FIFY.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
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FIFY.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
They should but they won't.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
HEHEHEHEHEHEHE.....
:corn:
This would likely be the only notch against him. In any other setting this would be a damn good selection.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
McConnell explained his refusal to meet with the judge in person by saying there was
no point in subjecting him to “unnecessary political routines orchestrated by the White House.” :lol
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mcconnell-refuses-hold-meeting-garland?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_ campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...esident-trump/
SUPREME COURT 3:42 PM MAR 16, 2016
Republicans Could Do A Lot Worse Than Merrick Garland Under President Clinton — Or President Trump
By NATE SILVER
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that Republicans won’t hold hearings on Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. If McConnell follows through and makes everyone wait until next year, he and his party will be taking a serious risk. The political situation for Republicans could get a lot worse — and McConnell might no longer be in charge of the Senate.
The logic of this isn’t that complicated. Right now, the most likely person to become the next president is Hillary Clinton, who is on the verge of wrapping up the Democratic nomination. The second most likely person is Donald Trump. His path to the Republican nomination is more tenuous than Clinton’s path to the Democratic one. But Trump had a successful day of elections on Tuesday — and if it isn’t obvious how Trump will get to 1,237 delegates, it’s even less obvious how anyone else will become the Republican nominee.
Neither choice is particularly palatable to members of the conservative Senate majority, only one of whom (Jeff Sessions of Alabama) has endorsed Trump. But if their choice between Clinton and Trump is bad enough, Republicans have some further bad news: Democrats have a shot at winning back the Senate. They’ll need to gain four seats to do so if Democrats hold the presidency, or five if a Republican wins. That isn’t a trivial task, but Republicans are vulnerable because a number of their blue- and purple-state senators who won election in the Republican wave year of 2010 are now on the ballot again. Furthermore, Trump could have a negative effect on down-ballot races; so could Ted Cruz, or someone nominated after a contested convention. Although I wouldn’t call Democrats favorites to win back the Senate, a Democratic Senate is probably more likely than not conditional upon Clinton becoming the next president.
If you combine the view of betting markets with a bit of back-of-the-envelope math, it suggests that Republicans face these rough probabilities:
A 40 percent chance of President Clinton with a Democratic Senate.
A 30 percent chance of Clinton with a Republican Senate.
A 20 percent chance of President Trump (probably with a Republican Senate).
A 10 percent chance of Cruz, John Kasich or some other Republican.
You can quibble with those odds, obviously, and particularly with how much of a shot Trump would have against Clinton. Prudence would suggest that Trump’s chances are not zero: There could be an economic collapse, a terrorist attack or a Clinton scandal that could swing the election to Trump — or even if not, he could continue to rewrite the political rulebook and make fools out of political prognosticators. I wouldn’t take Trump at even money, though. For now, we’ll stick with the betting markets’ view, which imply that he’d be something like a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 underdog.
The next step is figuring out what sort of person might be appointed to the Supreme Court in each circumstance. Suppose that, from Republicans’ view, a reliably liberal justice (say, someone with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s views) would score as a minus 10, and a reliable conservative (say, a clone of Justice Samuel Alito) would score as a plus 10. A truly centrist justice, who would side with the conservative position half the time and the liberal one half the time in key cases, would be a zero.
You’d probably score the possibilities something like what I have in the table below. With a Democratic Senate, Clinton would have relatively free rein to pick a nominee, although her majority in the Senate might not be especially large, and Republicans could filibuster her choice if Democrats win fewer than 60 seats. She’d also have won a fresh mandate even if Republicans held the Senate, however, and could probably get someone to Garland’s left confirmed, if not another Ginsburg.
The Republican calculus for a Supreme Court justiceCode:SCENARIO PROBABILITY SCORE
President Clinton + Democratic Senate 40% -9
President Clinton + Republican Senate 30 -6
President Trump! 20 +2
President Cruz or some other Republican 10 +9
Weighted average -4
Trump is a harder case to fathom. One way he could win the general election is by pivoting dramatically to the center and railing against partisanship. The Supreme Court nomination would then be one of President Trump’s first chances to demonstrate his abilities as a pragmatic deal-maker. He could nominate a conservative, but he could also pick someone with moderate or eccentric political views. Or he could make an unconventional choice: Trump once said his sister would make a “phenomenal” Supreme Court justice. A Trump appointment might be better for Republicans than a judge chosen totally at random from a circuit court, but perhaps not by much.
