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PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
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why would they? garbage in, garbage out. the timing is irrelevant.
Mark Halperin and John Heilman? They're writing it right now and probably won't finish until Trump is impeached.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
They usually wait and make them sweat to see if they can strike another deal, though. Also possible he has nothing they want.
Just having the news out there is the best thing. That shows the others involved this is out there.
That surprised me too. Tough to tell what it means. Either he has nothing interesting or they think he's still covering up?
edit: Also, testimony proffers are complicated. Maybe he testified and they're trying to decide if they can use it for a case before they finalize his immunity.
Yup. Said that in the other thread. People now will ask questions about this. Why is he even asking for immunity. Trump team cans him and now this happens? Just not a good look.
Grizzle_Dat
Banned
Here is the difference, If you filibuster now over a candidate which under any under circumstances would have passed through the democrats look like obstructionists , the GOP can use the Nuclear option and no one would care about it . The next time the guy nominated might be truly horrible and the GOP could pass him through with just 51 votes.
If the Dems let Gorsuch go through then during the next appointment if the GOP wants to appoint someone horrible then they would need to change to rules to appoint someone which makes it look much worse for the GOP .
Yes the GOP can do this anytime they like but forcing them to do it for someone like Gorsuch is just stupid politics.
StopMakingSense
Member
There's no point to giving him immunity if he's going to shield his higher ups.
Voters don't give a single shit about the Supreme Court unfortunately. Moaning about democrats requiring him to get 60 votes (like every other nominee in recent times) after the republicans did what they did to Merrick Garland is silly.
The republicans didn't pay a price for that, and they won't pay a price no matter who they nominate or when they remove the filibuster. McConnel has broken some of the fundamental unwritten rules of the senate with his behaviour over the last 8 years, and it's going to change substantially over the next decade because it's been shown to work without any downsides.
Carpe Libertatem
Member
If the next person nominated (and that's an if! no guarantee that Trump will even get that chance) is truly horrible, I'm not sure they could get 50 votes
Republicans are only 52 right now and could only afford to lose 3. If Democrats have a solid 2018 and pick up a seat or two Republicans could only afford to lose 1 or 2
djplaeskool
Member
Fenderputty
Banned
Anyone else think it's possibke Flynn has already flipped and been given immunity and this leak was designed to put pressure on others to follow suit?
At this point, anything is possible and we shouldn't assume these stories are wholly accurate on their own.
I dunno...being the sole judge ruling in support of a company that fired a truck driver for refusing the freeze to death is pretty horrible.
You're arguing a nuance that nobody cares about. Besides that, Gorsuch wasn't a Garland-type pick, an attempt to extend an olive branch to the other side. Gorsuch is a heritage foundation pick.
Dems shouldn't fold here because there's a chance that Republicans will pick somebody more heinous next time. The "lets bargain now, because it'll be worse next time!" is an excuse we use to retreat from Republicans every, freaking, time. And it never works. Not only that, but its a level of arrogance that we really haven't earned. It assumes that Democrats know this game better than Republicans do, when we really don't. Let's let them have this one; they're playing into our hands and we'll get them good next time. Well, has that worked? Or do we just keep giving, and they keep taking?
Fight here. Fight now.
balladofwindfishes
Member
The Democrats looking like obstructionists is bad?
There's literally no political consequence to being obstructionists.
There is nobody "worse" than Gorsuch. He will vote 100% of the time with whoever would be "worse" than him. The actual person sitting in the seat hasn't mattered in decades, it's a partisan role picked by partisans to make partisan decisions. The age of the Supreme Court being non-partisan is long gone. There is NO reason not to filibuster. None. Nothing. They'd be stupid not to do it. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
FloydtheFathead
Member
Roland_Gunner
Member
It sure seems like Flynn and his lawyer know he's fucked and are shopping around in the media for the best deal. Which could be a presidential pardon.
Carpe Libertatem
Member
whyamihere
Banned
same.
This argument keeps coming up and it's still wrong every time. Let me list a few ways it's wrong, yet again:
* People don't care about SCOTUS. There was no political cost to blocking Garland, so there's presumably no political cost to blocking Gorsuch. Nobody's going to care about nuking the SCOTUS filibuster no matter when they do it. So there's no benefit.
