“Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Eight Is Not Enough”: An Equal Division Is Essentially The Same As A Denial Of Review
Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), feeling pressure over his role in an unprecedented Supreme Court blockade, wrote an op-ed in which he insisted the whole mess is unimportant. The “sky won’t fall” if the Supreme Court remains deadlocked for a year and a half – eight justices is plenty – so the Republicans’ unprecedented scheme isn’t worth all the fuss.
Actual justices on the high court appear to feel differently. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg acknowledged publicly yesterday that the institution she serves is, in fact, being hurt by having eight justices instead of nine. The Washington Post reported:
The Supreme Court has deadlocked 4 to 4 in several cases since Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February. Ginsburg told judges at a conference in New York that the situation is unfortunate because it essentially means important issues are being denied Supreme Court review, according to a copy of her prepared remarks.
“That means no opinions and no precedential value; an equal division is essentially the same as a denial of review,” Ginsburg said.
She added, “Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court.”
Ginsburg is hardly the only one who’s noticed. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick noted last week that the Supreme Court can pretend that “it can manage just fine with eight justices,” but the fact remains that the institution is struggling to do its job.
Nobody on the court can say: “Please give us a ninth justice so we can get back to work.” That sounds like a plea for a Justice Merrick Garland. That is why it’s left to former Justice John Paul Stevens to say it for them. Even if all eight justices were to agree that between being unable to take any cases for next term, and being unable to decide major cases this term, things are not getting done at the court.
The same week, the editorial board of the New York Times added, “Every day that passes without a ninth justice undermines the Supreme Court’s ability to function, and leaves millions of Americans waiting for justice or clarity as major legal questions are unresolved…. Despite what Senate Republicans may say about the lack of harm in the delay in filling the vacancy, the court cannot do its job without a full bench.”
By all appearances, the Senate’s Republican majority doesn’t care – according to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), it’s somehow fair to treat Merrick Garland unfairly – but they should.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 27, 2016
“Promoting Videos In Which Hillary Clinton Is Killed”: NRA’s Ted Nugent Sparks Yet Another Ugly Controversy
About four years ago at this time, Ted Nugent, a musician, reality-show personality, and National Rifle Association board member, was doing his best to help Mitt Romney get elected. Appearing at the NRA’s national convention, Nugent said, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either dead or in jail by this time next year…. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions?”
He went on to say, “It isn’t the enemy that ruined America. It’s good people who bent over and let the enemy in. If the coyote’s in your living room pissing on your couch, it’s not the coyote’s fault. It’s your fault for not shooting him.”
The comments, not surprisingly, generated a Secret Service investigation.
Four years later, Nugent has a new target, but he appears to have learned very little. Media Matters noted this week:
National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent, who will deliver a speech at the NRA’s annual meeting this month, shared a fake video that depicts Hillary Clinton being graphically murdered by Bernie Sanders with a handgun during a presidential debate.
In a May 10 post on his Facebook page, Nugent shared a video with the descriptions “Bernie Sanders destroys Hillary Clinton in debate on Vermont gun laws” and “Bernie Sanders absolutely killed Hillary over this issue.”
The video takes footage from a recent debate between Clinton and Sanders, but it’s manipulated to show Sanders shooting Clinton in the chest – complete with an animated blood spurt.
Just to be clear, Nugent does not appear to have created the video, but he helped disseminated it through social media, and he endorsed it with his own poorly written message: “I got your guncontrol right here bitch!”
All of this comes nearly nine years after Nugent, commenting on Clinton’s first presidential campaign, delivered an on-stage rant in which he pointed to his gun and said, “Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.”
I can appreciate why it’s tempting to ignore Nugent’s nonsense. As entertainers in the public eye go, we’re talking about a guy who hasn’t had a hit single since the Carter administration, so it’s safe to say his cultural relevance has faded into obscurity.
Nugent is, however, a board member of the NRA – a group Senate Republicans believe should have veto power over Supreme Court nominees – and he remains a prominent partisan activist in right-wing circles. Indeed, let’s not forget that in 2012, Mitt Romney actively sought, and eventually earned, Nugent’s personal endorsement after a private discussion between the two men.
This year, Nugent is a high-profile Trump supporter – who also happens to be promoting videos in which Hillary Clinton is killed.
At least the Secret Service knows how to reach him if agents have any questions.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 11, 2016
“Not Even Their Own Voters”: Republican Blockade Failing To Persuade American Mainstream
The Washington Post observed this week that Democrats “are winning the Supreme Court fight over Merrick Garland. Big time.” Dems aren’t exactly succeeding in convincing Republicans to end their unprecedented Supreme Court blockade, but the party has apparently fared pretty well in the court of popular opinion.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll started asking an important question soon after Justice Antonin Scalia passed away in February:
“Recently, a Supreme Court Justice passed away leaving a vacancy on the court. President Obama has nominated a new person to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Would you prefer the U.S. Senate vote this year on the replacement nominated by President Obama or leave the position vacant and wait to vote next year on the replacement nominated by the new president or do you not have an opinion one way or the other?”
When the question went to the public just a few days after Scalia’s death, Americans were closely divided: 43% said they’d like to see the Senate vote this year on the Supreme Court’s vacancy, while 42% said they’d prefer to see the vacancy filled next year by a new president.
A month later, in March, the numbers shifted a bit in the Democrats’ favor. This month, in a poll that was in the field last week, they shifted even more. Now, a 52% majority of Americans want a vote this year, while 30% want to leave the seat vacant until next year.
What was a one-point advantage for the White House’s position in February is a 22-point advantage now. A closer look suggests even Republican voters are starting to shift away from their own party’s position.
