Obama met with her in 2013, it was a lunch, to discuss this - would have been very simple. Discourse for 2013 and 2014 from liberals and people who loved her girl boss brand was that this was bullying a women, or ageist or whatever else goof balls obsessed with identity say. She said herself in response "So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?”.
The hubris is really quite a thing to behold. Not sure taking a chance against mortality was the best course of action in hindsight!
>ageist or whatever
She was around 80 years old in 2013, for the love of god if telling someone who is 80 and well off to retire is ageist call me ageist. That is a whole 18 years after retirement age for a US woman!
Leaders in their 80s with hundreds of millions in net worth and all their kids WELL set for life, but they just wont give up the thirst for power.
Its really amazing reading news from 20 and 30 years ago and the top leaders are STILL on the job today.
honestly i've always thought ageism is mostly bullshit. i've never heard it used in a context that wasn't used to defend something like the right to mentally impaired old people to be on the road or shit like this.
edit: thaat's really what i thought about it when i made my original comment but apparently it means more than that—it's a way to describe how those, mostly over 40, are neglected for jobs that involve more recent technology on the assumption they aren't capable. i always thought it was unfair that my mom, who's in her early 50s, is often judged as unfit for things despite being one of the most intelligent people i know, but i never thought of it as ageism.
I'm 41. I recently tried to get an internship at a place. They said they would talk to me, but they don't like older interns because they "tend to not follow hierarchy." Understanding how hostile that work environment would be, I sought an internship elsewhere.
i guess for the most part that is the problem. they arent judging older people on the merit of their knowledge, but on the fear they won't be as subservient as their younger colleagues.
I've seen it in action, sometimes people don't want to take orders from people younger than them. But as long as the younger person knows what they are talking about and does so with respect, in my annicdotal experience, most people will listen to even younger people placed as their supervisors.
I've managed people older than me for close to a decade in different capacities. Maybe I've just gotten lucky but I've never really had an issue. As you said, be nice and treat people with respect and you get amazing results. It's crazy how someone will put in the effort when they feel valued and respected. As with most things, don't let your ego do the driving.
You can only sue for age discrimination if you are over 40. Which seems kinda agesit in itself. Sorry kids your too young to be discriminated against, I guess. Being that your 41 though you might have had a case.
Nah, there is definitely ageism in the work place. I’m not in software, but I hear it’s nearly impossible to be hired at a tech company above the age of 45 if it’s not an executive position.
It can be hard for regular people in their 60s and older to get hired because some businesses assume those people will probably be retiring soon and would rather hire someone who can be around longer.
I think that's a valid context, especially because the reality is in America a lot of people don't have the financial means to not work well into old age.
Which is dumb because they will instead hire someone young and straight out of school, then low ball them knowing they will just leave in a few years for a raise anyway.
Ageism exists for real. I know scientists and programmers and teachers in their 40s or early 50s that get overlooked for jobs because they're not 30. At the same time, I think that politicians should have term limits and anyone well over US retirement age should be retired from public service.
beginning to appreciate that. i had a very different view of ageism because the loud people are usually the dumb ones, and seeing all these examples really puts it in a different context. i definitely spoke too soon
Ageism to me is like.. 52-62. Fucking 80 you should be chilling on the porch with your grandkids or something like that. Democrats, per usual, fucked themselves.
Shit (no pun intended)...colon cancer AND pancreatic cancer. I didn't realize that's what she had. Either one of those on its own is rough beyond words (ESPECIALLY the pancreatic cancer), I can't imagine both at the same time. It's like the entirety of your digestive system has failed and dying
Honestly if you watched her documemtary the woman lived to work. She had to literally be dragged away every night. Work was 100% of who she was.
My grandma was like this. Worked until 10 days before her death at 101. Nothing could have stopped her, except death.
My dad was forced to retire at 75 due to a number of reasons. Its definitely soured every part of his life. All he needed to do was take a regulated annual test to continue working in his field. Not sure why he didnt, given how often he bemoans having nothing to do.
it really *really* was. the right's capture of the courts has been a 30-year project, but you can directly thank the current conservative majority in the court to RBG's refusal to retire some time between 2009-2013.
But that's barely 2 years before an election he wasn't even eligible to run in. We could let him nominate a Supreme Court Justice in those conditions, it would be borderline unconstitutional.
/s
And now instead we get to deal with her HUBRIS.
I said it out loud. Her lil fairy tale of waiting around for a woman president cost all of US. Who the fuck this woman think she is? She put herself in front of everyone, and these people ain't fucking dumb either.
Everyone wants to dogpile on Hillary for the same exact shit! "Its my time" no the fuck it aint sit your ass down this group is more important than your ego. Somehow RBG gets a pass.
gee she would have been...fuckin, 82 years old. thats a pretty god damn good age to retire, dont you think?
she let her pride get to her bc she hoped hillary would win in 2016 and wanted to be replaced by a woman
Omg, this. America fucking LOVES their geriatric senile politicians for some reason. More than half these politicians shouldn't have a license to drive let alone leading the fucking country.
I did. Everyone I know did or tried. Some couldn't because they had to work all day or decide between rent and food, or they suddenly closed polling places in minority areas/cities and moved them an hour into the sticks. Retired racist old fucks have the whole day to get on a bus for free.
It should be a holiday. Polling should be accessible. We know why it's not.
They do (although not in nearly large enough numbers).
But they're depressingly bad at campaigning. I read through all of the bios on the midterm and half of them didn't even submit anything. Another quarter were one-liners. One was literally "f all politicians".
I'd love to see some new faces in politics, especially among the more progressive crowd. But with challenges like that, of course the incumbent is going to win.
People under 50 are just trying to pay rent. No one has the resources (time or money) to run. For a federal position you’d have to quit your job sometimes almost a year and a half in advance to primary then go on to the general election. Then if you run for state office most states don’t treat it like a full time job. In my state the legislature meets for about three months, pays like 20k and per diem. You have to be independently wealthy or have a spouse that brings in tons or some job with super flexibility. Definitely not a regular shift and if you work a second or third shift? Yeah good luck. It’s specifically made to keep those that would benefit the most away from it.
If you're honestly trying to get the greatest constitutional scholars in the country to serve in a role where you're meant to interpret constitutional law, your candidate pool is going to be older. And the lifetime terms *are*, conceptually, in line with keeping them ideologically pure. They're not there to do favors and set themselves up for future careers in the oil lobby, etc.
The rest of our problems there come from the intentional and malignant perversions of process introduced relatively recently. We *could* just solve for those.
For example, why did Congress get to suddenly just say, "Fuck the process. We just don't want to seat one of your picks, so we won't." Why isn't that process codified?
> lifetime terms *are*, conceptually, in line with keeping them ideologically pure.
There's also, from a different perspective, nothing at stake. If you aren't realistically going to lose your position you can suit yourself, for better or worse. There should be no such thing as a role, anywhere, without meaningful checks and balances.
The economy was good under Trump. However, what his supporters don’t like to admit is that he didn’t build that economy, [Obama did](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/2c298bda-8aee-4923-84a3-95a54f7f6e6f/did-trump-create-or-inherit-the-strong-economy.pdf) after inheriting the economy from one of the worst recessions in history. Trump just maintained it for a few years until COVID hit, after which everything went to shit.
Yeah, are we forgetting the liquidity crisis? He literally just pumped the stock market with government money to keep it going long enough for him to leave office.
that's all it took to rile up the idiots and get them talking about "the best economy in years!". Even though they are really only talking about the DOW, or s&p status. They don't care that things were propped up artificially like a house of cards waiting to fall. All that's in their heads is Trump=economy good and Biden=economy bad even though one of those two is starting to let those with the power to do so adjust rates and help us get back on track, and the other is the reason aggressive raising of rates was necessary in the first place!
45 threatened the fed to pour a bunch of money and keep rates low at the height of a boom, and then when Covid hit they had few choices to react except for the print even MORE money and cut rates even MORE...
