Tweety just said Gorsucks should be filibustered for stealing Merrick Garland's seat.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I am reevaluating.

I am ready to swing with whatever the #resistance decides to do

[putitinD]

1. Tweety is right on this one!

[roamer65]

2. Tweety bird is right for once.

[MoonRiver]

3. That's what I've thought all along.

But the fault isn't Gorsuch's, it's McTurtle's!

[Demsrule86]

8. Fuck Gorsuch...he is a corporatist with a shadow group running ads on his

behalf...and a woman hater...He said nothing about his views on anything...he is insulting Democrats who have a right to those answers.

[MoonRiver]

10. I agree! But he wasn't part of McTurtle's decision to deny President Obama's nominee last year.

That's all I meant.

[Demsrule86]

21. I understand what you meant.

My feeling is that if the Repubs nominated Jesus...we should still fight...it is a stolen seat. We may not win but must make it miserable for the GOP and the filibuster has not served us well. We can't play by the rules if they don't. And Gorsuch is a fake...hiding is true persona.

[MoonRiver]

23. Once again, I completely agree with you.

We also have to show some backbone against this coup against American democracy. If our elected officials don't stand up and fight the horror, how can this country survive? I don't think it can.

[Demsrule86]

24. I agree. We are all that stands against a fascist dictatorship.

Many think we almost became communist during the 30's but the truth is we came very close to becoming fascist ...consider the Businessman's revolt where the big money corporations and influential conservative politicians of their day (including Prescott Bush) tried to overthrow Roosevelt and install a fascist dictator...a Marine general name Butler. Thankfully, he was a patriot and ratted the conspirators out to Congress. I should note it is in the record but none were ever punished...Roosevelt did not want to end people's faith in our economic system...so fascism has always been our nemesis. We will defeat these truly monstrous people.

[MoonRiver]

26. It is all horrifying. But I also think these fascist bastards will be defeated,

probably hoisted on their own petards. The idiots just don't know when to stop.

[Demsrule86]

29. I think they will too.

[MurrayDelph]

31. No, but if you knowingly traffic in stolen goods

You have given up any moral high-ground you pretend to live in.

[CincyDem]

4. And I would hope that all 48 Dem Senators are listening.

Make the point.

Make Turtle call for the nuclear option. Make 50 Republican Senators go on the record to agree with him.

Engage vs. trying to play political chess with these guys based on rules they feel unbeholden to (is that a word ???)

[pat_k]

17. Do you know of any group tracking where each of them stand?

There's this, but it is old:

http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-nomination-senate-democrats-filibuster-support-oppose-donald-trump/

[standingtall]

5. Fake President Donald Trump

should not be allowed to get any real lifetime nominees through.

[Demsrule86]

6. I agree with Tweety this time...they can not be allowed to get away with this...time to

end the filibuster anyway. If we had had the courage to do so in 09,we could have gotten single payer though.

[SharonAnn]

7. There are many reasons to do this. The list I can think of is below.

1. Merrick Garland should be the nominee
2. While Trump is under investigation, no SC nominee should be seated
3. Gorsuch is a right-wing, corporatist shill
4. The prospect of losing the Filibuster is unimportant. The GOP will 'go nuclear" sooner or later.
5. "Keeping our powder dry" is silly. We may not have another battle to use it in.

[pat_k]

19. Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and...

... if Dems want to win in 2018, they must prove they are the Party of Principle, Strength, and Determination. And the ONLY way to do that is to go all out. And that means having enough of them commit, NOW, to vote No on Cloture to stop the vote, or force Repubs to "go nuclear." (And the Repubs may find they have as much trouble pulling that off as they are having with repealing ACA.)

Filibuster is not only the RIGHT thing to do, it is the WINNING thing to do!

Anything less and they are the Party of Wimps who would rather preemptively surrender than fight to win (and risk losing).

[Takket]

9. after the unprecidented dereliction of duty by the GOP,

anything less than a filibuster is a betrayal of the Democratic voter.

[Blue Idaho]

11. Tweety is right.

Do not let that SOB McConnell get away with stealing the Democratic choice for a Supreme Court Justice. It doesn't matter how charming Gorsuch is. This is about a unconstitutional power grab by Mitch McConnell - I say to hell with that.

[KewlKat]

12. talk about shock and awe..........tweety being right for a change...........twice tonight

tillerson skipping NATO and the supreme nomination

[JHan]

13. He's right.

[NewRedDawn]

14. Should have refused

to even give the fucker a hearing.

[Dawson Leery]

15. We cannot play nice with the Rethugs.

Did FDR and Truman play nice with the Thugs and their fascist counterparts overseas?

[Different Drummer]

16. I'm with Tweety on that. n/t

[tritsofme]

18. Forcing a nuclear confrontation over Gorsuch would be the political equivalent of Pickett's Charge

It is probably McConnell's dream.

