Supreme Court Justice Kennedy Retires; Two Georgians On Replacement List
This afternoon, Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement after the court concluded it’s term. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already stated that he looks forward to having a replacement nominee confirmed this fall. The Supreme Court begins its next term in October, so presumably, there will be no effective vacancy.
President Trump said in an afternoon press gaggle with the President of Portugal that he would pick a justice from his previously released list. You can find that list of 25 potential nominees on Jamie DuPree’s blog, as I did, or from the White House web site.
Two Georgians are on the list, both current Supreme Court Justices. Justices Keith Blackwell and Britt Grant give Georgia the chance to pick up another of the nine lifetime appointments, joining Justice Clarence Thomas of Pinpoint, Georgia. Justice Grant’s nomination to the federal bench is pending a hold placed by Senator Jeff Flake of AZ, over issues not related directly to her.
About Author
Charlie
Founder of GeorgiaPol.com; Now weekly columnist Very interested in Georgia and Georginas. Interest in politics is waning daily.
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Are they going to follow the McConnell rule where you can’t place someone on the supreme court in an election year?
Nope. But we will be following the Harry Reid rule. Thanks Harry!
Presidential election.
At least try to be accurate, Carolina. It’s in the last year of the final presidential term. Good try…
To further clarify: in a prez election year! Not a midterm.
Dude, he said election year. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/mcconnell-rule-that-blocked-garland-not-actually-a-rule.html
Wrong. As usual.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/us/politics/joe-biden-argued-for-delaying-supreme-court-picks-in-1992.html
I bleve it’s actually referred to as……The Biden Rule.
Haha. So you’re moving the goal posts to Biden. LOL. Biden is retired and McConnell is the senate majority leader.
But you prove over and over that facts are not your strong point.
“Facts are not your strong point.”
More accurately, facts are not important to Noway at all.
No moving the goalposts. He always did say presidential election. He deserves all the credit. He said that the Supreme Court seat should be decided by the voters in the presidential election. Both Clinton and Trump campaigned on getting the ability to fill that seat, and Trump won. Worked like a charm. Lots of Republican voters who disliked Trump’s character, temperament and qualifications and more still who had real disagreements on policy issues who would have otherwise stayed home – GOP turnout was terrible in 2012 because of Bush 2.0 or actually 3.0 wait I mean Romney – showed up in order to grab that Supreme Court seat. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton voters presumed that she was going to win anyway, weren’t really excited or motivated by the merely center left Garland instead of a firebrand progressive like, say, Cass Sunstein and stayed home.
Also, delaying it until after midterms wouldn’t help the Democrats anyway. The Republicans are expected to gain, not lose Senate seats because the Democrats defend far more, with several (Missouri, West Virginia, Florida, Indiana, North Dakota) being in states that Trump won. By contrast, despite the wishful thinking of the “mainstream” media that vastly overstates Dem prospects in Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arizona, the only realistic chance for a Dem pickup is Nevada.
It is the House that the Democrats have a (small) chance of retaking, not the Senate. And if you are thinking that the open Supreme Court seat would be able to goose Democratic turnout in Florida, Texas, Arizona, Missouri etc. … it would, but the GOP turnout would increase even more. The Never Trumpers would show up en masse to try to get the best possible Supreme Court seat. And – again – as the Dems are defending more states with far more of those being on GOP turf, that favors the GOP.
Any way you slice it, Hillary Clinton REALLY shouldn’t have gone with “demography is destiny/coalition of the ascendant” Robby Mook as her campaign manager and Joel Benenson as her strategist. Granted Benenson was a top Obama advisor, but Obama knew when to ignore him. (It helped that Clinton challenged Obama from the right where Sanders pushed Clinton to the left.) Bill Clinton AND Donna Brazile criticized Mook’s approach, but Hillary Clinton chose to ignore them both. Clinton blames Comey, but in reality it was her choosing to believe that she could win without the votes that the “new left” didn’t want her to even court that cost the Dems 2 Supreme Court seats and a ton of appellate court seats.
But hey, that is where Hillary Clinton’s heart lies. If you recall, her proposed health care overhaul fell apart because she wouldn’t negotiate with the blue and yellow dog Democrats (which actually were a thing back then) like Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Robert Byrd, Richard Shelby, Bob Kerrey and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The Democrats had a near veto-proof majority in the Senate and didn’t even need to negotiate with the Republicans, particularly since some of them supported universal healthcare in principle anyway, with minority leader Bob Dole among them. To the GOP, Hillary Clinton was the gift that kept on giving. They would be absolutely thrilled were she to run again in 2020.
