I disagree…
Schumer is trying to energize the Dem and Progressive base. We now need to make thousands or calls to our Reps and Senators on this and many other issues. It worked on the republican overreaching on the ethics bill.
We need to use the tactics that the Teaparty used to get their way… They were successful. We can’t forget that.
I don’t understand how McConnell and that other crypt-keeper GOP Senate wraith (whose name I can’t think of right now because I’m so pissed off) are able to get away with fucking over Obama (and by extension everyone who voted for him) by refusing to even give Garland a hearing.
The very least they can do is to reject every one of DJT’s cabinet picks until Garland gets a hearing.
Grow a pair.
It will be difficult to shoot down a nominee named by an R prez, and trumpf is nominally one, but the R majority in the senate is narrow, 52-48 if I’m not mistaken and no Googling involved. From New Yorker’s legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin. Ultimately, if we don’t have some faith that our senate Democratic leaders can do something and we just come at them with cynicism when they make statements, we’re doomed.
Still, Democrats will have to make a fast decision after Trump names his choice. (If they’re smart, they’re making up their minds about various candidates right now.) If they greet Trump’s nomination with politely stern vows of serious consideration and rigorous questioning at a hearing, confirmation will be nearly a certainty. If, instead, the senators break out the incendiary rhetoric of their late colleague from Massachusetts, then the new President may have a fight on his hands. In either case, we’ll know the outcome long before the confirmation votes are counted on the Senate floor.
Actually this is the case for not limiting terms.
The Prisoner’s dilemma/GameTheory/Evolution of Coopertion (Robert Axelrod) says that in an iterative game with no foreseeable end the best strategy is cooperation. The second best strategy is tit-for-tat/vendetta/vengeance.
However, Axelrod’s studies in game theory shows that, even if one realizes the end of the game (iterations) is many moves from now, it pays to defect from cooperation immediately.
So, term limits transmits game ending, therefor no cooperation at all.
Frankly I found Movement Conservatives frightening for a very long time because they never want to cooperate, which translates to me that they foresee the game ending, meaning they want to end the game, meaning they want to destroy the system as we know it, otherwise their behavior is irrational.
Traditionally, the Senate has been one of the most collegial institution in government (the other the Supreme Court for the same reasons) because of the long terms, the fixed jurisdictions of their voting base. Winning two elections = 12 years. Winning 3 = 18, 4 = 24 or an entire ordinary career.
Schumer is pointing out that quite a few members of the Senate are still influenced by this dynamic and not cooperating in this context is in fact not rational.
We’ll see what happens.
As painful as it is for me and many of those I like, admire and love, I agree. Unless there are specific solid roadblocks he can rightly use (that the Republicans must recognize, is what I mean), I say this: Protest loudly, make your case(s) as clearly as possible, but don’t wage battles you know you won’t have a snowball’s chance of any kind of a positive outcome – save that energy for the battles we know we have a fair chance of either winning outright or will get the message across to the people in such a way that they are stoked into picking up the phone and hollering at their representatives and senators. Everything now is a bit of a gamble if not outright Russian Roulette – so make sure you have enough dry powder to use when you do choose to try and obstruct their anti-American ways.
Agreed.
The Democrats don’t have to allow anyone to be seated.
They just need to cite the tradition in the Senate of refusing to seat a Supreme Court appointee for a full four years following the opposing party’s refusal to seat a judge during the last year of a Democratic President’s term.
It’s called “The Garland Rule.” You can look it up!
Good !!! I hope the Democrats stick to this. If we didn’t need to fill the seat in 2016, then it doesn’t need to be filled at all!
The American people voted for Obama and therefore his SCOTUS pick. Or have you forgotten that already?
Why do you believe that Trump voters are entitled to something that Obama voters were not?
Agreed, considering the Reps outright used that tactic they have no right to complain if the Dems do the exact same thing, but at least the Dems are looking at the damn nominee unlike Mcconnell who’d probably jam out his own eyes so he wouldn’t need to look at Garland.
Sooner or later, sure. And later is better. Senate time is limited, and it’s precious, and Schumer can work from McConnell’s playbook on how to obstruct anything and everything with his 48 votes. The choice of SCOTUS justice is a significant one with long-term effects, and Schumer is totally correct to point out that Democrats have power over that choice and will use the powers they have to bend the outcome in a favorable direction. They don’t owe Trump or McConnell any favors. And it isn’t at all obvious that McConnell has 50 votes for changing the rules, or even 50 votes for a Bork-like nominee.
My thought was why do we even have the president appoint a SC nominee? The Senate holds all the power anyway.
It’s amazing that in the shadow of the Trump spectacle a half dozen Republican senators that should have been vulnerable were allowed to get away with denying President Obama the ability to appoint a SC nominee.
He knows. He’s just trying to make it as embarrassing as possible for them. Plus there are a few Repiblicans well to the left of probable Trump picks who need cover.
Wrong. The American people voted for Hillary Clinton. It was the Electoral College that voted for Trump. That’s twice in this century that the Electoral College has thwarted the will of the American people – and the century is only sixteen years old.
Of course, it was the intent of the Founders that the Electoral College would be in a position to thwart the will of the people. This was to prevent a demagogue from being elected President because the Founders thought the common people were too easily swayed and that the actual selection of the President should be left to wiser heads, i.e., the Electors. Of course, they didn’t visualize the modern rubber-stamp Electoral College where Electors are in most states bound by law to follow the state’s popular vote. The modern Electoral College has enabled what the Founders sought to prevent by means of the Electoral College.
Can Schumer be certain Senate Democrats will stick together in opposing a Trump SCOTUS nominee?
It is a worthy thing to fight. Make them change the rules if they want to do such a thing. I am sure that they will do it. Too much pressure from conservatives not to do it. That said, either way, it is not good. Trump will pick a loon and they will likely make it through either way.
Pretty much the liberty of gun nuts and corporations and religious loons will be all that matters here.
NO.
The GOPutin proved in plain sight and stark relief that there is no penalty imposed by the dumbfuck public for blind, harmful obstruction. So there sure as shit ain’t gonna be one for justifiable obstruction, the fucking American Pravda media be damned. Let em squeal like the filthy stupid pigs that they are…toughness and spine will be rewarded. It always is. Especially when it’s justified.
I don’t give a flying fuck what my detractors think about me, and goddamn if I ain’t highly respected because of it. In the immortal words of Nelly:
“Should we apologize? Nah, fuck em, leave 'em pissed.”
Or, to quote Rage Against The Machine: “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me. FUCK YOU I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME. MOTHERFUCKER!!!”
So no, don’t “pick battles you can win.” Fight in all of the battles. And fight viciously and with malevolent intent.
No. The Democratic party is crawling with appeasing weasels who apparently enjoy abuse. But the loudest voices belong to the stalwarts like Sanders and Warren.
So there is hope.
This particular seat should be kept open until a Democrat picks a replacement.
OK then…tell Obama to get to work. “get er done”!!!
I’m a realist. I know just like everyone else that Obama was constitutionally entitled to make his appointment and did. That appointment was blocked by legislative shenanigans but the shenanigans were legitimized by the America people’s choice of Trump and continued control of the Senate by the GOP. That’s the real world position. That’s where we are. Past the right and wrong in it and stuck in it.
So Charlie unless you can lay out a plan to undo where we are and put Obama back in charge we’re stuck with that unpleasant reality.