* Gorsuch is actually pretty terrible. He's right of Scalia! I'm not sure what expectations people had for a nominee that they think Gorsuch is fine.
* This hypothetical "much worse SCOTUS nominee" does not exist. Appropriate nominees for the Supreme Court do not grow on trees. They grow on the ivy on the walls of Harvard and Yale. The pool of judges or lawyers with the appropriate ratings from the ABA to be considered as a Supreme Court justice is very small and does not contain a large number of candidates that would be worse than Gorsuch.
The argument for not filibustering is that, if Trump gets to make another nomination, you want to have the fight about the filibuster closer to an election and when the stakes are higher. The argument for filibustering is that, if Trump doesn't get to make another nomination, this makes things easier on the next Democratic president, maybe. My guess is that Schumer's plan, possibly his first choice or possibly one he's been forced into by other Democrats, is to have most Democrats filibuster and put on a show but not actually trigger the nuclear option because enough of them will vote for cloture.
If the Democrats intend to trigger the nuclear option for real, I think they need to be making much more noise about why they're justified in filibustering this nominee. So far I don't feel like they've made a very persuasive case. There's the standard "wow this guy is extreme" stuff that they'd say about literally any Republican nominee and which I expect most people just tune out. There's some stuff about it being inappropriate to do this when there's an investigation going on, but it's awfully hard for anyone to explain why that is. Like, nobody's going to say that they actually believe that Gorsuch was picked because he's a Russian stooge. This is mostly a hypocrisy argument that since the Republicans wouldn't have given a Clinton nominee a vote then the Democrats are justified in filibustering Trump's nominee. Does anyone actually care about this?
I feel like their only really powerful argument is one that needs to be made forcefully to do anything. It's that Neil Gorsuch is an illegitimate nominee. This is a stolen Supreme Court seat. Having a vote on this, much less actually seating him, undermines the legitimacy of the Court. It makes it into a nakedly political institution. There will be no vote on Neil Gorsuch until there's a vote on Merrick Garland, nominated by a president to fill this vacancy and so far denied even a hearing.
Obviously there are reasons not to make this argument - saying that the Court would be illegitimate if Gorsuch is seated means that people will think the Court less legitimate when Gorsuch is seated. But if the Court is illegitimate than people should think that it is. Maybe there's an argument that since the Court is the only check on the Republicans right now the Democrats should be careful not to undermine it, but of course if anything their saying this is going to increase respect for the Court among the people who would most need to be convinced of the legitimacy of an anti-Trump decision.
If the Democrats intend to trigger the nuclear option for real, I think they need to be making much more noise about why they're justified in filibustering this nominee. So far I don't feel like they've made a very persuasive case. There's the standard "wow this guy is extreme" stuff that they'd say about literally any Republican nominee and which I expect most people just tune out. There's some stuff about it being inappropriate to do this when there's an investigation going on, but it's awfully hard for anyone to explain why that is. Like, nobody's going to say that they actually believe that Gorsuch was picked because he's a Russian stooge. This is mostly a hypocrisy argument that since the Republicans wouldn't have given a Clinton nominee a vote then the Democrats are justified in filibustering Trump's nominee. Does anyone actually care about this?
I feel like their only really powerful argument is one that needs to be made forcefully to do anything. It's that Neil Gorsuch is an illegitimate nominee. This is a stolen Supreme Court seat. Having a vote on this, much less actually seating him, undermines the legitimacy of the Court. It makes it into a nakedly political institution. There will be no vote on Neil Gorsuch until there's a vote on Merrick Garland, nominated by a president to fill this vacancy and so far denied even a hearing.
Obviously there are reasons not to make this argument - saying that the Court would be illegitimate if Gorsuch is seated means that people will think the Court less legitimate when Gorsuch is seated. But if the Court is illegitimate than people should think that it is. Maybe there's an argument that since the Court is the only check on the Republicans right now the Democrats should be careful not to undermine it, but of course if anything their saying this is going to increase respect for the Court among the people who would most need to be convinced of the legitimacy of an anti-Trump decision.
