Terrible news...Justice Scalia found dead

[The Guesser]

Ben Carson admits the truth about GOP’s Scalia hypocrisy: Republicans would not wait to pick their own SCOTUS replacement

But, Carson argues, GOP hypocrisy is doing America a solid by saving us from another Obama "ideologue" VIDEO

SOPHIA TESFAYE Follow[URL="http://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/ben_carson_admits_the_truth_about_gops_scalia_hypocrisy_republicans_would_not_wait_to_pick_their_own_scotus_replacement/"]S
[/URL]
Ben Carson

(Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik)​

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing this weekend may come to be remembered as the day Republicans officially gave up any veneer of respectability and threw out even the slightest modicum of decorum in their blisteringly fast rush to politicize the conservative jurists’ replacement process.


Hours after Scalia’s death was announced, Ben Carson joined with fellow Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in calling on Congress to block the Supreme Court vacancy from being filled.
“It is imperative that the Senate not allow President Obama to diminish his legacy by trying to nominate an individual who would carry on his wishes to subvert the will of the People,” Carson wrote in a statement, before even expressing his condolences for Scalia’s family.
During Saturday’s Republican debate in South Carolina, every single candidate indicated that they preferred that the highest court in the nation not be fully staffed rather than allow President Obama, who still has a year left in his term, to fulfill his constitutional obligation.


Asked if Carson and his cohort were perhaps being hypocritical their opposition to Obama naming Scalia’s replacement, Carson was remarkably honest about what animates the Republicans’ rush to fight. “Do you think the same six people on stage would say the same thing if there were a Republican president in the White House right now — for them to wait until the next president is selected?” a South Carolina radio host asked Carson on Tuesday.
Without skipping a beat, Carson replied openly: “No, they wouldn’t.”
But Republican obstruction and hypocrisy are appropriate in this instance, Carson explained, because “the two picks that the president has selected are ideologues. So there’s really no reason to believe that his next pick wouldn’t be an ideologue also.”
Carson went on to argue that the nation’s highest court has become a “political tool” and suggested lifetime appointments be reexamined.
Listen to Carson letting the truth on GOP hypocrisy and obstruction slip, viaBuzzfeed:

 

[superbeets]

[h=2]Mark Tran reports on general news. He was previously a reporter on the Guardian's Global development site (June 2011-March 2014). Before that, he worked as a correspondent for the Guardian in Washington (1984-90) and New York (1990-99).


What is the Thurmond rule?[/h]

It is more of convention than a rule. In the summer of 1968, Strom Thurmond, a staunchly conservative Republican from South Carolina, opposed President Lyndon Johnson’s choice of Abe Fortas for the top position of chief justice of the court.
Thurmond argued that Johnson was a lame duck as he was not running for re-election and should leave it to his successor to make a decision that had such profound implications. Fortas never got the promotion and opposition to judicial nominations in the summer before an election year became known as the Thurmond Rule.
But it’s only February, and the Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, has argued that an entire year without considering Obama’s nomination to replace Scalia is unprecedented. In fact, it is not. In 1969, a vacancy as associate justice left by the resignation of the same Abe Fortas, was unfilled for 363 days after the Senate opposed two of President Richard Nixon’s nominees.

 

[superbeets]

Mark Tran reports on general news. He was previously a reporter on the Guardian's Global development site (June 2011-March 2014). Before that, he worked as a correspondent for the Guardian in Washington (1984-90) and New York (1990-99).

[h=2]Can Obama push through a nomination in his last year?[/h]

He says he can. “I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor in due time,” he said in a statement on Saturday. “There will be plenty of time for me to do so and for the Senate to fulfill its responsibility to give that person a fair hearing and a timely vote.”
Quick out of the blocks, however, was the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who said the next president should be the one to nominate a replacement to a court now left evenly balanced between four liberal and four conservative justices.
McConnell is likely to point to the so-called “Thurmond rule” as precedent for his attempt to block confirmation.