If you take a weighted average of these probabilities, you come up with a score of about negative 4. That’s equivalent to a center-left nominee – someone a lot like Garland, perhaps. If they wait until next year, Republicans might do better, but they could potentially do a lot worse.
And that’s before considering that the Supreme Court nomination isn’t happening in a vacuum. Polling suggests that a majority of the public wants the Senate to hold hearings on the next justice. Thus, blocking the appointment of Garland could hurt Republicans at the margin and further reduce their chances of keeping the Senate. On the flip side, it could curry favor with the Republican base. But one of the apparent lessons of this election is that the Republican base is neither as large nor as influential as we previously believed. Republicans continue to double down on a set of political strategies that seems to be failing.
Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight.
‘This is not the Chuck Grassley we thought we knew’
The Huffington Post reported yesterday on two former top government officials in Iowa who find themselves “wondering what happened to the Grassley they used to know: a legislator who proudly helped take politics out of the state’s judicial confirmation process.”
Republican Joy Corning and Democrat Sally Pederson, both former Iowa lieutenant governors, are teaming up to try to convince Grassley to hold hearings for Obama’s court pick, Merrick Garland. They held a Thursday press event in Des Moines to remind him of his roots.
“You voted in favor of Iowa’s constitutional amendment that took campaign politics out of Iowa’s judicial system,” said Corning, citing a 2014 interview in which Grassley boasted about voting as a state lawmaker to prevent political parties from nominating judges. “You express great pride in that vote, and I quote, ‘It was a very forward-looking thing to do what we did 50 years ago.’”
That’s a sharp contrast to what’s happening today, she said. “Throughout your career, Chuck, you have been a fair-minded, common-sense consensus builder,” the former GOP official continued. “Refusing to fill the Supreme Court vacancy is none of those things.”
Pederson added, “[T]his is not the Chuck Grassley we thought we knew.”
And to a very real extent, this isn’t the Chuck Grassley that Iowans have gotten to know over his decades-long congressional career. In 1987, the GOP senator declared, “The dangers of politicizing the nomination process are exceeded only by its short-sightedness.
After all, presidential elections and Supreme Court nominations come and go. I urge my colleagues to resist the clarion call of raw politics that undermines the independent judiciary.”
That Grassley obviously bears no resemblance to the current Grassley.
But the broader point extends well beyond Iowa’s senior senator. His shift is undeniable, but what matters just as much are the conditions that pushed Grassley so far to the right.
As Republican politics has become more radical, the GOP’s elected officials have had to decide whether to fight the tide or move with it.
Those who’ve resisted, even a little, have been washed away in primaries (see Dick Lugar, Mike Castle, Bob Inglis, et al), run out of Capitol Hill (see John Boehner), or even pushed out of the GOP altogether (see Charlie Crist, Arlen Specter, et al).
It’s why most Republicans prefer to simply go with the right-wing flow, satisfying both the party’s base and their own desire to keep their jobs.
When people say they don’t recognize Chuck Grassley anymore, they’re not wrong, but the unstated subtext is that they don’t recognize the Republican Party anymore.
There’s no reason to single out Grassley. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) used to boast about being a “square peg” – the title of his 2002 autobiography – because of his routine breaks with party orthodoxy. Now Hatch is among the Senate’s most brazen and unapologetic partisans, whose cringe-worthy antics were fairly described yesterday as “sickening.”
In 1984, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ran as a moderate. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), throughout his career, took pride in his independent streak. For most of these senators’ lengthy careers, the very idea that they’d support an unprecedented blockade against a qualified, moderate Supreme Court nominee would have seemed ridiculous.
And yet, here we are.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-s...d=sm_fb_maddow
Heh, that was a much more detailed analysis that came to the same conclusion I have.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
Odds tend to favor a Clinton win.
Running against trump is likely to have a energizing effect on Democratic turnout, which would be a complete disaster for Republicans. They only really will win if the turn out is low, which is how they got control of Congress to begin with.
This will have a run-on effect on the down ballot candidates for Congress. From what I remember reading about how that shakes up, there are more Republicans in trouble there than Democrats this time around.
This has the potential for a Democratic president to put her stamp on SCOTUS with a Democratically controlled senate.
If Garner isn't approved by the time the election rolls around, Obama will get to withdraw and give in to the GOP. They will get their wish of waiting until the next election, and have some crow to chow down on.
