So then, *nothing at all similar *to Garland, then?
“One of these things is not like the other”.
On the other hand, now you AGREE with Cher. What does that say? 
I don’t judge my opinions by what Cher thinks. Do you?
But… you just judged other people’s opinion because they lost Cher’s backing.
Hmm, inconsistency. Clearly not a Cher- and Cher-alike situation.
Only in your imagination.
Uhh, not even remotely. But ok, let’s play your game. Please do tell what we were supposed to fill your ellipses with in “When you lose Cher…”
Then why did you post the link?
It was a fun (for me) comment on how even the loony left (represented by Cher in this instance) is losing support for the Gorsuch filibuster idiocy.
In kther words, exactly as I interpreted it. My imagination is pretty awesome I guess.
Nope.
Ok, finish the sentence in a way that I’m wrong:
When you lose Cher [fill in this blank].
When you lose Cher, it’s hilarious.
Only to someone who cares what side Cher was on in the first place, though, as well as cares about what effect her changing sides might have.
Well, let’s say you’re a democratic senator. How do you deescalate this in a way that doesn’t completely legitimize the tactics the GOP have used over the last year to block Obama from nominating a judge? A norm only one side cares about upholding is not a norm, it’s a handicap. It makes no sense for the democrats to continue to try to play by the rules if republicans refuse to do so, and yes, I am including democratic norms in my definition of “rules” because they fucking matter.
Also, as stated in another thread, the next political escalation probably involves taking potshots at supreme court justices who would reverse Heller. Just my best guess.
Pathetic fail. They’re accusing of Gorsuch “plagiarizing” from Kuzma. Here’s Kuzma’s reaction:
"Kuzma, a one-time aide to former Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), did not respond to an inquiry from POLITICO, but released a statement through Gorsuch’s team. Kuzma said she does “not see an issue here, even though the language is similar.”
“These passages are factual, not analytical in nature,” Kuzma, now a deputy attorney general in Indiana, said. “It would have been awkward and difficult for Judge Gorsuch to have used different language.”
The democratic norm of not using a partisan filibuster against SCOTUS nominees doesn’t seem to matter to Schumer and company. And Democrats haven’t “continue[d] to try to play by the rules” at least since 2013. Your post seems to suggest that Democrats are only the victims here and never the instigators, but both sides have mud on them.
If you want to see some full-on partisan hypocrisy, just search this board for ‘filibuster’ and look at the posts pre-2016. I’ve seen the same people flip their opinion of the filibuster in sync with whether or not their party is in the majority at that time. People on both sides of the political fence.
Lots of prominent lefties on this board were perfectly okay with getting rid of the filibuster or making it much harder to carry out - when the Democrats held a majority in the Senate. The New York Times loves the filibuster now, but approved of Reid’s gutting it for lower court nominees when it suited the Democrats.
Personally, I like the filibuster, but only if they go back to the old rules of actually having to hold the floor. That puts pressure on both sides to eventually negotiate a solution, and the filibuster should be all about negotiation and compromise. Just saying, “I object!” and thereby exercising a consequence-less veto over anything you don’t like just leads to obstructionism and gridlock.
So I’d let the Democrats filibuster Gorsuch under the old rules, and then every day of the filibuster the Republicans should issue a report indicating what business was kept from happening in the Senate because of it. Both sides can keep that up until one side blinks, or they decide to sit down and compromise, or the public gets sick of them all and either starts voting out incumbents en masse or decides to strategically vote to create a filibuster-proof majority. Political blowback should be part of the risk of a filibuster.
The filibuster serves an important purpose - it maintains a certain amount of stability in the sense that legislation can’t fip-flop willy-nilly every time the Senate flips. And these days, where the country is split almost 50/50 and the Senate usually has close majorities, removing the filibuster is going to increase the chaos created by political change.
I know McConnell plans to retain the filibuster for legislation, but that’s likely to work as well as Reid’s insistence that eliminating the filibuster for lower court nominees will not affect the Supreme Court. Because once you’ve broken faith with the other side by eliminating long-standing tradition for partisan advantage, it’s really difficult for the other side to trust that you won’t do it again, and therefore that opens the door to them escalating the problem - as we’re seeing now.
The Democrats are, in my opinion, making a serious tactical and strategic error here. They are going to be viewed much like the spoiled child who, upset at the unfair decision of his mother earlier in the day, continues the tantrum at home, despite the fact that this will now deprive him of something down the road. “I’m so mad at you from before, I’m going to make you punish me harder now!”
There is no doubt that the Republicans played a definitely sharp political game in an attempt to avoid the appointment of a “liberal” justice to the Court. I criticized it at the time, and I still do criticize it. But here’s the thing: they won. The Democrats could have put paid to that strategy had they either controlled the Senate or won the White House. They didn’t. So to the victors the spoils.
If the Democrats had any hope of achieving anything by filibustering the new nominee, then the decision to do so might make sense. But they don’t have any hope of that, because all the Republicans will do is remove the filibuster option. All the Democrats will achieve, then, is to force the Republicans to do something that 99% of the country’s population won’t care about in any significant way. By this, I mean it won’t change their opinion of the participants in the drama. Strongly liberal people will still dislike Republicans; strongly conservative people will still like Republicans, and the people in the middle won’t care one way or the other.
In my opinion, the Democrats should suck it up, admit their guy lost, admit that they don’t have the power to do anything but whine about Judge Garland, and take the “high” road by judging Judge Gorsuch on the basis of his actual qualifications. This would gain them political capital, both from the Republican Senators who are moderates, and from the public. Then, if/when a “liberal” Supreme Court justice retires/dies (Ginsburg is everyone’s guess), they could use that to try and influence the President to nominate a more moderate conservative, threatening to get quite cranky about things otherwise, spending the capital they gain now. In that case, if the Republicans are seen as going “nuclear” to get their way and “pack” the Court, Democrats could use that against them politically in 2018 or 2020.
I’m sure Sen. Schumer and the rest of the hierarchy think that Sen. Reid’s decision in 2013 already made the full nuclear option inevitable, and now is as good a time as any to force the Republicans to use it. I disagree.
ETA: I agree with Sam Stone above. He’s quite right, especially the bit about removing filibuster by procedure. I’d remove the stupid “hold” provisions as well, for much the same reason.