Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 345: Dominion Rush

(+) Yeah! (+)

God damn the semantics are breaking my brain.

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Hey let's not call it "packing" the courts then.

Let's call it "placeholdering" the courts any time you do dishonest shit to benefit the courts in your favor.

For examples refusing to vote on an opposition nomination and providing a stated reason for your refusal and then ignoring an even more extreme version of that reasoning less half a decade later when it benefits you. That will fall into "placeholdering" the courts.

And "placeholdering" the courts is still a fucking awful thing even if you aren't giving it the "packing" label.

A rose by any other name still smells sweet and a pile of feces by any other name still smells like shit.

Don't put the ACB confirmation shit in a colorful box with a bow on it and convince yourself it wasn't awful.

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Nothing wrong with the ACB confirmation. I don't need a bow or box for that. An opening happened. A president nominated a judge as he is supposed to. The Senate confirmed the judge as they are supposed to do or not do. What exactly is there to think is awful.

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Proof that centrists have no real morals other than "don't rock the boat, but if you do, make sure you do it in a way that doesn't inconvenience me"

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was pro Garland being appointed and think the GOP were complete shits who were in the wrong and should've paid for that.
similarly, pro ACB being appointed and think the Dems were complete shits for trying to stop it but ultimately failed so no biggie in the end.

the specific nuance republicans gave is one i don't really care for, even if it's factually true. yes, when president and senate are in opposing parties and the president is in his final year, a supreme court nom has never passed. when they are it hasn't been a problem, has happened 30 times now. can't say i care for the difference as an argument and find it dishonest spin to justify scummy behavior. the precedent is fine, no issues on that. it's the blocking of Garland that was bullshit, not ACB.

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Peace___Frog posted...

Proof that centrists have no real morals other than "don't rock the boat, but if you do, make sure you do it in a way that doesn't inconvenience me"

Everything happened by the way the process is supposed to work. Dunno what morals you need to have to be upset if something works as it is supposed to.

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Wanglicious posted...

was pro Garland being appointed and think the GOP were complete shits who were in the wrong and should've paid for that.
similarly, pro ACB being appointed and think the Dems were complete shits for trying to stop it but ultimately failed so no biggie in the end.

So you think they should have paid, but not that like, anyone should have actually tried to extract a price

Peace___Frog posted...

Proof that centrists have no real morals other than "don't rock the boat, but if you do, make sure you do it in a way that doesn't inconvenience me"

Nobody in this topic is a centrist regardless of what they claim.

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Republicans didn't have to confirm the judge nomination. They should have had to consider the nomination though. And, if they began to make a mockery of the process, then Democrats should have been able to make the American people understand the mockery that happened and won the election as a result. Dems pretty much took this sitting down and even let Republicans win the court of opinion on the new nomination and use it to their own political advantage to win the election over the Democrats.

I mean, I can't sit here and tell you McConnell wasn't smart and played the Dems like a fiddle there. It was underhanded and bullshit. But, the other side took it with barely a whimper. Democrats should have been able to parlay it into a political victory in 2016. They failed.

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People have specifically accused me of being centrist(not even a little true).

Paratroopa1 posted...

So you think they should have paid, but not that like, anyone should have actually tried to extract a price

Oh no, they should've lost at least the Senate after that. By all means, get your pound of flesh for that robbery.

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Centrists dont post in political chats

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Agreed, the Senate should have considered the Garland nomination. They didn't need to hold hearings, but at least a debate followed by an up or down vote. The result wouldn't have changed, because I'm sure the vote would have been "no," but then the Senate would have fulfilled its duty to "advise" the President on the matter of judicial nominations.

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And I understand they didn't want to embarrass Merrick Garland by dragging him through the hearing process when he was definitely going to be rejected and not for any fault on his part. In which case the remedy is to not hold hearings and proceed to a debate and vote.

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Centrists for sure do post a ton. They just whine about people who actually want change.

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red sox 777 posted...

Agreed, the Senate should have considered the Garland nomination. They didn't need to hold hearings, but at least a debate followed by an up or down vote. The result wouldn't have changed, because I'm sure the vote would have been "no," but then the Senate would have fulfilled its duty to "advise" the President on the matter of judicial nominations.

That would require mitch to have any backbone

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Still think Trump should have appointed Garland on the 2nd appointment to unify the nation. But, he would have lost his base probably.

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It's still cute you use the word "unify" when talking about what Trump should have done as if his every action hasn't been clearly in direct contrast to the very notion since his 2016 campaign.

(Or really since he got a Twitter account.)

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"should have done" is different than "ever had a chance of doing"

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Kinglicious posted...

Oh no, they should've lost at least the Senate after that. By all means, get your pound of flesh for that robbery.

