RBG passes away | Trump to nominate replacement soon

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Liberals now distraught that a right wing loon they thought was their "ally" is not their "ally" is perhaps the most hilarious and nauseated take of the trump presidency.
 
I do genuinely wonder if Romney plans to vote nay if Trump nominates another under-qualified judge. He clearly hates Trump’s guts and enjoys his comfy senate seat.
To be fair, both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were qualified.
 
Judge Amy Coney Barrett sounds like Trumps first nominee
she is fine
a catholic, mother of 7, great scholar

the only little tiny thing is that she seems to be against abortion :lol:

She is definitely not fine. She is part of the cult that inspired The Handmaid's Tale, believes that all women should be subservient to men, wants church and state to be one so there will be a "kingdom of God" and... yeah. She will 100% be the next SCOTUS member and the complete antithesis to everything that RBG stood for.
 
She is definitely not fine. She is part of the cult that inspired The Handmaid's Tale, believes that all women should be subservient to men, wants church and state to be one so there will be a "kingdom of God" and... yeah. She will 100% be the next SCOTUS member and the complete antithesis to everything that RBG stood for.
Feck, knowing that show is just a tiny bit closer to reality than I thought brings a hell of an uneasy feeling.
 
She is definitely not fine. She is part of the cult that inspired The Handmaid's Tale, believes that all women should be subservient to men, wants church and state to be one so there will be a "kingdom of God" and... yeah. She will 100% be the next SCOTUS member and the complete antithesis to everything that RBG stood for.
I was being ironic Damien
 
RIP notorious RBG

Court packing won’t help the democrats. The senate is innately structurally against them and in general will remain so. All they do is set precedent for republicans to act in the same way. Electorally this is likely good for them, so they should keep their heads down and attack the gop/trump rather than currently proposing crazy shit as in this climate they can take the senate.

once they have the trifecta (presidency, both houses) they can move on some of the structural disadvantages by perhaps granting statehood (and 4 senators) to dc and Puerto Rico. Or consider other extreme boundary changes before altering the court. scotus is currently extremely powerful and would likely fight back. And Biden is (probably???) too centrist to do anything crazy compositionally.

people like status quo, and while most don’t want a return to segregation, roe vs wade overturned, or even the aca gutted, they also don’t want the court (A symbol of Americanism) altered.

ps. Looks like McConnell is 100% driving this. Makes no sense electorally to confirm before 3rd. They'll throw trump to the wolves, sacrifice the senate and hope the dems don’t retaliate too severely.
 
RIP notorious RBG

Court packing won’t help the democrats. The senate is innately structurally against them and in general will remain so. All they do is set precedent for republicans to act in the same way. Electorally this is likely good for them, so they should keep their heads down and attack the gop/trump rather than currently proposing crazy shit as in this climate they can take the senate.

once they have the trifecta (presidency, both houses) they can move on some of the structural disadvantages by perhaps granting statehood (and 4 senators) to dc and Puerto Rico. Or consider other extreme boundary changes before altering the court. scotus is currently extremely powerful and would likely fight back. And Biden is (probably???) too centrist to do anything crazy compositionally.

people like status quo, and while most don’t want a return to segregation, roe vs wade overturned, or even the aca gutted, they also don’t want the court (A symbol of Americanism) altered.

Ya I agree with this take, although I am worried that SCOTUS will shoot down any basic reform that Dems push with a 6-3 distribution. Court packing does set a bad precedent but am worried that there is no other alternative. Another thing that the Dems can consider is to increase House seats.
 
The SC is itself a perversion of democracy. So I think something will have to change in the future, and this blatant hypocrisy of the GOP gives the dems the ammo they need to do it.

To be honest everything about the American electoral system is a perversion of democracy. I'm not even talking about the fact that it's all set up to benefit the people at the very top of the social pyramid, but even your electoral college that favors the vote of one person in the middle of nowhere rather than 1000 people in a city. The electoral college is the biggest perversion of democracy in the world today.
 
It's probably someone fairly reasonable, as otherwise he won't get enough GOP senators to support the candidate. No-one bat-shit crazy. They'll be clearly on the right though, to replace someone was clearly on the left and was part of a fairly balanced SC. That loss of balance is what people worry about.
Isn't the loss of balance in effect already? Trump already picked Gorsuch once and I suppose the best we can hope for is someone like him.
 