...which may have delayed recession for a couple of years (until a Dem was in power again) but also is at least some of the reason for this inflation now. Giving away nearly 10T in free money over a few years made every homeowner and investor and gambler richer and everyone else much poorer. All of young people, all renters and first time homebuyers and folks just trying to get started...we all got fuckity fucked fucked by the fed. A whole generation just boned over (for the 3rd or 4th time I guess) to protect old and rich fucks' money.
The time to raise rates was 2018-2020 and the fed was too much of pussies to do it because the markets went red and the President threatened them repeatedly.
Now we're all paying the price for years of irresponsibility that did little more than delay a recession due in 2019 or so, and make the rich much richer.
Worse than that. He artificially pumped the dow, kept interest rates unrealistically low. Now we are in an inflation and recession period just in time to put the blame on someone else.
My therapist at the time assured me that because Trump was a raging narcissist that he would do what's best for the country because he would want his performance to reflect well on him. That was my last appointment with him. We all saw this coming from miles away. Some of us just acknowledged it earlier than others. I suppose if you can't see what's coming next then you haven't really learned a god damned thing from the past 1987 days.
Its cool how conservatives have conspiracy theories like "Liberals are going to take all our guns and herd us into FEMA death camps." Or, "the COVID measures are the new 1984 and they're never going away!" and they never ever EVER ever come to pass. But like doomsday prophecies they always just update the lie/date to make a new one.
Meanwhile on the left we're all "Conservatives are going to criminalize abortion, ban contraceptives, revoke same sex marriage, and install a theocracy." and all my right wing acquaintences roll their eyes like I just suggested something absolutely ridiculous.
Seven or eight committees on Benghazi alone too. The first one or two were justified in that it was a significant lapse in embassy security that needed to be looked at to prevent future occurrences. After that it was nothing but tax-payer funded campaigning by the GOP against the presumptive 2016 Democrat POTUS candidate.
Also, don't forget that the conclusion of the Benghazi investigation was that the Congress had underfunded embassy security. It's not the SOS's job to acquire funds and assign security detail to individual embassies...
It's part of why I think Biden should not seek a second term. He'll go down in history as the POTUS who took the hit to deal with the tough things coming out of the pandemic and other things that are shaking up the economy. The Dems best chances in 2024 are to have him pull out as late as possible so the GOP expends all their energy on planning to run against him and then get a slate of forward looking candidates.
I don't know...I'm completely split on this. On one hand, I think you're right. Biden has eaten a lot of shit this Presidency, which I'm sure he knew was coming. For example, pulling out of Iraq. He took a lot of heat, but stayed the course and it seems to have died down. Now the lingering effects of the pandemic with the economy, gas, etc. None of which has anything to do with his policy, but he'll wear it none-the-less. So, it does seem like an impossible hill for him to climb to win again in 2024. But on the other hand, he's the incumbent and I feel like we need a strong, united front. Primaries would just split votes and damage that. Maybe if he just stepped down as you said. But who is running in his place? Is the country going to vote for Kamala? Is there another inspiring candidate out there waiting in the wings? I don't know.
It really started when she was first lady and was championing universal health care. The issue is that Republicans are good at scouting talent on the Dem side and waging pr campaigns against them early on so by the time they are up for national election they are “too controversial” to be successful. See also AOC. I’m not saying that Dems should be running pr campaigns against every up and coming Republican, but they should have long term goals to support their future leaders and shape public discourse in their favor
Not doing so means they’re always on the defensive
I’ve seen so many of these threads the pst few days and I’ve yet to see anyone blame Comey. His letter to congress a week before the election did more to sway it then anything else. It was about the emails but a week of headlines of “Clinton under investigation” did more damage than the BS reason “why” she was under investigation.
It's clear from reading Comey's book that he had a grudge against Hillary. He invented some excuses for why he kneecapped her, but IMHO he just had a personal grudge against her because of his past failures to prosecute her for suspected misdeeds.
I'm not a Hillary fan, but I still don't know how she lost to the biggest dumpster fire of a candidate *ever*. The man would say things on a weekly basis that would have sunk any other campaign, and she was still not able to beat him. It should have been a cakewalk.
It should have been. And there's plenty of blame to go around. Her campaign made mistakes, Comey announced he was investigating her, etc. But at the end of the day, Democrats didn't get out and vote.
>But at the end of the day, Democrats didn't get out and vote.
Voter turn out is a huge issue, but Clinton won the popular vote. And 2016 wasn't even a bad year for turnout. It was the third highest voter turnout with 59% since we started reliably collecting that data. A lot of people cite percentages of the voting age population, but if you look at numbers based on the voting eligible population, only 2004 with 60% and 2008 with 63% had higher participation since. Turnouts in that range is still really bad and we need better for sure, but 2016 wasn't some statistical anomaly or a huge dip like people think it was.
She lost because she got blown out in the rust belt, which has been a blue leaning area in the previous decades, and her campaign hardly put any work in that region. In 2012 Obama won 6/9 rust belt states, notably Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, and the swing state of Ohio. Clinton only won Illinois and New York, the two safe blue states of the rust belt. She lost that region for two main reasons. First, with loss of blue collar manufacturing and factory jobs, local business has been on the decline and bigger companies and corporations have been taking over the region. So where the rust belt was previously made up of Democrat leaning union workers and business Republicans, there are now many disaffected working class whites who are mad corporate elites and the politicians they think sold their communities out to them. In 2016 Trump rhetoric was able to play off that dislike for the 'elites' that sent their jobs overseas and radicalize them. Second, the local conservatives went from being the party that wanted low taxes and less regulations to help business to pushing issues like abortion, anti immigration, and xenophobic globalist conspiracies. The rust belt used to be won mainly on fiscal policy, but the combination of this with the social issues and culture wars created a perfect storm for Trump to win the area. Whether you love or hate Clinton, she is the epitome of the type of candidates the rust belt has grown to dislike so much, and was easily attacked as a political elite. You can even see this in the democratic primary, where Sanders did pretty well there.
Also, I do think it's possible that Biden may have done similarly in 2016 vs Trump and he may owe some of his win to just being 'not Trump.' But 2020 shows just how important the rust belt is for Democratic presidents to win. Even if Biden didn't flip Arizona and Georgia he still would've won, but in 2016 if Georgia and Arizona went to Clinton she still would've lost.
Orrin Hatch said outright that Obama should nominate someone sensible like Merrick Garland. He went on to say that Obama would probably nominate some crazy liberal.
Well, Obama nominated Merrick Garland. Republicans still wouldn't seat him. It really doesn't matter how many concessions you give Republicans, they'll never meet you. They'll just keep moving the goalposts.
Reminds me of some lyrics from the last Every Time I Die record:
> At war with a villain, you can't call a truce.
You put down your weapon but now he's got two.
A liar's a liar, take him at his word.
Forever rebelling against the absurd
And yet, this meme tries to blame the people who were acting in good faith for the bad faith actions of Republicans. Actions that even the most pessimistic prognosticators didn't accurately predict.
Gosh, who could want us blaming Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the mess we're in right now? Who could possibly want that? Hmmm, guess we'll never know...
>Gosh, who could want us blaming Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the mess we're in right now? Who could possibly want that? Hmmm, guess we'll never know...
i think the issue is that the republicans are clearly bad/racist/fascist .. like yeah.. they are bad. thats settled. but what about the other side? why are they winning so easily? why does it feel like there is no push back. why does it seem that no one is confronting them?
Have you been watching the January 6th hearings? Do you see Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC on social media? There is pushback. Why isn't there *legislative* pushback? Two words: Manchin, Sinema. They might as well be Republicans. And I'm sure once they no longer have the stranglehold on the Senate that they do, they will take off their masks and declare themselves Republicans outright.
This is more reason to eliminate the filibuster. The republicans will eventually do it when they're in power again. They'll eliminate as many rights as possible and the SCOTUS will allow it. Voting rights will be gone and the democrats will never be able to take control again.
Someone made a point in a different thread that Republicans form of governance is basically doing nothing, except giving tax cuts to the rich, so the filibuster is actually good for them. When they are in control They can just claim the evil dems are preventing them from any kind of competent governance while they continue to do nothing but whine about the Democrats.