 

[superbeets]

Mark Tran reports on general news. He was previously a reporter on the Guardian's Global development site (June 2011-March 2014). Before that, he worked as a correspondent for the Guardian in Washington (1984-90) and New York (1990-99).


[h=2]Who is likely to prevail?[/h]

“What is less than zero?” asked the communications director for Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee on Twitter. “The chances of Obama successfully appointing a Supreme Court Justice to replace Scalia?”
This is going to come down to numbers in the Senate, which has the role of approving the president’s nomination. Obama’s choice must pass with at least 60 of the 100 senate votes, so he will need the support of all 46 members of the Democratic caucus and at least 14 Republicans to successfully appoint Scalia’s successor. In his previous supreme court nominations, just nine Republicans voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor and four voted to confirm Elena Kagan.
Regardless of what happens over Scalia’s successor, the next president is likely to be able to profoundly reshape the court – Scalia was one of four of the nine justices who are over 75 years old. Whether liberal or conservative, the next president will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remake the precariously balanced supreme court in their image.

 

[superbeets]

Mark Tran reports on general news. He was previously a reporter on the Guardian's Global development site (June 2011-March 2014). Before that, he worked as a correspondent for the Guardian in Washington (1984-90) and New York (1990-99).


What happens if there is deadlock on current issues?



The court faces contentious issues in its term ending in June: abortion, affirmative action, contraception and the president’s powers on climate change and on immigration and deportation. The president’s unilateral move to allow millions of undocumented migrants to avoid deportation was first challenged by a Texas court and upheld by a federal appeals court, whose ruling will stand if the supreme court cannot decide one way or another. A deadlocked court could leave other appeals decisions in place without setting a precedent.

 

[superbeets]

Mark Tran reports on general news. He was previously a reporter on the Guardian's Global development site (June 2011-March 2014). Before that, he worked as a correspondent for the Guardian in Washington (1984-90) and New York (1990-99).


Who is Obama likely to put forward?



Contenders include Sri Srinivasan, a 48-year-old Indian American on the District of Columbia circuit. One of his most high-profile cases was the defence of Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron executive, in his appearance before the supreme court in Skilling v United States. Another is Jacqueline Nguyen, 51, a judge on the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit. She was nominated by Obama and confirmed in May 2012. Nguyen fled to the US with her family after the fall of South Vietnam. Loretta Lynch, 56, currently serving as the first African American female attorney general, is another possible nominee. As the top federal prosecutor in the eastern district of New York, she led the pursuit of Fifa over the corruption allegations which have rocked world soccer.

 

[The Guesser]

FEBRUARY 13, 2016
Unpresidented? 24 Supreme Court Nominations Have Happened in the Last 10 Months of a PresidencyNote: After two years of analyzing NYC data over at I Quant NY, and in preparation for a book I am working on with Riverhead, I’ve decided to broaden some of my posts to include a more national focus. In New York City, my little data blog combined with the power of Open Data has led to a talk on TED, some changes in how New Yorkers pay for cabs, a new button on subway vending machines and therepainting of streets. I hope to have some fun learning from data at the national level too!
With the passing of Justice Scalia, Mitch McConnell has suggested that President Obama should refrain from appointing a nominee.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,”

​

This got me wondering about the historical precedent here. Where in each President’s term did a Supreme Court nomination take place? To find out, I compiled the submission dates to Congress for each Supreme Court nominee and joined it to the next inauguration date. From there, I could see how many weeks there were between that nomination and the inauguration.
The findings? It turns out that about 18% of nominees happened later in a President’s term than where Obama currently is in his term:

If we limit the analysis only to Presidents that would not go on to be reelected, we can see 24 nominations (or 15% of all nominations in U.S. history) that were made later than where Obama is in his term, resulting in 8 serving Supreme Court justices. This includes Justice John Marshall, who went on to be the longest running Chief Justice to date. He was nominated 43 days before the end of John Adam’s presidency.

