Discussion for article #241096
This to me is sufficient reason to pick a democrat for President. It’s on top of a vast pile of other reasons, but it would be enough even if those other reasons weren’t around.
This jeremiad is much too long-winded, exceedingly obvious, and it would be a LOT more persuasive if cut by 85% - 97%. Good God!
Anyway, the self-evident thrust of it is what motivates me personally. We need to win the WH to get that court majority! If Hillary can right her drifting and star-crossed ship, or if Biden saves the day, or if Bernie pulls off a miracle, it’s all the same to me really. We simply need to nominate the next justice! Everything else is secondary at best!
Yes. It comes down to this: It is absolutely necessary for a Democrat to win the election next November. In all probability, at least two justices will leave the bench, voluntarily or not, between now and 2020. Even if Republicans continue to control the Senate, it is vital that the successors to those justices not be nominated by a Republican President, particularly given the state of the GOP today.
If one of the current crop of GOP candidates wins, the next judges will make Scalia there look like Abby Hoffman.
Unless it’s Trump. Then he’s just pick someone hot.
Insightful, but beyond the comprehension of the average American who doesn’t even know that a president gets to nominate judges.
I frequent a lot of leftwing blogs. My sense is liberals actually do get this and have done so for quite a while. I’m curious as to why the author believes otherwise.
This is the only developed country whose population contains vast numbers of people (now containing also misguided minorities) who are not only heedless of the dangers of re-enslavement.but eagerly facilitating their faster arrival.
I do fervently hope that the voting public understands how incredibly important the coming appointments will be and the majority moves to elect a Democrat as POTUS in 2016.
If some Kochsucking’ Republican is elected, the court becomes a Right Whingnuttery-dominated cesspool and wholly a Supreme Corporation of the United States.
I don’t buy the premise that Democrats don’t understand the change looming on the Court.
A thousand likes, Sherlock.
PLEASE do not let this imagery subside.
It should not only be a Democratic rallying cry, but an INDEPENDENT rallying cry.
The difference between Independents and Republicans is that they are usually more loose with the idea of pleasure and getting hold of certain substances than the more neurotic actual Republicans are ambivalent about (at least in public).
But to the Independents…I gotta tell you:
You won’t have TIME for the good times you crave when your salary ceiling is the equivalent of eight bucks an hour in the New (SCOTUS-bred) Order of Third World U.S.A…When your privatized behind works for peanuts until collecting (Privatized) “Social Security” at age 90.
“”“the value judgments and ideology of the Supreme Court Justices, and increasingly the party affiliation of the president appointing them, are good predictors of each Justice’s vote”""
That’s either polite to the point of being erroneous or intentional understatement. The party affiliation of the Justice is the most reliable way to determine that Justice’s vote. It used to be that way but with restraint. Now it’s flat out partisan politics on that bench. Take Scalia as an example. Of late he rails against decisions that don’t go his way. Particularly on cases laced with politics. He’s all over the place raving and desk pounding like a fanatical reactionary. Because he is one. And that cannot be separated from his judgements.
This is serious business, I’d urge the Democrats to get it together now. Who can win…and go that way. Do that NOW. Stop wasting energy on this inane primary. Bernie cannot win. Webb’s a joke and Biden is an asshole. Clinton is probably the only contender the Democrats can win with but they better come to that realization quick. Right now the division in the party leaves their MVP open to attack from all sides. Pick your General Democrats, set your flanks and middle and march on. Your enemy is still in disarray and ready for a beating. So get it together ( no I am not a Clinton fan ) and win. Win with what you can win with. Or put Sanders ( in actuality the best of the field ) up there and lose. Your losers reward will be a couple more Scalias on the Court.
My thoughts exactly! That went on and on passed the point of true effectiveness. My take is, that to keep a democrat on the White House, those sectors of the electorate that have the most to lose with a right wing SCOTUS have to be mobilize and must show up to vote. Unfortunately minorities, the young, and the poor in general are the groups that are more reluctant to vote and therefore marginalize themselves even further.
That, essentially, is what it comes down to.
I have had unbelievably complex intellectual discussions in which it is pointed out (quite correctly), that, in the sense of multiple aspects of our political culture, “The-Democrats-Are-As-Bad-As-The-Republicans”
’
But, in terms of raw results, the 2016 Presidential election will come down to a SCOTUS which will roll back every piece of post-1865 legislation possible, in the context of our level of material culture.
Or not.
Even if the democrats can win the whitehouse, the best supreme we can hope for will be a right leaning moderate. This may come as a surprise to some but, the fringe right, Do Not Care if the seat is filled or not! They will let it sit empty before allowing a left leaning moderate be confirmed.
This is sufficient reason to nominate an ELECTABLE candidate
An America that elects a Republican House & Republican Senate and potentially a Republican President out of spite, and utter hatred for the Black guy in the WH, deserves whatever Supreme Court comes it way. What more information do you need? I wonder what percentage of the population is remotely aware of the Citizens United decision, what Scott Walker did to unions in Wisc, what conservative majority state legislatures across the country are doing at the behest of ALEC and similar organizations…
This country deserves everything coming to it, if we elect conservatives to office…I say give the people what they want
Its long been the rallying cry of the left. For decades now. And its quite true.
Which is one of the deep worries I have over Ginsburg. I get that she is still spry and incredibly sharp…but she IS 84. Its a huge gamble to wait until another Dem wins the White House before retiring, when she has Obama there now. I get that she does an excellent job, and wants to continue doing so…but her job is beyond personal desires. Quite literally the fate of the future of the republic is at stake.
Nor does the argument I sometimes see put forth that she doesn’t feel Obama could/would appoint someone sufficiently liberal enough to replace her hold much water. The political dynamics going into such an argument don’t change with Hillary in the White House; it will be just as difficult to appoint a very liberal Justice.
We liberals are are quick studies (pat on the back), and understand based on what we’ve seen transpire with this particular SCOTUS that it’s in our best interests to get a Democrat in there in time to pick replacements.
You may come up against a paywall in this link, but this is about Scalia because there is some hope the death penalty will be ruled unconstitutional sooner than late
. He has said he would quit his job if he believed capital punishment was immoral, or if Catholic doctrine considered it immoral.
Well, that’s clever: Declare this an important civil rights battle, and then immediately identify a civil right, a POPULAR civil right yet, the right to keep and bear arms, that you want to destroy. Though, actually I suppose that’s a consistent theme here, because you’ve also declared the importance of reversing Citizens United… which stands for the proposition political speech can’t be censored just because it’s published through a corporation.
Wasn’t there a time when liberals wanted to be on the pro-liberty side of civil liberty fights?