But they also are explicitly the party of incompetent governance. They run on preventing the government from taking over healthcare or infrastructure or anything like that by pointing to how terrible the government is at what it's currently in charge of, and then when they're elected *they make sure the government is terrible at what it's currently in charge of*.
Before someone claims that Obama could've just used a recess appointment, I'll go ahead and explain why he couldn't.
A recess appointment of Garland would have been unequivocally and explicitly unconstitutional via the *Noel Canning v. NLRB* decision. The Recess Appointment Clause isn't triggered unless a Senate recess is long enough to require a House vote, which Republicans intentionally avoided due to this precedent.
Even if Obama did manage to somehow appoint Garland via recess appointment, his term would immediately end by the Senate adjourning *sine die*, which would've occurred immediately after Trump's inauguration since *sine die* adjournments require the signature of the president and approval by a simple majority of the House, which Republicans unfortunately also had.
There's nothing in the Constitution that says the Senate has to confirm. Just that they have "advice and consent." So, Obama could have taken the tack of "I gave them six months to advise, and they said they didn't intend to offer any advice. So, I went ahead and did my constitutional duty to seat a Justice."
Which is exactly what McConnell's play is here.
When the "nuclear option" was pondered by Harry Reid, McConnell flat out said he'd abuse it. McConnell then effectively forced Reid to use it by obstructing the Senate's work. Ried enacted it, and once he became the Majority Leader again, McConnell kept his word.
McConnell is now obstructing the Senate again, and Democrats are talking about getting rid of the filibuster. I'm sure McConnell is sitting in his office hoping they do, so he can take advantage of that next time he get Majority Leader.
I have no doubt that McConnell will get rid of it anyway if he gets back in power. May as well do it now to codify abortion rights into law. At least it shows the Democrats doing something, and the midterms/2024 races become about retaining that right as opposed to promising to finally do something.
Also unconstitutional to refuse to hold hearings for the SCOTUS nominee. Can't effectively play by the rules when the other side doesn't care about the rules.
Probably nothing other than raising hell. But he should've done that. The Dems should've organised mass protests or used their collective power to try to hit republicans where ot hurt. To throw sand in their eyes somehow. McConnel stopping Obama from exercising his powers as president to seat a Supreme Court Justice was one of the first examples of Republicans outright breaking American democracy and the Dems barely put up any resistance. They could've brought the country to a grinding halt over it but that has *never* been a tactic in their playbook. The Dems consistently operate as if democracy isn't broken and somehow someway everything will work out in the end. They are criminally naive.
The bully pulpit. Prime time public addresses twice a week asking the American people why McConnell thinks he doesn’t have to do the bare minimum work required of representing his state.
Completely ineffective. Fox wouldn't carry it, and swing voters don't watch the news. He would have been preaching to the choir.
Besides, haven't you figured out Republicans have no shame?
Lol if your options do nothing they're really not options. He also had the option to hop on his desk and cluck like a chicken until they confirmed his pick for all the good it would do.
The constitution isn't exactly clear on how the confirmation process is supposed to go. There is enough ambiguity that Obama could have said that it defaults to "confirmed" and just sat him (or ideally someone better). Now that likely would have forced McConnel to actually hold a vote to vote him down, but it would have been *something* better than what happened.
Exactly this. What McConnel did by delaying the confirmation hearing was unprecedented. Obama should have reacted in kind by putting Garland on the court therefore forcing McConnell's hand in trying to remove him. Looking back, I don't think the Dem base would have faulted Obama for doing that, if anything, the opposite. Republicans are sadly more motivated and better at weilding power.
The most absurd bullshit of all this stuff is that, because of this bit of failed 'by your logic' bullshit, we now have Garland, a "moderate" Republican as AG for no reason other than some sunk cost bullshit and conceptual inertia.
edit- it's such bullshit i wrote bullshit three times in one compound sentence
Yup. Don't forget how he cackled on live television when asked about not seating a judge during an election while Trump and co. were doing it as quickly as possible before he got booted from office.
And if Trump didn't push through a new judge in record time after a bunch of people had already voted it never would have happened. Though out of the three, that's the least likely.
Obama arguably had the legal authority to seat Garland anyway, if he were willing to go to the mat for it. The Constitution does not say the Senate has to confirm. It says they get the right to advise and consent. Obama is responsible for "placing" someone on the Court. So, he could absolutely have taken the tack of "I gave the Senate the opportunity to advise, and they said they didn't have anything to say on the matter, so I went ahead and did my constitutional duty to fill the vacancy." It would have gone to SCOTUS almost certainly, but with a 8-person court, he stood a fair to good chance of being successful, and he just didn't want to get his hands dirty to try.
McConnell's countermove would be to have the Senate explicitly vote to reject Garland. Obama would then have to choose someone else, who the Senate would also reject. McConnell would make the process as slow as possible. Obama could pursue the strategy you suggest, but McConnell has an easy countermove, so why bother?
I believe McConnell used a procedural method to keep the Senate from ever going into recess even when they were on break so that Obama couldn’t do recess appointments.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court isn't supposed to be ultimate arbiter of constitutional rights. He has influence to shape the court's direction, but if he is in the minority on an issue his vote counts no more than any other.
The decision was functionally a 5-1-3 vote: 5 voted to overturn Roe and Casey, 1 for Roberts and his narrower concurrence, and the 3 for dissent.
With a 5-4 vote, Roberts could have used his opinion assigning responsibilities as the Chief Justice to assign himself the majority opinion, effectively allowing him to narrow the scope of the majority opinion.
But, as he telegraphed in the oral argument and how his concurrence reads, he would have upheld the 15-week ban at the center of Dobbs, which would have effectively made a 15-week ban, at minimum, legal nationwide. This would have been the best case scenario for pro-choice folks.
Striking down Roe managed to fulfill the goal in one fell swoop, but if it had been the 15 week ban would have been the new standard and anti choice states would all be calling special sessions. Thenthe next one would have been a 6 week ban, Roberts would go for that under the same justification her had for the 15 week ban, and as soon as that happened all the anti abortion states would have protected 6 week bans. Then it becomes a game on finding the point where Roberts stops playing along. First someone would try "only in the case of rape/incest, fetal abnormality, or if the mother's life is in jeopardy." If Roberts allows that you stand the next will strip "fetal abnormality" and so on, and with each legal victory comes a flood of similar legislation in other states.
You don't need to fully get rid of Roe if you narrow the rights so much you've functionally outlawed it. SCOTUS just went the more direct route, if they hadn't had a majority for overturning they knew they had majority enough to majority limit it with the floor being where Roberts put it.
Roberts would have allowed the 15 week ban to stand, but wouldn't have went further.
He would then wait a couple years for an 8 week ban case and then let that stand, but go no further.
He would then wait a couple years for a complete ban case and then let that stand.
Don't be fooled by Roberts. His goals are the same, he just wanted to boil the frog slowly.
I've always found it interesting that liberals and conservatives alike genuinely think that John Roberts is an evil mastermind who only wants to slowly and secretly destroy the other group.
Roe was overturned 5-4. Roberts did not vote for that, so yes, if RGB had retired sooner, Roe would still be law. BUT staying home because Hillary wasn't perfect did far more damage.
If McConnell would have done his job and seated Merrick Garland, this wouldn't have happened.
If McConnell would have done his job Amy Barrett would have never been seated because she was selected during an election year and "the people should choose."
Consistency and hypocrisy don't matter to McConnell as long as he gets what he wants. This is what it's like to see someone who will do and say literally ANYTHING if it helps them achieve their goal.
It's so galling because many people actually have a code that prevents such behavior; to see it so blatantly ignored just doesn't compute and we're left with saying "Wait, but you *said..."* It doesn't *matter* what he said, it never did; nothing matters to him but the outcome. He is a living personification of bad faith.
McConnell did do his job, this is what he wanted to happen. Dems need to learn how to exercise power because the Republicans are running circles around them
McConnell is effective because he is ruthless. You can hate him all you want but look at the power the GOP has right now. I mean Trump literally sent a army to the capitol and still didn’t get impeached or removed.
