Since Democrats have turned the Supreme Court into a political institution, and we want it to be a legal institution, why should we pretend to entertain President Obama’s nominee? If he blows us away by choosing someone in the Scalia mode, we can deal with it when and if the time comes (which it won’t). Otherwise, let’s be real: The president will not endeavor to improve the quality of legal acumen on the bench; he is looking for someone who will vote the “right” way (meaning, the left way) on restrictions on guns, abortion, speech, campaign spending, work, and property rights; on “climate change”; on the primacy of international agreements over constitutional rights and limits; on the rights of aliens and criminals; on redistribution of wealth; etc. Since we agree with neither these political positions nor the overarching politicization of the courts at the expense of popular sovereignty, why on earth would we enable the president to stack the court with another vote? Particularly when nothing in the Constitution requires it — just as nothing in the Constitution says there must be nine members of the Supreme Court? Republicans are in a position of strength. Obama must come to them; they need not do anything. More than half the country disapproves of Obama’s governance, yet his goal here is to put an ideological fellow traveler on the court who would perpetuate his governance after he is gone. Why would Republicans ever agree to that? We will have an election in November. Even before Justice Scalia’s tragic passing, it was clear that the direction of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary was going to be a crucial issue. A vacancy on the Supreme Court only sharpens it, paving the way for the Republican nominee to make the case to voters that the GOP will find judges who will respect the right of the people to govern themselves, while the Democratic nominee will use the courts as an instrument to impose the Left’s unpopular policy preferences. Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431452/antonin-scalia-replacement-senate
Why not let Obama put forth his choice and then make the argument that he has primarily made a political choice as they vote it down? That to me seems the best way to approach this issue. No way in hell he puts someone up for a vote that is anything near conservative, so what's to risk?
I hardly ever come here these days, but it's nice to see the pathologically-lying, fact-twisting, blithering, blathering Piehole is still here. Nearly 8,000 posts...really? If this clown were as smart or talented as he thought, he'd be doing something better with his time. But alas, he's never made a dime outside of the government/academia, so he unsuccessfully tries to get a cult following here. Sad, funny and warped all at once. The Walter Mitty of ET, living his imaginary life of a scholar, trader and would-be witty political analyst here...where he meets the sound of one hand clapping.
It's perfectly logical. If you start a pac and have control over what it is going to sell, it cannot be considered anything but speech. If you give money to the rnc, who knows what they're going to do with the money and it sure isn't them speaking for me. (assuming i gave any money to those twerps) peezo just doesn't like it because it whittles away at the democrats advantage of having the nightly news shill for his party without competition.
It is interesting to see the left flipping out over this when they setup the rules that actually allow McConnell to simply refuse to schedule a vote. It comes down to one guy and he sounds, for the moment, pretty damned resolute. All he has to do is ignore all the yammering and simply refuse to schedule a vote. It really is that simple. The democrats don't like their own rules and precedents being used against them. lol. We won the Senate majority. Get over it. Man I've been waiting awhile to say that.
You and I might discuss this further. I would like to read the dissents in Citizens and Buckley first however. There has been a few cracks in the armor. Breyer, for one, has let it slip that the Court may have made a mistake. [Breyer is a personal hero of mine because in his dissent in Bush v. Gore he had it exactly right. The Constitution spells out specifically what is to happen if an election is contested and no one is sure who one. Breyer said the Court should have never taken the case! ] However awkward or difficult it may be for Congress to resolve difficult electoral disputes, Congress, being a political body, expresses the people's will far more accurately than does an unelected Court. And the people's will is what elections are about. . . . [Public confidence] is a vitally necessary ingredient of any successful effort to protect basic liberty and, indeed, the rule of law itself. . . . [W]e do risk a self-inflicted wound—a wound that may harm not just the Court, but the Nation. -- Stephen Breyer in his dissent in Bush v. Gore. Scalia, Ginsberg, Breyer -- all brilliant jurists.