The ads they already have will amazing. Republicans sold you out to ISPs. Republicans wanted to take away your health insurance. And hopefully soon Republicans are traitors. There's no chance in hell the GOP can ever label themselves as the party of patriotism again once shit goes down.
I have been thinking about this recently, and I think the problem is that, if they sustain their filibuster, as is looking reasonably likely, they either need to be ready to filibuster every justice for the next four years, or to have a clear exit goal in the form of either a meaningful legislative change or a justice they can confirm.
Obviously Garland is the justice I think they should confirm. But a similar candidate who is both moderate and old might be found, slightly to the right instead of slightly to the left, and the Dems probably want to leave room to let that justice through if Gorsuch fails.
But doing that requires being able to identify a specific benefit won from the filibuster that justifies ending it, so focusing on Gorsuch being conservative makes sense so that they can say that they got a moderate as reparations for Garland after blocking Gorsuch.
shinra-bansho
Member
The Senate map is not favourable to Democrats even with Trump being reviled.
There is no real case for triggering the nuclear option over Gorsuch.
The much worse nominee threat is not about the position of the seat filler on the ideological scale. But relative to who is being replaced.
Could it possibly mean they don't need him?
That's a weird fiction that people seem to have gotten in their head. It is actually totally irrelevant who died. Nobody cares and it doesn't affect who gets nominated. Do you really think Trump would have nominated somebody different if RBG had died instead of Scalia? The answer is obviously no. Once somebody's dead, all that matters is that there's an empty seat and the president fills it with the justice they think is most likely to do what they want.
shinra-bansho
Member
You seem to have misread or misinterpreted what I wrote. Or I didn't convey it well enough I guess.
Gorsuch replacing Scalia matters a lot less than Gorsuch replacing RBG.
This is not a weird fiction.
Gorsuch replacing Scalia matters a lot less than Gorsuch replacing RBG.
This is not a weird fiction.
https://twitter.com/kfile/status/847447770063556610
These fucking people.
"I've seen bus loads of people. I mean I can't cite specific bus loads. I mean I've seen it on tv. It totally happened!"
These fucking people.
"I've seen bus loads of people. I mean I can't cite specific bus loads. I mean I've seen it on tv. It totally happened!"
So you're thinking McConnell won't go nuclear over Gorsuch? I guess I have a hard time seeing how the other side of this plays out. Do more than a handful of Republican Senators win by having this end with the Democrats claiming to have forced the confirmation of a significantly more moderate nominee? That sounds like a good way to get primaried.
Both sides seem pretty stuck to me. The more the filibuster works, the more the Democrats' base is going to insist that they keep doing it. What compromise is going to be more appealing to the base than the prospect of not seating any Republican nominee? Good luck explaining the tactics here. Meanwhile the Republicans have to be seen to back down - the Democratic base believing that they've backed down is how the Democrats get out of this - which is suicide. Eventually confirming a different person because they're tolerable to the Democrats is treason. So I feel like the Republicans have every reason to go nuclear as soon as it's clear that the Democrats actually have the votes to keep Gorsuch off the Court. You drag this out for a while, because it's the best story the Republicans have right now, but eventually you say that you tried and they wouldn't even give this perfectly qualified and nice guy a vote, so fuck 'em.
Edit: And I don't know that it matters but of course Trump is going to be very pro- nuclear option if the Democrats are obstructing his pick. He's going to be pretty unwilling to be seen to back down and nominate someone the Democrats like better.
neurosisxeno
Member
Something tells me Flynn already flipped, and if he didn't the FBI already has enough evidence to bury him or think he's holding back which is why they haven't negotiated with him. But the troubling thing is, can't Immunity Deals only be offered by the Department of Justice, which is headed by Jeff Sessions, who is implicated in this very matter?
FWIW, Jeff Sessions has recused himself any Russian investigations.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
If Collins and Murkowski are willing to nuke the filibuster, I don't see what Republicans are going to oppose it. McConnell doesn't really believe in anything so I'm not sure why he'd really be hesitant. The filibuster should be deployed but with the news about Collins and Murkowski today I don't see why they don't deploy the nuclear option.
