​ 🏛️ ​Official Supreme Court nomination thread - Amy Coney Barrett (10 Viewers)

NightStalkers said:

No what i am saying is she could have retired when Obama had the house and senate.

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dawgtrails said:

When one party makes the rules which advantages them, then changes the rules to again advantage them, of course the multi disadvantaged party is going to respond with a WTF argument

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NightStalkers said:

One possibility that has been mentioned if the Dems win is putting Obama on the SC.  Which is interesting because how would he deal with rulings of something he had to do with?  Lincoln put Salmon Chase on the Supreme Court and he was in Lincoln's cabinet and had been a senator as well.

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Henry Ford said:

In 2011?  Okay.

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NightStalkers said:

No 2014 when The Dems had the senate.  She would have been 81 then not exactly young  and she had already had cancer twice before that.  And i don't think it is up to anyone to decide when a justices retires..

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NightStalkers said:

The hypocrisy is on both sides.  Biden threatened Bush Sr. with doing what McConnell did.  History has shown very few (I think only 1) judges have ever been approved by an opposite party senate in over 100 years in the last year of the term of a president.  There have been like 15 judges approved by senates that have been the same as POTUS.  I think Biden in 1992 would have done exactly as McConnell did had Bush had a retiring judge who wanted to leave under a Rep POTUS.

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If someone steps down, I would highly recommend the president not name someone, not send a name up," Biden said. "If he [Bush] did send someone up, I would ask the Senate to seriously consider not having a hearing on that nominee.

Can you imagine dropping a nominee, after the three or four or five decisions that are about to made by the Supreme Court, into that fight, into that cauldron in the middle of a presidential year? ...I believe there would be no bounds of propriety that would be honored by either side. . . . The environment within which such a hearing would be held would be so supercharged and so prone to be able to be distorted.

Whomever the nominee was, good, bad or indifferent would become a victim.

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Henry Ford said:

You just posted that it was when Obama had the House and Senate.  But okay, she could have in 2014.  Six years ago.  When the Dems would have needed 60 votes to clear and get her replacement.  Keeping in mind that only 5 Republicans voted in favor of Kagan in 2010.  And only 9 voted in favor of Sotomayor in 2009.  
 

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NightStalkers said:

Barr I am kind of ok with him.  He is consistent on Flynn and McCabe.  Both he saying shouldn't be charged.  Both lied to FBI agents.  The Media doesn't look at McCabe in fact CNN hired him.  Both are guilty of the same thing.  That was why McCabe was fired and if i remember right Barr wasn't AG yet so the FBI itself found that he lied.  The Durham investigation Barr has not said much other than it was ongoing and that there was something there.  On other things i think Barr has been too much on TV.  

Trump is an idiot.  Plainly said

As for Interference Holder came out and plainly said he was Obama's wingman.

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Bottomfeeder Sports said:

Biden wasn't the Senate Majority leader in '92 so I can say without any question he would not have done exactly the same as McConnell. (Because he wasn't in a position to do so.)   And while I know he also made a speech a few days after this quote, I really find it hard to argue with what he actually says here.

Most certainly Garland was a victim in 2016.  There weren't any hearings but it seems like there were "no bounds of propriety".   Will Trump's nominee also be a victim.  I think in some ways they most certainly will.  I also think the "environment within which such a hearing would be held would be so supercharged and so prone to be able to be distorted."  Now all of this reasoning was of course self serving, but I don't think it was wrong either.  Not that it matters.

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SaintsInDome2006 said:

Eh I think you're quite wrong about Barr not saying about the Durham investigation, he has said quite a lot as has the DOJ spokesperson. In fact most recently Barr went on Hannity, the most watched network cable show on tv, to announce (promote) the forthcoming indictment of Clinesmith. He has had multiple other statements about it as well. Nobody is paying attention but in substance it has blown away what Comey did.

