RBG leaves the stage.

Sherkeu said:
I think if that actually happened, ....
Click to expand...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

If that actually happened! I love it!
 
Oh no you see that's different because when Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on Obama's nomination there was a runner a runner on 3rd and the moon was waxing and the Sparrows hadn't returned to Capistrano yet...
 
angrysoba said:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

If that actually happened! I love it!
Click to expand...


I do not understand the joke or why laughing at my post is something you felt you had to post in so many letters.

I have a weird sense of humor, but this is weird even to me.
I really tried to 'get it' even if you meant it in a mean snarky way (which I am sure you did) but I still do not. :confused:

Help an aspie out here.
 
Cain said:
Well, that's exactly the thing. The pro-choicers are motivated/activated regardless of what Trump and McConnell accomplish. If Trump and McConnell confirm a Justice before the election, reluctant Trump supporters can sit back. Some Republicans are already saying another conservative on the court is "worth" losing the Senate and the Presidency. They see a Mission: Accomplished.
Click to expand...
That's an interesting tradeoff to consider.

I keep getting the feeling that abortion is a stalking horse - a proxy for some other reason that is more prosaic than saving all the little babies - like making sure the rich get richer? But I don't know what that would be.

People, don't get all triggered by Trump's BS. If we stopped being triggered, I don't think he'd know what to do with himself.

Susan Collins apparently made her bed with the Kavanaugh confirmation. Now she may be trying a Hail Mary pass to save her Senate seat, and when she loses, she'll renege on what she just said.
 
A few proposed methods I just ran across for Democrats to block any appointments until after the new Senate is seated...

1. Something I didn't quite follow about demanding "unanimous consent" on Senate bills so nothing can get passed with the current total of only 99 Senators... This sounds like it depends too much on the Republicans agreeing to unanimity, which I don't believe they would, regardless of whether there's some obscure rule telling them they must.

2. There are other bills coming up, like on raising the debt ceiling, that don't really pass unless they're passed by both houses; Democrats can hold those hostage because they have the other house. This one has the nifty advantage of being out of the Evil Turtle's hands. But it depends on the Democrats actually playing to win, which they never do.

3. Impeachments: This would take automatic priority over anything else in the Senate (a rule the Evil Turtle actually followed), and there's no limit on how many times a President can be impeached or for how many things, and we know they barely scratched the surface with that lame sleepwalk they put on last time. So it definitely could be done and couldn't be stopped... unless the Evil Turtle just starts putting non-impeachment business on the Senate schedule ahead of impeachment anyway regardless of not being allowed to. The other problem, again, is that it depends on Democrats playing to win. To be more specific, it depends on another impeachment (or series of them) actually being done now by the very same Democrats who diligently went out of their way to make that last one as fake and unimpeachy as possible.

4. Threaten to expand the court and make their first new nomination Hillary: Again, the Republicans wouldn't be able to stop the threat from being carried out if the Congressional elections go the way they they're going, since the number of SC seats is just a statute, and the idea of putting her in there would add some extra incentive for them. However, it depends on Republicans being moved by a threat of future action by an "opposition" that they already know always rolls over for them. This one has the advantage of being something with which they can neutralize a new Republican appointment even after it happens, whether they threatened to do so ahead of time or not.
 
Last edited:
Delvo said:
4. Threaten to expand the court and make their first new nomination Hillary
Click to expand...

Or Obama. The Republicans might drop dead from the mere suggestion. They like Obama as much as Skeletor likes He-Man, and react about as intelligently and effectively to everything he ever does.
 
Resume said:
I fully remember what you said in 2016 concerning the SC vacancy. You said "Let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination. And you can use my words against me, and you'd be absolutely right."

So I am, and I am.
Click to expand...
I imagine the Democrat trying to snag Graham's seat will as well.

JoeMorgue said:
She'll fold if push comes to shove. Nobody is falling for her "I'm oh so concerned... lookit how concerned I am... I am just so concerned guyz like totally for realzies you wouldn't believe how concerned I am... oh whoopsie daisy looks like I voted for it anyway tee hee hee." routine anymore.

As someone once put it doesn't matter how long she looks at the menu, she's gonna order what Mitch McConnell is having.
Click to expand...
What's in it for her, I wonder? When she gets booted out over confirming Kavanaugh, will she think it's all been worthwhile?
 
Expanding the court sounds like a great idea in that alternative fantasy universe we don't live in where if the Dems take the Presidency/Senate in 2020 the Republicans will never take it again.

I don't want a SCOTUS arms race with each party adding members every time they are in a position of power until SCOTUS is a de-facto Legislative sized Branch.

I'm halfway at the point that if Trump manages to push through a nomination before the election, and the Democrats take either the Presidency or the Senate, and Trump doesn't declare himself God-king for life I say we slip the hint to Thomas and Roberts that if they step down we'll promise to replace them with moderate liberals. They wait and we'll clone Marx himself and put him on the bench just out of spite when they die/retire.
 
I quite like the prospect of Hillary Clinton in the SC hanging over their heads.

Do something about it!

Obama I think would make a fine Supreme Court justice. He actually has credentials. He probably would be a bit more disinhibited as a judge.
 
Sherkeu said:
I think if that actually happened, it would be the first time, right?

Has there been a sitting president who has delayed nominating a candidate until after an election?I'm not talking about confirmation which depends on procedure and votes in the Senate, but just a Presidential nominee.
Click to expand...

Voluntarily? No- the whole issue here is that there was a nomination denied, of Obama's by McConnell in 2016, on precisely the ground that McConnell is deciding is irrelevant today. Just for one example, here's McConnell on Meet The Press, Mar 20, 2016*-

The principle involved here, Chuck, when an election is underway, as Joe Biden was talking in 1992, an election's underway, the American people are about to weigh in on who is going to be the president. And that's the person, whoever that may be, who ought to be making this appointment.
Click to expand...

