Posted on 03/17/2016 6:16:31 AM PDT by shortstop
Hold the hearings.
Talk to the guy, ask him questions, give him his day in court.
And hold a vote. Up or down. Hold a vote.
I’m a conservative. I’m a Republican. I can’t stand Obama. I don’t trust the politicized Supreme Court.
But this bull crap out of Senate Republicans that they aren’t even going to talk to this new Supreme Court nominee is insane. Announcing, within hours of Antonin Scalia’s death, that the Senate would ignore a presidential nomination, was about the stupidest thing ever.
It disrespected the legacy and family of Mr. Scalia, by moving the subject from mourning to politics, and it gave Obama and the Democrats a perfect political opportunity.
Even if the decision was to stonewall the nomination and not move it before the election, what kind of idiot announces that publicly – immediately after the death of a man you should be honoring? If that’s what you’re going to do, don’t say so. Just do it. Let the spring wear on and the summer wear on and let the subject of the day be the presidential campaign instead of Republican stonewalling.
For years Obama has done nothing but vent his bigoted spleen at congressional Republicans. His hatred is palpable, and typically his criticisms are baseless. So why give the guy a valid reason to say you’re doing exactly what he’s always accused you of doing?
How stupid is that?
And how did we end up with Mitch McConnell being our leader in the Senate? I thought smart people got picked to be leaders, not idiots?
But Obama called our bluff. He made a nomination. And instead of some bomb-throwing extremist, he picked a guy establishment Republicans have been slobbering over for almost 20 years. He picked a middle-of-the-road old guy, as innocuous and unoffensive as they come, and he carted him out to cry for the cameras.
He loves America and his mom and his wife and he tears up when he says so.
He’s a white guy, he’s from the Midwest, he’s comfortably Jewish. He doesn’t offend anybody.
And now the Republicans in charge are going to make some stand about we’re not going to talk to him. They’ll point to Biden in this year and Kennedy in that year and they’ll get in some old-school pissing match that will make no sense to anybody with any sense at all. It’s as if they were looking for a way to further embarrass the Republican brand and this was the best thing they came up with.
And it’s idiotic.
Completely pointless.
Yes, the Supreme Court is important. Yes, traditional American liberty does hang on the tie-breaking vote of whoever gets on the court. But the Mitch McConnell wing of the psych ward my party has become is wrong to pick this fight.
People think it’s dumb, people are going to like the nominee, people are going to doubt Republicans.
And right now they’ve already got enough reasons to do that.
Obama has alienated the American people and possibly handicapped his party.
The actions of Senate Republicans to stonewall this nominee seem intended to show the American people that the Republican Party can’t be trusted as an alternative to the Democrats.
So welcome the nominee.
Have him swing by your offices, and pay his respects. Schedule some hearings for June. Take the summer off. Schedule some follow-up for October. Schedule a vote for November.
Begin the process. Give him his due. Offer some advice and consent.
And if the guy passes muster, confirm him. If he doesn’t, deny him.
But to throw a fit and hold your breath and say you won’t do anything just makes all of us Republicans look like idiots.
And we’ve got enough people doing that right now, thank you very much.
The president did his part. Now the Senate should do its.
No matter what year this is.
Wait until after the election to see if H->! wins or not.
I’ll go one better. I don’t agree with “Bob” at all.
Obama has already had two bites at that apple and I’ll be damned if I countenance either one of my two Senators agreeing to sit down with or hold a vote over this nomination. Not now, not while Obama is in office and then I expect the next President to nominate someone else.
Bob must be left out from some Washington dinner parties, and wants to be loved again.
This nominee is bad, but it could be worse. Debatable whether that matters, but let’s presume for a second it does.
I would suggest dragging the nomination out over the next 7 months, until the election. If Hillary or Bernie win, then accept the nomination, if a Republican wins, reject the nomination.
And what if the new Senate is composed of 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans...
Sorry, but we can not allow this to get out of committee, because we have enough RINO’s in our party that will team up with liberals and approve of his nomination.
Mitch has a lot to make up for, probably too much, honestly, but he can at least partially redeem himself if, IF! - he holds the line here. If he can do that, lots of us will say after he's gone that maybe he wasn't all that bad a guy after all...
Lame Duck session.
In a war, the enemy sets the terms of engagement. The Democrats see themselves at war with us, and have said so, so the terms of engagement are no SCOTUS appointments the last year of a Presidential term, as set by them. Hold them to their own standards, as their own theorist requires.
My solution to this issue is SIMPLE.
Get Ginsberg to retire and we just have 7 judges. Everything stays the same as it was before. The balance of the court would be restored.
The answer to that is “Don’t mess up the election.”
If the committee does their act, and passes him onto a full vote, at best...I think the guy would get the 44 Democrat votes, the two independent votes, and two to five Republican votes...giving you a max of 51. You need sixty.
Now, I read yesterday that at least two Democrat Senators want a rule change where it only takes 51 to pass a Supreme Court nominee. The odds of a rule change right now? Zero. The Republicans might grin and say they would be willing to change the rules...by making it a passage of one single Senator. I’m pretty sure that the Democrats don’t want that to occur, but it would be a humor moment.
Candidate number two? By June, and maybe seven or eight Republicans might go for that deal. Beyond that...the Republicans are finished as a party if they pass this group of guys under President Obama after all their talk.
I’m sorry, but the Biden rule was established long before we mourned Justice Scalia’s death.
Bob Lonsberry is looking at things through his Rove-colored glasses again.
NO. Wait till after the election for the people to have their say.
Who believes Scalia’s death was natural with a pillow over his head?
About as stupid as continually writing in one-sentence paragraphs.
President Trump, or President Cruz, should shove conservative after conservative after conservative down their throats, even if it means SCOTUS has an empty seat for three years until the 2018 midterms, when the GOP could get the Senate back. Politics ain't beanbag.
Oh hell no.
I don't trust the republicans.
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