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Thug Lessons posted:Also, both sides are guilty of the kind of politicized blocking of nominees that you're talking about. There's a very famous case from the Reagan era when the Democratic Senate refused to confirm the President's nominee Robert Bork, which is how we ended up with centrist Anthony Kennedy instead. Let's not even mention FDR and the court-packing scheme. I haven't been keeping up with the more minor nominations so for all I know you're right that the Republicans have amped it up, but when it comes to the Supreme Court at least it's been a political shitshow for a long time, probably nearly forever. Okay do you understand the difference between refusing to confirm a specific (terrible) nominee yet still considering (and approving) another qualified nominee, versus refusing to allow a president to appoint anyone at all, no matter who, because *mumble*mumble* he's vaguely too close to the end of his term according to this end-of-term standard I just made up?
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Feb 15, 2016 08:59
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Thug Lessons posted:The Republicans have said they'd accept the nomination of a "consensus candidate" which is exactly what Anthony Kennedy was. Of course, we'll never know if they're telling the truth because Obama almost certainly isn't going to nominate a consensus candidate because he's banking on a November win to push through a partisan candidate just like the GOP. A minute ago you were saying a president shouldn't nominate a SCOTUS Justice in the last year of his term because you want democratic control over the nomination, now you're saying it's fine not to have that democratic control after all if Obama picks someone you like? Could you like, I don't know, be consistent from post to post? What exactly do you want.
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Feb 15, 2016 09:25
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Thug Lessons posted:You'll notice I never actually stated the latter or said anything that logically implied I believe it. The best outcome would be for the Republicans to refuse to confirm any Obama nominee and set a precedent. The only reason I said anything at all there was to respond to your comments on Bork and Kennedy. The Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, had the opportunity to set that precedent in 1988, but they chose to confirm Kennedy instead of rejecting all nominations to let the people decide. Making up a new precedent right now when it's potentially politically advantageous to do so seems a bit self-serving don't you think? Why is this only coming up now, we could have hashed this out anytime in the past umpteen years. If it's so important, start the constitutional amendment process to bar appointments in a president's fourth year. Or offer Obama a deal: we'll approve your nominee if both parties publicly agree that starting with the next president we'll respect a new precedent that fourth-year nominations will be rejected until the next president is inaugurated.
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Feb 15, 2016 09:39
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Thug Lessons posted:It's obviously and clearly self-serving, but the effects would be a net positive by bringing the Supreme Court under some level of democratic control, at least for one election and potentially beyond. No it wouldn't because it's not likely the republicans will honor it when the shoe is on the other foot, they had no interest in delaying all appointments in the 80's. If you're sincere then agreeing to confirm Obama's choice in exchange for a gentleman's agreement to create a new precedent would establish good faith, and since the republicans aren't favored to win it would still likely benefit them in the next term. Otherwise it just looks like self-serving maneuver that the republicans have no reason not to abandon when it serves them. quote:That said, I get the impression that you oppose delaying the confirmation. Why? If Scalia had died in 2008, are you sure you'd feel the same way? I'm not the one conveniently making up new precedent when it suits me, and "in my imagination Democrats totally would have done this in 2008 I bet" isn't very convincing. Bush got all his nominees through except obviously the joke nomination of Harriet Miers which even republicans refused to support.
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Feb 15, 2016 10:03
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Thug Lessons posted:I don't mean it'll establish a precedent that parties will impose on themselves, but that if we have a situation where the Senate is controlled by one party and the White House by another we'll see repeats of this. And at the worst the Supreme Court gets to be an election issue for the first time I've ever heard of, maybe even the first time ever. No it's bad to gently caress with functional government this way. I would prefer if Bush had gotten another Roberts on the court to the prospect of a deadlocked government routinely holding up nominations on some vague arbitrary schedule if one party thinks its political fortunes might change. If you want democratic control of supreme court appointments for some godawful reason then amend the constitution, staggered 18-year terms with each justice stepping down on a set schedule every two years right after the new congress is seated, guaranteeing every President will get to cycle 2 or 4 justices through.
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Feb 15, 2016 10:17
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Josh Lyman posted:What happens when one dies in office? Does the sitting president just get an extra nomination? Sure why not, nominate someone to finish out the term if a justice retires or dies. The slight advantage of an extra pick is mostly nulled because the term isn't that long, deaths will cluster near the end anyway. It also takes the gaming out of retiring.
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Feb 15, 2016 15:29
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Subjunctive posted:Were I Mitch, my response would be "yeah, I've changed my opinions in the last 25 years; so has America at large, on many topics". That's okay there are quotes from McConnel in 2005 during the Democratic filibuster about how nominations are the president's prerogative alone and the Senate's role of advise and consent exists to ensure the nominee is qualified and not obstruct for political reasons.
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Feb 16, 2016 02:49
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oswald ownenstein posted:It's really not and to pretend that it would be otherwise with an R in the white house and a D controlled senate is inane. Like Ginsburgh dying and about to be replaced by Trump with a conservative justice? Come on. This happens all the time. Even with all the Anita Hill poo poo, a Democrat controlled Senate voted to confirm a weirdo archconservative to replace Thurgood Marshall.
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Feb 17, 2016 01:39
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Thug Lessons posted:Okay actually I changed my mind and you're right. What happened in the Civil War is that even though Union soldiers marched into battle singing "John Brown's Body" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" it wasn't really about slavery even though the South said it was and then on Jan 1, 1963 Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and the country collectively made this face: This is not the hill you want to die on. Nationwide abolition was not popular in 1860, even if northerners didn't want slaves in their states. Lincoln won on a Free Soil platform, not an abolitionist one. Abolition and black civil rights gained popularity during the civil war beacause slavery was associated with the insurrection and it became a tool to break the power of the plantation owners and prevent them from dominating the south again after the war and starting the whole rebellion thing again in 20 years. When the planters actually did overthrow the state governments with white supremacist insurrections 20 years later, the north was all "eh as long as you don't secede again then whatever". Abolition would not have passed in a popular vote. The thirteenth amendment only passed congress because the south wasn't there to oppose it, and even then it almost failed in the house anyway and they had to delay the vote so Lincoln could go around visiting individual representatives to whip for it, and I don't think he would have had the time to visit a few million people no matter how many times you delayed the referendum. Oh yeah, and it only got the requisite number of states because half the states had military governments installed by the executive which weren't accountable to their states' popular wills. Now let's imagine Brown v Board except instead of a Supreme Court filled with justices chosen by New Dealers FDR and Truman, the justices were subject to popular veto by the registered voters of the 1940s.
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Feb 17, 2016 02:34
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Thug Lessons posted:I want you to understand that this discussion started with someone saying "if you had your way slavery would still exist!" and continued with me arguing with someone claiming it wasn't the Civil War that ended slavery, it was the Emancipation Proclamation alone. None of that supports your claim that slavery could have been abolished by popular vote. Even with the southern representatives gone, Lincoln had to go around whipping individual house members to get them to agree, and without executive-controlled military governments in the south it would never have been ratified. Thug Lessons posted:If it had been up to a popular vote rather than the Senate FDR probably would have packed the Court. With New Dealer segregationists because that was a litmus test to win elections in the south at the time.
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Feb 17, 2016 02:48
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evilweasel posted:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/02/18/us/politics/ap-us-supreme-court-scalia-successor.html I can't believe Republicans opened themselves up like this. Now they're going to be caught between looking like loving idiots for stonewalling a judge they approved 97-0 or looking like loving idiots for walking back their promise to stonewall before even seeing the nominee. Is this just a hail mary on the hope that a terrorist attack or economic crash puts a Republican in the white house? Or have they convinced themselves of alternate reality polls like they did in 2012?
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Feb 19, 2016 02:03
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evilweasel posted:I mean, between losing the Court for a generation, and taking even a 33% chance of taking the White House, it's easy to see why they think it's worth the risk. The economy could crater, there could be a real Clinton scandal, Sanders could get the nomination and be as unelectable as people have said he is, whatever. It's far too early for them to be out of it, though anyone sane will tell you the Democrats are favored it's not a lock. But the next President will probably get to appoint one or two justices anyway, it doesn't seem worth it to push that to two or three justices while lowering the chances that it will be them, especially given their tough Senate map. I don't know, if I were McConnell I'd go to Obama right now and promise him a quick confirmation if he picks a moderate but a huge fight if he tries to stack the court with a liberal. On the other hand, working with Obama might get you primaried by someone even crazier than you so maybe McConnell is just doing this until after the Senate primaries are done to keep a slate of unelectable assholes from Akin-ing the party in the congressional elections.
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Feb 19, 2016 02:32
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The problem with following Biden's 1992 suggestion to let the Senate wait until their campaigns are over before considering a nominee is that Republicans would probably not live up to their side of it if a Republican is elected and will stonewall until after the inauguration. I base this on the announcement that McConnell made in February that they will try to stonewall for 11 months if they can. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 23, 2016 00:07
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Arkane posted:In the video, Biden says that the Senate committee should not even consider anyone nominated until after the election is over. Are you basing your entire argument on pretending to not know the difference between an election and an inauguration?
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Feb 23, 2016 01:33
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Drogue Chronicle posted:
Assuming federal troops are going to join a rebellion just because they happened to be stationed in Texas is pretty dumb. It actually makes it harder to win a war if the enemy soldiers are already occupying you.
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Feb 24, 2016 02:04
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Drogue Chronicle posted:The south also contributes a greatly disproportionate number of enlistments. And servicemen are heavily republican. Are you counting black people and Latinos from the south in your imaginary tally of who would sign up to fight for Confederacy 2 Electric Boogaloo? E: Also your source confuses "enlistment rates per 1000" with "greatest number of enlistees"
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Feb 24, 2016 02:44
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Ahahaha okay champ. Go ahead and start a war again, I'm sure the reasoning "blacks and yanks are too cowardly to put up a fight" was always flawless and it'll totally bring victory this time around. Haha
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Feb 24, 2016 03:01
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They were also actively hostile to the idea of political parties and expected the president to be a statesman with broad appeal across the nation, and the Senate at the time represented the states because Senators were appointed by state legislatures, so the theory went that the president would have the support of most states through the electoral college and his nominations (and treaties and other stuff the senate had to ratify) just had to be checked to make sure they were still okay by the states. The idea of a political party banding 50-plus percent of the Senate together to obstruct everything the president tries to do because he's of the other party didn't occur to them.
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Feb 24, 2016 06:02
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evilweasel posted:I think the better argument for why Scalia can't vote isn't that we don't know how he'd vote: it's that being a justice is a lifetime appointment. Once you're dead, you're not a justice anymore! That's not in the constitution. The constitution just says justices "hold their offices during good behaviour" and I think everyone can agree that Scalia's behaviour on that hunting trip was very good indeed. In the past we've kicked off dead justices because they stop showing up to decide cases, but if Scalia keeps on doing that from the beyond well 
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Feb 25, 2016 02:21
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