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With Gorsuch, Democrats Got What They Deserved and Earned

Jack Hays

Jack Hays

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It is a rare thing in politics when chickens come home to roost right where they should. The Gorsuch nomination and confirmation comprise that rare thing. Both parties are nakedly hypocritical when it comes to nominations to the federal judiciary and SCOTUS. As majority leader in the Senate Harry Reid was stupidly short-sighted. He created the opening through which the next majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has run for a touchdown. McConnell played hardball in 2016 and went for it all. He won. Don't mess with Mitch.

Precedent, karma and the nuclear optionBy Charles Krauthammer

For euphemism, dissimulation and outright hypocrisy, there is nothing quite as entertaining as the periodic Senate dust-ups over Supreme Court appointments and the filibuster. The arguments for and against the filibuster are so well-known to both parties as to be practically memorized. Both nonetheless argue their case with great shows of passion and conviction. Then shamelessly switch sides — and scripts — depending on the ideology of the nominee.
Everyone appeals to high principle, when everyone knows these fights are about raw power. When Democrat Harry Reid had the majority in the Senate and Barack Obama in the White House, he abolished the filibuster in 2013 for sub-Supreme Court judicial appointments in order to pack three liberal judges onto the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bad karma, bad precedent, he was warned. Republicans would one day be in charge. That day is here and Republicans have just stopped a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch by extending the Reid Rule to the Supreme Court. . . .
The Gorsuch nomination is a bitter setback to the liberal project of using the courts to ratchet leftward the law and society. However, Gorsuch’s appointment simply preserves the court’s ideological balance of power. Wait for the next nomination. Having gratuitously forfeited the filibuster, Democrats will be facing the loss of the court for a generation. Condign punishment indeed.
 
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Jack Hays said:
It is a rare thing in politics when chickens come home to roost right where they should. The Gorsuch nomination and confirmation comprise that rare thing. Both parties are nakedly hypocritical when it comes to nominations to the federal judiciary and SCOTUS. As majority leader in the Senate Harry Reid was stupidly short-sighted. He created the opening through which the next majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has run for a touchdown. McConnell played hardball in 2016 and went for it all. He won. Don't mess with Mitch.

Precedent, karma and the nuclear optionBy Charles Krauthammer

For euphemism, dissimulation and outright hypocrisy, there is nothing quite as entertaining as the periodic Senate dust-ups over Supreme Court appointments and the filibuster. The arguments for and against the filibuster are so well-known to both parties as to be practically memorized. Both nonetheless argue their case with great shows of passion and conviction. Then shamelessly switch sides — and scripts — depending on the ideology of the nominee.
Everyone appeals to high principle, when everyone knows these fights are about raw power. When Democrat Harry Reid had the majority in the Senate and Barack Obama in the White House, he abolished the filibuster in 2013 for sub-Supreme Court judicial appointments in order to pack three liberal judges onto the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bad karma, bad precedent, he was warned. Republicans would one day be in charge. That day is here and Republicans have just stopped a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch by extending the Reid Rule to the Supreme Court. . . .
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The refusal to agree to put him on the court was another grand bout of idiocy....like standing in front of a speeding car to show "resistance", getting run over to show your supporters that you think "right".

It is fanaticism, it is a failure of America.
 
Jack Hays said:
It is a rare thing in politics when chickens come home to roost right where they should. The Gorsuch nomination and confirmation comprise that rare thing. Both parties are nakedly hypocritical when it comes to nominations to the federal judiciary and SCOTUS. As majority leader in the Senate Harry Reid was stupidly short-sighted. He created the opening through which the next majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has run for a touchdown. McConnell played hardball in 2016 and went for it all. He won. Don't mess with Mitch.

Precedent, karma and the nuclear optionBy Charles Krauthammer

For euphemism, dissimulation and outright hypocrisy, there is nothing quite as entertaining as the periodic Senate dust-ups over Supreme Court appointments and the filibuster. The arguments for and against the filibuster are so well-known to both parties as to be practically memorized. Both nonetheless argue their case with great shows of passion and conviction. Then shamelessly switch sides — and scripts — depending on the ideology of the nominee.
Everyone appeals to high principle, when everyone knows these fights are about raw power. When Democrat Harry Reid had the majority in the Senate and Barack Obama in the White House, he abolished the filibuster in 2013 for sub-Supreme Court judicial appointments in order to pack three liberal judges onto the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bad karma, bad precedent, he was warned. Republicans would one day be in charge. That day is here and Republicans have just stopped a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch by extending the Reid Rule to the Supreme Court. . . .
The Gorsuch nomination is a bitter setback to the liberal project of using the courts to ratchet leftward the law and society. However, Gorsuch’s appointment simply preserves the court’s ideological balance of power. Wait for the next nomination. Having gratuitously forfeited the filibuster, Democrats will be facing the loss of the court for a generation. Condign punishment indeed.
Click to expand...

