patrick.net

The fact that the appointment was stolen from the Democrats justifies complete rejection of all Republican nominees. One should not reward usurping and undermining the republic. The Supreme Court should get no appointments until the next Democratic president. If that means fewer justices, then so be it.

A judge producing metric tons of circuitous and arbitrary stare decisis just to render a purely political or poli-religious position?

I am shocked, I tell you, just shocked.

Dan8267 says

The fact that the appointment was stolen from the Democrats justifies complete rejection of all Republican nominees.

This kind of escalation is not helpful. If you cared, you should have voted against Trump.

Well too bad, if you Liberals were more reserved with your butt hurt your warnings would hold a little water.
But everyone is Hitler and nobody but a Liberal fag with a pussydick can be in politics in the Liberal sicko world.
Sorry guys we don't have any Conservative SCOTUS candidates with a pussydick, that's a good thing Right?

YesYNot says

Dan8267 says

The fact that the appointment was stolen from the Democrats justifies complete rejection of all Republican nominees.

This kind of escalation is not helpful

That's not an escalation. It's called "denial of benefits" and it's an effective strategy for deterring moral hazard and undesirable behavior like shop lifting. Ever see those attachments to clothes that explode ink? That's denial of benefits.

YesYNot says

If you cared, you should have voted against Trump.

I did. Jill Stein.

If you are advocating Hillary, then you are accepting the ridiculous principle that a person must accept the evils done by the lesser of the evils he chooses. That's bullshit. Even if you vote for the lesser of two evils -- whether that's Trump or Hillary -- you still have a right to object to the evils done by the candidate you reluctantly picked.

Hell, even if you like a candidate a lot and that candidate becomes president and does wrong, you have the right to oppose his wrong policies and actions. One of the major problems with our republic is that citizens are only involved once every four years, and then they still get damn little say. A decent republic would receive and encourage continuous feedback from its population.

Tenpoundbass says

warnings would hold a little water.

I have reserved my warnings for specifically this issue.
1) As Ralph Nader said, "Neil Gorsuch is a plutocrat’s dream and a people’s nightmare." In cases that pitted corporations against individual persons, Gorsuch sided with corporations more than 90% of the time.
2) Gorsuch is the opposite of a libertarian, and in fact he would have imprisoned Jerry Garcia.
I have not called anyone else Hitler, and I will replace Martin Niemöller's poem with the Ralph Nader and Sheldon Whitehouse quotes above. I should note, however, that Gorsuch has deep ties to Coors; Joseph Coors founded the Heritage Foundation (original author of Obamneycare), and appointed Roger Pearson as co-editor of its journal, Policy Review. Pearson is an outspoken neo-Nazi with a long record of collaborating with original Nazis to spread Nazi National Socialism internationally. In other words, the Nazi association is closer in this nomination than in other contexts where the claim may be overused.

BlueSardine says

And whatever time/effort one would put into opposing Gorsuch may be better spent pursuing other attainable objectives...

If 41 Democrats filibuster, the remaining Senators would face a painful choice:
1) weaken themselves by taking away the filibuster in order to confirm a nominee whose views are broadly unpopular with voters;
2) huff and puff and proceed to the next nominee, blaming the Democrats for intransigence.
I think many Republican Senators might prefer #2.
As for attainable objectives, this one may be the most attainable and the most important. Democrats have majority support on social issues and can campaign on those. Legislative sessions last only two years, but Gorsuch could use a SCOTUS seat for more than 40 years to re-write and overturn legislation.

@Tenpoundbass, I hope you had a chance to see my comment above, quoting Ralph Nader, who called Neil Gorsuch a "nightmare". Judge Gorsuch lionized the late Antonin Scalia, whose deliberate rejection of precedent made power, not reason, the currency of the Court. This is one topic where you and @Dan8267 should be on the same side, and I encourage both of you to call or write your Senators' offices and say that voters deserve a judge more even-handed than someone who sided with corporations and against living people in more than 90% of cases.

Should Neil Gorsuch be confirmed to the Supreme Court?
63%Yes
25%No
12%I'm not sure

Latest results on the MSN.com website poll.

I don't think people see what you're seeing.

I don't think people see what you're seeing.

-----------------

Surprised?

curious2 says

the late Antonin Scalia,

The world is just plain better off with some people dead. Assholes like Scalia make me wish, however briefly, that the unjust Christian afterlife were real. There's a sick comfort in imagining Scalia being eternally raped long dick style by a spiked-penis demon.

curious2 says

Why You Should Oppose the SCOTUS nomination of Judge Gorsuch

Why You Should Oppose the SCOTUS SCROTUS nomination of Judge Gorsuch

Quigley says

Latest results on the MSN.com website poll.

