Random Politics & Religion #13

Can we just all do what we can to ensure that 2020 is actually an election for the people.

Lordgrim and Kanye.

You don't want to think about 2020.

Can we just all do what we can to ensure that 2020 is actually an election for the people.

it's her race to lose, always has been.

she has to convince people to vote for her which I don't hink she has done..../shrug

we'll see on the 8th

Lordgrim and Kanye.

You don't want to think about 2020.

In a vintage return to his confrontational style, Sen. Ted Cruz indicated that Republicans could seek to block a Democratic president from filling the vacant Supreme Court seat indefinitely.

After staking his endorsement of Donald Trump on a list of potential conservative Supreme Court nominees, Cruz said on Wednesday that there is precedent to limiting the Supreme Court to just eight justices. Last week, Cruz's colleague, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), suggested the GOP should confirm President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, to avoid having to swallow a more liberal nominee under Hillary Clinton.

As is his nature, Cruz took a harder line when asked how Republicans would handle a potential Clinton nominee while campaigning in Colorado for Darryl Glenn, a longshot candidate for the Senate.

“There will be plenty of time for debate on that issue ... There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices. I would note, just recently, that Justice [Stephen] Breyer observed that the vacancy is not impacting the ability of the court to do its job. That’s a debate that we are going to have," Cruz said, in remarks first reported by the Washington Post.

Cruz was unlikely to vote for any Democratic nominee given his conservative ideology, but his remarks could indicate a broader shift within the GOP to halt Democrats from shifting the court's balance to the left. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said earlier this month the GOP would be "united" in blocking a Clinton appointment, remarks he later softened.

An indefinite GOP blockade of a Supreme Court nominee would almost certainly lead to an erosion in the Senate's super-majority requirement. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has already suggested lowering the bar for Supreme Court nominee from 60 votes to a simple majority. Under Reid, Democrats changed the Senate rules to allow all nominees but Supreme Court appointments to be approved by a majority vote.
162610-mitch-mcconnell-getty-1160

GOP closing spending gap with Dems in battle for Senate

By Seung Min Kim and Burgess Everett

"We need to treat it like the constitutional crisis it will be if Democrats don't take back the Senate majority," Reid said on Wednesday night in an email to members of the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "The Supreme Court could dwindle to 7, then maybe 6, Justices. It would turn our Justice system and our democracy on its head. The Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves."

Republicans have blocked Garland from even having hearings for more than seven months, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said the Senate will not confirm Garland in post-election lame duck. In his last availablity on Capitol Hill before the election, McConnell refused to entertain the possibility that the Senate may be forced to entertain a more liberal judge next year, though there may be enough centrist Republicans and those deferential to presidential prerogative to confirm a justice like Garland.

Later Wednesday, Justice Clarence Thomas lamented that the broken confirmation process was a sign of larger problems. Speaking to the Heritage Foundation to mark 25 years on the Supreme Court, Thomas did not cite the Garland blockade but noted a decline in civil behavior.

"We have decided," he said according to the Associated Press, "that rather than confront disagreements, we'll just simply annihilate the person who disagrees with me. I don't think that's going to work in a republic, in a civil society."

Maybe Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had the right idea after all. Maybe Republicans are willing to trigger a constitutional crisis over the Supreme Court.

Some conservatives certainly seem to be warming up to McCain’s controversial suggestion last week that Senate Republicans should dig in their heels and block any and all Supreme Court nominees put forth by a future President Hillary Clinton.

Who needs a fully functioning Supreme Court after all?

“As a matter of constitutional law, the Senate is fully within its powers to let the Supreme Court die out, literally,” wrote the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro in a column Wednesday on The Federalist.

Shapiro is well-versed in constitutional issues, and his argument has a legal, if contorted, basis. Nothing in the Constitution explicitly stands in the way of senators who would be willing to destroy the nation’s highest court ― if not an entire branch of the federal government ― to stop Clinton from selecting judges who share her views.

But McCain’s comments suggesting a total blockade initially faced opposition, even from some members of his own party. “We can’t just simply stonewall” those hypothetical Clinton nominees, said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Of course, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley is doing exactly that to Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

To Shapiro, there’s nothing wrong with even more Senate obstructionism because “the Constitution is completely silent” on how the upper chamber provides its “advice and consent” on the president’s nominees.

Legal scholars across the ideological spectrum have agreed that’s true. But they’ve also concluded that the Republicans’ no-hearings-no-votes posture on Garland is unprecedented in American history. And many deplore the partisanship that has overwhelmed the judicial confirmation process over the last few decades.

