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U.S. Politics: Kraving for Kavanaugh


lokisnow

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2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Yep. This is the scary map:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_legislatures#/media/File:US_state_Legislature_and_Governor_Control.svg

From that map there are precisely SEVEN states under full Dem control. And 16 states that are mixed. Meaning that you would need a total of only 11 more states to flip completely. Is it hard to imagine Montana, New Mexico, Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Maine, Minnesota, Maryland, Alaska all going? It'd then only take Colorado, Nevada, Vermont or Pennsylvania to flip.

That doesn't seem all that unrealistic to me. 

It is scary.

on the other hand, we can have the same goal on our side.

It actually isn’t that hard to imagine, it is just that democrat leadership is not imagining it. It would be hard but it would be a lot smarter than worthless initiatives like the fifty state compact to end run around the electoral college—which will inevitably spark a nullification crisis court case before the Supreme Court and the compact will be struck down on those grounds anyway.

As an aside, There are 7000 state legislature seats and 40 of those seats are not in the two major parties.all the whinging morons that say they dont like either party, well with 7000 chances you should be doing better than that,  what a joke. There are more vacancies than total third party people, wow!

hell a third party shouldn’t even run a presidential candidate unless your party can consistently secure at least 700 state legislative seats.

 

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3 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

It was for quite a few years.  Earl Warren was appointed by Eisenhower.  Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun.  George H. W. Bush appointed Souter.  Justices do not have to be selected for purely partisan reasons.  Hence, I’d love to see a non-partisan commission granted the power to appoint with Senate confirmation.

 

I don't think the Republicans intended to pick non-partisan judges, they were just bad picking reliable ideologues. A political weasel like Nixon wasn't going to make some high-minded judicial choice. All of those judges caused decades of conservative belly-aching about how the right wing didn't get what they thought they were buying. Right wing resentment over Souter's liberal drift, in particular, led to their mania for Supreme Court seats and to seek out the Alitos of the world.

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I'm so proud that 45 has brought so much more respect to the USA, and to the US President, than O'Bummer evah could have.  Those clever Germans are top notch when showing how much they love and admire, our 45.

 

 

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17 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I'm so proud that 45 has brought so much more respect to the USA, and to the US President, than O'Bummer evah could have.  Those clever Germans are top notch when showing how much they love and admire, our 45.

 

 

Surely Trump should be smiling too.

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16 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I'm so proud that 45 has brought so much more respect to the USA, and to the US President, than O'Bummer evah could have.  Those clever Germans are top notch when showing how much they love and admire, our 45.

 

 

A German Carnival where other leaders are satarized as well

http://www.businessinsider.com/duesseldorf-carnival-float-shows-donald-trump-mounted-by-russian-bear-2018-2

And here are some pics of Obama in bed with the Chinese, Clinton molesting Lady Liberty, Obama biting Clinton in the ass

Previous versions had Obama electrocuting Snowden

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/parade-grounds/

Its done in fun. 

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11 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

DON'T PUNISH ME FOR NEEDING TO EMPTY MY BLADDER!

I was fumbling around the post just happened and it was nothing.  Now go pee.         :lol:

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17 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

DON'T PUNISH ME FOR NEEDING TO EMPTY MY BLADDER!

I already pee'd! :tantrum:

Who are you to determine my urinary realities!?! :spank:

Shit, I kinda gotta pee again... Curse my peanut sized bladder!

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OK, first of all:  Judicial activism is a term with no substantive merit.  There's no formal or legal definition to it.  It's made up by politicians - which should be sufficient to convince you it's bullshit - and has no credibility among judicial scholars.  Anyone who uses the term deserves the dunce cap - even more so than bringing up the completely imagined "identity politics."  It's like trying to measure whether athletes in your favorite sport are either "activist" or "restrained."  There's no possible way to agree on the conceptual definition of such.

8 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

If we are going to treat the SCOTUS as a political branch it should be elected.  This is what comes from political tests for a seat on the Court.  I’d almost prefer a seniority system or Justices nominated by a bi-partisan (or even better non-partusan commission.)

I'm fine with Circuit Court judges being elected but not SCOTUS.  The latter would just be throwing gasoline on the fire.  And yes, we should treat SCOTUS as another political branch - that's exactly what it's been since Marbury.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

7 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

It was for quite a few years.  Earl Warren was appointed by Eisenhower.  Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun.  George H. W. Bush appointed Souter.  Justices do not have to be selected for purely partisan reasons.  Hence, I’d love to see a non-partisan commission granted the power to appoint with Senate confirmation.

These are silly examples.  Each appointee was gravely regretted by the appointer.  Acting as if the likes of Earl fucking Warren wasn't political, or even partisan, is an eminently silly notion.  A lot of this effect is simply the GOP has had more opportunities to fail in the past 60 years.  Before Trump, the years in office for presidents from 1960 to 2016 was exactly even between parties - but look at the appointments comparison.