So you don’t think we can have a midterm deciding whether someone under criminal investigation should put someone on the supreme court for a lifetime?
McConnell said election. He’s now weaseling saying presidential election.
Actually the GOP is in trouble with regards to the senate due to Trump’s sliding poll numbers. A year ago that was the story but it is not the current story. A year ago McCaskill was supposed to be in trouble and now she’s looking like she’s going to be fine. With Rick Scott the nominee in Florida and he is running fast from Trump it’s not looking good for the GOP there. As a matter of fact the GOP just lost Republican seats in Miami. It was a total wipeout. Also Rick Scott had a tax giveaway to a Russian gun manufacturer. The GOP has been on a losing streak in Florida all this year so far.
And with all the criminal stuff swirling around Trump right now you don’t know what is going to break before the election.
You actually don’t remember anything about the health care debate long ago. You actually do not even understand what happened in 2016. Trump finally came out telling the GOP voters what they wanted to hear, that they were special. He listened to talk radio for a year before running for president. And as far as Comey, the letter did have an effect and I have no idea who you are talking about with regards to the new “left” And let’s not forget that this Russian thing isn’t just Republicans. Putin was pushing Bernie along with Trump. Mueller has reported the Putinbots said “Bernie and Trump” were “their guys”.
Casey Cagle:
“President Trump has already gotten it right with Justice Gorsuch who played a critical role in delivering conservative decisions this term. I’m proud to have supported and worked for President Trump so that he – not Hillary Clinton – would have the ability to nominate justices whose decisions directly affect Americans every day – from our personal freedoms to our state’s water rights. President Trump will now be able to nominate a justice who can represent our conservative values, and I encourage him to look to Georgia for a deep bench of brilliant, experienced and conservative jurists – just as the president has done in several recent federal court appointments. In the next term, that justice could join fellow Georgian Clarence Thomas to take a strict constructionist view of the Constitution and perhaps allow states to enact strong pro-life policies.”
Good lord. That sounds like a statement right out of the Handmaid’s Tale.
Abortion was illegal in nearly all states until 1972. Yet somehow America was decidedly not a Handmaid’s Tale – style dystopia for women back then. Similarly, abortion was illegal in Ireland until, like, last month. Not exactly a Handmaid’s Tale regime there either.
But if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail, which means that if you are a progressive – which is distinct from the traditional liberals that used to populate the Democratic Party, including the very liberal ones like George McGovern and Ted Kennedy – everyone to your right is a fascist. Even if they adhere to positions that were fully mainstream and acceptable in your own party a mere 10 years ago.
Dude, women couldn’t get credit by themselves. You could be denied access to a college because you were female. You would be fired or made to quit if you got pregnant. In many states women could not serve on juries. Many women were denied birth control. Equal pay for equal work was thought of as nonsense. My mother in law had to go before a medical board to get approval to get a tubal litigation done after already having 4 children.
The problem is not abortion per se so much as apparently conservatives do not think that women should be making that decision much like long ago they though women shouldn’t serve on juries for the same reason. As far as Ireland goes, they finally got sick of it and threw their abortion laws out. Yeah, the GOP can lock down some states and it will go back to the way it was before where women who had the money to go to NY could get an abortion and women who could least afford another child were forced to have one.
Republicans don’t even want women to have access to INFORMATION. I mean this is ridiculous. But as you can see by the women who are running and winning they are fed up with attitudes like yours.
“Tubal litigation “? Lololol! Tell me, Carolina, is that in front of a judge or a jury! I do bleve you mean “tubal ligation!” You are just eaten up with stupid!! Lord!!!!
Your first paragraph is 100% accurate. Yet that – and more still – fall extremely short of Handmaid’s Tale, Game of Thrones or any other female dystopia depicted by feminist literature.
“The problem is not abortion per se so much as apparently conservatives do not think that women should be making that decision much like long ago they though women shouldn’t serve on juries for the same reason.”
