On keeping our powder dry (Republican SCOTUS nominations)

[MannyGoldstein]

To be clear: the direct fault for today's outrageous SCOTUS announcements lie with the five "justices" who committed the acts. The second layer of culpability lies with the Republicans who nominated the scoundrels.

But we expect the enemy to be the enemy. That's not an excuse for the destruction they wreack - it's simply a fact.

The decisions handed down today should remind us as to why there's such an urgent need to reconstitute our own party, to move from Third Way quislings to FDR Democrats. Some of these "justices", particularly Roberts and Alito, were nominated primarily because it was clear they would vote exactly the way they've voted: this was clear to many elected Democrats - even Hillary Clinton - who sounded the alarm, but to deaf ears. Democrats could have stopped these ideologues by filibuster, but chose to "keep their powder dry".

"Keep it dry for what?", we must ask.

And here we are.

If we're to win this thing, it starts by putting the proper leadership in place. We need fighters, not triangulators, nor collaborators, nor wimps.

"You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."
- Winston Churchill

[Laelth]

1. Hear, hear! k&r n/t

-Laelth

[genwah]

2. Absolutely! We need to quit squabbling among ourselves and FIGHT! We need to scare the shit out of

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

[JI7]

3. yeah, and republicans kept their powder dry when Kagan and Sotomayor

and even ginsburg and breyer got on the court.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. And those are good "moderates". nt

[MohRokTah]

45. .

[zeemike]

35. You only need 5 and the key one, the Chief Justice, and he is one of the five.

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...

[MohRokTah]

46. You don't need the CJ.

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.

[zeemike]

47. As long as they have the CJ they control what cases are heard.

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.

[villager]

4. Well, when the quislings kept publicly accepting blatantly stolen Presidential elections...

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

[tritsofme]

6. You present a false choice. A Democratic Senate has not confirmed a GOP SCOTUS nominee since 1991.

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.

[Phlem]

8. So what your saying is

Only the Republicans know how to filibuster?

[tritsofme]

10. Not quite sure how you arrived there.

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.

[Doctor_J]

32. So you ARE saying the Repukes are the only ones who can filibuster

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

[tritsofme]

33. You are confused and conflating different things.

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.

[MannyGoldstein]

12. If we didn't let them do,whatever they wanted,

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.

[tritsofme]

19. The ability for a partisan minority to filibuster a SCOTUS nominee has been a fiction

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.

[MannyGoldstein]

31. Reid did not change the rules to the last form in which they functioned properly

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.

[appal_jack]

23. Scam-Y'all Scalito (i.e.-Alito) has no legitimate place on the Supreme Court.

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

[tritsofme]

29. It's easy to say that today.

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.

[zeemike]

36. What that sounds like you are saying is that the Democrats are scared and weak.

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.

[tritsofme]

37. No, I'm saying you should make an attempt at critical thinking.

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

[zeemike]

39. I don't think you get what critical thinking is.

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.

[tritsofme]

40. I am describing reality, not making excuses.

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.

[appal_jack]

41. Well, you are welcome to search my DU posts from back then.

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

-app

[tritsofme]

42. But if you are operating from the assumption that we had the ability to block Alito or Roberts

It is still flawed thinking.

[Phlem]

7. I would add

"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!

[DanTex]

9. Sorry, but this one doesn't fit into your anti-Hillary/anti-Obama narrative.

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.

[MannyGoldstein]

11. Have I written that it's *not* important to have a Democrat in the White House?

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.

[DanTex]

13. You're drawing the completely wrong conclusion.

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.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. I don't disagree with you.

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.

[DanTex]

18. I don't disagree with you either.

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.

[joshcryer]

14. How would they be better?

What would candidate junior senator from Illinois be doing differently?

[Cali_Democrat]

16. Yes you have...

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.

[MannyGoldstein]

17. Some days I felt like that.

Not any more.

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

[Cali_Democrat]

20. So you lied

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.

[riderinthestorm]

24. Ugh. This is what I HATE about DU. Nobody is allowed to evolve. Nobody is allowed to change

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.

[MannyGoldstein]

28. That post captures you perfectly.

Most people never achieve that in their entire lives.

Well done.

[Cali_Democrat]

43. And if you had your way, McCain would be president.

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

Thankfully, you didn't get your way.

[MannyGoldstein]

49. Which is why I voted for Obama, twice

Because I wanted McCain to be President.

Of course!

[leftstreet]

21. DURec

[Dwayne Hicks]

22. Yes Repubicans are to blame

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.

[OnyxCollie]

25. But, but, NADER!!!

Anything to shift the blame.

[BootinUp]

26. You almost had me there Manny

but I pulled myself outta the spell.

[vi5]

27. I'm afraid to see what our "dry powder" does....

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.

[Doctor_J]

30. Our party as a group is so weak compared to the other one. 80% of the people want background

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

[47of74]

34. No more grand bargins. No more deals. No more compromises.

[zeemike]

38. no more triangulates, no more collaborators, no more wimps

No more crony Wall Street pimps.

[woo me with science]

44. K&R

[hootinholler]

48. Back in 2004ish someone posted a tour of the powder vaults

It was rather funny and sad at the same time.

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