Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
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: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:46AM (67 children)
Party A says, does, or proposes anything. Party B screeches like wounded hyenas.
Works both ways, and in all cases.
That's our government at work.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @12:09PM (43 children)
It's a shame Trump didn't put forward Garland. It would have won him a lot of political capital and he'll likely get to choose 1 or 2 more spots anyway. Now, I hope Dems can block the SC for 4 years - fuck it, let's just wreck shit. Didn't hurt the other team when they did it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @01:07PM (11 children)
Yes, the republicans made up a rule that a president in the last year of their term can't nominate anyone to the supreme court.
Well, we have a more than 100 year old precedent of not confirming anyone to the supreme court nominated by a president who lost the popular vote.
We also have a precedent that goes back to the founding fathers of not confirming anyone to the supreme court while the whitehouse is under an investigation for espionage.
Gorsuch is a run-of-the-mill republican nomination, but in order to get to this point the republicans decided that the norms of the confirmation process don't apply. If they want those norms to start applying again they need to make amends and that means horse-trading something of equal or greater value. That's politics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @01:14PM (6 children)
Yes, the republicans made up a rule that a president in the last year of their term can't nominate anyone to the supreme court.
Yup, the Republicans made it up, that's why they named after a very prominent Republican, Joe Biden.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @01:24PM
Is this why the call a "joe job" a "joe job"? Poor Joe Biden.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @01:36PM (4 children)
Yup, the Republicans made it up, that's why they named after a very prominent Republican, Joe Biden.
The republicans did name it after Biden just so sycophants like you would have an excuse to avoid holding them to account.
When Biden said that in 1992:
There was no Supreme Court vacancy to fill.
There was no nominee to consider.
The Senate never took a vote to adopt a rule to delay consideration of a nominee until after the election.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:08PM (3 children)
Seems the exact same situation but the Democrats said they have the ball and its thwir choice before GHWB made his nomination decision.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:34PM (2 children)
> Seems the exact same situation
WTF are you talking about?
How is:
(a) no scotus vacancies
(b) no scotus nominees
(c) senate never voted to adopt the "rule"
"the exact same situation?"
I mean, how crazy-ass partisan do you have to be to see that as the exact same situation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:34PM
It was one of those posts where the only person he's trying to convince is himself.
By writing it out, it makes it feel more true to himself.
Which is very comforting when you know you believe in a lie but really, really don't want to give up that belief.
Its a form of self-soothing performed in public for everyone to see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:42PM
Very.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:39AM (3 children)
Well, we have a more than 100 year old precedent of not confirming anyone to the supreme court nominated by a president who lost the popular vote.
That's bullshit. The numbers are almost equally split.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:33AM (2 children)
What does any of that have to do with nominations by a president who lost the popular vote?
Bush did not nominate anyone for the court during his first term (when he lost the popular vote).
The last president to lose the popular vote before Bush was Harrison in 1888, well over 100 years ago.
Ergo a 100+ year precedent of no appointments by any president that lost the popular vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:13AM (1 child)
Clearly, you didn't look at the article.
...and I left off the next item (which I meant to include).
For those weak on History, Hoover got creamed. [wikipedia.org]
I make that to be a 16 percent error in the claim.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @07:07AM
Again what does that have to do with presidents who lost the popular vote?
Hoover won the popular vote in 1928 so any nominations he made were made by a president who won the popular vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:25PM (19 children)
It would not have won him a lot of political capital. Trump may not enjoy a Republican majority Senate later in his presidency. He needs to pack the Supreme Court with conservatives immediately. The current and upcoming Supreme Court vacancies are more important than anything else that Trump will do.
(Score: 2) by lx on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:31PM (14 children)
What makes you think that there will be a later in his presidency?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:46PM (12 children)
What makes you think there won't?
If you are waiting for that one weird scandal that will take down donald grump, you are going to be waiting a long ass time.
How many other scandals have had no effect on the guy?