So they should have paid for breaking the rules but in a specific way that's still in accordance with the rules.

I get that this is the ideal, but the key failure with our government is specifically that it relies on this kind of good faith to function while having no practical remedy for it being absent.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

So they should have paid for breaking the rules but in a specific way that's still in accordance with the rules.

I mean you could have them lose other positions too but generally yes. You successfully cheated the system, so get punished by the system too. The reaction being "then we'll cheat in the same way too" is just being hypocritical and proving they had a point. If Dems made the courts as important as Republicans did, could've been a sweep.

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If you were Pro Garland and Pro ACB then you should be aware that a shitty thing occurred. Full stop.

Saying "well technically the ACB confirmation went the way it was supposed to" means that you are aware that the Garland nomination did NOT go the way it was supposed to.

ACB nomination/confirmation in a vacuum is not the feces.

It's the combination of the Garland stonewall FOLLOWED by ramming ACB through the process that is the feces.

I know it's fucking difficult, but it is possible to contrast two different events and find a correlation/problem/inconsistency between them and draw a conclusion based upon that.

You can't just say "well Trump is supposed to nominate judges and the senate is supposed to confirm them" as if that's an acceptable answer when you are aware of what happened during 2015-2016.

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Corrik7 posted...

Democrats should have been able to make the American people understand the mockery that happened and won the election as a result.

The onus should be on Senate republicans to not be pieces of shit. It should not be on Democrats to conclusively prove when senate republicans are being pieces of shit. And even then they gave a LOT of coverage to "hold my words against me" and it didn't mean anything.

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The true answer is that Republican morality = "what's good for the conservatives is good". There's no point to trying to explain with these people.

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Of course they don't lose the Senate because the senate is hilariously undemocratic. Our country kind of sucks for actually representing people.

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pxlated posted...

trump's campaign blaming hugo chavez for the election loss is maybe the funniest thing i've heard all year

what is going on in this country holy shit

The same Hugo Chavez who is... very dead?

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

Of course they don't lose the Senate because the senate is hilariously undemocratic. Our country kind of sucks for actually representing people.

That's just not true!

All of our institutions are hilariously undemocratic. Small states are favored in the senate, the house, and the electoral college.

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Frankly, I'm surprised that red sox hasn't suggested large states annexing small states if they want more proportional congressional represenation yet

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Hbthebattle posted...

Frankly, I'm surprised that red sox hasn't suggested large states annexing small states if they want more proportional congressional represenation yet

I would never recommend such a thing. The way to increase representation in Congress is for large states to divide themselves into multiple smaller states.

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Anyway, it seems like Trumps strategy has gone from pretending that theres voter fraud they will expose in court to trying to just steal the election straight up by stopping the actual results from being certified. Every GOP elected official whos defending this is abetting an attempted coup.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

It's almost like our government isn't a democracy or something.

Republics ARE democracies.

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Suprak the Stud posted...

All of our institutions are hilariously undemocratic.

Well, yes. The senate just moreso to the point where it's worth a special mention.

You know, my vote is usually worth something like 1/68th that of someone from Wyoming.

I'm pretty sure at the rate they are dying my vote is going to be worth even less soon.

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Kinglicious posted...

I mean you could have them lose other positions too but generally yes. You successfully cheated the system, so get punished by the system too. The reaction being "then we'll cheat in the same way too" is just being hypocritical and proving they had a point. If Dems made the courts as important as Republicans did, could've been a sweep.

I think our system is overwhelmingly biased towards the cheaters because most people frankly do not care too much about this hypocrisy argument you're making. It is very easy to reduce all politicians to hypocrites so it becomes a moot point in the power dynamic.

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Hbthebattle posted...

Republics ARE democracies.

Representative Democracy. Not a pure democracy.

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red13n posted...

You know, my vote is usually worth something like 1/68th that of someone from Wyoming.

I'm pretty sure at the rate they are dying my vote is going to be worth even less soon.

That's sweet Wyoming citizens get 68 votes. I never knew that.

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Corrik7 posted...

Representative Democracy. Not a pure democracy.

Yes, but not a pure Undemocratic Republic either. There are laws that are directly voted on, especially on the state level.

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Hbthebattle posted...

Yes, but not a pure Undemocratic Republic either. There are laws that are directly voted on, especially on the state level.

What are you aiming for?

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LordoftheMorons posted...

The same Hugo Chavez who is... very dead?

the very same! apparently he was in charge of writing the code that the machines that stole the election used. or some such nonsense.

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Corrik7 posted...

What are you aiming for?

"The United States is not a democracy" is a dumb talking point from disingenuous Republicans who want to continue justifying their continued attempts to rig elections in their favor.
There's a reason the Republicans haven't won the popular vote for the presidency since 2004, and before that not since 1988.