Moderates/liberals will replace any solidly "conservative" justice that leaves/dies in the next 8 years, as well as any liberal justice.
This nomination likely offers the last chance the GOP will have to really influence SCOTUS for the remainder of my lifetime, assuming the coming latino demographic wave swamps the federal election process as it is currently projected to in favor of the Democrat party.
... and they will piss it away.
Schadenfreude anyone?
Translation:Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
The Republican party has lost its effing mind.
I remember when I used to really like and identify with the Republican party, around the time of the first Bush. Once they started trying to impeach Clinton for getting a blowjob that was a pretty clear sign the the party had gone crazy. Especially when Gingrich was doing the same shit. :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by RandomGuy
I read one "sane" Repug Congressman saying some years ago that he said Gingrich's reign of bullshit was something he had never seen before.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
Howard SternQuote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
Defiant Mitch McConnell Holds Merrick Garland’s Severed Head Aloft In Front Of Capitol Building
http://i.onionstatic.com/onion/5296/2/16x9/1200.jpg
WASHINGTON — Declaring that the president had been warned about naming a justice during an election year, a defiant Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly held up the severed head of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland this afternoon while standing in front of the Capitol building.
“We vowed that no nominees would be considered,” said McConnell, his suit reportedly splattered with blood as he flung the centrist appeals court judge’s bespectacled head aside and kicked it down the Capitol steps.
“There shall be no hearing. Do not attempt to silence the voice of the American people.”
Sources also confirmed that McConnell later wrapped Garland’s severed right hand in his judicial robes and mailed the package to potential nominee Sri Srinivasan.
http://www.theonion.com/article/defi...ands-sev-52575
On Supreme Court, Republicans can’t keep their story straight
After President Obama introduced Judge Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, Republicans, some of whom called for Garland’s nomination, said his qualifications were irrelevant.
This is about the GOP’s self-imposed, made-up principle regarding confirmation votes in a presidential election year, not the merits of the individual jurist.
Soon after, the Republican National Committee unveiled a list of complaints about Garland – evidently representing the best RNC oppo researchers could come up with – suggesting the Republicans had changed their mind about whether the fight was about the nature of the fight.Over the weekend, in the party’s official weekly address, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) switched back to the original talking point, ignoring Garland and arguing, “This is about principle, not the person the president has nominated.”
A day later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) switched again, saying it is about the person the president nominated. The GOP leader said on “Meet the Press” yesterday:
“I think when you’ve got a nominee that MoveOn.org is extremely enthusiastic about, and multiple articles pointing out that if Judge Merrick were in fact confirmed, he would move the court dramatically to the left…. I don’t think it’s a good idea to move the court to the left.”
Soon after, McConnell quickly switched back, adding, “It’s not the person. It’s the principle.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” McConnell then contradicted his argument – the second one, not the first one – saying the fight is about the person.
“I can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm in a lame duck session a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association, the National Federation of Independent Business that represents small businesses that have never taken a position on the Supreme Court appointment before. They’re opposed to this guy,” McConnell said.
In the same interview, McConnell then contradicted this argument – the first one, not the second one – saying this isn’t about Garland at all. “I think what we need to focus on is the principle, the principle,” he argued. “Who ought to make this appointment?”
Part of the problem here is the cringe-worthy incoherence of the Republican pitch. Over the course of literally a few days, the party, which had a month to prepare for this showdown, has managed
to tell the public the fight is about Garland,
is not about Garland,
except when it is,
which it isn’t.
McConnell failed to keep his own story straight to a dizzying degree: the Kentucky lawmaker ended up changing his mind about his own argument several times just yesterday morning, taking both sides of the same issue within the same interview.
It’s tempting to have Senate Republicans debate themselves for a while. Perhaps they can let the rest of us know when they’re figured out what they want to say.
The more alarming problem is the fact that the Senate Majority Leader seems to think press releases from activist groups should have some direct role in shaping the future of the nation’s highest court.
The constitutional process directs the Senate – the institution formerly known as the world’s most deliberative body – to advise and consent in the confirmation process. As far as Mitch McConnell is concerned, however, senators shouldn’t even consider a qualified nominee because MoveOn.org and the National Rifle Association have provided the Senate Majority Leader with all of the information he needs to know.
