Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

I don't think you'd have any choice.

Your single sentence responses tend to get annoying. The whole point of a conversation is to understand why you think what you think.

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Your single sentence responses tend to get annoying. The whole point of a conversation is to understand why you think what you think.

TM

Sorry, I thought it was obvious. The court has no power to force the senate to take any action. Even if it wanted to order its co-equal branch to do something, what would it order and how would it enforce it? Send the Marshals to force them to vote?

Whether a political question or barred by the separation of powers, the court would stay out of it.

ETA: Also, it's not my fault you use too god damn many words.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

1. I'd have gone with, "all in all, you're just another brick in the wall." And I am not even that much of a Floyd fan.

2. Kidding aside, the fact that I don't call Adder "brain dead" is hardly a reason the board is dead. Heck, I don't even come here often enough to make GGG's list of which poster supports which candidate. (Not that I'm bitter.)

Not Bob, I'm sorry, I thought your choice was obvious. After all, you're all about the hair.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I am looking forward to an election cycle where Mitch McConnell has given Obama an engraved invitation to bring his very popular and incredibly powerful self out to campaign directly against vulnerable Republicants in swing states, and where everyone, from the Presidential candidate to the local state rep candidate, gets to run against Mitch McConnell and his no-show Senators.

Don't get me wrong, I very much want the Republicants to do the right thing, but I do appreciate their willingness to go down in flames for doing the wrong thing.

http://winningdemocrats.com/gop-fran...cotus-nominee/

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

Sorry, I thought it was obvious. The court has no power to force the senate to take any action. Even if it wanted to order its co-equal branch to do something, what would it order and how would it enforce it? Send the Marshals to force them to vote?

The court has no power to do anything, really. But they could settle the issue such that whoever was acting the fool would be formally violating a Supreme Court decision.

Originally Posted by Adder

Whether a political question or barred by the separation of powers, the court would stay out of it.

Are you saying the Court has no power to interpret the clause of the Constitution relating to the appointment process of the justices? If McConnell decided as majority leader he was the only person who got to approve a nominee, do you think the Court doesn't have jurisdiction to settle that question?

Originally Posted by Adder

ETA: Also, it's not my fault you use too god damn many words.

That's true.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

http://winningdemocrats.com/gop-fran...cotus-nominee/

TM

Think of what these senators are looking at. Running on a ticket with Trump. Giving Obama a good reason to get directly involved in their race. Watching their party take a non-stop pounding on the issue from now to November.

They are being fed an endless stream of shit sandwiches. At some point, they won't be able to keep getting them down.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

After removing the political operatives and pundits, the number of people who care about Hillary's emails or Libby's outing Plame could fit in the same bus.



"Congress" didn't care about Plame and it doesn't care about Hillary. The GOP cares about Hillary, and the Democrats cared about Plame. And that's an overstatement, because neither really cared about either issue. Both were opportunistic plays for political gain.



They're not all different. Libby engaged in a tawdry political act, technically exposing himself to prosecution. Hillary did something probably stupid, possibly intentionally aimed at keeping public information private, technically exposing her to possible prosecution.

Clapper, on the other hand, lied to Congress. That he has the cover of perjury being difficult to prove, and that Congress knew it was being duped, doesn't undo his culpability. Of the three, he is most deserving of prosecution, or loss of office, following by Libby, and then Hillary.



Plame was a nobody. There was a bit more there there than there is in Hillary's case, but not much, and certainly nowhere near as much as there was in Clapper's case.



You can't give Clapper a pass and say Libby's prosecution was warranted. The selectivity employed there isn't defensible. The fair result would be Libby and Clapper being forced to resign and publicly censured, and Hillary being let off the hook.

You seem to have misunderstood me. I'm not interested in giving Clapper any sort of pass. The difference between what he did and what Libby and Clinton did is that he did it to Congress. As a practical matter, if Congress minds being lied to, people will get prosecuted. Congress didn't care that Clapper lied to them, so he won't get prosecuted. I'm not defending it.