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NightStalkers said:

Are you sure about the 1992 part?  Biden's wiki said he was chairman of the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991 so unless he dropped out of the chairman spot in 1992 he would have been in charge and the Dems would have had the majority for him to be chairman in the first place. I said Biden was judiciary chairman not Majority leader i think if i did i apologize.  Garland should have got a vote.  Would he have been trashed?  Possibly.  Kavanaugh was.  Thomas was.(and maybe both are guilty of rape but nothing has ever been proved in any way)  so the process has produced victims on both sides. 

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• Congress Majority Leader
  
• 93rd Congress (1973–1975)Mike Mansfield (D-MT)  <== Biden's first Term
  
• 94th Congress (1975–1977)Mike Mansfield (D-MT)
  
• 95th Congress (1977–1979)Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)
  
• 96th Congress (1979–1981)Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)
  
• 97th Congress (1981–1983)Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-TN)
  
• 98th Congress (1983–1985)Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-TN)
  
• 99th Congress (1985–1987)Robert J. Dole (R-KS) 
  
• 100th Congress (1987–1989)Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) 
  
• 101st Congress (1989–1991)George J. Mitchell (D-ME) 
  
• 102nd Congress (1991–1993)George J. Mitchell (D-ME) 
  
• 103rd Congress (1993–1995)George J. Mitchell (D-ME) 
  
• 104th Congress (1995–1997)Robert J. Dole (R-KS)
  
• 105th Congress (1997–1999)Trent Lott (R-MS)
  
• 106th Congress (1999–2001)Trent Lott (R-MS)
  
• 107th Congress (2001–2003)Thomas A. Daschle (D-SD)
  
• 108th Congress (2003–2005)William H. Frist (R-TN)
  
• 109th Congress (2005–2007)William H. Frist (R-TN) 
  
• 110th Congress (2007–2009)Harry Reid (D-NV)
  
•  
  
• 111th Congress (2009–2011)Harry Reid (D-NV)
  
• 112th Congress (2011–2013)Harry Reid (D-NV)
  
• 113th Congress (2013–2015)Harry Reid (D-NV)
  
• 114th Congress (2015–2017)Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
  
• 115th Congress (2017–2019)Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 
  
• 116th Congress (2019–2021)Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 
  

Zow said:

This is one of the primary reasons I voted for McCain over Obama - I despised that Obama voted against the appointment of Roberts. This issue is whether a prospective justice is qualified. Roberts was perhaps the most qualified nominee ever. Obama even acknowledges this in the opening of his written reasoning why he didn't vote to appoint. 

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shadrap said:

This is  what we have come to.

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Zow said:

This is one of the primary reasons I voted for McCain over Obama - I despised that Obama voted against the appointment of Roberts. This issue is whether a prospective justice is qualified. Roberts was perhaps the most qualified nominee ever. Obama even acknowledges this in the opening of his written reasoning why he didn't vote to appoint. 

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Insomniac said:

Let's suppose Obama knew that Roberts was going to preside over and be the decisive vote in the Shelby County vs Holder case. Anybody who was paying attention knew that Roberts wanted to overturn the Voting Rights Act. Was there any doubt this would result in voter suppression laws, aimed at black people, that would favor the GOP?  That seems to be more than enough reason for a black Democrat to vote against Roberts or anybody who agreed with him on the issue.

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gianmarco said:

I just read Obama's statement about this. Here it is. I think it's a reasonably thought out explanation as to why he decided to vote the way he did.

The following is from then-Sen. Barack Obama's floor statement explaining why he would vote against confirming Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts (September 2005):

. . . [T]he decision with respect to Judge Roberts' nomination has not been an easy one for me to make. As some of you know, I have not only argued cases before appellate courts but for 10 years was a member of the University of Chicago Law School faculty and taught courses in constitutional law. Part of the culture of the University of Chicago Law School faculty is to maintain a sense of collegiality between those people who hold different views. What engenders respect is not the particular outcome that a legal scholar arrives at but, rather, the intellectual rigor and honesty with which he or she arrives at a decision.

