To call them Obama nominees doesn't even paint the whole picture. There is a practice where by a state's Senators put forth judicial nominees to the president, you had the GOP blocking the very people that they were recommending.
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Senate confirms Gorsuch to replace Scalia on Supreme Court
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To call them Obama nominees doesn't even paint the whole picture. There is a practice where by a state's Senators put forth judicial nominees to the president, you had the GOP blocking the very people that they were recommending.
SoRuffShoNuff
Member
Because if you go purely on popular vote there are like 20-25 states nobody would bother campaigning in. Democrats would camp out in California and New York.
YourMaster
Member
I think it's so strange to see so many butthurt people about this new judge. Sure, Obama's pick would probably lead to a much better outcome, but this is the judge the people deserve.
When you give people power to do something, you shouldn't be offended that they use their power how they see fit. The US has very bad democratic systems all around, and this is just one of many negative outcomes. But in the end, people have never voted for people looking to make the US more democratic and implement some modern systems.
Being able to just have two parties, with the majority party having almost unlimited power is asking for trouble. Having judges stay put as long as they like even when time has passed them by as well.
When you give people power to do something, you shouldn't be offended that they use their power how they see fit. The US has very bad democratic systems all around, and this is just one of many negative outcomes. But in the end, people have never voted for people looking to make the US more democratic and implement some modern systems.
Being able to just have two parties, with the majority party having almost unlimited power is asking for trouble. Having judges stay put as long as they like even when time has passed them by as well.
Lord Frieza
Member
Just do some googling and look at his record. Look specifically at the "Frozen Trucker" case and tell me it's not truly sickening this piece of shit is on the SC
There's just as many states no one bothers campaigning in now? Also people complain about small states/areas getting left out but how is ignoring most big cities better?
You just explained why people are "butthurt" by this. People feel powerless in what is supposed to be a democratic nation being led by an authoritarian party with a minority of the popular vote.
Skyball Paint
Member
Better than the current system where the biggest and most economically important state is denied proportional voting power, and the minority holds us back because they're still stuck in the 50s
Frankfurter
Member
I just don't get this argument. Right now many states don't see any real campaigning, because both sides know that they'll go to one or the other anyway. There are what... usually about ~10 swing states? Nobody cares for those other 40...
The California + New York thing is also BS. Both combined have a population of ~59 million. Camping out in these means that you are guaranteed to lose the election!
Elaugaufein
Member
It's pretty likely there were enough possible defections that it was a theoretical outcome. McConnell is hardly a novice political operator, it doesn't seem likely he'd have decided to set a precedent that President's don't get to make appointments in the last 25% of their term, if he'd done the numbers and found that Garrick definitely wasn't going to get confirmed via the normal process, he'd have just let that happen.
I mean I guess but we don't live in "a typical Universe", since Trump got elected. Duh! Republicans have been dismantling the norms of politics in America, and I just underestimated how treasonous they had become.
Can't really blame me for not envisioning this outcome, considering what happened to Garland is literally without precedent in modern America.
Oppo
Member
well it's all out war now.
i don't see how you come back from this. everything is now 100% partisan. zero cooperation.
what happens when different sides are in control of the senate and presidency? nothing? full gridlock?
i don't see how you come back from this. everything is now 100% partisan. zero cooperation.
what happens when different sides are in control of the senate and presidency? nothing? full gridlock?
you ought not be. it cost your country its political soul. beginning of the end of all cooperation in government between the two parties. it's a disaster. even if you like the guy. total. fucking. disaster.jchap said:
elrechazado
Banned
Court packing has always been super successful. Ask FDR how well that went
Team Alucard
Banned
The mere threat of packing the court scared the justices who were on the bench enough to get them to stop dismantling the New Deal. So in the end Roosevelt got what he wanted.
That was a vastly different era in terms of partisanship. As evidenced by Republicans getting away with unprecedented amount of bullshit, the Democrats could easily succeed in court-packing if they only had the will to go through with it.