7 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

People who believe in an independent judiciary.  People who want to see politics removed from law.  Hell, I have a few friends who have made it onto the bench I’ve suggested to them if they are ever nominated for a higher bench they should decline to comment on “judicial philosophy” or speculate on how they would rule in a case when they do not have all the facts and legal analysis.  They should simply direct the legislators to their record and let that stand.  Every person nominated should do that.  The BS of people being nominated for particular political beliefs shouldn’t be happening to begin with.  

Judges shouldn’t be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for political purposes.  It is a violation of Judicial canons.

This is simple naivete.  There is no evidence that, say, those appointed via the Missouri plan decide in less partisan ways than justices elected by non-partisan or even partisan elections:

Quote

Bonneau and Hall have collected data as to all elections for state supreme courts in the period 1990 to 2004. (This book is limited to consideration of judicial elections in the context of state supreme courts and does not analyze data with regard to lower court judgeships, many of which are also subject to elections in the various states.) They have also created a statistical model for analyzing the data.

The authors find numerous issues on which quantitative analysis contradicts or undermines some of the principal criticisms of judicial elections by the anti-election reformers. For example, countering various criticisms of the alleged evils of money in judicial elections, the authors show that higher levels of campaign spending demonstrably enhance voter interest as measured by the percentage of voters participating in the judicial election. They further show that retention elections after appointments, where candidates typically run unopposed and are rarely defeated, attract the least interest and often have high levels of “roll-off,” defined as the percentage of voters who vote on at least some contests on the ballot but do not vote in the judicial election. Further, and somewhat surprisingly, they conclude that other things equal, non-partisan judicial elections are actually more costly than partisan elections, a result the authors attribute to the valuable cues given to the voters by partisan labels attached to candidates.

6 hours ago, chiKanery et al. said:

Where would it end though man? This is what I was getting at last week. Say a Democrat adds four. What if the next Republican adds four more? ten more? This has only one logical ending: a judicial kangaroo court of sorts. 

This slippery slope argument would be a lot more convincing if we weren't halfway down the slide already while bruised and battered.  It's like telling Leo not to poke the bear 10 minutes into the bear knocking him around in Revenant.

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

If I thought for a second that Republican leadership would actually want to act in good faith at all, ever, what I would do is basically make a peace treaty with Republicans and agree to the following:

  • Democrats would immediately get two more SCOTUS seats, one of which would be Merrick Garland.
  • Everyone would pass a law to set the number of justices and their retirement based on their appointment time + 18 years or their leaving of their own choice or natural causes. Every POTUS term will have a nomination every 2 years thereafter, and if that seat is left vacant, that's fine. 
  • Everyone would pass a law to reintroduce pork barrel politics and earmarks. 
  • Much of the executive power would be clawed back to congress - specifically tariffs, trade, AUMF, etc.
  • The electoral college would be abolished.

On Bullet 4, there's nothing stopping Congress from this but Congress.  On bullet 2 - how do you actually implement this in reality - seriously?  Whomever is president is going to have an inherent advantage once you commence term limits, and each party will have inherently opposing interests in how you oust current justices (if you do at all).  This is why it's more a fantasy than abolishing the EC.

6 hours ago, Mexal said:

This is a huge deal. Trump just ordered that all Administrative Law Judges are political appointees and can be fired for whatever they want. This includes immigration judges. 

Yeah he's going to find this is much harder than it looks due to the originating statutes endowing such agencies with such powers.  Reorganization EOs are very hard for competent presidents to get through, and only happen when there's significant political will and agreement among the bureaucracy, administration, congressional committees, and interested groups.  Good luck.

5 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

That’s a load of crap.  They aren’t “article III” judges but they sure as hell aren’t “political appointees”.

Exactly.  They're Article 1 judges, which does not make them political appointees in the slightest if anyone in that administration would bother to read.

4 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I don't think the Republicans intended to pick non-partisan judges, they were just bad picking reliable ideologues. A political weasel like Nixon wasn't going to make some high-minded judicial choice. All of those judges caused decades of conservative belly-aching about how the right wing didn't get what they thought they were buying. Right wing resentment over Souter's liberal drift, in particular, led to their mania for Supreme Court seats and to seek out the Alitos of the world.

Yes.  The notion the GOP wasn't politicizing SCOTUS nominations by the time of LBJ is simply ignoring history.  They were just bad at it for awhile.

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26 minutes ago, DMC said:

 

These are silly examples.  Each appointee was gravely regretted by the appointer.  Acting as if the likes of Earl fucking Warren wasn't political, or even partisan, is an eminently silly notion.  A lot of this effect is simply the GOP has had more opportunities to fail in the past 60 years.  Before Trump, the years in office for presidents from 1960 to 2016 was exactly even between parties - but look at the appointments comparison.

