Breyer retirement

Seeing the news that Breyer is set to retire...he was a Dem appointee so I don't believe this really tips the balance.

The concern, for me, is this insistence I am hearing that Biden MUST appoint a black female to the Court. I have no doubt that there are some reasonable judges on a bench somewhere that fit that classification, but what if, as a worst-case scenario...this becomes the easy way to try and get Kamala out of the VP office. She was horrid as the California AG and she would be horrid on the bench.

Breyer clearly is doing this now to play some manner of politics since this ensures that the appointment comes prior to mid-terms. This is a distraction from the massive missteps going on in Ukraine as well as the many failures domestically. On a daily basis, the movie Wag the Dog is coming to life before our very eyes.

 

His retirement now is clearly a sign of the risk that D's might lose the Senate in the midterms. D's need to replace him now to avoid the R's having undue influence over the replacement if they were to control the Senate. Can't have Mitch McConnel holding the seat open until 2025 to "allow the voters a say" in 2024.

 

I hope he incurred no long term damage to his arm due to the twisting that has taken place over the last year.

 

Is there a guarantee that the 50 Senate Democrats would all fall in line if Joe nominates a far-left candidate? Would some of the moderates hold out?

 

Novel response I just heard to the Kamala appointment to get her out of the VP slot...she cannot vote for herself, which means it is back to 50-50. And Biden knows he cannot absolutely rely upon some of the Dems in the Senate, which means he potentially would have gotten rid of Kamala as VP AND kept her from the bench at the same time...

 

If it comes to pass it would be the high water mark of his presidency.

 

Identity politics has already given us a highly incompetent VPOTUS and SCOTUS Justice. Its sad and scary that we continue filling the highest positions in our government with unqualified people because of their identity.

 

Don't forget an assistant Secretary with Health and Human Services that doesn't grasp basic rules of biology...

Biden and his handlers seem to take great joy in the destruction of this Nation.

 

Kamala for scotus?

 

Why not Michele?

 

McConnell won't have any influence over the replacement even if they take control of the Senate. If Breyer had waited too long and the GOP had taken the Senate, McConnell would have killed the nomination like he killed the Garland nomination. The bottom line is that we're not going to see a president get a SCOTUS pick confirmed by a Senate run by the other party until there's some kind of bipartisan truce - not on the nomination or confirmation process but on the Court itself and its role.

 

I agree. There could be a multi term vacancy. It just won't happen.

 

I think we are aligned. Garland wasn't even brought up for debate, let alone a vote. Essentially McConnel just skipped that business. I'm highly confident he'd do the same if Breyer retired after the Senate took control. In fact, I'm confident that McConnel would try to muck up the works if the D's pulled an ACB maneuver and tried to railroad a nominee through as they exited being the majority party.

How sad is it that we now know that a SCOTUS will never get approved by an opposite party Senate, regardless of merit? The time will come where the SCOTUS will operate for years with fewer than 9 justices because of this stalemate.

 

Apparently there are credible victims who will come forward to reveal the nominee sexually assaulted them 25 years ago.

 

That's me. While I can't remember the name of my attacker now, I do know a prominent Democrat judge finger-****** my *** hole, circa early 2010's. I still remember their laughing sneer as they violated me.

Don't remember when, don't remember where. Also, I can't fly to the capital to testify as I'm frightened of flying, plus I've used up all my frequent flyer miles.

 

DD
You are brave to come forward. Your phone ringing? That might be Time calling to put you in the cover
Or maybe CNN for an interview praising your "forthrightness"
Stay strong

 

I'm going to practice my timid little boy voice for the hearings, and await the media calling my brave statements "credible allegations".

 

I don't play the right politics...and I understand the Constitution.

 

Obama?

 

Biden will nominate a black woman. That's fine. We knew he would nominate a Liberal. But it's definitely "look like America first," "competent jurist" second. The Republicans shouldn't complain about color on this one. They should just find the low hanging fruit of their Liberal activist rulings and let the country know about that.

And don't bother with her sex life. We need to move on from that crap.

 

Depends said he was 100% going to select a black woman for VP - look where that got him. Someone even more unpopular than him, and for good reason, as K Harris is a total joke. She's a living episode of the TV show Veep.

In reality, who is selected doesn't really matter. They will always vote the leftist side for any case of consequence. Look at Breyer - even when he was nominated by Clinton in the 90's, he was a moderate Democrat. His kind not only would never be nominated by the Democrat party of today - his kind doesn't even exist save for the older ones.

And when's he not voted the party line? Only case I can remember is when he sided with not having to tear down various 70 year old monuments around the Texas Capitol - one of which was the 10 Commandments. I can't even remember if he kept that same viewpoint on the post WWI monument case in Virginia - or if he'd gotten enough heat from the 10 Commandment case so that he suddenly had a different opinion.