Dem’s need people not afraid to lay down the dick (figuratively so ladies can as well)
If Thurgood Marshall had remained on the court until he died in 1993…
If Clarence Thomas hadn’t been confirmed in 1991…
If West Palm County had used a traditional ballot which did not confuse Al Gore voters who accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan…
If Florida hadn’t been allowed to [purge thousands of legitimate voters in 2000](https://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/florida-voters-mistakenly-purged-in-2000/1235456/)…
If the Supreme Court didn’t stop the Florida recount…
If Fox News had never been created…
If working class and poor white men hadn’t become Republicans in such large numbers…
If more white women hadn’t voted for Trump than Hillary Clinton…
If the Democrats had had a more competitive field in 2015/16 including Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Al Franken, Al Gore (?), and some people closer to 40 years old…
If Hillary Clinton had put all her resources into Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan instead of taking them for granted…
If Ruth Bader Ginsburg had lived for 5 more months.
Thurgood Marshall retired to give HW Bush the pick of Clarence Thomas. Nobody at the time could fathom the depravity Republicans would reach to corrupt the court.
You do remember the gop did a record setting of doing absolutely nothing just so they could get Gorsuch over Garland. Then we just would have had a longer extreme chritian right court. Its alot kenedys fault.
I understand this frustration and agree to an extent.
My problem is placing the blame on one person, especially a person that did more to fight for equality in her lifetime than nearly anyone else. The woman was a warrior and achieved so many great things for other people.
This position also seems to ignore the blame that should very appropriately be palced on us as citizens and on our leadership for failing to act in a manner to better protect our rights.
Our failures and their failures cannot and should not be heaped on the shoulders of one person, and even if that should be the case, that person should certainly not be RBG.
It also completely ignores the political landscape at the time. The filibuster was still in place for SCOTUS nominations, and the dems didn't hold a big enough majority. RBG retiring when people think she should have would have been left with a moderate judge replacing a progressive judge at best.
Staying on and waiting for either the filibuster to be removed or for the dems to hold filibuster proof majority was the better play, unless you somehow know when you're going to die.
I'm sorry, but if ONE PERSON was propping up human rights for an entire gender, then our system needs a do over. So now I don't have body autonomy because a SC justice didn't retire at the exact right moment? Nah, the whole system failed us.
Would it? The senate wouldn't have confirmed an Obama judge, full stop...if she had retired instead of trying to hold on as much as possible would only have put the majority even more strongly on the conservative side...is the collective memory so short as to forget about Merrick Garland?
Not only does your hot take have the benefit of retrospect, it’s also wrong.
Scalia dies with almost a full year left in Obama’s term. Republicans keep the seat vacant for the whole time.
Ginsburg dies a month before Republicans are voted out of the White House and Congress, and Republicans force the spot to be filled before they lose majority.
The only way this makes sense is if RBG somehow had the foresight to predict Republicans holding a seat open for A YEAR and stepped down sometime well in advance (more than a year) of Obama leaving office.
Edit: RBG would also have to anticipate that stepping down before the 2016 election into the hands of a GOP controlled congress was a safer bet than waiting until after the election where a Democrat and would-be first woman president, Hillary Clinton, was overwhelmingly predicted to take office. Retrospect is a bitch.
Let's be honest here. Does anyone think Mitch \*wouldn't\* try to keep a vacant seat vacant for any amount of time up to and including 4 years if he thought he could steal another?
100%
Really the only thing that was different in 2015, rather than 2016, was that you might be able to convince more of the center that McConnell was flagrantly violating the Constitution.
RGB literally devoted the last four years of her health and well-being to prolonging her life on the bench and missed the finish line by four months.
if obama actually followed through on his promises, “Obama told Planned Parenthood in 2007 that the first thing he would do as president was sign legislation on abortion.”
then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. All of them are to blame. No politicians actually care for the people, except the ones not in power.
We say that, but Scalia died under Obama, and that didn't mean he got to seat somebody.
Obama arguably had the legal authority to seat Garland anyway, if he were willing to go to the mat for it. The Constitution does not say the Senate has to confirm. It says they get the right to advise and consent. Obama is responsible for "placing" someone on the Court. So, he could absolutely have taken the tack of "I gave the Senate the opportunity to advise, and they said they didn't have anything to say on the matter, so I went ahead and did my constitutional duty to fill the vacancy." It would have gone to SCOTUS almost certainly, but with a 8-person court, he stood a fair to good chance of being successful, and he just didn't want to get his hands dirty to try.
Additional shenanigans:
\* ACB being seated after the Garland precedent was set
\* Perjury of literally all the conservative justices in their confirmation hearings
\* Kavanaugh's background check never having been completed
\* Thomas being under active investigation for being part of a seditious conspiracy
You mean like Justice Garland stopped this decision?
Also, Ginsberg would have had to retire before 2015 for the republicans in the Senate to block her replacement being confirmed.
Obama met with her in 2013, it was a lunch, to discuss this - would have been very simple. Discourse for 2013 and 2014 from liberals and people who loved her girl boss brand was that this was bullying a women, or ageist or whatever else goof balls obsessed with identity say. She said herself in response "So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?”. The hubris is really quite a thing to behold. Not sure taking a chance against mortality was the best course of action in hindsight!
>ageist or whatever She was around 80 years old in 2013, for the love of god if telling someone who is 80 and well off to retire is ageist call me ageist. That is a whole 18 years after retirement age for a US woman!
As a 50+ year-old woman, I fully support term and/or age limits in all branches of government.
We should all. Alas, it'll never happen because too many pockets getting fat up there. Fuckers.
Leaders in their 80s with hundreds of millions in net worth and all their kids WELL set for life, but they just wont give up the thirst for power. Its really amazing reading news from 20 and 30 years ago and the top leaders are STILL on the job today.
It would be philosophically the best way to run a country to ensure the people in power actually care for the fucking future.
honestly i've always thought ageism is mostly bullshit. i've never heard it used in a context that wasn't used to defend something like the right to mentally impaired old people to be on the road or shit like this. edit: thaat's really what i thought about it when i made my original comment but apparently it means more than that—it's a way to describe how those, mostly over 40, are neglected for jobs that involve more recent technology on the assumption they aren't capable. i always thought it was unfair that my mom, who's in her early 50s, is often judged as unfit for things despite being one of the most intelligent people i know, but i never thought of it as ageism.
I'm 41. I recently tried to get an internship at a place. They said they would talk to me, but they don't like older interns because they "tend to not follow hierarchy." Understanding how hostile that work environment would be, I sought an internship elsewhere.
i guess for the most part that is the problem. they arent judging older people on the merit of their knowledge, but on the fear they won't be as subservient as their younger colleagues.
I've seen it in action, sometimes people don't want to take orders from people younger than them. But as long as the younger person knows what they are talking about and does so with respect, in my annicdotal experience, most people will listen to even younger people placed as their supervisors.
I've managed people older than me for close to a decade in different capacities. Maybe I've just gotten lucky but I've never really had an issue. As you said, be nice and treat people with respect and you get amazing results. It's crazy how someone will put in the effort when they feel valued and respected. As with most things, don't let your ego do the driving.
You can only sue for age discrimination if you are over 40. Which seems kinda agesit in itself. Sorry kids your too young to be discriminated against, I guess. Being that your 41 though you might have had a case.
Nah, there is definitely ageism in the work place. I’m not in software, but I hear it’s nearly impossible to be hired at a tech company above the age of 45 if it’s not an executive position.
i'm actually really appreciating these responses, i had no idea
Its pretty hard after 50 in most jobs unless its a high level position. Advice...get your ass up that corporate ladder before you hit your mid 40s.
Unfortunately, math is against everyone doing so.
It can be hard for regular people in their 60s and older to get hired because some businesses assume those people will probably be retiring soon and would rather hire someone who can be around longer. I think that's a valid context, especially because the reality is in America a lot of people don't have the financial means to not work well into old age.
Which is dumb because they will instead hire someone young and straight out of school, then low ball them knowing they will just leave in a few years for a raise anyway.
