[excon]

Hello:

Left wingers certainly think so.

excon

[tomder55]

Here's Shumer's answer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyp0x-cNuyE

Joe Biden argued in 1992 that Bush Sr should not nominate anyone for SCOTUS in his last year of his term.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...E4&FORM=VRDGAR


Does the Reid repeal of the filibuster rules for judicial confirmations apply to SCOTUS appointments ?

Honestly ,I think the Dems are making a stand on an ant hill. Why would they filibuster this nomination when it won't change the balance in the court. The one they should be firm on is the next one Herr Donald appoints .

[talaniman]

Both SCOTUS seats are a foregone conclusion, unless something earth shattering happens Tom, so what difference does it make? The anthill the dems are climbing may as well be a mountain, but they may as well practice anyway, starting NOW!

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

In the back and forth about who did what to who, democracy gets lost.. IF it was the Democrats who behaved badly and the Republicans are simply trying to get even, nothing changes..

Somebody has to put on their big boy pants and STOP it. And if the Democrats are too slimy to do it, then patriotic, God loving Americans need to step up. IF what Mitch McConnell said was TRUE, then right wingers need to pass a resolution saying that during presidential elections, NO Supreme Court appointments will be made.

But, he ain't gonna, and the Democrats ain't goin for the okee doak..

excon

[tomder55]

Very convenient to stay silent when the Dems do their change of rules and then just dismiss them as the past ..time to move on and put on 'big boy pants'.

I'm burdened by history and know that Senate partisanship over court nominations is as old as the Republic.There were far more rejections of nominees in the 1st half of the Republic than in the second . John Rutledge ,a drafter of the Constitution had his nomination by Washington rejected . It was his own fault . He had insisted that the Senate have a role in judicial selections.

John Tyler had 5 selections .The Senate approved one ;rejected one ,and gave three of them the Garland treatment .

After the Civil War ,the Senate eliminated a SCOTUS seat rather than give one to a Andrew Johnson nominee.

More recently the Abe Fortes nomination for Chief Justice was successfully filibustered by a bi-partisan coalition of Senators . A Goresuch filibuster will be the FIRST partisan filibuster of a SCOTUS nominee in the nations history .

Evidently it's ok to break long standing Senate tradition if it serves the Democrat's interests .

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

Oh, I don't think they should stay silent.. I think they should DO what the Freedom Caucus does, and that's just say NO! Furthermore, they should BLOCK every single SCOTUS nomination that comes up, and I mean EVERY one.. I LOVE revenge.

What?

excon

[talaniman]

Repeal and replace TRUMP!

[tomder55]

they will try to block ,and if they do, that means they will need Republicans crossing over .Myrtle the turtle will dump the filibuster mandate by Friday if he has any backbone. Now it wouldn't surprise me if McCain,Susan Collins , Lisa Murkowski ,and Lady Lindsey Graham tries to create a gang of 8 to avoid it ;even though they did nothing to attempt to stop Reid when he blew up the filibuster rule.

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

You have heard the frozen driver story, haven't you?? It's a decision Gorsuch made that shows his true colors, and his true colors aren't with little guys like you and me.. Apparently, a driver of a big rig broke down on the highway in North Dakota in the middle of winter.. Company dispatchers told him to stay in the truck and help was on the way. But, hours later, with no help having arrived, the half frozen driver disconnected his trailer and went for help.. Something happened to the trailer, they fired the guy, and the case wound up in court..