 

Interestingly, the last time a Republican senate confirmed a Democratic President's nominee was 1895 when Grover Cleveland nominated Rufus Peckham. But also, no Democratic president since then has needed to nominate with a Republican controlled senate until Obama with Garland. Therefore the only 20th century record of one party rejecting the nomination of a President from the other party is Democrats rejecting Republican nominations: 1 Reagan nomination rejected and 2 Nixon nominations rejected. Though the Dems did confirm 5 Nixon appointees and 

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15 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Interestingly, the last time a Republican senate confirmed a Democratic President's nominee was 1895 when Grover Cleveland nominated Rufus Peckham. But also, no Democratic president since then has needed to nominate with a Republican controlled senate until Obama with Garland. Therefore the only 20th century record of one party rejecting the nomination of a President from the other party is Democrats rejecting Republican nominations: 1 Reagan nomination rejected and 2 Nixon nominations rejected. Though the Dems did confirm 5 Nixon appointees and 

Yeah this is definitely a case of correlation without causation.  Just a coincidence.  Notably, LBJ's last real nominee (Fortas) was defeated on flimsy corruption charges and his replacement (Thornberry) was rendered moot.

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7 hours ago, chiKanery et al. said:

 

Where would it end though man? This is what I was getting at last week. Say a Democrat adds four. What if the next Republican adds four more? ten more? This has only one logical ending: a judicial kangaroo court of sorts. 

This is profoundly dumb and short sighted.

1. If democrats only add two-four justices they are idiots because yes court packing will inevitably provoke escalation, and we want it to escalate quickly.

2. Court packing should be accompanied by the long delayed expansion of the judiacey, creation of new circuits etc. Carter was the last big expansion. Don’t just pack one court pack all of them at once. Again because this provoked escalation and we want it to escalate quickly.

3 so democrats put eight new justices on the Supreme Court, republicans have to respond with at least 16 and democrats have to respond with at least 32, neither side can disarm but there is zero harm either, all you’ve done is dilute the immense power of the individual SC jurists, nothing more, the duties of the court haven’t changed. Shit you probably would get better outcomes with a court of sixty than of nine. Additionally each escalation further de powers individual jurists. If Clinton had court packed and bush had and obama had, would any one care that Scalia, a mere one of the sixty five serving jurists died unexpectedly and had his seat held open? Of course not, because his seat would have a lot less value in terms of how republicans can use it to inflict harm on others.

4. Why do we want escalation? Because eventually the public, the buyers and sellers of high caste members (lobbyists), and the politicians would grow sick of the escalation and arms race and boom you have magical bi partisan consensus to pass a constitutional amendment explicitly defining the judiciary and instituting term limits. 

Without escalation there is no reason for anyone to ever fix it, and my goal is it should be fixed and escalation is the best tool to achieve that goal.

weve got to start somewhere.

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1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

1. [...]

On a personal level, I'd love to see 60 justices on SCOTUS.  Would be incredibly fun to study.  But that's never gonna happen.  I'd say it gets to 20, tops, before there's a detente between the parties on escalation.  As for raising the number of circuit justices, hells yes, long overdue.

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31 minutes ago, DMC said:

OK, first of all:  Judicial activism is a term with no substantive merit.  There's no formal or legal definition to it.  It's made up by politicians - which should be sufficient to convince you it's bullshit - and has no credibility among judicial scholars.  Anyone who uses the term deserves the dunce cap - even more so than bringing up the completely imagined "identity politics."  It's like trying to measure whether athletes in your favorite sport are either "activist" or "restrained."  There's no possible way to agree on the conceptual definition of such.

I think I do recall one of the most ardent advocates of giving legislative mandates the broadest deference possible was Felix Frankfurter, a FDR appointee.

Now call me a cynic, but for some reason, I do not think conservatives really want their preferred judges to follow in his footsteps. If they did, then what are the claims that the ACA violated "religious freedom" about?

In fact, I further recall, Scalia upholding the a statue banning the use of peyote in Native American religious practices and approvingly quoting Frankfurter in that case. Of course perhaps Scalia's opinion might have been different if white christian sorts of people were claiming that their religious liberty was being violated. 

I'd just note though in claiming the ACA's provisions violated religious liberty, conservatives seemingly forgot about Scalia's prior opinion.

Me thinks conservatives like "judicial activism" just fine.

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12 hours ago, lokisnow said:

Win 38 state legislatures and governorships and call a convention and pass seventy or eighty amendments to fix these things (and others).

That’s the easiest route, much easier than trying to amend via congress.

 

 

Is that a process to modify the US constitution though? I understood is was a method to throw away the current constitution and establish a successor state.

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1 hour ago, Selibration Srbija! said:

Is that a process to modify the US constitution though? I understood is was a method to throw away the current constitution and establish a successor state.

Yeah it's a ridiculous thought among some boarders here - that two thirds of state legislatures and/or conventions are going to circumvent Congress' role in proposing amendments based on Article V of the Constitution.  It's an amusing notion, but not realistic.  No substantive amendment is getting passed the 3/4s threshold to be ratified.  Honestly, the closest thing to get that much agreement among states in terms of issues may eventually be weed.

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1 hour ago, Selibration Srbija! said:

Is that a process to modify the US constitution though? I understood is was a method to throw away the current constitution and establish a successor state.

It could be what you describe, but it is also a method to simply amend the US Constitution.  It has never been used.

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