I love Krauthammer, if it's possible to love someone you don't even know. Smartest man in DC for decades.

I just hope the Dems never have the opportunity to pay the GOP back, and then GOP has the opportunity to do it to the Dems, and on and on we go. I wonder if there will ever again be such a thing as people cooperating in DC?
 
tres borrachos said:
I love Krauthammer, if it's possible to love someone you don't even know. Smartest man in DC for decades.

I just hope the Dems never have the opportunity to pay the GOP back, and then GOP has the opportunity to do it to the Dems, and on and on we go. I wonder if there will ever again be such a thing as people cooperating in DC?
Click to expand...

You get cooperation when you are respected for your capacity to inflict damage.
 
Jack Hays said:
You get cooperation when you are respected for your capacity to inflict damage.
Click to expand...

You get cooperation in Washington when We The People demand it.

You get better people in Washington when We The People send them.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
You get cooperation in Washington when We The People demand it.

You get better people in Washington when We The People send them.
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Sadly, "we the people" don't have much to do with it in my experience. The analogy that I've found persuasive is the old Five Families of the Mafia in NYC. You get respect when you're worth fearing.
 
Jack Hays said:
Sadly, "we the people" don't have much to do with it in my experience. The analogy that I've found persuasive is the old Five Families of the Mafia in NYC. You get respect when you're worth fearing.
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Right, these jokers have to learn to fear the American people when they refuse to work.
 
Jack Hays said:
That happens seldom, and it doesn't last long.
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Which is a big reason why we are where we are.

Getting rid of Gerrymandering as best we can is at the top of the list of remedies.
 
tres borrachos said:
I love Krauthammer, if it's possible to love someone you don't even know. Smartest man in DC for decades.

I just hope the Dems never have the opportunity to pay the GOP back, and then GOP has the opportunity to do it to the Dems, and on and on we go. I wonder if there will ever again be such a thing as people cooperating in DC?
Click to expand...

I find the back and forth of who's responsible for the series of steps that culminated in the nuclear option to be unspeakably tedious, and I will be just as bored by the claims of who is responsible for the nuclear option when it's triggered the moment Democrats have a chance to filibuster a bill.

Suffice it to say, there is a twofold outcome as I've come to understand it.

1) There will be a much greater fishtailing in the nation's policy. The filibuster forced a more moderating position on legislative agendas. Til now, as the houses switched control policies would shift from right to left, but only by so much. Now, every time Congress switches parties the country will have to adapt to much greater shifts (as it's about to in the coming two or four years). I think this eradication of stability will be harmful for the country as a whole.

2) While the next two or four years will obviously be some pretty dark times for Democrats, in the long run it will be Republicans who suffer the most from the death of the filibuster. The reason for this is that Democrats tend to create larger, more complex government policy that serves the public need, and as Republicans just recently found out, it is tremendously more difficult to break down social programs the public has grown used to. So while Democrats will be initiating and strengthening those programs when they're in power, the Republicans, when it's their turn, will always be racing to tear them down in an uphill battle the public will not support them on.

For my part, I am grimly curious what the final realization of the Republican agenda will look like. Financially, will be better for me personally? Theoretically, that may actually be the case because of the line of work I'm in. But it is difficult for me to think people will be better off overall.
 
Cardinal said:
I find the back and forth of who's responsible for the series of steps that culminated in the nuclear option to be unspeakably tedious, and I will be just as bored by the claims of who is responsible for the nuclear option when it's triggered the moment Democrats have a chance to filibuster a bill.

Suffice it to say, there is a twofold outcome as I've come to understand it.

1) There will be a much greater fishtailing in the nation's policy. The filibuster forced a more moderating position on legislative agendas. Til now, as the houses switched control policies would shift from right to left, but only by so much. Now, every time Congress switches parties the country will have to adapt to much greater shifts (as it's about to in the coming two or four years). I think this eradication of stability will be harmful for the country as a whole.

2) While the next two or four years will obviously be some pretty dark times for Democrats, in the long run it will be Republicans who suffer the most from the death of the filibuster. The reason for this is that Democrats tend to create larger, more complex government policy that serves the public need, and as Republicans just recently found out, it is tremendously more difficult to break down social programs the public has grown used to. So while Democrats will be initiating and strengthening those programs when they're in power, the Republicans, when it's their turn, will always be racing to tear them down in an uphill battle the public will not support them on.