No. Only a tiny percentage of the anti-abortion movement feels this way. The vast majority of the anti-abortion movement sincerely believes that life begins prior to birth and human actions to end a viable pregnancy is a moral offense that is similar to murder. Progressives ignore this – even when their opposition cites the of reams of new fetal medical research including a study at our own Georgia State University that shows that personality development begins no later than 9 weeks – and instead choose to substitute motives that suits their own agenda.
“Republicans don’t even want women to have access to INFORMATION.”
No. They merely do not want their tax dollars used to disseminate that information. There is a difference. For example, the so-con talking point/fundraising pitch is “the government should stop my tax dollars from going to Planned Parenthood” and not “the government should shut Planned Parenthood down” because they realize that the latter would violate your 1st amendment rights and feel that the former violates THEIR second amendment rights. And Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW and the constellation of like-minded organizations are just as capable of getting their information out as, say, the NRA, which doesn’t get a dime from the government. But that goes back to “ascribing self-serving beliefs and motivations to your opponents that have nothing to do with reality” that I hinted at earlier.
“But as you can see by the women who are running and winning they are fed up with attitudes like yours.”
Lest we forget, women opposed to abortion are running and winning too, including the victor of Georgia’s most recent election for U.S. Congress and also the woman who defeated Mark Sanford in South Carolina. The Susan B. Anthony List doesn’t get anywhere near as much free and uniformly positive publicity from the “mainstream” media to help stuff their coffers as their counterpart EMILY’S List but they are slowly but surely making progress even though their previous standard-bearers Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are no longer in the public eye (which actually is probably a good thing, though more with respect to Palin than Bachmann).
And looping back to your first paragraph, even if Roe v. Wade is somehow overturned – I am extremely skeptical myself – you do realize that the many other advancements of women since then would remain in place. The idea that Roe v. Wade is the cornerstone upon which all other female progress is built makes for great sloganeering – and enforcement of ideological conformity – but has less to do with objective reality than the tooth fairy. Again, see Ireland, which unlike America has had a female president.
Yes, I’m sure some believe it is murder but by their standard a physician that drops a tray of embryos in the lab is a mass murderer. They attempt to conflate a 8 week pregnancy with a 2 year old. It’s the same thing Roy Moore did by trying to equate a 14 year old with a grown woman.
It is not about tax dollars but frankly why do conservatives feel that they are so special that they get to demand their tax money not go to things they find offensive when there are plenty of people who find other things offensive but don’t get the special snowflake treatment evangelicals get? Everybody gets a vote. The smug self righteous evangelicals seem to think only they can have a say in what kind of information people should be able to have even if it is not tax payer funded. The GOP has been attempting to actually shut Planned Parenthood down because they do not want people to have information. The GOP does not like women’s clinics whether they are funded by tax payers or not. The state of Michigan does not even fund Planned Parenthood yet they were going after them. So no, it’s not about tax payer money.
Sorry but the woman in SC who won just won the primary not the general election. Who knows though if she is actually going to get to run. She was apparently in a bad accident. I’m talking about women who actually have beaten Republicans not just won primaries. Look what happened in VA last year for examples. If your standard bearers are Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin you have a problem. These are women who neither one knows how to lead and one of them, Bachmann, did nothing but spout conspiracy theories in her time in congress and bash gay people.
@Caroline:
It isn’t that SOME believe that it is analogous to murder. Nearly all honestly, sincerely do. Progressives skirt around this fact because it is easier to believe that your opponent is a bad person than to acknowledge that they have a sincere difference of opinion that is honestly arrived at and supported by solid philosophical and moral underpinnings as well as science. Honestly, people who insist that folks who oppose abortion are motivated by a desire to keep women in the kitchen and out of the boardroom are no different from their analogues on the right who claim that minorities support the Democrats because they prefer welfare to work. Those racists – which is what they are – then turn right around and talk about how much black unemployment has gone down under Trump and don’t even realize the logical contradiction. So yeah, ignoring the legitimate moral objections to the practice – rather than simply conceding it and moving on – is every bit as ridiculous as those people.
“They attempt to conflate a 8 week pregnancy with a 2 year old.” Seriously, rhetoric like that isn’t helpful. It really helps to talk to your opposition – which by the way includes A TON of people who are VERY progressive on other issues … meaning that they are anti-war, oppose the death penalty, are environmentalist, support a living wage and universal healthcare etc. – to find out what they actually believe.