That isn't a real poll, it's an Internet "click here to vote" indicator of how the paid Astroturf shill campaign is going. His corporate backers are spending more than $10 million to get him confirmed, so MSN is cashing in.

Actual polls show he does not have majority support, though he may have plurality support.

BTW, he's proclaiming emphatically his independence from the President who nominated him, so get ready for more Islamic exceptions to laws of general application.

Dan8267 says

That's not an escalation. It's called "denial of benefits" a

It's also an escalation in the circle of non-cooperation. The response is refusing to give confirmation hearings in the beginning of a term. If done and neither side backs down, then there would potentially be a situation where no more supreme court judges get confirmed until one side has a large majority in the Senate and presidency. At that point, they would pack the court as much as they could. That's a pretty crappy solution.Dan8267 says

I did. Jill Stein.

Voting for Jill Stein was a vote for her, but it was not a vote for Trump, because it did nothing to stop him from gaining power. Stein had such a small chance of winning, adding a vote for her did nearly nothing in terms of the chances of stopping Trump. A vote for HRC would have directly lowered his chances of winning in FL.

Dan8267 says

you still have a right to object to the evils done by the candidate you reluctantly picked.

You can object to whatever evils you want. Just recognize that when given a chance to try to stop those particular evils, you did nothing. I'll grant you that your choice was imperfect, because the only way to stop those evils was to pick some other evils in HRC (IMO, those evils would be minor relative to what's coming).

Well good researching curious2 and Yesynot! I had no idea he was a corporate stooge! His record looks so good on paper, and I'm against abortion anyway so that's not a deal breaker. I don't think installing him is draining the swamp tho, sounds like he's a regular swamp monster taking bribes.

That said, he will likely pass the gauntlet. Democrats are corporatist as well, and a few will be enough to slide him in.

YesYNot says

It's also an escalation in the circle of non-cooperation.

Cooperation is a two-way street. What you are suggesting is called appeasement. Maybe if we giver Republicans everything they want, they will become nice. This is a foolish strategy. Appeasement never works. Greed cannot be satiated. The more greed is feed, the hungrier it gets.

The other side should know that any tactic they use can and will be used against them. There will be a level playing field.

When the backlash comes and Republicans lose both chambers and the White House, the Democrats should stick the screws to the Republicans.

YesYNot says

Voting for Jill Stein was a vote for her, but it was not a vote for Trump, because it did nothing to stop him from gaining power.

I preferred Trump to win. However, voting for Trump directly would have counted twice as much for his victory.

As bad as Trump is, the person who is president does not matter nearly as much as the political machinery behind the politicians. Had Hillary won, we'd be choosing between Ted Cruz and Dick Cheney for the next 40 years. The threat "the other side is crazy so bend over and take it from us" had to be opposed.

All votes are strategic and symbolic. No person's individual vote makes a difference, so there is no down side to voting for someone who isn't going to win and no up side for voting for someone who will. The only way your vote matters is by sending a tiny message that you are upset with the choices.

And if you didn't want Trump to win, you should have pressured the Democratic primary voters and super delegates to have nominated Bernie. He would have won. Hell, anyone but Hillary Clinton would have won. It was damn stupid to run the quintessential establishment candidate in an anti-establishment race, especially the single most hated politician.

And it's not like there was an up side to Hillary being president over Bernie anyway. Hillary Clinton is Dick Cheney.

YesYNot says

Just recognize that when given a chance to try to stop those particular evils, you did nothing.

On the contrary, I did far more than you. By getting Hillary to lose, I and other Bernie or Busters prevented right-wing conservatives from taking over the Democratic party and turning it into the new Republican party. Now there are reforms taking form. The battle for the soul of the Democratic party is far from over, but it would have been lost already if Hillary had won. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war.

The movement of the Democratic Party to the Corporatists has been going on for a while.

The first stirrings were in the 70s, when the liberals realized many of the white working class dem base weren't down with forced busing, feminism, reparations, and white guilt, but that the up and coming Yuppies were.

The big losers in 1994 weren't Pelosi types, and certainly not the Clintonistas, but the old school lib dems from working class areas who got punished by the white working class switching to republicans, mostly on cultural, non-Economic issues.

I'd be OK if Ginsburg resigned, LIKE SHE PROMISED and then just permanently reduce the number of supreme court justices to 7 as a cost cutting measure.

Dan8267 says

No person's individual vote makes a difference, so there is no down side to voting for someone who isn't going to win and no up side for voting for someone who will. The only way your vote matters is by sending a tiny message that you are upset with the choices.

Individual votes do matter. They just contribute a small fraction of the overall result. The fraction is the same whether you are talking about deciding who wins or sending a message.