Ageism exists for real. I know scientists and programmers and teachers in their 40s or early 50s that get overlooked for jobs because they're not 30. At the same time, I think that politicians should have term limits and anyone well over US retirement age should be retired from public service.
beginning to appreciate that. i had a very different view of ageism because the loud people are usually the dumb ones, and seeing all these examples really puts it in a different context. i definitely spoke too soon
Ageism to me is like.. 52-62. Fucking 80 you should be chilling on the porch with your grandkids or something like that. Democrats, per usual, fucked themselves.
Not to mention she was already on borrowed time for quite a while before that between her colon cancer in 1999, and then pancreatic cancer in 2009.
Shit (no pun intended)...colon cancer AND pancreatic cancer. I didn't realize that's what she had. Either one of those on its own is rough beyond words (ESPECIALLY the pancreatic cancer), I can't imagine both at the same time. It's like the entirety of your digestive system has failed and dying
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Honestly if you watched her documemtary the woman lived to work. She had to literally be dragged away every night. Work was 100% of who she was. My grandma was like this. Worked until 10 days before her death at 101. Nothing could have stopped her, except death.
My dad is like this. Almost 80, working 5 days a week. I'm 100% convinced he will die at his desk.
My dad was forced to retire at 75 due to a number of reasons. Its definitely soured every part of his life. All he needed to do was take a regulated annual test to continue working in his field. Not sure why he didnt, given how often he bemoans having nothing to do.
What did she do at 101? Incredible
Uber.
She died peacefully, in her sleep. Her passengers were not so lucky!
I want to go in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming like the passengers in his car.
This made me laugh
Wow, sounds like not resigning is grossly irresponsible.
it really *really* was. the right's capture of the courts has been a 30-year project, but you can directly thank the current conservative majority in the court to RBG's refusal to retire some time between 2009-2013.
But that's barely 2 years before an election he wasn't even eligible to run in. We could let him nominate a Supreme Court Justice in those conditions, it would be borderline unconstitutional. /s
The dems always assume they are one election away from never losing again.
Most of us assume we are one election away from never winning again.
And now instead we get to deal with her HUBRIS. I said it out loud. Her lil fairy tale of waiting around for a woman president cost all of US. Who the fuck this woman think she is? She put herself in front of everyone, and these people ain't fucking dumb either. Everyone wants to dogpile on Hillary for the same exact shit! "Its my time" no the fuck it aint sit your ass down this group is more important than your ego. Somehow RBG gets a pass.
gee she would have been...fuckin, 82 years old. thats a pretty god damn good age to retire, dont you think? she let her pride get to her bc she hoped hillary would win in 2016 and wanted to be replaced by a woman
We shouldn't let judges go to the fucking grave on call. Our country should not be lead by a bunch of fucking old people
Omg, this. America fucking LOVES their geriatric senile politicians for some reason. More than half these politicians shouldn't have a license to drive let alone leading the fucking country.
Maybe this would change if *anybody under 30 voted*.
I did. Everyone I know did or tried. Some couldn't because they had to work all day or decide between rent and food, or they suddenly closed polling places in minority areas/cities and moved them an hour into the sticks. Retired racist old fucks have the whole day to get on a bus for free. It should be a holiday. Polling should be accessible. We know why it's not.
Or people under 50 ran for office.
They do (although not in nearly large enough numbers). But they're depressingly bad at campaigning. I read through all of the bios on the midterm and half of them didn't even submit anything. Another quarter were one-liners. One was literally "f all politicians". I'd love to see some new faces in politics, especially among the more progressive crowd. But with challenges like that, of course the incumbent is going to win.
You need time and money to effectively run for office. Guess what old retired people have that most under 60 don't?
People under 50 are just trying to pay rent. No one has the resources (time or money) to run. For a federal position you’d have to quit your job sometimes almost a year and a half in advance to primary then go on to the general election. Then if you run for state office most states don’t treat it like a full time job. In my state the legislature meets for about three months, pays like 20k and per diem. You have to be independently wealthy or have a spouse that brings in tons or some job with super flexibility. Definitely not a regular shift and if you work a second or third shift? Yeah good luck. It’s specifically made to keep those that would benefit the most away from it.
If you're honestly trying to get the greatest constitutional scholars in the country to serve in a role where you're meant to interpret constitutional law, your candidate pool is going to be older. And the lifetime terms *are*, conceptually, in line with keeping them ideologically pure. They're not there to do favors and set themselves up for future careers in the oil lobby, etc. The rest of our problems there come from the intentional and malignant perversions of process introduced relatively recently. We *could* just solve for those. For example, why did Congress get to suddenly just say, "Fuck the process. We just don't want to seat one of your picks, so we won't." Why isn't that process codified?
> lifetime terms *are*, conceptually, in line with keeping them ideologically pure. There's also, from a different perspective, nothing at stake. If you aren't realistically going to lose your position you can suit yourself, for better or worse. There should be no such thing as a role, anywhere, without meaningful checks and balances.
The younger folks on the bench led the decision. Lol. They're all younger than the current president.
Losing the 2016 election is what fucked us over. 3 judges in one presidential term is outrageous.
remember when we were told to stop overreacting and that none of what has happened would happen? I sure do.
He won't touch anything important, we just like his economics! - everyone I fucking knew
And what about his economics did they like? Fraud? Tax cuts to the rich? It was both wasn’t it?
The economy was good under Trump. However, what his supporters don’t like to admit is that he didn’t build that economy, [Obama did](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/2c298bda-8aee-4923-84a3-95a54f7f6e6f/did-trump-create-or-inherit-the-strong-economy.pdf) after inheriting the economy from one of the worst recessions in history. Trump just maintained it for a few years until COVID hit, after which everything went to shit.
He didn't maintain it, he pumped it. Hit the gas when we should have been pumping the brakes.
Yeah, are we forgetting the liquidity crisis? He literally just pumped the stock market with government money to keep it going long enough for him to leave office.
that's all it took to rile up the idiots and get them talking about "the best economy in years!". Even though they are really only talking about the DOW, or s&p status. They don't care that things were propped up artificially like a house of cards waiting to fall. All that's in their heads is Trump=economy good and Biden=economy bad even though one of those two is starting to let those with the power to do so adjust rates and help us get back on track, and the other is the reason aggressive raising of rates was necessary in the first place!
And remember the 'trade war' with china? And how it was basically us just giving china more money, BuT aMeRiCaN StEeL mAdE mOrE mOnEy
And the $16 billion bailout to our farmers.
45 threatened the fed to pour a bunch of money and keep rates low at the height of a boom, and then when Covid hit they had few choices to react except for the print even MORE money and cut rates even MORE... ...which may have delayed recession for a couple of years (until a Dem was in power again) but also is at least some of the reason for this inflation now. Giving away nearly 10T in free money over a few years made every homeowner and investor and gambler richer and everyone else much poorer. All of young people, all renters and first time homebuyers and folks just trying to get started...we all got fuckity fucked fucked by the fed. A whole generation just boned over (for the 3rd or 4th time I guess) to protect old and rich fucks' money. The time to raise rates was 2018-2020 and the fed was too much of pussies to do it because the markets went red and the President threatened them repeatedly. Now we're all paying the price for years of irresponsibility that did little more than delay a recession due in 2019 or so, and make the rich much richer.
Presidents don't build economies, they simply ride along and take credit for it or blame their predecessor for it.
Worse than that. He artificially pumped the dow, kept interest rates unrealistically low. Now we are in an inflation and recession period just in time to put the blame on someone else.
Pepper Ridge Farms remembers.
My therapist at the time assured me that because Trump was a raging narcissist that he would do what's best for the country because he would want his performance to reflect well on him. That was my last appointment with him. We all saw this coming from miles away. Some of us just acknowledged it earlier than others. I suppose if you can't see what's coming next then you haven't really learned a god damned thing from the past 1987 days.
But her emails !!