“It is not about tax dollars but frankly why do conservatives feel that they are so special that they get to demand their tax money not go to things they find offensive when there are plenty of people who find other things offensive but don’t get the special snowflake treatment evangelicals get? ”
Sure, as if liberal Christian organizations like SCLC don’t get the same treatment. Evangelicals and other conservative groups have never gotten special treatment from the government. They just use the same ability to organize and vote that liberals and progresives always have. It is hilarious how the ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, etc. only targets the political activities of conservative religious organizations while ignoring/encouraging/participating in the political activities of liberal ones. Aren’t you aware that organized liberal, progressive, socialist etc. religious political activity preceded the religious right in America by like 100 years? Williams Jennings Bryan, the guy from the Scopes monkey trials, was to the left of FDR. All the religious right did was appropriate the tactics that the religious left had been using for decades.
“The state of Michigan does not even fund Planned Parenthood yet they were going after them.”
That may be what your NARAL fundraising letters say … but it is not the truth. https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2017/02/20/michigan-republicans-are-on-a-mission-to-de-fund-planned-parenthood reads: “the bills would “prohibit the state from contracting with any healthcare service providers that perform abortions.” The bills would also prohibit the allocation of state or federal funds to those providers.”
Republicans and conservatives know that there is no legal basis – at the state or federal level – for shutting down a private organization that operates within the law. They also would rather not see Democrats in states like New York and California go after THEIR organizations. And incidentally, the pressure tactics that conservatives use against organizations that they ideologically and morally oppose, liberals use the same. Such as, for example, the “Defund the NRA” push. To wit:
https://www.facebook.com/DeFundtheNRA2day/
But hey, the good news is that these guys have already succeeded … because the NRA doesn’t get (or seek) public funds in the first place.
Also, a Democrat hasn’t won South Carolina’s 1st district since the 1970s. Trump won that district by 13 points. And Katie Arrington will be out of the hospital in less than 2 weeks.
“I’m talking about women who actually have beaten Republicans not just won primaries.”
You do realize that the general election is November right? So with the exception of a very few special elections, these “women that are winning” are currently prevailing in primaries just like Arrington.
@Andrew C. Pope:
“My religion says that life begins at birth, not at conception. What makes your opinions on abortion more important than mine or my wife’s? Are our opinions not sincerely held or honestly arrived at? … So let’s not act like their opinions on the subject, and the opinions of pro-choice women, aren’t also sincerely held and honestly arrived at.”
Sigh. You are both smarter and better than this. So why do you choose to suspend this reality and pretend as if you aren’t? You know fully well that I never claimed that pro-choice people don’t have the same convictions. I only stated that pro-choice people often falsely claim that pro-lifers aren’t sincere in their convictions, and cited Caroline’s own words in doing so. What makes my opinions more important than yours? Nothing. But in a democracy – or call it a constitutional republic if you choose – people opposed to abortion have as much right to use the political process to pursue their convictions as people who support choice do. You know this already, you fully support this in other contexts so why the aggrieved posture?
“So many folks who approach this issue from the anti-abortion side focus on the woman as a sinner or as someone of loose morals who is seeking an abortion because she’s irresponsible.”
Again, you are better than this. You are engaging in the same activity as Caroline was: taking the position that opposing abortion is not a valid position to hold because people who oppose abortion are simply fundamentally bad or deficient in some way. You, a smart, intelligent, educated cosmopolitan person who maintains personal and professional relationships with people from all walks of life and with varying viewpoints, personally know that this is not the case. It is just that your side has entrenched itself in the same position with respect to abortion that nearly everyone has with to Charlottesville-type tiki torch marchers: the idea that “there are good people on both sides” can’t be conceded.
But look. As you are fully aware, there exists this organization of anti-abortion obstetricians and gynecologists: https://aaplog.org. Please assert that the many exceptionally educated, hard working, dedicated female ob/gyns in this organization “focus on the woman as a sinner or as someone of loose morals who is seeking an abortion because she’s irresponsible.” Use them to support this argument of yours. I challenge you.
You already knew better than this before you typed your personal attack on people whose only crime is to oppose you on a political issue. Why behave in such a manner? What does it gain you?
@Andrew C. Pope:
Show me where I have attacked the motivations and characters of abortion rights supporters the way that you and Caroline have done the same with respect to abortion opponents. If you can, I will gladly apologize. But you cannot because I have not. So you attack me personally instead. You are far better and more capable than this, yet you choose not to act like it.