Elaugaufein
Member
I'm pretty sure the beginning of the end of all political cooperation was like 2008, this is more like the Status Quo of the End now.
People like jchap find it difficult to care for people other than themselves. You really expect them to care about nebulous shit like our "political soul"?
These are the terms now. Republicans are traitors, and we must understand this so that when we inevitably win power back we dismantle them at every level. We must be willing to fight fire with fire. Republicans are the terrorists, ISIS is tame by comparison if we are scoring based on actual damage done to our country.
Oppo
Member
debatable. but there's a reason this was called the nuclear option. nothing left now.
Or maybe it's both their fault. Same as if a killer breaks into a house and the security guard was asleep at the desk. It's expected for Republicans to be self-serving and evil, but for Obama to just pass the buck down the line was the height of hubris that will damage the US for decades to come. He had a whole year to do something and he didn't.
electroshockwave
Member
And what was he supposed to do?
Not go silent on the issue for a whole year and essentially agree to what the Repubs were asking for?
Elaugaufein
Member
In an alternate reality where Obama applied more pressure he's either a) being blamed for Hillary losing the election or b) being blamed for hardening the Republican obstructionism against President Clinton. Since the only thing that Obama could have done is used the bully pulpit to make it more of a political pressure issue. There's no actual winning outcome for him here, only a variety of ones where he had to weigh the chances and downsides and choose the least bad one and he chose to bet on Clinton winning (and you can only blame him for that in hindsight, none of the statistical predictions had Trump above 50%).
He didn't go silent on it for a whole year and repeatedly brought it up. If you mean "why didn't he mention it every time he held a press conference" that's because he had a country to run and other serious things were constantly happening. Especially because Obama understood modern Republican obstructionism and knew that it would take grassroots uprising to get Republicans to relent, and it never materialized. WE let Obama down, Obama didn't let Garland down.
Blame the Republicans and the American people who voted Trump/voted third party and didn't protest the obstructionism. They are solely to blame. They are the monsters in this story.
ReBurn
Gold Member
They don't. Never going to happen. It's just FUD.
Steeped in a Sea of Games
Member
I can get behind this sentiment 100%. Dems should just take back the seat stolen from them.
Of course it could happen. They need just one more liberal justice to resign to do it.
And if you think they won't, you haven't been watching the treasonous Republicans for the past eight years.
YourMaster
Member
But this is nothing new. The US has bad democratic systems since forever, and if people would have protested since the beginning of last century it would have been better by now. You can't just idly sit by for several decades accepting a horrible system, and only start to complain when things actually go wrong.
The GOP has been playing partisan everything since what? 2010? It's about time Democrats are finally on board, such naivete. The current iteration of the GOP needs to be absolutely obliterated and treated in the same exact manner. These people are not to be reasoned and bargained with, destroy them and wait for their ignorant/uneducated base to die out/ascend to heaven.
Definitely a sad day and should be a constant talking point. The Republicans went to this extent to put party over country. With daily ammunition, if you can't get people to come out in 2018 just burn it all down.
Definitely a sad day and should be a constant talking point. The Republicans went to this extent to put party over country. With daily ammunition, if you can't get people to come out in 2018 just burn it all down.
Elaugaufein
Member
There were people who were in favor the Electoral College because of the Blue Wall up until November 8, 2016. People tend to approval of structural unfairness when it favours them. And even if the system merely usually favours them, watch people hate on third parties for costing the Democrats the election rather than FPTP, because FPTP is generally good for the Democratic Party , so third party voters get blamed instead when it isn't. Politics is pretty much universal awful at dealing with systemic failure because there's always someone on the winning end of it.
(Amusingly enough Australia introduced a Proportional voting system in the Federal Upper House , because a bunch of individual FPTP contests resulted in political results so hilariously lopsided and non-representative that the winning party basically decided it was eroding respect for the system).