With about 11 months to go before the next inauguration, I looked at all nominees and how long they were under consideration by the Senate.

Only one nominee was considered for more than four months, so a delay of more than 5 months would be unprecedented.
Nobody knows what the next eleven months will bring. But I bet I can name at least eight prior Supreme Court Justices that would likely disagree with Mitch McConnell’s views on the nomination process.

 

[superbeets]

Schumer, McConnell or Leahy:

Who flip-flopped the most on election-year Supreme Court nominees?

Aaron Blake

Reporter — Washington, D.C.





Ever since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared Saturday that the Senate shouldn't consider a replacement for the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia until a new president is sworn in, there has been lots of foul-crying.
Democrats cry foul because the GOP is conveniently shutting the door to any President Obama nominee with 11 months still left in his presidency. And Republicans cry foul because they see hypocrisy, given these same Democrats, in a previous administration (read: a Republican one), appeared to take a position much closer to the one the GOP is taking.
As with all things political -- and especially dealing with arcane things like the "Thurmond Rule" -- there are plenty of shades of gray here.


But so far, the allegations of hypocrisy center on three men. Let's break down their comments -- then and now -- and decide how egregiously different they are.

 

[superbeets]

Senate Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)



Sunday on ABC's "This Week": "Ted Cruz holds the Constitution, you know, when he walks through the halls of Congress. Let him show me the clause that says president's only president for three years. ... When you go right off the bat and say, 'I don't care who he nominates, I am going to oppose him,' that's not going to fly."



July 2007: "We should reverse the presumption of confirmation [for justices]. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice [John Paul] Stevens replaced by another [John] Roberts, or Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg by another [Samuel] Alito. Given the track record of this president and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court, at least, I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances. They must prove by actions — not words — that they are in the mainstream, rather than the Senate proving that they are not."



The verdict: This second comment sure sounds a lot like Schumer throwing a blanket over basically any George W. Bush Supreme Court nominee with 18 months to go in his presidency. Coming from a guy who now says it's "not going to fly" that Republicans will oppose whoever Obama nominates, that's not exactly a helpful comment.

After the 2007 remarks were circulated over the weekend, Schumer took to Medium to defend himself:

There was no hint anywhere in the speech that there shouldn’t be hearings or a vote. Only that if after hearings and a vote, Democrats determined that the nominee was out of the mainstream and trying to hide it, they should have no qualms about voting no. Nor was there any hint that this idea that Democrats should oppose hard right ideologues should apply only in the fourth year of the president’s term. In fact, I said it should apply to this president, George W. Bush, or any future president whenever they nominated such a candidate.

​

Here's my problem with this defense: Schumer may not have been talking in 2007 about the Thurmond Rule, but he was making a very political argument about the balance of the court -- one that Republicans are basically making today. He also advocated for a substantial change in how justices are confirmed -- "We should reverse the presumption of confirmation" -- and said the onus should be on the nominees to prove they were in the mainstream, not on the Senate to prove otherwise. He is also saying there should be no confirmation "except in extraordinary circumstances."
Schumer might not have been ruling out the Senate taking up any nominees, but he was raising the bar so high that basically no nominee would likely qualify. His comments seem to be basically a politically savvier and slightly watered-down version of what McConnell was saying -- or should have said -- on Saturday.

 

[superbeets]

McConnell


Saturday night statement: “The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”


July 2008: "Now, our Democratic colleagues continually talk about the so-called Thurmond Rule, under which the Senate supposedly stops confirming judges in a presidential election year. I am concerned that this seeming obsession with this supposed rule -- which, by the way, doesn't exist; Senator [Arlen] Specter has researched that thoroughly and there is no such rule. Anyway, I am concerned that this seeming obsession with this rule that doesn't exist is just an excuse for our colleagues to run out the clock on qualified nominees who are urgently needed to fill vacancies."


