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The other Korner thread got close to its 50-comment threshhold in a few hours. And they weren't little snippets - most of the comments were essays in their own right. The moderator was giggly with delight at the tone and decorum, too. At any rate, fresh room for comments are in order. Please feel free to continue that conversation in this thread if desired.
A few thoughts on Gorsuch:
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ON THE TACTICAL SIDE
Last year, Trump the Candidate released a list of 20, 21 nominees he promised he would stick to. That decision was unprecedented, even strange. For sure it was outside the box to do so. It seemed there were soooooo many political reasons not to do that; imagine Hillary releasing such a list early in the campaign?! ... and the main reason TO do it was (I thought) to lock in the religious right, which was already forced his way.
This strange SCOTUS List decision yesterday paid off for him like the giant slot machine at a Trump casino, bells a-clangin and red lights twirling. Trump held an evening (??) announcement, Senators present, who applauded Trump and Gorsuch various times. There was the "compassionate Trump" warmly saluting Scalia's widow; the 50th percentile voter is watching this. It was great theater. Even his enemies were saying "That was the most Presidential seven minutes of Trump's presidency so far." LINK
...
Importantly, Trump could then say "I'm a man of my word" and the TV news anchors, aghast I'm sure, could only let it pass in their postmortems.
More importantly, NeverTrumpers softened greatly. Ted Cruz was glowing about Trump, who he eagerly called "President Trump" about six times in two minutes. If you're on the left you probably don't realize that EVERYBODY on the right doubted Trump on this. Sean Hannity, more loyal to Trump than KellyAnne Conway is, must have asked Trump 10+ times whether he was going to follow through on the list. NOBODY on the right trusted Trump completely on it.
Most importantly, Trump could say to the Senate, "Look, I told you who I was going to nominate, and the electorate understood that, and they elected me." Agree or disagree, this framing of the debate sent Trump's enemies to bed with Excedrin Headache #9.
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SENATE
Was very surprised to hear that Trump might get the 7-8 Democrat Senators he would need for 60 votes, due to the fact that 25 of them have their lives on the line in 2018, 10 of which are in Trump states.
This would mean that McConnell (R) would not have to change Senate rules to a 51-vote threshhold -- which they certainly would do if that's what it wound up taking. It's a finger-trigger game in the Senate, look, do you want to go back to Florida with this around your neck when we're just going to push Gorsuch through anyway? Want to lose your career for NOTHING? Or why don't you just vote with us here ...
The Senate is evolving towards 51-49 party line votes with little negotiation other than yelling. This is a catastrophe in the grand scheme. It is also a metaphor for our society.
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LOBBYING
Watching the rundown on Gorsuch, you wondered "what is the case against his being qualified?" Perfect education, career, sickly-sweet guy, confirmed for the 2nd-highest court by unanimous voice vote. What do you do to argue against him, even in theory? You can't say, I disagree with him on marriage. In theory that is supposed to be irrelevant, because in theory a judge is hired to be a fair and impartial reviewer of law - it's assumed that his personal beliefs won't affect things. Mojician can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a judge's fairness is considered a given.
Krauthammer (who I dislike watching) explained this one. You take the decisions he has made that have had bad results -- which should not matter; a judge is there to interpret laws that others have made -- and you cast those results (children dying in the streets) as being bad things that the judge believes in. Ah! Now it makes sense, Gorsuch spending 15 of 180 seconds* telling the world pre-emptively, "If you like all the outcomes of your decisions, you're doing it wrong." In essence.
Opponents of Gorsuch seemed to pivot to the idea that Merrick Garland was a stolen pick. I think this direction has value to it, than conservatives tend to imagine.
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NEXT SEAT UP
There were two powerful right-wing players on Hannity's postmortem -- Ingraham and I forget the other one -- who playfully assured us that a second seat is coming open in June. Like they meant it, inside info.
If true, can only assume they mean that Anthony Kennedy (the center-right swing vote on the court) has been talked into retiring for a younger conservative judge, the way Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a reliable liberal vote) refused to do in 2015. A long shot might be that Ginsburg is being forced out due to health. Thoughts?
Somebody pointed out that a President's second nominee is usually more extreme than his first. Thomas, Alito and a third judge were held up as examples ... was it Sotomayor?
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OH BY THE WAY
What was that thingy about immigrants in airports again? :- )
It's an odd situation when you know the play call ahead of time and can't do anything to defend it. In chess the Russians will say "... If Rd1, then ...Qa5 with an irresistible attack." They mean that even they, even HAL-9000, can't hold the position. It can't be done.
