I mean you're just gonna say "Harry Reid" over and over again, ignoring that Republicans have obviously escalated things significantly above invoking the nuclear option for lower court nominees. The GOP invented a new rule that the opposition party basically doesn't get to confirm judges without the Senate (as I posted earlier in the thread, you need to update your laughably outdated confirmation numbers that you pulled from a conservative blog in 2013), then lied and told the world that it was based on invented principles about "election year vacancies" that they're now telling us were all bullshit. You, of course, are the only mark here gullible enough to still believe them.

What makes your argument here so hilarious is that it justifies Republicans doing literally anything they want. You point to the GOP saying in 2013 "you'll regret this" as justification for anything the GOP wants to do that liberals will regret. According to your argument, as long as a Democrat says "you'll regret this, GOP!" today, they could justifiably pack 99 judges on the court and pass fake laws to throw the conservative justices they don't like in jail, or something. After all, according to your logic, they said "you'll regret it" and they're just following through! Totally above board, per IHIV.

Obviously this is idiotic logic that you're just deploying in defense of unprecedented partisanship by Republicans, but I honestly can't tell if you even know that's what you're doing, it really seems like you believe this ****. Wild.

Don't worry, rupar will tweet your next talking point any minute!!

I mean, if you were capable, this post should contain some kind of argument that challenges me to address it. But you're not capable, because you're a sad Republican in denial, so all you can do is fling pathetic little water balloons and run and hide.

how is this under discussion. dem leaders should just carry around ipads and anytime repubs broach the subject of SC nom, dems should blast the lindsey graham 2016 video. they set the precedent 4 years ago in no uncertain terms. game over.

I'm curious, what is there to justify? Nominating a judge? (that's what a POTUS normally does when a seat opens) Filibustering a judge? (what has occured when the other side wants to delay or obstruct a judge) Confirming a judge? (what both sides do when a nomination is made) These are all tools both sides uses during judicial fights in order to get more of their judges on the bench. You are absolutely right it's partisan. It was meant to be that way. What exactly is your problem? That politicians do political things to further their political agenda?

What does IHIV stand for? Also, it seems posters like are doing something very simple, with one simple objective - triggering you. A lot of people like Trump as president for that primary reason. They do not care about policies or anything like that (many do not even care about Trump), they just want their time to trigger people like you.

Obviously the republicans are cramming in this nomination for non triggering reasons. They know they are about to be trounced so may as well do what they can when they can. Sucks, but it is current politics. Trump basically says that, and on that he is not wrong. The only thing that might be a factor is if some people up for re-election think this might hurt them a lot, otherwise why would they care when they know they are about to lose in a couple months.

Guys like the poster you are yelling at will only care that Trump loses because it will diminish his ability to troll and trigger you. That's all. He does not care at all about the issue, and he enjoys when you get all hot and bothered trying to yell about the issue to him. Maybe he does not openly embrace this lifestyle choice like Redbuck, but that is all it is. Ignore him, he does not matter.

You're doing that thing again where you switch between "them's the rules" and "but but Democrats are just as bad" depending on which one suits your argument at a given moment. You were previously arguing "but but Democrats are just as bad, because Harry Reid" and when that stopped going well you're now switching to "them's the rules".

It can't both be true that there's nothing to justify here because it's all normal and fine, but also Harry Reid did something very very bad and it's all his fault. You gotta pick one, dude.

RBG is partly to blame for this. I remember people pushing her to retire back when Obama was president because of her various health issues and age. She knew this could happen but didn’t want to let go of her Supreme Court seat. She put herself first and now the exact scenario every one was dreading back then has come to fruition.

ihiv: stop, just stop

Sigh, it's the same issue over and over again with you. The good/bad binary.

I'm not making the moralistic argument, you are. I'm not saying what Reid did was bad, or good. I'm saying Reid's actions is an example of political expediency. I'm also saying both side play that game, and you imply this is not the norm. You seem to think it's bad when the Republicans do it, but in reality both sides really do play that game. Am I supposed to be outraged?

Have Democrats gone to the lengths Republicans have in recent decades while playing the game though ? Complete obstruction, shutting down the government, refusing to abide by the outright verbiage of The Constitution ?

I don't think so but feel free to give us a few examples if you like.

Obviously you're not going to be outraged, Donald Trump is getting another SCOTUS pick and you're a partisan conservative, it's a match made in heaven.

If we're to put together posts like this along with posts like this one in WN's thread, it kinda seems like you're having a different conversation than everyone else? Like, generally:

Liberals: Republicans are attacking our governing norms with a nuclear bomb
IHIV: But Dems play the game too, look at what Harry Reid did in 2013
Liberals: This is obviously 100x worse
IHIV: I don't care about that, I'm just saying they both play the game

Do you have any objections to this characterization? I mean, sure, both sides play partisan games, then Republicans decided to show up to a knife fight with a bazooka starting in 2015, and you write a bunch of posts on the internet arguing against liberals who correctly point out the escalation.