For my part, I am grimly curious what the final realization of the Republican agenda will look like. Financially, will be better for me personally? Theoretically, that may actually be the case because of the line of work I'm in. But it is difficult for me to think people will be better off overall.
Click to expand...

From the OP:

. . . This transfer of legislative authority has suited American liberalism rather well. When you command the allegiance of 20 to 25 percent of the population (as measured by Gallup), you know that whatever control you will have of the elected branches will be fleeting (2009-2010, for example). So how do you turn the political order in your direction? Capture the courts.
They are what banks were to Willie Sutton. They are where you go for the right political outcomes. Note how practically every argument at the Gorsuch hearings was about political outcomes. Where would he come out on abortion? Gay marriage? The Democrats pretended this was about principle, e.g., the sanctity of precedent. But everyone knows which precedents they selectively cherish: Roe v. Wade and, more recently, Obergefell v. Hodges .
Liberalism does not want to admit that the court has become its last reliable instrument for achieving its political objectives. So liberals have created a great philosophical superstructure to justify their freewheeling, freestyle constitutional interpretation. They present themselves as defenders of a “living Constitution” under which the role of the court is to reflect the evolving norms of society. With its finger on the pulse of the people, the court turns contemporary culture into constitutional law.
But this is nonsense. In a democracy, what better embodiment of evolving norms can there be than elected representatives? By what logic are the norms of a vast and variegated people better reflected in nine appointed lawyers produced by exactly three law schools?
If anything, the purpose of a constitutional court such as ours is to enforce old norms that have preserved both our vitality and our liberty for 230 years. How? By providing a rugged reliable frame within which the political churnings of each generation take place. . . .

 
Cardinal said:
I find the back and forth of who's responsible for the series of steps that culminated in the nuclear option to be unspeakably tedious, and I will be just as bored by the claims of who is responsible for the nuclear option when it's triggered the moment Democrats have a chance to filibuster a bill.

Suffice it to say, there is a twofold outcome as I've come to understand it.

1) There will be a much greater fishtailing in the nation's policy. The filibuster forced a more moderating position on legislative agendas. Til now, as the houses switched control policies would shift from right to left, but only by so much. Now, every time Congress switches parties the country will have to adapt to much greater shifts (as it's about to in the coming two or four years). I think this eradication of stability will be harmful for the country as a whole.

2) While the next two or four years will obviously be some pretty dark times for Democrats, in the long run it will be Republicans who suffer the most from the death of the filibuster. The reason for this is that Democrats tend to create larger, more complex government policy that serves the public need, and as Republicans just recently found out, it is tremendously more difficult to break down social programs the public has grown used to. So while Democrats will be initiating and strengthening those programs when they're in power, the Republicans, when it's their turn, will always be racing to tear them down in an uphill battle the public will not support them on.

For my part, I am grimly curious what the final realization of the Republican agenda will look like. Financially, will be better for me personally? Theoretically, that may actually be the case because of the line of work I'm in. But it is difficult for me to think people will be better off overall.
Click to expand...

Democrats have always been bleeding hearts with a cache of blank checks while Republicans are only bleeding hearts to those who truly do need help while wanting to be fiscally responsible at the same time (admittedly they haven't been very good at that). Democrats want bigger government while Republicans want smaller government because it is government who prints the blank checks. The voters have known this for decades and take turns electing both parties because neither party ever solves problems. The mistake the left always makes is in thinking that voters will always elect the bleeding hearts and keep them in power forever while the right always makes the mistake that a slight majority of the voters identify as conservatives and will elect conservatives and keep them in power forever. The truth is when the country does not work, voters elect the other side and the country is never really working on all cylinders so we get a constant flip flopping.
 
Moderate Right said:
Democrats have always been bleeding hea--
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I sincerely doubt anything worthwhile follows that.

Moderate Right said:
rts with a cache of blank checks while Republicans are only bleeding hearts to those who truly do need help while wanting to be fiscally responsible at the same time (admittedly they haven't been very good at that). Democrats want bigger government while Republicans want smaller government because it is government who prints the blank checks. The voters have known this for decades and take turns electing both parties because neither party ever solves problems. The mistake the left always makes is in thinking that voters will always elect the bleeding hearts and keep them in power forever while the right always makes the mistake that a slight majority of the voters identify as conservatives and will elect conservatives and keep them in power forever. The truth is when the country does not work, voters elect the other side and the country is never really working on all cylinders.
Click to expand...
 
Moderate Right said:
I write a middle of the road, centrist post and you trash it because you are so partisan.
Click to expand...

If I had started a post with "Republicans, leading a trial of slime wherever they --"

You would have stopped reading there too.
 
