Why does doorhinge equate disapproval or disagreement to “telling people what to think or what they can say”? I’ve never seen a Doper tell you that you can’t think something, or you can’t say something, except perhaps with regards to the rules of the SDMB.
McConnell is the one telling people what to think and/or say, not the Democrats. Why is he afraid to let it go to a vote?
And hey, we’ve got one now. How about a vote on him? I’m sure the President would like the Senate to Advise and Consent on him.
U.S. Senators are elected to office to serve their constituents. The U.S. Senate is going thru the process. The U.S. Senate process.
Uh yeah. In particular GOP Senate leadership and most of the rank and file.
I personally have become convinced that it is constitutional for them to essentially pocket veto.
And I hope they attempt to do so. Of all the bad moves they have at this point that one is probably the best for my interests. It will help assure a more solid Democratic Senate majority and allow Clinton to put in a choice that is slightly less what would be ideal current consensus.
It means nothing. They’re just following form. There is no causal or procedural link between interviewing the nominee privately and hearings and a vote on the floor of the Senate.
However, it does make it possible for the R’s to reverse field and allow the confirmation proceedings to move forward should they so decide (again, good luck with that).
I don’t know. Since I didn’t say anything of the sort, perhaps you should ask “why can’t Republicans read?” For the record, I am not a registered voter though if I were I would almost certainly be a Democrat.
The only people who “forgot” are the GOP Senators who were seemingly unaware that Obama had to nominate someone, since they had already announced their position on the nomination long before it was made.
It’s a little bit of a stretch to describe “not doing anything” as a “process.”
McConnell, and other GOP Senators, have provided you with an explanation. You refuse to accept that explanation.
I’m sure Obama wants lot’s of things. That doesn’t mean that the U.S. Senate is required to rubberstamp his nominee.
“Fuck off” is not an explanation.
Neither is “The American people should have a voice in the nomination process.”
Remind me, who was it that put Obama into office?
Not true Americans.
Because it makes no sense whatsoever. There is no reason constitutional nor traditional nor reasonable why a justice nominated by a president this early in the last year of his term should not even be considered by the Senate.
You keep going back to “rubberstamp.” That’s a straw man. Nobody is expecting the Senate to tacitly approve the President’s nominee. People are expecting them to do their jobs and work with the President to evaluate the nominee and vote to approve or reject. That’s not asking for a rubber stamp, it’s asking them to do their jobs.
Instead, they are refusing to execute their part of the process. Based on how their statements have evolved over the past month, it’s pretty obvious that they’re doing this to hedge their bets until they see how the election shakes out. Whether or not that’s explicitly prohibited, plenty of people see that as acting in bad faith.
I’d be criticizing President Obama if he tried to do something similar by refusing to make a nomination. I’d also be annoyed if Obama was making sure-miss nominations to waste time until after the election, and even that would be doing more than the Senate Republicans are doing.
IMO, this behavior creates a dangerous precedent, and should not be condoned.
No, they’re not. The Senate is perfectly free to vote down the nominee, or perhaps in the confirmation process, such serious doubts are raised as to the suitability of the nominee that he or she withdraws.
The Senate, in the person of apparently all Republican members, is refusing to carry out their contribution to responsible government, and they should all be good and goddamn ashamed of themselves.
Well, isn’t McConnell essentially saying that advising Obama that he is not going to consider ANYONE, is within the advice part of advice and consent?
I guess I can imagine a tortured definition of advice to include such a definition, but that doesn’t mean it is a persuasive or even respectable position.
The problem with that is the Constitution doesn’t ask for Mitch McConnell’s advice and consent. Mitch is trying to block the Senate as a whole or even at committee level from advising.
Conservative justice A. Raymond Randolph (George HW Bush appointee, speaker to the Heritage Foundation and the JCN) also voted to rehear the case en banc, in addition to two other judges.
Is that evidence that Randolph supports an anti-Second Amendment position?
The thing is, if the GOP doesn’t confirm Garland by November - and if Hillary WINS the election against Trump - then Obama is basically obligated to pull his nomination before the Senate can rush to confirm him in the lame duck period. I mean, at that point, “the people will have spoken.” So that means Hillary can get in there and either renominate Garland or (as is more likely) put forward a much younger/liberal nominee like Kamala Harris or Srinivasan or somebody.
Live by the stupid logic, die by the stupid logic.
I see it as given that the senate doesn’t 'have" to act and that the recess appointment is the remedy for this. Obama is too canny and too much of a gentleman, at least in his public actions, based on his being a black president that is being “de-legitimized” over everything he does, to have taken this option, yet. We covered this in an earlier thread.
My question is who speaks for the senate and how is such a decision made for the senate by one man? The Majority leader can just speak for all of them?
As I said before, the insanity is on full display here on several fronts. I think the best possible outcome for all concerned – especially the Republican Party at the center of this shit-storm – is to be confronted head-on with consequences of stupidity in unmistakably clarity. That can take several forms, the least damaging of which is the following four-step path:
(1) demonstrating a refusal to consider the judicial nomination despite its obvious merits, (2) nominating Donald Trump as their bloviating, laughable candidate, followed by (3) the most abject, ignominious, and totally deserved defeat of a Republican presidential candidate in the history of modern politics, and many of the downticket candidates, too, and then (4) a catharsis and rebuilding of the Republican Party in some semblance of sanity – one where “conservative” actually means “conservative” and not “stark raving mad”.
The scary thing is that under the wrong circumstances this shit-storm might lead to far more damaging consequences.
This is ridiculous! The recess appointment is not a remedy in reality or original intent. And Obama tried to sneak in some “recess appointments” that got overturned when the Senate said they weren’t legally in recess, so that kind throws out the canny and gentleman stuff.