Kennedy to retire - USSC will swing even further right

what do you make of the first two points:

 

You seem to believe left wing opinion pieces... you do know the difference between opinion articles and news reporting articles?

 

Again, it was the white house making the call, not the justice department. There was nothing in those 100k pages that would be a threat to national security or any criminal investigation going on currently. So he is wrong there on number 1.

And on number 2, again this has never been done before and I seriously doubt the intent of that law was to prevent Congress from seeing the full dirt on a SCOTUS nominee. This is not the case that was intended, so number 2 is b.s. as well.

The reality is that Trump doesn't want dirt on his pick being aired in front of congress. Nothing controversial, and therefore they are hiding it. That's what is going on here. Plain and simple. Good job of the National Review to try to spin that into something else.

 

fair enough

 

there does seem to be some confusion in the reporting over exactly which president is invoking executive privilege. The Washington Post reports:

"The Presidential Records Act allows both the former administration and the current White House to claim privilege on presidential documents. A White House spokesman, Raj Shah, said Saturday that he will let the letter, first reported by the Associated Press, speak for itself. Trump has not officially invoked executive privilege over the documents."
​

further explaining the role of Bush's lawyers in heading up the review as well as the consultative role played by the Justice Department:

"A Bush representative who has led a team of attorneys reviewing Kavanaugh’s papers confirmed that lawyers have finished going through the records and have turned over about 415,000 pages to the committee, although about 147,000 of those pages are being withheld from public view.

“ 'President Bush directed us to proceed expeditiously and to err as much as appropriate on the side of transparency and disclosure, and we believe we have done so,' attorney Bill Burck, who serves as Bush’s presidential records representative, wrote to the committee.

"Burck said in the letter that 101,921 pages are not being given to the committee because the White House considers them to be protected by presidential privilege and, after discussions with the Justice Department, has directed that we not provide these documents for this reason.' ”
​

Granted, the overlap between Trump's interests and Bush's interests in the matter do, well, overlap, on the other hand I'm not sure it's entirely accurate to say that "Trump doesn't want dirt on his pick being aired in front of congress."

And unless YOU know exactly what's in those 100,000 pages, I'm not sure you're in a position to guess what either Bush's or Trump's motives are. This is not to say that your hunch may not be 100% correct . . . but I don't see how this is going against either the Presidential Records Act or Executive Order 13489, for which we can thank Obama. Thanks Obama.

 

No, its definitely not, cos while they did not confirm Borking (almost certainly cos he was too conservative) they still confirmed Reagan's replacement nominee in Kennedy, who was more moderate in thought. For me, that is closer to how the system should work, with both sides giving concessions.

I believe the supreme court is better served by have more moderates who can rule either way depending on the facts and arguments, than a bunch of extreme or radical ideologist who often seem to have a predetermined ruling, independent of the actual details of the case.

What the GOP did by outright declaring they wont hold a hearing for any nomination by Obama, likely leading to more extremists being appointed to the supreme court in the future, was heavily damaging to the system and if we are not careful will be remembered as the beginning of the end of American democracy as we know it.

 

You say that, but if Obama had nominated a justice that would have been acceptable to the majority in the senate, they'd have pushed forward. Essentially Garland was an unacceptable nomination to the majority, so they didn't even waste the time going through the process. Obama absolutely could have withdrawn the nomination and picked someone else, instead, he stuck with his guy and that's why Gorsuch is on the bench instead.

You say that as if they weren't on the other side just a few years ago....While in office, Obama put 2 of the 3 most left leaning justices on the bench, arguably the 2 most left leaning. The reason why the Republicans were so happy to not let him get yet another pick was because they knew the kind of justices he nominates. He was never going to nominate a justice that would be acceptable to a Republican controlled Senate, he just doesn't have it in him.

A 60% requirement would lead to many years of a partially filled bench because only the most moderate justices would have any hope of being confirmed. Justices like Sotomayor or Kagan wouldn't have been confirmed.

I think you support this in the short term so that you can block Trump justices but you'd hate it if the shoe was on the other foot.

 

I know we live in a post-factual world and this runs counter to the propaganda you are pushing but the "precedent" was set in 1828 and your predictions weren't true. I'm sure Trump Derangement Syndrome has you believing that every situation that you don't agree with is "unprecedented", but that's simply not the case most of the time.

 

So other than being nominated by Trump what do you guys not like about Kavanaugh? The abortion issue seems to be relatively settled in his opinion. So what else is it about him that isn’t preferable judicially?

 

Why do you keep repeating this lie? The republicans, under the guise of letting the people decide the direction of the supreme court, were clear that they would not consider ANY nominee by Obama. It was clearly stated in their letter to McConnell which stated (and I quote verbatim)

" Accordingly, given the particular circumstances under which this vacancy arises, we wish to inform you of our intention to exercise our constitutional authority to withhold consent on any nominee to the Supreme Court submitted by this President to fill Justice Scalia's vacancy. Because our decision is based on constitutional principle and born of a necessity to protect the will of the American peoople, this committee will not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until after our next president is sworn in on January 20, 2017."

I have linked to a copy of the actual letter sent to McConnell https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2719115/Senate-SCOTUS-Letter.pdf

So it was never about Garland, who Orrin hatch had previously said if nominated, he would be a “consensus nominee” and that there was “no question” he would be confirmed.

The hypocrisy of the GOP is more evident in that the same group of people are now trying to rush a confirmation when the time frame is even closer to the elections. It was never about the will of the american people but trying to push their own conservative interests into the supreme court by any means.

So please stop with lies as it does nothing for the discussion, unless your intention is to distort fact and cause divisions.

As quoted above, Orrin Hatch was a strong supporter of Garland until Garland was actually nominated. Which is not surprising, given it is a common modus operandi for the GOP to say one thing when in the minority and do something else when in power.

If the same branch controls the senate and whitehouse, I have no problem with them getting their extremists into the supreme court if the opportunity arose, but when the other party is in control of the senate, I expect them to only approve a moderate nominee. That way we dont have a supreme court filled with extremists on either side (which is where we are likely heading)

But then you are wrong. I really have nothing against Trump in this case (except for the possibility that he maybe hiding Kavanaughs skeletons) and he is well within his rights to nominate whoever he wants to how many Supreme Court vacancies appear naturally during his term.

My issue is with the Senate GOP and the precedent the set and their failure to take any steps to rectify it.

I am never for extremes in anything and like I said, I really dont see the point of a judge whose ruling can be predetermined by even a toddler. Extremism (on either side) only causes divisions. That being said, I do think there is a need to always have 2 extremists (with one on either side) on the court so that the voice of the opposition is never muted.

 

@biina , I agree with much of what you say here, including your copying the letter sent to McConnell.

I do love, however, that that letter quotes Harry Reid on the constitutional question:

“As Minority Leader Harry Reid observed in 2005, ‘The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give the Presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.’ “​

Again, I come back to the fact that much of this is just so much political gamesmanship. It has been played by both sides for many many years, and right now the Democratic party finds itself on the (likely) losing side of the equation. As the political pendulum shifts, the Democratic party will enjoy the advantage again at some point in the future.

I don't think any of this represents a risk to the future of the Republic (how did you put it? "What the GOP did by outright declaring they wont hold a hearing for any nomination by Obama, likely leading to more extremists being appointed to the supreme court in the future, was heavily damaging to the system and if we are not careful will be remembered as the beginning of the end of American democracy as we know it.") The country has survived these kinds of squabbles before and it will survive this one as well.

 

It's not a lie, it's my opinion that if Obama nominated a true moderate that things would have been different. He didn't do that, so we'll never know. When you need support from across the aisle you have to compromise and Obama was never willing to do that, hell he hated compromising with his own party. It would have taken a MUCH better politician to get a SCOTUS nominee confirmed and Obama simply wasn't up to the task.

Those aren't presidential elections and the Republicans control the Senate....it's not a comparable situation at all. When you nominate someone that the Senate approves of, you get them confirmed, that's how the system has always worked.

That's how it works. If the President nominates a true moderate that is deemed acceptable to the Senate, they get confirmed. If that president sticks to his guns and pushes for a nomination that is not deemed acceptably moderate by the Senate, they aren't confirmed. A lot of this seems to be nothing more than continued whining about Garland....and you guys are just going to have to get over it.

They didn't set any precedent no matter what your echo chamber told you, the "precedent" was set in 1828 by the Democratic party and it is something that has happened several times since then. It's not the end of the world.....again, no matter what your echo chamber might have told you.

 

by the way, I want to make just a real quick comment about the putative "moderate" stance of Justice Kennedy. This is really kind of a mis-characterization of his career, both at the time of his nomination and then later in his decisions and reasonings on the Supreme Court.

While I understand the intent of the comparison of Kennedy to Bork in this context, I don't think it was clear at the time that Kennedy was being marketed as a "moderate," even in comparison to Bork. My recollection of the Bork hearings is that he mostly got tripped up by his rigid adherence to metaphysically unlikely doctrines of natural law.

And as far as Kennedy's later career goes, it's really debatable whether he was "moderate" or "conservative." here's one assessment of that question:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/justice-kennedy-wasnt-a-moderate/

again, not a major point in the overall context of this thread, but something to bear in mind nonetheless.

 

Seriously? You are comparing the situation of the country in 1828 to today?
In 1828, the US population was about 12 million with about 10% being slaves. We also didnt have the demographics of today nor the information flow.

But to humor you lets review the details,
- Crittenden was nominated by Adams on December 17, after he had lost the presidential elections two weeks earlier, to replace a judge that had died in August. Confirming his nominee could truly be argued to be against the will of the people who voted against reelecting him
- Garland was nominated on March 16, 8 months before elections, enough time for the confirmation process to run its course. If the GOP can withhold confirmation this time for 8-11 months, what stops whoever is in a similar position for withholding for 2yrs, 4yrs or indefinitely

So neither the circumstances nor the specifics are similar and thus the precedent has just be set by the GOP

(BTW there have been many other supreme court nominees who nomination lapsed, but I cant think of one which was similar to what the GOP pulled).

 

It's clear that Bush is not the one invoking presidential privilege, it's Trump. When someone refers to the "White House" they are referring to the current occupants.

 

IT IS A LIE cos the fact clearly states otherwise. The people who would decide on the nomination had clearly stated that they would not approve anybody. In addition, going by Hatch's comment, Garland was moderate enough to be a 'consensus nominee'.

This is not a situation where you can have an opinion, as (AFAIK) you are not a member of the judiciary committee and thus your opinion is irrelevant. The statements by the relevant actors leave no room for speculations.

Every time there is an election (presidential or otherwise), people to a large extent have the opportunity to express their will. Anyone who claims to be concerned about the will of the people should then not be rushing to get things done before any election.

Seems you like to project your thought onto others. They could have rejected Garland, who Orrin Hatch considered moderate enough to be a 'consensus nominee', but they instead made it clear they wouldnt even hold any hearing till January. So, NO, that is not how it is supposed to work.

See earlier response to your fake similarity.

 

I'm not sure I agree with you on this. Clearly the Washington Post reporter makes an explicit statement that it is not Trump (or the Trump administration) who is invoking executive privilege. Given that a former President (Bush in this case) no longer works in government nor has an administrative role in fulfilling the request for records, it falls to the White House and the Justice Dept to carry out the administrative burden of complying with the request for records. That is different from the actual, distinct act of "claiming executive privilege." At least that's how I read the statements in the Washington Post by the author and by Bush's lawyer.

here's the WaPo passage again:

"The Presidential Records Act allows both the former administration and the current White House to claim privilege on presidential documents. A White House spokesman, Raj Shah, said Saturday that he will let the letter, first reported by the Associated Press, speak for itself. Trump has not officially invoked executive privilege over the documents."​

 

LOL so the fact that it has happened multiple times before won't stop you from falsely claiming that it was "unprecedented"....gotta love those "alternative facts" that you guys seem to love.

The situation was indeed similar, and again, it's not the only time it has happened. Other similar situations have happened multiple times. In fact, it's pretty rare for an outgoing president to get a SCOTUS nominee pushed through when they don't control the senate and refuse to compromise on their pick.

LOL this is merely you throwing your fingers in your ears and saying "nuh-uh" in the face of facts that disprove the false narrative you were parroting.

I'm afraid you haven't shown a solid enough grasp of what "fact" or "lie" means. What you can show is one statement, but since the president made no effort to compromise, you can't say for certain that things wouldn't have been different if he had tried.

As far as I can tell, this is you struggling to command the English language in that you say two conflicting things back to back. First you say that I "can't have an opinion", then you say my "opinion is irrelevant"....if I truly can't have one, it can't be irrelevant....because it wouldn't exist.

Even if you continue to deny it, this is how the process is supposed to work. The Senate owes the president nothing....which means the president has to entice the Senate to act, he failed to do so. A better politician would have handled things better, but we didn't have a better politician, we had Obama and that's why nothing happened.

Anyway, this is going nowhere, you can feel free to continue to be butt hurt about Garland not earning the consent of the Senate, but it's not going to get you anywhere. You say "they could have rejected Garland.....well, that's exactly what they did. The president could have nominated someone else after it was clear Garland was not acceptable to the Senate, but he didn't do that. Your complaint should be with Obama.