Same with the way Trump changes the subject. It occurred to me just yesterday that he will always have the ability to do this. Presidents can do dramatic things. Scary, eh?
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HARVARD AND YALE
Embarrassing that, with 41.7% of the American population working as lawyers, all nine Justices have attended these two schools. You know there are lizard-UFO theories based on less ...
Did all you amigos know about the Harvard-Yale nude photos scandal? In the 50's, 60's and 70's, you showed up as a freshman in the Ivy League, they processed you in and oh by the way, in this little medical center, strip down including your skivvies. Okay, stand here ... cameraman comes in, POP, they've got a full frontal of you in their file. You wander off dazed. Lest you think Dr. D is even more addled than usual, here is the Wiki on it. And here is Dick Cavett on the experience. George W. Bush and many celebrities are in there.
The older he gets, the more Dr. D wonders what is going on behind the curtain.
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TYLER O'NEILL
Whoooops. I messed up the new Tyler O'Neill byte sized post, and now it redirects to older posts. Will be published shortly. In the meantime, check out Lookout Landing's cool funpost on him.
Peace,
Jeff
Conservatives should like Gorsuch because he is a textualist...he interprets cases based on how laws are actually written, not based on what he imagines the intent may have been.
Liberals should like him because he is a textualist. :) It cuts both ways - he is fair-minded, relatively apolitical, and dedicated to adjudicating based on law and the Constitution and only those things.
Everybody's well aware that the Constitution -- as framed -- has saved our keisters for 240 years. I can't believe that we argue about whether to leave the ship tied to the dock.
The U.S. Supreme Court has overall done a terrific job of staying originalist, though. In my day job, about 90% of my peers nationwide feel no need whatsoever to remain originalists or textualists ...
;- ) Kidding, but from that background I'm very impressed with the job that SCOTUS has done.
What Matt said. We should all prefer a textualist Supreme Court no matter our political persuasion. We already have the most powerful judicial branch in the world. Is there some other judicial branch that can invalidate legislative acts and executive orders that it doesn't agree with? Canadian and British courts can't invalidate acts of parliament.
When the Supreme Court strays from a simple textual jurisprudence, it claims the right to make whatever laws it wants, whenever it wants. Every public office holder has to swear an oath to the Constitution. That means, when push comes to shove and there is a Constitutional crisis, the Court's interpretation is supposed to control. When the Court expands its interpretation of the Constitution, we are trading our allegiance to a document for an allegiance to 9 unelected philosopher-kings. A loose Court delegitimizes itself as a court.
There is at least some mechanism for getting rid of congressmen and presidents that we don't approve of.
Thanks Mojo. As you know, we cherish your comments on the legal system.
If I had a ration of 1 question to ask you, it would be how "predictable" you see Gorsuch as being, how much chance of his being a Kennedy or even a Souter. Actually I have one other question to ask you ...
If you go to google scholar, go to case law, and restrict by the phrase (gorsuch, circuit judge), you will get 2,660 results. It would take me about 6 months to print all of these cases out, read them all, try to figure out which of Gorsuch's opinions strayed from the ordinary, and refine the weird cases into patterns. That's more work than the president and senate were planning on doing! It takes years of practicing in front of a particular judge to be able to predict how he or she will rule on a given issue. I'd never heard of Neil Gorsuch before the other week.
Good luck, Amigo!
Democratic senators will expend their oppo efforts on the next one.
It establishes that they are "reasonable," and that the next one is "extreme."
A good tactic. It may or may not work.
And the climate for that, making an "irrational" charge stick with the 50th-percentile voter, should be better then. The climate for the Dems couldn't be any worse then. You think?
From a Dem point of view, the next appointment is truly worth a no-holds-barred bloodbath at any cost. Using the paradigm that is in place, I mean, not my own paradigm.
Has any prior Supreme Court nomination been this greatly anticipated, or drawn anything like this (what I'm guessing was a) pretty big primetime viewing audience?
It seems Trump is taking up all the air in the room-people can't stop talking about him-and this announcement is an example.
Susan Collins R-Maine and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska announced they will vote against Betsy DeVos to head education.
Joe Manchin, D-WV defected on the Rex Tillerson vote for Sec of State. Manchin is often reported to be one of the most vulnerable Dems. Also Heidi Heitkamp, D-ND, Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Angus King, I-Maine. (The party-line vote is 52-48 if you count both Independents as Democrats.)