If I was a R Senator, barring some personal revelation like how they'd FF my AH, as above, I'd probably vote for them, if the seat was going to be filled eventually by Depends.

It's like arguing over who's going to be the head coach of the Texans. You know they'll do a terrible job. Same for any Democrat judge. Just put one in there and know they will always vote the party line.

 

What would really get nasty is if there is a vacancy after the '22 election (such as Thomas dying) and Biden (or the Democratic nominee if he decides not to seek reelection) wins in '24 but the GOP has the Senate. Normally that would seem unlikely, but all it would take is Trump being the nominee. He loses and the GOP holds the Senate because the map will be very favorable.

If that happened, I doubt McConnell would completely shut down the process, because he knows what precedent that would set. However, any Republican who voted to confirm a progressive justice would be signing his own death warrant in the next primary. Collins might do it anyway, but Manchin (who's socially conservative) could very well vote No. After 2 or 3 nominees get tanked, there'd have to be some kind of reckoning.

 

Congress is broken. To some, that's a good thing. Without compromise within our Founding Fathers there would never have been a USA. Today's Congress is nearly void of compromise. The extremes need their own reality check.

 

The "extremes" need:

1) Term limitations - no more career politicians
2) Have worked in the real world for 5-10 years before holding any public office
3) Can serve and then move up the ladder, but no elevator up & down
4) Pay social security and for their own health insurance
5) No retirement benefits from the government

 

OF course we will
That was all sarc for the pathetic Dems ploy

 

Payback is a sweet *****.

 

Don't blame me - it's the Democrat side that broke Congress on the issue of the Supreme Court, staring with Bork (the irony was that Bork died during King Obama's term, while his replacement, Kennedy lived to Trump's term, meaning that all other things being the same, a Bork confirmation would have given Obama another pick).

Votes on SC nominees since and including C. Thomas:

Thomas: 52–48
Viscous smear campaign waged against this great jurist and man.

Ginsberg: 96–3
Post office naming has more opposition.

Breyer: 87 to 9
Again, no opposition to speak of.

Roberts: 78–22
22 Democrats voted against him, for ??? reasons, even after the past two Democrat picks sailed through.

Alito (fillabustered - first one for a long time, if not ever)
58–42, with only 5 Democrat votes for Alito

Sotomayor:68–31
Back to high numbers of votes for the UnWise Latina (she's considered the worst by quality of writing SC justice in decades, if not ever).

Kagan: 63–37
Still high votes.

Gorsuch (fillabustered - broken via the Nuke Option)
54–45
The Nuking of the Filibuster had to be used for Gorsuch, following H. Reid's use of it for lower court judges first.

Kavanaugh: 50–48
Another smear job, though M. Avereritti (sp) and CNN are hot on the case of various women who claim Kav felt them up, and also that they were probed by aliens, though not in the same evening. Just 1 Democrat voted for him, J. Manchin.

Barrett: 52–48, with zero Democrat votes.

Thomas's nomination was fought tooth and nail, and yet the next two Democrat nominations sailed through. Then two Republican nominations that were hard fought by the Democrats, including the hitherto not used Filibuster.

The next two Democrat nominees went through without much fuss, and no filibuster, while the next Republican (Gorsuch) was Filibustered, and the Nuke Option had to be used. Since then, it's gone even further downhill, as the last two nominees have gotten a total of 1 Democrat vote - Manchin, in a year he was running for re-election, after Kav's nomination had enough votes to pass anyway.

Summing things up - for the above 4 Democrat nominations, average of 79 votes per candidate. For the 6 Republican nominations - average of 57 votes. You could factor in the numbers of Dem/Rep Senators in that Senate for each nomination if you wanted to spend another hour on it - fact remains that Republican nominees over the past 30 years have gotten far fewer Democrat votes than vice versa.

The Democrats can whine about M. McConnel sitting on Garland's nomination if helps them get through the night (and keep them from wetting the bed thinking of all the rulings coming down the pike on abortion, guns, and race quotas) but anyone with a pulse would acknowledge that Schumer would have done exactly the same thing with a Democrat Senate and a Republican President.

Besides, the way Garland has acted as sort of a wanna-be Lavrentiy Beria of the Soviet KNVD since his installation as Attorney General, keeping that turd off the SC was the 4th best thing McConnel ever did (after getting Trumps 3 picks on).

 

All side issues. Won't fix a damn thing.

 

True, but I'll say what I alway say. Congress is broken because we are broken. They don't compromise or work together, because we don't want them to. We say we do, but we don't act like we do. If you're a compromiser from either party, you lose. If you're a "figher" (meaning you say a lot of wild stuff but do very little actual legislating) you win. We punish statesmen and reward grandstanders.