Am I fucking kidding you? No, I'll repeat, they attempted to block the normal process and failed, if the Reps. attempt to block the normal process and succeed there is only one difference, the failure by the first party. The attempt was the same. What if the filibuster was successful in stopping the vote for Alito would that have changed things? It would have still just been speeches. I guess you are of the illogical thinking that if an attempted robbery is not as bad as a successful robbery or if someone shoots another person in the head and renders them brain dead it is not as bad as if the attempt was successful and they kill the person.
I'm not confusing a thing. Your inability to comprehend that the speech was an action, an attempt to derail Alito's nomination, not just words, is what is at issue. That the result of that action was failure does not suddenly mean that they never attempted to stop the vote.
to be fair we don't really have results from the republicans yet either. Mcconnell made a speech. so far that's it also- did you read what NSN posted? unfortunately its not anything knew. political gaming the supreme court in election years has been going on since the days of Andrew Jackson-through Stonewall Jackson through Reggie and through Samuel L.
There is a difference between attempting something and succeeding. I tell you what - if the Repubs make a bunch of speeches, filibuster for a few weeks, and in the end Obama's nominee gets appointed, just like Alito was, then we can say it was the same. But if Obama's nominee is not confirmed, if in fact no hearings or votes are held, guess what? It is NOT THE SAME. You are being obtuse, on purpose I hope. For your benefit.
You're wrong....Alito was one.. But that was not all..numerous filibustered nominees to the D.C. Circuit court of Appeals, the second most powerful court in the country. Buck Farack.
There's a significant difference between a rank and file senator, or even two dozen of them, favoring a filibuster after holding hearings of a nominee than there is for the Senate Majority Leader to call for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility and duty to consider a nominee before an individual is even named. There was no filibuster of Alito's nomination. That is just an extension of the obstructionist politics foisted upon the American people by Mitch McConnell for the past seven years.
Every time I find multiple Hobbes posts in a political thread I think of that Letterman video... Not sure why that is, but I'm sure Hobbes will offer some incoherent creepish response.
See above. They succeeded repeatedly. Just BB likes to ignore recent history, and will attempt to argue that SCOTUS os somehow different than the Courts of Appeal... Wonder how he would feel if a Republican Congress disbanded the rogue 9th CCoA (the most reversed in the land) then reconstituted it, with actual judges...
Just the facts ma'am. Judicial gamesmanship degenerated to a much higher degree of ugliness once thecountry handed all the levers of power to the Republicans. Blocker is taking one judge, out of a plethora that were successfully filibustered. It's just when discussions like this reach a certain level either history, or civics needs backfilling.
Harry Reid and Pat Leahy came first ... Lefties can't start whining now that the shoe is on the other foot.
It really doesn't matter who came first, the fact of the matter is there was no filibuster of Alito's nomination. You may argue there have been filibusters in the past at other levels of the court system and somehow attempt to make the case that all courts are created equal but that flies in the face of the unique role the Supreme Court plays in the essential checks and balances of the three branches of government. There is only one party trying to subvert that.
So, if the President sues the Senate to try to force them to act on his nomination, the does the local circuit court hear the case? Then what? The Supreme Court hears an appeal? And then deadlocks at 4-4? What kind of banana fucking republic has our Constitution, pure genius though it may be, wrought for us?
Abe Fortas was filibustered when Johnson tried to slip one on before Nixon.... I could be wrong, but while the Constitution gives tje President the right to make appointments, tje Senate has a co-equal Constitutional role in getting them to the bench. The President then needs to consoder how the people have stocked the Congress, and the Constitution gives the Senate the absolute right to make it's own rules and procedures. (Amd btw...Harry Reid already invoked the nuclear option once.) Just sayin
The Senate approving the nomination is the check the legislative branch has on the executive branch; how "co-equal" that makes it is not clear. What is clear, however, is that the vetting of Supreme Court nominees is not a "role" but rather a "duty" and refusing to even consider any nomination is shirking that duty. The president's task is not to consider the political implications of the people "stocking Congress" (whatever that means, the people elect the legislators) the president's task is to pick the best person for the job. The Senate's task is to fairly evaluate that candidacy, not play petty partisan politics.
