Discussion for article #246007
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1800s should refer to the decade, not the century.
Mid-1840s would have worked.
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So in other words, this is unprecedented in both the 20th and 21st century. Yeah, its been a very long while. So fuck these Republicans and their bullshit ways to nullify the constitutional authority of this President to put forth an appointee to the court and have that appointee get a fair and impartial hearing.
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Since these Republicans exist entirely in an obsolete and archaic era, this precedent seems perfectly recent.
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Well, this just makes sense, doesn’t it – they want to take us back to the 19th century, and they reach back to the 19th century for precedent to help them do so.
Seriously, though, boy oh boy did they blow the optics on this one! By announcing they won’t accept any nominee from Obama before one has even been proposed, they reveal themselves as knee-jerk partisans, and by promising to disrupt the business of the highest court of the land for more than a year, they’ve positioning themselves as champions of gridlock.
The “smart” move would have been to say that they’d look carefully at whoever the President nominates, but that the Senate takes its role of advice and consent very seriously, yada, yada. Go through the motions of holding confirmation hearings, as slowly as possible, and then once the confirmation hearings are wrapped up and there are no more excuses for delay, reject the nominee, declaring them to be unqualified, or loony left or corrupt, or whatever. By then you’re a a few months down the line, and if Obama puts up another nominee, just rinse and repeat, that takes you past the election, If the Republican candidate wins the Presidency, the Republican Senate doubles down and keeps rejecting whoever Obama puts up.
Now they may very well still try to pursue this strategy, but they’ve already tipped their hand by declaring up front that they won’t be giving any nominees a fair hearing, that they aren’t going to be acting in good faith.
But…they just couldn’t help themselves.
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“It seems unlikely the Scalia vacancy will break that record, assuming the Senate takes up a nomination in the months after the 2017 inauguration.”
Why? If a Democrat wins the presidency, why would these pathetic morons suddenly give in and accept a nomination? They can just block and block for the next 4 to 8 years. Or 12 or 16 . . . whatever. If their belief is good enough to exploit for a year, it’s good enough to exploit for another four.
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So Republicans are arguing for something that happened over 150 years ago? Well, we’ve known for some time that Republicans want to return to the politics of earlier ages, such as the 1920s or 1880s. But I hadn’t realized that they wish to regress even further.
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It’s telling that one has to go all the way back to the Whig party, since the GOP will go the way of the Whig.
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Not only did Scalia pioneer the partisan team player theory of just ruling however necessary to advance the football for his side, but he also was a leader of pretending that wasn’t what he was doing. There may have never been greater proof that higher intelligence or better command of the fact will simply cause a partisan to dig in and defend their prejudices more cleverly, rather than change their mind.
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optics
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I’m not so sure we won’t have an 8-member SCOTUS for the next several years. Unless the GOP wins the presidency while maintaining a senate majority. Then they’ll probably increase it to 12. Or 144.
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all three men are
a) dead
b) responsible for W getting into office
c) all of the above
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They’ve been reaching back to the 1840s for several decades now; what’s new?
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Well, to paraphrase, “Our only objective is to make Mitch MConnell a one-term Senate Majority Leader.”
Careful, GOP, the same people you beat on the way up, you might meet up, on the way back down.
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The GOP has a problem with governing. I.E. They can’t do it. This is an example. Let’s hope Bernie points this out on the campaign trail. People need to know when they pull the lever for a GOPer they are voting for inaction.
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Worth pointing out that the Whig party went out of existence shortly there after.
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Obama should resign, not like he’s going to get anything done, and have Biden appoint him to the Court while the Senate is still out at recess!
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By a strange (Yeah, Right) Coincidence, the mid 1800’s is exactly the era to which some in the Grumpy Old Party would love to see America return.
Obama has one chance. Tell the GOP he wants to renominate Roger B Taney, and watch how fast they get on board.
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The U.S. was at war with Mexico in 1845, and sadly for the future, the result of that was Texas became a state. Remember the Alamo! Or something like that.
(My apologies to sane Texans wherever you are.)
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Does anyone actually believe that these republican hypocrites would still be so barking-at-the-moon crazy-determined to wait until the next election if they controlled the white house and this were, instead, one of the liberal justices?
Cry me a fuckin’ river!
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