Ya I agree with this take, although I am worried that SCOTUS will shoot down any basic reform that Dems push with a 6-3 distribution. Court packing does set a bad precedent but am worried that there is no other alternative. Another thing that the Dems can consider is to increase House seats.

Yep that’s why they need to alter structurally before packing. I’m not a constitutional expert but to my knowledge, adding states to the union is one area where scotus are effectively kneecapped.

Its also interesting to think about it electorally; if scotus spend the next few years overturning norms and status quo’s which most Americans are opposed to (roe, brown, gun control etc) that will drive up support for packing and electoral support for Dems in the senate. That’s gonna hurt. Couple it with 4 extra blue senators and it’s shifting the sands.
 
Isn't the loss of balance in effect already? Trump already picked Gorsuch once and I suppose the best we can hope for is someone like him.

replacing Scalia with Gorsuch and Kennedy with Kavanaugh barely shifted the court at all. (Kavanaugh will probably end up more liberal than Kennedy but who knows. Gorsuch is less liberal than kavanaugh)

Replacing RBG with Barrett or Lagoa is seismic.

stolen image from. 538

 
Arent supreme judges supposed to be impartial? What's with this liberal conservative crap?

It's like saying an epl ref is London biased. They might but it's not like you're gonna broadcast that in public.

It's acknowledging that your judges arent impartial.
 
It's probably someone fairly reasonable, as otherwise he won't get enough GOP senators to support the candidate. No-one bat-shit crazy. They'll be clearly on the right though, to replace someone was clearly on the left and was part of a fairly balanced SC. That loss of balance is what people worry about.

"Introducing... Supreme Court Justice Linda McMaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahon"

*Smashes Roberts with steel chair, theme song starts
 
If judges are being appointed by politicians in a deeply divided country, of course, they won't be impartial.

I am surprised by people getting surprised that the GOP will try and push this through.

As I said earlier on the thread, it is guaranteed to happen.

Dems will fight between themselves and chicken out of retaliation, while this is the best time to do so.
 
It will be someone who believes women are inferior and abortion should be banned and ACA binned.
Yeah, I'd agree that that's not 'decent'.
 
If judges are being appointed by politicians in a deeply divided country, of course, they won't be impartial.

I am surprised by people getting surprised that the GOP will try and push this through.

As I said earlier on the thread, it is guaranteed to happen.

Dems will fight between themselves and chicken out of retaliation, while this is the best time to do so.

Na there are increasing voices from moderate Dems that they are tired of this crap, expect them to talk safe until the election is over and then institute changes to counter this pick.
 
Are there any incentives for already appointed Judges in the supreme court to side with a political party after they've been appointed? I know the conservative judges are picked because their positions are more aligned with conservative positions but what incentive is there for someone like Gorsuch to let's say side with Trump if the election is contested?, With senators it's the fundraising and the re-elections that drive the decision to stick with the parties but Judges should at least be immune from that, right?
 


obungler does it again!


this is from 2010...
Consider the appointment of federal judges. Few things count more towards a president’s “legacy” than this, since judges have lifetime tenure. But, as the Associated Press shows in a study published this weekend, under the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, the G.O.P.’s already strong grip on the federal judiciary has actually tightened:
A determined Republican stall campaign in the Senate has sidetracked so many of the men and women nominated by President Barack Obama for judgeships that he has put fewer people on the bench than any president since Richard Nixon at a similar point in his first term 40 years ago. The delaying tactics have proved so successful, despite the Democrats’ substantial Senate majority, that fewer than half of Obama’s nominees have been confirmed and 102 out of 854 judgeships are vacant.

2014
There is a story told in Washington circles about the first term of the Obama administration. Democratic activists were visiting the White House to urge a faster pace of judicial nominations, only to find a brick wall in then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Explaining that the administration had its hands full with economic revitalization, Emanuel is reported to have spat out, "I don't give a f--- about judicial appointments."

from 2016

Obama made his first judicial nomination in March 2009, quietly selecting David Hamilton, a long-serving, well-respected, ideologically indistinct district court judge in Indiana, to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. “Moderate Is Said to Be Pick for Court,” the New York Times reported. White House officials leaked that the middle-of-the-road choice was designed to send a signal that the president hoped to “reduce the partisan contentiousness of judicial confirmation battles,” an intentional contrast to Bush, who had announced his first 11 judicial nominees, including some outspoken conservatives, at a high-profile Rose Garden ceremony.

“We would like to put the history of the confirmation wars behind us,” a senior administration official told The Times.

Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, made it clear internally that he didn’t want to waste precious political capital on polarizing judges while trying to pass a stimulus bill, Obamacare and new Wall Street rules. Emanuel compared himself to an air traffic controller trying to land multiple jetliners, and said he didn’t want a flock of geese flying into the middle of them.

“We went out of our way to find candidates who couldn’t be called liberal activists, who wouldn’t be controversial at all,” says Gregory Craig, Obama’s first White House counsel. “The reaction to Judge Hamilton was a very early sign that our efforts to be non-partisan were not going to matter.”

Obama directed his vetting team to look for excellence, diversity and a sense of empathy. Conservatives have attacked that last priority, calling it a euphemism for a focus on liberal outcomes rather than the rule of law. But in practice, the team’s real focus has been finding candidates who wouldn’t be mini-Scalias but would be acceptable to Republican senators. They knew they faced inevitable clashes over Supreme Court nominees who would shape the direction of the law—both Sotomayor and Kagan were confirmed largely along partisan lines—but when it came to the lower courts, which are merely supposed to follow the Court’s guidance, they hoped to avoid drama. The left wanted the president to pick ideological fights to demonstrate his values, arguing that even losing battles could help expose the extremism of the right, but Obama’s aides thought losing battles were a waste of time and political capital.

He had the senate from 2008 till 2014. Trump has had it for 3.5 years.
 
Arent supreme judges supposed to be impartial? What's with this liberal conservative crap?

It's like saying an epl ref is London biased. They might but it's not like you're gonna broadcast that in public.

It's acknowledging that your judges arent impartial.
Astronaut in space looking at the Earth dressed as the SC: “Wait, it’s all politicized?”
Astronaut behind him pointing gun: “Always was”

If you haven’t seen this meme, then, well.
 
Damn, so Obama wasn’t the best president then?

In the cold, hard light of day, Obama was a war president and 100% in bed with wall street. His campaign speeches were intoxicating but in hindsight were the high watermark of his career.

The moment he nominated Timothy Geithner was a crushing blow to those who had hoped that he was the real deal and a president of the people.
 
In the cold, hard light of day, Obama was a war president and 100% in bed with wall street. His campaign speeches were intoxicating but in hindsight were the high watermark of his career.

The moment he nominated Timothy Geithner was a crushing blow to those who had hoped that he was the real deal and a president of the people.
I wasn’t being serious :p I’m in the same boat as you regarding him.

But I’m not familiar with Timothy Geithner. Mind if I ask for a brief rundown on this character?
 
I wasn’t being serious :p I’m in the same boat as you regarding him.

But I’m not familiar with Timothy Geithner. Mind if I ask for a brief rundown on this character?

I can’t comment on his character but you don’t make a Goldman Sachs insider Secretary of Treasury after campaigning with the promise of putting Main Street ahead of Wall Street. I knew then and there he wasn’t the real deal.
 
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Judge Amy Coney Barrett sounds like Trumps first nominee
she is fine
a catholic, mother of 7, great scholar

the only little tiny thing is that she seems to be against abortion :lol:

Religious bias in this day and age is a bad mix with a judge.
 
Could someone more knowledgeable than me tell me why the following line of reasoning is wrong:

The Senate is split 53-45-2 (2 independents). They need 50 votes to confirm because Pence will split the tie. So let's assume Sanders and King (1 of the independents) won't confirm as they both caucus with the Democrats. Its now 53-47. So the Democrats would need to flip 4 votes. From what I've read a couple of Republican senators have said they wouldn't confirm this year and Romney I think won't either. It looks like it could quite quickly because 50-50. Is there no chance at all that a few Republican rebels hold this up?
 
Could someone more knowledgeable than me tell me why the following line of reasoning is wrong:

The Senate is split 53-45-2 (2 independents). They need 50 votes to confirm because Pence will split the tie. So let's assume Sanders and King (1 of the independents) won't confirm as they both caucus with the Democrats. Its now 53-47. So the Democrats would need to flip 4 votes. From what I've read a couple of Republican senators have said they wouldn't confirm this year and Romney I think won't either. It looks like it could quite quickly because 50-50. Is there no chance at all that a few Republican rebels hold this up?
Romney will
 
Could someone more knowledgeable than me tell me why the following line of reasoning is wrong:

The Senate is split 53-45-2 (2 independents). They need 50 votes to confirm because Pence will split the tie. So let's assume Sanders and King (1 of the independents) won't confirm as they both caucus with the Democrats. Its now 53-47. So the Democrats would need to flip 4 votes. From what I've read a couple of Republican senators have said they wouldn't confirm this year and Romney I think won't either. It looks like it could quite quickly because 50-50. Is there no chance at all that a few Republican rebels hold this up?
Only two Senators have said they opposed filling the seat before the election and that is purely because they've been "allowed" to for the benefit of their next election campaigns. Like with the impeachment - Romney voted for it as it wouldn't change a thing. Just a day or two ago Romney supported a nomination prior to the election and in his latest rally, Trump thanked him for the support.