If there was a filibuster, he would swiftly invoke the nuclear option, and we would walk into a potential Kennedy/Ginsberg/Breyer vacancy completely powerless, and having nothing to show for it.

Senate Republicans are determined to confirm Gorsuch, and they have the numbers to do so. Forcing a doomed fight now does nothing but make life easier for McConnell, and enable them to easily confirm the next, far more consequential vacancy, by majority vote.

The next vacancy could radically change the ideological balance of the Court for a generation, that is where we should fight, and where we actually have a shot at defeating a nominee.

[MoonRiver]

22. B.S.! Keeping our powder dry has been a disaster!

I say let McTurtle invoke the nuclear option. Gorsuch will be forever tainted, and Senate Dems will be heroes against the right wing attempted take-over of our democracy. After what McTurtle did to Garland, no holes should be barred in our approach to EVERY nominee Rump puts forth.

[tritsofme]

33. Our strategy needs to be more than a temper tantrum.

Sometimes you need to recognize when it is the right time to fold your cards.

It is far more important for Senate Democrats to have an opportunity to shape a potential Kennedy/Ginsberg/Breyer vacancy from the minority than it is to wage a filibuster that is doomed to fail and will result in Democrats being completely irrelevant to the conversation for the next vacancy, which would be far more consequential and strategically important.

[Moostache]

30. BULLSHIT! Keep falling back and falling back and falling back...

WTF has that achieved to date?

We are out of power in Washington.
We are out of power in the state houses and legislatures.
We are being creamed in the SCOTUS.

Being milquetoast acquiescence junkies has done NOTHING to date.
Wait until the NEXT FIGHT?

NO!

The LAST FIGHT (GARLAND'S stolen nomination) is where we should STILL be and until he gets a hearing and a fair one at that, then the SCOTUS stays in a death spiral until they're ALL dead or the GOP decides to destroy the court by stacking it with nuclear option ideologues that should become the Democratic Party rallying cry.

I am sick to death of laying for these fuckwad "conservatives" and always (ALWAYS) seeing them stick forks in our eyes when the tables are turned.

The Gorsuch nomination should be filibustered no matter what...and there is no plan B available.

[tritsofme]

32. Thank goodness clear headed adults like Chuck Schumer are in charge

Everyone is angry about the stolen Garland seat, but we must be strategic and not let emotions lead us into a future disaster.

The only choice we face today is between staging a temper tantrum that accomplishes nothing, or living another day to wage a far more consequential fight...that actually has a chance of succeeding.

Forcing the nuclear fight now does nothing but enable Republicans to confirm a vacancy from Kennedy/Ginsburg/Breyer with a simple majority, with Democrats completely irrelevant to the conversation. Democrats need to be smart.

[Moostache]

34. You are wrong.

You are thinking and proposing actions just like everyone has been for much of the last 40 years....operating on a base assumption that the Republicans are honest brokers that CARE about this country.

They DO NOT.
They HATE Americans and love two things - $$$$ and people who can give them $$$$. End of list.

Worker's rights? Women's rights? Minority rights? Equal rights? NONE of these things matter to the ideologues in the GOP and treating them as if they do matter is a fallacy and a failed one at that.

These are not honest people....they KNOW the climate is a catastrophic mess in urgent need of drastic and sustained efforts to stave off millions of deaths...they just do not CARE.

These "Trumpistas" are nothing more than what was described in the recent Batman movies as "some men just want to watch the world burn" level criminals. Bannon? You believe you can reason with THAT? Trump? McConnell? Ryan? You would have a better chance of beating the Grim Reaper in a chess match for your soul!

There simply is no "next, bigger fight" to hold off for or to pretend that rational thought applies to...we do not face an opposition party of adults or even sentient beings. We are fighting a gun fight with a spork and we're bleeding out as a result.

Democrats need to show some goddamn balls and principles that are inviolate. Otherwise, we will continue to get rolled exactly as we have since 1980. The GOP effectively put walls around Clinton and Obama administrations and strangled or out right repealed damn near EVERYTHING those administrations accomplished or appropriated them and bastardized them into weapons of discrimination. (Think DOMA / DADT as an example of a "win" for our side...look at what is happening right now to ACA and LGBT rights and everything else on the cutting block...it does not end for these bastards, it just gets more of what they want "next time" too.)

If you want to be the only grown-up in the room with clean clothes, maybe the political food fight we have devolved into is not a game you fully recognize...read Sun-Tzu and pay attention to the parts about knowing and understanding your enemy...we do not face off on equal grounds when we cling to some non-existent "adult-in-the-room" proposition.

The GOP is going to go nuclear on the SCOTUS at some point in the next 4 years REGARDLESS of whether it is for Gorsuch or the next sub-human, reptilian bastard that the shit-gibbon throws up. The fight is NOW, the die is cast and giving in AGAIN gains nothing. If you're concerned about being relevant to the modern conversation, you better start learning the language and it ain't what our daddy's would recognize any longer. It's brass knuckle, least-common-denominator gut-feeling stuff, truth optional. Reading Shakespeare and pretending this is still a civil democratic republic (instead of recognizing it is an authoritarian plutocracy) will not help any more than doing nothing.