Gorsuch ruled in favor of the company AGAINST the driver. Ain't nothing more to say about that.

excon

[tomder55]

That would be the 'TransAm Trucking v. Department of Labor' case .He did not side for or against the driver or the company . His dissent sided with the law as it was written. He applied the statute that Congress wrote to the arguments that the Labor Department made in it's brief . Now I know you libs think that laws are written with invisible ink so the ever omnipresent judiciary can interpret them any way they want ,whenever they want to . But the truth is that it was a bad law that Congress needed to fix ,not the men in black.
From his dissent :

The fact is that statutes are products of compromise, the sort of compromise necessary to overcome the hurdles of bicameralism and presentment. And it is our obligation to enforce the terms of that compromise as expressed in the law itself, not to use the law as a sort of springboard to combat all perceived evils lurking in the neighborhood...Whatever the case, it is our job and work enough for the day to apply the law Congress did pass, not to imagine and enforce one it might have but didn't.

[talaniman]

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/15/15-9504.pdf

Gorsuch dissent is gobbly=de-goop! PURE CRAP on any level.

[tomder55]

His point is clear . Your commentary is gobbledygook .If you read the 5 pages his point is clear .Congress made the law .If it was the opinion of the court that the law was unconstitutional they should've declared so ,and then come up with a legal reason . But what the majority of the court did was come to a conclusion and then conjured up a justification for it outside of the clear language of the law.

This was no different than Chief Justice Roberts deciding that he had to find a reason to find the penalties in Obamacare constitutional . When he couldn't then he changed the language of the law to make it so even though the emperor and the Dems in Congress repeatedly said the penalties were NOT taxes .
Glad you want to live under the absolute rule of the unelected branch . I don't .

[Athos]

From Tom's post quoting Gorsuch:

Whatever the case, it is our job and work enough for the day to apply the law Congress did pass, not to imagine and enforce one it might have but didn't.

What about bad laws? Must the Court apply the law even when it's bad law?

Dred Scott, Separate but Equal - I'm sure legal scholars can come up with more. The case in question, as one Senator commented, was an example of absurdity. It did not take a legal scholar to see how Gorsuch's opinion was incorrect even though he applied the law. Does common sense not play a part in Judge's rulings?

The way Gorsuch answered the Senator's comment indicated that he knew well enough that in this case the law was absurd but he decided to apply it anyway.

[talaniman]

His point is clear . Your commentary is gobbledygook .If you read the 5 pages his point is clear .Congress made the law .If it was the opinion of the court that the law was unconstitutional they should've declared so ,and then come up with a legal reason . But what the majority of the court did was come to a conclusion and then conjured up a justification for it outside of the clear language of the law.

This was no different than Chief Justice Roberts deciding that he had to find a reason to find the penalties in Obamacare constitutional . When he couldn't then he changed the language of the law to make it so even though the emperor and the Dems in Congress repeatedly said the penalties were NOT taxes .
Glad you want to live under the absolute rule of the unelected branch . I don't .

That's why I posted the whole link Tom, to illustrate the very narrow view he took in his dissent, and obviously not the majority view as can be seen by the brief itself. I actually read the entire thing before I read the dissent, and here is where it gets really idiotic,

Putting this together, employees who voice safety concerns abouttheir vehicles may decline to cause those vehicles to work without fear of reprisal.And that protection, while significant, just does not give employees license tocause those vehicles to work in ways they happen to wish but an employerforbids. Indeed, my colleagues’ position would seem to require the addition ofmore than a few new words to the statute. In their view, an employee should be-3-protected not just when he “refuses to operate a vehicle” but also when he“refuses to operate a vehicle in the particular manner the employer directs andinstead operates it in a manner he thinks safe.” Yet those words just aren’t there;the law before us protects only employees who refuse to operate vehicles, period.Imagine a boss telling an employee he may either “operate” an office computer asdirected or “refuse to operate” that computer. What serious employee would takethat as license to use an office computer not for work but to compose the greatAmerican novel? Good luck.To be sure, my colleagues invoke the statute’s purposes — employee“health” and “safety” — and suggest the result they reach is consistent with them.After all, they note, the employee here who chose to defy his employer’sinstructions and drive his truck as he thought best didn’t do so to write a novel orwith some other esoteric end in mind, but because he bore safety concerns. Justthe sort of employee safety concerns, my colleagues indicate, Congress intendedto protect. Maj. Op. at 10.

