SC Justice Scalia Has Died

[Trausti]

I'd say a Justice suddenly dropping dead is extraordinary circumstances.

When has it happened before?

Everybody knew Rehnquist was unwell.

Oh please. Partisans are hypocrites. If the situation was reversed, with a Republican President, Democrat senate, and a dead Ginsburg, the folks here having a hissy fit would rally around Schumer to prevent her replacement before the election. As it is, the voters handed the Senate to the Republicans in 2014. The Senate is not constitutionally required to approve a nominee in any set time frame. Suck it.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I'd say a Justice suddenly dropping dead is extraordinary circumstances.

When has it happened before?

Everybody knew Rehnquist was unwell.

Oh please. Partisans are hypocrites. If the situation was reversed, with a Republican President, Democrat senate, and a dead Ginsburg, the folks here having a hissy fit would rally around Schumer to prevent her replacement before the election. As it is, the voters handed the Senate to the Republicans in 2014. The Senate is not constitutionally required to approve a nominee in any set time frame. Suck it.

Yes, and the President is not required to wait until after the election. The media is blowing this far out of proportion.

 

[maxparrish]

Who said they 'want to forbid' Obama from naming a replacement, other than you (and some habitual left partisan hacks in the media)? Rubio, Cruz, and some others [who] have already said that he can nominate who he likes - but that he should be aware it is pointless because the Senate will not give consent this year .

The bold is the promise to "forbid," functionally. I fixed up the quote for you so that they are correctly labeled as the partisan hacks that they are for making these statements.

A very good fix. Max seems to think that there is a substantive difference between allowing Obama to nominate a Justice and the Senate confirming the nomination.

Let's first sort out this semantic train wreck. Jimmy said that they want to forbid Obama from naming a replacement. If Jimmy used the word "naming" (as in MW) "3: to nominate for office " then, no they do not.

If he means to "nominate and to appoint to office" then yep, they do wish to forbid it.

Finally, of course there is a substantive difference between nominating a Justice and confirming the nomination. The appointment of a new justice requires a Presidential nomination and consent by the Senate.

Outside of this forum, only Donald Trump is daffy enough to think that getting nominated and winning office is "functionally the same" - rest assured, when he loses we will also hear from him that he was "forbidden" to be nominated.

 

[laughing dog]

I'd say a Justice suddenly dropping dead is extraordinary circumstances.

When has it happened before?

Everybody knew Rehnquist was unwell.

Oh please. Partisans are hypocrites. If the situation was reversed, with a Republican President, Democrat senate, and a dead Ginsburg, the folks here having a hissy fit would rally around Schumer to prevent her replacement before the election. As it is, the voters handed the Senate to the Republicans in 2014. The Senate is not constitutionally required to approve a nominee in any set time frame. Suck it.

Hypocrisy by one group is not a justification for inaction. It is wrong to fail to vote on a confirmation of an appointee.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'd say a Justice suddenly dropping dead is extraordinary circumstances.

When has it happened before?

Everybody knew Rehnquist was unwell.

Oh please. Partisans are hypocrites. If the situation was reversed, with a Republican President, Democrat senate, and a dead Ginsburg, the folks here having a hissy fit would rally around Schumer to prevent her replacement before the election. As it is, the voters handed the Senate to the Republicans in 2014. The Senate is not constitutionally required to approve a nominee in any set time frame. Suck it.

One revolutionary war, nearing 250 years of applicable history, 112 Justices, broken down to the palatable phrase "suck it".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The excuses for obstructionism become thinner and thinner.

But as always I expect Obama to come out of this looking better than the Republicans in Congress.

That pack of senseless hyenas.

You are confused. They aren't giving excuses - they are being candid. No way that a pivotal conservative position on the court is going to be given up when there is a chance that a Republican might be elected in November.

Yep they (presumably) won't role over with their paws up so they are "hyenas"...LOL...

And what if it were the other way around: Should the Democrats prevent nominations while a Republican has the White House?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, they should listen to Mitch McConnell's impassioned speeches about how that's a totally inappropriate way to act and a dereliction of their duties as elected officials.

 

[untermensche]

I'd say a Justice suddenly dropping dead is extraordinary circumstances.

When has it happened before?

Everybody knew Rehnquist was unwell.

Oh please. Partisans are hypocrites. If the situation was reversed, with a Republican President, Democrat senate, and a dead Ginsburg, the folks here having a hissy fit would rally around Schumer to prevent her replacement before the election. As it is, the voters handed the Senate to the Republicans in 2014. The Senate is not constitutionally required to approve a nominee in any set time frame. Suck it.

The issue was the Shumer quote.

But with today's thugs that call themselves Republicans they don't know the difference between advice and threats.

And they think they should be allowed to decide anything.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I'd say a Justice suddenly dropping dead is extraordinary circumstances.

When has it happened before?

Everybody knew Rehnquist was unwell.