I’d like to jump into this discussion, but have too many things on my plate today to get caught up in an argument where no one will ever be convinced to change their mind.
Everyone knows that I have not been the biggest supporter of Trump, but when he puts another good justice on the supreme court I’ll give him a little golf clap. Until he sticks his foot in his mouth ten minutes later.
I appreciate the comment and honestly miss chatting with you. Now that I’m back in Atlanta we honestly should try to meet.
I used to be a young ass as well and realized the other side isn’t evil. They just have a different thought process with different life experiences. I haven’t changed what I believed in. I’m just more willing to listen than I use to be.
People who support pedophiles shouldn’t call anybody “stupid” Silly boy you’re more concerned with bad spelling than the facts of course.
@Caroline:
Noway has his flaws but supporting Roy Moore was not one of them.
Ummmm, Sniv, you say that your “religion ” says life begins at birth? What particular Faith is that? So, a baby who moves and has a heartbeat 24 hours prior to delivery isn’t alive? Wow!
So, are abortion rates higher as a percentage amongst the Jewish faith than, say, Protestants?
The Talmud- if I remember right- actually states not only that the fetus is less than a full life until birth, but that the fetus is a thief of resources, and can be treated as such by the mother. Which actually aligns with the science on how a placenta aggressively attaches and takes resources.
But I happen to differ on this issue, and to paraphrase a saying, you might be able to find three Jews and five opinions on the matter. Or is it seven?
Now that I think about it, I wonder if someone with that Talmudic belief could proceed with an abortion against state bans, and claim protection under RFRA? I bet yes. But I won’t bet on the outcome.
^ In a state with RFRA protection, of course.
God, that Edit button was great.
As a gay man, my rights are in peril if an anti-LGBT judge is confirmed to replace Kennedy.
No more than you were in the America that existed prior to Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, the Supreme Court ruling that made nearly all the LGBT legal and political victories possible. The left – especially the new left – is very entertaining with its “the world did not exist before the iPhone and Facebook” mentality. The ones who don’t realize that Donald Trump has basically the same political views – and approach! – as 70s and 80s northern Democrat urban politicians like Frank Rizzo, Ed Koch and the Chicago Daley machine (note: Trump himself was one of those northern Dems back then!) is funny. But if you realize that the Republicans have the historical perspective that your side lacks – and that this is a major reason why they win so often despite your side having all the advantages (demographics, money, support from the news media, Hollywood, tech companies, the schools etc.) – then that is when it should cease to become a laughing matter for you guys.
Trump does not have those views. Trump is straight out of the Strom Thurmond, Pat Buchanan playbook. Trump has been a Republican almost his entire life. His first registration that reporters found was back in the 1980’s and he registered as a Republican. He only was a Democrat for a very short time during the George W. Bush administration and promptly went right back to being a Republican after George W. Bush. He also attempting to run on the Reform Party ticket with Pat Buchanan back around 2000. Where do you get this fantasy information?
His statements are nonfactual and frankly strange. It’s like everything does come from sitting around the dorm room and repeating what he heard someone say.
So can you explain to me why it was so unsafe for people like Nefarious in 2002? Since everything that I write is so unfactual and strange it is easy. And have you bothered to research Frank Rizzo yet?
You having to answer that question validates your feeling.
I don’t have to look up Frank Rizzo. I remember growing up there while he was police commish and mayor. So you are wondering why we current Dems can’t be more like that? Seriously? That dude was a maniac. Philly was like a police state then. Driving down to see the Phillies or Flyers was like driving through a war zone. For miles and miles. Rizzo thought he was the Broderick Crawford character on Highway Patrol. He probably couldn’t even get elected as a Repub in the 21st century. Well, maybe in some places in Texas.
“Republicans have the historical perspective that your side lacks”“Republicans tend to look wistfully to the past, Democrats tend to look towards a future of progress.”
There, I fixed that for you.
Sounds more to me like someone who wants to write a book but can’t be bothered with actually doing any research beyond vague memories of the good old days.
The good news is the GOP is swimming against the tide. Yeah, a judge could absolutely revers the Obergell decision and then it would fall on the states. As we’ve seen with the ridiculous bathroom legislation the GOP keeps putting forward though it has been very damaging to the states pushing. They can legislate and they can certainly damage people’s lives but they are going against public opinion and public support for their retrograde ideas.
