The Republicans' Vow To Block Obama Supreme Court Nominee Comes With Risks

[liberalnarb]

Source: Yahoo! News

The U.S. Senate should not act to fill the sudden Supreme Court vacancy opened up by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia until after President Obama departs office, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Saturday.


“The American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” McConnell said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, as well as current Republican presidential candidates and Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, also came out of the gate opposing confirmation of a final Obama Supreme Court nominee.

The Republican majority in the Senate gives the party leverage for a battle with Obama over a new Supreme Court nomination, but would not be without risks. Any nominee would need 60 affirmative votes on cloture to proceed to final confirmation, meaning that Obama would be under pressure to choose a more moderate versus liberal justice in order to win the at least 14 Republicans he would need to support his nominee.


Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/politics/republicans-vow-to-block-obama-supreme-court-011758577.html

[HooptieWagon]

1. Pablum. Obama won't nominate a liberal anyway.

He'll nominate a moderate, which is fine b/c it's an improvement over Scalia. Republicans would be advised to approve the nomination...otherwise Sanders is making the nomination. Now HE'LL nominate a liberal...by recess appointment if necessary.

[liberalnarb]

6. I wonder what the repukes will do if the next prez is a Dem. They cant "Sit on their hands." forever

[TDale313]

7. He might- they're gonna block the nominee anyway.

So he might as well.

[Arkana]

12. A moderate would be miles better than fucking Antonin Scalia in that seat.

[cstanleytech]

18. Putting the cart before the horse there, Bernie hasnt won the election yet but

regardless whoever gets to be the new SCOTUS judge hopefully wont be as big a nutjob as Scalia was.

[trillion]

22. +10000

rofl ahahahahahhahaha

[Big_Mike]

23. Not even a recess appointment will help here, as

it is only valid until the next Congress convenes, which will be in early January. The court stops hearing cases in April or May, I think and ends it's yearly session in June, I believe. In order for the recess appointee to vote, they have to have been there for the oral arguments.

[William Seger]

32. I predict Obama will nominate someone pretty good (n/t)

[HooptieWagon]

35. I agree. His previous appointments were good, no reason to doubt this one.

[RobinA]

45. I'd Settle

for a swing vote, which would be a huge improvement. In fact, if Obama nominates a solid moderate that gives the Senate little reason to object. They will anyway...instant campaign issue.

Of course, to capitalize they will need to take control of the discussion for once. So this could be another case of Dems snatching failure from the jaws of victory. Oh gosh, now I just depressed myself.

[deathrind]

2. No way....

I am so surprised that republicans are not going to work with President Obama to confirm his choice to fill the sudden vacancy on the Supreme Court in a timely fashion....wow

/facepalm

[mdbl]

5. I know, they have always rushed to help Obama

Shocking!

[yallerdawg]

3. What about our voice electing THIS president?

TWICE!

Republicans are just effing gawdamn crazy.

[TDale313]

8. Yep. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

31. ^^^THIS^^^ nt

[gwheezie]

4. Obama could rope-a-dope them

And nominate Donald j trump. Dems in the Senate could argue he's pro planned parenthood, pro choice, anti gun, anti Iraq war, pro single payer and pro eminent domain. Then the GOP could claim he's the opposite.

[turbinetree]

9. Scr******w you Turtle lips and "ALL" of your right wing hypocrites that side with you............

this is all you do, you threaten the Presidency and the public with your antics, lets not forget something which you and your gang was a part of in the 2008 election and the 2012-----------lets remind the readers shall we, that is an act of treason in 2008:

http://blackhistory.com/content/230432/secret-meeting-to-plan-obama-takedown-began-on-inauguration-night


-----------------the public wants a PROGRESSIVE U.S. Supreme Court Justice and court -------------------to fix over thirty years of what this one person did to the public during that time frame, he was full of bigoted hate and contempt to the US the citizens of this country--------------------enough is enough


Honk-----------------for a political revolution Bernie 2016


It is about getting a Progressive President, U.S Supreme Court, Congress, State and Local Legislatures


Democracy begins with you ------------------tag your it

Democracy is not a spectator sport-------------------get involved

[liberalnarb]

10. I aggree with everything you said.

Except, are there 10 letters in the word "Screw"? (scr******w)

[turbinetree]

29. Thanks..........................

Next time ..............................





Honk-------------------for a political revolution Bernie 2016

[Gothmog]

11. Obama is laying a trap for the GOP

[liberalnarb]

17. If we're lucky they'll be too stupid to notice and step right in it.

Hopefully the trap closes right on their asses and puts a Democrat in the White House in 2016.

[Rochester]

13. If you were Obama, how would you break the most spiteful of obstructionism?

If enough Republicans join together and say "We will vote no (or not allow a vote) on anyone he appoints, end of story", without even bothering to hold hearings or anything, what can Obama do?

Can he simply install someone on the court and dare the Senate to do anything about it?

Any chance of a recess appointment?

[creeksneakers2]

20. They never recess

The Supreme Court sided with the GOP being able to do that.

I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of recess appointments but I don't think they are available for Supreme Court nominations anyway. For one, recess appointments are temporary while the Supreme Court is a lifetime position.

[RobinA]

46. No Recess Appointment

It's worthless in this case and allows the Repubs to point fingers. Nominate, if it's obstructed it becomes a campaign issue. Now if the Dems will just use it to their advantage...