For decades now the republicans have been fed a steady diet that democrats are utterly despicable traitors. Obama founded ISIS and wasn't even an american, so who cares if trump is working with putin? He was doing it to make america great again by screwing over those traitorous libruls and dirty foreigners with anchor babies taking all the welfare money with the all savage blacks killing each other in the inner cities, having ten babies and too lazy to work since they get free obamaphones.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:57PM (11 children)
Isn't it funny (and not "ha-ha" funny) how the most fervent frothing-at-the-mouth hypocrites who claim that lying about getting a BJ is about the most vile and traitorous thing one can do, and impeachable, are now completely downplaying the whole issue of potentially colluding and coordinating with a foreign government (Russia, no less!) on influencing a national election?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:09PM (9 children)
Its because the republicans have become the party of tribe. They've abandoned the concept of shared american values and reframed it as warring tribes. From that perspective principles only matter so much as they serve to promote the power of the tribe.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:05PM (7 children)
You've more or less described the mindset of the group called conservative or right-wing. IIRC the strongest predictor of right-wing political beliefs is the size and activity of the amygdala, which among other things regulates fear and primitive fight or flight responses.
The study I read, which I unfortunately forgot the name of, implied that conservatives have a different set of moral modules than liberals. In addition to the universal bits about fair play and basic values, they had a much, much stronger disgust/purity axis, and an emphasis on group unity and hierarchy that wasn't there in liberals.
This explains their emotional and knee-jerk reactions, as well as the violence of same: liberals are in a very real sense an attack on their entire way of being. They look at liberals and wonder, if only subconsciously, how someone so apparently rootless and detached from any central tribal authority can even exist. And it sets off their disgust signals. They're already steeped in fear to begin with, and the combination of fear, disgust, ingroup (and outgroup) mentality, and authoritarianism leads to the kind of behavior we see here.
It's pathological now, but I suspect the conservative mindset was hugely favorable throughout most of humanity's evolution, which explains why it stuck so hard.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)
You are getting very close. Read Anonymous Conservative's The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics [anonymousconservative.com] and you will find there isn't a lot of disagreement with what you just wrote. Then read a few of the blog posts and you might start agreeing with some of them. Then you will be triggered. :)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:12AM
Here's a helpful hint, J-Mo, since I'm a generous kind of girl: telling you to your twisted, evil face you're full of shit is the opposite of "triggered." The word you're looking for, or phrase rather, has been expressed in many ways, but in the current zeitgeist it's "ain't nobody got time fo' dat."
You are not frightening, at least not the way you wish you were; you are pitiable. Far from being some kind of rugged, unique individual, you're just another memetic plague carrier. And now that der Drumpfenscheisser has given your kind what you all think of as an excuse to break cover, we're finding out that there are so many of you you qualify for the label "normie."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:37PM
Only the badly-informed used those terms to refer to the group to which you are pointing.
The folks to whom you refer are RADICAL.
That is the -opposite- of Conservative.
This is like the Nazis calling themselves "Socialist" or the Norks calling themselves "Democratic".
An *actual* Conservative wants to *conserve* what exists i.e. they like things pretty much as they are.
A Conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling STOP... --William F. Buckley, Jr. [google.com]
That is NOT what the pointed-to group wants.
They want to go BACKWARDS in time.
The name for those folks is REACTIONARY. [google.com]
...and "Right-Wing" is not a useful descriptor for those folks either.
Judging by the people for whom they vote, virtually -all- USAians are Right-Wingers (pro-Capitalism). [politicalcompass.org]
N.B. Neither Nader nor Kucinich are Left of center (Socialist); both are Liberal Democrats.
As such, that chart is artificially skewed toward the Left.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:11AM (1 child)
On the differences in morals between liberals and conservatives, I highly recommend The Righteous Mind [righteousmind.com]. It talks a lot about science on what morals are and how they affect our decisions, but the main political argument is that conservatives have more moral principles: liberals generally care just about avoiding harm and maintaining liberty while conservatives also care about values like loyalty and respect for authority. Which results in liberals not understanding conservatives. I'm not convinced that really explains the modern Republican party, but it's interesting and likely a useful point of view to have when arguing with conservatives.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:22AM
They aren't more moral, they have more morals. There is a difference. And it's hilarious that they think having more rules as opposed to better rules is the way to go, when their own hero Jesus broke it all down to the Golden Rule.