Given that background, I am sorely tempted to vote for Judge Roberts based on my study of his resume, his conduct during the hearings, and a conversation I had with him yesterday afternoon. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind Judge Roberts is qualified to sit on the highest court in the land. Moreover, he seems to have the comportment and the temperament that makes for a good judge. He is humble, he is personally decent, and he appears to be respectful of different points of view.

It is absolutely clear to me that Judge Roberts truly loves the law. He couldn't have achieved his excellent record as an advocate before the Supreme Court without that passion for the law, and it became apparent to me in our conversation that he does, in fact, deeply respect the basic precepts that go into deciding 95% of the cases that come before the federal court -- adherence to precedence, a certain modesty in reading statutes and constitutional text, a respect for procedural regularity, and an impartiality in presiding over the adversarial system. All of these characteristics make me want to vote for Judge Roberts.

The problem I face -- a problem that has been voiced by some of my other colleagues, both those who are voting for Mr. Roberts and those who are voting against Mr. Roberts -- is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95% of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95% of the cases -- what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5% of cases that are truly difficult.

In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy.

In those 5% of hard cases, the constitutional text will not be directly on point. The language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. Legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. In those circumstances, your decisions about whether affirmative action is an appropriate response to the history of discrimination in this country, or whether a general right of privacy encompasses a more specific right of women to control their reproductive decisions, or whether the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce, whether a person who is disabled has the right to be accommodated so they can work alongside those who are nondisabled -- in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.

I talked to Judge Roberts about this. Judge Roberts confessed that, unlike maybe professional politicians, it is not easy for him to talk about his values and his deeper feelings. That is not how he is trained. He did say he doesn't like bullies and has always viewed the law as a way of evening out the playing field between the strong and the weak.

I was impressed with that statement because I view the law in much the same way. The problem I had is that when I examined Judge Roberts' record and history of public service, it is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak. In his work in the White House and the Solicitor General's Office, he seemed to have consistently sided with those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racial discrimination in our political process. In these same positions, he seemed dismissive of the concerns that it is harder to make it in this world and in this economy when you are a woman rather than a man.

I want to take Judge Roberts at his word that he doesn't like bullies and he sees the law and the court as a means of evening the playing field between the strong and the weak. But given the gravity of the position to which he will undoubtedly ascend and the gravity of the decisions in which he will undoubtedly participate during his tenure on the court, I ultimately have to give more weight to his deeds and the overarching political philosophy that he appears to have shared with those in power than to the assuring words that he provided me in our meeting.

The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts' nomination. . . .

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jm192 said:

It's an incredibly elegant way of saying "He's more than qualified, but I won't vote for him because he's a conservative. "

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jm192 said:

But it’s not a WTF argument.  It’s “we’ve decided your 2016 position is the way it should be done after 4 years of criticizing it.”

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gianmarco said:

I just read Obama's statement about this. Here it is. I think it's a reasonably thought out explanation as to why he decided to vote the way he did.

The following is from then-Sen. Barack Obama's floor statement explaining why he would vote against confirming Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts (September 2005):

. . . [T]he decision with respect to Judge Roberts' nomination has not been an easy one for me to make. As some of you know, I have not only argued cases before appellate courts but for 10 years was a member of the University of Chicago Law School faculty and taught courses in constitutional law. Part of the culture of the University of Chicago Law School faculty is to maintain a sense of collegiality between those people who hold different views. What engenders respect is not the particular outcome that a legal scholar arrives at but, rather, the intellectual rigor and honesty with which he or she arrives at a decision.

Given that background, I am sorely tempted to vote for Judge Roberts based on my study of his resume, his conduct during the hearings, and a conversation I had with him yesterday afternoon. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind Judge Roberts is qualified to sit on the highest court in the land. Moreover, he seems to have the comportment and the temperament that makes for a good judge. He is humble, he is personally decent, and he appears to be respectful of different points of view.