The verdict: We'll note here that McConnell's 2008 comments were not in regards to a Supreme Court vacancy, but rather a U.S. Circuit Court judge. McConnell also hasn't framed his 2016 opposition to Obama filling the Scalia vacancy as a Thurmond Rule thing, per se.
But McConnell accuses Democrats of wanting to "run out the clock on qualified nominees who are urgently needed to fill vacancies" -- which sounds a lot like what Republicans could soon be doing with the Supreme Court. It's also clear that McConnell was okay with confirming judges in a presidential election year eight years ago -- something that he's not okay with this time around, when it's the Supreme Court.
If McConnell starts invoking the Thurmond Rule, then it's a more-obvious flip-flop. For now, it's more along the lines of a pretty naked political maneuver.

 

[superbeets]

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee
Monday on CNN's "State of the Union": "Well, there is no such thing as a ‘Thurmond Rule.’ I used to tease the Republicans about it. ... The fact of the matter is, a Supreme Court justice -- let's have a vote. Let's have a debate."



December 2006: "The Thurmond Rule, in memory of Strom Thurmond – he put this in when the Republicans were in the minority, which said that in a presidential election year, after spring, no judges would go through except by the consent of both the Republican and Democratic [leaders]. I want to be bipartisan. We will institute the Thurmond Rule, yes.”

November 2004: "Whether [Republicans] acknowledge it as the Thurmond Rule or something else, it is a well-established practice that in presidential election years, there comes a point when judicial confirmation hearings are not continued without agreement."


July 2004: "At this point in a presidential election year, in accordance with the Thurmond Rule, only consensus nominees being taken up with the approval of the majority and minority leaders and the chairman and ranking members of the Judiciary Committee should be considered."


The verdict: Of the three here, Leahy's statements are the most clearly contradictory. He has repeatedly talked about abiding by the Thurmond Rule and/or the spirit of it. Now, we basically says it doesn't exist.
At the same time, Leahy in the mid-2000s basically argued that the Thurmond Rule didn't kick in until "after spring," and he said in July 2014 that the clock had begun ticking on it. That's not incongruent with what he's saying today. Rather than pretend he hasn't advocated for the Thurmond Rule before, he should probably stick to this argument instead.

 

[superbeets]

FEBRUARY 13, 2016
Unpresidented? 24 Supreme Court Nominations Have Happened in the Last 10 Months of a PresidencyNote: After two years of analyzing NYC data over at I Quant NY, and in preparation for a book I am working on with Riverhead, I’ve decided to broaden some of my posts to include a more national focus. In New York City, my little data blog combined with the power of Open Data has led to a talk on TED, some changes in how New Yorkers pay for cabs, a new button on subway vending machines and therepainting of streets. I hope to have some fun learning from data at the national level too!
With the passing of Justice Scalia, Mitch McConnell has suggested that President Obama should refrain from appointing a nominee.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,”

​

This got me wondering about the historical precedent here. Where in each President’s term did a Supreme Court nomination take place? To find out, I compiled the submission dates to Congress for each Supreme Court nominee and joined it to the next inauguration date. From there, I could see how many weeks there were between that nomination and the inauguration.
The findings? It turns out that about 18% of nominees happened later in a President’s term than where Obama currently is in his term:

If we limit the analysis only to Presidents that would not go on to be reelected, we can see 24 nominations (or 15% of all nominations in U.S. history) that were made later than where Obama is in his term, resulting in 8 serving Supreme Court justices. This includes Justice John Marshall, who went on to be the longest running Chief Justice to date. He was nominated 43 days before the end of John Adam’s presidency.

With about 11 months to go before the next inauguration, I looked at all nominees and how long they were under consideration by the Senate.

Only one nominee was considered for more than four months, so a delay of more than 5 months would be unprecedented.
Nobody knows what the next eleven months will bring. But I bet I can name at least eight prior Supreme Court Justices that would likely disagree with Mitch McConnell’s views on the nomination process.