Honestly I think this is a case of quality over quantity: you can derive all you need from some version of reciprocal ethics. Loyalty may or may not be a part of this, and certainly should not supercede actual harm. Authority gets respect when it earns it; the idea that authority figures are to be respected simply *because* they are authority figures is a complete non-sequitur, and in my experience, leads to much *less* moral behavior on average.
I actually don't think "respect for authority qua authority" should be counted as a moral value. You can respect an authority because of how or why s/he got there, something like "you respect someone with a black belt not because of the belt but because of what it means to have the belt." But straight up "respect for authority" for its own sake instantly and globally reduces to "might makes right."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:22AM (1 child)
They want to keep the country pure. You see nothing wrong with trashing it, bringing in rape culture from uncivilized cultures.
The right thing would be for you to realize that conservatives have no where else to go. They are stuck here, defending this place, because they detest much of the rest of the world. You aren't stuck. You love places like Mali and Eritrea, greatly valuing the cultural enrichment... so you should go there. That will make you happy, and the conservatives will be happy too. You experience a culture other than the American one you hate, and the conservatives will be able to preserve their culture. You like preserving cultures too, so that's an extra win.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:07AM
You don't seem to know who you're talking to. I'm the one who gets shit from some weird anonymous stalker for supposed Islamophobia when I rightly point out that a hell of a lot of these people are uncivilized by any reasonable metric. You know, the one who gets yelled at for pointing out how completely bewildering it is that so much of the left seems to give Islam a free pass when it's basically the antimatter opposite of what they say they believe?
There are some good things about American culture, though from what I've read I'd do better in Canada or one of the Nordic countries, possibly Japan or South Korea, maybe Costa Rica, but definitely not anywhere in the Middle East. Sorry, but if you think you've got me pegged, you're deluded. It is possible to point out the sins of one side without being an opposite-natured parody of it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:47PM
We see it on this site every day!! All the great evidence and discussion in the world does zilch for the right wingers on here. Actually that is not true, it seems to inspire them to greater heights of bad logic and hypocritical thinking. It is so out of proportion with reality which is why I think there must be quite a few legit shills / propagandists on here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:17PM
Oh but it wasn't UNDER OATH! zomg.
The proper response to people still bringing the blowjob thing up is, "Yeah, you're right. He should have just grabbed her by the pussy and sent a tweet about it."
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:15PM
Everybody constantly screams about impeachment but it hardly ever actually happens.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:30PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:47AM (2 children)
That's the $64,000 question.
The Blues appear to have abandoned Progressivism and continue to pander to the rich (Neoliberalism). [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [huffingtonpost.com]
Lots of folks stayed home on Election Day rather that vote for The Blues.
They simply couldn't get jazzed enough about the "party of labor"/"party of minorities"/"party of the oppressed". [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [counterpunch.org]
...then, there were the Working Class bunch who (foolishly) thought that The Orange Clown and his vague promises were better than the equally-empty rhetoric of Hillary and her minions.
If enough folks are also pissed off at The Reds for what they do|are trying to do to e.g. healthcare coverage, will those folks vote for The Reactionaries again--or will they also stay home (or switch to another allegiance--perhaps a 3rd party)?
It's unfortunate that the USAian corporate media is so completely broken such that in 2016 most folks didn't see a single mention of a candidate with an actual outline for a jobs program. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [ontheissues.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:09AM (1 child)
The Democrats have been full of shit since they ran McGovern and lost. In 1972, after losing to Dick goddamned Nixon of all people, they decided they'd rather be triumphant than be principled. The party needs a 45-year enema.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:32AM
...except that they aren't triumphant.
They lost this time--to an ignoramus[1] with a severe personality disorder.
...and to another mental midget in 2000.
