Gorsuch confirmation hearings

[Wrong Element]

I don't know how he voted, haven't read. Generally speaking, the Fillibuster rule is simply a method to give the minority an advantage over the majority which to my mind thwarts the will of the majority and the results of elections.

I'm pretty sure the years 2009-2016 on Lit featured exactly zero conservatives arguing that "the majority" and "the results of elections" are always sacrosanct. AJ alone has posted volumes of words on the whole subject of the tyranny of the majority.

I won't even get into the crowing over the Electoral College, which has thwarted the majority twice in the last five national elections.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'd have a lot more respect for the intellectual purity of his essay had he voted against the rules change, which he did not.

I understand what Rule 22 is and its origin and it is the imbalance of the artificial capping of the House at 435 members and the Founders understandable inability to predict a California with 38M people and a Wyoming with less than 600K people. That is a massive imbalance for a Republic. A contradiction that needs correction. The fights over the filibuster are one symptom.

Abolishing the Senate, or making it population-based like the House, would require a constitutional amendment to which at least 3/4 of the state legislatures would have to agree. What are the chances?

 

[BotanyBoy]

I understand what Rule 22 is and its origin and it is the imbalance of the artificial capping of the House at 435 members and the Founders understandable inability to predict a California with 38M people and a Wyoming with less than 600K people.

They didn't need to see that, it's irrelevant.

That is a massive imbalance for a Republic.

Democracy, it's a massive imbalance for a democracy, not a Republic, the fact that it's set up so that Wyoming even registers in DC as existing is super republican and anti-democratic.

Jesus Christ did you seriously never take a single fucking social studies/civics class in your life?

A contradiction that needs correction.

Why so Califronia, New York and Texas can overlord the whole fucking country?

BRILLIANT IDEA BND!!!

What are the chances?

Considering there are only 3-4 states that would benefit from that pretty unlikely.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

This piece makes no sense. The GOP didn't have the votes to filibuster, because obviously she was not filibustered. That's like saying "the Republicans had the votes to pass Trumpcare" simply because there's a Republican majority in Congress. You don't vote to filibuster a nomination and THEN for a nominee to be confirmed; that would make no sense. But the opposite happens all the time.

How do I know that? Because there are two current members of the Court who were confirmed with between 50 and 60 votes. In both cases there were senators who didn't want the nominee on the Court but would not support a filibuster either. Of course, the two justices in question were Republican nominees, a pertinent fact usually left out of all "the Democrats started it!" rationalizations.

"Back in 2009, the Democrats had a substantial majority in the Senate but not quite enough to prevent a filibuster."

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I don't know how he voted, haven't read. Generally speaking, the Fillibuster rule is simply a method to give the minority an advantage over the majority which to my mind thwarts the will of the majority and the results of elections.

Most Americans believe in majority rule and the notion that elections should have consequences, after all, it's why they voted the way they did in the first place, to effect change.

The idea that states, no matter their population, have two Senators is not a bad idea. However, the Rule 22 isn't in the Constitution. It's simply a rule made by the Senate as allowed by the Constitution and therefore subject to change without the hysterics we see today. Nor does its absence change the deliberative nature of the Senate. It's really a stupid rule.

I'd have a lot more respect for the intellectual purity of his essay had he voted against the rules change, which he did not.

I understand what Rule 22 is and its origin and it is the imbalance of the artificial capping of the House at 435 members and the Founders understandable inability to predict a California with 38M people and a Wyoming with less than 600K people. That is a massive imbalance for a Republic. A contradiction that needs correction. The fights over the filibuster are one symptom.

I'm sorry, but the founders matriculated in a nation with population disparity which is why they created two houses, one for the mob, and one for the states. All of their reasoning is to be found in a piece of work which should be read, and it's not a long read, by each and every voting citizen, The Federalist Papers.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Abolishing the Senate, or making it population-based like the House, would require a constitutional amendment to which at least 3/4 of the state legislatures would have to agree. What are the chances?

A good first step would be to increase the number of Congressmen. Set a minimum instead of a max. Say for every 600K citizens = 1 member of congress, rather than the 435 cap and apportionment according to population. The Apportionment Act of 1911 just needs to be amended. At the time cach member of the House represented appx 225K people, today it is closer to 800K. Also will cure a lot of the ills of gerrymandering.

Another would be to apportion the electoral college according to the popular vote. It goes hand in hand with an expansion of the numbers of representatives.

And yes, dealing with the massive imbalance in the Senate is far more difficult. I think a housing program to empty the cities out into the heartland is the best answer there. NYC alone has a bigger population than 40 of the 50 states. It would only take a few million people to completely rebalance the smallest states. But really it would be better to have 60 states. California is clearly 3 or4 states, Texas 4 or 5, Florida 2, ... Not hard to make 10 more. Plus make Puerto Rico a state.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

More is not better.


I remember Locke saying something about that.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Empty the cities?



That's funny. What will all of those people lured out of the countryside and into the cities do out there Chairman Mao?

Hoe rows?

 

[BoyNextDoor]

More is not better.


I remember Locke saying something about that.

Re-read Federalist 10

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Re-read Federalist 10

Without first reading 9?

9: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection
10: The Same Subject Continued - Madison

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Read 47-51...