Your side has been saying that since 1980. Eventually it will come true.
Yes, we all know the GOP is stuck in 1980 like nothing has changed since then. The GOP has lost the popular vote in all but one election since 1992. Gerrymandering is the only thing that has saved them and once gerrymandering goes away it’s going to be either change or die. John McCain said back in 2000 that if you guys didn’t change you were going to go the way of the Whigs and every day the GOP looks more and more like the Know Nothing party. Read issue polls. On poll after poll the GOP loses and your voting base is dying off.
Hence my comment above that I doubted that Roe v. Wade would be overturned. That and the fact that at best only about half of the Republicans who claim to oppose abortion actually do so. I do not think that an abortion opponent would be confirmed for the tie-breaking vote against Roe v. Wade even if the GOP held 70 seats. Reagan had a shot to overturn Roe v. Wade and he put two justices that he knew supported Roe v. Wade on the bench. George H. W. Bush was a longtime supporter of Roe v. Wade until he claimed to switch positions in order to get elected, and put David Souter on the Supreme Court. But I guess that comment of mine was as easy to ignore as my comparison of Donald Trump to Frank Rizzo and the machine that was running Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention.
Since my post on abortion did not appear in the right place I will repost here:
“My religion says that life begins at birth, not at conception. What makes your opinions on abortion more important than mine or my wife’s? Are our opinions not sincerely held or honestly arrived at? … So let’s not act like their opinions on the subject, and the opinions of pro-choice women, aren’t also sincerely held and honestly arrived at.”
Sigh. You are both smarter and better than this. So why do you choose to suspend this reality and pretend as if you aren’t? You know fully well that I never claimed that pro-choice people don’t have the same convictions. I only stated that pro-choice people often falsely claim that pro-lifers aren’t sincere in their convictions, and cited Caroline’s own words in doing so. What makes my opinions more important than yours? Nothing. But in a democracy – or call it a constitutional republic if you choose – people opposed to abortion have as much right to use the political process to pursue their convictions as people who support choice do. You know this already, you fully support this in other contexts so why the aggrieved posture?
“So many folks who approach this issue from the anti-abortion side focus on the woman as a sinner or as someone of loose morals who is seeking an abortion because she’s irresponsible.”
Again, you are better than this. You are engaging in the same activity as Caroline was: taking the position that opposing abortion is not a valid position to hold because people who oppose abortion are simply fundamentally bad or deficient in some way. You, a smart, intelligent, educated cosmopolitan person who maintains personal and professional relationships with people from all walks of life and with varying viewpoints, personally know that this is not the case. It is just that your side has entrenched itself in the same position with respect to abortion that nearly everyone has with to Charlottesville-type tiki torch marchers: the idea that “there are good people on both sides” can’t be conceded.
But look. As you are fully aware, there exists this organization of anti-abortion obstetricians and gynecologists: https://aaplog.org. Please assert that the many exceptionally educated, hard working, dedicated female ob/gyns in this organization “focus on the woman as a sinner or as someone of loose morals who is seeking an abortion because she’s irresponsible.” Use them to support this argument of yours. I challenge you.
You already knew better than this before you typed your personal attack on people whose only crime is to oppose you on a political issue. Why behave in such a manner? What does it gain you?
The Washington Post’s fact checker weighs in on “For the record: Supreme Court nominees considered in ‘election years’”:
“But here’s the rub: the Republican position, whether you disagreed with it or not, clearly was based on the fact that it was a presidential election year.
Here’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on ABC’s “This Week” on March 20, 2016:
“The American people are in the middle of choosing who the next president is going to be. And that next president ought to have this appointment, which will affect the Supreme Court, for probably a quarter of a century.”
Note the reference to the presidential election — not just any election. Bottom line: it’s pretty clear the debate in 2016 revolved around nominations made in a presidential election year. Democrats are simply spinning a false narrative.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/27/for-the-record-supreme-court-nominees-considered-in-election-years/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8358b8c9b46c
By the way, this same columnist generally finds statements by Trump to be false:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/glenn-kessler/?utm_term=.e7e72cd9c501
Which is my favourite?
“President Trump has made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days”
or is it:
“Trump brags of successful outcome Obama initiated”
Sadly the latter is not about the economy, which began expansion and real job growth in 2012. (Some say before, I won’t quibble.) So I would have to pick the former. In any case it would be somewhat difficult to assert that this fellow is simply a GOP partisan reciting their talking points.