I've heard it said this way, which I like better:
- Democrats would rather lose to a Republican than support a Progressive.
The Blues been moving toward the Fascist corner of the political palate since McGovern in 1972 (as you note).
[1] Donnie Tiny Hands has hundreds of positions to fill in his administration and he has barely gotten started on that.
He clearly doesn't know that many people--and the ones he does know aren't competent.
What he does know is how to hire lawyers to do all his work.
Oh, and how to suck the gov't teat.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:38PM (7 children)
I agree, but the Dems don't seem to have enough seats to really hold things back. What I'd like to see is them wreck everything so badly that the federal government stops functioning altogether for Trump's entire term. Sometimes you have to break things before you can fix them. But I don't think that's going to happen here: our brilliant voters have handed complete control of the government over to the GOP, so the only way things will get held up is because of GOP infighting.
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:03PM (6 children)
One problem. Progressives worship government. Expecting them to wreck it is a hard to even hold in the mind as a concept. Even a government 'shutdown' is hard to imagine since the Democrats have to have someone in their ranks smart enough to realize what a weapon such a thing becomes in the hands of someone like Trump. He would be almost entirely unfettered in his ability to downsize government as an emergency measure. Then all he would need to is keep the wheels frozen long enough the people had time to notice their lives were better with the government 'shutdown' than with it running normally. Obama and Clinton used the shutdowns to inflict maximum immediate pain on the voters to put pressure on Congress to surrender, Trump could do exactly the opposite and that idea terrifies Progs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:21PM (5 children)
One problem. Progressives worship government. Expecting them to wreck it
I found a big problem with your analysis: we don't have any "progressives" in this government. We have Republicans (various stripes, Trumpists, Tea Partiers, traditional), and we have Democrats. There's only a small handful of Progressives, like Sanders and Wyden. Overall, Democrats are not remotely progressive, they're neo-liberal corporatists (Hillary is a prime example of this).
Obama and Clinton used the shutdowns to inflict maximum immediate pain on the voters to put pressure on Congress to surrender
What are you talking about? The Republican Congress shut down the government because they insisted on repealing Obamacare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:48PM
What are you talking about? The Republican Congress shut down the government because they insisted on repealing Obamacare.
Alt-facts in action. It was actually the democrats who shutdown the government because democrats!
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:24PM (3 children)
Ah, you are going for the No True Scotsman, an ever popular fallacy in the Left's rhetoric. Funny, but the 72 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus seem to believe they are Progressives and they account for 16.6% of the Legislative Branch. And pretty much every Democrat votes as Progressive as they think they get away with and get reelected.
You are probably too young to know much about Newt and Bill Clinton's shutdown capers so lets limit things to Obama vs Baynor the Orange (good riddance to both of em). You are right the Repubs shut the government down in a futile attempt to get Obama to accept a repeal of his dream of Single Payer. But the reason isn't important. What is on point was both Obama and Clinton's method of winning the battle by inflicting maximum immediate pain on the voters. Sending guards to close down the normally unattended WWII memorial for example. They expected lots of useful footage from that stunt, suddenly the coverage disappeared though when the old codgers didn't play along and reminded everyone why we won WWII. But in general Obama was successful in inflicting an outsized damage compared to the actual loss of funding authority and Congress quickly capitulated. For example he even raised the possibility of Social Security checks not going out on schedule, even though that program isn't funded in the normal budget cycle that was under dispute; but his media operations (the #fakenews) breathlessly spread the fear and the switchboard melted. He refused to allow the bill authorizing the DoD (already agreed to by both sides) to go through without the others so he could even hold the military hostage.