Oh please. Partisans are hypocrites. If the situation was reversed, with a Republican President, Democrat senate, and a dead Ginsburg, the folks here having a hissy fit would rally around Schumer to prevent her replacement before the election. As it is, the voters handed the Senate to the Republicans in 2014. The Senate is not constitutionally required to approve a nominee in any set time frame. Suck it.

Bullshit! The leaders of the GOP senate met before Obama was even seated to plan to block everything he did. This is just more of the same. No, the Democrats never resorted to this level of total obstructionism.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily...ttle-the-senate-obstructionists-secret-weapon

The Senate transformed President Obama’s ability to win confirmation for his judicial appointments last week by invoking the nuclear option—a ban on filibusters against nominees, apart from Supreme Court justices. With that, Democrats effectively lowered their threshold for victory from sixty votes (the number needed to cut off debate) to a simple majority of fifty-one. (Fifty-five Senators currently vote as Democrats.) But Obama faces one remaining barrier to his ability to fill vacancies in the federal courts: an arcane senatorial tradition known as the blue slip.

...

So what does this mean in reality? It means that, in states with two Republican senators, President Obama can effectively be blocked from appointing anyone to the federal bench. The list of federal judicial vacancies tells an extraordinary story. For example, there are seven vacancies on the federal district courts in Texas. President Obama has not nominated a single person to fill those seats.




----

This isn't really new for the GOP either.

 

[ZiprHead]

Arab nations in the Middle East have aligned themselves together and are attacking Israel militarily. I say we wait for the next president to decide what to do about it.

 

[maxparrish]

Maybe they learned the concept from the Democrats back when they were talking about what they would do if Bush got another chance to nominate a Justice as a lame duck president. Of course Schumer was only talking about the last 18 months of the Bush presidency not the last 10 months. Obama will have to pick carefully if he wants a nominee to have a shot at a hearing and even more carefully to keep them from getting Borked.

It's important to note, I think, the difference between, "I will urge my fellow senators to not confirm ideologues" and "not confirm except in extraordinary circumstances"

and

"We will not allow a vote on anyone"

These are not the same thing.

There is no substantive difference, except to spin artists. Listen to what Schumur said (paraphrased):

1) 'We cannot let a Stevens or Ginsburg be replaced by a Roberts or Alito'.
2) We (he) cannot allow 'those few in the shrinking conservative cliques' to be joined by "one more ideological allies."
3) 'I will do everything within his power to prevent it.'
4) Only in the most extraordinary of circumstances will any replacement nomination be considered; even if we do any future nomination must be assumed to be unacceptable by Democrats unless that person can prove by their record he/she is not on the conservative side of the ideological divide.

Suppose Grassley issues the same statement: "We cannot let a Scalia or Roberts be replaced by a Ginsburg or Stevens" and "We cannot allow those in the liberal clique to be joined one more ideological allies" And that he will "do everything within his power to prevent it". "And only under the most extraordinary of circumstances would a nomination be considered and even then the person would have to prove by their record that they are not liberal or progressive"...well then, you think the sweet hysterics of the left would return their war horses to the barn?

Fat Chance.

In sum: Schumer (and prior Democrats on prior nominations) issued a mandate to generally not consider any replacement for a liberal for the remainder of a Presidential term, and then only if he decided that circumstances warranted an exception, might a nomination be entertained with an explicit ideological test. The "extraordinary circumstances" are intentionally undefined, and by his pleasure.

His posturing is a vague loophole for him act only if HE thinks it warranted, like if a conservative vacancy occured during those 18 months there would be "an extraordinary circumstance" to water it down with a non-conservative.

Wait...I guess that is the partisan 'extraordinary circumstance' you have just discovered...

Moreover, even if Schumer HAD said something as shameful as "we won't let anyone vote," recall that the Republicans and the White House both condemned it. To turn around and embrace the crimes of your enemy and repeat them make you either a petulant toddler or a sociopath. Neither reflects well on you.

I don't think you want to go down that road. If imitating another's shameful behavior makes a person 'a toddler or a sociopath', what does it make the originator and creator of that behavior - other than that much more depraved? I don't think your argument does Schumer any favors.

And it could be argued that Schumer broke the tradition and started the obstructionism, and now you offer the pitiable criticism that his victims cannot play his game because it makes the victims of his original transgression look bad?

Are you serious?

Let me be clear: I really don't care that Schumer laid down a new line and standard for confirmation, or if the Republican's are doing the same or uping the game. The point is that since FDR, and especially since the late 1960s, Supreme Court appointments have become increasingly partisan, controversial, ideological, and ruthlessly political. Anyone who stands on a high horse does it in peril.

There is no right or wrong answer to the current vacancy. A position held by a conservative, not a liberal, became vacant. An Obama appointment would change the balance of the court. Just as Chuck Schumer said he would refuse to let a liberal position be replaced (and said so) with a conservative, so it seems that Republican leadership will not let the opposite happen. And until you hear otherwise, clearly GOP leadership does not see the circumstances as being so extraordinary as to require immediate appointment (just the opposite).

What is good for the goose is good for the gander - so let's stop the needless honking.

