Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies

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Are you excited about the future of the Supreme Court following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Yes
3
50%
No
3
50%
 
Total votes: 6

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Hashi Lebwohl
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

There are protesters already outside McConnell's house with signs saying things like "we cannot sleep and so neither can you". Silly protesters--you don't think that is McConnell's actual house, do you? That is his public house, not his real house. Not only are you wasting your time and effort, your protests will not stop the inevitable nomination and confirmation which will occur before the election.

Incidentally, there must be a 9th Justice before the election, because this election will likely follow 2000's and wind up before the SCOTUS--with only 8 there could be a tie. Ties work in Democrats' favor--if neither Trump nor Biden can be definitively confirmed by 20 Jan 2021 then the next person in line becomes POTUS pro tempore, and that person is Nancy Pelosi.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

Oh, oh no! Those pesky protesters! How dare they exercise free speech. Rest still, my beating heart, lest I lose some sleep.

You just want to shoot them up, don't you? Ram them with cars?
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Post by sgt.null »

Ur - i just worry that the peaceful protesters will turn violent and decide to firebomb some cars or buildings.
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Post by Zarathustra »

I’m really surprised how I don’t miss this place. I spent so much time here, and used to really enjoy it. I was just checking in to see what people had to say about this big news of RBG’s death, and the level of discussion is embarrassingly juvenile, puerile, and needlessly venomous. Ur Nan, what happened to you, man? You ok?

This place has always been heated, but it has never been this dumb.

[Now, back to my FL vacation... !]
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Post by sgt.null »

This is the level of discourse in America.

Orange man bad!
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Post by wayfriend »

Minority rule in America
Our various undemocratic institutions are reenforcing each other in a deadly spiral.

Control of the courts allows Republicans to further tilt the electoral playing field. Waging judicial politics on a tilted playing field allows Republicans to control the courts.

[...] Given the extent of the tilted maps - 2 to 3 points in the Electoral College, 4 in the House, 6 to 7 in the Senate - Republicans could probably hold majorities almost all the time if they wanted to. But they choose to play their hand more aggressively than that, moving forward boldly with unpopular policy initiatives and then obstructing during periodic defeats. [link]
Hint: no matter who wins the presidential election, Republicans win the presidential election, as they will appeal the result to the Supreme court. Then they stack the courts more. Lather, rinse, destroy.

Hint: if you like "winning" at the cost of our country being a democracy, cheer.
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Post by TheFallen »

Zarathustra wrote:I’m really surprised how I don’t miss this place. I spent so much time here, and used to really enjoy it. I was just checking in to see what people had to say about this big news of RBG’s death, and the level of discussion is embarrassingly juvenile, puerile, and needlessly venomous. Ur Nan, what happened to you, man? You ok?

This place has always been heated, but it has never been this dumb.

[Now, back to my FL vacation... !]
Hey hey Zee...

My advice, looking at the accelerating shift in Tank tone? Stay away until at least November 4th...

...and then add to that whatever period you think suitable for the dust to settle and for whichever side needing to accept the result to actually accept that result.

Which, judging by what's gone on with the Dems since Nov 2016 might end up being at least an extra four years.

Quite probably the best move given current tone, but I have to say that I'd miss your sanity, dude.

And in that very vein...
wayfriend wrote:Hint: no matter who wins the presidential election, Republicans win the presidential election, as they will appeal the result to the Supreme court. Then they stack the courts more. Lather, rinse, destroy.

Hint: if you like "winning" at the cost of our country being a democracy, cheer.
First off, don't pretend that the Dems would not do the exact same thing, given the same opportunity.

How anyone has the gall or naivity to pretend that the side they favour is in any way principled beats the hell out of me. For both sides, this is all about the acquisition and maintaining of power in self-interest, literally nothing more. Anything else is just faux moralistic window-dressing in an attempt to fool the electorate.

Second, a brutal pragmatist would say... "Don't blame the players, blame the game". If your latest allegation has any substance - and admittedly I wouldn't know either way, because I'm certainly no expert - then it's your Constitution which is seemingly at fault. According to your post, it sounds like it's got at least one majorly yet apparently fully legally exploitable loophole.

If so, that's not good, because - again if so - both sides will gleefully exploit that whenever in a a position to do so.
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Post by wayfriend »

TheFallen wrote:First off, don't pretend that the Dems would not do the exact same thing, given the same opportunity.
I think you mean, First off, let me ignore the issue and attack the poster. Cuz that's what follows.

Second of all, "Dems would do it" is a deflection. One which actual facts, were they brought to bear, would prove to be untrue as well.

Republicans have been striving since the Bush / Alberto Gonzales days to put a "lock" on the election process by using the department of justice to taint elections for or against candidates. Democrats have not done so despite the opportunity. Republicans have been striving in the same timeframe to put every drooling cousin on the bench. Democrats have not done so despite the opportunity - to wit, they nominate both qualified and non-partisan judges.

It has long been noted that Republicans don't bother governing any more.

Third of all, the founders of the Constitution assumed a basic amount of integrity in elected officials. Which held up soundly for 200 years. Playing hardball and gaming the system requires a fair amount of "fuck the country" in order to play it. That's what the Republicans are doing.

Fix it? You think the Republican's will let anyone fix it? Too late.