Not Shapiro. “I simply can’t blame politicians who follow their convictions,” he wrote. “If you truly believe that a particular nominee would wreak havoc on America, why not do everything you can to stop him?”

Shapiro noted that senators may pay a political price for refusing to work with a president from the other party. More importantly, the justice system pays a price.

Even those now on the Supreme Court have lamented that a shorthanded court can’t operate as it should.

“It’s much more difficult for us to do our job if we are not what we’re intended to be ― a court of nine,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor during a recent appearance in Minnesota. She added that 4-to-4 rulings can leave the law unsettled and justice across the country “administered in an unequal way.”

In other words, when lower courts disagree on how to interpret a particular law or how to apply the Constitution to new problems ― and they do regularly ― the justices are supposed to step in and resolve that disagreement. When an equally divided Supreme Court can’t do that, the meaning of congressional statutes and the Constitution may vary from state to state ― which isn’t just or fair.

This didn’t seem to be a concern to Shapiro.

“So when you get past the gotcha headlines, breathless reportage, and Inauguration Day, if Hillary Clinton is president it would be completely decent, honorable, and in keeping with the Senate’s constitutional duty to vote against essentially every judicial nominee she names,” he concluded.

If Clinton wins and the Republicans retain control of the Senate, this argument could serve as the groundwork for their next play in Congress — even though they’ve spent most of 2016 insisting that the people’s choice for the next president should get to pick Scalia’s replacement.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) signaled on Wednesday that he may be a convert to this vision of a new normal — a Supreme Court not at full steam for a very long time:

Of course, none of this likely matters if Democrats regain the Senate, which HuffPost Pollster projections say is not beyond the realm of the possible.


The Constitution may give the president the power to nominate justices and the Senate the power to vote them up or down. But in the end it’s the voters who choose.

Less than two weeks now!

Sisi recalls past hardship – of a refrigerator stocked with water

It’s common for politicians to appeal to histories of struggle and poverty to boost their standing with the common people. Think Donald Trump claiming he’s a self-made man, or Britain’s Margaret Thatcher famously becoming prime minister from humble beginnings as the daughter of a grocer.

It’s equally common for those claims of normality to fall flat on closer inspection. Trump is the inheritor of a large family fortune and business empire. And when she was prime minister, Thatcher famously failed to correctly guess the price of a pint of milk, a slip that made her appear rather alien to the travails of the everyday worker.

And this week, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi also enrolled in the school of political hard knocks – to widespread mockery in his country.

The General told a crown that he had also struggled through tough times – because he had once lived for ten years with only water in the refrigerator.

He made the comments at the opening of a youth conference in Sharm el Sheikh. “I swear by Great God, I spent 10 years with only water in my refrigerator, and nobody heard anything about it,” he told an audience. “And I'm from a very wealthy family.”

“I'm sorry that I have to say this about myself, but it is pride and bashfulness,” he continued. “Depending on yourself only, it is not easy."

Unsurprisingly, the response to the comments were merciless in their mockery of the president. The hashtag #Sisi’sFridge was quickly trending across the Arab world.

"So your dad gave you 30 million after his death, which you donated to the Tahya Misr fund... He couldn’t even bring you one kilogram of cucumber for your fridge while you were suffering?"


"The best comment on the lie by Sisi was by journalist Mohammad Nasser. He said he could had sold the refrigerator and bought some meat."


"For sale: a refrigerator, used by the doctor of the philosophers. Used only for water in 10 years."

The comment is just the latest in Sisi’s illustrious history of laughable statements, which have included encouraging grandmothers to sell their earrings for Egypt and pledging not to eat or sleep until Cairo’s slums are cleared.

I always think Joe Walsh is that guy from America's Most Wanted.

By now, we should all be aware there are legal repercussions for dereliction of duty, seditious conspiracy, and treason.
Repubs can "lay the groundwork" to block her all they like, but if they actually attempt to, they'll open themselves up to arrest by the military and charges against them from the federal government for not doing their jobs.

LG? Is that you?

It's not any of the cool joe walshs!

The Republicans disagree with the democrats, better arrest them for treason.

The problem is, they won't even do their job unless they get what they want, that's not a compromise. Having an hearing with the nominee and then refusing him would be a start, but not even considering any nominee until a new president is elected, that's just stupid.

Trumps flip-flopping on NASA is rather vexxing.

....
Repubs can "lay the groundwork" to block her all they like, but if they actually attempt to, they'll open themselves up to arrest by the military and charges against them from the federal government for not doing their jobs.

The problem is, they won't even do their job unless they get what they want, that's not a compromise. Having an hearing with the nominee and then refusing him would be a start, but not even considering any nominee until a new president is elected, that's just stupid.

Sounds amusing. Link please?