Get a grip

22 IN THE 1800'S 19TH CENTURY
This includes Justice John Marshall, who went on to be the longest running Chief Justice to date ((1801–1835))

2 IN THE 1900'S 20TH CENTURY

0 IN THE 21ST CENTURY.


Remember

The Guesser12-08-2015, 05:37 AM

"We are living through Germany late 1920's. "


Now we have Guesser living in the 1800's

 

[The Guesser]

The Daily 202: Why blocking Obama’s pick to replace Scalia could cost Republicans their Senate majority

Saved to Reading List​

By James Hohmann February 15

President Obama ordered flags to fly at half-staff across the United States until Antonin Scalia, the longest-serving justice on the current court, is laid to rest. (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)​

THE BIG IDEA:
Mitch McConnell has decided to wager the Republican majority in the Senate on blocking Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court.
It’s a bold and understandable gambit designed to prevent a leftward lurch in jurisprudence after Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death this weekend, but it could backfire badly.
Assuming the president picks a Hispanic, African American or Asian American – bonus points if she’s a woman – this could be exactly what Democrats need to re-activate the Obama coalition that fueled his victories in 2008 and 2012. Even if he does not go with a minority candidate, the cases on the docket will galvanize voters who are traditionally less likely to turn out.
[Get your campaign fix delivered directly to your email inbox with The Daily 202]
Last night in Las Vegas, for example, Hillary Clinton said it would be nakedly partisan and unconscionable if Republicans don’t give a hearing to the president’s nominee. And she emphasized the immigration case that the justices recently agreed to hear. “Because of his passing, there will be most likely a tie, four to four, on important issues that affect so many people in our country,” the Democratic front-runner said. “And the most important is the decision about President Obama’s actions under DACA and DAPA. If there is no new justice appointed, then as with other cases before the court, the decision that was decided will stay in place. And that was a bad decision.”
Keep in mind that a quarter of Nevada’s population is Hispanic. Beyond being a battleground in the presidential race, there is also an open Senate race to succeed Harry Reid. Democrats will nominate a Latina and Republicans will nominate a white guy who is already in Congress.
Or take abortion rights. Marco Rubio is against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. For women, the prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned just became much more real. “When I’m president of the United States, I’ll nominate someone like Justice Scalia,” the Florida senator declared on the Sunday shows.
And environmentalists just this month saw the court put a stay on Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The next justice will be the swing vote who determines the future of coal in the United States. Though these sorts of cases mean that business interests will pour more money than ever into 2016 races, it could also help Democrats attract crucial suburban women who might lean to the right but worry about global warming.
More broadly, this could also undermine efforts by Senate Republicans to show that they are capable of governing and not just “the party of no.” Make no mistake: The upper chamber will grind to a standstill if the GOP follows through on this threat. Democrats who are inclined to work with them promise to stop doing so if Republicans play hardball.

McConnell (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)​

-- Ultimately, though, there is not really anything Democrats can do procedurally to force Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley to hold a hearing on Obama’s nominee. The only lever they have is public pressure.
The most potent pressure points are the seven GOP incumbents who are up for reelection this year in states Obama carried in 2012. New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson publicly came out in favor of obstruction yesterday. The others are holding their cards close to the vest for right now: Ohio’s Rob Portman praised Scalia but would not address the core issue. Spokesmen for Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey declined to comment and Illinois’ Mark Kirk ignored inquiries, per CNN.
Pay particularly close attention to Portman, who is already vulnerable and could be wiped out if African Americans make up the same percentage of the electorate in 2016 as they did in 2012.They are likelier to vote if they believe he is disrespecting the first black president.
“I intend to continue to talk about this until the polls close,” former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, the Democratic candidate against Portman, told my colleague Paul Kane yesterday. “Senator Portman, who has your allegiance, your country or your party leaders? … The people have spoken, on two occasions,” he added, referring to Obama’s 2008 and 2012 victories.