But stop with the "shut up" arguments. This is bad. One may discuss it on that basis.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

I will admit that Dems doing away with the filibuster in 2013 was a mistake. If they still had it, they could block this confirmation and the only way it could be unblocked would be with 60 votes (which Repubs alone won't have).

With that said, Repubs are playing with fire. Dems will have no choice but to retaliate politically, which will have serious implications.

This leaves Dems with no other option but to pack the court, which will lead to a few justices being added with each new administration indefinitely as Repubs and Dems alternate between being in power and pack the courts to undo the previous packing.

Repubs can still stop this madness, if they wanted to. They could confirm a moderate. However, we all know that won't happen. They will pick a hardcore conservative because they want to overturn gay marriage and Roe v Wade (despite Hashi saying that is impossible...but he's just playing dumb). Trump will nominate someone who he believes will be beholden to him. He has already said that he wants the SCOTUS to rule in favor of not counting the mail-in ballots so he can rig the election in his favor. He said that word-for-word at his last rally.

You have lost every last shred of dignity, every last shred of credibility, every last shred of honor, and every last shred of morality. You are not men. You are cowards.
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Post by sgt.null »

So the only way for the democrsts not to pack the court is for Republicans to do what the democrats say? That's an odd argument.

Biden and Reid are directly responsible for this.

WF - democrats would do this because democrats did this. Look up FDR.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

No, just saying that the GOP should hold up decorum and tradition rather than abandon it. Without decorum and without tradition, the rules are easy to abuse.

The GOP sees a golden opportunity to get a conservative majority, and in some ways, I cannot fault them for that. However, they are missing the forest for the trees here. They are being short-sighted. Their action to replace Ginsburg with a conservative will inflame tensions between Dems and Repubs more than it already is, and it will ultimately further break the system.

This can be avoided by appointing a moderate.
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Post by sgt.null »

Ur - the president gets to nominate whoever he likes. RBG doesn't get a say. Democrats don't get a say.

Decorum? Pelosi is talking about impeachment, not for any actual crimes, but as a stalling tactic.

How can it get worse between the two parties? Democrats paid a foreign operative to dig up dirt on Trump. They then lied to a judge for fisa warrents. They ran the Mueller investigation which found nothing. Then they ran a sham impeachment. All of this failed.

So now the have the Atlantic running weekly stories with anonymous stories to discredit the president.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

That's not what you said when Obama nominated a justice in 2016.

You only follow rules when it is convenient. You do not follow them when they are not.
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Post by sgt.null »

Ur - in 2016 Obama didn't have the Senate.
Tell me what file was broken? Chapter and verse.
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

ur-Nanothnir wrote:This leaves Dems with no other option but to pack the court
Which will result in the Court refusing to seat the new Justices--they will not allow their institution to become the political weapon the Democats want it to be.

Incidentally, I neither want to shoot at protesters nor ram them with cars You insinuate that I wish harm on them...but we'll just leave that alone for now. I don't mind them protesting, but their protest is pointless and won't change anything so if they want to waste their time that is their business.

Ted Cruz shut down the RBG proposal in the Senate--Democrats were trying to make her fake last wish supercede the Constitution, forgetting that RBG herself stated to NPR only last year that packing the Court was a Very Bad Idea (tm).

I propose a toast to the soon-to-be-named and soon-to-be-confirmed SCOTUS Justice. *drink*
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

And if the court does not refuse those new justices? The court hasn't always been nine justices. It isn't like this is anything new.
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Post by TheFallen »

wayfriend wrote:
TheFallen wrote:First off, don't pretend that the Dems would not do the exact same thing, given the same opportunity.
I think you mean, First off, let me ignore the issue and attack the poster. Cuz that's what follows.

Second of all, "Dems would do it" is a deflection. One which actual facts, were they brought to bear, would prove to be untrue as well.
I know what I mean - and my assertion that the Dems would do exactly the same thing stands. The primary target of my criticism was your politicos with their deceptiveness and fervently expressed yet utterly faux self-claimed moral standards, rather than those naive enough to swallow this perpetrated myth.

What you're completely failing to recognise (for whatever reason) is that in a contest that both sides (and especially the Dems) are framing as an utterly polarised and purely binary war between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil, where the prize in this "battle" is "the soul of America", then this directly leads to the end result justifying any means taken to achieve it.

Hence both sides will do whatever it takes, regardless of "morality" in their respective efforts to win. Anything now goes... win at all costs... morality doesn't even get the flimsiest look in.
wayfriend wrote:Third of all, the founders of the Constitution assumed a basic amount of integrity in elected officials. Which held up soundly for 200 years. Playing hardball and gaming the system requires a fair amount of "fuck the country" in order to play it.
Well, that was quite possibly unforeseeable, but nonetheless eventually misguided of them.

As I keep saying, from the politicos' point of view, this is about nothing else than the purely self-serving acquisition of power and the maintaining of such. This is categorically not "a battle for the soul of America"... it's merely a contest for the next four year ownership of the swill trough, for all that both sides pretend differently. And because ownership of the trough is more than worth having, if one's sole motivation is self-interest (as it is with both sides), then they both will do anything they can and whatever it takes to win.
Newsflash: the word "irony" doesn't mean "a bit like iron" :roll:

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Post by sgt.null »

I missed WF pretending that politicians had integrity before Trump. The democrats party was created to slaughter Indians keep blacks as slaves. How is that integrity?
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

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Post by sgt.null »

How is she a fanatic?
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