Now imagine Trump being just as ruthless in a shutdown scenario, only pulling the levers the other direction and working to prolong it just as long as possible. Causing minimum pain, shuttering entire departments infested with Prog worker bees and if it could be prolonged enough they would have to seek private sector employment and that would be the end of it, just never get around to repopulating it when the shutdown is over. We already know (Obama demonstrated it) that a POTUS can ignore any law he wants, who needs a line item veto when you can just declare it 'policy' to not enforce parts of the Executive responsibility you don't like. You can't fire civil service employees but imagine EPA shuttered for a year, then just refuse to hire replacements and they shamble along as a zombie agency on the few diehard true believers who had the financial resources to hold out through a year (or more if possible) of zero pay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:51PM
-1, Insane
(Score: 3, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:12PM
Le sigh, Jmo back with pseudo-facts. First off, just because they label themselves progressive does not make them so. The vast majority of democrats are not even close to progressive any more, and you have it backward. They vote as closely to their corporate donor's wishes as they can get away with and still be reelected.
As for your long post about Obama being the bad guy, first that is distracting away from the fact that the GOP were the ones at fault. They were the ones who wouldn't compromise and tried to force the issues, blackmailing the entire country. I was curious about your claim regarding social security and Obama "inflicting maximum immediate pain on the voters". So I did a search and found a conservative news outlet to get whatever details you are basing your claims on.
The Full Faith and Credit Act. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 807, allowing the Treasury to pay all public debt obligations and Social Security benefit payments after the debt limit has been reached. If the President and his allies were truly worried about defaulting on the debt and about not being able to meet Social Security payments, they could quickly take up this bill and assure America’s creditors and Social Security recipients that they need not worry.
The Social Security trust fund. Treasury could redeem Social Security trust fund bonds early to pay benefits at the debt limit. Treasury used this option in 1985 to meet Social Security payments at the debt limit, and a law from 1996 authorizes the Treasury to redeem Social Security bonds early for the purpose of “payment of benefits or administrative expenses.” By making room under the debt limit from redeeming trust fund bonds early, Treasury is able to borrow additional funds from the public to make benefit payments.
Revenues. Treasury will collect more than enough revenue in fiscal year 2014 to meet all debt obligations and most non-debt obligations on an annualized basis. After prioritizing interest on the debt, the Treasury could fund $2.8 trillion in additional obligations with projected revenues. This would cover, for example, Social Security and disability payments ($848 billion), discretionary defense programs ($582 billion), Medicare ($505 billion), Medicaid ($298 billion), and $517 billion of all other obligations—in total, more than three-quarters of the non-interest budget.
#1: Pass some legislation cooked up just so they would be able to shut down the gov and claim it was Obama's fault for not paying social security. This wasn't already law, so using that as an excuse is disingenuous.
#2: Redeem trust fund bonds early? Doesn't sound like a great solution, and better to avoid it in the first place.
#3: They could have paid social security and defaulted on other areas of our debt? Also not ideal since there would be consequences for defaulting on other areas of debt.
Basically shitty "solutions" that were rejected, and Congress was then forced to play ball. As usual you alt-righters (or whatever you identify with nowadays) twist the world to fit your prejudices. Ignore the horrors your chosen party inflicts upon you and blame it all on the other party. Hey, Dems do that too, but that doesn't give YOU a pass. Bugger off with your politics, if you can't be bi-partisan when blaming politicians for their faults then you should keep your opinions to yourself, or at least wait till you're around your friends so you can all circle jerk together. There is plenty of shit to talk about Obama, try and keep to the facts and not some twisted version of half-truths to suit your own agenda.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:35AM
Ah, you are going for the No True Scotsman, an ever popular fallacy in the Left's rhetoric.
So if you don't believe in definitions? If I said that most Republican politicians were hardcore communists, would you agree with me? If not, could I reasonably accuse you of using the No True Scotsman fallacy?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:55PM (2 children)
If Trump had done something as mind mindbogglingly stupid as nominate a frickin' Progressive activist to the court to attempt the impossible task of getting a single Democrat to vote for a single Trump initiative, he would have been toast. He would have gained zero friends on the left and every supporter would have questioned his very sanity. You know in your heart this is true, there is absolutely nothing Trump could possibly do to move a single Prog into his camp. You must be defeated, not reasoned with, not bargained with. Exactly as your side has treated us for a hundred years.