[UpInArms]

14. the freaks will have to take an August recess -

and ... oh my! it's an election year!

[onenote]

48. The can and will schedule pro forma sessions

It's a tactic both parties have used to prevent recess appointment from being made.

As a practical matter, the recess appointment power is dead whenever the Senate majority party is different than the President's party.

[Betty Karlson]

15. Leahy is right to call on Republicans to work with the president.

But has Leahy been sleeping for the past eight years? The GOP has the same attitude to co-operation that one ordinarily finds in a herd of cats - when you ask said cats to pull together with a troop of dogs.

[Jenny_92808]

16. Time for

us to speak out

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

19. Hey, Turtle, since when do you care about what the American people think?

When there were protests against going to war with Iraq did you care? How about when you wanted to bail out the banks without accountability? Did you take into account what the American people wanted then?

Given how you've treated him from Day One, this President owes you absolutely squat. He's going to nominate a highly qualified man or woman to the SCOTUS, and you can spend the next year explaining why there's still a vacancy.

The best Democratic GOTV tool I can think of is the prospective of a Republican president filling the ninth justice's seat.

[Ccarmona]

21. Let em Block

4-4 means any cases revert back to the lower court ruling and can't be re-submitted. Take everything to the Ninth Circuit, the most liberal Appeals Court, and that Court rulings survive.

[JohnnyRingo]

25. Thank you for that information.

I didn't know that. This will be interesting.

[nolabels]

27. Of course you have never seen a lawyer or judge invent total B.S. out of whole cloth

Revisit or not the word smiths will go on and on, mark my words, or don't mark because i am sure they have been said a million times before.

And not the most hero idea in my book, but a defense with the main idea of defining the word "IS" has even been already used famously. The idea, never count the chickens before they hatch

[onenote]

47. We can't just "take" all the split cases to the Ninth Circuit.

In a number of cases, the litigation was initiated by those challenging something the administration supported. They get to choose the court they will bring their new challenge.

Plus, it takes a while for cases to work their way to the SCOTUS. For example, the Friedrichs case (the union case) was commenced by the filing of a district court complaint in April 2013. The 9th circuit decision was made in November 2014. It's only now reached the SCOTUS.

[Skittles]

24. the American people DO have a voice

THEY ELECTED PRESIDENT OBAMA - *TWICE*

[Flying Squirrel]

26. 'Backpfeifengesicht'

Is the word that comes to mind when viewing the picture at the link...



(Look it up on Urban Dictionary, if you haven't heard of it)

:/

[Gregorian]

28. If they block, and they end up with Sanders, and a different Congress...

Haha. This is a blast.

Death whips the rug out from under the evil conservatives. They were so high and mighty only 24 hours ago. Ha....................ha..................ha.

[piechartking]

30. Nominate a progressive black female judge...

Two choices for the Republicans:
1. Confirm her and cement liberal majority
2. Reject and fight, make her a martyr, drive up minority and Dem turnout come November.

Either sounds good to me.

[Fast Walker 52]

37. exactly!

[cbdo2007]

42. that seems pretty right on to me....Pres Obama greatly has the upper hand here

and I'm sure he's got a hundred people in closed door meetings all week in the White House coming up with a great strategy, that's their job and they have done it brilliantly since he's been in office.

[lark]

33. Dems really piss me off at times.

They let Bush make the awful choices of Alito and Roberts. Alito especially burned because he's another that thinks that the bible should over-ride the constitution and who truly doesn't give a flip about the constitution and only uses it for political gain. Everyone said Bush would appoint moderates, hell no he didn't. This time Dems should play hardball too. Refuse to pass any bills put forth by McConnell, except for things like raising the debt level. The Senate has all kind of arcane rules, use them to the greatest extent possible to make this vote happen. Even a moderate would be a huge change for the good compared to the the RW religious, crazy,
crony capitalist Scalia.

[33taw]

34. Maybe if they wait, Hillary or Bernie can nominate Obama.

[HooptieWagon]

36. Obama already said no.

Although he would be a good one if he changes his mind.

[onenote]

44. Too many conflicts

Last edited Mon Feb 15, 2016, 06:45 PM - Edit history (1)

A number of cases involving challenges to actions taken by the Obama administration are in the pipeline. It would be very problematic for Obama to be sitting on the Court when those cases came up. In this regard, its much different than when Taft joined the Court after being President. In Taft's case, eight years passed between the end of his presidency and his confirmation to the Supreme Court. Plus, it is one thing to go from being President to being Chief Justice (which is what happened with Taft), to being President and becoming an associate justice. I cannot imagine Obama having to rely on John Roberts to decide what opinions he gets to author.

[phylny]

38. They and their followers remind me of a bunch of spoiled

children, wanting to make all the rules, to have all the power, to control all the toys.

[link:|

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

39. It says a lot that they have already decided to block Obama's nominees

before they even know who they are.

[beac]

40. And that they don't realize that the American people DID

"have a say" when they elected OBAMA to a four year term, which he is only 3/4ths through.

[Oneironaut]

41. Makes perfect sense: They want a Teabagger

That is, a woman-hating, racist, out of touch arch-Conservative who believes that everybody is entitled to their own rocket launcher.

[TeamPooka]

43. Breaking news McConnell proposes 7 years length for two term US Presidents unless they're...

Republican.

[Jefferson23]

49. My bet is that Obama will out maneuver the Republican cretins. n/t