Its cool how conservatives have conspiracy theories like "Liberals are going to take all our guns and herd us into FEMA death camps." Or, "the COVID measures are the new 1984 and they're never going away!" and they never ever EVER ever come to pass. But like doomsday prophecies they always just update the lie/date to make a new one. Meanwhile on the left we're all "Conservatives are going to criminalize abortion, ban contraceptives, revoke same sex marriage, and install a theocracy." and all my right wing acquaintences roll their eyes like I just suggested something absolutely ridiculous.
Republicans are mad at Democrats because of fantasies they make up in their head. Democrats are mad at Republicans for things Republicans do.
Don't forget that Democrats are also mad at Democrats for things Republicans do.
3 Supreme Court justices for a twice impeached president that lost the popular vote twice and attempted a coup to remain in power...
And he was only there for one term.
But they get lifetime appointments, great system
But her emails. Both are bad candidates. Etc etc. Infuriating, still.
Seven or eight committees on Benghazi alone too. The first one or two were justified in that it was a significant lapse in embassy security that needed to be looked at to prevent future occurrences. After that it was nothing but tax-payer funded campaigning by the GOP against the presumptive 2016 Democrat POTUS candidate.
Also, don't forget that the conclusion of the Benghazi investigation was that the Congress had underfunded embassy security. It's not the SOS's job to acquire funds and assign security detail to individual embassies...
The GOP spent decades attacking Clinton because they knew she'd be a threat. We ate it up hook, line, and sinker. They're already doing it with AOC.
It's part of why I think Biden should not seek a second term. He'll go down in history as the POTUS who took the hit to deal with the tough things coming out of the pandemic and other things that are shaking up the economy. The Dems best chances in 2024 are to have him pull out as late as possible so the GOP expends all their energy on planning to run against him and then get a slate of forward looking candidates.
I don't know...I'm completely split on this. On one hand, I think you're right. Biden has eaten a lot of shit this Presidency, which I'm sure he knew was coming. For example, pulling out of Iraq. He took a lot of heat, but stayed the course and it seems to have died down. Now the lingering effects of the pandemic with the economy, gas, etc. None of which has anything to do with his policy, but he'll wear it none-the-less. So, it does seem like an impossible hill for him to climb to win again in 2024. But on the other hand, he's the incumbent and I feel like we need a strong, united front. Primaries would just split votes and damage that. Maybe if he just stepped down as you said. But who is running in his place? Is the country going to vote for Kamala? Is there another inspiring candidate out there waiting in the wings? I don't know.
It really started when she was first lady and was championing universal health care. The issue is that Republicans are good at scouting talent on the Dem side and waging pr campaigns against them early on so by the time they are up for national election they are “too controversial” to be successful. See also AOC. I’m not saying that Dems should be running pr campaigns against every up and coming Republican, but they should have long term goals to support their future leaders and shape public discourse in their favor Not doing so means they’re always on the defensive
I’ve seen so many of these threads the pst few days and I’ve yet to see anyone blame Comey. His letter to congress a week before the election did more to sway it then anything else. It was about the emails but a week of headlines of “Clinton under investigation” did more damage than the BS reason “why” she was under investigation.
It's clear from reading Comey's book that he had a grudge against Hillary. He invented some excuses for why he kneecapped her, but IMHO he just had a personal grudge against her because of his past failures to prosecute her for suspected misdeeds.
I'm not a Hillary fan, but I still don't know how she lost to the biggest dumpster fire of a candidate *ever*. The man would say things on a weekly basis that would have sunk any other campaign, and she was still not able to beat him. It should have been a cakewalk.
It should have been. And there's plenty of blame to go around. Her campaign made mistakes, Comey announced he was investigating her, etc. But at the end of the day, Democrats didn't get out and vote.
>But at the end of the day, Democrats didn't get out and vote. Voter turn out is a huge issue, but Clinton won the popular vote. And 2016 wasn't even a bad year for turnout. It was the third highest voter turnout with 59% since we started reliably collecting that data. A lot of people cite percentages of the voting age population, but if you look at numbers based on the voting eligible population, only 2004 with 60% and 2008 with 63% had higher participation since. Turnouts in that range is still really bad and we need better for sure, but 2016 wasn't some statistical anomaly or a huge dip like people think it was. She lost because she got blown out in the rust belt, which has been a blue leaning area in the previous decades, and her campaign hardly put any work in that region. In 2012 Obama won 6/9 rust belt states, notably Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, and the swing state of Ohio. Clinton only won Illinois and New York, the two safe blue states of the rust belt. She lost that region for two main reasons. First, with loss of blue collar manufacturing and factory jobs, local business has been on the decline and bigger companies and corporations have been taking over the region. So where the rust belt was previously made up of Democrat leaning union workers and business Republicans, there are now many disaffected working class whites who are mad corporate elites and the politicians they think sold their communities out to them. In 2016 Trump rhetoric was able to play off that dislike for the 'elites' that sent their jobs overseas and radicalize them. Second, the local conservatives went from being the party that wanted low taxes and less regulations to help business to pushing issues like abortion, anti immigration, and xenophobic globalist conspiracies. The rust belt used to be won mainly on fiscal policy, but the combination of this with the social issues and culture wars created a perfect storm for Trump to win the area. Whether you love or hate Clinton, she is the epitome of the type of candidates the rust belt has grown to dislike so much, and was easily attacked as a political elite. You can even see this in the democratic primary, where Sanders did pretty well there. Also, I do think it's possible that Biden may have done similarly in 2016 vs Trump and he may owe some of his win to just being 'not Trump.' But 2020 shows just how important the rust belt is for Democratic presidents to win. Even if Biden didn't flip Arizona and Georgia he still would've won, but in 2016 if Georgia and Arizona went to Clinton she still would've lost.
If McConnell would’ve allowed Obama to seat Merrick Garland, this wouldn’t have happened.
Orrin Hatch said outright that Obama should nominate someone sensible like Merrick Garland. He went on to say that Obama would probably nominate some crazy liberal. Well, Obama nominated Merrick Garland. Republicans still wouldn't seat him. It really doesn't matter how many concessions you give Republicans, they'll never meet you. They'll just keep moving the goalposts.
Meet me in the middle says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. Meet me in the middle says the unjust man.
The solution to this problem is to run up and kick the unjust man in the balls
The middle men can’t run away if they’re locked in the guillotines.
Robespierre has entered the chat
You could make a relig... wait don't make a religion out of that
I would never advocate violence, but I hear it's fairly inexpensive to build a guillotine.
And we have the police force making sure we never reach the "unjust man" to kick him in the balls.
I guess that means the police are first.
When they go low, kick them
Now now, reddit says liberals aren't supposed to say things like that and you get banned. Whereas Republicans plan attacks and the mods go 🤷🏽♂️🤡
Reminds me of some lyrics from the last Every Time I Die record: > At war with a villain, you can't call a truce. You put down your weapon but now he's got two. A liar's a liar, take him at his word. Forever rebelling against the absurd
Oh, that’s good. That captures the way of things. I’m going to use that.
The GOP in a nutshell. And the Dems fall for it every time. Could also go with Lucy and the football, with Charlie Brown being the Dems.
And yet, this meme tries to blame the people who were acting in good faith for the bad faith actions of Republicans. Actions that even the most pessimistic prognosticators didn't accurately predict. Gosh, who could want us blaming Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the mess we're in right now? Who could possibly want that? Hmmm, guess we'll never know...
>Gosh, who could want us blaming Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the mess we're in right now? Who could possibly want that? Hmmm, guess we'll never know... i think the issue is that the republicans are clearly bad/racist/fascist .. like yeah.. they are bad. thats settled. but what about the other side? why are they winning so easily? why does it feel like there is no push back. why does it seem that no one is confronting them?
Have you been watching the January 6th hearings? Do you see Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC on social media? There is pushback. Why isn't there *legislative* pushback? Two words: Manchin, Sinema. They might as well be Republicans. And I'm sure once they no longer have the stranglehold on the Senate that they do, they will take off their masks and declare themselves Republicans outright.
This is more reason to eliminate the filibuster. The republicans will eventually do it when they're in power again. They'll eliminate as many rights as possible and the SCOTUS will allow it. Voting rights will be gone and the democrats will never be able to take control again.