You guys now know fear. You know you can't actually stop this nomination, you know that if you try too hard you will only get the end of the filibuster for nominations and if you keep it up the end of the filibuster entirely. Apparently neither side is willing to consider the obvious solution to filibuster abuse, returning to actual filibusters instead of the modern silent ones.
One more retirement and you lose the SCOTUS for a generation and several of your worst monsters are very old as is the always unpredictable Justice Kennedy. You were so close to absolute power and see it slipping away and the more you rage the faster it slips away. I drink your tears of unfathomable sadness.
I want a boring SCOTUS. I want one that rarely needs to accept a 'landmark' case because the lower courts all know what the SCOTUS would do and does the right thing on their own to avoid being overturned on the whim of Kennedy. That is what a super majority of Originalists would give, certainty. Read the text of the Constitution or the law controlling the decision and know with 99% certainty what should happen. Then courts can know, lawyers can know and most importantly any educated person can know what the laws they are expected to obey actually mean. With the "living law" neither side knows what the law of the moment is until Kennedy decides, so they roll the dice and more often than not the Progressive side wins but not with enough reliability to plan around. I want a SCOTUS toiling away on cases involving boring aspects of obscure laws and such. If we decide we do not like the laws, change them through the LEGISLATURE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:48PM
I want a SCOTUS toiling away on cases involving boring aspects of obscure laws and such
That is what the lower courts are for... Sounds like you want to gut the third branch of our government. I am not surprised.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:10PM
> If Trump had done something as mind mindbogglingly stupid as nominate a frickin' Progressive activist to the court
Garland was no progressive activist.
He was about as middle of the road as you can get.
Furthermore if Trump started acting like president of all of us, rather than just the president of the tea party, he would have get crazy amounts of cooperation. Just look at how much praise he got for that one state-of-the-unionish speech he made. He kept his shit together for just ONE hour and everybody was falling over themselves to say how great it was, how he was now a real president.
All the sane people are desperate for a president that behaves like a president. Democrats so want to believe that a neo-hitler is not sitting in the white house that just one substantial act of conciliation would have them bending over backwards to reward him.
Of course he won't make any conciliatory gestures because he is a neo-hitler. So the question is moot. But don't fool yourself, democrats would give anything for even the appearance of normalcy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:35PM (18 children)
Works both ways, and in all cases.
That is the way it supposed to work.
Except that hasn't worked like that for a while.
One side says, "fuck you and what are you going to about it?"
The other side says, "god damn it! we can't let the ship sink" and rolls over.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:43PM (14 children)
When there's this much infighting, it's better to just let the ship sink.
(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?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:50PM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:25AM (4 children)
Screw off, you selfish asshole. Innocent people suffer and die when these things happen, and it's *never* them who are calling for the whole works to be burned to the ground. Do you know why? Do you care why? Do you give even the smallest sputtering shit about anyone but yourself?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 23 2017, @07:48AM (3 children)
we bring into the country a higher level of education than its current average - we're good for the country's statistics (admittedly that would be true for any country we moved to).
Most of our clients are foreign, so we're nett exporters - we're good for the country's balance of payments.
We don't use any tax dodges, and probably pay more tax than the average houshold income - we're good for the country's economy.
Why do you think that because I despise one of the most easily despiseable countries in the world that I don't love, and support, the one I've chosen to live in?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 23 2017, @06:36PM (2 children)
So that's a "no" then. I kiiiiinda knew that already but thanks for confirming it. Man, why do tech sites attract so many people like you?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 23 2017, @07:42PM (1 child)
"Yes" (with proof)
"So that's a no then"
Why do all kinds of websites attract retards like you?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 24 2017, @02:48AM
Hey, King Cocksand, your post says shit about other people and a whole lot about "well I pay more taxes" and "well I'm smarter than the filthy natives." The entire thing boils down to you thinking you're God's gift to $COUNTRY, how you're taking up the White Man's Burden. None of that is concern for the actual people.