If Trump had nominated Garland, I wonder how many Republicans would have voted againt him.
I'm guessing the over/under is zero.
Ted Cruz is sincere in his conservativism, is far more married to his ideology than to Trump. Many, perhaps most, Republican congressmen are conservatives first and Trumpies seco... um, last.
I wonder what leads you to think that Cruz, Rubio, Lee, Scott, et al are more interested in Trump's popularity than their own beliefs. It's a rather odd view of Republicans, frankly, to view them *all* as *totally* devoid of principle.
For my part, I certainly give many Democrats credit for being True Believers. President Obama a prime example. Feinstein, Murray, Kaine and many Democrats are deathly serious in their stated beliefs.
If you're curious which Republicans are most 'principled' (or ideological) here is a useful scorecard. It's not the gospel truth, of course, but it's useful.
but I'm guessing ol' Trumpy is gonna test the limits of what the GOP/America is comfortable with and we shall see how much spine they have. The bar has been lowered though, however you look at it.
So what are the opinions of the roundtable about the blocking of Garland? Legal, yes, but was it a patriots duty to block him, considering it hadn't been done before? I do remember Matt writing about it somewhat, saying we should leave it to the voters, who did speak by 'at least' 2 million more, but technically will be ignored. (not wanting to drag the dregs of electoral college back up). Is what it is though.
1. I think it's pretty obvious that the Republicans were too political about it, too much "We're doing it because we can." Would think America largely agrees, but America doesn't consider it a huge deal. McConnell's early-on statement about it being his job to limit Obama to 4 years ... terrible.
I sympathize with the 'stolen seat' feeling. Totally.
2. On a moral level, as a voter, I loved the idea of throwing the pick to the U.S. electorate. As I will if it happens in 2019. I'd be in favor of a rule that said SCOTUS openings during an election MUST be part of the election.
3. My understanding is that this has happened twice before in the 20th century, the Senate delaying a SCOTUS nomination during an election - that a SCOTUS had not been confirmed DURING an election year since 1940. Somebody check the facts on that?
Outstanding posts today Montucky. I think you're putting your finger right on the valid issues for Democrats.
Never as hyperbole, I suppose. Things that are lost in type, but wouldn't be lost in conversation. I will never be articulate enough to truly convey my incomplete thoughts. ;) HA!
I, also, liked the idea of American's having a say, thinking it would be a clear victory EITHER way, but we got winner by technicality again. He's the winner, not disputing that. Its just hard to say 'we won' so clearly America wants our kind of change, when more actual Americans voted to NOT have those changes. I think you understand what I'm trying to say. A landslide would've cleared up a bunch of this. I guess electorally, it WAS a landslide. ;) Points the same, most individual, voting Americans don't want those changes.
I had to go look up exactly how electoral numbers were determined and found, " the number of people per electoral vote in one state is very different than the number of people per electoral vote in another." Seems like if that was a standard value, it would make more sense. I obviously don't understand all the ins and outs, but would prefer it if All Men Were Created Equal.
Thinking about it like MT, about 1M people, and the minumim you can have is 3 votes. So for every M people you get 3 more votes, so like Cali is missing their 50+ electoral votes, right ?!?! Is that how it works? Kidding of course, but maybe the census needs to be ran every 5 yrs, and have electoral distributions 'up to date' when and election occurs.
Kill me where you see fit. Can't say I love this place enough and I am always willing to bow my head if I overlooked/didn't learn something obvious. Peace, man.
You are adding to the mix Big League. Yuuuuge.
:- )
Trump's victory was extremely white-knuckle, usually the opposite of a mandate vote. The thing is, you also have the Senate and House situation - America has given the federal government to Republicans. Or these appointments would not be occurring.
As we all know, America gives the government to one party on a trial basis. Which that party never passes, and then it gets thrown out again :- )
Agree with everything there. That last line is a little too long for a bumper sticker, but it truly warmed my heart. Just great.
I don't take anyone 'round these parts as a fool, so when SabrMatt said to watch Europe's swing as a precurser, I admit, I hesitated for my biased/ill-informed reasons. He was not wrong; not one bit. Your insights over the years ring soundly (on evvverything), as well as the other great voices here, so when you tell me there are good men on that side, I believe you. For this whole thing to work I need to believe you. I also need you to be right. Haven't let me down so far ;) SO, lets hope it never happens, but if the Trump-train ever truly derails: Let the lord give them the strength, and such to do whats right for the humans in America. I mean if there is ever an issue we all agee on.
Humbly yours.
Dennis