 

[maxparrish]

You are confused. They aren't giving excuses - they are being candid. No way that a pivotal conservative position on the court is going to be given up when there is a chance that a Republican might be elected in November.

Yep they (presumably) won't role over with their paws up so they are "hyenas"...LOL...

And what if it were the other way around: Should the Democrats prevent nominations while a Republican has the White House?

Under identical circumstances to the current controversy, yes they should. And until both sides agree to follow the same traditions and rules, each side has to play the same cards as the other.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The best thing about potential ties in the Supreme Court is that the law can have different meanings if the Supreme Court can't resolve a dispute among the Appellate Courts.

We should honor this pretty much non-existent "tradition".

 

[untermensche]

It doesn't matter.

These Republicans, without ideas, have been the most obstructionist bunch of ideologues in history. Their base is unraveling and the nation is tiring of their bigotry and violent tendencies. And they know it.

All they really have left are a few billionaires that support them, and their carefully crafted tactics of fear and bigotry. But the nation is tiring of their worthless act.

Delay you worthless scum without ideas.

Delay. It is ALL you have left.

You are soon to be swept under the rug of history.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It doesn't matter.

These Republicans, without ideas, have been the most obstructionist bunch of ideologues in history. Their base is unraveling and the nation is tiring of their bigotry and violent tendencies. And they know it.

All they really have left are a few billionaires that support them, and their carefully crafted tactics of fear and bigotry. But the nation is tiring of their worthless act.

Delay you worthless scum without ideas.

Delay. It is ALL you have left.

You are soon to be swept under the rug of history.

The thing is that they know this very well. They see that the world is moving on and leaving them and their ideas behind. It puts them in a bit of a bind because they know that they need to shore up whatever power they can while they still have some of it since changes in the future are going to leave them further and further out of touch. At the same time, they don't want to begin compromising due to that being a tacit admission of the state they're in and they prefer to sit there doing nothing while hoping that something just happens to make things right for them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It doesn't matter.

These Republicans, without ideas, have been the most obstructionist bunch of ideologues in history. Their base is unraveling and the nation is tiring of their bigotry and violent tendencies. And they know it.

All they really have left are a few billionaires that support them, and their carefully crafted tactics of fear and bigotry. But the nation is tiring of their worthless act.

Delay you worthless scum without ideas.

Delay. It is ALL you have left.

You are soon to be swept under the rug of history.

Sadly, this sort of obstructionism actually helped give them an absurd landslide in '10.

 

[untermensche]

It doesn't matter.

These Republicans, without ideas, have been the most obstructionist bunch of ideologues in history. Their base is unraveling and the nation is tiring of their bigotry and violent tendencies. And they know it.

All they really have left are a few billionaires that support them, and their carefully crafted tactics of fear and bigotry. But the nation is tiring of their worthless act.

Delay you worthless scum without ideas.

Delay. It is ALL you have left.

You are soon to be swept under the rug of history.

Sadly, this sort of obstructionism actually helped give them an absurd landslide in '10.

The dying gasps of an organization without one good idea.

When you have no good ideas of your own, and nobody is buying your bullshit anymore, all you can do is try to obstruct and gerrymander.

The mission of the Republican party.

Fuck the work of the nation. We're staying in power by making sure no progress ever occurs.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Their mission is to destroy all effective government either by selling it off to their cronies, or bleeding it so white it cannot function.

 

[funinspace]

I thought this was one of the funniest WTF arguments for blocking any Obama SC nomination:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/important-debate-ridiculous-start

ThinkProgress noted yesterday that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), hot on the heels of his failed presidential bid, broke new rhetorical ground on a conservative radio show in Kentucky.

“The president has said he has the power basically to create immigration law out of nothing,” Paul said. “He says he has the power to basically cripple entire industries like coal without ever having been given that power by Congress. So see, we have a constitutional debate on whose powers is it, the president or Congress? And I think the president sort of has a conflict of interest here in appointing somebody while we’re trying to decide whether or not he’s usurped power.”

Really Rand? So what president hasn't been charged with over-reach? And just how would we ever get new SC Justices with this absurd idea...never mind the constitution?

 

[laughing dog]

I thought this was one of the funniest WTF arguments for blocking any Obama SC nomination:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/important-debate-ridiculous-start

ThinkProgress noted yesterday that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), hot on the heels of his failed presidential bid, broke new rhetorical ground on a conservative radio show in Kentucky.

“The president has said he has the power basically to create immigration law out of nothing,” Paul said. “He says he has the power to basically cripple entire industries like coal without ever having been given that power by Congress. So see, we have a constitutional debate on whose powers is it, the president or Congress? And I think the president sort of has a conflict of interest here in appointing somebody while we’re trying to decide whether or not he’s usurped power.”

Really Rand? So what president hasn't been charged with over-reach? And just how would we ever get new SC Justices with this absurd idea...never mind the constitution?

Using his stated reasoning, the Senate also has a conflict of interest in its role of advice and consent.