass protests would bring down the government. Why do you keep doing this?
Mallard Filmore
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
I agree up to here.
This is to be determined.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
I will throw an upvote or whatever to this. Someone I know was heavily involved in the “adoption scene” for several years, and it was widely discussed that the Robertses’ kids were “laundered” through South America because Ireland does not permit adoptions out of country. (That’s how I heard it.)
I don’t know anything about this being used as leverage on Roberts, but I suppose it’s possible.
Brachiator
@Mallard Filmore:
The UK might give us a run for our money.
But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
Because it’s worked elsewhere. And I have to believe, if only for my own sanity, that it would work. What other alternative is there if voting doesn’t stop them; if they steal the election? I have to have faith that they could be brought down
Mallard Filmore
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Ahhh! You want to give it a good try. I’m with you on that.
Steeplejack
@James E Powell:
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@James E Powell: a republican will get 40% of the vote no matter what.
Hoover got 40% and Goldwater got 40%. a republican could get caught with both a dead girl and live boy and still get 40%
Aleta
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): “Why else the rush to confirm before the election?”
A different reason to explain the rush could be that conservatives know T won’t win and they’re close to losing the Senate, and fear a landslide might break apart the solidarity in the Senate vote after Nov. 3rd.
Another reason for the rush could be that Koch, Adelson, whoever are demanding the confirmed seat from McConnell before they give more money to his Senate campaign fund.
Another reason could be that too many zombie skeletons will be uncovered if she’s not rushed through.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
Giant puppets and drum circles will totally bring down a fascist autocracy, as peace will guide the planets while love fills the stars….
Geminid
@Brachiator: one thing I like about Sonia Sotomayor is that she served some years as a federal District Court judge, actually trying cases. She learned a lot about the practical application of the law; things that can’t be learned in a career as a law professor, with a rotation or two through a Justice Department policy job, and then a couple years on a federal appellate court. The latter course seems to be more and more a typical path for Supreme Court judges, and I think it contributes to a cold, intellectual inhumanity on the part of the conservative members.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
Where’s that?
I like the drumhead trial they did in Romania. Far more satisfactory.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
This was a punch in the gut.
“There is no literature or poetry in this Whitehouse.
No music.
No Kennedy Center award celebrations.
There are no pets in this White House.
No loyal man’s best friend. No Socks the family cat.
No kids’ science fairs.
No times when this president takes off his blue suit-red tie uniform and becomes human, except when he puts on his white shirt-khaki pants uniform and hides from Americans to play golf.
There are no images of the first family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation.
No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii moments, or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport, no Reagans on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape.
I was thinking the other day of the summer when George H couldn’t catch a fish and all the grandkids made signs and counted the fish-less days.
And somehow, even if you didn’t even like GHB, you got caught up in the joy of a family that loved each other and had fun.
Where did that country go?
Where did all of the fun and joy and expressions of love and happiness go?
We used to be a country that did the ice bucket challenge and raised millions for charity.
We used to have a president that calmed and soothed the nation instead dividing it.
We are rudderless and joyless.
We have lost the cultural aspects of society that make America great.
We have lost our mojo, our fun, our happiness.
The cheering on of others. Gone.
The shared experiences of humanity that makes it all worth it. Gone.
The challenges AND the triumphs that we shared and celebrated.
The unique can-do spirit Americans have always been known for. Gone.
We have lost so much in so short a time.”
~Elayne Griffin Baker
Aleta
@James E Powell: September 20-21 is when stories broke (Buzzfeed, Miami Herald, BBC, NYT, CBS, PBS) about money laundering and HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Chase, Barclays. Ponzi schemes, financing of terrorists, moving fentanyl into the US. Billionaire mobster in China. Putin’s friend Rotenberg. Deripaska (see Manafort). Payments through JPMorgan Chase to Manafort, including $US6.9 million after Manafort resigned from Trump’s campaign.
(CBS) “BuzzFeed News and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists declined to make public most of the information contained in the reports, including the customers who the banks suspected of illegal activity.” (NPR) “Stocks Tumble On Big Banks’ Role In Money Laundering Report ”
McConnell’s announcements took over the headlines at the same time.
Geminid
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Thanks. Worth reading.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@James E Powell:
There could be video of Trump snorting cocaine off the asscrack of an underaged teen male escort he had just strangled, and he’d get 40%. Evangelicals would say “but King David”, and would rail on about a debased national culture.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): I just saw a Rick Steves travelogue about Prague and he said there were 300,000 people out in Wenceslas Square in demonstrations for freedom for I forget how many days but then the Communist regime resigned. It’s true, you get enough people in the streets for long enough and the government will fall. You need lots of people tho.
JPL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Thank you for posting that. While reading it, I had an image of the Obama girls laughing at their dad while he pardoned turkeys. Maybe we’ll see joy in the White House again.
AxelFoley
@James E Powell:
True, but it did feel good to let that out. ;)
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Yeah, I noticed some of this. But this is a great and sad critique.
Thanks.
Butter Emails
How about just pointing out that she’s a huge and public liar – she’s essentially standing for a position which violates a principle she herself laid out little more than 4 years ago. We shouldn’t put bald-faced liars on the court.
MagdaInBlack
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Well, that….pretty much says it all.
TS (the original)
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
The difference from previous presidents is stunning – without even looking at the the horror of his political actions.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@piratedan: I would also ask point blank: President Trump has suggested that he needs you on the court to help him steal the election. Is it ethical for a judge to accept a nomination under those circumstances? And…will you commit now to recuse yourself from any case involving the upcoming election?