I am tired of the results of the last 40 years. I do not wish to burden my children and grandchildren with more of the same out of misguided sense of proportionality or reserve, restrain or opportunity. Fight now. Die if necessary, but is better to fight and try and die than to bleed out from a thousand paper cuts...

[tritsofme]

35. That was a long reply, but it wasn't a response to any of my arguments.

Nothing I said is predicated on Republicans being "honest brokers," nothing about "proportionality" or "restraint." Those are the straw men that you've constructed, not arguments I am making.

The fight to fill a potential Ginsberg/Kennedy/Breyer seat simply is a bigger deal than the current Scalia vacancy, by several orders of magnitude. Denying this is just...irrational, or at best ignorant.

You seem to be under the impression that forcing a nuclear confrontation now causes some sort of pain to Republicans, when really, all it would do is make Mitch McConnell's life over the next few years much easier, and his hand much stronger. It would be a huge strategic favor to him, Gorsuch gets confirmed, and the next nominee is confirmed by majority vote.

It wouldn't be "hardball" for Democrats to filibuster, it would be a temper tantrum that accomplishes nothing and only hurts us in the medium to long term, while permanently removing Senate Democrats from the confirmation process.

This is really pretty simple: it might be possible to sustain a filibuster against a radical nominee to replace Kennedy/Ginsberg/Breyer.

It is impossible to sustain a filibuster against Gorsuch....and if you try to filibuster Gorsuch, that power will be lost completely for future nomination fights.

You only get to choose one...doesn't it make just a little bit of sense to go after the one where you actually have some chance of success? Your strategy is to shoot ourselves in the foot and hope it makes us feel better about the whole situation.

Thankfully our leaders are intelligent enough to stay the hell away from your kamikaze mission.

[Moostache]

36. Define what was done to the nomination of Garland...temper tantrum? useless gesture?

Who is no longer being considered and who is?

You seem to (mistakenly) believe that the nuclear option won't be invoked on your supposedly more important appointment in the event of G/H/B leaving the court. Your irrational fear of provoking the nuclear option now so that it doesn't have to be invoked later is a distinction without a difference.

It IS NOT POSSIBLE to sustain any fillibuster against the current GOP...they DO NOT CARE. They are all about "winning", no matter the cost, no matter the damage.

Stop playing the 21st century Neville Chamberlain. You cannot acquiesce this people, they are not playing the same game...

[tritsofme]

37. Republicans had the majority when they blockaded Garland...

Which is obviously not a luxury we find ourselves with today.

I agree with you that a nuclear fight in the Senate is probably inevitable, and that Republicans are more likely than not to prevail, but I want to make that fight as painful as possible for Republicans, and conduct the battle from ground that is strongest to us strategically.

It would be far more painful to force them to go nuclear over a vacancy that would forever alter the Court's balance, and some of their more moderate members, like Collins or Heller, would be much more hesitant to go along. McConnell would love to get the nuclear fight over with now, when he has his entire caucus strongly behind Gorsuch, and then be able to move onto the significant vacancies with the rules already set a majority vote for confirmation. Why give them that gift?

Their majority is small, and McConnell's success in a nuclear exchange is far from assured, and his odds go down considerably if the vacancy is a controversial one. Republicans are no monolith, they are dysfunctional morons, don't give them so much credit.

Our options are very limited from the minority, and we should seek to maximize what little leverage we have, and tilt the playing field in our direction. We should think about it from the perspective of inflicting maximum political damage, not just running out with guns blazing. That is not "surrender" or "appeasement" it is strategy.

[Moostache]

39. I understand what you're saying...agree to disagree on tactics but not desired endgame.

The results of not hitting back as hard as possible as frequently as possible have not been encouraging...we do have limited options and making the R's over-play their hand as early as possible only helps build more issues to campaign against them with, but first we have to force them to OWN the horridness that is Trump and literally every decision his cabal makes or supports.

In my eyes, the 2018 campaign is already in full swing and the more we can stack the Republican side with forced bills and confirmations and appointments, the more we can hang them around their collective neck like millstones in '18.

[dalton99a]

20. Yep.

[Orsino]

25. He's late to this party.

Could have advocated for that before Trump came up with a nominee.

Saying so now means his stance is about growing Russia ties, not just about Garland.

[gopiscrap]

27. I agree with Tweety

[lapfog_1]

28. if he had even a ounce of integrity

to go along with his "aw shucks, ma'am" personal affectations...

he would stand up in the middle of these hearings and state that the senate should have given his friend Garland a vote and withdrawn his name from consideration.

[ananda]

38. Gorsucks should not be allowed ..

.. anywhere near a bench.