It is absolutely clear to me that Judge Roberts truly loves the law. He couldn't have achieved his excellent record as an advocate before the Supreme Court without that passion for the law, and it became apparent to me in our conversation that he does, in fact, deeply respect the basic precepts that go into deciding 95% of the cases that come before the federal court -- adherence to precedence, a certain modesty in reading statutes and constitutional text, a respect for procedural regularity, and an impartiality in presiding over the adversarial system. All of these characteristics make me want to vote for Judge Roberts.

The problem I face -- a problem that has been voiced by some of my other colleagues, both those who are voting for Mr. Roberts and those who are voting against Mr. Roberts -- is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95% of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95% of the cases -- what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5% of cases that are truly difficult.

In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy.

In those 5% of hard cases, the constitutional text will not be directly on point. The language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. Legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. In those circumstances, your decisions about whether affirmative action is an appropriate response to the history of discrimination in this country, or whether a general right of privacy encompasses a more specific right of women to control their reproductive decisions, or whether the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce, whether a person who is disabled has the right to be accommodated so they can work alongside those who are nondisabled -- in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.

I talked to Judge Roberts about this. Judge Roberts confessed that, unlike maybe professional politicians, it is not easy for him to talk about his values and his deeper feelings. That is not how he is trained. He did say he doesn't like bullies and has always viewed the law as a way of evening out the playing field between the strong and the weak.

I was impressed with that statement because I view the law in much the same way. The problem I had is that when I examined Judge Roberts' record and history of public service, it is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak. In his work in the White House and the Solicitor General's Office, he seemed to have consistently sided with those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racial discrimination in our political process. In these same positions, he seemed dismissive of the concerns that it is harder to make it in this world and in this economy when you are a woman rather than a man.

I want to take Judge Roberts at his word that he doesn't like bullies and he sees the law and the court as a means of evening the playing field between the strong and the weak. But given the gravity of the position to which he will undoubtedly ascend and the gravity of the decisions in which he will undoubtedly participate during his tenure on the court, I ultimately have to give more weight to his deeds and the overarching political philosophy that he appears to have shared with those in power than to the assuring words that he provided me in our meeting.

The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts' nomination. . . .

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jm192 said:

It's an incredibly elegant way of saying "He's more than qualified, but I won't vote for him because he's a conservative. "

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Insomniac said:

Let's suppose Obama knew that Roberts was going to preside over and be the decisive vote in the Shelby County vs Holder case. Anybody who was paying attention knew that Roberts wanted to overturn the Voting Rights Act. Was there any doubt this would result in voter suppression laws, aimed at black people, that would favor the GOP?  That seems to be more than enough reason for a black Democrat to vote against Roberts or anybody who agreed with him on the issue.

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Maurile Tremblay said:

Blame the Constitution, not the messenger. Or blame Congress. Any law that allows Wisconsin free rein to do its crazy voter-suppression shenanigans without special scrutiny but requires Virginia to get preclearance for the smallest of voting changes does not seem rationally related to life in the year of our lord, 2013. In any case, thinking you might possibly end up disagreeing with a judge on a very close call (as 5-4 decisions tend to be) is a terrible reason to oppose his confirmation, IMO.

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Maurile Tremblay said:

Blame the Constitution, not the messenger. Or blame Congress. Any law that allows Wisconsin free rein to do its crazy voter-suppression shenanigans without special scrutiny but requires Virginia to get preclearance for the smallest of voting changes does not seem rationally related to life in the year of our lord, 2013. In any case, thinking you might possibly end up disagreeing with a judge on a very close call (as 5-4 decisions tend to be) is a terrible reason to oppose his confirmation, IMO.

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IvanKaramazov said:

If you're okay with Obama voting against Roberts, what grounds can you possibly have to complain about Republicans refusing to seat Garland?  (Other than "I don't like how this guy might vote but I like how this other guy would vote" which is the exact same reasoning that McConnell is using).

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Rich Conway said:

I suppose this depends on whether you think there's a material difference between voting no and refusing to allow a vote to be held.  