Fine. And then we will expand it by 4.
BTW- didn’t FDR try something like that?
Your side would do better imo by winning some elections outside the coastal elite and inner city areas. Folks like you have no idea how out of touch you really are.
I think it is appropriate that now your side is represented in the court of public opinion by Maxine Waters and this 28 year old socialist in the Bronx.
Oh, and on stare decisis, I could be wrong but wasn’t the union dues case just decided a situation of overruling a previous precedent?
But hey, it’s not all bad. At least you leftists kept Sarah Huckabee Sanders out of a restaurant.
So, like, then your side is defined by this guy?
“North Carolina state House of Representatives candidate who recently won the Republican primary has claimed Jews are satanic, U.S. soldiers are being poisoned by the government and that God is a white supremacist.”,/i>
“79% of millennials say immigrants do more to strengthen the country than they burden it.”
We went over this “illegal immigrants versus immigrants” thing yesterday. Democrats only dance around this issue to their own entertainment. It doesn’t fool anyone else.
“– Over half of white millennials say that racial discrimination is the main factor holding back African Americans.”
Republicans stopped overtly running against the black community with the George W. Bush era. Not only haven’t we heard practically any welfare-baiting or scare tactics on inner city crime, but Republicans don’t even make affirmative action an issue in electoral politics anymore. They abandoned the sort of politics that the likes of Newt Gingrich used to rise to power – and Mitch Skandalakis tried to emulate – going on 20 years ago.
“– 57% of millennials identified themselves as holding consistently liberal or mostly liberal views with just 12% saying they had mostly conservative or consistently conservative views. – 57% of millennials say that they have a preference for a bigger government, providing more federal services. 60% of Americans of all age groups said the government was responsible for providing health care coverage for all Americans.”
Young people getting more conservative as they age has been a pretty consistent phenomenon for decades. Maybe this will be the first generation to buck that trend, but I don’t know about the wisdom of counting on it. And yes, the tendency of voters who remain liberal as they age to cluster themselves into safely blue areas of the country is a factor.
“– 63% of millennials approved of the ACA. 57% of Gen-Xers approved of the ACA.”
True but the ACA is a dead issue politically. Folks have moved on. The nightmare scenarios claimed by Republicans – that it would ruin the economy and destroy the health care system – haven’t come to pass so there is nothing driving political opposition to it. Instead the only action on that issue is coming from progressives pushing for full blown single payer or close to it.
“– 62% of the public says the economic system unfairly favors the powerful interests. ”
But how many of those people believe that social democracy is the solution? Especially when the EU (particularly Greece, Italy, Spain etc.) – as opposed to the much smaller and more homogenous Nordic countries – is a much closer example of what social democracy would look like were it to be implemented in America?
“– 64% of millennials view NAFTA favorably.”
You are aware that before Trump, support for free trade was a core, bedrock position of the GOP and had been since at least 1988? With the exception of partisan nonsense during the Obama era over TPP, prior to Trump there was been more opposition to free trade from the left than the right. And Trump’s opposition to free trade was actually what put him over the top among a bunch of blue collar former union voters who used to work in manufacturing and mining in the mid-Atlantic and upper midwestern states. Hillary Clinton’s embrace of neo-con (and admittedly neo-liberal) free trade policies as part of chasing the cosmopolitan coalition of the ascendant citizens of the world actually cost her with that group.
“– 68% of millennials say more changes are necessary for blacks to achieve equal rights with whites.”
I’d be curious to know what those changes are. Ta’Neishi Coates sort of changes? Well fine. Propose those, run on it and see how it goes. Please note that Obama avoided that agenda like the plague.
“– 72% of millennials and 70% of white millennials oppose the border wall.
– 82% of millennials favor granting permanent legal status to immigrants who came here illegally.”
Yay! He finally admits that he supports an EU style open borders policy! What took so long?
“– 62% of Americans are in favor of same-sex marriage. 73% of millennials are in support. ”
You must have missed Donald Trump stating that he considered this to be a settled issue and had no interest in challenging it during the campaign. Like ACA, this is not a political battleground anymore. The debate has shifted to the “freedom of conscience” battleground.