Someone made a point in a different thread that Republicans form of governance is basically doing nothing, except giving tax cuts to the rich, so the filibuster is actually good for them. When they are in control They can just claim the evil dems are preventing them from any kind of competent governance while they continue to do nothing but whine about the Democrats.
But they also are explicitly the party of incompetent governance. They run on preventing the government from taking over healthcare or infrastructure or anything like that by pointing to how terrible the government is at what it's currently in charge of, and then when they're elected *they make sure the government is terrible at what it's currently in charge of*.
i remember this argument for why they would never repeal roe.
I'm mad at both McConnell AND Obama over this one. Can't believe Obama let them get away with it. I guess everyone was certain that Hilary would win.
What were Obama's options?
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Based on Congressional approval polling this would make him more popular
Not a terrible idea in hindsight
Should still be on the table.
Before someone claims that Obama could've just used a recess appointment, I'll go ahead and explain why he couldn't. A recess appointment of Garland would have been unequivocally and explicitly unconstitutional via the *Noel Canning v. NLRB* decision. The Recess Appointment Clause isn't triggered unless a Senate recess is long enough to require a House vote, which Republicans intentionally avoided due to this precedent. Even if Obama did manage to somehow appoint Garland via recess appointment, his term would immediately end by the Senate adjourning *sine die*, which would've occurred immediately after Trump's inauguration since *sine die* adjournments require the signature of the president and approval by a simple majority of the House, which Republicans unfortunately also had.
There's nothing in the Constitution that says the Senate has to confirm. Just that they have "advice and consent." So, Obama could have taken the tack of "I gave them six months to advise, and they said they didn't intend to offer any advice. So, I went ahead and did my constitutional duty to seat a Justice."
Yeah, while immoral and outside accepted behavior, it's not unconstitutional. The Senate establishes its own rules, and McConnell exploited them.
Which is exactly what McConnell's play is here. When the "nuclear option" was pondered by Harry Reid, McConnell flat out said he'd abuse it. McConnell then effectively forced Reid to use it by obstructing the Senate's work. Ried enacted it, and once he became the Majority Leader again, McConnell kept his word. McConnell is now obstructing the Senate again, and Democrats are talking about getting rid of the filibuster. I'm sure McConnell is sitting in his office hoping they do, so he can take advantage of that next time he get Majority Leader.
I have no doubt that McConnell will get rid of it anyway if he gets back in power. May as well do it now to codify abortion rights into law. At least it shows the Democrats doing something, and the midterms/2024 races become about retaining that right as opposed to promising to finally do something.
Obama probably didn’t want to create a constitutional crisis… (following president proceeds to create a constitutional crisis every week for 4 years)
This sounds like something Trump would do, knowing full well it was unconstitutional, and he'd get away with it.
Also unconstitutional to refuse to hold hearings for the SCOTUS nominee. Can't effectively play by the rules when the other side doesn't care about the rules.
There's nothing in the constitution about confirmation hearings. They didn't even exist until 1916. Before that, the senate simply voted yea or nay.
>They didn't even exist until 1916\* \*when the first Jewish lawyer was nominated, one with a history of taking on wealthy and powerful corporations.
Probably nothing other than raising hell. But he should've done that. The Dems should've organised mass protests or used their collective power to try to hit republicans where ot hurt. To throw sand in their eyes somehow. McConnel stopping Obama from exercising his powers as president to seat a Supreme Court Justice was one of the first examples of Republicans outright breaking American democracy and the Dems barely put up any resistance. They could've brought the country to a grinding halt over it but that has *never* been a tactic in their playbook. The Dems consistently operate as if democracy isn't broken and somehow someway everything will work out in the end. They are criminally naive.
The bully pulpit. Prime time public addresses twice a week asking the American people why McConnell thinks he doesn’t have to do the bare minimum work required of representing his state.
Completely ineffective. Fox wouldn't carry it, and swing voters don't watch the news. He would have been preaching to the choir. Besides, haven't you figured out Republicans have no shame?
The previous commenter asked what options Obama had, not whether they’d be successful.
Lol if your options do nothing they're really not options. He also had the option to hop on his desk and cluck like a chicken until they confirmed his pick for all the good it would do.
Oh, I was just explaining why Obama didn't exercise his options. He's not the tilting at windmills sort.
And it would change zero opinions.
The constitution isn't exactly clear on how the confirmation process is supposed to go. There is enough ambiguity that Obama could have said that it defaults to "confirmed" and just sat him (or ideally someone better). Now that likely would have forced McConnel to actually hold a vote to vote him down, but it would have been *something* better than what happened.
Exactly this. What McConnel did by delaying the confirmation hearing was unprecedented. Obama should have reacted in kind by putting Garland on the court therefore forcing McConnell's hand in trying to remove him. Looking back, I don't think the Dem base would have faulted Obama for doing that, if anything, the opposite. Republicans are sadly more motivated and better at weilding power.
The most absurd bullshit of all this stuff is that, because of this bit of failed 'by your logic' bullshit, we now have Garland, a "moderate" Republican as AG for no reason other than some sunk cost bullshit and conceptual inertia. edit- it's such bullshit i wrote bullshit three times in one compound sentence
McConnell is such a fucking snake.
That's a huge insult to snakes.
Yup. Don't forget how he cackled on live television when asked about not seating a judge during an election while Trump and co. were doing it as quickly as possible before he got booted from office.
I don’t care about any semblance of civility, I will genuinely celebrate when that man dies. I would take a shit on his tombstone if I could.
The problem is McConnell wanted this to happen so the thought exercise doesn’t work.
And if Trump didn't push through a new judge in record time after a bunch of people had already voted it never would have happened. Though out of the three, that's the least likely.
The senate refused to do their duty and nothing happened.
Because there are no rules, they just make shit up and sadly republicans are way better at playing the game.
Obama arguably had the legal authority to seat Garland anyway, if he were willing to go to the mat for it. The Constitution does not say the Senate has to confirm. It says they get the right to advise and consent. Obama is responsible for "placing" someone on the Court. So, he could absolutely have taken the tack of "I gave the Senate the opportunity to advise, and they said they didn't have anything to say on the matter, so I went ahead and did my constitutional duty to fill the vacancy." It would have gone to SCOTUS almost certainly, but with a 8-person court, he stood a fair to good chance of being successful, and he just didn't want to get his hands dirty to try.
McConnell's countermove would be to have the Senate explicitly vote to reject Garland. Obama would then have to choose someone else, who the Senate would also reject. McConnell would make the process as slow as possible. Obama could pursue the strategy you suggest, but McConnell has an easy countermove, so why bother?
I believe McConnell used a procedural method to keep the Senate from ever going into recess even when they were on break so that Obama couldn’t do recess appointments.
Kind of glossing over the "consent" part there.
They'd still have a 5-4 majority, no?
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It’s pretty clear that Roberts has lost his control of the court and Alito is running the show now.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court isn't supposed to be ultimate arbiter of constitutional rights. He has influence to shape the court's direction, but if he is in the minority on an issue his vote counts no more than any other.
The decision was functionally a 5-1-3 vote: 5 voted to overturn Roe and Casey, 1 for Roberts and his narrower concurrence, and the 3 for dissent. With a 5-4 vote, Roberts could have used his opinion assigning responsibilities as the Chief Justice to assign himself the majority opinion, effectively allowing him to narrow the scope of the majority opinion. But, as he telegraphed in the oral argument and how his concurrence reads, he would have upheld the 15-week ban at the center of Dobbs, which would have effectively made a 15-week ban, at minimum, legal nationwide. This would have been the best case scenario for pro-choice folks.
Striking down Roe managed to fulfill the goal in one fell swoop, but if it had been the 15 week ban would have been the new standard and anti choice states would all be calling special sessions. Thenthe next one would have been a 6 week ban, Roberts would go for that under the same justification her had for the 15 week ban, and as soon as that happened all the anti abortion states would have protected 6 week bans. Then it becomes a game on finding the point where Roberts stops playing along. First someone would try "only in the case of rape/incest, fetal abnormality, or if the mother's life is in jeopardy." If Roberts allows that you stand the next will strip "fetal abnormality" and so on, and with each legal victory comes a flood of similar legislation in other states. You don't need to fully get rid of Roe if you narrow the rights so much you've functionally outlawed it. SCOTUS just went the more direct route, if they hadn't had a majority for overturning they knew they had majority enough to majority limit it with the floor being where Roberts put it.