Just...make like an Abit motherboard and stop posting, will you? :/
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:05PM (2 children)
Republicans behave exactly as you describe. But if you are asserting that Democrats have -ever- done that I have to say "citation needed" because I can't recall one. We are about to find out if Trump can push em to the wall hard enough they surrender but the smart money says no.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:37PM
> Republicans behave exactly as you describe. But if you are asserting that Democrats have -ever- done that I have to say "citation needed"
Assuming you mean "never done that" :
Your response is the standard republican defense - "they did some minor transgression, so its totally legit that we do it 100x worse!"
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:53PM
Alternative facts! Blame the other side for our own faults!
You're such a broken record, I guess every place needs its local doofus that helps highlight why we need to push back against such bullshit. I wish you spoke more on Trump's level sos that someone sitting on the fence isn't swayed by your almost-reasonable sounding arguments.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:24PM (3 children)
That's our government at work.
There has always been political controversy over Supreme Court appointments. And though it no longer seems a viable option since FDR, the more traditional manner of changing the ideological orientation of the court in the U.S. was simply making it bigger or smaller [nytimes.com] to ensure there would be more justices on whatever side.
But it's worth noting that despite the long history of partisan appointments, there has also been a long history of presumed Senate confirmation of qualified judges, regardless of political orientation. To my mind, two things changed that: (1) the expansionist federal power jurisprudence of the Warren Court, whose ultimate legacy (under the Burger Court) was Roe v. Wade, and (2) the introduction of C-SPAN.
C-SPAN has probably done more to promote partisanship in the federal government than anything since the founding of the Republic. Though its aim was good in promoting transparency, its major effect was to remove any need for Congressmen to stay in their seats and actually debate anything. Instead, they hang out in their offices and "back rooms" for dealing, only showing up for votes and quorum calls. It's hard to offer an "olive branch across the aisle" when no one is even sitting across the aisle to receive it, often just a handful of people up front to keep up the charade that the chamber is "in session" and "debate" is happening.
Plus, C-SPAN fundamentally changed the nature of debate. Since you didn't have an audience in the chamber anymore, speeches weren't about convincing the other side anymore. They became about getting the best soundbite for the evening news. Rhetorical bluster was always a feature of politics, but now it became THE central feature of Congressional debate. You wanted to "score points" with the public, rather than actually talk to your Senate/House colleagues.
This all came to a head when the first major test case for a nomination with the Warren Court's legacy arrived in the form of Robert Bork in 1987. By any reasonable historical standard, Bork was eminently qualified for the Supreme Court. But he thought Roe v. Wade was bad law. (And, frankly, it was. I fully support women's right to choose, but the contortions of Constitutional law made in the mid-20th century precedents that ultimately allowed Roe are a huge departure from any former jurisprudence norm.)
And thus the Warren Court's "living Constitution" philosophy came to the ultimate test. If the Constitution truly is "living," then SCOTUS appointments become critical. If abortion rights had been adopted by legislative means or even through the use of Constitutional amendment (as previous major shifts in federal power had been), it would be different. But the right to abortion was solely granted by SCOTUS, thus making judicial appointments essential.
So Bork had to go. And the Democrats could make use of their newfound C-SPAN forum to draw public attention to a nominee in a way that previously had been impossible. Bork became vilified in the press almost as an enemy of the state. On the Right, you also had the debacle of Souter's nomination a couple years later, which seemingly lost another seat for extremist conservatives. They vowed never to let such things happen again, and so it has been war ever since.
It's interesting to think back to, say, the days of Eisenhower, who deliberately appointed a couple liberal justices in his later years to "balance out" the two more conservative ones he had put forward early on. Or even the pre-Bork Reagan years, when Scalia (yes SCALIA) won confirmation UNANIMOUSLY in the Senate (98-0). Scalia was eminently qualified, which used to be the standard.