The trailer was undrivable (UNSAFE), not the cab. So the basis for his dissent was gobble-de-goop!

If you want to rewrite how federal and supreme court judges are appointed, be my guest, but you know what it takes to change the law, and we both know that ain't happening so we are stuck with this unelected bureaucrat for life! Darn those founders!

[tomder55]

What about bad laws? Must the Court apply the law even when it's bad law?

Dred Scott, Separate but Equal - I'm sure legal scholars can come up with more. The case in question, as one Senator commented, was an example of absurdity. It did not take a legal scholar to see how Gorsuch's opinion was incorrect even though he applied the law. Does common sense not play a part in Judge's rulings?

The way Gorsuch answered the Senator's comment indicated that he knew well enough that in this case the law was absurd but he decided to apply it anyway.

I remind you that Dredd Scott was a SCOTUS decision . Just reinforces my contention about the judiciary . In the Dredd Scott decision Congress had passed the Missouri Compromise and decided that the new territories would be free states. The majority decision decided that Congress didn’t have that power. The Congress was right ;SCOTUS was wrong by forcing slavery into free states . Their decision was one of the leading causes of the Civil War . Such is the damage they can cause .

Plessy v Ferguson was another wrong SCOTUS decision where activist judges like you prefer decided to interpret the 14th amendment incorrectly .It took almost 100 years to reverse their incorrect call .

I can come up with another one ,the Korematsu case. In that case they did not perform their function by striking down a bad POTUS decision (internment of American citizens ) . Instead they let the the outrageous 5th amendment violations by FDR stand .

I don't know where the breakdown is .But there is no doubt that the judiciary has affirmed bad law ,reversed good law ,and have on more than one occasion rewrote laws outside of their constitutional mandate .

If you want to rewrite how federal and supreme court judges are appointed, be my guest, but you know what it takes to change the law, and we both know that ain't happening so we are stuck with this unelected bureaucrat for life! Darn those founders!

Then you'll join me in supporting an Article 5 convention of the states to amend the constitution. My very 1st amendment will be term limits on the judiciary and Congress.

[Athos]

I remind you that Dredd Scott was a SCOTUS decision . Just reinforces (etc etc etc).

My point was about judges at any level applying law blindly without taking into account present day mores and technology advances and common sense - or trying to determine the "intent" of men dead for hundreds of years.

But thanks for the history lesson.

[tomder55]

1. My point was about judges at any level applying law blindly without taking into account present day mores and technology advances and common sense - or trying to determine the "intent" of men dead for hundreds of years.

My point is that it in not for the judge to determine how 'present mores' ,'technology advances',or even common sense applies to the laws . Judges are not law makers ,and unless a case can be made that a law is outside the constitution ,they have no business overturning or using activism to change the law .It is for Congress to make or change laws . Have some respect for those dead guys .They forged a governing system for the ages .

[Wondergirl]

My point is that it in not for the judge to determine how 'present mores' ,'technology advances',or even common sense applies to the laws . Judges are not law makers ,and unless a case can be made that a law is outside the constitution ,they have no business overturning or using activism to change the law .It is for Congress to make or change laws . Have some respect for those dead guys .They forged a governing system for the ages .

The Supremes (and lesser judges) should make decisions based on the letter of the law or the spirit of the law?

[tomder55]

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'


The intent and the letter of the law is the same thing. If they intended something else, then they should have written it a different way. We can't read minds. But we can read words .

The "spirit" is subjective and difficult to determine, and often results in judges substituting their personal opinion over a genuine interpretation. What a legislature writes is subject to manipulation by a justice who desires to reach a certain conclusion if going on the premise of following the 'spirit of the law'.

[talaniman]

Tom we need judges, as part of our system of laws, and despite popular beliefs they are humans, but I join you in term limits, or at least unbiased judicial review, if such a thing exists, which I doubt.