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More than a decade ago, many Democrats still in office now went along with Gorsuch as he was unanimously confirmed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2006. Things are different today, ahead of his hearing for the highest court in the land.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., expressed deep doubts during a press conference last Wednesday about the nominee and asserted Gorsuch "may act like a neutral, calm judge," but "his record and his career clearly show he harbors a right wing, pro-corporate, special interest agenda."
[...] Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy said he would demand "real answers" to questions he has about Gorsuch's judicial philosophy.
"I hope next week, when the president's Supreme Court nominee will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he provides transparent, truthful answers to Senators' questions," Leahy said in a statement. "I will insist on real answers from Judge Neil Gorsuch, because there are real concerns about his record and his judicial philosophy."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:49PM (7 children)
Fuck you.
You think letting american institutions "sink" is going to lead to anything positive?
Chaos and destruction is easy, it just happens all on its own. A functional society requires hard, dedicated work. You let it sink and what you end up with are 3rd world strongmen ruling through terror, nepotism and unaccountable force.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:44PM (6 children)
And this is different from the current situation how?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:08PM
I see you got my veiled reference without actually getting the point.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:50PM (4 children)
Meh, while it is amusing to pretend that our current situation is that bad, it simply isn't true. It is a scary possibility, but we're not there yet.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:32PM (3 children)
You have a disturbing definition of "amusing". This is really the nightmare scenario for people who, like me, were concerned by the increasing scope of executive authority under both Bush and Obama despite supporting the end goals of the latter. You think Trump will shrink those powers just because he (and Republicans in general) criticized Obama for them? He's already shown more willingness to govern by overreaching executive orders, not less. More drone strikes without a declaration of war, not less. More cronyism, not less. More opaque communications (think Clinton emails), not less. By every possible metric the current trend is to do everything that Obama did wrong, but more and in the service of the opposite goals. Which is especially troubling considering that most Republicans didn't even have that much to say against Obama's actual goals and usually only criticized his methods.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:12PM
Oh we are on that path, no question.
But to frame it like we are already there is an excuse for giving up on doing anything about it right when we need to be doing as much as possible about it.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:54PM (1 child)
All of that really worries me, but the "we're literally in a third world dictatorship situation" is only a very scary possibility. Saying that we're already there is (to me) an amusing / gratifying jab at the Crazy House.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:48PM
What is protecting us right now are the constitutional separations of powers put in place for this exact situation. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches are all supposed to have different, non-overlapping functions. The branches of the military are all meant to remain separate and unintegrated. This prevents any one group in the government from consolidating power.
But these separations have never been tested by a real fascist demagogue like we have now. As a result, generations of presidents, generals, and other government officials have slowly eroded those separations, consolidating power against the intent of the constitution to solve intransigent problems. As a result we have the Patriot Act, the FISA court, wildly outsized expectations of the authority of executive orders, an ideological court system, several overlapping intelligence agencies with authority to secretly spy on American citizens, and a National Security Council to bring the whole of the military and intelligence apparatus under a single cohesive vision.
Yeah, it's not quite at the level of a dictatorship. But we are just moments away. All that is standing in the way are the constitutional separations that have been eroded over time. Will they hold? And if they don't, do you really believe that anybody can stop Trump?
It is now up to the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress to maintain those separations against a Republican president. Majorities which have consistently shown to be more interested in brokering power for themselves than the wellbeing of the country (they are politicians after all). The only hope I have is that the inevitable can be stalled long enough to create a divided government again in 2018.
But that's not up me and it's not up to you. It's up to a bunch of sociopaths in Congress who are unlikely to be held accountable by their gerrymandered districts of authoritarian sheep. And when it comes down to it, I fear they would rather join the Nazi party than become outsiders to its ascent.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?