Who needs the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold confirmation hearings about one of the nation’s most important jobs? Mitch McConnell has a press statement from a lobbying group – and in 2016, the NRA and the National Federation of Independent Business apparently have veto power over the nominations to the nation’s highest court.
If McConnell is still capable of shame, now would be an excellent time for him to recognize just how sad a display he’s putting on for the nation.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-s...d=sm_fb_maddow
Thanks, Kentucky. Thanks, Repugs. :lol
New Poll Shows Everyones Hates Senate Republicans, Especially Republicans
?The American public feels that a president’s Supreme Court nominations should be taken up by the U.S. Senate no matter when they occur, according to the latest Monmouth University Poll. Specifically, two-thirds say that Pres. Obama’s recent nomination deserves a hearing and 3-in-4 Americans think Senate Republicans are playing politics by refusing to consider to it.
Just 16% of the public agrees that the Senate Republicans are refusing to consider Garland primarily to give the public a say in the nomination. Fully 77% think the GOP leadership is just playing politics. Those who see this stance as mainly a political ploy include large majorities of
Democrats (86%),
independents (80%), and
Republicans (62%).
http://wonkette.com/599872/new-poll-shows-everyones-hates-senate-republicans-especially-republicans
Come on, Barry, do it! a recess appointment of an aggressive progressive.
Supreme Court fiasco weighs on key Republican senator
Earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was so embarrassed by his role in the Republican Supreme Court blockade, he “raised a binder to cover his face before hurriedly retreating” from reporters on Capitol Hill with questions about his behavior. It wasn’t a good sign.
Nearly four weeks later, Grassley is still under fire for his partisan antics, and in a way, he’s still covering his face – to the point that he doesn’t want to tell his own constituents where he’s holding public events. The Huffington Post reported yesterday:
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says he will be going around speaking with constituents at more than a dozen events in his home state during the Senate’s two-week spring recess.
But most of the public will have no idea how to find him, because his office is keeping the details of those events secret to avoid protesters.
It’s amazing to think that just seven weeks ago, Grassley was sitting pretty, holding a powerful Senate gavel and looking like a lock to win re-election in November. Now, however, the long-time, far-right lawmaker is at the center of a Supreme Court fiasco; he’s receiving the worst press of his lengthy congressional career; and he’s facing the most serious Democratic challenge since joining the Senate 36 years ago.
Grassley is not just facing pressure from protesters demanding he act more responsibly in the Senate.
The Des Moines Register reported today – on the front page, no less – that Grassley went to Northwestern Iowa yesterday, home to some of the most conservative areas in the state, where he still faced “tough and repeated questions over his refusal to hold hearings on a nominee to the Supreme Court.”
An Associated Press report added:
Monday’s meeting took place in a Republican-dominated county where Grassley won more than 80 percent of the vote in his last two elections. Today, his sole public event is scheduled in a neighboring county where 92 percent of voters backed him in 2010.
Some observers think it’s no coincidence that the senator has chosen this time to hold public events more than 200 miles from more liberal Des Moines or other urban areas.
Right, but even here, locals weren’t particularly impressed with the kind of work Grassley is doing in D.C.
The pressure isn’t going away. Grassley can try to hold binders in front of his face while “hurriedly retreating” for the next several months, but it probably won’t help his electoral prospects.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ks-and-beyond/
He would be bailing them out if he did it.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
:lol WTF?Quote:
Originally Posted by DMX7
adding a 5th progressive under 50 years old (withdraw Garland, way too centrist and pro-business) would FUCK Repugs/VRWC/1%/BigCorp for decades which always helps America.
recess appointment would be temporary... the permanent selection still has to go through the process.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/is...urt-an-option/Quote:
The presidential authority at issue in this possible scenario exists, according to Article II, when the Senate has gone into recess and the vacancy a president seeks to fill remains. Such an appointment requires no action at all by the Senate, but the appointee can only serve until the end of the following Senate session. The president (if still in office) can then try again during a new Senate session, by making a new nomination, and that must be reviewed by the Senate.
As soon as the Repug nut house said they absolutely wouldn't accept any of Barry's nominations, he should have appointed a hyper-liberal to get at least one year or more of 5-4 decisions, "settled law", in favor of America. eg, the recent 4-4 pro-union decision, still open to re-litigation, would have been 5-4 and settled.
Sometimes I think Barry and his team have been intimidated by the Repug crazies.
neo-con, neo=liberal Hillary wouldn't be intimidated, she'd go along with the crazises in fucking America.