Joe Biden and Ted Strickland at a Dairy Queen in 2012 in Nelsonville, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)​

-- Conventional wisdom is that whichever party wins the White House in November will control the Senate. That’s obviously the primary factor, but we’re not convinced it will be determinative.Democrats need to pick up four seats to win the Senate, and it’s conceivable they could get those from states that Clinton would probably carry even if she loses the Electoral College. In 2014, it’s worth recalling, Democrats lost each of the seven seats they had to defend in states Mitt Romney had carried two years earlier.
And remember that this won’t be happening in a vacuum: If Obama knows for sure that his pick is not going to get formally considered, he can go with someone who gives his party maximum political leverage to bludgeon these Republican incumbents.Monica Márquez is the first Latina and first openly gay justice on the Supreme Court in Colorado, which will again be a crucial swing state. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is an African American woman. Lucy Koh is the first Asian American district judge in the Northern District of California. He could also go with someone who was previously confirmed unanimously by the Senate to give additional rhetorical heft to his attacks that Republicans are being hypocrites.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch (Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)​

-- What’s the Republican political calculus? Blocking judges historically motivates their base – including donors and the U.S. Chamber – more than it does liberals. And they don’t think independents will really care all that much. It will just sound like more Washington noise. McConnell, not a favorite of the grassroots, also needs to keep his own base ginned up. Amidst a presidential primary, it is untenable for Republicans to look like rubber stamps for Obama.
Chris Christie offers a cautionary tale for GOP members. His bubble in New Hampshire was punctured when opponents began attacking him for offering support of Sonia Sotomayor while he was running for governor of New Jersey in 2008. Christie denied making comments he had made. Allies and rivals agree that the Sotomayor hit was a turning point for his campaign. Republicans who fear primary challenges, such as Alabama’s Richard Shelby, are never going to back any Obama nominee.
Most smart Republicans in D.C. still believe either Trump or Cruz would lose a general election. Their hope is that a Supreme Court vacancy might help galvanize conservative volunteers to go do work for endangered Senate incumbents.

Harry Reid (File)​

-- To be sure, not every Democrat has a clean nose on this: Harry Reid shortsightedly invoked the nuclear option in 2013, which allows non-Supreme court judges to be approved by a simple majority. This incensed Republicans and only accelerated the upper chamber’s decline to be more like the unruly House.
Lindsey Graham, one of just two current GOP senators who voted to confirm Elena Kagan during Obama’s first term, tells The Post that Reid poisoned the well by going nuclear. “I voted for every Supreme Court justice nominated by Bush and Obama. I believe the Senate should be deferential to qualified picks,” the South Carolina senator said. “But I did tell Harry Reid and the president that the consequence of changing the rules in the Senate to pack the court will come back to haunt them.”
George F. Will also zeroes in on Reid’s use of the nuclear option in his column today, which he describes as “institutional vandalism.”He frames the battle this way: “Scalia’s death will enkindle a debate missing from this year’s presidential campaign, a debate discomfiting for some conservatives: Do they want a passive court that is deferential to legislative majorities and to presidents who claim untrammeled powers deriving from national majorities? Or do they want a court actively engaged in defending liberty’s borders against unjustified encroachments by majorities?”
-- The big question right now: Will there even be a confirmation hearing?
McConnell’s Saturday night statement declaring that the vacancy should be filled by the next president did not rule out the possibility of a confirmation hearing or floor time to consider whoever the president picks.
That might be the more politically astute play, since Republicans could slow walk the vetting, trickle out negative revelations about the nominee to right-wing media outlets and then ultimately vote to reject the nominee.
Having hearings could give some cover to purple state Republicans to say they are doing their jobs. “If the Republican leadership refuses to even hold a hearing, I think that is going to guarantee they're going to lose control of the Senate," said Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Plus, even if Obama’s pick gets past the Judiciary Committee, they will be hard pressed to get confirmed by the full Senate. Fourteen Republicans would need to come out against Cruz’s promised filibuster. During Obama’s first term, when Democrats held a near super-majority, only nine Republicans voted for Sotomayor and five voted for Kagan.
Given that the Senate is on a President’s Day recess, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Obama will not rush out an announcement this week. This gives both sides a few days to poll and focus group their options.
A former top adviser to the president says the GOP could have been savvier:
-- Another wildcard: How will the press cover this? One of the mainstream media’s problems is a really short attention span. What is unknowable today is whether this vacancy is a two-week story, a two-month story or a 10-month story? Also, is the narrative that Republicans are creating an unprecedented Constitutional crisis? Or is it played as a boring he-said, he-said storyline?
Democrats note that Obama still has the bully pulpit, so he can come up with creative ways to drive news coverage about the GOP’s failure to bring his nominee up for a vote. The party can also use paid media to target the vulnerable Republican incumbents.
-- For both sides, it really is difficult to overstate the stakes: Scalia left an indelible mark on both the court and our country for nearly three decades, and his replacement could do the same. Ironically, if Clinton wins and Democrats retake the Senate after McConnell spends the year taking heat, she will have a mandate to put the most progressive justice imaginable on the bench. And Republicans will have no real grounds to oppose her. For McConnell, right now, that’s a risk worth taking.