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IvanKaramazov said:

Literally nobody actually thinks this.

If that isn't obvious, just ask yourself this: suppose McConnell allowed Garland's nomination to come up for a vote, and he got shot down along party lines.  Would the people who are now freaking about Trump nominating RBG's replacement be all like "Well, they gave Obama's guy a fair hearing so I guess it's totally okay for them to move forward with their guy now?"  Of course not.  The talking points would even be the same -- something something stolen seat.  

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gianmarco said:

I'm going to list 5 things and I'd like to see if you can remember them in the next few minutes.

Person.  Woman.  Man.  Camera.  TV.

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Sinn Fein said:

Alex Thomas @AlexThomas · 6m

this just seems like a bizarrely stupid way to show your hand — it places a new spin on the nomination. it's no longer about appointing a conservative justice because of policy issues, now it's because Trump wants a justice that's loyal to him in a contested election.

Quote Tweet

CSPAN@cspan· 11m

.@POTUS: "I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. & I think it's very important that we have 9 Justices. & I think the system is going to go very quickly. I'll be submitting at 5 o'clock on Saturday, the name of the person I chose for this most important of positions."

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ren hoek said:

I don’t understand the Republicans’ argument from 2016, or people that are making it now.  That ‘the country should have a say’ in the SC pick with the forthcoming election.

The country already had a say- we elected Barack Obama in 2012, and Donald Trump in 2016.  I don’t understand how the ‘popular will’ argument doesn’t already apply to that.  

Ginsburg had a chance to retire 10 years ago and be replaced by an administration she agreed with.  

"She loved her job," said Totenberg. "She had planned, in fact, to retire and be replaced by a nominee of the first woman president because she really thought Hillary Clinton would be elected."

"Fate dealt her... the cards not that way and she just soldiered on," Totenberg added. 

Totenberg went on to report that Ginsberg had expressed that wish in a dictated statement her granddaughter, Clara Spera, just days before her death.

"My most fervent wish is, that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed," Ginsburg said in the statement, according to Totenberg.

Instead, she kept holding on.  She foresaw a story book ending where she would retire under Hillary Clinton.  She mused about the next president replacing her, “whoever she might be.”  Then reality happened.  

If her interest was retaining a Supreme Court justice with her views, or finishing out her tenure to the very end, that was her choice.  But she doesn’t get to change the course of history when her gamble doesn’t pan out.  She doesn’t get to use moral blackmail to rewrite how the President/Senate works.  It was a hubristic decision that cost liberal presence on the Supreme Court dearly.  

It’s like she said- “That’s their job,” she told the New York Times. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the president stops being president in his last year.”

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Murph said:

Politico: Democrats worry Feinstein can't handle Supreme Court battle

If anything good can come out of our current political mess, perhaps people will start to understand that when older generations cling to power and refuse to let the next generation rise through the ranks it creates problems for society.

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Sand said:

CNN says the pick is ACB.  She seemed to be at the top of lists for a while now, so this isn't a big surprise.

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Sand said:

CNN says the pick is ACB.  She seemed to be at the top of lists for a while now, so this isn't a big surprise.

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Sand said:

CNN says the pick is ACB.  She seemed to be at the top of lists for a while now, so this isn't a big surprise.

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shadrap said:

I'll be curious whether the Senate Dems try to paint her as a racist,  homophobe,  or religious nut.  maybe an old classmate from high school shows up who remembers some bad behavior at a party, but she can't remember who's house it was in, when exactly it took place, who was there, how she got there &  how she got home.

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apalmer said:

CNN trying to psyche Trump into proving them wrong and picking someone else, just to prove that their "sources" aren't reliable.

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Sand said:

CNN says the pick is ACB.  She seemed to be at the top of lists for a while now, so this isn't a big surprise.

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johnnycakes said:

there goes Roe v Wade if and when that comes to the court if she's on the bench.  

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perbach said:

Stop it.   Roe v Wade isn't going anywhere.   That's nothing more than fear mongering.

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