Dan8267 says

And if you didn't want Trump to win, you should have pressured the Democratic primary voters and super delegates to have nominated Bernie.

I did vote for Bernie when given the choice. That sent a message.

Dan8267 says

By getting Hillary to lose, I and other Bernie or Busters prevented right-wing conservatives from taking over the Democratic party and turning it into the new Republican party. Now there are reforms taking form. The battle for the soul of the Democratic party is far from over, but it would have been lost already if Hillary had won. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win a war.

These are speculations about indirect effects. The reorganization of society based on the rejection of climate change and supreme court nominations is going on today, and this reorganization is a direct result of Trump being in power. We'll never know what would have happened if HRC were elected. We might find the Dem's moving left and doing better - time will tell. If things work well, you will have had some part in it, but you'll still own the direct results of Trump today. Once HRC was nominated, the time for 'what ifs' regarding Bernie was in the past. That is why you can't blame the Dem's for not electing Bernie and use that to justify actions after Bernie lost.

zzyzzx says

I'd be OK if Ginsburg resigned, LIKE SHE PROMISED

I expect she will schedule some more doctors visits and gym time and hold on for as long as possible.

YesYNot says

We'll never know what would have happened if HRC were elected

Thank God! We will never know FOR SURE, but all our best guesses as well as the statements from her own mouth convinced many of us that America would be permanently damaged if that raging cunt got the reins of real power.

Trump has been quite restrained in comparison.

YesYNot says

Individual votes do matter. They just contribute a small fraction of the overall result. The fraction is the same whether you are talking about deciding who wins

No, that is mathematically false in a winner take all election. Now if we used proportional representation like more civilized nations, that would be true.

YesYNot says

I did vote for Bernie when given the choice. That sent a message.

Then essentially you did the same damn thing I did. Stop complaining.

YesYNot says

These are speculations about indirect effects.

Every vote is a decision based upon educated guesses of the outcomes. I can at least provide ample justification for my beliefs, and I have done so in detail in previous threads.

curious2 says

@Tenpoundbass, I hope you had a chance to see my comment above, quoting Ralph Nader, who called Neil Gorsuch a "nightmare".

In light of seeing a true master like Donald Trump.
I now withdraw any support for Ralph Nader, he was just an Idiot trying to prove an Academic point. He never intended to hold any feet to the fire. He never publicly chastised the Establishment critters by Name, because he simply didn't want too, or was too chicken shit too, or he was fucking hypocrite. He talked about the establishment in generalities. Never taking these 40 year career politicians to task.
When I supported people like Nader, and Perot, I always said why don't these people call out these career politicians by name and expose the corruption everyone knows is going on?
You should have heard the excuses everyone said, "it would do no good", "The media controls the message", "It's just how it is, the rich get richer and the poor gets poorer."
People have been complacent, while I've longed for someone like Trump to come along and say the things that he has said, that every common man knows must be said.
Nader was fucking Amateur at Charades night.

Nader was a Dick, I should have stayed home.

Tenpoundbass says

Nader...

is a good guy, but Gorsuch "told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had made no promises or commitments to Trump or his aides" and would be independent from President Trump.

We have an unusual situation right now, where Republicans refused to give Judge Merrick Garland a hearing, and the current POTUS lost the popular vote. SCOTUS can function with seven justices instead of nine. Eight can be awkward due to ties, but the same happens when there are nine and one recuses. There is no urgency, and the artificial focus on one candidate seems hasty. Why not give Merrick Garland a hearing also, and see who is better? If you have a really critical job to fill, with a life term, wouldn't you interview more than one candidate?

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The Democrats are at long last picking a battle they might win: "Schumer says Democrats will filibuster Trump SCOTUS nominee Gorsuch". It's win-win for Democrats. If they block the current nominee, they can demand a more even-handed nominee or keep the seat vacant; if he gets confirmed but then makes unpopular decisions, Democrats can campaign on the issue.

Ironman says

curious2 says

If they block

So, who's a better choice?

I'd like to see Judge Merrick Garland get a hearing. Among other judges who should have got appointed but didn't, a favorite would be Richard Posner, even though he's nearly 80.

As part of their pact with Pat Robertson, Republicans have tended to appoint "stealth" nominees who prove disastrous, e.g. John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Neil Gorsuch lionized Antonin Scalia, and that's a very bad sign, and his record does not inspire confidence.

If voters prioritized judicial nominees, then Senators would condition consent on judges showing a record that inspires confidence among voters. Instead, we have SCOTUS packed with HLS and YLS grads, so they pass the superficial headline test; they're all smart but most tend to be too partisan.