 

[superbeets]

Barack Obama is terribly, appallingly, despicably divisive.


He is absolutely thriving on the oxygen that the Scalia division affords him.

 

[superbeets]

"We have not seen such a divisive figure in modern American history" as Barack Obama, Marco Rubio said in 2012.


2016 "This president has been the single most divisive political figure this country has had over the last decade."


After Obama's recent State of the Union address, Ted Cruz fumed, "He lectures us on civility yet has been one of the most divisive presidents in American history."

“There probably has not been a more racially-divisive, economic-divisive, president in the White House since we had presidents who supported slavery,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)

 

[Willie99]

Mark Tran reports on general news. He was previously a reporter on the Guardian's Global development site (June 2011-March 2014). Before that, he worked as a correspondent for the Guardian in Washington (1984-90) and New York (1990-99).


Who is Obama likely to put forward?



Contenders include Sri Srinivasan, a 48-year-old Indian American on the District of Columbia circuit. One of his most high-profile cases was the defence of Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron executive, in his appearance before the supreme court in Skilling v United States. Another is Jacqueline Nguyen, 51, a judge on the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit. She was nominated by Obama and confirmed in May 2012. Nguyen fled to the US with her family after the fall of South Vietnam. Loretta Lynch, 56, currently serving as the first African American female attorney general, is another possible nominee. As the top federal prosecutor in the eastern district of New York, she led the pursuit of Fifa over the corruption allegations which have rocked world soccer.

who will he nominate?

1) A Muslim
2) A transvestite
3) A gender changer
4) A rapper
5) a community organizer

you know it's going to be some village idiot

whoever it is, the reasoning will be pure idiocy, he's known as "the least prepared man in the room" for a reason, he earned it

 

[Willie99]

speaks for itself, 16-8

game set match

I'll wager if anyone went out 18 months and did a similar study, with 18 months being the time frame Barry, Harry and Chucky said was too short, they results would look a little different

than again, libtards have no use for facts

 

[Willie99]

LBJ owned the Senate 62-38 when his nominees were rejected

 

[Willie99]

Did you know?

since 1900, only Republican nominees for the SC were rejected or withdrawn save for 2 LBJ nominees one month before the election. And LBJ owned a 62-38 advantage in the Senate

every democratic nominee with a Republican Senate was confirmed, every one.

One party lives by the constitution, one party ignores it save for the few moments in history they need it

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/nominations/Nominations.htm

 

[Acebb]

Look at the Republican Hypocrisy!!!

Look at it!!!

Guesser is so fucking dumb it is comical.