SCOTUS Replacement Sept-Nov 2020

Huntn

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After Senator Mitch McConnell’s pronouncement of no SCOTUS hearings in an election year, circa 2016, this fuck the rules when it serves me asshole says he will fill the seat. So in essence the gloves are off, do whatever you can to win. Unfortunately this has to apply to the Democrats.

And apparently, you can quote me Senator Graham has changed his mind and now will support filling the seat before the election. The Dems will hammer him to death with this in his re-election.


Rumor has it that the Dems might start impeachment hearings against Trump or a Bar to block this Republican end run. I’ll say the bar is so low as set by Republicans, they have no choice, as Nancy Pelosi says, all arrows are in our quiver*, and if you are a moderate/liberal who cares about the future role of the SCOTUS that does not make you retch, more power to them.

*not sure what other arrows are in this quiver.

However, my question is would impeachment hearings boomerang on Biden? The same question can this blatant GOP bullshit boomerang on them? The difference? If the GOP gets its way, we will be stuck with the next conservative judge and a decidedly, conservative SCOTUS for a generation which we just can’t afford on multiple levels.
 
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Eric

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I think it'll take us a week or so to get the temperature of the country on this one. I have a feeling it won't overtake the virus or jobs as the top issues facing us right now, if that's the case we have to ask how much energy the Dems want to put into it. Just my .02
 

Alli

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And in the meanwhile, text RBG to 50409, or to @resistbot on Messenger, Twitter, or Telegram. If you have never used Resistbot, you’ll love it.
 

Alli

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Murkowski and Collins are against it so far, but I would NOT trust Collins for one second.

Because she lies. She’s likely to decide that whoever Trump nominates is perfectly fine, so it shouldn’t matter if there’s a confirmation hearing.
 

samcraig

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Scepticalscribe

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After Senator Mitch McConnell’s pronouncement of no SCOTUS hearings in an election year, circa 2016, this fuck the rules when it serves me asshole says he will fill the seat. So in essence the gloves are off, do whatever you can to win. Unfortunately this has to apply to the Democrats.

And apparently, you can quote me Senator Graham has changed his mind and now will support filling the seat before the election. The Dems will hammer him to death with this in his re-election.


Rumor has it that the Dems might start impeachment hearings against Trump or a Bar to block this Republican end run. I’ll say the bar is so low as set by Republicans, they have no choice, as Nancy Pelosi says, all arrows are in our quiver*, and if you are a moderate/liberal who cares about the future role of the SCOTUS that does not make you retch, more power to them.

*not sure what other arrows are in this quiver.

However, my question is would impeachment hearings boomerang on Biden? The same question can this blatant GOP bullshit boomerang on them? The difference? If the GOP gets its way, we will be stuck with the next conservative judge and a decidedly, conservative SCOTUS for a generation which we just can’t afford on multiple levels.

If I were to advise the Dems, if I held a position where I tendered advice to the Dems, I would recommend holding off on an impeachment threat for now. This is because impeachment is an imprecise and impractical tool, a blunt tool, one to be reached for sparingly, and only when heavy constitutional hitting is required.

And, even then, it should only be invoked as a last resort, and when there is a reasonable chance of success; excessive use dulls its edge. In fact, I would counsel that the threat of impeachment be not mentioned until after Mr Trump wins a second term (that is, if he wins a second term).

Now, I have absolutely no doubt that the amount of material, evidence, whistle blowers, outrageous abuses of power, and money trails - which would all serve to strengthen the case for impeachment - and it needs to be strengthened, it needs to be incontrovertible and overwhelming in its proof of putrid corruption and compromised complicity - for a conviction - will increase daily.

Thus, this is a threat to hold in reserve, an arrow (of the sturdy quarrel variety in archery), if one uses metaphors such as a quiver of arrows held in reserve.

Meanwhile, as the gloves are off, those GOP senators who expect to face the electorate in November should be made to fight for their very political lives, and put under incessant and unrelenting and pitiless political pressure.

And here, the Democrat threat to absolutely flood the SC with liberal justices is a completely valid one, for the rules of political and constitutional engagement have changed utterly, and this is now about the exercise of pure power, a power expressed in the brute form of numbers, namely, the crude numbers of ballots cast - and that is a competition I expect the Dems to win - I would be astounded if Biden did not win the popular vote handsomely - (and - then, in terms of political currency - converted into EC votes).

Moreover, the Dems must mobilise and get their vote out, everywhere, and ensure that the ballots are cast (and can be counted). Likewise, they need to wise up on matters such as social media, challenging the GOP narrative, taking control of - or setting out - their narrative, responding immediately to attacks, and firing off rapid (and accurate) counter-attacks.
 
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Thomas Veil

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Really? That soul that he found a while back seems to have been sold again, that's a shame.
Romney’s rationale:
...it’s not “written in the stars” that the court should have a liberal bent, and Trump’s pick will tip the nation’s high court to become more conservative.

It’s “appropriate,” he told reporters at the Capitol, “for a nation which is, if you will, center right, to have a court which reflects a set of right points of view.”
And there it is again, that false idea that America is a center-right country and that courts should purposely lean that way.

Now the question before the rest of us is not “Should the Supreme Court be expanded?” but “11 or 13?”
 

SuperMatt

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Is there any legislation that needs to pass in the Senate before this court fight? If so, couldn't such legislation be filibustered indefinitely, thereby preventing the Senate from doing anything? Still need 60 votes to end a legislative filibuster.
 

lizkat

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Romney came out for it. :confused:

Grassley too, damn it. He's another one who originally said Rs should not make a 2020 pick.

I still think the Rs are nuts to do this before the election. The backlash potential including Democrats' options going forward is not pretty.

Maybe McConnell actually has in mind letting Trump make the pick and then "somehow".... time passes and there just isn't quite time enough to make a floor vote before the election, and then Mitch has a look at what happens after that

If Trump wins then Mitch jams through a lame duck confirmation during the transition, with 116th Senate votes, even if the new Senate will have flipped blue on Nov 3.​
If Trump loses and McConnell won his race and the Senate will have stayed red but with even a reduced margin, McConnell shrugs and says "we did the best we could" in public, meanwhile to Biden he says "pick a moderate and I'll see that you get your floor vote." Biden will do that rather than pack the courts, of which he was never a fan anyway.​

Mitch cares much more about his own power than anything else, including a SCOTUS pick. He has his legacy already, a couple hundred young conservative picks to the federal bench under Trump administration. Plus a fairly reliable 5-4 conservative setup recently with Trump's 2 picks already on board, and likely remaining that way if Biden picks a moderate under duress of a red Senate in 2021.
 

ronntaylor

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The Mango Turd announces his pick Friday or Saturday. McConnell assures a vote before November 3rd. The Dems initially howl, but then relent. They probably won't make this nasty fight a centerpiece of their push to regain control of the Senate. McConnell wins again.

I have no confidence that even with a Biden win that the Dems will do anything to fight back against this BS. They should be going ballistic right now. They should be threatening all-out war. A sit-in on the Senate floor and holding up everything possible should be the order of the day. Fuck niceties and decorum.
 

lizkat

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The Mango Turd announces his pick Friday or Saturday. McConnell assures a vote before November 3rd. The Dems initially howl, but then relent. They probably won't make this nasty fight a centerpiece of their push to regain control of the Senate. McConnell wins again.but

I have no confidence that even with a Biden win that the Dems will do anything to fight back against this BS. They should be going ballistic right now. They should be threatening all-out war. A sit-in on the Senate floor and holding up everything possible should be the order of the day. Fuck niceties and decorum.

Yeah but the Dems really do want to win the White House and flip some Senate seats.

Sad to say, the court pick (and the insults to RBG and to any with a sense of fairness) are not necessarily top priority amongst all Dem-leaning voters... including in 2020 a bunch of never-Trump Republicans, who do not want to hear it about any plans like stacking the courts in 2021 going forward. That has to figure in Dem calculations now, if they calm down and think about it.

So I would not expect much more than anger and shaming remarks to come out of the Dem candidates themselves before the election. Not threats to pack the court.

Maybe some surrogates will have some tough things to say in certain states that are a foregone conclusion to go blue at the top and that have no Senate seats at stake in this year's Senate class... or targeted flips in the House either for that matter.

But wherever there are close races then I would not expect the Dems to focus on the court pick because they risk losing more potential votes from indies and anti-Trump Republicans than they might gain in turnout from blue-leaners. They're going to keep hammering on covid-19 and the economy and the way Trump has divided us instead of helping us get some sorely needed bipartisan big-ticket items legislated.

The main concern really is whether we're actually going to have a fair and square count of the votes in 2020. If we do, then Trump's likely to lose, and until last week at least, it looked like the Rs might net a loss of at least a couple seats in the Senate as well.

The GOP Senate margin was already thin w/ Murkowski being a sometime dissenter... she'll likely continue in that vein and will win her election anyway. I'm leaving out Maine's Collins bc she's probably going to lose her seat, so I figure she is a wash w/ the Dems' Doug Jones in Alabama who will almost surely lose his specially elected chair to the GOP challenger now.​

If Biden wins and the (red) Senate has not yet confirmed a nominee, all hell will break out if Mitch tries to jam a vote through that 116th Senate instead of letting the new prez and a red or blue senate handle the replacement for RBG. I have no idea what the Dems would do then. That's probably the main reason McConnell figures he should try to get a vote done before the election, even if he's not 100% sure he has the count. Just because some senators didn't object to the idea of the pre-election replacement of RBG does not absolutely guarantee they'll approve Trump's pick.

In 2020 the Republicans are defending 26 seats, but two thirds of all the Senators including plenty other GOP members are not up for re-election this year. Some may elect to retire rather than run next time around, and may not be fans of either Barrett or Lagoa as Trump's reputed most likely picks, for their own reasons... and surely McConnell knows all this. He mostly cares that he keep his own seat and leadership post. So I say he's not above bringing Trump's nom to the floor and letting it go down to a possible narrow defeat. His own legacy lies in 200+ young conservative ideologues confirmed to the federal bench in the past three years..
 

Huntn

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Grassley too, damn it. He's another one who originally said Rs should not make a 2020 pick.

I still think the Rs are nuts to do this before the election. The backlash potential including Democrats' options going forward is not pretty.

Maybe McConnell actually has in mind letting Trump make the pick and then "somehow".... time passes and there just isn't quite time enough to make a floor vote before the election, and then Mitch has a look at what happens after that

If Trump wins then Mitch jams through a lame duck confirmation during the transition, with 116th Senate votes, even if the new Senate will have flipped blue on Nov 3.​
If Trump loses and McConnell won his race and the Senate will have stayed red but with even a reduced margin, McConnell shrugs and says "we did the best we could" in public, meanwhile to Biden he says "pick a moderate and I'll see that you get your floor vote." Biden will do that rather than pack the courts, of which he was never a fan anyway.​

Mitch cares much more about his own power than anything else, including a SCOTUS pick. He has his legacy already, a couple hundred young conservative picks to the federal bench under Trump administration. Plus a fairly reliable 5-4 conservative setup recently with Trump's 2 picks already on board, and likely remaining that way if Biden picks a moderate under duress of a red Senate in 2021.
As someone in PRSI said, exercising power is doing whatever you can get away with, what your base accepts, morality and principles be damned when I can achieve an advantage. :mad: As a result, and consequence, you have to hope that the base who supports such action and the GOP will be diminished as a force in Congress.
 
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lizkat

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As someone in PRSI said, exercising power is doing whatever you can get away with, what your base accepts, morality and principles be damned when I can achieve an advantage. :mad: As a result, you have to hope that the base and the GOP will be diminished as a force in Congress.

The Trump era seems a sort of last hurrah for the former "Grand Old Party". Trump, McConnell and that disgrace of an Attorney General William Barr, plus a few Senators of which one could have expected more critical thinking, will have sealed their party's destiny as the dust bin, even if the country ends up able to endure a few more iterations of this grotesque version of the GOP.
The party's supporters --or are they really only Trump's rally base of supporters? it's unclear to me and I suspect some are rather the cynical upper tier of I've-got-mine tax break fans-- have tolerated a steady abandonment of principle, and now even the ditching of a coherent platform, in favor of sycophancy to and complicity with a corrosively corrupt, pseudo-populist precursor of a fascist head of state.

For those who have merely suspended their critical thinking skills for short term profit, one might suggest cautionary tales of what it's like to be in the top tier as an unimpeded fascist or for that matter a third-rate tin-badged dictator begins to sort out who remains a necessary prop to continuance in power, and whose turn to be purged has arrived. Even now there are examples in Russia and China of oligarchs teetering at the brink.

As for the rest of us, we are already experiencing the downside of a self-serving government. In the midst of a global pandemic our head of state rants about not entertaining the outcome of the 2020 elections, and ignores opportunities to help lead Congress towards construction of a bipartisan second stimulus package. The lack of such support has been noted by economists, bankers, even the central bank as a threat to recovery, one that could put us to lagging for as long as a decade.

Yet the GOP tolerates this incompetent President Trump's politicization of his high office, his disdain for not only his opponent but for Americans furious at his failure to provide coherent leadership during a crisis of our public health and our fundamental needs for food and shelter. Meanwhile he relishes stirring the pots of public discord over police reform, systemic racism, the state of our international affairs, even the value of our military and intelligence providers.

On balance the country has not bought into the Trump-GOP's redefinition of American federal governance quite yet. However, the fact that a fairly steady base of about 40% of Americans have polled as continuing to support Trump all this time is more than alarming.

I do feel that that 40% of our population has either willfully detached from or never acquired any real sense of the purpose, necessity and accomplishments of our federal government despite its shortcomings. The willfully complicit with GOP excesses of unfunded tax cuts and deregulation are thus become takers and scroungers, even as they continue to chip away at both taxation and effective agency, and so they help make a mockery of true congressional and executive branch representation of American ideals per our Constitution as amended.

Wow... I managed to say all that without calling anyone a traitor. I might have saved ink and others' patience to take that shortcut. Exhausted, I return to my chores of the morning. Winter's coming whether we re-elect a rotten crew or try for a better one.
 
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