That's just about as plain a statement of principle as you can expect; and McConnell's waffling now is about as plain an example of hypocrisy as anyone should need. Bottom line is that there's no need to rush the nomination to get it done before the election- there was a whole year between the death of Scalia in 2016 and his replacement by Trump after his election, and 8 Justices are as full a Court for their decisions process as 9 would be; if Trump is re-elected, then he can go ahead and nominate without having lost anything but a little time. If, OTOH, Biden wins, but McConnell has rammed through Trump's appointee, well...surely you can see the problem?

(The reference to 1992 by McConnell is sort of interesting too. That year, we had Bush (the elder), an incumbent, running against Clinton (the...taller?)- pretty much the same situation, incumbent vs challenger, we have today. There were no SC seats up for nomination that year, but Biden's hypothetical position then was the same as McConnell's in 2016. And McConnell today is reversing that position based, in part, on the fact that Trump is an incumbent, though not (yet) a lame duck- a distinction he didn't seem to think important enough to mention for Bush's case. IOW, he's making it up as he goes along- his qualifications and hair-splitting are more out of necessity than principle.)

*Sorry, it's a transcript of an entire MTP show, so it's pretty long, and no way I can see to link directly to the McConnell quote; you'll have to scroll about 2/3 of the way down to see it.
 
Minoosh said:
What's in it for her, I wonder? When she gets booted out over confirming Kavanaugh, will she think it's all been worthwhile?
Click to expand...

//This is gonna be hard to put into exact words//

I don't think her brow-furrowing routine is a lie or an act exactly. What Susan Collins is is cargo-cult honest. She goes through the motions of being honest, of putting thought into things, of listening to the sides, but that's it. She treats honesty and intellectual rigor as something she can just hit the surface level "checks in the box" with but it doesn't go any deeper than that. The puppet theater of honesty and her decision making process are just totally disconnected from each other outside of... like the ritual of it I guess you could say.

She thinks "Thinking really hard on the issue... and then doing what I was going to do from the beginning" is the same thing as "Thinking really hard on the issue and then coming to a decision."
 
Last edited:
"I believe that the president should next week nominee a successor to the court, and I think it is critical that the Senate takes up and confirms that successor before Election Day. This nomination is why Donald Trump was elected."
Ted Cruz, yesterday.

And I’m certain as God doesn’t make little green apples Senator Cruz voiced the exact same sentiment with regard to the rationale behind the people electing President Obama as well as the Senate’s subsequent duty. I’m just too lazy to look it up right at the moment.
 
Last edited:
Again at this point I almost think Republicans have embraced hypocrisy as a deliberate affect both for distraction and trolling the lib purposes.

Cruz and McConnell are being so obvious and blatant about it I can't imagine they are doing it for any reason beyond counting on being called out for it.

McConnell probably has a tape of some liberal screaming "Oh my God you're such a hypocrite!" that he has to play to achieve orgasm at this point.
 
Last edited:
JoeMorgue said:
I don't want a SCOTUS arms race with each party adding members every time they are in a position of power until SCOTUS is a de-facto Legislative sized Branch.
Click to expand...
They've changed the size before and that reaction didn't happen, not did the Republicans add any the last time they had Congress, and are just as likely to do it next time whether Democrats did it or not. And even if that kind of cascade reaction might somehow start this time, at least back & forth is better than stuck the Republicans' way for decades based on nothing but the illegitimate shenanigans the Republicans used to get us to this point and Democrats' unwillingness to ever muster a response to anything that's done to them. (And isn't it funny how this kind of fear-based thinking is only ever applied as a reason why Democrats can't/shouldn't do something, never the Republicans?)
 
Minoosh said:
That's an interesting tradeoff to consider.

I keep getting the feeling that abortion is a stalking horse - a proxy for some other reason that is more prosaic than saving all the little babies - like making sure the rich get richer? But I don't know what that would be.
Click to expand...

Yeah, everybody's concerned about abortion, but if you have this kind of conservative majority on the court, key provisions of the ACA get ruled unconstitutional. They'll probably also find ways to invalidate a real universal health-care system and overrule a Democratic President's executive orders.

This country's institutions suck on a DNA level. We have a highly undemocratic, unrepresentative Senate, and a President who won election with the second most votes (and an assist from the FBI and Russia). People craving legitimacy turn to a court of elite judges -- who Americans consistently rank as more trustworthy than their elected leaders. People are socialized into this nonsense and it's just pathetic and embarrassing.
 
Delvo said:
They've changed the size before and that reaction didn't happen.
Click to expand...

Oh come on it was 1869 and it's been the same ever since. That's a little old to be citing as precedent in this context. Roosevelt himself couldn't push through more justices in one of the most powerful Democratic administrations in history.

And isn't it funny how this kind of fear-based thinking is only ever applied as a reason why Democrats can't/shouldn't do something, never the Republicans?
Click to expand...

Well... yeah because the Republicans are going to do stupid, petty, spiteful crap to get back at the Democrats and the Democrats aren't going to do the same in kind.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Oh come on it was 1869 and it's been the same ever since. That's a little old to be citing as precedent in this context. Roosevelt himself couldn't push through more justices in one of the most powerful Democratic administrations in history.



Well... yeah because the Republicans are going to do stupid, petty, spiteful crap to get back at the Democrats and the Democrats aren't going to do the same in kind.
Click to expand...

They are now.
 
Elagabalus said:
They are now.
Click to expand...

No they won't.

If the Dems win in November the absolute last thing they are going to be doing is worrying about fixing stuff so everything doesn't go to Hell the next the Republicans get power.

Everytime the Dems get power they act like they are going to keep forever, or at least plan like it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom