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I dont believe there is as much hypocrisy give the timing of a March nomination (a month after Scalia’s death) and what would be a rushed appointment, vetting, and vote on the nomination.
I agree. Did what happen to Kavanaugh show transparency? Feinstein had Ford's allegations for a month and sat on it. Add to this fact that Ford's own witnesses denied her claims one of which was her friend. Every time a 4-4 court has come up for a replacement (Twice) the nominee has been accused of a rape. And i don't put it past either Biden or Trump to have committed sexual assualt. And Ford has the choice to get kavanaugh investigation to be done. Montgomery County MD would investigate it like every other assault claim and would treat it just like any other case. But she hasn't and as soon as Kavanaugh was confirmed she said she wouldn't persue the case. It would likely be declined to prosecute due to lack of evidence...
Either it's hypocritical or it's not.
It's the right that twisting this one, but I'm gonna blame the FOX media machinePhil Elliott said:Well we probably disagree on the positions each side has taken over the years. Maybe your version is more accurate than mine. Both sides have politicized it and I don't think either side is more innocent/guilty than the other. There really is only two rules to consider and that is 1. The POTUS shall nominate and 2. The Senate will consider and vote up/down.
I couldn’t have said it better than Biden, Hillary, Pelosi, Bernie, Schumer, Kaine, Warren and Kamala in 2016.Phil Elliott said:
Yeah. It's comical to me that people are hemming and hawing about how the Republicans are hypocrites for changing positions.
It's funny how people blame FOX. The recent voting patter for the country suggests a fairly even split. Look at MSNBC and CNN now. Most of the other regular media is much closer to MSNBC and CNN. So it's ok for say 45 percent of the country to get their news from Fox and the other 45 percent get their news from all of the rest. What does that tell you? The Media is biased. It has been since Bush JR. There have been polls that show even some Democrats think the media is biased. The reason FOX is powerful is because it is the only right leaning media outlet on TV. Hence why it a lot of the time it's rating are as high as CNN and MSNBC combined. I don't consider FOX fair and balanced. But they do have some Democrats on reguarly including Juan Williams daily. But if you think CNN and MSNBC are balanced either then i can't imagine how. How many times does a CNN correspondent have to do his report in front of burning building and say it was peaceful protests?
That is very accurate. I recall several times this summer where Fox was covering "peaceful protests", pointing out the violence and CNN/MSNBC wasn't even acknowledging them. Because they knew they couldn't ever straight-faced show what was on the screen and defend it. That night in Chicago at the statue and the frozen water bottles thrown? Couldn't even find it anywhere except Fox. The 16 person funeral shooting in Chicago? Wasn't even discussed the next day on CNN.
Just about the point about "hypocritical" it seems to me that is not really accurate.
I have said repeatedly Garland should have gotten a vote. But in McConnell's defense the Republican senate was saying they weren't going to vote for Garland. After Harry Reid killed the filibuster for judicial appointees it only took 50 votes to get Garland a hearing. This means that the republicans had more than 50 to vote against Garland. The SAME thing was threatened by Biden. He had enough votes in 1992 to make it stick. Personally i think any President's nominees should get a vote no matter the situation in the Senate. They don't have to pass anyone but they should vote.
Comey deserved to be fired for how he handled HRC email investigation. He should have never commented publicly on the investigation. If you don't charge someone with something then you don't comment on their conduct. (That is the pro HRC part) But he also was supposedly preparing a letter of exonoration before the investigation finished.
I don't think this is right. I believe you could have 99 votes for a hearing and not get one if the majority leader says no.
I am pretty sure that isn't right. The majority leader has only one vote. He can steer his caucess to his opinion but he can't stop his own party from over ruling him. The only reason it doesn't take 60 votes like the other legislation is due to Reid. The filibuster rule only applies to judiciary. If it didn't then the Covid passage in the Senate would have been passed.
I agree. But that doesn't make what i said wrong. If i was Trump he would have been out JAN22
But this is what I’m talking about. Primarily you’re talking about a normative reason for firing JC, not only was that not Trump’s reason he also does not value such norms. - The point was about staggered terms which do not give any one party the chance to control such oversight positions. - And what of the IGs that have been fired and forced out? Same issue.
The filibuster was to block votes that the majority leader wanted, not to force votes that the majority leader didn't want.
Was it normal for the IRS to investigate only Republican orginazations? And have the IRS person claim the fifth? Was it right for hillary not being charged? The fact she had the server violates the Federal Records act. And when Comey reported he he said classified information was on the server, which if you intentionally do that repeatedly that is against the law.
