On keeping our powder dry (Republican SCOTUS nominations)

-Laelth

the corporate Third Way quislings. My first thought when i heard about this; https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/alg_website?refcode=general\

and even ginsburg and breyer got on the court.

They let us win one now and again just to keep the game looking legit...but on the important stuff it will be 5-4 and they win...

Drop 1 of the 5 and have a Democrat replace and the deed is done. Roberts can suck it and resign if he doesn't like the new makeup of the court after than.

And there will be at least 1 of the five who will leave the court between now and 2024.

And besides, it could just as easly be one of the moderats that needs replaceing.

And besides, take Thomas for instince....the Dems did not filibuster him...he got his hearing and the media got a circus that captured the TV audience...and in the end he was in.
While on out side we have to float a name to see how much opposition is out there and find one that is acceptable to the GOP...and we are told we don't have the votes for a real progressive, only the compromiser can win.

And our ability to understand that game is why we are still in it.

...it was a pretty clear signal the SCOTUS could rule, for their real paymasters, with impunity...

If Democrats attempted to filibuster Roberts or Alito, the Republican majority would have responded by going nuclear, and they still would have been confirmed. But I'd hate for facts to get in the way of a good narrative.

Only the Republicans know how to filibuster?

What I am saying is that a filibuster attempt on Roberts or Alito would have resulted in Republicans using the nuclear option to confirm the nominees, not their ultimate defeat, which was never a real possibility, fantasies notwithstanding.

Also, if the repukes had gone nuclear, it would still have been in place in 2009, and there would have been no excuse for enacting Heritage Care instead of what people wanted.

Dry powder = chickenshit FAIL

Just as Reid's nuclear option play earlier this year had no affect on the legislative filibuster, nor would a theoretical Republican one in 2005.

they'd change the rules so that they could do whatever they wanted.

At least then we'd have the changed rules now, when we could use 'em.

For as long as it was a serious possibility.

No Senate majority whose party also holds the White House would ever tolerate such a filibuster.

And if you've forgotten, Reid did change the rules, and we are using them. Easily the most aggressive action by a majority leader of either party in a generation or more, which really turns this whole narrative to shit.

But the fact remains that in a Senate with 55 Republican members, blocking Alito and Roberts was not something that was actually possible.

And in case you haven't noticed, the Republicans don't play by anything near the previous rules on anything else, e.g., threatening to default on the debt over the very budgets they agreed to.

One doesn't bring a spork to a fight when the other guy brings a gun, even if you've always brought a gun in the past. This is a hot war, not a cold one, but only one side understands this.

Scam-Y'all Scalito (i.e.-Alito) has no legitimate place on the Supreme Court. He is incompetent, unintelligent, and purely partisan. A good filibuster fight over him would have been worth it.

How, exactly, are we worse off now than if the Republicans had 'gone nuclear' anyway?

Dry powder is no good if all your projectiles are duds. Quislings=serious duds.

-app

The risk after a nuclear confrontation was that Bush could have been even more extreme in his choices, knowing that only 50+1 votes would be required for cloture on lower court nominees as well.

We had no way of knowing at the time we were on the cusp of a decade long Senate majority and at least two terms in the White House.

At the time it would have been a futile fight that would have also resulted in Democrats losing the ability to filibuster his lower court nominees.

And we should rationalize it away and love them even if they are weak and scared to come up against the terrible GOP monster.

That is not going to play well in Peoria.

Why impose a self inflicted wound and gain nothing? To show we are tough? Or some nonsense?

To think critical is to not make excuses for failures but identify the who, what, when, where and why of it...which sometimes is a pill some have trouble taking.

In 2005 Democrats could not have blocked Alito or Roberts, it is not a matter of much debate. It was not a choice they failed to make, it was something they were not able to prevent, because of elections.

Well, you are welcome to search my DU posts from back then. I was saying the same thing at the time.

-app

It is still flawed thinking.

"Corporate Democrats" to that list.

We need elect Leftists, not centrists, third way, pro corporate, holier than though, Democrats. This is what leaning to right has done.

Democrats, here's a clue when dealing with Republicans, If you give them an inch they will take a mile, your job, your house, where you can protest, women's reproductive rights, decrepit schools, crumbling infrastructures, your life, ahhh that list can go on forever.