:rolleyes;

 

[Rightguide]

I'd have a lot more respect for the intellectual purity of his essay had he voted against the rules change, which he did not.

I understand what Rule 22 is and its origin and it is the imbalance of the artificial capping of the House at 435 members and the Founders understandable inability to predict a California with 38M people and a Wyoming with less than 600K people. That is a massive imbalance for a Republic. A contradiction that needs correction. The fights over the filibuster are one symptom.

Republicans have to understand we are never gooing to see a Democrat Party that wants to compromise on anything. it's ideology or nothing with them. A good example of this is Schumer's declaration in 2007:

”We should reverse the presumption of confirmation… we should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances,” he argued. “They must prove by actions not words that they are in the mainstream rather than we have to prove that they are not.”


Translation: Unless you nominate a candidate that supports our ideology you will not have our support. Thus has Schumer and the Democrats turned "advise and consent" into "badmouth and resist."

Republicans have to proceed as Democrats would proceed and completely lock the Democrats out of their consideration in order to advance the agenda the Majority expressed at the polls. Pay them no mind and plow forth with the business of the elected President, like the Democrats did with Obama's agenda.

There has to be a clear understanding among Americans that within the Democrat Party there is no respect for the Constitution, the fundamental law of the land, none whatsoever, or for any legal opposition to the advancement of their agenda. It's up to the Republicans to make this understood on the national stage.

The term "loyal opposition" cannot be applied to the Democrat Party of today. They have spent every waking moment since the election denying, resisting, and undermining, the presidency of Donald Trump. Republicans need to communicate this fact far and wide to the American people. They need to be exposed as the totalitarian agents provocateurs they have become to our constitutional order.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

All I know is that Thomas wants to retire and now he can...



Ginsburg doesn't want to die, so she better not!

 

[Rightguide]

All I know is that Thomas wants to retire and now he can...



Ginsburg doesn't want to die, so she better not!

Rather lose a liberal instead.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Rather lose a liberal instead.

And that's the minefield that Chucky has walked his party into.

They have to hope and pray that all "their" justices can hang on for four more years when they are sure to win the election (just as they were sure to win the last one).

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'd have a lot more respect for the intellectual purity of his essay had he voted against the rules change, which he did not.

I understand what Rule 22 is and its origin and it is the imbalance of the artificial capping of the House at 435 members and the Founders understandable inability to predict a California with 38M people and a Wyoming with less than 600K people. That is a massive imbalance for a Republic. A contradiction that needs correction. The fights over the filibuster are one symptom.

Abolishing the Senate, or making it population-based like the House, would require a constitutional amendment to which at least 3/4 of the states would have to agree, necessarily including some who get enhanced representation under the present system. What are the chances?

 

[Rightguide]

Abolishing the Senate, or making it population-based like the House, would require a constitutional amendment to which at least 3/4 of the states would have to agree, necessarily including some who get enhanced representation under the present system. What are the chances?

Less than zero.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I'm pretty sure the years 2009-2016 on Lit featured exactly zero conservatives arguing that "the majority" and "the results of elections" are always sacrosanct. AJ alone has posted volumes of words on the whole subject of the tyranny of the majority.

I won't even get into the crowing over the Electoral College, which has thwarted the majority twice in the last five national elections.

I guess that sounds a lot better to you given the "thwarting" of the two Democratic Party candidates than saying ONLY twice within the past 31 Presidential elections and ONLY five times in our entire history, huh?

You're lame attempt at "spin" is this laughable.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I guess that sounds a lot better to you given the "thwarting" of the two Democratic Party candidates than saying ONLY twice within the past 31 Presidential elections and ONLY five times in our entire history, huh?

You're lame attempt at "spin" is this laughable.

The latter still makes the EC look like a pointless and pernicious anachronism.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

The latter still makes the EC look like a pointless and pernicious anachronism.

Excuse me? What is fundamentally different about the last time versus any other time when the popular vote succumbed to the vagaries of the electoral vote?

I can't wait to hear this.

 

[jaF0]

If Gosuck had any integrity, he'd refuse the position if not confirmed by traditional means. But we all know better than that, don't we?

 

[OldJourno]

And yes, dealing with the massive imbalance in the Senate is far more difficult. I think a housing program to empty the cities out into the heartland is the best answer there.

They did that in Saigon in the late 1970s.

And Cambodia did a whole lot of that in the same time frame.

Most think it didn't turn out well in either location.

 

[OldJourno]

If Gosuck had any integrity, he'd refuse the position if not confirmed by traditional means. But we all know better than that, don't we?

Do you take yourself seriously?

From the Washington Post:
Neil Gorsuch has removed himself from Senate consideration for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, citing a post by Literotica veteran jaFO on the General Board.
"jaFO's grasp of the situation is, from a legal perspective, brilliant," Gorsuch told the Post. "I do have integrity and I'm out of here. Fuck it."

 

[Conager]

If Gosuck had any integrity, he'd refuse the position if not confirmed by traditional means. But we all know better than that, don't we?

What is the "traditional means" of overcoming a Supreme Court nominee filibuster?

 

[RobDownSouth]

What is the "traditional means" of overcoming a Supreme Court nominee filibuster?

Having 60 votes to invoke cloture.