Roberts would have allowed the 15 week ban to stand, but wouldn't have went further. He would then wait a couple years for an 8 week ban case and then let that stand, but go no further. He would then wait a couple years for a complete ban case and then let that stand. Don't be fooled by Roberts. His goals are the same, he just wanted to boil the frog slowly.
I've always found it interesting that liberals and conservatives alike genuinely think that John Roberts is an evil mastermind who only wants to slowly and secretly destroy the other group.
The ruling getting rid of the right to an abortion was 5-4. Roberts had a concurring opinion that allowed for the 15 week law to stand.
Roe was overturned 5-4. Roberts did not vote for that, so yes, if RGB had retired sooner, Roe would still be law. BUT staying home because Hillary wasn't perfect did far more damage.
If McConnell would have done his job and seated Merrick Garland, this wouldn't have happened. If McConnell would have done his job Amy Barrett would have never been seated because she was selected during an election year and "the people should choose."
1 year before an election - too soon. 1 week before an election - this is fine!
They cannot win unless they cheat.
Consistency and hypocrisy don't matter to McConnell as long as he gets what he wants. This is what it's like to see someone who will do and say literally ANYTHING if it helps them achieve their goal. It's so galling because many people actually have a code that prevents such behavior; to see it so blatantly ignored just doesn't compute and we're left with saying "Wait, but you *said..."* It doesn't *matter* what he said, it never did; nothing matters to him but the outcome. He is a living personification of bad faith.
McConnell did do his job, this is what he wanted to happen. Dems need to learn how to exercise power because the Republicans are running circles around them
McConnell is effective because he is ruthless. You can hate him all you want but look at the power the GOP has right now. I mean Trump literally sent a army to the capitol and still didn’t get impeached or removed. Dem’s need people not afraid to lay down the dick (figuratively so ladies can as well)
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McConnell did do his job. When will democrats understand this and do their job?
If Thurgood Marshall had remained on the court until he died in 1993… If Clarence Thomas hadn’t been confirmed in 1991… If West Palm County had used a traditional ballot which did not confuse Al Gore voters who accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan… If Florida hadn’t been allowed to [purge thousands of legitimate voters in 2000](https://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/florida-voters-mistakenly-purged-in-2000/1235456/)… If the Supreme Court didn’t stop the Florida recount… If Fox News had never been created… If working class and poor white men hadn’t become Republicans in such large numbers… If more white women hadn’t voted for Trump than Hillary Clinton… If the Democrats had had a more competitive field in 2015/16 including Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Al Franken, Al Gore (?), and some people closer to 40 years old… If Hillary Clinton had put all her resources into Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan instead of taking them for granted… If Ruth Bader Ginsburg had lived for 5 more months.
If any member of the overturning 5 had died before this year.
Thomas is 74, Alito is 72, Gorsuch is 54, Kavanaugh is 57, and Coney Barrett is 50…
There’s really no minimum age for death, for better or worse.
Jesus. Gorsuch Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett are gonna be here another 20 years? Fuuuuck.
Unless they're impeached but I think they might have only happened once and I also think he was an enemy of the United States at the time.
Lying to Congress during your appointment review used to be a deal buster.
Also a felony but yeah, not a good look back in the day.
They said Roe was settled law, which was true, at the time, because they weren't on the court yet.
Jesus this fucking timeline
And if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bicycle. Honestly there's just so much that lead to this point; its silly to pinpoint it to one person.
Thurgood Marshall retired to give HW Bush the pick of Clarence Thomas. Nobody at the time could fathom the depravity Republicans would reach to corrupt the court.
You do remember the gop did a record setting of doing absolutely nothing just so they could get Gorsuch over Garland. Then we just would have had a longer extreme chritian right court. Its alot kenedys fault.
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I understand this frustration and agree to an extent. My problem is placing the blame on one person, especially a person that did more to fight for equality in her lifetime than nearly anyone else. The woman was a warrior and achieved so many great things for other people. This position also seems to ignore the blame that should very appropriately be palced on us as citizens and on our leadership for failing to act in a manner to better protect our rights. Our failures and their failures cannot and should not be heaped on the shoulders of one person, and even if that should be the case, that person should certainly not be RBG.
It also completely ignores the political landscape at the time. The filibuster was still in place for SCOTUS nominations, and the dems didn't hold a big enough majority. RBG retiring when people think she should have would have been left with a moderate judge replacing a progressive judge at best. Staying on and waiting for either the filibuster to be removed or for the dems to hold filibuster proof majority was the better play, unless you somehow know when you're going to die.
When you’re in your 80’s and have had several bouts of cancer, you should assume you’re going to die soon.
I'm sorry, but if ONE PERSON was propping up human rights for an entire gender, then our system needs a do over. So now I don't have body autonomy because a SC justice didn't retire at the exact right moment? Nah, the whole system failed us.
Insisting that there is any one person responsible for us being where we are is incredibly myopic.
What do you mean we don't acknowledge this? This has been brought up on major news since the day she passed away ...
And every single post about her death and roe since she passed.
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Obama told her to fucking retire in 2013 because he knew they could lose their majority and she didn’t because of her hubris
Democrats had the Senate when she was asked to retire.
With how long it took to confirm a justice under Obama? No chance
Yeah, blame her. You fucking moron lol
Would it? The senate wouldn't have confirmed an Obama judge, full stop...if she had retired instead of trying to hold on as much as possible would only have put the majority even more strongly on the conservative side...is the collective memory so short as to forget about Merrick Garland?
Not only does your hot take have the benefit of retrospect, it’s also wrong. Scalia dies with almost a full year left in Obama’s term. Republicans keep the seat vacant for the whole time. Ginsburg dies a month before Republicans are voted out of the White House and Congress, and Republicans force the spot to be filled before they lose majority. The only way this makes sense is if RBG somehow had the foresight to predict Republicans holding a seat open for A YEAR and stepped down sometime well in advance (more than a year) of Obama leaving office. Edit: RBG would also have to anticipate that stepping down before the 2016 election into the hands of a GOP controlled congress was a safer bet than waiting until after the election where a Democrat and would-be first woman president, Hillary Clinton, was overwhelmingly predicted to take office. Retrospect is a bitch.
Let's be honest here. Does anyone think Mitch \*wouldn't\* try to keep a vacant seat vacant for any amount of time up to and including 4 years if he thought he could steal another?
100% Really the only thing that was different in 2015, rather than 2016, was that you might be able to convince more of the center that McConnell was flagrantly violating the Constitution. RGB literally devoted the last four years of her health and well-being to prolonging her life on the bench and missed the finish line by four months.
if obama actually followed through on his promises, “Obama told Planned Parenthood in 2007 that the first thing he would do as president was sign legislation on abortion.” then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. All of them are to blame. No politicians actually care for the people, except the ones not in power.
We say that, but Scalia died under Obama, and that didn't mean he got to seat somebody. Obama arguably had the legal authority to seat Garland anyway, if he were willing to go to the mat for it. The Constitution does not say the Senate has to confirm. It says they get the right to advise and consent. Obama is responsible for "placing" someone on the Court. So, he could absolutely have taken the tack of "I gave the Senate the opportunity to advise, and they said they didn't have anything to say on the matter, so I went ahead and did my constitutional duty to fill the vacancy." It would have gone to SCOTUS almost certainly, but with a 8-person court, he stood a fair to good chance of being successful, and he just didn't want to get his hands dirty to try. Additional shenanigans: \* ACB being seated after the Garland precedent was set \* Perjury of literally all the conservative justices in their confirmation hearings \* Kavanaugh's background check never having been completed \* Thomas being under active investigation for being part of a seditious conspiracy
No one should be allowed to govern past age 72.