I hope that Bernie would veto the Repugs' shitty laws every time.
Republican Blockade Collapsing As 2 More GOP Senators To Meet Obama SCOTUS Nominee
At least two Senate Republicans plan to meet with Merrick Garland next week, suggesting there’s momentum behind the Democratic campaign to pressure the GOP into at least one-on-one meetings with the Supreme Court nominee, if not an actual confirmation vote this year.Sen. Susan Collins of Maine had said during an interview with a Maine radio station earlier this week she will meet with Garland. And a spokesman for Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas said Thursday that he is planning one as well.“My understanding is that is currently being worked out for next week,” Boozman spokesman Patrick Creamer said in an email.
Ten Republicans total are now on record as wanting to or planning to meet with President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. The White House is planning on scheduling meetings with a dozen Republican senators as part of their campaign to turn up the pressure and get the president’s nominee confirmed.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/03/...iticus+USA+%29
No surprise is these 10 Repugs are primaried by Kock Bros.
The enforcers enforce
In Reversal, GOP Sen Says He No Longer Supports Hearings For SCOTUS Nom
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...scotus-nominee
Merrick Garland: 2 GOP Senators Revoke Support for Hearings Concerning Supreme Court Nominee
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said they have reversed course and support not holding confirmation hearings for Garland, nominated to replace the late Antonin Scalia.
the last stand of a dying racist party that is just holding on to what little power it has left. they know that latinos will outnumber whites in as little as 15 years and they are just holding on for dear life. they will burn the whole place down before they leave.
PLEASE VOTE THESE ASSHOLES OUT IN NOV.....
#FeeltheBern
these Repugs assholes NEVER assume responsibility for the shit they visit on the nation
GOP Senator Leading SCOTUS Blockade Blames Roberts For Politicizing Court
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who as chair of the Judiciary Committee is on the front lines of Republicans' battle to block President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, accused conservative Chief Justice John Roberts of being "part of the problem" when it comes to the politicization of the Supreme Court.
In remarks he made from the Senate floor Tuesday, Grassley referenced comments Robertsmade at a forum days before Scalia died. At the forum, Roberts presciently decried the "sharply political, divisive hearing process" involved in Supreme Court confirmations which he said led the American public to wrongly believe that justices were either Democrats or Republicans.
Grassley said Tuesday that the "public's perception is at least sometimes very warranted."
"The Chief Justice has it exactly backwards. The confirmation process doesn't make the justices appear political. The confirmation process has gotten political precisely because the court itself has drafted from the constitutional text and rendered decisions based instead on policy preferences," Grassley said.
He added that the "the justices themselves have gotten political."
"In fact, many of my constituents believe with all due respect that the Chief Justice is part of the problem," Grassley said. "They believe that a number of his votes have reflected political considerations, not legal ones."
He then referenced an article that appeared in the New York Times in which legal scholars suggested Roberts should weigh in on Republicans' refusal to approve a nominee to the court until after a new president is elected.
"Now that's a political temptation that the Chief Justice should resist," Grassley said. "I can't think of anything any current justice could do to further damage respect for the court at this moment than to interject themselves into what Chairman Biden called the political caldron of an election-year Supreme Court vacancy."
(Grassley was alluding to a speech that Vice President Joe Biden made in 1992 when he was chair of the Senate Judiciary committee discouraging then President George H.W. Bush from filling a hypothetical Supreme Court vacancy. Biden now says Republicans are taking the speech out of context.)
Grassley brought up again Roberts' concerns that Americans view the Supreme Court as a branch no different than the two others in its politics.
"I think he is concerned with the wrong problem," Grassley said. "He would be well served to address the reality, not the perception, that too often there is little difference between the actions of the court and the actions of the political branches."
"So physician, heal thyself," he added.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...+%28TPMNews%29
Repugs appointed Roberts, so they knew they were getting exactly the extreme right-wing, stare decisis-ignorer, political tool, the BigCorp shill they wanted. An umpire would call every Corporate-American ball as a strike against Human-Americans.
Repugs are shitbags.
Roberts told the Judiciary Committee precisely who he would be and exactly what he would do:
Now that those aren't just hollow statements and has defied any implicit promise of his being willing to simply vote the party line, they think he's a purely political creature.Quote:
Originally Posted by John Roberts, September 12, 2005
Remarkable.