I'm trying to understand what is abnormal about POTUS nominating a SCOTUS judge, and a Senate confirming a SCOTUS judge.

Sounds like no objections. Thanks!

Obviously you haven't heard what rgb's dying wish was! Silly Republican!

No, your premise was flawed.


Here, I'll draw a line:

If that's a normal thing to occur, what are Republicans attacking by nominating a SCOTUS judge and the Senate confirming a SCOTUS judge?

It's only normal if you ignore history, which you previously told me is exceptionally bad and people should not do.

The history is, obviously, that four years ago Republicans said there is a very important principle to not fill SCOTUS vacancies created in an election year. We're currently like 40 days out from an election and they're saying "uh yeah forget about all that".

Good thing both parties are both extremely consistent with their principles! Thinking politicians act based on principles sounds like something a nine year old would say lol

So do these puerile "both sides" arguments you like to pretend to keep making.

I've been thinking since RBG died about Obamacare in the context of all these norms about power. Dems had all 3 branches in 2009 and could have passed literally anything they wanted, if exercising power was their only goal. They could have abolished private insurance if they wanted, and expanded the court with enough liberal justices to make sure it passed constitutional scrutiny. They even had 60 senators! They could have done all this without even touching the filibuster (or they could have nuked it so that Ben Nelson didn't matter, if they preferred).

But, that's not what happened. Dems adopted a Heritage Foundation healthcare plan and reached across the aisle to incorporate Republican amendments to the bill. They didn't have to do any of this; they could have rammed through whatever the **** they wanted. But they didn't.

Those ignorant of history might say that politics in this country has always been about naked exercise of power, ergo there's nothing abnormal about the GOP's actions in the last five years; yet, you only have to go back to the last president to find examples proving otherwise.

Hardball Politics

These Democrat versus Republican arguments over "Who changed the rules?" and where and why all this started revolve back to an earlier reply I posted in response to an inquiry from Mr. Wookie.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=480

This continuing "war" - and that's what it is: a war - over appointments to the federal judiciary began with passage of the Affordable Care Act. From the day Barack Obama signed the ACA into law, Republicans vowed they would fight to the death and do whatever was necessary to get the law declared unconstitutional and thrown out. (This is one "promise" the GOP has kept as their efforts to emasculate the ACA have been unrelenting.)

Once Republicans made it clear they would "never" accept the will of the people and they intended to use the courts to try and abolish the ACA, Democrats saw that they had no choice. It was either fight Republican efforts to kill the ACA or do nothing while the GOP proceeded to use the courts to systematically dismantle the ACA.

Rather than sit back and watch while Republicans proceeded to destroy his signature piece of legislation, Obama and Harry Reid chose to fight. All these arguments over the nuclear option and just who "changed the rules" on judicial appointments would be mute if Republicans had not decided they were going to do whatever was necessary to negate a law they hated.

There are no "principles" in this battle. It's hardball politics - pure and simple.

Time for tea innit

What's great about this is, you, nor I bought that spin four years ago, but now you want to say it was some sort of norm. The only norm is politicians will spin the **** out of the actions they take. It was clear the Republicans had the power to block the SCOTUS pick, and they decided to use it for political expediency. There is nothing abnormal about congressional leadership withholding votes on contentious issues that might not be favorable to their agenda, if a vote were allowed, irrelevant of the spin they spit. You put a lot of weight into spin, I don't. None of them operate with any degree of righteousness. That does not mean I like it, but that's the way things are, and it's been that way forever.

I suppose one can quibble about whether it's an escalation to go from "made-up principles" to "no principles" if you never truly had those principles to begin with. But even if the GOP's norm was "naked power grabs above all else" all along, that's still an escalation over Dems' behavior.

The restraint that Democrats showed about ramming through legislation in 2009 was partly a product of a lack of consensus within the Democratic party.

This sounds like am disagreeing with you. But really I don't. IHIV and other Republicans can point to examples where Democrats contributed to the erosion of functional government. But McConnell has elevated the abuse of norms to previously unknown levels. I'm not sure about the root causes for the degradation of American politics, but I suspect that the erosion of objective truth and changes in the way we consume news are big contributors.

As for what to do now, I'm not sure. McConnell seems determined to confirm a nominee. Regardless of whether he tries to hustle a nominee through before the election, or get a nominee confirmed during the lame duck period, it will be a ridiculous display of hypocrisy and a flagrant violation of norms, so flagrant that elimination of the filibuster and court packing seem like real possibilities if Democrats win the White House and the Senate.

Pure power politics running in both directions will produce outcomes for each side that occasionally feel like victories, but they will be short-lived and come at a great cost to the republic. It's a form of prisoner's dilemma, and McConnell seems determined to engineer the outcome in the prisoner's dilemma where both participants lose.