MT. I am not sure what your are saying. No party has had 60 votes for either side for a while like back past reagan i think. The filibuster was to protect the party in minority power not the majority.. It takes 60 to get a floor vote on a bill in the senate, hence why the recent Covid package that the Republicans supported didn't get a full floor vote. The Dems stopped it. The only thing that is not filibuster now is judiciary appts. That is one of the things the Dems want to change if they win in 2020. And it will come back to bite them. All these games hurt either side ....
Related...I thought the majority leader is the one to decide on what gets voted on and thus, they don’t bring anything up for a vote they don’t have a good idea on how everyone in the party is going to vote.
Lots of bills have garnered more than 60 votes in the Senate.
i am almost sure this isn't correct. There have been bills that have passed without McConnel supporting it and have had Republicans vote for it. The reason that McConnell has been able to block certain things is his ability to keep the rest of the Republicans behind him.
Impeachment trials have their own procedural rules that aren't relevant to anything else.
That is a yes and no thing. If he has 51 votes he can block anything from getting to the floor. And bills have passed without having 60 votes and still got considered. The reason being that McConnell didn't have the votes to block it.
If he has zero votes he can block it from getting to the floor. What's your understanding of how something gets to the floor if it's not brought there by the Majority Leader? Can someone else bring it to the floor? If so, who?
True. But the founding of the evidence is done by the House and they don't have any rules for their side. The Senate is the jury the house is the prosecution. Once the House finished their part of the case the Senate could have vote no right then and Trump wouldn't have to present his side of the case.
Right. And not only that, but Republicans won't bring something to a vote even if it has enough votes to pass -- unless a majority of Republicans (not just a majority of the Senate) are in favor of it. That's the Hastert Rule (which Democrats have not yet adopted).
But none of this has anything to do with who decides what the Senate will vote on.
Then it should be changed. In practical terms though if the Majority leader is going against the wishes of his own party all the time or is overriding a vast chunk of his own party then he won't be majority leader for long.
No Majority Leader does that. McConnell will go against the wishes of the Senate as a whole, but generally won't go against the wishes of the majority of Republicans.
I gotta believe if half his cauces is wanting something then he lets it through or even 35 percent. And as far as i know the rules of the senate have only been changed by the Harry Reid change. So the Dems have to have been doing the same things....
By the way the Hastert Rule is the House not the Senate. Pelosi said she is doing the same thing. And the House has an escape provision. If just unlikely to be used as it takes 218 votes from the majority party to get the provision used and no Speaker is going to be fighting that much of their side...
Yes that jibes with what he told Harry Reid when he got rid of the filibuster for his court appts.
I think the only time she has done this was the rules package that would require a majority of the majority to remove her from power. That makes sense, considering it is her party that should decide who is in a leadership position.
Thanks. In the Senate, maybe the convention is that the Majority Leader will simply do as he pleases.
Over time, I buy this statement. It's a very "water is wet" statement actually. In this case I don't. It doesn't seem to apply at all. As MT points out, the GOP is not doing what they said just 4 years ago and the Dems are essentially saying "Why aren't you using the precedent you were claiming then, now?" That's very different. When your position is essentially "I didn't do my job before, but am deciding to do it now" you have some major mental gymnastics to work through to make it something else.
Sure
If there were actually more than a handful of these people. I don't think there is.
I don't think this is true either! Obama's "elections have consequences" wasn't really followed by the "mandate" behavior that the GOP claims and uses to push through stuff even when that mandate is less than half the vote. (Sure Reagan eventually captures the Anderson vote
in '84...) I think there are a lot of former Republicans who don't feel comfortable in the Trump party. If I had to guess, I would say Trump Party is about 25%, with another 10% that are never-Dems. I would guess Dems are about 40%. So, that leaves ~25% of people who will vote based on how they feel in any given election. Sure some (many?) have leans - but I don't think those are insurmountable.Sure
If there were actually more than a handful of these people. I don't think there is.
I don't think this is true either! Obama's "elections have consequences" wasn't really followed by the "mandate" behavior that the GOP claims and uses to push through stuff even when that mandate is less than half the vote. (Sure Reagan eventually captures the Anderson vote
Exit polling consistently puts this number (independents without a discernible lean) at less than a half of this, usually less than a third. And while this tidbit could help your argument most of these end u being "band wagon" voters that vote for the winner. (Even in those "surprises" of 2016 this seemed to somehow happen.)