I’m honestly shocked that the American Bar Association hasn’t threatened to disbar her for accepting the nomination under the circumstances.
SFAW
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
In an alternate reality, your naivete would be refreshing. Well, maybe not refreshing, but not head-scratching either. Same with your “mass protests which will force the Rethugs to get America back from the abyss” silliness. If Mitch McConnell is still majority leader in four months, they’ll continue to do whatever they can to fuck over (most of) this country, in order to maintain power, etc
ETA: Actually, even if the Dems take back the Senate, the Rethugs will continue to do that. They’ll just have somewhat less success. I hope.
lowtechcyclist
@gene108:
And we all know he doesn’t give a flying fuck about the abortion issue, other than as a tool to rouse the proles.
The Supreme Court decides many issues about regulation, about labor, about the (im)balance of power between the billionaire class and the rest of us.
They don’t get the press that the hot-button cultural issues do, but while the current Supreme Court has been a mixed bag on those, they’ve been 100% in Charles Koch’s corner on the money issues. And he wants to keep it that way.
Anne Laurie
To be fair, the birth mothers of the Roberts children were both from Ireland; ‘somebody’ mysteriously paid them to take months-long vacations in a South American country with much more lenient outside-adoption laws.
This was seriously resented by a lot of far-right ‘Christians’ who also wanted healthy white newborns, but didn’t have the means to go to such lengths. As it was expressed at the time of Roberts’ nomination, he’d used his filthy pedophile Papist connections to ‘unjustly’ score not one but *two* perfect little blond infants, all the while failing to prevent white American teenage sluts from aborting their precious wombfruit for the benefit of good decent Heartland Americans.
Adoption rights advocates, incidentally, were really angry about that framing. They’re not crazy about Coney Barrett’s “saving” a couple of Haitian kids as trophies either… and the Wingnut Wurlitzer is sending out the crazies to pigpile social media accounts in response. But one of the narrative threads I’m expecting to see tangled through the next few weeks is blowback on the whole ‘Childcatcher’ save-the-pagan-babies theory, because it’s right at the intersection of racism and religious grift.
MagdaInBlack
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’ve been thinking about that little essay for the better part of an hour and it ( at least to me) explains trump supporters. The whole trump family: broken, empty, joyless, loveless, soul-less, miserable angry people, always looking for something “out there” to fix or blame for the emptiness. I have to assume their supporters have the same dark empty world view. I mean, look at them at his hatefests: they’re angry and they hate everyone and everything. Doesn’t matter how much they have, it isnt enough.
Jeezuz, I had a brief relationship with someone like that, it really messed with my head. Now we’re living with it every day.
lowtechcyclist
In the world of People of Praise, the husband is the head of the wife. But beyond that, each man is headed (as they put it) by another man, who is in turn headed by a more senior leader, and so forth.
Nobody will ask this, of course, but I’d love to ask ACB: given this hierarchy, why we don’t need to confirm not only her, but her husband, his head, that man’s head, etc. all the way up the line? How do we know we can trust her until we know we can trust all of them?
Matt McIrvin
@guachi: For example, the main reason Sam Wang had to eat a bug in 2016 was that the model he used to calculate Election Day win probabilities used an estimate for correlated error that was far too small. (I often hear that he wasn’t allowing for it at all, but he was–he just guessed badly about the distribution. All you can really do is guess. Nate Silver had Trump at about a 30% win probability based on his own guess.)
lowtechcyclist
One thing she definitely needs to be asked about is her description of the Fourteenth Amendment as “the possibly illegitimate Fourteenth Amendment” in this paper that she co-authored just three years ago.
Harboring doubts about the legitimacy of the Fourteenth Amendment should be a deal-breaker, pure and simple.
Betty
@Adam L Silverman: I wish! Why can’t these octogenarians just retire?
Uncle Cosmo
Of course they are. They do this every frackin’ polling season, under the bullshit cover of “refining the turnout model” or the equivalent. After spending most of the season as a barely disguised Thuglican influence operation, they need to reassure potential non-political clients that they are in fact competent to conduct objectively valid surveys. Because, y’know, a polling firm has to make payroll when the Thugs’ moneybags aren’t buying their deceptions with moneybins of ca$h.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s a surprisingly vague schedule turtle got going there, I would have figured he would have wanted it done by this weekend, and here he is talking next year. I assume it’s so they can do the conformation during the lame duck but that can also be read as even the Republicans get Trump packing the court right before an election Trump has swore to contest the results is a bridge to far.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Uncle Cosmo: My impression of Rassumen is they make their money doing comfort polls for the losing side. Remember it was Rassumen who had Kerry whining in 2004.
But it has been noticeable this year volatile Rassumen has been.
bnatebuckeye
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah.. Barrett’s getting confirmed…
Bill Arnold
@Eolirin:
Another alternative I’ve seen mentioned is for (D) Congress to pass (and (D) President sign) a law saying that a 7/9 supreme court majority is required to overturn national-level legislation. (I guess with some rules adjusting for adjusted court sizes due to death, or other change in the size of the court.)
No idea how feasible this is.
Marbury v. Madison is a norm.
Kayla Rudbek
I personally would start investigating her child care providers with respect to Social Security payments and permits to work (anybody remember Zoe Baird?), her finances in general, and the adoption procedures for her children, for starters. And then I would add in questioning her husband and his head, etc.