To be sure, there were contentious nominations historically, along with a share of rejections and withdrawn nominations. But those wars over nominees often lasted for a few years and then died out again in favor of a principle of accepting whoever was basically well-qualified. I don't see how we can ever go back to that in an era of C-SPAN, which will always make nominations about grandstanding Senators asking "probing questions" just to get on the evening news. And the Warren Court's legacy has raised the stakes by shifting much greater federal power to SCOTUS. The danger of the "living Constitution" is that instead of an amendment process, all it takes is potentially the vote of one new guy in a robe to completely alter Constitutional law and shift federal power in major ways.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:03PM (2 children)
This. That decision is a tremendous example of a good end achieved through destructive means. There are numerous policy reasons for abortion to be legal, but basically no constitutional ones. And its legacy has been as you described: to turn the judiciary into another legislative body.
I personally dislike when "originalism" a la Gorsuch is considered a Conservative position. Yes, there are some parts of the constitution that must be judged according to the standards of the time; what else could "cruel and unusual punishment" mean? But to claim that words can change meaning but still be interpreted literally makes about as much sense as reading every word of the King James bible literally, even when those words have changed meaning since 1611 [gotquestions.org].
The real problem here is that liberals are less represented now in government than would be democratically fair. They are simply seeking any power they can maintain to reflect that. It's ultimately destructive to Democracy, but what's more destructive is gerrymandering and the growing numbers of witless followers being snapped up and organized by demagogues.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:16PM (1 child)
The real problem here is that liberals are less represented now in government than would be democratically fair. They are simply seeking any power they can maintain to reflect that.
Well, that and probably a bit of revenge over Garland. None of that is new either -- it's sort of like the Abe Fortas nomination debacle that occurred in the closing years of the Johnson presidency, which was undoubtedly a factor in the strong opposition of Dems to some of the early nominations by Nixon.
The difference, of course, is that Fortas was actually given a hearing, and there were "questionable" aspects raised of some speaking fees he had taken (which simply fell in a gray era under ethics standards of the time). The refusal of the Senate to even give Garland a hearing was crazy and without precedent. Ultimately, I doubt the Dems are going to be able to do much to block anything here, but if they don't respond in kind to the insane Republican tactics that denied a hearing for a legitimate and well-qualified nominee, they "lose face" within the political arena.
But of course you're right that this is also a huge power struggle given the "legislative" function of the judiciary nowadays.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:56PM
I was more referring to the growing legislative slant of the judiciary as a response to gerrymandering. The fight right now is about expressing rage over the whole Garland debacle, knowing that they have no power to actually do anything.
The difference is that Congress no longer appears to have any respect for itself, or any other government entity, as an institution. Everything is partisan. The elitists who are most interested in maintaining their ivory tower can't do it anymore by maintaining the institution. They must instead appeal directly to the kind of voters that get most riled up about silly things, and in many cases they don't even have to do that. They just get to live their unaccountable power trip.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:50PM (1 child)
It isn't a disconnect between now and ten years ago when he got broad support when appointed to the 10th Circuit. There is now a 10 year record of thousands of rulings that give a much better picture of the kind of judge he is than there was when he was appointed to the 10th Circuit.
However, it is all puffery and show from both parties anyway. He'll be easily nominated because he is obviously qualified, assuming he doesn't tank himself during the process. Besides the usual partisan games that go on, the Democrats are pissed (and I think the whole country should be pissed) that the Republicans fucked with the sanctity of the Judicial Branch and pissed on the Constitution through sheer dereliction of duty with their partisan BS by refusing to let Obama nominate someone a year ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:56AM
He was -already- nominated--by Trump.
The word you seek is "approved".
because he is obviously qualified
More importantly, because there are 52 Reds and 48 Blues.
The only significant thing that will come out of this is the names of the Blues who will vote to approve.
...and whether this will be those folks' last term in the senate.
.
Something I noticed about Gorsuch is how gray he is for 49. [denverpost.com]
Is he using gray hair dye to look older and more wise?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday March 22 2017, @04:24PM (1 child)
It's almost like 11 years of questionable, religious based, judicial decisions could have a affect on someone's opinion of a judge.
Nah, couldn't be!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:44PM
It is the official slogan of the Trump administration: "never let facts get in the way of a good narrative".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:21AM
Sorry, one has to take Fox with a grain of salt. They often spin and/or leave out key info.