Cardinal said:
If I had started a post with "Republicans, leading a trial of slime wherever they --"

You would have stopped reading there too.
Click to expand...

I'm not the one who said they stopped reading. YOU were. I made a post criticizing both sides but you were too partisan to even want to read that because the middle of the road is far too right for you.
 
Moderate Right said:
Democrats have always been bleeding hearts with a cache of blank checks while Republicans are only bleeding hearts to those who truly do need help while wanting to be fiscally responsible at the same time (admittedly they haven't been very good at that). Democrats want bigger government while Republicans want smaller government because it is government who prints the blank checks. The voters have known this for decades and take turns electing both parties because neither party ever solves problems. The mistake the left always makes is in thinking that voters will always elect the bleeding hearts and keep them in power forever while the right always makes the mistake that a slight majority of the voters identify as conservatives and will elect conservatives and keep them in power forever. The truth is when the country does not work, voters elect the other side and the country is never really working on all cylinders so we get a constant flip flopping.
Click to expand...

Refresh my memory. Which president has substantially reduced the size of government? Which party has substantially reduced the size of government?
 
tres borrachos said:
I love Krauthammer, if it's possible to love someone you don't even know. Smartest man in DC for decades.

I just hope the Dems never have the opportunity to pay the GOP back, and then GOP has the opportunity to do it to the Dems, and on and on we go. I wonder if there will ever again be such a thing as people cooperating in DC?
Click to expand...

Reagan and Tip O'Neil may be the last example and Reagan had to get shot to get to that point!
 
Removable Mind said:
Refresh my memory. Which president has substantially reduced the size of government? Which party has substantially reduced the size of government?
Click to expand...

You're kidding me, right? Your president runs up several trillion dollar deficits in a row and then you want to give Democrats credit for cutting those trillion dollar deficits in half?
 
Jack Hays said:
It is a rare thing in politics when chickens come home to roost right where they should. The Gorsuch nomination and confirmation comprise that rare thing. Both parties are nakedly hypocritical when it comes to nominations to the federal judiciary and SCOTUS. As majority leader in the Senate Harry Reid was stupidly short-sighted. He created the opening through which the next majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has run for a touchdown. McConnell played hardball in 2016 and went for it all. He won. Don't mess with Mitch.

Precedent, karma and the nuclear optionBy Charles Krauthammer

For euphemism, dissimulation and outright hypocrisy, there is nothing quite as entertaining as the periodic Senate dust-ups over Supreme Court appointments and the filibuster. The arguments for and against the filibuster are so well-known to both parties as to be practically memorized. Both nonetheless argue their case with great shows of passion and conviction. Then shamelessly switch sides — and scripts — depending on the ideology of the nominee.
Everyone appeals to high principle, when everyone knows these fights are about raw power. When Democrat Harry Reid had the majority in the Senate and Barack Obama in the White House, he abolished the filibuster in 2013 for sub-Supreme Court judicial appointments in order to pack three liberal judges onto the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bad karma, bad precedent, he was warned. Republicans would one day be in charge. That day is here and Republicans have just stopped a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch by extending the Reid Rule to the Supreme Court. . . .
The Gorsuch nomination is a bitter setback to the liberal project of using the courts to ratchet leftward the law and society. However, Gorsuch’s appointment simply preserves the court’s ideological balance of power. Wait for the next nomination. Having gratuitously forfeited the filibuster, Democrats will be facing the loss of the court for a generation. Condign punishment indeed.
Click to expand...

I agree, without Reid setting the precedence and breaking senate tradition set Gorsuch confirmation in process although he didn't know it at the time. Reid will go down in history and will be forever know for the Senator Harry Reid's nuclear option. As the adage goes, "Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, there is no putting it back." Perhaps Reid thought the Democrats would control the senate and the presidency forever.
 
Moderate Right said:
I write a middle of the road, centrist post and you trash it because you are so partisan.
Click to expand...

If you think that post was "middle of the road and centrist", then you are much more partisan than you think you are. This opening sentence sounds as though it were written by a GOP spokesman: "Democrats have always been bleeding hearts with a cache of blank checks while Republicans are only bleeding hearts to those who truly do need help while wanting to be fiscally responsible at the same time"
 
Moderate Right said:
You're kidding me, right? Your president runs up several trillion dollar deficits in a row and then you want to give Democrats credit for cutting those trillion dollar deficits in half?
Click to expand...

I think he meant the Clinton years. Before you credit congress for that, remember it was the same congress once Clinton left office, and they ran up huge deficits immediately. Their commitment to fiscal discipline is always secondary to their compulsion to give big tax cuts to their rich friends. ;)
 
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