I thought the news was that they'd vote for cloture, not that they'd vote to kill the filibuster. The Republicans need 8 Democrats to get cloture, I think.
Edit: Wow I'm confused. Edit2: I think I read "Murkowski" and went to "McCaskill".
neurosisxeno
Member
Forgot about that.
I can see the headlines now; "Republican Party nukes Filibuster after using it record number of times against President Obama."
Officerrob
Banned
It's been like 70 days, and the National Security Advisor who was forced to resign is looking to an immunity deal? Why is House of Cards still in production?
shinra-bansho
Member
I mean it seems that the disagreement over whether to deploy the filibuster and ultimately get it nuked (which is basically without doubt imo) comes from whether one thinks it has utility:
1) only if used;
2) if used or if not used; or
3) not at all.
1) only if used;
2) if used or if not used; or
3) not at all.
I don't really know that I agree with that either, though. The relevant comparison is not Gorsuch to Scalia, it's Gorsuch to Garland, or to a hypothetical Hillary nomination.
Hypothetically, if I said "hey they invented this blood treatment that will make an 80-year-old guy live another 50 years, would it matter to anybody if they gave this treatment to Anthony Scalia?" I don't think that people would say "eh, that doesn't really matter." It matters a lot! That's essentially what Gorsuch is.
I think that if McConnell had the votes to go nuclear in his pocket they wouldn't be wasting so much time on talking about how they want to get Democratic votes to avoid busting the filibuster.
Basically, I think that senators, in general, actually like the filibuster and don't really want to get rid of it, which is why Reid took so long to do it for other nominees.
Nobody cares about SCOTUS.
I agree that this is the difficulty, but it's important to remember the proximate cause of the anger is not merely that Trump is nominating somebody, but that the Republicans deliberately violated norms to prevent Obama from filling the seat instead.
As a member of the Democratic base, my primary goal is to get redress for that injury. Unfortunately that's quite difficult to identify.
Basically, I view Garland's nomination as a constitutional crisis caused by violated norms. It's up to the Senate to identify how to adjust its norms and rules to fix the problem. In the absence of such a fix, sure, I'd support a permanent blockade on the SCOTUS seat. That is the new norm as I understand it!
If they can figure out how to fix the crisis, then I don't really have a problem with Trump nominating justices.
Sure, but that seems irrelevant to me. I don't control the choices of the Republicans. They have the power to go nuclear at any time, and there's no particular reason to think the incentives will change, so there's no reason to care about this. They'll do it or they won't.
That also doesn't sound like a problem from my perspective. Trump yelling about the nuclear option probably makes it less likely.
smokeymicpot
Beat EviLore at pool.
Very strong source told me that Katie Walsh was fired for leaking. Her creds were yanked and she was escorted out of the White House.
https://twitter.com/johncardillo/status/847568294802575360
https://twitter.com/johncardillo/status/847568294802575360
shinra-bansho
Member
To Garland from Scalia mattered more than to Gorsuch from Scalia. What matters is changing the swing. Replacing Scalia with Scalia maintains but does not change anything.
When there was potential to change that it mattered more. Given there is no way to change that it matters less.
Kennedy, Breyer and RBG and preserving the balance should now be the objective given the relative power that the Democrats hold.
When there was potential to change that it mattered more. Given there is no way to change that it matters less.
Kennedy, Breyer and RBG and preserving the balance should now be the objective given the relative power that the Democrats hold.
ThLunarian
Member
For real, the writer room for House of Cards must just be like 'welp."
It's like there's not even a point to the show anymore. It's been completely defanged by real life. I wouldn't be surprised if it just never came back.
Fenderputty
Banned
Wait so the house intel committee is denying ever receiving Flynn's offer?
BlastProcessing
Member
The fact that this was immediately leaked is amazing.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
This basically describes every branch of the federal government.
Aaron Strife
Banned
To be fair, no one's ascended to the presidency by enacting a gambit whereupon they murder a Congressman, convince the Vice President to return to state politics so he can ascend to VP and then coordinate a scandal surrounding his boss so he gets the top job.
Yet.
Wouldn't really work in this instance anyway since Pence wouldn't be able to run for governor until 2020.
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