NobleXenon
Member
Pretty much. If Democrats ever get a Trifecta again at the national level, they should pass a One-Supreme-Court-Justice-Per-Circuit-Court law. Normies wouldn't care.
yup. Scorched Earth. Treat Republicans as filth. Use every aspect of power to shut them out of the process. Save this country in the process.
Then when they learn to behave themselves and not be traitors, they can come back to the table.
Dude Abides
Banned
No it doesn't. If anything, Gorsuch is marginally right of Scalia.
SoRuffShoNuff
Member
Which is why every state being proportional is better. That way a Democrat would actually show up in the South.
Hickbilly Deluxe
Banned
And then when the GOP is back in power, they do the same, making the court pointless as the side in power will just stack it in their favor over and over again. Stacking the court is a bad idea, and neither side, I think, would cross that line.
"Blockading a justice is a bad idea, and neither side, I think, would cross that line."
"Breaking the filibuster is a bad idea, and neither side, I think, would cross that line."
How about instead of waiting for Republicans to once again destroy precedent to get their way, the Democrats take preemptive action?
Elaugaufein
Member
Having blocked Garland for Gorsuch was court stacking by stealth effectively, so the Republicans being unwilling to openly cross a line they've already fairly publicly crossed seems a bit unlikely.
YourMaster
Member
The thing is, a 'blue wall' doesn't favor 'them'. A blue wall favors blue politicians. A two party system makes people believe the people have to pick a side too and 'us versus them' is 'red versus blue'. However truth is it is always 'the people versus those in power". And having just the two options always only favors those in power, never the people voting for them. For many reasons, including that when people start to identify with a party, they start to support whatever positions that party hold, entrenching those parties even further.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
I'd say it's a "depends on the issue" kinda thing. The frozen trucker case was obviously appalling, but I've seen some legal scholars say he's a little less hardline conservative on some things than Scalia, and he at least seems smarter in general, from the little I've read of what he's written.
Edit: plus, as noted above, the man may liberalize as he ages, and in comparison to his record on the Tenth Circuit, where there was no discretion in choosing cases.
elrechazado
Banned
Like when Reid exercised the nuclear option for federal judges?
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/charts-explain-why-democrats-went-nuclear-filibuster
http://www.jamesjheaney.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/1467279_10153491101520291_1443680299_n.jpg
Take a look at how things were in 2010:
https://thinkprogress.org/gop-contr...ncreased-since-obama-took-office-d11b1b52f7a7
the majority of Obama's nominations were being blocked.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ominees-it-s-caused-a-judicial-emergency.html
When Harry reid did away with the filibuster, it was after years of obstruction against a man whose presidency was in no conceivable way illegitimate. The President is SUPPOSED to be able to fill court vacancies. The ideology of the court is supposed to be happenstance to the timing appointments become necessary.
With Trump? The fillibuster was done away with immediately in order to fill a stolen seat. The seat was filled with a far right ideologue despite being stolen from a centrist democrat, by a president who received 3 million fewer votes than the left's candidate, with the aide of the FBI, and possible collusion with a foreign power, while being in violation of anti-nepotism, conflict-of-interest, and emolumemt laws (regardless of whether or not Congress is willing to prosecute him over these matters).
It's conpletely different
elrechazado
Banned
Did you read the post I replied to? When did I say it was the same? Nice you had that response chambered though
Do you understand the difference between deliberately destroying an institution and objecting to a particular individual in a stolen seat? Because I don't think you do.
But the Democrats will.
DangerMouse
Member
elrechazado
Banned
OK so you still didn't read what I was replying to....
DangerMouse
Member
This. They need to be aware already that these Republicans are treasonous scumbags who have no ethics and have repeatedly shown they will break any rule and cross any line.
The Salt Life
Banned
the problem is they are AT the table, with four course meals, how are you going to get them to leave the table?
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