“– 62% of millennials and 59% of Gen Xers say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. 53% of Baby Boomers feel the same.” I have seen the polls go both ways on this issue, depending on who conducts the polls and how the questioning is worded: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/gallup-poll-number-of-pro-choice-and-pro-life-americans-equal/
“– 83% of millennials and 75% of Gen Xers say the earth’s temperature is getting warmer. 65% of millennials attribute this primarily to human activity.”
Hmmm. I have always felt that there is a ton of room for compromise on the global warming issue that would give the Democrats most of what they want while making the Republicans look either utterly ridiculous or fossil fuel company minions (or both). Yet instead of choosing that path, Democrats insist on a total victory … and get nothing despite their claims that global warming is an existential threat, the most important issue of our time and perhaps of any time. It is the “all or nothing” stance of the Democrats on this issue that makes me skeptical, not the “science” funded by petrol company grants.
Let me give you an example. Why don’t Democrats promote alternative energy as an economic growth agenda as opposed to an environmental one? Because here’s the reality: environmentalism is partisan. The instant you bring it up, you lose 50% of the vote. So why not INSTEAD point out that an energy policy based on fossil fuels only enriches Texas, Alaska and foreign nations like Saudi Arabia, while an alternative energy strategy would bring high paying jobs to states that don’t have massive oil, coal and natural gas reserves?
One of the reasons why the solar energy bill passed a few years ago was because the Georgia Tea Party – of all people – saw that it would create more jobs in rural Georgia. (And they saw it as a chance to stick it to Georgia Power, which is always good.) If you sell it like that, then you will make a lot more progress. But if it means forcing diehard partisans on the other side to accept something that has been a core plank of left-liberalism for the past 50 years, not only is that not going to happen but I would like for you to tell me why it should. What element of the far right wing agenda are you willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars adopting in the interests of “saving the planet” in return?
“Who cares?”
Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny3bOmey-BE
Ah good times.
This was one of the early skirmishes in that running “debate” that you, I and Caroline were engaged in last evening before it degenerated into personal attacks (on the part of you and Caroline). If you are looking for someone to defend Mitch McConnell, that’s not me. He is one of those strange “0% approval rating” sorts. Tea Party/grassroots Republicans hate him. Liberals despise him. Moderates/independents distrust him. Seems like his only fanclub is about 52% of the voters in Kentucky.
But that being said, he is not being hypocritical, at least not on this issue. And as I mentioned last night, delaying things until next year is actually in the GOP’s interests. The GOP has a 50-49 majority, which means that no one that Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (both stalwart supporters of Roe v. Wade) objects to is getting on the bench. If the GOP is able to flip two of West Virginia, North Dakota, Florida and Missouri as well as resolve the John McCain situation, then the GOP would be able to get someone on the bench even if they defect.
If anything, I would propose that the GOP is in such a rush precisely BECAUSE they don’t want another Gorsuch or Alito. The key is being able to trick the base into THINKING they do, which is what they have been able to get away with for 38 years and counting.
I’d also throw out that TN is going to flip to Bredesen. Even Republicans are campaigning against Marsha Blackburn.
Dude, if the GOP is in a rush to get through a supreme court nominee it probably has more to do with Trump’s problems than anything else. How are they going to look pushing a supreme court nominee for Trump when Mueller’s obstruction of justice report hits the airwaves?
Nobody knows do they? There have been reports that Mueller is going to drop his report in July. He is apparently doing separate reports with the obstruction of justice to be the first to come.
Absurd but not surprising that a leftist compares some obscure state assemblyman ( that literally no one who does not read daily kos has ever heard of) with members of the US Congress that have been all over the news recently.
But hey, like I said. You guys kept Sarah Huckabee Sanders out of a restaurant. Congrats.
You can watch Trump saying over and over that Nazis are fine people if you want a bigger example.
“I think it is appropriate that now your side is represented in the court of public opinion by Maxine Waters and this 28 year old socialist in the Bronx.”
It’s certain that Fox News will try to make that appear true anyway.
Trump quote?
No, just alpha from upthread. Although your Dear Leader has said something similar so I expect that’s where he got the idea from.
From the Tweeter-in-Chief:
“Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party.”
Of course, Ocasio-Cortez not only has a Hispanic sounding name, but she calls herself a socialist, so that combination will get a certain segment of the population all jittery with fear or excitement, I’m not sure which. Maybe both.