No More!

What this and other 5-4 decisions illustrate is the importance of having a Democrat in the White House, even if that Democrat isn't as liberal as you or I might want.

If Candidate Obama was in the White House today, things would be a damned site better. The current self-proclaimed 1980's Republican is better than a current Republican, but what we need to win are FDR Democrats.

There might be some stories that demonstrate the importance of pushing the Dems to the left. This is not one of them. Obama's SC nominees didn't vote with the Republicans, which means that no president could have changed the outcome of this or many of the other recent 5-4 decisions. What could have made a difference is either Gore or Kerry beating Bush.

I'm also not convinced that on major policy issues, that someone to the left of Obama could have gotten much better results than Obama. The problem is the GOP's obstructionism.

Other than partially on your last point: a Liberal would have been more likely to fight for the 99% when taking office in 2009, which might have produced tangible results for the 99%, which would have likely led to expanding our hold on Congress rather than losing it.

We need both Liberal and tough to win. Liberal wouldn't have been enough.

I agree, we need liberal and tough. But at this point, I think tough is more important than liberal.

Take health care for example. Let's face it, we weren't getting single payer. We could have had a public option. But Obama was already liberal enough for that. He just wasn't tough enough (or savvy enough) to outmaneuver the Republicans.

Talking about "fighting for the 99%" is a little abstract. On concrete policies, in most cases, Obama is already pushing for things that are further left than what can possibly get through the Republican congress. Minimum wage, tax policy, stimulus and infrastructure spending, etc. Yes, there are some examples you might bring up -- free trade, net neutrality, hawkish foreign policy, for example.

I'm not as anti-free-trade as most DUers, but even leaving that aside, in terms of fighting for the 99%, if Obama was actually able to get half of what he has proposed through congress, it would dwarf whatever complaints you and others have with his policies in these other areas.

What would candidate junior senator from Illinois be doing differently?

You said you would have overturned the 2008 election.

You said McCain's policies wouldn't be different than Obama's.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3995915

Your words.

Not any more.

Your stalking me, since that unfortunate bludgeoning situation, with that single post out of my 25,000+, is a bit flattering.

You wrote about how it doesn't matter if McCain or Obama was in the White House because their policies are the same.

Your words.

Now you want us to believe you don't feel that way any more even though a search of your OP's reveals post after post attacking Obama?

You ain't foolin' me.

Nobody is allowed to "see the light" and reform.

Nope. A person is bludgeoned to death over past positions even if those positions are a decade old or more. And if the person has publicly renounced a former position... gawd forbid, they're never believed.

See Greenwald, see Snowden, see HRC, see BC, see BHO - nobody, NOBODY is allowed to ever be allowed some space to evaluate and change their minds.

Its a disgusting and despicable trait to slam anyone who has taken stock and re-evaluated.

Those folks should be praised for their open-mindedness. Instead they're decimated with a decade or more old opinion.

It sucks.

Most people never achieve that in their entire lives.

Well done.

How would the surpreme court look? How many more wars would we be fighting?

Thankfully, you didn't get your way.

Because I wanted McCain to be President.

Of course!

However even with a right wing senate majority they did not have a super majority. Democrats share the blame as well for now filibustering both of Bush's extremist appointments.

Anything to shift the blame.

but I pulled myself outta the spell.

When one of the right wingers resigns or passes away if that happens under Obama's watch.

I've said it in many threads before and after today's rulings, but when one of the wingnut justices resigns, the right is going to kick into overdrive to insure that they are not replaced with a liberal.

And all of the beltway media will back them up, with calls to preserve the retiring/dead justices "legacies" and other such claptrap.

And we all know hell well our current prez stands up to pressure from his DC media buddies and the Republican onslaught.

I see unreliable, "centrist" types being nominated, and ultimately getting us nowhere other than further down the shit hole than all of this "bipartisan" bullshit has already shoved our collective heads.

checks and we can't get it passed. 60% want SP HC and we can't do any better than Heritage Care. So discouraging.

rec

No more crony Wall Street pimps.

It was rather funny and sad at the same time.

There was a room for Pro-Choice gunpowder, etc.