And you're right that Plame was a nobody until Libby made her a national figure. That's the point.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

But that is not at issue. I won't argue that they're not allowed to reject a nominee. I just think the Senate actually has to reject him/her. And that requires a vote.

If you read the words, there needs to be a mechanism which provides for some form of advise and then consent (or not). Yes, there is no fix for when they choose to ignore those words (other than a suit which the Supreme Court would decide, I suppose) and pretend there is no nominee. But it seems to me that if they want a zero-sum political fight over who serves on the Court, they actually need to debate the nominee (advise) and hold a vote (consent). Or maybe you believe that the power to make the decision resting solely with the majority leader is a sufficient mechanism. I don't.

If you sat on the Supreme Court and this issue came before you, would you rule in favor of the Republicans (non-)interpretation of the clause and permit them to not even entertain the Presidents nomination? How would you interpret those words practically?

TM

I think the Constitution might work better if it had the mechanism you describe, but I don't see it there. The Senate as a body gets to create its own rules about how it acts (see, e.g., the filibuster).

As Adder suggested about your last question, I don't think the Supreme Court would ever get in the middle of a fight between the President and the Senate about this. It is the quintessential political question.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

As long as the Republicant's keep their local power in the statehouses, they will have a disproportionate voice in Congress. Dems get more total votes for Congresss, but Republicants still hold the majority because they draw more of the lines.

Democrats have a structural advantage with the Presidency. The Electoral College makes it easier for them to win, and the greater turn-out in presidential elections favors Democrats.

Republicans have a structural advantage in Congress. They do better in small states, which each get two Senators. Also, they did well in the last redistricting in 2010. The next redistricting in 2020 will be in a presidential election year, so Democrats should have done better the statehouses.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

WTF is wrong with the Republicans who don't want to close Guantanamo? Is it that they are hell-bent on blocking whatever Obama wants to do because he wants to do it, or are they really that scared of having Islamists near them, even when incarcerated in federal prisons?

Apparently Sen. Pat Roberts (R. - Kan.) objected to having Guantanamo prisoners moved to FCI Leavenworth because of its proximity to the Missouri River. He's worried that Al Qaeda is going to come up the river in a submarine and stage a jailbreak.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Are you saying the Court has no power to interpret the clause of the Constitution relating to the appointment process of the justices? If McConnell decided as majority leader he was the only person who got to approve a nominee, do you think the Court doesn't have jurisdiction to settle that question?

I think they could reject a nominee appointed via a process they deem inadequate. I don't think they can force an appointment.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

WTF is wrong with the Republicans who don't want to close Guantanamo?

We're living in a world where Trump is going to be the nominee because he's willing to say racist things about Muslims. Same deal.

Or to put it differently, it's politically expedient for those Republicans to insist that the people held at Gitmo are superpredators.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Democrats have a structural advantage with the Presidency. The Electoral College makes it easier for them to win, and the greater turn-out in presidential elections favors Democrats.

I've heard this argument, but the counterargument is Gore winning the popular vote and losing the electoral vote. I think the counterargument prevails.

Republicans have a structural advantage in Congress. They do better in small states, which each get two Senators. Also, they did well in the last redistricting in 2010. The next redistricting in 2020 will be in a presidential election year, so Democrats should have done better the statehouses.

Well, the Senate small state advantage is baked in (and also baked in to the electoral vote), so nothing wrong with it and we ain't doing anything about it.

The House is different. The redistricting that sets who redistricts is all state house controlled. The Rs simply have a gerrymandering advantage. One election cycle won't break it, only a sustained effort to turn red states blue at a local level will.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

What's up with the margins?

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

I think they could reject a nominee appointed via a process they deem inadequate. I don't think they can force an appointment.

That's not the question. The question is, if McConnell took that action* and there was a lawsuit, could they hold that the process is unconstitutional.

The next question is, could they define a minimum test that meets constitutional standards for 'advice and consent?'

TM

*Determined on his one that the mechanism is that the Majority Leader made all decisions on nominees.