Not really. His Wikipedia page pretty thoroughly documents the fact that the pilot and co-pilot were a couple of third-rate fuck-ups flying right at stall speed moments before the crash, and there was never any evidence of foul play found on the plane itself or any of the victims.
In the sense that he was rejected only by McConnell and Grassley. We don’t know what the Senate would have done.
Yes, that’s it. If, for example (and God forbid), a left leaning judge were assassinated right now, with the express purpose and known motive of getting a right leaning judge as a replacement (and I really hope I’m not on a watchlist right now, this is *not *something I want), I imagine there would be immense pressure to replace them with a similar leaning judge. But I simply cannot see that happening, honestly regardless of who the president was. And would republican senators keep downvoting any nominee who wasn’t to the left? I seriously doubt it.
And me, too.
Conservative Justice, conservative President, conservative Senate: New conservative Justice.
Conservative Justice, conservative President, liberal Senate: New conservative Justice.
Conservative Justice, liberal President, conservative Senate: Senate process stalled until the next election resulting in a conservative President or liberal Senate.
Conservative Justice, liberal President, liberal Senate: New liberal or center Justice
Liberal Justice, conservative President, conservative Senate: New conservative Justice.
Liberal Justice, conservative President, liberal Senate: New conservative Justice.
Liberal Justice, liberal President, conservative Senate: Senate process stalled until the next election resulting in a conservative President or liberal Senate.
Liberal Justice, liberal President, liberal Senate: New liberal or center Justice.
The only difference between this and a normal death of a SCOTUS justice would be that there could be a steep political cost for nominating a justice who is the opposite of the deceased one. Trying to replace a murdered far-lefty with a far-righty could cost Republicans big at the polls, making moderates and centrists vote against the GOP. Ditto if Democrats tried to replace a murdered far-righty with a far-lefty.
This is, I think, the outcome of the midterm elections the Dems are hoping for (that they retake the Senate, as well as the House but that’s immaterial to the issue of judicial confirmations). If they do so, and by some miracle Kennedy’s SCOTUS seat is still unfilled, do you think they intend to confirm any of the conservative candidates on Trump’s list? My impression is that they do not.
The conservatives will cry ‘Unfair!’ and the liberals will fold. Maybe they’ll deny the first candidate but they’ll settle for some conservative in the end.
I’m surprised this hasn’t happened yet. A conservative with 4 bullets could reset the calendar to 1850. Imagine a court where Donald picks every single justice.
Yet another argument for limiting magazine capacity.
Regards,
Shodan
Perhaps we’re better people than you give us credit for. Or perhaps we realize that natural causes stand a pretty good chance of resolving the issue for us, at least in the case of the octogenarians.
When all semi-automatics are outlawed, all would-be assassins will have 6-shooters.
It’s possible. But Chuck Schumer hasn’t made any of the sort of silly categorical statements that McConnell did during The Great Garland Delay (“we will not vote on any nominee submitted by this administration” etc.) so it’s also possible that they would. That said, despite his rhetoric I assumed McConnell’s endgame was to force Obama to submit an even more centrist nominee than Garland back then, rather than to take the rather astonishingly bold step of actually refusing to confirm anyone.