And because the two Senators opposed filling the seat before the election doesn't mean they wouldn't confirm when it gets to the floor, either.

Romney signed an amicus brief earlier this year urging the Supreme Court to consider overturning Roe v Wade (and has had that view going back to 2012 and beyond). He'll be all for the new judge as they will help fulfill that.
 
Are there any incentives for already appointed Judges in the supreme court to side with a political party after they've been appointed? I know the conservative judges are picked because their positions are more aligned with conservative positions but what incentive is there for someone like Gorsuch to let's say side with Trump if the election is contested?, With senators it's the fundraising and the re-elections that drive the decision to stick with the parties but Judges should at least be immune from that, right?
Not really. We have already seen Trump publicly bitching about Roberts, and apparently he has been very unhappy with some of Gorsuch’s rulings. So for elections, all bets are off (except Thomas being on the wrong side, that is the only certainty on life).

On the other hand, when it comes to ACA, abort etc, they will side with conservatives cause they hold those opinions.
 
Only two Senators have said they opposed filling the seat before the election and that is purely because they've been "allowed" to for the benefit of their next election campaigns. Like with the impeachment - Romney voted for it as it wouldn't change a thing. Just a day or two ago Romney supported a nomination prior to the election and in his latest rally, Trump thanked him for the support.

And because the two Senators opposed filling the seat before the election doesn't mean they wouldn't confirm when it gets to the floor, either.

Romney signed an amicus brief earlier this year urging the Supreme Court to consider overturning Roe v Wade (and has had that view going back to 2012 and beyond). He'll be all for the new judge as they will help fulfill that.
I assume you are talking about Collins and Murkowski. To be fair, only Collins actually needs that for election and is allowed to do so.

Murkowski neither needs it, nor is actually very dependent on GOP. I think she is actually the only GOP senator who still has some principles (maybe Romney to some lesser degree). In fact, if she loses her seat, it will be from someone running to her right. But she has already been there, and despite losing the primaries (and GOP heavily investing on the guy who defeated her, despite she being incumbent) she still managed to win with write in voting. So I think she won’t vote because of principles, not because of being allowed so.
 
I assume you are talking about Collins and Murkowski. To be fair, only Collins actually needs that for election and is allowed to do so.

Murkowski neither needs it, nor is actually very dependent on GOP. I think she is actually the only GOP senator who still has some principles (maybe Romney to some lesser degree). In fact, if she loses her seat, it will be from someone running to her right. But she has already been there, and despite losing the primaries (and GOP heavily investing on the guy who defeated her, despite she being incumbent) she still managed to win with write in voting. So I think she won’t vote because of principles, not because of being allowed so.
Just looked and she's said she won't rule out voting, so she doesn't have many principles.

https://www.alaskapublic.org/2020/0...ule-out-voting-for-trumps-supreme-court-pick/

“I know everybody wants to ask the question, ‘will you confirm the nominee?’” she said outside the Capitol, as her Republican colleagues were gathering for their weekly policy lunch. “We don’t have a nominee yet. You and I don’t know who that is. And so I can’t confirm whether or not I can confirm a nominee when I don’t know who the nominee is.”
 
Only two Senators have said they opposed filling the seat before the election and that is purely because they've been "allowed" to for the benefit of their next election campaigns. Like with the impeachment - Romney voted for it as it wouldn't change a thing. Just a day or two ago Romney supported a nomination prior to the election and in his latest rally, Trump thanked him for the support.

And because the two Senators opposed filling the seat before the election doesn't mean they wouldn't confirm when it gets to the floor, either.

Romney signed an amicus brief earlier this year urging the Supreme Court to consider overturning Roe v Wade (and has had that view going back to 2012 and beyond). He'll be all for the new judge as they will help fulfill that.

No. It’s not electoral. Plenty of other purple senators who would benefit more if it was, and they wouldn’t waste 2/4 on Collins and Murkowski. The whole thing makes no sense electorally.
 
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