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Corrik7 posted...

Representative Democracy. Not a pure democracy.

Do you think that this makes maintaining the status of Representatives and/or the Republic more important than the Democracy part?

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pxlated posted...

the very same! apparently he was in charge of writing the code that the machines that stole the election used. or some such nonsense.

Ah yes, well known programmer Hugo Chavez, of course

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Forceful_Dragon posted...

If you were Pro Garland and Pro ACB then you should be aware that a shitty thing occurred. Full stop.

Saying "well technically the ACB confirmation went the way it was supposed to" means that you are aware that the Garland nomination did NOT go the way it was supposed to.

ACB nomination/confirmation in a vacuum is not the feces.

It's the combination of the Garland stonewall FOLLOWED by ramming ACB through the process that is the feces.

I know it's fucking difficult, but it is possible to contrast two different events and find a correlation/problem/inconsistency between them and draw a conclusion based upon that.

You can't just say "well Trump is supposed to nominate judges and the senate is supposed to confirm them" as if that's an acceptable answer when you are aware of what happened during 2015-2016.

just to be clear, my position is totally that the Garland stonewall was shit and i don't find what the republicans did there acceptable. i just also don't find democrats trying to stonewall acceptable either, for the exact same reasons. like i'm aware this is probably to others who said something slightly different but just making sure that difference is made clear here.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I think our system is overwhelmingly biased towards the cheaters because most people frankly do not care too much about this hypocrisy argument you're making. It is very easy to reduce all politicians to hypocrites so it becomes a moot point in the power dynamic.

i disagree that most people don't care. hypocrisy by your elected officials is a big deal - elections were won on that premise this go around even. always are a couple where that wins and with the bailout, there were a few notable callouts that cost Dems.
that said, i do agree that politicians will naturally be hypocrites to a certain level and that the level is determined by what they can get away with. right now things are extremely polarized so they can get away with more but there's still a limit in place.

and i do agree with the overall point that the system is skewed towards cheating but all systems will be. that's kind of how cheating is supposed to work, you just need to have enough safeguards in place to limit its success. i do stand by that if dems made as big a deal about the courts as the GOP does, they'd win more often. fortunately i do see that being a point of relevance for the upcoming future, as long as they vote.

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This would have actually been very funny if it had been intended as a joke:

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1329554309902704640?s=21

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Wanglicious posted...

i disagree that most people don't care. hypocrisy by your elected officials is a big deal - elections were won on that premise this go around even. always are a couple where that wins and with the bailout, there were a few notable callouts that cost Dems.
that said, i do agree that politicians will naturally be hypocrites to a certain level and that the level is determined by what they can get away with. right now things are extremely polarized so they can get away with more but there's still a limit in place.

and i do agree with the overall point that the system is skewed towards cheating but all systems will be. that's kind of how cheating is supposed to work, you just need to have enough safeguards in place to limit its success. i do stand by that if dems made as big a deal about the courts as the GOP does, they'd win more often. fortunately i do see that being a point of relevance for the upcoming future, as long as they vote.

I mean Dems made their argument all about the corruption and hypocrisy of the GOP and Trump, and it didn't work out well for them at a wide level besides the Presidency. They could have done better, but I just don't think it ranks very highly.

My point about these safeguards against cheating you're talking about is that they don't exist in a meaningful way. And they can't until you not only win a government majority but win enough to amend the Constitution. That's not even getting into that some of these (court reform) are already controversial. Until this occurs, there is a structural power imbalance that serves as an obstacle to those wins. So it's a no-win scenario all around.

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Most people are too busy trying to not die in this fucked up country to pay super close attention tbh.

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Wanglicious posted...

just to be clear, my position is totally that the Garland stonewall was shit and i don't find what the republicans did there acceptable. i just also don't find democrats trying to stonewall acceptable either, for the exact same reasons. like i'm aware this is probably to others who said something slightly different but just making sure that difference is made clear here.

quoting this for posterity

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The problem ultimately comes down to:

Republican VOTERS pretty much just need to be told "this guy isn't a Democrat" to get them to turn out...with some fear-mongering about socialism.

Democratic voters require a lot more finesse and need to be catered to in terms of a multitude of factors, or else they get disillusioned with the entire process and tune out.

Basically, GOP says "we'll install judges that will give you what you want" and GOP voters say "fuck yeah!" Democrats try that same argument and Democratic voters say "but what about policy?"

It's a lot harder to campaign when your voters expect more from you than the bare minimum.

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I think 'we will raise your wages and give you more economic power' might work but when you have fucking idiots like Clyburn crying a out socialism you get what you deserve. The problem is while the Republicans are evil at least they know how to market.

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Democrats are going to raise their taxes and murder their unborn children.

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