At least for now, there’s no evidence to suggest Senate Republicans care at all about public opinion. GOP leaders very likely expected their blockage, which has no precedent in the American tradition, would be unpopular, but they decided to go with it anyway. I doubt poll results like these shock anyone.
But if you’re one of the vulnerable Senate Republican incumbents worried about your re-election prospects, and you were counting on the vaunted GOP Messaging Machine to win over the American mainstream on your party’s Supreme Court gambit, the latest evidence serves as a reminder: Republicans aren’t persuading anyone, not even their own voters.
That may not be enough to convince GOP senators to act responsibly towards a compromise nominee, but it should be enough to make some senators very nervous.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, April 21, 2016
“A Gun-Toting, Citizens United–Loving Conservative”: GOP Fights For Hillary Clinton’s Right To Select SCOTUS Nominee
Many have accused Senate Republicans of embracing the nonexistent “Biden rule” and refusing to even hold hearings on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee for purely political purposes. However, on Sunday, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan explained that nothing could be further from the truth.
In a video posted on Twitter, the House speaker earnestly outlined the made-up principle Republicans are fighting to uphold: The American people should get a chance to weigh in on Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement by selecting a new president (with a mere ten months left in office, President Obama, who was elected twice, doesn’t count).
Simply put: The #SCOTUS nomination is going to have to go to the American people in 2016. https://t.co/AN29xQbfNuhttps://t.co/yWPZzxKKwN
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) March 20, 2016
Okay, but lets say the GOP Establishment’s various election plots don’t pan out, and Hillary Clinton is elected president in November. Then during the real lame-duck session (not the entire last quarter of Obama’s second term), Senate Republicans would be willing to consider Judge Merrick Garland, the centrist white guy praised by Democrats and Republicans alike, right? Wrong. “That’s not going to happen,” Mitch McConnell told Fox News Sunday. “The principle is the same. Whether it’s before the election or after the election. The principle is the American people are choosing their next president, and their next president should pick this Supreme Court nominee.”
As Chris Wallace confirmed, that means that Senate Republicans would let Clinton make a nomination rather than holding a vote on Judge Garland. “I can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame-duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association, the National Federation of Independent Business that represents small businesses,” said the majority leader, attacking Garland’s judicial philosophy for the first time. “I can’t imagine that a Republican-majority Senate, even if it were assumed to be a minority, would want to confirm a judge that would move the court dramatically to the left.”
Clearly the smart (not to mention noble) move is to cross their fingers and hope that Clinton nominates a gun-toting, abortion-hating, Citizens United–loving conservative.
By: Margaret Hartmann, Daily Intelligencer, New York Magazine, March 21, 2016
“Done With Quiet Protest”: Republican ‘Takers’ Take Down The Establishment
Just as Donald Trump did a Super Tuesday stomp on the Republican establishment, the establishment showed why it deserved the rough treatment. The Republican Senate leadership yet again announced its refusal to consider anyone President Obama nominates for the Supreme Court until after the presidential election.
It is the job of the U.S. Senate to hold hearings on, and then accept or reject, the president’s choice. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said they will not take on the work — while showing no inclination to forgo their paychecks.
Talk about “takers.”
Yes, talk about “takers.” That’s how Mitt Romney described Americans benefiting from Medicare, Social Security, Obamacare and other government social programs during his failed 2012 run for president. Never mind that most of the “takers” have also paid for some of what they have received.
Working-class Republicans have finally rebelled against the notion that everything they get is beneficence from the superrich — and that making the superrich super-duper-rich would drop some tinsel on their grateful heads. They were done with quiet protest and ready to take down the Republican bastille, stone by stone. And the angrier Trump made the establishment the happier they were.
The Bastille was the symbol of France’s Old Regime. The storming of the prison in 1789 kicked off the French Revolution.
Republican disrupters from Newt Gingrich on down liked to talk about a conservative revolution. They didn’t know the first thing about revolutions. This is a revolution.
Back at the chateau, Republican luminaries were calmly planning favors for their financiers. They assumed their party’s working folk would fall in line — out of both hostility to Democrats and through hypnosis.
So you had Jeb Bush amassing an armory of campaign cash over bubbly and hors d’oeuvres at the family estate in Maine. You had Marco Rubio devising a plan to do away with all capital gains taxes — the source of half the earnings for people making $10 million or more. You had Ted Cruz concocting a plan to abolish the IRS. (Without the IRS, only the working stiffs would be paying taxes, the money automatically deducted from their paychecks.)
Not much here for the alleged takers, who actually see themselves as “taken from.” Unlike the others, Trump wasn’t going after their benefits. He even praised Planned Parenthood, noting it provides a variety of health services to ordinary women.
Trump would be a disastrous president, of course. But he knows how to inspire the “enraged ones.” In the French Revolution, the enraged ones were extremists who sent many of the moderate revolutionaries to the guillotine. (The enraged ones also ended badly.)
As the embers of Super Tuesday still glowed, The Wall Street Journal published the following commentary by one of its Old Regime’s scribes:
“To be honest and impolitic, the Trump voter smacks of a child who unleashes recriminations against mommy and daddy because the world is imperfect,” Holman Jenkins wrote. Take that.
No responsible American — not the other Republicans and certainly not Democrats expecting strong Latino support — would endorse Trump’s nasty attacks on our hardworking immigrants. But large-scale immigration of unskilled labor has, to some extent, hurt America’s blue-collar workers, and not just white ones.
Democrats need to continue pressing reform that is humane both to immigrants already rooted in the society and to the country’s low-skilled workforce. Do that and the air comes whooshing out of Trump’s balloon.
Back in Washington, the Republican leaders will probably continue to avoid work on this issue or a Supreme Court nominee or anything else Obama wants. They should enjoy their leisure. After Election Day, many may have to look for real jobs.
By: Froma Harrop, The National Memo, March 3, 2016
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